3 1S64
Vi>l. XLlI—No. 18
Publication Offlrc 1(11 No. 1 Oliiuha, Nebraska, I'flurio .'J i'J-
Center Activities for Everyone For further information on (lie following activities and programs rail the Jewish Coininiinily Center's Activities Office, 3-12-1366. LSKAICL INFOKMATION KITS POPULAR A new packet of specially prepared inforniiition. bulletins and pamphlets on Israel is now being offered free to students and adults by the Jewish Community Center. Answering the question, "What should I know about Israel?1' the free kits include maps, brochures and booklets on all aspects of Israel from the form of government and political organization to the economy and geography of the country. The free kits may be ordered by calling the Center's Activities Office. . COLLKGK MATI;KIAL.S PKKPAKEI)
"A College Finder," "Facts About Colleges," "Choosing a College," and "What Will College Be Like?" are publications available to parents and high school students through the Center's High School Counseling Service. The booklets are available tree upon request and supplement other advisory services that include testing and counseling plus up-to-date libraries and files of college information. *•
*•*
*•
CIIILimKN'S THEATKIt KKING PLANNED Girls and boys interested in acting will have an opportunity to develop their talents in a new Children's Theater sponsored by the Center starting in late January, it was announced. Sunday afternoon rehearsals are being planned for the group, to be under the supervision of an experienced director. Boys and girls interested in participating in the new activity are requested to call the Center so that they might be notified of rehearsal and tryout schedules. The Children's Theater rounds out the Center's complete 'dramatic program which includes the Resident Theater for adults and the Suitcase Theater for junior high and high school students. >. ' </ OVEK 15 IN TIIKEEI'KNNY CAST We aie particularly pleased with the cast we were able to obtain for the Threepenny Opera, Al DiMauro, Director of the Center's Resident Theater, commented. Rehearsals start January 7 for an e a r l y March presentation, Mary Levine will direct the music, Mrs. Harold Clifford will design the sets and costumes, Emaleen Skinner will direct the choreography, while a crew of seven will handle sets and lighting. Members of the cast include Robert Halm, Richard Boyd. David Gallner. Louise Filbert, Crystal Kent, Joan Daxon and Dorothy Davitt. Others in the cast are Dick Mueller, David Gibson, Terry Mollner, Lester Corbin, Roni Machski, Carol Locks, Miriam Boyd and Joy Shun. Tickets for the popular musical, to be presented in Omaha for the first time, are to go on sale shortly, DiMauro said. * ' * CHILDREN'S GROUPS MEET SUNDAY The Center sponsored Tropical Fish Club and the Science Club for grade school and junior high school youths will meet this Sunday at 2:,'!0 p.m. at the Center. Other children's clubs being planned include a Coin Club, Photo Club, Model Car Club and Crafts Club. Children may enroll in any of the free center groups by calling the Activities Office. * * * CHILDREN LEARN TO SWIM NOW FOR SUMMER Now is the time for children to learn how to swim for summer vacation, day camping and camping, Barton Greenberg, the Center's Swim Chair/nan, stated this week. Convenient after school hours, 4:15 to 5:15 weekdays, and special classes for campfire girls, girl scouts and boys scouts are provided in the Center instructional schedule. . More children learn how to swim at the Center, Greenberg commented, than at any other pool in Omaha. Adult certified and experienced instructors supervise all classes he said, with the entire swimming program being under the supervision of Joseph Micek, Center swim director. The Center was recently commended by the National Safety Congress and the National Recreation Association for its outstanding job in promoting water safety and instruction, preenberg concluded. , Classes for adults and recreational swimming periods are also scheduled. . . .
