- Headline
-
I'd Rather Be Right
- Sub-Headline
- The Last 4,000,000
- Publication Date
- Tuesday, March 2, 1943
- Historical Event
-
"We Will Never Die"
This database includes 395 articles about this event - Tags
- Article Type
- Newspaper
- Page Section and Number
- 11
- Author/Byline
- Samuel Grafton
- Article Text
- NEW YORK, March 1—If we do not accept Hitler's challenge that he intends to exterminate the Jews of Europe, we shall be accepting Hitler's theory that the Jews are "different," that they are a separate "problem," not linked with the whole European problem.
If we accept that theory, accept it silently and numbly by inaction. Hitler will be permitted to demonstrate that no force on earth can stop him from murdering 4,000,000 persons in cold blood in 1943.
He will be permitted to stage that demonstration during a year in which the French and Belgian radios in London are calling on their people to rise in revolutionary action. But to all would-be revolutionaries, Hitler will be able to show the actuality or the photographs of 4,000,000 dead faces.
What It Means to Stop Him
During a year in which the plain people of Europe are asked to break Hitler's power, he will be able to stage the most staggering demonstration of unmitigated individual power in the entire history of murder.
Conversely, to stop him, by any means, will be a demonstration by us that our power reaches within Europe, and limits and confines Hitler's power. To protect the Jews of Europe from death is the only possible guarantee, at this moment, to the people of Europe that we can protect them from death.
I do not say we ought to be moved only by these considerations, and not by consideration for the Jews. I say we should be moved by consideration for the Jews. The real point is that the two points are one point.
Oppression is oppression, death is death, massacre is massacre. To confess our inability to keep Hitler from killing the remaining two-thirds of European Jews, the last 4,000,000, is to confess our inability to halt oppression, death and massacre. Those who would attempt to incite revolution against a tyrant cannot afford this confession of weakness before him.
Two Europes, Or One?
To let Hitler's challenge pass is to set up the theory that, in one area of European action, revolution, uprising and overthrow are possible, while in another area of European action there is no way to stop oppression, massacre, extermination. It is a mad theory. Yet it is the theory the west will declare to the world if it calls upon the people of Europe to rise without showing ability to stop the murder of Jews.
Only the most naive student of revolution, only the most romantic amateur of that science, could ignore the profoundly anti-revolutionary impact of 4,000,000 murders.
The unstopped murder of 4,000,000 can kill revolution in the hearts of 40,000,000. The theory that Hitler is merely venting petulance by exterminating the Jews is feeble and superficial. He is putting on a demonstration of power.
That is the way terror conducts its parade, for all the people to see.
The "Jewish issue" is only a kind of plea in avoidance, which permits Hitler both to murder and to hold himself blameless of murder. To establish the "Jewish issue" lets Hitler kill some Frenchmen, frighten other Frenchmen, and also to tell Frenchmen that he has killed no real Frenchmen at all. The method gives him some dead opponents, some terrified opponents, and some chuckle-headed supporters, and all of these are useful to the great master of suppression.
There Is only one Europe. If death is unchecked in one street in Europe, it is unchecked in all of Europe. Would-be revolutionaries will understand. Hitler means them to understand.
For us to acquiesce in these deaths Is for us to acquiesce in Hitler's mastery.
Great Memorial
Conversely, to fight back, to contest this ground, to halt even some of these killings by retaliation from the air, by mobilization of Protestant and Catholic moral condemnation, by agreeing to accept all refugees, is to give heart to all Europe. To save a dozen Jews will set ten thousand revolutionaries free to fight.
That is why I am glad the Jews of New York City are, on March 9, conducting a great memorial service for their dead, without political speech or comment, at Madison Square Garden. I have read Ben Hecht's script, "We Will Never Die." It is his best. It poses the question properly, not whether the Jews will live, but whether Europe will. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Steven B.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: "We Will Never Die"
- “We Will Never Die”: Shattering the Silence Surrounding the Holocaust (Encyclopedia Article)
- Kurt Weill and We Will Never Die (Encyclopedia Article)
- Ben Hecht (Encyclopedia Article)
- Peter Bergson (Encyclopedia Article)
Bibliography
Citron, Atay. "Pagentry and Theatre in the Service of Jewish Nationalism in the United States, 1933–1646." PhD dissertation, New York University, 1989.
Hecht, Ben. A Child of the Century. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954.
Hecht, Ben. We Will Never Die. Two unpublished versions of the script bearing Weill's annotations. Weill-Lenya Research Center: Series 20 and Yale Collection, folder 475.
Peck, Sarah E. "The Campaign for an American Response to the Holocaust 1943–1945," Journal of Contemporary History 15, 367–400.
Penkower, Monty N. "In Dramatic Dissent: The Bergson Boys," American Jewish History 70, 281–309.
Whitfield, Stephen J. "The Politics of Pageantry, 1936–1946." American Jewish History 84, no. 3 (1996): 221–251.
Wyman, David S. and Rafael Medoff. A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust. New York: The New Press, 2002.
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