Jim Stillman
Nevar
New novel by Daniel Silva: Survival of Jews not assured by others.
August 28th 2007 12:23
I have been reading, with much enjoyment, the several novels by Daniel Silva involving Gideon Allon, first introduced in 2000’s “The Kill Artist”. Once a key operative in secret Israeli-intelligence missions, and the assassin of most of the Black September killers, Allon is on the run from his past, assuming a quiet life as a meticulous restorer of priceless works of art. In each of the succeeding books, the reluctant spy is brought back to his country’s service and as the novels progress, his character and past become more clearly in focus.
Allon has doubts and worries about the effects of killing are having on him. Eventually, he comes to realize that if he and the State of Israel are to survive, killing is justified, notwithstanding that he is personally diminished. He becomes convinced that no one and no nation will come to a Jewish rescue. Beset by Islamic enemies, European anti-Semitic hordes, American essential self-interest and the hunger for oil, Israel and the Jews must take responsibility for their own survival.
While set in a fictional setting, Silva’s message is true.
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi troops and supporters stormed the streets of Germany, destroying hundreds of synagogues, as well as 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and homes. During that two-day rampage, they murdered 91 German Jews and arrested 30,000 others. Most were sent to concentration camps, where many hundreds of them perished. Kristallnacht [the night of broken glass] signaled the real beginning of the Holocaust. Germany's Jews now realized that all hope for their future was lost.
During the first five years of Nazi rule, from 1933 to 1938, half of Germany's 600,000 Jews remained in the country, because they believed that anti-Semitism would soon diminish. They felt, quite correctly, that Germany was a culturally advanced nation, that they were doctors, attorneys and leaders of society and that they were safe from the rhetoric of Adolph Hitler and his followers. After Kristallnacht, they understood that they had to emigrate. Tens of thousands flooded the foreign consulates throughout Germany for visas. The problem was that few countries were willing to accept them. Chiam Weizmann, later to become the first President of Israel, wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts - those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."
In July, 1938, U.S. President Roosevelt convened a conference held in France, to discuss the “problem” of Jewish refugees. Delegates from 32 countries and could not pass a resolution condemning German treatment of the Jews. This failure was later used by Nazi propaganda to demonstrate that no one really cared about Jews!
Before the Conference, the United States and Great Britain made an agreement: the British promised not to bring up the fact that the U.S. was not filling its immigration quotas, and the Americans refrained from mentioning Palestine as a possible destination for the refugees. In the course of the conference, the delegates of all 32 countries expressed sympathy for the refugees, but offered only excuses for not letting in more refugees. (The only country willing to accept even a few Jews was the Dominican Republic but the offer lacked specificity.)
On May 13, 1939, six months after Kristallnacht, 937 men, women, and children, boarded the S.S. St. Louis for Cuba, Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution - among the last to escape from Germany's tightening restrictions on emigration. (By 1939, over 26,000 Jews had been sent to concentration camps. There they lived in unsanitary conditions, subsisted on meager rations, and engaged in forced labor. The real purpose of the camps was the anticipated annihilation of the Jewish population of Germany. . Some Jews were put to death by hanging, drowning, and crucifixion. Others were tortured by flogging or castrated by bayonets.)
The cost of this trip was exorbitant; most Jews could not afford it. Almost all of them had lost their jobs. The Nazis had forced them to pay inflated and unreasonable rents for their homes or apartments. Relatives from outside Germany, in some cases, had sent them money. Several families had to pool their resources so that just one member of the family could leave, thus rupturing family units. Each person was permitted to take the maximum equivalent of $4.00 in cash upon leaving.
They did not know that they were part of a propaganda scheme orchestrated by the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler, himself, to demonstrate to the world that no country would accept these refugees, that no one truly cared about the existence or slaughter of Jews in Europe, including the alleged bastions of liberty and freedom, the United States and Canada. Most important, Hitler felt that, if no country would admit Jewish refugees, and then there would be no world-wide opposition to his eventual goal, the utter elimination of Jews from the entire continent of Europe.
On the gangplank, the passengers feared the kind of treatment that they would receive on the ship. After all, a Nazi flag dominated the top of the ship and Hitler's portrait covered the wall of the social hall. These blatant signs of Nazism did nothing to reduce their apprehensions.
Since the St. Louis was a luxury liner, life aboard the ship was surprisingly quite pleasant. The ship offered the passengers an abundance of fine food, games, movies, and swimming pools. Many enjoyed reclining on their deck chairs, where they read good books. Children began to form friendships with each other, and even managed to play a few pranks. The ship's captain, Gustav Schroeder, also had ordered his 231 crew members to treat the passengers humanely. Captain Schroeder later proved himself to be a kind and compassionate person, even as he was becoming aware of the probable fate of the Jews on board.
