To the Editor:
I cannot let Samuel Gringauz’s article on “Our New German Policy and the DP’s” in the June COMMENTARY pass without protest. For those Americans who have no direct experience of the German situation today, the conclusion to be drawn from reading the article is that all Germans have a “bestial hatred of Jews,” a hatred which is still on the increase.
I am sure that few of the Jews working in our military government and fewer still of those who have returned to Germany to teach or do other work will agree. I know personally several in both categories who have won considerable affection among the German population and found no hostility whatever. The number of Jewish service men who have applied for permission to marry German girls is not wholly without significance, although some would attribute purely opportunistic motives to the girls. It has become proverbial in denazification trials that every defendant Nazi can produce at least one letter from a Jewish refugee testifying that he (the Nazi) had proved a friend in need during the time of persecution. I have had to read too many such letters written by Jews in the past three years from all over the world, to believe that all Germans, not to mention all Nazis, possessed a bestial hatred of Jews, now or during the Third Reich.
This does not, of course, mitigate the unspeakable crimes perpetrated against the Jews by the German Nazi government, for which the German people bear responsibility, nor does it explain away the anti-Semitic feelings in Germany now. It is, however, a denial that such feelings are (or were) common to the whole population or even to a majority.
Moreover, such statements as the following I find indefensible: “Thousands of war criminals and murderers of Jews are living in Germany, free and undisturbed; none of them is ever caught, except when accidentally recognized by a victim.” Few of us would defend the job our occupation officials have done in its entirety, but, on the other hand, few objective observers will claim that they have been negligent in searching out and punishing war criminals and murderers of Jews.
The article breathes a hatred and bitterness which are easily understandable, but which play havoc with the writer’s attempt to give an objective picture of the German situation.
J. Glenn Gray
Haverford, Pennsylvania
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