*
i-
#
EVENTS SLATED FOR UNIVERSITY CLUB A full schedule of activities and events have been planned for collegiates and young adults under sponsorship of the Center's University Club. Three events are being planned for January starting with a social event January 12, Jerry Schwartz, Club coordinator mentioned. A regular news bulletin plus several cultural events and community service projects are being planned by the group. t*
2
V
I9M CHEAT DECISION KITS.FOR SALE A kit of special information on major foreign policy considerations is available through the Center. The kit, costing $1.50, is prepared by the Foreign Policy Association and includes such topics as World Communism Today, France and the West, Egypt and the Middle East, Disarmament, Castro's Cuba, Indonesia, Foreign Aid and Ideological Warfare. . The information, not available currently in books, will be supplemented by weekly TV shows in February and March sponsored locally by the Omaha Adult Education Council. Only a limited number of kits arc available.
..A, FICIDAV, JANUARY 3, JflOt
Hctoilfl dnss Posl/t;;e l'ulli at Omalia, Nebr.
Single ropy 10 Cents Annual Kale 4 Dullars
THa! A r a c b e | Federation Libraryl ' tesfiwl!z ' « ™ AttenlioB FRANKFURT (JTA)—West Germany's biggest war crime trial
ADVENTURE IN FKEICDOM by Oscar Handlin Three hundred years ago, in 1C54, the first Jews to settle in America landed in New Amsterdam. In this significant year of the American Jewish Tercentanary celebration, Oscar Iiandlin. a distinguished writer ;ind Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, has written a vivid narrative history of three centuries of Jewish Life in America. The early Jewish Settlers, mostly of Spanish and then of German origin, found their adjustment to the New World relatively simple. Jews fought on both sides of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars; joined the westward migration, often as peddlers and shopkeepers; made steady social and economic gains in all parts of the land; and generally met the challenge of their newfound freedom by growing themselves and contributing steadily to the growth of America. Professor Handlin outlines the scope of the Jewish contribution to every important phase of American life. Without ever allowing the flow of his powerful narrative to falter, he vjvidiy depicts the thrce-huntlred-year story of the American Jewish experience, truly an "Adventure in Freedom." OTHERS WORTH READING OUK JEWISH FARMKHS by Gabriel Davidson. THF. WRITING OF AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY edited by Moshe Davis and Isidore S. Meyer. COMMENTARY ON T »K AMERICAN SCENE edited by Elliot E. Cohen. . JUDAISM UNDER F R E E DOM by Ira Eisenstcin. THE POLITICAL BEHAVIOR OF AMERICAN JEWS by Lawence Fuchs. JEWISH PIONEEUS AND PATRO1TS by Lee M. Friedman. AMERICAN O V E B T l ! K K: JEWISH RIGHTS IN COLONIAL TIMES by Abram Vosson Goodman. THE JEWS IN AMERICA: A History by Rufus Learsi. GENERATION OF DECISION by Sol Liptzin. HISTORY OF.THE JEWS IN AMERICA by Deborah Pessin. THE JEWS: SOCIAL PATTERNS OF AN AMERICAN GROUP by Marshall Sklare, HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN THE UNITED STATES by lUibbi Lee J. Levinger. ESSAYS IN A M E R I C A N JEWISH HISTORY by Jacob Rader Marcus. A J E W I S H TOURIST'S GUIDE TO THE UNITED STATES by Bernard Postal & Lionel Koppman.
