Co-editors: Seán Mac Mathúna • John Heathcote
Consulting editor: Themistocles Hoetis
Field Correspondent: Allen Hougland
Rudolf
Kasztner Ten
Questions to the Zionists from Rabbi
Weissmandel THE
KASTNER TRIAL - shown at the Jewish Film Festival in
1997 Shamash:
The
Jewish Internet Consortium: Holocaust Home
Page One of Weissmandel's
letters During the Kasztner case,
Menachem Bader of the Jewish Agency was asked 'Did you
receive this letter from Rabbi Weissmandel?" He answered:
"Letters like this came to us every day". Weissmandel later
published the following letter, which is a literal
translation of the letter the Jewish Rescue Committee in
Czechoslovakia received from the Zionist "Jewish" Agency
Executive Offices in Switzerland. This was in reply to the
call of the Jewish Rescue Committee for help, with
documentary evidence furnished, concerning the fate of
millions of Jewish people in Nazi occupied Europe.
Weissmandel says that
: But these were no ordinary
letters - the one reproduced below from Rabbi Weissmandel,
like the one above were from first-hand witnesses of the
holocaust. Note how Rabbi Weissmandel asks that the
crematoria in Auschwitz be bombed from the air. How it is
"sharply visible" - he clearly gave information that he
hoped would be passed on to help Allied air crews bomb the
murder camps. Also note that he enclosed a map of the camps
- where it that today? Weissmandel knew the bombing would
delay the work of the Nazis, which is why they spefically
asked for the Allies to bomb "persistently" all the roads
leading from Eastern Hungary to Poland and the bridges in
the neighborhood of Karpatarus. He advised the the Zionist
leadership to "Drop all other business to get this done . .
. Remember that one day of your idleness kills twelve
thousand souls". Did they do this ? The overwhelming
evidence suggests that the Zionists ignored this - and other
pleas - to save the majority of Jews in Europe from the
holocaust, insteading they pursued the policy of building
the dream of Zionism - the creation of a Jewish state in
Palestine. After the war, Rabbi
Weissmandel expressed his frustration in The Holocaust
Victims Accuse, a book by Rabbi Moshe Shonfeld (Neturei
Karta, USA, New York, 1977): In answer to this, Rabbi
Shofeld quotes the Zionist leader Yitzhak Greenbaum, who,
after the war, stated: Here is the orginal letter
from Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel: "Sholom and Greetings.
We send you this special
message to inform you that yesterday the Germans began
the deportation of Jews from Hungary. It is the beginning
of deportation of all the Hungarian Jews. Every day, twelve
thousand souls are being taken off. Four deportations of
forty-five such train-loads move daily out of Hungary.
Within twenty six days all that area will have been
deported. The deported ones go to
Auschwitz to be put to death by cyanide gas. A great
number are dead on arrival. The Germans allow a few of
the strongest to stay alive. Those who are allowed to
live are branded with a number burned into their arm and
the Star of David burned into their chest. Most of these privileged
ones die within a month. Others take their
place. Those who go directly
from the train to the gas chambers to be suffocated are
not branded. They are completely consumed in the ovens
and leave no evidence behind. These are 95% of each
transport. The dead bodies are
burned in specially made ovens. Each oven burns 12 bodies
an hour. In February there were 36 ovens burning. We have
learned that more have been built. Information supplied us
by a few eyewitnesses reveals that in February there were
four disposal buildings. We have learned that more have
been built since then. Formerly, the Germans
killed and burned the Jews in the Forest of Birkenwald,
near Auschwitz. Now the killing and burning take place in
the buildings shown on the enclosed map. In December, the Germans
built special trains to transport the Jews of Hungary to
their extermination. This is the schedule of Auschwitz,
from yesterday to the end; twelve thousand Jews - men,
women and children, old men, infants, healthy and sick
ones - are to be suffocated daily and their bones and
ashes are to be used to fertilize the German
fields. And you - our brothers in
Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you,
ministers of all the kingdom - how do you keep silent in
the face of this great murder ? Silent while thousand on
thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, were
murdered. And silent now while tens of thousands are
still being murdered and waiting to be murdered? Their
destroyed hearts cry to you for help as they bewail your
cruelty. Brutal you are and murderers too you are,
because of the cold-bloodedness of the silence in which
you watch. Because you sit with
folded arms and you do nothing, though you could stop or
delay the murder of Jews at this very
hour. In the name of the blood
of the thousands on thousands who have been murdered we
beg, we plead, we cry out and demand that you take
action, that you do deeds now - at once ! That the Ministers of
Kingdoms and all the Lands raise a loud and piercing
outcry that must enter the ears of the world, the ears of
the German people, the ears of the Hungarian people. Let
them cry out a warning to the German murderers. Let them
proclaim that they know all that has been done in the
past, and that which is still being done. And the Pope,
himself, should join in this cry of outrage against the
German murderers. Let this outcry be heard
over all the radios and read in all the newspapers of the
world, that unless they stop at once the deportations of
Hungary's Jews - then will Germany be forever exiled from
civilization. We ask that the
crematoria in Auschwitz be bombed from the air. They are
sharply visible, as shown on the enclosed
map. Such bombing will delay
the work of the German murderers. What is more important -
to bomb persistently all the roads leading from Eastern
Hungary to Poland and to bomb persistently the bridges in
the neighborhood of Karpatarus. Drop all other business
to get this done. Remember that one day of your idleness
kills twelve thousand souls. You, our brothers, sons
of Israel, are you insane? Don't you know the Hell around
us? For whom are you saving your money? How is it that all our
pleadings affect you less than the whimpering of a beggar
standing in your doorway? Murderers! Madmen! Who is it
that gives charity? You who toss a few pennies from your
safe homes? Or we who give our blood in the depths of
Hell? There is only one thing
that may be said in your exoneration - that you do not
know the truth. This is possible. The villain does his
job so shrewdly that only a few guess the truth. We have
told you the truth several times. Is it possible that you
believe our murderers more than you believe us? May God
open your eyes and give you heart to rescue in these last
hours the remainder. Most important is that
which I write about the bombing of the Auschwitz
Crematoria and the bridges leading to
them. Such bombing can vitally
delay the evil work of our slaughterers. And God who
keeps alive the last remnant of Israel will show His
mercy for which I pray. I pray as I write out of the sea
of tears of the people of Israel. We wait God's
help. One from the Market who
witnesses the woes of his people" © 1999
Most
important is that which I write about the
bombing of the Auschwitz Crematoria and the
bridges leading to them. Rabbi
Weissmandel (d. 1956)
As noted by the author
Lenni Brenner, Jim Allen's "maleficium" was to quote in
his play, Perdition, a letter written to Zionist
rescue workers in Slovakia by Nathan Schwalb, the movement's
agent in Switzerland. After the war, Schwalb's letter was
published by Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel in his
memoir, Min HaMaitzer ("From the Depths"). Allen had
found the letter in Brenner's book, Zionism
in the Age of Dictators.
