Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0114/01149.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01149}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945, The
Chapter XII: Discovering the 'Final Solution' - Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Various}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{jews
war
jewish
polish
allied
leaders
german
government
london
sent}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Title:       Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945, The
Author:      Various
Date:        1987

Chapter XII: Discovering the "Final Solution" - Part I

Moderator:  Marvin Kalb (USA):  Television journalist.

John W. Pehle (USA):  Former executive director of War Refugee Board.

Prof.  Jan Karski (USA):  Professor of political science, Georgetown
University; courier for Polish government-in-exile during World War II.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Vassily Yakovlevich Petrenko (USSR):  Commander of Soviet
troops that liberated Auschwitz.

Robert Wolfe (USA):  Archivist and historian; chief, Modern Military Branch,
U.S. National Archives.

Institutional identifications are those at the time of the Conference.

Marvin Kalb

     This is the concluding panel of the International Liberators Conference.
It is called Discovering the Final Solution.  In a way for all of us in the
last two or three days, this could be regarded as a culmination point.

     Late yesterday I met an American participant in this conference, neither
a survivor of the camps nor a liberator.  He had spent most of the day here,
not all of it.  It was too painful, he explained.  Then after a moment he
said, "It made me think back.  Where was I during 1942, 1943? What did I know?
What did I do?" He shook his head and again there was a look of pain, perhaps
some embarrassment, that passed through his eyes.  He went on, "I kept
thinking that I must have known.  I must have read stories in the paper, but I
don't remember."

     Sometimes we don't remember, those of us who were on the fringes of this
mass murder.  We don't remember what we cannot accept.  A British journalist,
on entering one of the camps, said, "It is my duty to describe something that
is beyond the imagination of mankind."

     When one of our panelists, Professor Jan Karski, briefed Justice Felix
Frankfurter in late 1942 about the massacre of Jews in Poland, the
distinguished jurist said, "I can't believe you."  The Polish friend with
Karski told Frankfurter that Karski was telling the truth.  Frankfurter
answered, "I did not say this young man is lying.  I said I cannot believe
him.  There is a difference."

     It pushes the writer's ability, the speaker's eloquence, the witness'
testimony, the listener's credulity, beyond what is natural, beyond the
outermost limits of tolerance to absorb the enormity of the crime and, at the
same time, the simplicity of the fact.  Six million Jews were killed during
World War II.

     Senator Howard Baker, during the Watergate hearings here in Washington
several years ago, used to raise two basic questions about the President's
knowledge of the famous break-in.  What did he know, and when did he know it?
If I may take the prerogative of moderator in this panel and paraphrase the
Senator - What did the world know about the Holocaust, and when did it know
it?

John Pehle

     Discovering the Final Solution.  I can only tell this audience how the
enormity of this tragedy came home to me and my colleagues in the United
States Treasury Department.

     In 1943, I was serving as assistant to Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau and as director of the Foreign Funds Control.  This agency had the
responsibility of controlling the assets in the United States of persons and
institutions in enemy-occupied countries.  It also had the responsibility of
passing on people's communications within enemy-occupied territory.

     It was our policy to deny all the applications for communications with
the territory.  This rigid policy, I think, can be likened to the Allies'
position on unconditional surrender.  It was a black-and-white sort of
decision.  But in due course, some of the Jewish relief organizations came to
us and said they needed desperately to be able to communicate with their
people in occupied France who were assisting Jews who were fleeing over the
mountains into Spain where they were welcomed by the Spanish people.  They
needed the right to communicate with their agents, and this could only be done
through State Department channels.  They needed a license from us to do it.

     So after some soul-searching, we granted such licenses, and we discovered
after a period that none of these communications was going forward.

     When we asked some of our sympathetic friends in the State Department
concerning the State Department policy which seemed to be blocking these
communications, we were supplied with a cable recently received from the
United States legation in Switzerland, which was sent on behalf of one of the
Jewish relief organizations.

     This cable described the wholesale murder of Jews by the Germans.  The
Minister went on to say in the cable that he was sending us information
despite the instructions he had received previously from the State Department
not to forward such information for Jewish relief organizations except in the
case of emergency, and that the reports were so grave that he felt he should
send it anyway.