The ship arrived near Havana two weeks later, on May 27, 1939.
The passengers were unaware that Cuba's government had changed just a week before the ship had sailed. The new government would not honor their visas. Complicating the process was Goebbels' decision to exploit the case of the St. Louis and its passengers for his own purposes. Knowing that Jews would be trying to enter Cuba, while waiting for the United States quota system to allow re-settlement in that country, Goebbels engineered an anti-Jewish hate campaign in Cuba. He spread the word that these Jewish immigrants were criminals and would be a threat to Cuba. In fact, five days before the St. Louis left Hamburg, 40,000 Cubans, at the instigation of the German government, took part in a demonstration against Jewish immigration to Havana.
The ship stayed in the Havana harbor in the blistering heat for one week, while officials of Jewish organizations tried to gain the admission of the passengers. Friends and relatives waited on shore, and some even hired motorboats to sail out to meet the ship.
Because the ship was stranded in the Havana harbor, the passengers on the St. Louis became increasingly suspicious and apprehensive. They knew that if they returned to Germany, they would eventually end up in concentration camps. One desperate passenger even slashed his wrists and jumped overboard. He was rescued, but he never returned to the ship. No efforts, including promises of bribes, seemed to persuade Cuban officials to change their ruling against the visas.
With entry into Cuba now impossible, Captain Schroeder, very slowly, sailed north to the Florida coast. He hoped that, with all of the publicity the ship was getting worldwide, the United States would admit the passengers.
Requests and pleas were made to President Roosevelt on behalf of the refugees, who were now off the coast of Miami and who could see the lights of freedom so close. Roosevelt was inclined to take the humanitarian step and allow the passengers to enter the United States, but pressure from the admittedly anti-Semitic State Department and southern conservative Democrats worried about the upcoming elections, caused the President to refuse entry.
The United States Coast Guard sent a cutter to follow the St. Louis and ensure that passengers did not enter the United States. At one point, shots were fired across the St. Louis' bow. (The Coast Guard, now, denies that shots were fired but contemporary reports are fairly consistent.)
An editorial in the New York Times stated, with a degree of sarcasm and cynicism, "Off our shores she [the St. Louis] was attended by a helpful Coast Guard vessel alert to pick up any passengers who plunged overboard and thrust them back...The refugees could even see the shimmering towers of Miami...the battlements of another forbidden city."
Despite pledges of support from Canada's Jewish community, in June, 1939, that country also refused to allow the desperate Jewish refugees entry in Canada. When asked how many Jews would be allowed to immigrate immediately after World War II, one of Prime Minister William Mackenzie King's civil servants, Frederick Charles Blair, stated without hesitation that "none is too many".
Captain Schroeder realized that he would have to return to Germany, even as additional pleas to other nations were being made to allow the admission of the Jewish passengers.
One bright spot lightens this dark picture of the St. Louis. Captain Gustav Schroeder emerged as a hero. He had been on the seas for 37 years before taking over the helm of the St. Louis. During the voyage, he appointed a passenger committee to maintain calm on the ship when he saw that the situation was desperate. He resisted leaving Cuba and the United States as long as it was humanly possible. On his way back to Europe, he pledged that, if no visas were forthcoming, he would scuttle the ship off the coast of England. He hoped that other countries would pick up and resettle the refugees.
And now the bitter irony. The refugees were eventually granted asylum in England, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Great Britain's offer was limited with the proviso that the admitted passengers would be re-located to an isolated area. Because of that, the vast majority of the passengers chose to enter the other countries. The "restricted" persons in England were, by the end of World War II, safe and able to remain in that country or emigrate. Nearly all of the passengers who chose entry into France, Holland and Belgium were sent to Nazi concentration camps when Germany invaded and controlled much of continental Europe.
The lesson of this bit of history is that the state of Israel is a vital necessity for Jewish people everywhere.
The S.S. St. Louis incident underscores the constant need for a strong and secure Israel. Had there been an Israel during the years of the Holocaust, not only would the passengers of the St. Louis, but thousands, if not millions, of the victims of Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other death camps could have found a place to begin their lives anew. Regardless of our personal and individual views of some of Israel's policies, it must be acknowledged that it is the only country in the world that will admit an unlimited number of Jews living under duress at all times.
