Judge Michael A. Mussmano, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, delivered a scathing denunciation here tonight against various intellectuals who have recently voiced “apologies for Nazis, who plunged the world into an ocean of blood.” He named specifically Prof. Bruno Bettelheim, of the University of Chicago; Miss Hannah Arendt, author of “Eichmann in Jerusalem”; and Raul Hilberg, another author of a book on Nazi atrocities against Jews.
Justice Mussmano, who was one of the Judges in the international war crimes trial at Nuremberg, and who testified for the prosecution at Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, was the principal speaker at installation ceremonies held by Bnai Zion, the American fraternal Zionist organization. Norman G. Levine was installed as president, while Edward Sharf and Judge Arthur Markewich were installed as members of the executive board and the administrative committee, respectively. Judge Harry A. Pine, of Newark, presided.
The Pennsylvania jurist rejected Miss Arendt’s views of Eichmann’s career as .”dangerous nonsense. ” He characterized as “foolish” the theme advanced by Prof. Bettelheim, who had held that Eichmann had not issued orders to kill Jews. He declared that Raul Hilberg “had done incalculable harm by asserting that the unspeakable murder of 6, 000,000 Jews was, to a great extent, the fault of the Jews themselves because they did not rebel against their murderers.”
During the ceremonies, Justice Mussmano was presented with a citation showing that a 1, 000-tree grove is being planted in his honor in the American Freedom Forest in Jerusalem in recognition “of his outstanding services and leadership in behalf of humanity and justice to all peoples.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