     When Secretary Morgenthau asked the State Department for a copy of the
cable that had previously been sent saying not to allow your facilities to be
used for this purpose, he was furnished with a cable from which these
instructions had been deleted.

     Obviously, the State Department was not prepared to defend its censorship
edict.  These were the series of events that first brought to the attention of
a group of us from the Treasury Department what was happening in Europe to the
Jews and what was being kept from the American people.

     When Secretary Morgenthau, Randolph Paul, who was General Counsel at the
Treasury, and I met with President Roosevelt at a special meeting one Sunday
afternoon, we brought these facts forcibly to the President's attention.  He
directed us to take immediate action in remedying the situation.  The Treasury
staff prepared and the President signed an Executive Order, number 9417,
establishing the War Refugee Board.  This Board consisted of the Secretary of
State, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of War.  I was made
executive director.  This was on January 2, 1944.  It was very late to attempt
to carry out the assignment we had been given.

     One essential thing that the establishment of the Board and the Executive
Order establishing it did, was that, overnight, it changed the policy of the
United States government from one of indifference to one of affirmative action
to aid the war refugees.  The Executive Order stated the new policy in precise
language.  "It is the policy of this government to take all measures within
its power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger
of death and to afford such victims all possible relief and assistance
consistent with the successful prosecution of the war."

     The War Refugee Board was given tools to carry out its assignment.  We
were given money from the President's confidential funds.  We fought for the
right to have representatives abroad with diplomatic status, and were able to
place representatives in Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Sweden, and London.  I
cannot say that the War Refugee Board accomplished any miracles, but it was
not for lack of trying.

     Our representative in Sweden, Iver Olsen, was instrumental in the
appointment by the Swedish government of Raoul Wallenberg as its diplomatic
representative in Hungary, and War Refugee Board funds helped finance
Wallenberg courageous and successful intervention in Hungary on behalf of Jews
who had been sentenced to death.

     We assisted the private relief agencies in their work.  We convinced most
Latin American Governments not to disavow passports which their
representatives in Europe had issued without authority, which resulted in a
special camp being established by the Germans for people who held such
passports, many of whose lives were saved.  But by and large, I am afraid that
the American effort to save the oppressed people of Europe was too little and
too late.

     With reference to what Marvin Kalb said about the difficulty of accepting
the existence of the Holocaust, one experience I had highlights this
difficulty.  In the Spring of 1944, the War Refugee Board received two
eyewitness accounts of what was happening in the German death camps.  We felt
that these were detailed accounts that explained exactly what was happening
and how it was happening, and we felt that these documents should put to rest
any remaining doubts about the execution of Hitler's program.

     We duplicated these reports and released them with the War Refugee Board
imprimatur with a one-week release date so that the press would have a chance
to digest the reports and write their stories.  I recall the next day I
received a telephone call from Elmer Davis, who was director of the Office of
War Information.  Elmer Davis was a well known and respected liberal
journalist.  He asked me to withdraw the release.  I was astounded by his
reaction, so 1 went to his office and talked to him and his staff.

     They felt that no one would believe what we were saying and that,
therefore, they would tend to disbelieve other statements made by the Office
of War Information relating to the war effort.  They referred to the Belgian
atrocity stories in World War I, some of which turned out to be false.  In any
event, we did not withdraw the release and the facts were printed in detail in
The New York Times and in many national publications. I only refer to this
incident to add some evidence of the reluctance of the human mind to accept
the existence of the so-called Final Solution.

     Finally, I tend to be an optimist.  I believe that knowledge of the
Holocaust can help prevent future genocides.  While the War Refugee Board,
despite all its struggles, was only able to bring 1,000 refugees to the United
States outside immigration quotas, since then hundreds of thousands of
refugees from all over the world have been welcomed to the United States.

     We can only pray that the world in some ways, at least, is improving.

Jan Karski

     I appreciate having been invited to this conference.  It is my duty to
participate.

     The subject "Discovering the Final Solution" requires consideration of
the following questions:

     1) What and when did the western leaders as well as western public
opinion learn about the Jewish tragedy?

     2) In what way did the information reach them?

3) What was the reaction?  According to evidence?

     I, among many, did play a part in this story, and my usefulness to this
conference lies in reporting on it for the record.

