Torture of Rabbis and Priests in Nazi Camp Described by Released German Jew

Moving accounts of how rabbis and priests are being humiliated and tortured by the Nazis in the concentration camps in Germany are related by Leo Stein, a German Jew, in a book “I was in Hell with Niemoeller” published here by Fleming H. Revel Company.

Arrested by the Nazis and confined in the same camp as pastor Martin Niemoeller, Dr. Stein, who was a teacher of Law at the University of Berlin, was released after his wife secured an American visa for him. Upon leaving the camp where he and thousands of others-Jews, Protestants and Catholics-were under constant physical and moral torture, Dr. Stein was asked by Niemoeller to “tell the world what you have seen and heard” no matter what consequences it night bring to the imprisoned German pastor.

In vividly describing the savagery practiced by the Nazi guards upon their victims in the concentration camps, including the heroic pastor who was a German U-boat commander in the last World War, Dr. Stein reveals Niemoeller’s attitude towards the Jews, and quotes him as saying:

“I have never been what could be called anti-Semitic, for a true Christian can never be anti-Semitic. From the viewpoint of the Christian faith the so-called Jewish question does not exist. When I voted for the Nazi Party it was not with any intention of expressing any sort of animosity towards the Jews. I looked upon the anti-Semitic slogans of the National Socialists merely as catch phrases, which were regrettable, but unavoidable in the interest of the ultimate aim. And I was convinced that after they gained power, the National Socialists would put a stop to anti-Semitism and restore the Jews to their former rights.”

PASTOR NIEMOELLER WARNS CHRISTIANS AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM

Asked by Dr. Stein whether he had not read “Mein Kampf” in which Hitler expressly states that he would destroy the Jews as soon as he attained power, Pastor Niemoeller is quoted as replying:

“Yes, I read ‘Mein Kampf.’ But we had been assured again and and again by Hitler himself and other responsible leader of the Nazi Party and was by no means to be taken as a political program. To confirm this, we were told also that the future foreign policy advocated in the book would be impossible of execution, so that no one would ever dream of attempting to carry it out. The proposed settlement of the so-called Jewish question was regarded in the same fashion.

“Indeed,” pastor Niemoeller is further quoted as saying, “I certainly am not free from reproach, because at that time certain restrictions against the Jews seemed to me tolerable, considering the great aims the Nazis were driving at. At that time I did not realize that we would have to pay for these restrictions with our own liberty. I did not fully take into account that equality had been given to the Jews during our epoch of political liberalism, and that any restriction impose them would mean the end of that epoch, and possibly the end of individual liberty, including the right of worship. In other words, to deprive the Jews of political equality would mean turning back the wheels of history. Yes, that is the truth I learned. And I think that it is not sufficiently realized by the anti-Semites in other countries.”