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LIONEL ABel
However, Miss Syrkin's idea as to why Jews were ready to
participate in the Jewish Councils does not explain why the Nazis
wanted these Councils formed. Certainly the Nazis did not order
them set up so as to "interpose a buffer between German savagery
and the helpless ghetto." Why then did the Nazis want Jewish
Councils? According to Miss Arendt, in order to expedite the ex–
termination of Jews. But if Von dem Bach's evidence, already cited,
about the ease of killing unorganized Jews in Russia is taken into
account-and I think the testimony of an SS general aboul what
made for simplicity in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews
must be taken as more authoritative than Miss Arendt's, then her
notion that the Jewish Councils were so essential to the Nazis must
be
set aside. Why then did the Nazis want the Councils? This matter,
of which Miss Arendt makes a mystery, Raul Hilberg makes per–
fectly clear. Some four and a half million people cannot be killed
all at once; while numbers of Jews were being killed the Germans
wanted (1) to ensure order among the remaining Jews and (2) to
get able-bodied Jews to work for them, especially in the arms in–
dustries. And the need of the German military for industrial work–
ers created a split in the Nazi hierarchy; would it not be senseless,
it was argued in top Nazi circles, to kill Jews who could make arms
for Germany? On the other hand, the Jewish leaders, realizing
that the Germans needed workers, had some rational grounds for
collaborating. Their hope was that the Nazis would not be so sense–
less as
to
destroy a valuable labor force. Chaim Rumkowski of
Lodz, for instance, who was known as the Fuhrer of that city, and
whom Miss Arendt mentions only to ridicule for his buffoonish and
dictatorial traits, had a plan for dealing with the Germans, which
I, even today, cannot regard as irrational. He called his plan
"Rescue Through Work"; his idea was that the Germans would
allow the Jews of his ghetto to live if they worked hard and well
for them. And it must be s:tid for Chaim that the ghetto over which
he ruled lasted longer than any other in Eastern Europe, in fact
until August of 1944, when the war was almost over. Then Hitler
(who we know now was clinically insane by that time) ordered the
extermination of the Lodz ghetto, including its able-bodied workers.
Few in the Nazi hierarchy or in the military high command were
in favor of this senseless decision. Now how could Rumkowski have
