Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 1, 1989 Page: 4 of 24
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Opinion
4 TEXAS JEWISH POST, THURSDAY, JUNE I, 1989
| POSTORIAL
JESS JAWIN
Continued From Page 7
Between Poles and Jews
HI It is a positive thing that the meeting of the
World Jewish Congress Executive in Montreal during
early May adopted a resolution abandoning an earlier
pronouncement of its American Section calling for a
worldwide Jewish boycott of Pope John Paul II
While this latest action may in time help easy the
mounting tensions in Vatican-Jewish relations — the
worst seen during the past 30 years —much damage
has been done, and it will take considerable
knowledge, experience and wisdom to correct the
present troubled situation.
The core of the problem remains the presence of
the Carmelite convent on the grounds of Auschwitz.
The pious, determined nuns created the problem by
their unilateral transforming of a Nazi warehouse
used for storing Zyklon-B gas into a convent. But
some Jews, have misconstrued the stubborn Carmelite
issue.
The removal of the convent to other quar-
ters—which has been agreed upon by all parties —is
overwhelmingly an issue that concerns the Polish
Catholic Church, the Polish government, the Car-
melite Order and world Jewry
By church law and discipline, only the Polish chur-
ch has the power to remove the convent, which is un-
der its jurisdiction. The-pope and the Vatican have
much influence, but not the decision-making power,
and there is a basic difference between power and in-
fluence
Last week, Cardinal Jan Willebrands, Vatican head
of Catholic-Jewish relations, at a meeting with several
of us, confirmed that the Polish Catholic church
possesses decisive authority to move the Carmelite
convent to a new center.
He said the Vatican and he personally ran and will
help in the transfer, but only in the background.
It is a weird irony that most Roman Catholics have a
limited perception of papal infallibility (only in “Faith
and Morals"), but some Jews in their naivete believe
that the pope is infallible in everything in the
Catholic's world.
All he has to do is snap his fingers, and the convent
and the nuns would disappear. If it has not disap-
peared yet, obviously the pope does not want it to,
therefore, boycott the pope
Well, the Vatican also knows how to play the
boycott game. Intuition —without hard evidence to
confirm it —suggests that when the Vatican and the
Anti-Defamation League canceled their scheduled
see POSTORIAL page 9
Fifty years ago this week the luxury liner St.
Louis, with 906 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany
aboard, was the object of world wide attention.
The daily headlines narrated the plight of the
stateless outcasts as they floated outside U.S.
and Cuban waters in search of a haven.
On May 13, 1939, the ship had embarked on its
voyage from Hamburg to Havana. World War II
was still four months away, but the passengers on
the St. Louis had already endured more than five
years of increasing terrorism under Hitler’s rule.
Following the debacle of Kristallnacht, the Ger-
man government had stepped up its policy of for-
ced Jewish emigration, and many of the St. Louis’
passengers had been released from concen-
tration camps on the condition that they leave
Germany immediately. The majority had been
granted permission to immigrate to the U.S., but
could not do so until their numbers came up on
the quota, and had obtained permits to sojourn in
Cuba during the waiting period.
When the ship pulled into Havana harbor on
May 27, the Cuban authorities turned it back from
the dock and refused to allow the passengers to
land. The U.S. government turned down appeals
to relax its immigration rules and provide some
provisional asylum in American territory, and the
stranded passengers turned to the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for help.
The JDC sent two representatives to Cuba on
May 30 to negotiate a landing agreement with the
Cuban authorities, who indicated that they would
honor their landing permits if a guarantee of $500
per person could be offered to offset the
possibility of the Jews presenting any economic
burden while in Cuba. The Cuban government set
a deadline for noon on the sixth of June —the St.
Louis’ scheduled return to Hamburg —as a limit
for negotiations. As the deadline approached, the
JDC was able to offer the Cubans’ the $500
demanded for all 906 refugees and an additional
$500,000 as payment for landing permission. On-
ce again they were turned down; Cuban President
Laredo Bru announced that his government would
not accept the offer and would not agree to any
further discussions.
The ship headed back to Hamburg on schedule.
Frantic, the refugees vowed to commit mass
suicide rather than return to the horrible fate
planned by Hitler and his minions. Determined
that the refugees would not be forced to carry out
their desperate plan nor that they should return to
Germany, the JDC’s leaders worked feverishly to
find safe refuge for the passengers of the ship as
it steamed toward Europe.
On June 13, the JDC’s European Chairman,
Morris Troper, was able to cable the St. Louis with
the happy news that none of them would have to
return to Germany; the governments of Great
Britain, France, Holland and Belgium had agreed
to accept all 906 refugees. The ship altered its
course and docked at Antwerp on June 17. With
JDC’s guarantee of maintenance costs for all
aboard, the refugees journeyed by train to short-
lived safety in free Europe: 181 to Holland, 224 to
France and 214 to Belgium. The remaining 287
went to England.
Within a year, the unfortunate refugees who
had sought safety in France, Belgium and Holland
found themselves again under Nazi domination.
The exact number of those who fell victim to the
Final Solution is unknown, but it is certain that all
would have survived had they been granted a
home in Cuba or America.
So as we remember the plight of the spirit of St.
Louis, let us also realize that if we forget the
lessons of history we are certainly bound to
repeat them.
There will be more calls for Germany’s
reunification. If it does happen it could well be the
beginnings of a new Holocaust. And one which
could make the last one, considering the inven-
tiveness of the German scientific community, ap-
pear to be an historic nursery rhyme instead of the
tremendous lesson in deprecation of man’s
nobleness.
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 1, 1989, newspaper, June 1, 1989; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755487/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .