Without a State of their own, the Jewish people of Europe
during the World War II had to be lead by the Jewish
Councils (called Judenrat, plural Judenraete or
Judenrate) that were to guide them during the most trying
times of their existence under the Nazi regime. (See, for
instance, the Cracow
Decree of November 28,
1939, for the
establisment of Judenraete.)
The lack of apparent moral
standing of the Judenrat leadership has been studied by
scholars from a number of angles. Less publicity was
given however to the Holocaust survivors' views on this
sensitive and wrecking issue that is part of the troubled
Jewish history. To see one, of the many blistering
attacks by prominent Jews on Judenrat's lack of
leadership and moral courage, see the April
23, 1941 Statement by Chaim Kaplan on The Warsaw
Judenrat.
For those that are interested to
see how the proponents of the so-called Holocaust
Revisionism movement see all this, take a look at Lenni
Brenner's "Zionism
in Holocaust Poland."
For those interested to see how a make-believe
"scientific" article on Judenrat looks like, take a look
at Martin Rose's hoax-in-disguise study "The
Judenrate and the Final
Solution."
(The reference made by
Martin Rose, for instance, on the Odessa's pogram as
being Romania's biggest pogrom is pure nonsense as Odessa
never ever was part of Romania in the first place, and
the Romanian leader Antonescu had absolutely nothing to
do with the administration of that pogrom although he
clearly was a pro-Nazi leader.)
Without question, Judenrat was
an important component of the Holocaust that most
certainly deserves serious research and honest exposure.
We own this to History and most importantly to the Jewish
victims of the Holocaust. The survivors of the Holocaust
are the only witnesses that have faced the Judenrat.
Their testimonies are invaluable for the establishment of
the Judenrat record. Because of this, we encourage herein
memoirs from Holocaust survivors on this complex
component of the Holocaust. Some of such memoirs are
listed below.
The importance of the Judenrat
cannot be overestimated as the Jewish people learned from
it perhaps the most important lesson of their existence
--and that is, that they never ever be left at the mercy
of Judenrat-like institutions. The answer to this bitter
lesson was the creation of a strong Israel coupled with a
strong Zionist movement.
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