Talk:Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl
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[edit] Comments
The main article calls the payments to the Germans "bribes". "Ransom" is a more appropriate term since the payments were based on negotiated agreements originated by Rabbi Weissmandl, and the Nazi who received them (Wisliceny) apparently got approval from high Nazi officials in Germany. The Germans were apparently willing to stop the transports from Slovakia for $50,000 (now maybe worth $500,000). After much difficulty, Rabbi Weissmandl obtained the funds as a loan and the transports stopped.
The "Europa Plan" was even more ambitious and important, but the down payment to pay ransom to the Germans could not be obtained.
Rabbi Weissmandl was one of the authors of the "Auschwitz Report" - based on Spring 1944 debriefing of two Auschwitz escapees: Wetzler and Rosenberg (later called Vrba). The Report was widely circulated by the Working Group. A Jew of Romanian-Hungarian origin, George Mantello (Mandel Gyuri), in Switzerland publicized it immediately after he received a copy via Budapest in mid-1944 - after start of the Hungarian transports to Auschwitz. This led to an unprecedented Swiss press campaign, street protests and intense, concerned and indignant masses in Swiss churches demanding an immediate stop the Holocaust.
Regretfully major Jewish rescuers like Rabbi Weissmandl, George Mantello, Gizi Fleischmann, Hillel Kook (alias Peter Bergson), Recha Sternbuch and Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld - and major events such as the Swiss grass roots protests were never duly recognized in spite of significant historical evidence, research and numerous history books.
There is much controversy related to rescue and more unbiased historical research is required.
Professor Bauer, for example, who is quoted in the article, in a recent discussion with this comment's author completely denied the rescue efforts of a major Jewish rescuer: Hillel Kook (also known as Peter Bergson during the war). His statement was: "Hillel Kook didn't save anyone!"). This is very disconcerting coming from someone whom many consider THE authority on the Holocaust and from someone who in Israel trained many of today's Holocaust researchers. In contrast, some historians (e.g. in "A Race Against Death" - reference below) credit Hillel Kook and his rescue group with being the key contributors to saving over 200,000 people - due to incessant,inspired and successful activism in the USA which led to establishment of the War Refugee Board which sponsored the Wallenberg mission to Budapest.
In one of his books Prof. Bauer expresses astonishment about an ultra-orthodox man like Rabbi Weissmandl pleading to bomb the rails leading to Auschwitz. It was inconceivable to Prof. Bauer that a very religious Jew like Prof. Weissmandl could even think of a pragmatic and activist plan - at a time when much of the free world was at best apathetic. Books by historians Dr. David Kranzler and Dr. Abraham Fuchs, and testimonies of those who knew Rabbi Weissmandl during the Holocaust present a very different view of Rabbi Weissmandl's achievements than Prof. Bauer.
User LPfeffer
[edit] References
Dr. Abraham Fuchs, The Unheeded Cry (also in Hebrew as "Karati ve ein oneh")
Ben Hecht, Perfidy (also in Hebrew - as Kachas)
Prof. David Kranzler, Thy Brother's Blood
Prof. David Kranzler, The Man who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador's and Switzerland's finest hour
Prof. David Kranzler, Holocaust Hero: Solomon Shoenfeld - The Untold Story of an Extraordinary British Rabbi who Rescued 4000 during the Holocaust
Jenö Lévai, Zsidósors Európában (published in 1948 in Hungarian, about George Mantello and the major Swiss grass roots protests against the Holocaust)
Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, Min HaMetzar (From the Straights), in Hebrew
David Wyman and Rafael Medoff, A Race Against Death - Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust
VERAfilm, "Among Blind Fools" (documentary video)
[1] (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_Kook), Hillel Kook on Wikipeda
[2] (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Yisroel_Eiss), Chaim Yisroel Eiss on Wikipedia
User LPfeffer
- Important note: Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~). Comments made by 85.130.149.42 (talk • contribs) have been edited by Lpfeffer (talk • contribs); okay if the same person, not okay if editing someone else's comments. RadioKirk talk to me 22:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
- Comments were written and edited by LPfeffer (Apr 6, 2006)
[edit] Why I removed POV tag
It is true that Rabbi Weissmandl's actions both spawned controversy (e.g. the refusal of Saly Mayer of the JDC to work with him) and were misinterpreted by others (e.g. Professor Bauer's comment expressing surprise that an Orthodox Jew would suggest bombing Auschwitz railroad lines). But that's no reason to question the neutrality of this article. Instead, let's write up the different takes on Rabbi Weissmandl's activities within the article itself. Don't forget the letter sent to him by Nathan Schwalb, who wrote that the Jews had to pay for the right to settle the Land of Israel with blood, implying that the religious Jews of Europe should die while Zionists should be rescued and sent to Israel. Weissmandl quotes this letter from memory in his book. Since the letter is not extant, it's his word against the Zionist fellow's. But as others testify[3], Weissmandl did have a tremendous memory... Yoninah 14:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Unreliable sources
Zero0000, I've removed the following text from the page:
Weissmandl's own summary of the charges is his Ten Questions to the Zionists. Bauer refutes many of these claims.
because jewsagainstzionism is an unreliable source, and so it cannot be used on Wikipedia. I have no trouble with the content itself, if you can find reliable sources for it. Jayjg (talk) 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
- I dispute that this web site is unreliable for material like this. It is a political polemic site and can be used a source for what that polemic is. Weissmandl is not a third-party here, he was in the same community that this site represents. This document is cited not as a source of facts but as a source for what Weissmandl claimed. So far I have not seen any reasonable argument that this site should be blacklisted altogether. --Zerotalk 23:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] How to write a sentence?
We have a minor dispute over writing "Weissmandl's accusations against the Jewish organizations" (the original wording I used when I started the article) versus "Weissmandl's accusations against the Zionist organizations". I'll explain my choice of words. The particular organizations Weissmandl accused were the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Congress, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint). The first two are obvious Zionist, but the Joint was not Zionist (at least, not officially). So saying "Zionist organizations" is not quite right. I propose to write "Jewish organizations" in this place, but to expand the earlier paragraph where this is mentioned to name the three organizations. Any objections? --Zerotalk 12:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