     In the middle of the Summer 1942, I received a message from the delegate
of the Polish government in exile for the homeland, Cyril Ratajski, that he
approved of my request to be sent secretly to London as a courier for the
leaders of political parties organized in the Central Political Committee, and
for the delegate himself.  The coming expedition was to be my fourth secret
trip between Warsaw, Paris, and London.

     Sometime in September 1942, the delegate informed me that the leaders of
two Jewish underground organizations, the Socialist Bund and the Zionists,
learned about my mission and requested permission to use my services for their
own communications to their representatives in London, to the Polish
government, and to the Allied authorities.  The delegate was sympathetic and I
agreed.

     Soon after, I met the two Jewish leaders on two occasions.  They met me
jointly to emphasize that their communications were on behalf of all Polish
Jews regardless of their political differences.  They identified themselves by
their functions (naturally, no names).  All postwar literature identifies
then, as Leon Feiner (Bund leader) and Adolf Berman (Zionist).  For the
record, I must add that Walter Laqueur, in his recently published book, The
Terrible Secret, suggests that the Zionist leader might have been Menachem
Kirschenbaum.

     The Jewish leaders sent through me various messages, instructions, and
appeals to various quarters.  All of them you will find in Laqueur's book as
well as in a multitude of other books dealing with World War II, my own book
and articles published during the war included.

     Because of time limitations, I selected only those which directly pertain
to the subject under discussion.  Some other important ones I shall
regretfully ignore.

     The message given to me to relay to the Polish and Allied governments is
as follows:

     The unprecedented destruction of the entire Jewish population is not
motivated by Germany's military requirements.  Hitler and his subordinates aim
at the total destruction of the Jews before the war ends and regardless of its
outcome.  The Polish and Allied governments cannot disregard this reality.
The Jews in Poland are helpless.  They have no country of their own.  They
have no independent voice in the Allied councils.  They cannot rely on the
Polish underground or population-at-large.  They might save some individuals -
they are unable to stop the extermination.  Only the powerful Allied
governments can help effectively.  The Polish Jews appeal to the Polish and
Allied governments to undertake measures in an attempt to stop the
extermination.  They place historical responsibility on the Polish and Allied
governments if they fail to undertake those measures.

     1.  A public announcement that prevention of the physical extermination
of the Jews become a part of the overall Allied war strategy, at the same time
informing the German nation through radio, air-dropped leaflets, and other
means about their government's crimes committed against the Jews.

     2.  All available data on the Jewish ghettos; concentration and
extermination camps; names of the German officials directly involved in the
crimes; statistics; facts and methods used should be spelled out.  And public
and formal demand for evidence that such a pressure has been exercised and
Nazi practices directed against the Jews stopped.

     3.  Public and formal appeals to the German people to exercise pressure
on their government to make it stop the exterminations.

     4.  Placing the responsibility on the German nation as a whole if they
fail to respond and if the extermination continues.

     5.  Public and formal announcement that, in view of the unprecedented
Nazi crimes against the Jews and in hope that those crimes would stop, the
Allied governments were to take unprecedented steps.

     These steps would include:

     1.  Certain areas and objects in Germany would be bombed in retaliation.
The German people would be informed before and after each action that the
Nazis' continued extermination of the Jews prompted the bombing.

     2.  Certain German war prisoners who, having been informed about their
government's crimes, and who still profess solidarity with and allegiance to
the Nazis, would be held responsible for the crimes committed against the Jews
as long as those crimes continued.

     3.  Certain German nationals living in the Allied countries who, having
been informed about the crimes committed against the Jews and who still
profess solidarity with the Nazi government, would be held responsible for
those crimes.

     4.  Jewish leaders in London, particularly Szmul Zygelbojm (Bund) and Dr.
Ignace Szwarcbard (Zionist), are solemnly charged to make all efforts so as to
make the Polish government formally forward these demands at the Allied
councils.

     Now I shall talk about my mission to the President of the Polish Republic
(Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz).  My message to him included the following comments:

     Many among those who directly or indirectly contribute to the Jewish
tragedy profess their Catholic faith.  The Polish and other European Jews sent
to Poland feel entitled on humanitarian and spiritual grounds to expect
protection of the Vatican.  Religious sanctions, excommunication included, are
within the Pope's jurisdiction.  Such sanctions, publicly proclaimed, might
have an impact on the German people.  They might even make Hitler a baptized
Catholic, reflect.

