Race-hatred Continues in Europe

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 20

Race-hatred Continues in Europe

[* a recent broadcast from 4YA the REV. PROFESSOR C. A. P. KNIGHT, of Knox Theological College, Dunedin, discussed what he called "the new race-hatred" in Central and Eastern Europe. After a brief survey of the history of the Jews from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and their dispersal into Mesopotamia and Europe, Professor Knight said that the reasons for anti-semitism can be traced to three sources-one theological, one economic, and the other pathological.

the Church had begun to hold the idea that Europe, being Christendom, was indeed the ‘Kingdom of God on earth. Such being the case, everyone born in Europe was thus automatically a Christian. But the Jews of Europe, living in little groups as they did for conPore and mutual protection, nega- | about the year 1000 tived this theological concept. They were just not Christians. And so, to get round the problem, the highest councils of the Church decreed that Jews were to be walled off in their groups from the rest of Europe, so that in theory they would be outside of Europe. Thus there arose that ghastly system of life to which the Jew was condemned for the next 800 years, when he was confined to: the ghettos of the cities of Europe. One of the consequences of ‘this situation was that right up till the outbreak of this war Jews were utterly forbidden in more than one country of Europe even to touch the land. The land was the Kingdom of God on earth, you see. It was only for believers to touch it. That is why Jews in eastern Europe are ‘not, and never have been, farmers, and why, when they go to the ends of the earth, you find them in cities and not on the land. It makes the development of Palestine even more astonishing to us when we recall this fact. Then again, since the Chureh controlled all trades in its own guilds and only allowed believers to be members of them, Jews naturally could never become joiners, or plumbers or smiths -and that is why you don’t find Jewish joiners or plumbers to-day. "Reserved Occupations" For many centuries the Jews whose descendants became the targets of Hitler's persecution were allowed to pursue one of three avenues in life: first, the medieval Jew was licensed, if he wished, to hawk knick-knacks round the doors, a basket hung round his neck. After centuries of this degrading type of trade, the Jew had learned a lot of things about both trade and human nature. Secondly, he was licensed to sell old clothes. But when you remember that one Jew in two was also licensed to sell old clothes, you will realise ‘that the Jew had to learn not only trade, but also what it was to live, or die, under the fiercest competition. Later on, when the Aufklarung, the so-called "enlightenment" in Europe broke the chains of the Jew and he could enter the open market, he was no longer compelled to keep to sellirig old clothes. He had learned his trade well. And so he branched out into new clothes, into the allied occupations of fur, shoe, carpet, and furniture manufacture. And he did ‘so in Germany, as. he did in England. In both countries I have heard in almost the same terms the accusation

made against the Jew: "Look, the Jews have monopolised the clothing trade." Very true, in many towns. In. Glasgow, where I used to live, some 70 per cent. of the clothing trade is in Jewish hands. But while it is only natural, and at the same time true, yet at the same time, it is only half a truth, But it was with the use of half truths that the Nazis gained control over the minds of their uneducated fellow countrymen, The other half of the truth, which was never explained in Nazi propaganda, was that the Jews of Europe had been forced by law into the clothing trade. The third occupation of the Jew in Germany also has its roots in history. For centuries Christians were not allowed to take interest on money. And so the Church invited, nay, forced, in many cases, Jews to become the bankers of Europe. Their souls were damned anyway, so a little more damning wouldn’t make any difference. The Jews of Europe thus, got a flying start in the art of handling money, and in the att of developing the economic possibilities of a country. If the Jews had not been on the spot in countries like Germany, Poland, Austria and Hungary throughout last century when the growing industrialism of those lands demanded just those business and financial qualifications which they had been compelled to acquire, central Europe would never have developed to the extent it did. "Green Disease" In. most of those lands the middle class was small in number. The peasant on the land knew nothing of business or of high finance. The aristocrat, at the other end of the scale, was far too highminded to enter the lists in the world of industrialism. For a hundred years the Jew was the business brain of Europe. This fact was as true for Germany as it was for Hungary and Poland, even although the,German has the same kind of business and financial ability as the Jew. Right up till 1918 it was considered infra dig for the sons of the upper middle classes to enter industry. It was the Army that offered a real career for a gentleman. And so it came about that after World War No. 1, when the large standing armies of Germany were disbanded for the first ‘time, since the Franco-Prussian war of 50 years before, tens of thousands of young men were thrown idle-and they found that all the good jobs were held by Jews. But the third factor causing antisemitism, I said, was a disease, and a green disease at that-what I mean, of course, is the disease of jealousy. As a result of the artficial sharpening of his wits in the fight for life which he has always had to face, the Jew is often able to succeed in business when the Gentile does not. It is in the Jewish nature to be able to concentrate his attention on the one thing in view, and refuse to (continued on next page)

