tL (pN way bach from the congress held in Budapest, Hungary,
e O a. Hera UE: Democratic Federation, I stopped
in Czechoslovakia and visited Lidice. I knew that all the men of
Lidice had been executed by the Nazis. So J sought for and found
‘the women who survived. I met these brave women in Kladno, the
_ Sleel center of Czechoslovakia. . pacts
Here I met Helena Lefferova, the daughter of a coal miner.
Helena’s father and husband were executed by the Nazis in Lidice.
ere in Helena’s own words is what the Nazis did to the home and
Aten henna cat ehirae <r eunien

at
TN Lidice the men were mostly miners and smelter hands employed
in Kladno, working on their little piece of land in their spare

time to make both ends of the family budget meet. The strength
and courage of its inhabitants was built upon sincere love of country.

The 10th of June, 1942, came filed into the lorries that were to
irli bruk,
into our lives like a whirling take us to Ravens’ ;
i ronths of
tornado, In blood-red letters this Women in the last months

date wil be engraved upon our
memories. The German police,
the storm troopers and the army
Surrounded our village: * Six
_ Storm troopers entered each
home, They gave us 10 minutes
to collect all our money and
Valuables and leave the house.
The women and children were
Separated from the men. The
‘Nazis took from us all our, valu-
ables including our wedding
Vings, : .

N Vancouver this week, Nathan
Nemetz, head of the Vancou-
ver lodge of B’nai B'rith, main-
tained that Charles Dickens’
Oliver Twist and Shakespeare’s
Merchant of Venice were “not
suitable for public school instruc-
tion.” :
S Both works “caricature a minor-
As we were being piled into
lorries, the children held fast to
our hands. We shall never for-
Set the last look at our village.
On the steps of the school build-

prejudices thus endangered over-
shadow by far the literary value
of these books to the young and
impressionable mind.”

ity group,” Nemetz said, “and the

j

_ Scattered baby covers,

ing in which we and the children
Were housed for two days, lay
‘ rattlers
and overtuned baby-carriages, The
Nazis kicked furiously at the
; baby-carriages as the mothers

_ Were lifting out their children.

We saw our men standing in
the garden of the Horak farm.

And thenva” cloud of dust separ-
~ 8ted us from our village, from —

Cur loved ones.
to Kladno.

A On the third day, 50 storm
‘Toopers began to push the wo-
men’ into trucks. They said we
Were to go to a work camp. We
_ Were determined not, to give up
ur children. The storm troopers
Wrenched each child from. its
mother’s arms. The children’s
cries tore at every nerve in the
ney of every mother. Numb
a Pain, we did not know how
- “*, Teached the courtyard and

We were taken

ie

Nemetz was commenting on a

statement by Joseph Goldstein,

former New York magistrate,
that the novel and the play are
anti-Semitic and “cause irrepar-
able damage” to school children.
- In the following review reprint-
ed from the Canadian Jewish
Weekly, Elyeh Nathans discusses

the much-debated British film

version of Oliver Twist.

e :
That the film version of Oliver
Twist, still being distributed
throughout Canada, is of artistic
merit is questionable. Tt is true

that the movie is photographic-

ally pretentious and has a few
scenes that are unusual in. com-
position and design, but other-
wise not much can be said for
it. The film plot is even more
incoherent than it is
Charles Dickens’ novel, and the
extravagant coincidences, which

may be glossed over in the réad-

in the

By MARGARET C. KRUMBEIN

pregnancy were taken to Prague,

where the children were taken
away shortly after birth, and the
mothers sent to the concentra-
tion camp.

At the concentration camp, all
of us, young and old were strip-

ped and ice showers were turned

on us. We were dressed in light
clothes but without shoes. Sud-
denly we heard the camp siren
which meant lining up in rows
of five. Women poured out of all
the buildings.

Our bare feet were cold as we
stood thére in rows. An hour
we stood like this, when the ab-

ing, are outrageous when observ-
ed on the screen. On the whole.
the film lacks any emotional fire,
is singularly static in action and
its chavacterizations, with one ex-
ception, are unmpressive and in-
credible.

In the case of the Jew, Fagin,

‘the situation ir different. Just as

he was the central villain when

‘Dickens wrote the story, so he

is the archtype of evil in the
movie. He is made to appear so
vile that even the burglar Sikes
deems himself to be superior. In
his appearance, manner, and con-
duct Fagin evokes our deepest
loathing. A miser, he hoards his
jewels and exults over them. He
educates innocent children in
crime. He conspires to deprive
the boy, Oliver Twist, of his right-
ful inheritance, and incites Bill
Sikes to murder Nancy. He stops
at nothng. and has no redeeming
traits. i :
There can be no doubt that, as
portrayed by Alec Guiness, Fagin
represents the traditional anti-
Semitic sterotype of the Jew.
While his origin is never identi-
fied—he is never referred to as
a Jew—nonetheless Fagn behaves
in the way which anti-Semitism
has long attributed to the Jewish
‘type. Physically, he might have
been borrowed from a cartoon in
Der Stuermer. Bearded, wearing
a skull-cap, with a hooked nose,

solute silence took on an atmos-
phere of terror, for among the
prisoners was walking the lager-
commandant. God} help the one

_ On whose face he found rebellion

or contempt. He ordered barrels
of water to be poured on the
sick or those unable to stand.

