against Ukrainians doing at the same time? What, for example, were American Jews doing? The
generous view is that they were doing little:
No American Jew appeared to have altered his life style once news of the
Holocaust was revealed. Even at the time, some observers were repelled by the
often festive atmosphere of Jewish social life in a period of wartime
prosperity. (Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 1992, p. 550)
Over the centuries the dispersion of the Jews had a functional utility:
whenever some part of the Jewish community was under attack, it depended on
help from the other Jews. In the period of the Nazi regime, this help did not
come. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1052)
This question has haunted me ever since the war: Why did the Jews of the free
world act as they did? Hadn't our people survived persecution and exile
throughout the centuries because of its spirit of solidarity? ... When one
community suffered, the others supported it, throughout the Diaspora. Why was
it different this time? (Elie Wiesel, Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,
1995, p. 63)
A less indulgent view, however, is that Jews not under Nazi occupation - particularly American
and British Jews - knowingly, willfully, calculatedly sacrificed their trapped European
coreligionists:
In his book, "In Days of Holocaust and Destruction," Yitzchak Greenbaum
writes, "when they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish
Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again,
'NO!' ... one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to
secondary importance."
In January, 1943, the leadership of the absorption and enlisting fund
decided to bar all appeals on behalf of rescuing Jews. It is explicitly stated
in the "Sefer Hamagbis" (Book of Appeals) that the reasons for this prohibition
were because of other obligations in Eretz Yisroel.
In the beginning of February, 1943, Yitzchak Greenbaum addressed a meeting
in Tel Aviv on the subject, "the Diaspora and the Redemption," in which he
stated:
"For the rescue of the Jews in the Diaspora, we should consolidate our
excess strength and the surplus of powers that we have. When they come to us
with two plans - the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemption
of the land [in Palestine] - I vote, without a second thought, for the
redemption of the land. The more said about the slaughter of our people, the
greater the minimization of our efforts to strengthen and promote the
Hebraization of the land. If there would be a possibility today of buying
packages of food [for Jews in Nazi captivity] with the money of the "Keren
Hayesod" (United Jewish Appeal) to send it through Lisbon, would we do such a
thing? No! And once again No!" (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims
Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 26, emphasis
added)
Mr. Schwalb expressed the complete Zionist ideology and stated clearly and
openly the politics of the Zionist leaders in the area of rescue: the shedding
of Jewish blood in the Diaspora is necessary in order for us to demand the
establishment of a "Jewish" state before a peace commission. Money will be
sent to save a group of "chalutzim" (pioneers), while the remainder of Czech
Jewry must resign itself to annihilation in the Auschwitz crematoria. (Reb
Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish
War Criminals, 1977, p. 28, emphasis added)
We have previously quoted the words of Yitzchak Greenbaum, chairman of the
"rescue committee" of the Jewish Agency in Eretz Yosroel, who refused to
allocate even one dollar of United Jewish Appeal funds for food to those who
were fighting off the pangs of hunger. This approach was totally in consonance
with his famous slogan, to the effect that, "one goat in Eretz Yisroel is more
important than an entire community in the Diaspora." How could he thus
withhold a package of straw from a Holy Land goat in order to send food to a
starving infant? But if that is not enough, the Zionists acted like the fiend
who declared that he not only would not give, but he also would not let others
give (whom our Sages called a "rosho" - a wicked person). The Zionist leaders
weren't satisfied merely with the crime of sitting idly by and doing nothing.