deviate along side-tracks. If it is education he is seeking, he often wins first prize, not because he is cleverer, but because he has greater ambition. If it is business that is his calling, he often gets ahead of a competitor, not by illegal methods, but by sheer concentration on his objective, his willingness to work long hours, his willingness to forgo all sport or other pastimes which might divert him from his purpose. And so the Gentile, not willing to give up what the Jew does not consider essential, gets left behind, and _ becoines jealous of the man who forges ahead. In the Middle Ages it was the Black Death which was the disease that swept over the masses of men. In our generation the Nazis let loose the disease germs of jealousy, and skilfully, oh how skilfully, they played on the weaknesses of human nature. It is a tragedy to me living row in New Zealand to discover so many people here who have been infected by this Green Plague. Yes, Hitler prophesied well. He even prophesied better than he knew. : Under Russia’s Wing Twelve months after the cessation of hostilities in Germany I was able to visit the Russian Zone in Eastern. Europe. | I went to Austria and Hungary, both of which countries had been dominated by the Nazi creed, knowing full well that I was going to enter a region where material and economic chaos ruled, where the pillaging of the country by two armies, and the resulting inflation, had deft the people utterly impoverished. I found what I knew was there. But I found something else which has not been made known as it ought to the western world. I found a state of things that no newspaper has reported upon even since my visit to Hungary, (continued on next page)

‘Russia AND THe JEwS

(continued from previous page) entering as I did before any newspaper correspondents were allowed in. The world does not know just how terribly this prophecy of Hitler has come true over there. There is such qa growth of a new anti-semitism in eastern Europe that it bids fair to outdo even the excesses of the Nazi regime. I was told by serious and objective Gentiles, as well as by the leaders of the Jewish community, that if the Russians were to leave Hungary there would be, as they said, "The biggest pogrom in history." Now what can be the reasons for this awful state of affairs? Every reason that I can adduce rests upon the three factors I have already said are the basis of anti-semitism anywhere. And as I describe the situation to you, think, please, of how the whole situation is a terrible warning to us in New Zealand. New Envies and Jealousies In the first place those Jews who have survived the terrors of the anti-Jewish laws of 1938-40, of the’ round-up for military service in Russia in 1942, of the deportations to the gas chambers of Auschwitz that followed, of the Budapest ghetto of 1944, and of the siege of the city by the Russians for three months in 1945-those Jews, I say, owe the very fact of their being alive to the coming of the Russians. The Jew has been thrown into the arms of the Russian, even before he has had the chance to look at the Soviet system of life. In consequence the Russian occupying power makes use of many Jews for key posts in the new régime. But in the eyes of the non-Jew, he is a renegade, a Russian Quisling. How short is the memory of men. It is just two years since the boot was on the other foot, and yet, there we are. The second feason for the new antisemitism that I could see rests on a most unfortunate fact, for which the Jew is no more responsible than he is for the first reason. The Jewish people of the free west have showed a _ noteworthy solidarity in the face of the misery of eastern Europe, They have raised large sums of money for the relief of their brethren, and, because of the fact that the Jewish people of Hungary by the very nature of things could not possibly have been mixed up,

with the pro-Nazi regime that the Kus--sians have ovérthrown, were given permission to send in that relief money to_ Hungary to help those who were so evidently not Nazis, and therefore worth helping. But it was a!most impossible | to get in Christian funds. That I know, because I was responsible for large sums raised by the Church to spend in Hun- | gary. Even UNRRA was not allowed to. enter the’ country till I was there, a whole year after the war. But all that | time the Jews were getting relief, they were being fed when others were starv-_ ing, they were being clothed when others were naked. They deserved it. They had | suffered more than any other group of | the community. But the shivering, hungry, non-Jew is not in a fit state to) enter a reasoned discussion of the pros'| and cons of the business. Envy and | jealousy of the Jew now poison all his | thoughts on the matter. Many a non-Jew had a very bad con- | science about the treatment of the Jew

in the Nazi period. He had not furthered the persecution, but he had been part of the system that allowed it. And now he was waiting in contrition to welcome home the occupants of Dachau, of Belsen, and of the other hell-camps of Germany. The allied forces had rescued those poor folk, had fed them, clothed them, tended them in every possible way, till they regained their health and strength, Then they were sent home. The starving non-Jews waited for the poor, wretched, returning émigrés, waited to beg their forgiveness. And then the returned wanderers arrived, well clothed, well fed, rehabilitated. The contrition in the heart of the hungry Gentile turned to hate. Moreover, the peace-treaties have laid . it down that all properties confiscated from Jews in the Nazi period must be returned to their lawful owners if those owners have survived the war. Yes, but for 10 years now John Smith has been running the business in question, and meking a good living off ‘it. And now the ghost of his own evil conscience comes back from the land of the dead -and he hates the man that has come to claim what is his by right, hates him with a fanatical, hysterical hate. And so they are fleeing from that. hatred, they are getting out of the hell of Eastern Europe by every means they can. They are crowding ships above deck | and in the holds; they are prepared to be dropped by parechute from the clouds if only they can reach the land of Palestine, They will do anything to escape from the wrath to come. None of us approves of the terrorism in Palestine, but we can at least sympathise with a fear-ridden people and understand the reasons that have induced only a small number of them after all to make use of methods used against them by their persecutors, both in pre-war days, and at the present moment. I have only lived eight months in New Zealand. But already I am struck by something in connection with the subject in hand. I find men and women in this, the Antipodes of Nazi Europe, who have never met a Jew, but who know all the Nazi half truths about the Jew off by heart, and I realise that while the armies of Hitler have indeed been overthrown, the spirit of Hitlerism has conquere? in the hearts of men in many lands. —