     Because of the nature of this message and the source it came from, as
well as because of diplomatic protocol requirements, I was instructed to
deliver the message to the President of the Republic only.  They wanted him to
use his conscience and wisdom in approaching the Pope.  I was explicitly
forbidden to discuss that subject with the Jewish leaders.  Their possible
maladroit intervention might be counterproductive.

     The message to the Prime Minister and Commander in Chief (General
Wladyslaw Sikorski), Minister of Interior (Stanislaw Mikolajczyk), Zygelbojm,
and Szwarcbard was as follows:

     Although the Polish people at large sympathize or try to help the Jews,
many Polish criminals blackmail, rob, denounce, or murder the Jews in hiding.
The underground authorities must apply punitive sanctions against them,
executions included.  In the last case, the identity of the guilty ones and
the nature of their crimes should be publicized in the underground press.

     Zygelbojm and Szwarcbard must use all their pressure so that pertinent
instructions would be issued.

     In order to avoid any risk of anti-Polish propaganda, I was explicitly
forbidden to discuss that subject with any non-Polish Jewish leaders.  I was
to inform Zygelbojm and Szwarcbard about that part of my instructions.

     The message to the Allied individual government/civic leaders as well as
to international Jewish leaders was as follows:

     There is a possibility to save some Jews if money were available.  The
Gestapo is corrupted not only on the low level, but also on the medium and
even high level.  They would cooperate for gold or hard currency.  The Jewish
leaders are able to make appropriate contacts.

     Some Jews might be allowed to leave Poland semiofficially in exchange for
gold, dollars, or delivery of certain goods.

     Some Jews would be allowed to leave Poland provided they have original
foreign passports.  Origins of those passports are unimportant.  As large a
supply of such passports as possible should be sent.  They must be blank.
Forged names, identification, data, etc., would be overlooked by the German
authorities - for money, of course.

     Provisions must be made that those Jews who do succeed in leaving Poland
would be accepted by the Allied or neutral countries.

     Some Jews of non-Semitic appearance could leave the ghettos, obtain false
German documents, and live among other Poles under assumed names.

     Money to bribe the ghetto's guards and various officials as well as
subsistence funds are needed.

     Many Christian families would agree to hide the Jews in their homes. But
they risk instant execution if discovered by the Germans.  All of them are in
dire need themselves.  Money is needed, at least for subsistence.

     Money, medicines, food, and clothing are most urgently needed by the
survivors in the ghettos.  Subsidies obtained from the delegate of the Polish
government as well as other funds sent through various channels by the Jewish
international organizations are totally insufficient.  More hard currency,
sent without any delay, is a question of life or death for thousands of Jews.

     In addition to all the messages I was to carry, both Jewish leaders
solemnly committed me to do my utmost in arousing the public opinion in the
free world on behalf of the Jews.  I solemnly swore that, should I arrive
safely in London, I would not fail them.

     At the end of the second meeting, the Bund leader confronted me with the
following.  He knew the English people.  My report might seem incredible. My
mission would be enhanced if I were able to say that I witnessed the Jewish
tragedy.  The Jewish underground does have some contacts, even with Gestapo.
They are able to smuggle me to the Warsaw Ghetto.  They are even able to
smuggle me - in disguise - to the Belzec camp.  In the Ghetto, he himself,
would be my guide.  In Belzec a Nazi official would take care of my
expedition.  Both trips are dangerous, but they are feasible.  He has no right
to ask me to undertake them.  But, he said, "Witold, (my pseudonym at the
time), I know much about you and your work.  Who knows - perhaps you will
volunteer to help our Jewish cause."  I agreed.

     I visited the Jewish Ghetto twice in the middle of October 1942.  A few
days later, I visited Belzec.  All three trips proved successful.  These trips
became the last items in collecting data, messages, instructions, and
complaints of various political leaders in the underground.  Two or three days
later, I embarked on my secret journey to London.

     Again, my trip was successful.  This fourth secret mission between Paris,
London, and Warsaw lasted 21 days: Warsaw - Berlin - Brussels - Paris - Lyon -
Perpignan - Pyrenees Mountains on foot - Barcelona - Madrid - Algeciras -
Gibraltar.  In Gibraltar I had a ceremonious dinner with the Governor and a
good night's sleep.  The next day a plane was waiting.