The world has a long history of anti-Semitism. From the middle-ages and the Crusades, the anti-Jewish dictates of Spain and Portugal and Luther's Germany, the forced conversions to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in our own country during the twentieth century, there has been a need for a place where Jewish people could be welcomed and offered dignity and safety.
That place is the state if Israel; it may be Judaism's final refuge. And the Gideon Allons in the real world must survive and succeed.
Allon has doubts and worries about the effects of killing are having on him. Eventually, he comes to realize that if he and the State of Israel are to survive, killing is justified, notwithstanding that he is personally diminished. He becomes convinced that no one and no nation will come to a Jewish rescue. Beset by Islamic enemies, European anti-Semitic hordes, American essential self-interest and the hunger for oil, Israel and the Jews must take responsibility for their own survival.
While set in a fictional setting, Silva’s message is true.
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi troops and supporters stormed the streets of Germany, destroying hundreds of synagogues, as well as 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and homes. During that two-day rampage, they murdered 91 German Jews and arrested 30,000 others. Most were sent to concentration camps, where many hundreds of them perished. Kristallnacht [the night of broken glass] signaled the real beginning of the Holocaust. Germany's Jews now realized that all hope for their future was lost.
During the first five years of Nazi rule, from 1933 to 1938, half of Germany's 600,000 Jews remained in the country, because they believed that anti-Semitism would soon diminish. They felt, quite correctly, that Germany was a culturally advanced nation, that they were doctors, attorneys and leaders of society and that they were safe from the rhetoric of Adolph Hitler and his followers. After Kristallnacht, they understood that they had to emigrate. Tens of thousands flooded the foreign consulates throughout Germany for visas. The problem was that few countries were willing to accept them. Chiam Weizmann, later to become the first President of Israel, wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts - those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."
In July, 1938, U.S. President Roosevelt convened a conference held in France, to discuss the “problem” of Jewish refugees. Delegates from 32 countries and could not pass a resolution condemning German treatment of the Jews. This failure was later used by Nazi propaganda to demonstrate that no one really cared about Jews!
Before the Conference, the United States and Great Britain made an agreement: the British promised not to bring up the fact that the U.S. was not filling its immigration quotas, and the Americans refrained from mentioning Palestine as a possible destination for the refugees. In the course of the conference, the delegates of all 32 countries expressed sympathy for the refugees, but offered only excuses for not letting in more refugees. (The only country willing to accept even a few Jews was the Dominican Republic but the offer lacked specificity.)
On May 13, 1939, six months after Kristallnacht, 937 men, women, and children, boarded the S.S. St. Louis for Cuba, Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution - among the last to escape from Germany's tightening restrictions on emigration. (By 1939, over 26,000 Jews had been sent to concentration camps. There they lived in unsanitary conditions, subsisted on meager rations, and engaged in forced labor. The real purpose of the camps was the anticipated annihilation of the Jewish population of Germany. . Some Jews were put to death by hanging, drowning, and crucifixion. Others were tortured by flogging or castrated by bayonets.)
The cost of this trip was exorbitant; most Jews could not afford it. Almost all of them had lost their jobs. The Nazis had forced them to pay inflated and unreasonable rents for their homes or apartments. Relatives from outside Germany, in some cases, had sent them money. Several families had to pool their resources so that just one member of the family could leave, thus rupturing family units. Each person was permitted to take the maximum equivalent of $4.00 in cash upon leaving.
They did not know that they were part of a propaganda scheme orchestrated by the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler, himself, to demonstrate to the world that no country would accept these refugees, that no one truly cared about the existence or slaughter of Jews in Europe, including the alleged bastions of liberty and freedom, the United States and Canada. Most important, Hitler felt that, if no country would admit Jewish refugees, and then there would be no world-wide opposition to his eventual goal, the utter elimination of Jews from the entire continent of Europe.
On the gangplank, the passengers feared the kind of treatment that they would receive on the ship. After all, a Nazi flag dominated the top of the ship and Hitler's portrait covered the wall of the social hall. These blatant signs of Nazism did nothing to reduce their apprehensions.
Since the St. Louis was a luxury liner, life aboard the ship was surprisingly quite pleasant. The ship offered the passengers an abundance of fine food, games, movies, and swimming pools. Many enjoyed reclining on their deck chairs, where they read good books. Children began to form friendships with each other, and even managed to play a few pranks. The ship's captain, Gustav Schroeder, also had ordered his 231 crew members to treat the passengers humanely. Captain Schroeder later proved himself to be a kind and compassionate person, even as he was becoming aware of the probable fate of the Jews on board.
The ship arrived near Havana two weeks later, on May 27, 1939.
