Young people are demanding more information about the Nazi Holocaust but many among the older generation are not adequately responding, according to Prof. Raul Hilberg, a leading scholar of the Holocaust.
Hilberg, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, led a three-day seminar and symposium on the Holocaust, “Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders,” sponsored by the International Center for Holocaust Studies of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
Addressing some 100 participants in the opening reception, he said that while there is a desire on the part of those born after World War 11 for study courses that provide insight into the origins and impact of the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis, universities have not developed courses or supplied funds for adequate programs.
The conference, held at ADL’s headquarters in New York last month, was attended by educators, clergymen and community leaders.
According to Nat Kameny, chairman of the Center’s newly established Advisory Board, the seminar was a “pathbreaking event in Holocaust studies and set the tone and direction for vitally needed research into the Holocaust.”
ABSENCE OF RESPONSE TO THE HOLOCAUST
In the session dealing with “Bystanders,” Hilberg, author of “The Destruction of the European Jews,” cited the “absence of response to the Holocaust,” particularly by the United States. Suggesting that American intervention would have made a difference, he said “the Nazis feared retaliation.”
Hilberg said American Jewish leaders during World War 11 “unfortunately had an expectation of failure” in their efforts to persuade President Roosevelt to help save European Jewry from the Nazis. “They themselves,” he went on, “subscribed to the argument that the primary task was to defeat the Germans.”
POINTS MADE BY HILBERG
Other points made by Hilberg were:
One of the main reasons why Germany went to war and invaded the Soviet Union was to implement its policy of destroying European Jewry. “It was a total showdown not only with Russia,” he said, “but with East European Jews.”
German bureaucrats implemented the “Final Solution” zealously and vigorously with comparatively little prodding from Hitler and the top echelon of Nazi Germany. By contrast, the Italian bureaucracy deported almost no Jews from territory which they occupied during World War 11 because of a different mentality.
Jewish leaders or members of the “Judenrat” were “blind” to the reality of the Holocaust and were dependent on what the Germans told them about “resettlement.” Although many Jewish leaders were aware the deportees were being sent to death camps, others were not. In Hungary, as late as 1944, some Jewish leaders still believed that Jews were being sent away for “resettlement.”
Many Holocaust victims accepted the premise that the Germans in the end would act rationally and that if they were “productive” and made themselves “indispensable,” their lives would be spared. By so doing, they adhered to “an ancient Jewish tradition of accommodation to those who subjugated them.”
Participating with Hilberg in the symposium part of the conference were Frances Henry, author of “Victims and Neighbors: A Small Town in Germany Remembered” and Henry Feingold, author of “The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945.”
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HOLOCAUST RESEARCH
In addition to participating in the conference as the Center’s first scholar-in-residence, Hilberg also discussed new directions for Holocaust research and education with the Center’s Advisory Board, whose members represent five countries. He made an appeal for more support for primary research into the Holocaust.
ADL’s International Center for Holocaust Studies, a research and educational institute founded in 1977 and directed by Dr. Dennis Klein, holds conferences on the Holocaust and makes materials and educational techniques available to public, private and parochial institutions, as well as community and religious groups.
Programs scheduled for 1986 by the Center include–on February 13–an exploration into the ethical and political dimensions of Holocaust rescue, by Prof. Philip Hallie of Wesleyan University and author Elenore Lester; and, on April 10, an examination of “The Holocaust in the American Mind, ” featuring Robert Abzug, associate professor of history at the University of Texas.
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