They labored with all their might to forcefully prevent others from helping the
sufferers in the ghetto. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse:
Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, pp. 44-45)
One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland. (Yitzchak
Greenbaum in Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and
Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 116)
The Antonescu Offer. Reb Moshe Shonfeld's book documents several instances of offers being
made, sometimes by the Nazis, to release Jews for a fixed price, and of the offers being
declined by Zionist leaders. The Romanian government, for example, offered 70,000 Jews at $50
apiece. These Jews could have been transported to Palestine via Turkey - a few days' ride by
truck. The Romanian offer was confirmed by the U.S. State Department. The offer would become
void once Romania was occupied by the Germans - an occupation that was imminent. Ben Hecht in
his book Perfidy relates placing the following ad in New York newspapers:
FOR SALE
70,000 JEWS
AT
$50 APIECE
GUARANTEED HUMAN BEINGS
Zionist leaders, however, denied the existence of such an offer and sabotaged fund-raising
efforts. As a result, the 70,000 Romanian Jews perished. Ben Hecht's indignation is
unrestrained:
But in 1943, we, who called out the plight of the Romanian Jews to the
world, were discredited by the Zionist unions, the established Zionist
leadership and their associated philanthropies, as scandalmongers. Our attempt
to get the Jews out of Romania before the Germans came was scotched.
The 70,000 Jews who might have been saved were herded into barns by the
Germanized Romanians under General Antonescu, hosed with gasoline, ignited, and
shot down when they came blazing and screaming out of their cauldrons.
Was it for this the conspirators of Silence had been holding their
high-level meetings, fraternizing with presidents and prime ministers and
keeping intact Weizmann's ... policy of an 'exclusive' ... Palestine? This
Silence, this wretched business of Jewish leaders lying about the slaughter of
Europe's Jewry - trying to hide it, soft-pedal it - for what?
These organizations, these philanthropists, these timorous Jewish lodge
members in Zion, in London and America - these Zionist leaders who let their
six million kinsmen burn, choke, hang, without protest, with indifference, and
even with a glint of anti-Semitic cunning in their political plannings - I sum
up against them. These factotums, these policy-makers, the custodians of the
Jewish future in Palestine ... these Zionist men and women - I haul into the
prisoner's dock of this book. (Ben Hecht, Perfidy, in Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The
Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals,
1977, p. 102)
The Eichmann Offer. The war afforded more than one opportunity to save Jews. Here is another
significant opportunity, the offer this time coming directly from Adolph Eichmann:
So I am ready to sell you - a million Jews. ... What do you want to save?
Virile men? Grown women? Old people? Children? Sit down - and talk. ...
Now I am going to prove to you that I trust you more than you trust me. When
you ... tell me that the offer has been accepted, I will [as an initial
demonstration of good faith, even before you make any payment] dissolve
Auschwitz and move 10 percent of the promised million to the border. You take
over the 100,000 Jews and deliver for them afterwards one thousand trucks. And
then the deal will proceed step by step. (Adolph Eichmann, quoted in Raul
Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1133-1134)
Eichmann's initiative, according to his testimony in Jerusalem, had been
influenced largely by the propensity of rival SS factions to negotiate with the
Jews. He was going to confine the offer to freeing 100,000 Jews, but then
thought that only a major gesture, involving a million, was going to have any
impact. When Himmler approved the scheme, Eichmann was actually surprised.
(Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1134)
However, Joel Brand, attempting to negotiate this exchange, met with no support, either from
representatives of the Allied nations, or from Jewish representatives. When he realized that
the offer would not be accepted, he burst out with:
Do you know what you are doing? That is simply murder! That is mass murder.
... [O]ur best people will be slaughtered! My wife! My mother! My children
will be first! (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p.
1137)
Among the objections was not that the deal would fail, but rather that it was undesirable that
the deal succeed:
"But Mr. Brand," the British host exclaimed, "what shall I do with those
million Jews? Where shall I put them?" (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the
European Jews, 1985, P. 1140)
The plain fact was that there was no place on earth that would have been ready
to accept the Jews, not even this one million. (Adolph Eichmann in Raul
Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1140)
A similar comment was made with respect to the above-mentioned Antonescu Plan:
The British Foreign Office ... was concerned with the "difficulties of
disposing of any considerable number of Jews" in the event of their release
from Axis Europe. ... [W]ithin the Foreign Office there was fear of large-scale
success.... (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, P.
1140)
And a similar reaction with respect to discussions concerning the rescue of Bulgarian Jews:
Hull raised the question of the 60 or 70 thousand Jews that are in Bulgaria and
are threatened with extermination unless we could get them out and, very