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operating with the Nazis? No doubt the Germans succeeded in con–
cealing from the Councils for a time how they were using them to
expedite the extermination of Jews. But at some point the mem–
bers of the Councils must have realized what was happening and
the nature of the role they were playing. What did the Jewish
leaders then say to justify their acts? One would like to know. The
Jews are a people who throughout their history are known to have
·clung tenaciously to life. But Miss Arendt has presented a very
contrary picture of European Jews as led by either knaves or
fools bent on facilitating their destruction. Unable to accept this
picture of the Jews, but without knowledge of what actually took
place in Europe, my wonder was aroused, and as a result of it, I
discovered that there is documentary evidence about what the
leaders of the Jewish Councils said to one another during the crucial
moments of the Nazi extermination drive and also about what they
said to other leaders representing political factions within the Jewish
community. I have it on the authority of Dr. Jacob Robinson, special
assistant to Justice Jackson at the Nurenberg Trials and to Prose–
cutor Hausner in the preparation of the case against Eichmann,
that there are some eight monographs in Yiddish and in Hebrew
on the discussions of the Councils' leaders with left-wing Zionists
and with Socialists, and that in these discussions the liveliest
dif–
ferences of class and political viewpoint were reflected. Now I have
not been able to examine these monographs myself; they are yet
to be translated. But I have it again on the authority of Dr. Robin–
son that in these discussions, outright defiance of the Nazis was
proposed by more than one political group. What arguments were
given then by the Council leaders, one would like to know, in
favor of their own continued collaboration? Now I, for one, am
not at all sure that the arguments for collaboration might not have
been more logical and might not have held out more hope for
survival than the arguments for resistance, armed or otherwise.
The Jewish leaders of the Councils might have argued, for instance,
that immediate resistance would be met with immediate destruction,
and that collaboration with the Nazis at least held out the hope that
the war might be terminated before Eichmann could complete his
·program. How could this argument have been met, one wonders,
given the circumstances? And there is this ironical fact to be con-