since the immediate postwar era is in recess this week, after having opened Friday.^ t h e trial, in which 22 former officials and guards at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death factory are charged with murder and complicity in murder of at least 4,000,000 men, women and children—most of the victims being Jews—was resumed December 30. On that dnte, as on the opening day of the proceeding, the accused were given an opportunity to tell their personal histories. After January G, according to the schedule set up today, the specific charges will.be detailed against each of the prisoners. Court sessions will be held three days a week. Television, newsreel and still cameras clicked and ground under hot lights as the trial opened Friday. Several of the defendants wore dark glasses. One of them, Herbert Scherepe, 56, now a butcher, tried to hide his face behind a book. Dr. Franz Lucas, a gynecologist charged with being an accessory to murder, failed to appear. His attorney said he was ill and in bed. Presiding Judge Hans Hofmeyer ordered that Lucas be tried separately. The press section in the court room was filled with representatives of various news media. However, the section reserved for the public—with only GO seats—was partly empty. Fifteen persons, relatives of victims murdered in Auschwitz or in satellite camps from 1941 to 1045, were represented. Among the 15, representing 11 nations, were three Israelis. At the initial session, three of the defendants were called on to give details about their personal lives before and during their Nazi service. They were Robert Mulke, (iU, adjutant to the first Auschwitz commandant, Rudolf Hoess, who was hanged by the Poles; Karl Hoecker, 52, adjutant to Richard Baer, the last Auschwitz commandant, who died in a Frankfurt jail last June awaiting trial; and Wilhclm Boger, 57, an SS lieutenant in Auschwitz accused of personally murdering more than J00 inmates. Mulke was on the verge of tears as he told his life story and his voice cracked with emotion several times but it was not for the millions of innocent lives sacrificed at Auschwitz. His eyes began to water when he related that, after leaving Auschwitz and returning to Hamburg, the big seaport was raided by British bombers. He described the devastated city as lying "in rubble and ashes; 70,000 women and children were killed." In a tremulous voice, he added that lit- "did my best to help in the salvage work.'' However, whenever judge Hofmeyer asked him about his activities in Auschwitz, the defendant was impassive. The 22 defendants were seen as a strange lot, pleasant-looking men who represent a healthy, in some cases overly prosperous cross-section of West German citizenry. All are doting family men, presumably good and kindly fathers who have devoted their lives to earning a living and bettering the lot of their children. But in each man's background there is a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde existence—the time when they worked on the arrival ramp at Birkenau, or dropped ZyklonB poison gas into the Auschwitz gas chambers, or mercilessly shot inmates in front of the black wall between Cellblocks 10 and 11, from 1941 to 1945. Only one of the defendants—Wilhelm Boger, 57—seemed unmoved and still fanatically loyal to the inhuman system he served for 10 years. Cocky and self-assured, he answered with a proud "yes" when Judge Hofmeyer asked him whether it was true he had joined the Nazi youth movement in 1922. He boasted that, in 192!), he became a member of the SS, the Hitler Elite Guard of sadists and murderers. One year later, he said in a ringing voice, "I became a member of the SS. My serial number is one of the lowest—2779. I was an oldtimer." . . Boger, who is on trial for some of the most serious charges in the case, told how he escaped from the transport of Nazi war criminals en route to trial in Poland. "God and luck were on my side." he said. Afterward, lie returned to a little village near Stuttgart where his family lived. There he managed to go undetected by not applying for the identity card which all German citizens must have. "I did not need a card," he testified. "Everybody knew me and anyway knew what I had done in the war. The police knew who I was, the Mayor knew. I didn't need an identity card. Nobody would have thought of turning me over to the Poles or the occupation authorities."
A J Committee-Hebrew U Launch Study
Israel Orders Gut in Army Service J e r u s a l e m (JTA)—Israel ordered this week r e d u c t i o n of army service under the country's draft law, lessening the period of service for both male and female draftees by four months. Prime Minister Levl Eshkol informed the Knesset, Parliament, of the new regulations t o d a y , noting that the changes have been approved by the Cabinet after recommendations by the army's general staff. No legislation on the issue was required, the change being effected through an Administrative order. Men to be called up during May 19G4, or thereafter, Mr. Eshkol said, will s e r v e 26 months, instead of 30 months as heretofore.
Left to right: Dr. John Slawson, American Jewish Committee director; Eliahu Elath, Hebreir University president; and Theodore Tannenwald. Jr., AJC Israel Committee chairman, announced a Joint research project on attitudes of Israeli youth toward their Jetrislinc.su and Jews outsid* of Israel. Elath was honored at the Committee's Institute of HlUMS Relations in New York City. December 9-
J