     In the last week of November 1942, I already began reporting in London.
Now one must realize that my Jewish reports were only a part of my overall
mission.  In addition, I was supposed to go back to Poland on my fifth
mission.  The Polish Prime Minister's office, which organized all of my
contacts, asked every individual I had been sent to not to identify me
publicly.

     As to my Jewish materials, I was not the only informant.  Since 1941,
secret radio contacts with London functioned.  Coded data on the Jewish
ghettos, deportations, and extermination had been regularly transmitted from
Poland to London for information and public distribution.  Most of the
messages, however, were considered as lacking credibility.  The head of the
secret radio service, throughout the entire war, was Stefan Korbonski, who was
eventually the last head of the Polish underground state.

     To whom did I report the Jewish material in England during the period
November 1942-June 1943?  Because of time constraints, I give here only the
most important personalities.

     1) The Poles:  All government and political leaders; Liaison to Cardinal
Hlond (at the time residing in the Vatican):  Monsignor Kacynski; Jewish
leaders:  Zygelbojm (Bund); Szwarcbard (Zionists); Grosfeld (Socialist).

     2) The English:  four members of the War Cabinet:  Anthony Eden, Foreign
Secretary; Arthur Greenwood, Labor Party; Lord Cranborne, Conservative Party;
Hugh Dalton, President of the Board of Trade.

     I also talked with Lord Selbourne, War Office, European underground
resistance; Miss Ellen Wilkinson, Labor, Member of Parliament; William
Henderson, Labor Party leader, Member of Parliament; Owen O'Malley, British
ambassador to the Polish government; Anthony D. Biddle, American ambassador to
the Polish government; and Sir Cecil Hurst, chairman of the United Nations War
Crime Commission.

     I pressed for and did contact several nongovernment English
personalities:  H.G. Wells, world-known author; Arthur Koestler, world-known
author; Victor Gollancz, Penguin publishing firm:  Allen Lane, Penguin;
Kingsley Martin, editor-in-chief, New Statesman and Nation, Ronald Hyde,
editor, Evening Standard, and Gerard Berry, editor, News Chronicle.

     Actions resulting from my mission and, no doubt, other reports are as
follows:

     1) On December 7, 1942, two weeks after I began reporting, the Polish
National Council passed a resolution dealing with the Jewish extermination and
committing the government to act without any delay.

     2) Three days later, on December l0, 1942, the Polish government issued a
formal appeal to the Allied governments concerning the extermination of the
Jews in Poland.

     3) On December 17, 1942, the Allied Council (which included
representatives of all Allied governments) unanimously passed a public Appeal
of the Allied Nations on behalf of the Jews.

     4) Two days later, on December 19, 1942, the President of the Polish
Republic sent a note to Pope Pius XII asking for intervention on behalf of the
Jews.

     5) Then, one month later, on January 18, 1943, the Polish Foreign
Minister, Edward Raczynski, presented his government's demands on behalf of
the Polish Jews at the Allied Nations' Council.  They asked for the bombing of
Germany as reprisals for the continued extermination of the Jews, the
forwarding of demands to Berlin to let the Jews out of the German-dominated
countries, and action as to make the Allied as well as neutral countries
accept the Jews who succeeded or would succeed in leaving the German-
dominated countries.

     He did not advance demands for reprisals against German war prisoners and
German nationals living in the Allied countries, considering them contrary to
the acceptable practices of international relations.

     British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, in the name of His Majesty's
government, rejected all demands, offering vague promises to intervene in some
neutral countries.

     Beginning in March 1943, secret executions of the Polish hoodlums who
acted against the Jews were carried out.  The names of the criminals and the
nature of their crimes were publicized in the underground press.

     The Directorate of the Civil Resistance which organized Underground
courts had been established already in 1942.  It was headed again by
Korbonski.  Last April - 36 years after the war ended - he was decorated by
the Israeli ambassador with a Yad Vashem Medal for the Righteous Among the
Nations.

     In early 1943, numerous articles based on my information appeared in the
British press.  Public demonstrations had been organized.  In May 1943, a
pamphlet was published, authored by a prominent Soviet writer, Alexey Tolstoy;
German writer Thomas Mann; and myself (described as a "Polish Underground
Worker").  The pamphlet was entitled "The Fate of the Jews."

