From: Patsloane-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 13:47:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: PLC: Turkey Curiosity of Pat Sloane


In a message dated 97-11-11 10:08:58 EST, Stirling writes:

> Pat has been expressing interest in this issue. I have noted Lukac's book,
>  I will also note "The Myth of Rescue" which argues that more coud not have
>  been done to extricate Jews from Europe. The recontextualisation in
America
>  is most interesting because before the war the question of Jews in
>  Europe was, quite literally, of no concern to most of America. However,
>  many of the Jews that were concerned about events in Europe fled here,
many
>  who left as the danger grew. This grou cpntributed enormously to America -
>  most especially in areas requiring high levels of education. As a result -
>  after the war a large fraction of America's educated and literate
>  class were highly concerned with what happened in concentration
>  camps and before, they were highly concerned with anti-semitism, and
>  were very concentrated in the metropolis that had become "the capital of
>  the world".
>  
Don't forget a lot of Jews came over earlier, in 1880s from pogroms in
Poland,  big batch from Austria just before American Civil War, etc. They may
have felt too fearful, or not empowered enough, to ask US government to do
anything.  When I was a kid, I'd say how happy i was that there couldn't be
concentration camps for Jews in the country. My aunt would say, you're
kidding yourself, of course there could be.  Never heard how Jewish community
felt about internrment of Japanese.  Maybe, "we're next."

The big shock in Germany was that German Jews jad been the most assimilated
in Europe, apparently accepted fully into the community. So it said, I guess,
"we're never safe."

Knew one Jewish physician artist, Alcopley, who came here from Germany before
1939.  He couldn't get a teaching job in an American university because the
American passport he was given was stamped "enemy alien."  I think this is
why the New School was started.

I'm trying to formulate in my mind why society always seems to need
scapegoats.  I think it's maybe to deflect the rage of the real crazies from
the "nice" people.  Take, say, the burnings of black churches in the US.  In
theory, everyone is against it.  But I imagine people can't help thinking,
well, if society can't control the kind of people who burn things down,
better they should be burning down black churches than bothering white people
in the suburbs.  

The "good Germans," then, would be the ones who said, "I really don't approve
of killing Jews, but thank God I'm not the group that's targeted."  I could
see American Jews before WW 2 saying, I'm so glad this is happening in
Germany and not here (and I'd better not rock the boat or I might have
problems myself).  

pat


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