Weissmandel is a central witness in the whole Kasztner story
as he was later to leave Hungary on the infamous train that
left for Switzerland with some 1600 Jews that had been
arranged by Kasztner in collaboration with the
Nazis.
The following message about
bombing concentration camps and railways, was an exhibit in
the Kasztner libel case in Israel during the 1950's. It was
sent by Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel, an organizer for
rescue activities operating in the quisling Nazi state of
Slovakia in 1944. Weissmandel put a small saw into a loaf of
bread just before he was put on the train that was taking
him and thousands of others to the death camp at Auschwitz.
Using the saw, he managed to break out of the train and made
his escape to the forests of Slovakia where he linked up
with partisans. His letter provides shocking and disturbing
evidence of how the Zionist leadership ignored the growing
evidence of mass murder and crimes against humanity being
perpetrated against Europe's Jews.
"We are writing to
remind you of the one factor of which you must never lose
sight: that ultimately, the Allies will win the war.
After their victory, territorial boundaries will be
reshaped as they were after the First World War. Then,
the way will be clear for our purpose at this time, with
the war drawing to a close, we must do everything in our
power to change Eretz Yisrael to Medinat Yisrael and many
steps have already been taken in this regard. Therefore,
we must turn a deaf ear to the pleas and cries emanating
from Eastern Europe. Remember this: all the allies have
suffered many losses, and if we also do not offer human
sacrifices, how can we gain the right to sit at the
conference table when the territorial boundaries are
reshaped? Accordingly, it is foolhardy and brazen for us
to negotiate in terms of money or supplies in exchange
for Jewish lives. How dare we ask of the allied powers to
barter money for lives while they are sustaining heavy
casualties daily? So, insofar as the masses are
concerned: RAK B'DAM TIHJE LANU HAAREZ, (Eretz Yisroel
will be ours only by paying with blood), but as far as
our immediate circle is concerned, ATEM TAJLU. The
messenger bearing this letter will supply you with funds
for this purpose".
After I accustomed
myself to the peculiar writing, I trembled when I
realized the import of RAK B'DAM TIHJE LANU HAAREZ. But
many weeks passed, and I was still confounded by the
meaning of ATEM TAJLU. Until one day, it struck me. ATEM
TAJLU meant "You escape", for the word "tiyul" (walking
trip) was used by them as a euphemistic code for
"escape". They meant to say - you fifteen or twenty
"party members", escape from Czechoslovakia and save your
hides. The price of Eretz Yisroel is the blood of the men
and women, hoary sages, and babes in arms - but not YOUR
blood! Let us not spoil this plan by giving the Axis
powers to save Jewish lives. But for you, comrades, I
have enclosed carfare for your escape. What a nightmare!
The Zionist agent "diplomat" comes to Czechoslovakia and
says 'Now is a very critical time. But comparatively
speaking it is not at all critical for you trapped Jews.
For there is an emergency of far greater proportions;
namely, BINYAN HA-ARETZ (the prize of Medinat Yisrael).
Shed your blood cheerfully, for your blood is cheap. But
for your blood, the Land (of Israel) will be ours!
Why didn't they
try, from their place of freedom, to break through to us
and send us a secret messenger? This question becomes
greater when we see that the governments of
Czechoslovakia and Poland, which were in free lands, sent
secret messengers daily to their loyal people in the
occupied countries. And therefore our amazement grows.
Why don't the great organizers of Jewry use these
messengers if they have no other way? And during all of
the years since we developed this method, those in the
free countries did not once attempt to send messengers to
us - rather, WE had to send them and to pay for them. How
many did we send them only for the to return empty-handed
- because those over there did not have time to answer
?
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.
May 15th, 1944 - In
a cave near Lublin, Poland.
(Rabbi Michael Dov
Weissmandel, Exhibit of the Defence, no. 36, State Attorney
v. M. Grünwald, District Court, Jerusalem,
CC124/53)