Nitzotz: The Spark of Resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp

8. Nitzotz, Issue 6 (41) (1945)

126 8 Nitzotz, Issue6(41)(1945) Nr 6 (41) Nitzotz Mouthpiece of the Fifth Year Association of National Erev Pesach Youth in Kaufering 5705 [1945] Concentration Camp Our hope is not yet lost . . . In Light of the New Reality Lately, as the community in the camp has reawakened, discussions have centered on the future of our nation and the future of the Zionist movement. Articles have been published on this topic in Nitzotz. Differences of opinion regarding the future of the nation have occasionally given rise to heated arguments. There was always hope and optimism concerning the land of Israel, lest our members would despair and give up. Shut off from the rest of the world, we surveyed the political situation of the She’erit Hapletah. We had no access to crucial news about the internal development of the movement or the diplomatic activity among the leaders of the nations. Given the scarcity of news about the land and about prospects for the national movement, it was not yet possible to identify decisive changes on this issue. We were accustomed to Russia’s negative stance, as well as England’s skepticism, which stemmed from its link with the Arab world. In our hearts, we could not believe that extensive changes had occurred among the superpowers as a result of decisions made at the Yalta conference;1 we could not comprehend the magnitude of the value shift in international politics. The politics of hesitancy has ended and the powers have decided to resolve the dispute not by sword, but Nitzotz, Issue 6 (41) (1945) . 127 nonviolently—not by compromise, but by radical examination—in order to ensure peace and forestall insurrection after the war. This new situation has arisen because two worldviews, two periods in our history, are converging and are struggling to avert a clash. In a time of generational transition, petty matters are disregarded and all problems are approached with magnanimity. And therefore we were inevitably bewildered by the latest news, which concerned the invitation of the representative of the Yishuv to the San Francisco Conference, the likely relinquishment of the mandate by England, and the solution of the Palestine question by means of an international conference.2 Today is a historic moment. The attempt at the summit to integrate capitalism and socialism must resolve the Jewish question, for both political and moral reasons. First, it seems necessary to reach a decision about the land of Israel in light of the mounting pan-Arab aspirations, and that can only be achieved openhandedly: by France and Italy relinquishing Syria, Lebanon, and Libya to the pan-Arab union on the one hand, and by withdrawing Palestine from the pan-Arab union on the other. Here, one should emphasize the likelihood of England—which has ties to the Arab world—turning over the mandate, as well as the influence of the United States on behalf of the creation of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel. It seems that the Soviet Union is not opposed to the establishment of such a center, which, given its social structure, would not be hostile to Moscow. As for the United States, the creation of a Jewish center in the land of Israel would be strategically useful for the imperialist politics that it began to conduct with the conquest of Northern and Western Africa. Morally, the creation of a Hebrew state can be viewed as a sort of reparation on the part of the civilized world to our nation for the millions of our people who were slaughtered in vain on European soil. As for the various difficulties involving the national minorities, the Arab community, there is no doubt that they will be resolved by means of an exchange of the national minorities, because it has been universally demonstrated that the postwar world will also be built on that basis. This is our predicament before the San Francisco Conference. We do not yet conclusively know how the Jewish question and the issue of Eretz Israel will be handled there, but the invitation of a representative from the World Jewish Congress3 and from the Eretz-Israel community already implies a recognition 128 . Nitzotz of the Jewish people as a nation and of the community as a political center in the land of Israel. Fifty years after the appearance of The Jewish State,4 the Zionist movement is about to arrive at the fulfillment of...