The passengers were unaware that Cuba's government had changed just a week before the ship had sailed. The new government would not honor their visas. Complicating the process was Goebbels' decision to exploit the case of the St. Louis and its passengers for his own purposes. Knowing that Jews would be trying to enter Cuba, while waiting for the United States quota system to allow re-settlement in that country, Goebbels engineered an anti-Jewish hate campaign in Cuba. He spread the word that these Jewish immigrants were criminals and would be a threat to Cuba. In fact, five days before the St. Louis left Hamburg, 40,000 Cubans, at the instigation of the German government, took part in a demonstration against Jewish immigration to Havana.
The ship stayed in the Havana harbor in the blistering heat for one week, while officials of Jewish organizations tried to gain the admission of the passengers. Friends and relatives waited on shore, and some even hired motorboats to sail out to meet the ship.
Because the ship was stranded in the Havana harbor, the passengers on the St. Louis became increasingly suspicious and apprehensive. They knew that if they returned to Germany, they would eventually end up in concentration camps. One desperate passenger even slashed his wrists and jumped overboard. He was rescued, but he never returned to the ship. No efforts, including promises of bribes, seemed to persuade Cuban officials to change their ruling against the visas.
With entry into Cuba now impossible, Captain Schroeder, very slowly, sailed north to the Florida coast. He hoped that, with all of the publicity the ship was getting worldwide, the United States would admit the passengers.
Requests and pleas were made to President Roosevelt on behalf of the refugees, who were now off the coast of Miami and who could see the lights of freedom so close. Roosevelt was inclined to take the humanitarian step and allow the passengers to enter the United States, but pressure from the admittedly anti-Semitic State Department and southern conservative Democrats worried about the upcoming elections, caused the President to refuse entry.
The United States Coast Guard sent a cutter to follow the St. Louis and ensure that passengers did not enter the United States. At one point, shots were fired across the St. Louis' bow. (The Coast Guard, now, denies that shots were fired but contemporary reports are fairly consistent.)
An editorial in the New York Times stated, with a degree of sarcasm and cynicism, "Off our shores she [the St. Louis] was attended by a helpful Coast Guard vessel alert to pick up any passengers who plunged overboard and thrust them back...The refugees could even see the shimmering towers of Miami...the battlements of another forbidden city."
Despite pledges of support from Canada's Jewish community, in June, 1939, that country also refused to allow the desperate Jewish refugees entry in Canada. When asked how many Jews would be allowed to immigrate immediately after World War II, one of Prime Minister William Mackenzie King's civil servants, Frederick Charles Blair, stated without hesitation that "none is too many".
Captain Schroeder realized that he would have to return to Germany, even as additional pleas to other nations were being made to allow the admission of the Jewish passengers.
One bright spot lightens this dark picture of the St. Louis. Captain Gustav Schroeder emerged as a hero. He had been on the seas for 37 years before taking over the helm of the St. Louis. During the voyage, he appointed a passenger committee to maintain calm on the ship when he saw that the situation was desperate. He resisted leaving Cuba and the United States as long as it was humanly possible. On his way back to Europe, he pledged that, if no visas were forthcoming, he would scuttle the ship off the coast of England. He hoped that other countries would pick up and resettle the refugees.
And now the bitter irony. The refugees were eventually granted asylum in England, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Great Britain's offer was limited with the proviso that the admitted passengers would be re-located to an isolated area. Because of that, the vast majority of the passengers chose to enter the other countries. The "restricted" persons in England were, by the end of World War II, safe and able to remain in that country or emigrate. Nearly all of the passengers who chose entry into France, Holland and Belgium were sent to Nazi concentration camps when Germany invaded and controlled much of continental Europe.
The lesson of this bit of history is that the state of Israel is a vital necessity for Jewish people everywhere.
The S.S. St. Louis incident underscores the constant need for a strong and secure Israel. Had there been an Israel during the years of the Holocaust, not only would the passengers of the St. Louis, but thousands, if not millions, of the victims of Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other death camps could have found a place to begin their lives anew. Regardless of our personal and individual views of some of Israel's policies, it must be acknowledged that it is the only country in the world that will admit an unlimited number of Jews living under duress at all times.
The world has a long history of anti-Semitism. From the middle-ages and the Crusades, the anti-Jewish dictates of Spain and Portugal and Luther's Germany, the forced conversions to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in our own country during the twentieth century, there has been a need for a place where Jewish people could be welcomed and offered dignity and safety.
That place is the state if Israel; it may be Judaism's final refuge. And the Gideon Allons in the real world must survive and succeed.
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