Most of us were picked for the
night shift to make storm troop-
er uniforms. For four months
we did not see a ray of sunshine,
for early in the morning we fell
into our beds wearied from over-
work. We worked, bent over the
hateful SS uniforms, our hearts
filled with memories of families,
husbands, children, :

One night we heard the mad
yelling of a stormtrooper. He
was mercilessly kicking one of
cur women. He found her with
a piece of newspaper in her
hand. Then we heard the hollow
sound of a heel against the back
of a@ woman whom we knew to
be the mother of three children.
She fainted and was carried out
for the cold treatment.

After about six months in the
concentration camp, the news

, came that our homes had been

completely destroyed. The loss
of our possessions did not hurt
us so much in the surrounding
of the camp, but the thought of
our’ dear ones gnawed at our
hearts. Czech women , who ar-
rived at the camp after we did,
brought the news that the men
of Lidice had been shot and the

_children sent away for suitable

upbringing in German: families.
Three Lidice women went ma&.

~ Terror gripped the rest of us,

~

for mad women. were fated to
die of thirst and starvation in a
dark chamber. : :

In the winter of 1943, the so-
called selection system was in-
voked. We were lined up in the
courtyard. Each woman had to
pass by a doctor, who by a move-
ment of his hand indicated the
women who were old or ill. These
women had to fall out of line.
With horror we saw 40 Czech
women selected, 15 of them Lidice
mothers. The whole camp wept
for them, They were transported
half naked in the bitter cold to
Oswieczem in Poland. Even to-
day I hear their desperate cries—
“Remember us to our husbands
and children.”

In 1944 the camp was over-
flowing with fleas and bedbugs..
The fleas carried disease, especi-
ally typhus. Those who had fleas

oily voice and slithering walk,

engaged in criminal work,’he epi-
tomizes the ugly picture of the
Jew invented by the bigots.

The eff€ct of this portrait upon
young people and _ susceptible
adults, already subjected to a bar-
rage of misleading propaganda
about Jews, can easily be guessed.
Just as the Jew seems like a
nightmarish villain in so much of
world literature. so he is repre-
sented in this particular movie.
And for this reason, regardless
of what motives the producers
had in: making the picture, it
must be adjudged as anti-
Semitic.

e

Were this an ideal world, with-
out inequality and prejudice, Oli-
ver Twist could be viewed in a
different perspective. Unfortun-
ately, the world is not in that ex-
cellent a state, and we must rec-
kon with realities, not abstract
situations. For protesting this
film. Jews have been charged
with being overly-sensitive, thin-
skinned, and quick to seize oft
fense where none was intended.

As we have indicated, the film
is anti-Semitic. This is the first

fact and it cannot be denied. In

objecting to it, the Jews are hot
motivated by any fancied injury,
but by a deliberate wrong. This
however is only the beginning of
the matter and what must be

were picked out and sent to the
gas chambers. The flames of
burning dead bodies glared be-
fore our eyes day and night.
Each day we counted how many
orphans would be left, how many
women from Lidice would be
taken away.

And one day the news was
spread that the Allied armies
were close. One night a wild storm
trooper awakened us and began
to throw us out of our bunks. We
were forced to march without
food for 25 miles. Now we want-
ed so much to live, because we
knew that freedom was so near.
The storm troopers began to
shoot those who lagged behind.
In Grivice, we were liberated by
the Red army.
®

The remaining women of Li-
dice have formed a national com-
mittee and the Association for
the Restoration of Lidice which
the Czechoslovakian government
has entrusted with the rebuilding
of the village shall found for us
& new Lidice, so that the resolu-
tion of the English miners.
“Lidice Shall Live,’ which found
an echo in America and in the
whole world, will become a fact.

We are searching for our chil-
dren, of whom 82 have not re-
turned. We know that our men
will never come back to us. We
want to be near their graves
though, in the new Lidice, which
will be an eternal memorial to
their sacrifice and to the cruel
fate of our lost children.”

Helena Lefferova is chairman

of the national women’s commit-
tee. Last year she was elected to
parliament by the people of Klad-
no. As she related the story of
Nazi atrocities, next to her sat
Maria Millerova, a worker in the
Kladno foundry. Maria is chair-
man of the women’s committee in
her plant which employs 2,300 wo-
men. This women’s factory com-
mittee helps the women of iLidice
to build new schools, and nur-
series. Maria leads the women in
the factory, who through the
trade union are improving their
conditions as workers, as mothers.

Clustered ,around these two

brilliant women were a number

of women of Kladno. There was
not one of them who did not
have praise for the achievements
of women under the new demo-
cratic government, and a desire

for peace that we who have been |

spared the horrors of war can
never fully appreciate.

Controversy rages around ‘Oliver Twist’

pointed out is that there can be
no justifying the presentation of

“a movie, or any other form of

art, which, in its essence, contrib-
utes to the stirring up of bad
feeling between peoples and
which adds further fuel to the
already raging fires of race hat-

_ red. This is the real source of con-

tention.

In these times when there is
So much need, for an improve-
ment in relations, the showing of
Oliver Twist can only have an
adverse effect. We say this, not
only in consideration of the film
itself, but in the knowledge that
Many people will be referred to
the book in which the anti-Semitic

libels are much more brutally pre-.
- sented. 7 :

For well-meaning persons to
make the claim that one must
evaluate Oliver Twist purely in
terms of its merit is, therefore, in-
correct and even dangerous. It
shows a confused frame of mind.
The meaning of a work of art
can never be separated from its
form and bigotry, under any guise,
is still bigotry. Does this film as-
sist people to a better under-
standing of Jews, who have so
very often been misrepresented?
Certainly not. Can one ignore
this in view of the fact that Jews
are constantly being defamed in
the English-speaking world. The
film is dangerous. That is the
long and the short of it.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 1, 1949 — PAGE 5