212
LIONEL ABEL
1963). I shall begin with what is after all a rather minor omission and
then go on to what in my judgment is a major one. In treating of the
deportations of Jews from Belgium, Miss Arendt asserts that only
foreign Jews were deported from Belgium and not a single Belgian
Jew; her explanation is that no
ludenrat
existed in Belgium, that
the existence of a
ludenrat
to register Jews was "one of the most
important prerequisites for their seizure." Now according to Raul
Hilberg/ the authority Miss Arendt has relied on chiefly,
L'
Association
des luits Belgiques
was set up in Belgium in 1941. Strictly speaking,
this was not a
ludenrat,
since it was not set up by the Germans; all the
same, it was an organization of Jews subject to Nazi directives, and it
shows the presence of a Jewish leadership in Belgium. (Miss Arendt
throughout her book passes lightly over the difference between a
Jewish leadership spontaneously organized and a Jewish leadership
selected by the Nazis.) In any case, she gives its absence as a most
important reason for the fact that not a single Belgian Jew
was
deported, whereas she must know, since she cites Raul Hilberg
thtbughout her book, that
L'
Association des luits Belgiques
existed
in Belgium until that country was liberated by the Allies.
As I said, this is a minor omission. Here is one I call major:
Between November of 1941 and June of 1942, over half a million
Russian Jews were killed in the Ukraine by the firing squads of the
Einsatzgruppen
at the rate of one hundred thousand a month.
M~
Ar:endt must be aware of the fact, for she has noted in her book
that the
Einsatzgruppen
were used especially in Russia and she even
mentions that some two hundred and fifty thousand Jews were
killed there in one year by a single
Einsatzgruppen
squad. But
tllere were no
ludenriite
in Russia during the first wave of killings;
there 'v,as no Jewish leadership ; Jewish organizations of any kind
hid been destroyed by Stalin long before the war.
.. Surely Miss Arendt should have considered this fact, examined
it, dealt with it, tried to explain it away. How could she not have
done so in good conscience, since she says in her book that the
existence of a Jewish leadership was so necessary to Nazi
SUCCe91
in killing Jews?
i.
See Raul Hilberg's careful, massive, and valuable study:
The Destruction 01
. 'Europeiiri Jewry.