     With regard to my mission in the USA, in June 1943, at the suggestion of
American Ambassador Biddle, I was sent to Washington, still secretly, under a
false name Jan Karski.  I stayed there until August 1943, living on the
premises of the [Polish] embassy.  The Polish Ambassador, Jan Ciechanowski,
supervised my activities and organized my contacts.

     I reported to the following individuals (only the most important will be
mentioned): Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States; Cordell
Hull, Secretary of State; Henry Stimson, Secretary of War; Francis Biddle,
Attorney General; Colonel Donovan, Chief, Office of Strategic Services (055);
Apostolic Delegate, Cardinal Ameleto, Giovanni Cicognani; Archbishop Mooney;
Archbishop Spellman; Archbishop Strich; Dr.  Nahum Goldman, President,
American Jewish Congress; Rabbi Stephen Wise, President, World Jewish
Congress; Waldman, American Jewish Congress; Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the
Supreme Court; and Mr. Backer, Joint Distribution Committee.

     Among the prominent journalists with whom I spoke were:  Mrs. Ogden Reed,
publisher, New York Herald Tribune; Walter Lippmann; George Sokolsky; Leon
Dennen, editor, The American Mercury,' Eugene Lyons; Dorothy Thompson; William
Prescott, The Nets' York Times,' Frederick Kuh, Chicago Sun; and George Creel,
former chief, Office of War Information.

     Upon my return to London, Prime Minister Mikolajczyk informed me that he
would not send me to Poland for the duration of the war.  I had seen too many
people in the United States and I had become too well-known.  The German radio
had mentioned my activities in America, describing me, by the way, as a
"Bolshevik agent on the payroll of American Jews."  Oh, Washingtonians love to
gossip!  My additional shortcoming as he explained were recognizable scars on
my wrists.  In June 1940, on my third secret expedition, I had been captured
by the Gestapo in Czechoslovakia.  Unable to withstand torture, I tried to
commit suicide, cutting my veins with a concealed blade.  It did not work.
Transported to Poland for further interrogation, I had been rescued by the
underground.  But, even after a cosmetic operation, the scars remained.  The
Gestapo certainly had my files and I had become a public figure, Mikolajczyk
argued.

     Two months later, in October 1943, I was sent to the United States - for
the second time but this time openly and again as Karski - to speak, to write,
to report, to inform the public at large openly.

     From October 1943 until the end of the war, I delivered some 200 lectures
in the United States from coast to coast, from Rhode Island to Florida.  In
all of them I spoke about the Jewish tragedy.  Every lecture was reviewed in
the local press.

     Then came my articles on what the Jews demanded, on what I saw in the
Warsaw Ghetto and Belzec.  These were published in Colliers; New York Times;
American Mercury; La France Libre; The Jewish Forum; Common Cause; Herald
Tribune; New Europe; and Harper's Bazaar.  Many of them were illustrated -
several under my personal supervision: "No phony inspiration!  Paint as I am
telling you."  Various exhibitions were organized.

     Then, in 1944, still during the war, I published a book, Story of a
Secret State.  Its central theme was my visits to the Warsaw Ghetto and
Belzec.  The book became a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection.  It was published
simultaneously also in Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, France.

     Many of you at this conference gave testimony on the Jewish Gehenna.
Respect is due to you.  The Lord assigned me a role to speak and write during
the war, when - as it seemed to me - it might help.  It did not.

     For me today, October 28, 1981, the curtain is down.  The theater is
empty.

     Furthermore, when the war came to its end, I learned that the
governments, the leaders, the scholars, the writers did not know what had been
happening to the Jews.  They were taken by surprise.  The murder of six
million innocents was a secret, a "terrible secret" as Laqueur reports.

     Then, I became a Jew like the family of my wife, who is sitting in this
audience - all of them perished in the ghettos, in the concentration camps, in
the gas chambers - so all murdered Jews became my family.

     But I am a Christian Jew.  I am a practicing Catholic.  And, although not
a heretic, still my faith tells me: the second Original Sin had been committed
by humanity: through commission, or omission, or self-imposed ignorance, or
insensitivity, or self-interest, or hypocrisy, or heartless rationalization.

     This sin will haunt humanity to the end of time.

     It does haunt me.  And I want it to be so.