Rescued from the Reich : how one of Hitler's soldiers saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe
In September 1939 the head of the Lubavitch hasidic community (also called Habad), Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, was caught in the German occupation of Warsaw. His hasidim in the USA pressed the government to save the Rebbe. At the same time, some Nazi officials, like Canaris and Wohltat, decided that it would serve German interests to allow the Rebbe to leave for America. The Wehrmacht officer Ernst Bloch, a half-Jew, was instrumental in the Rebbe's release. Notes that many high-ranking Nazi officials protected officers who were half-Jews. Bloch was dismissed from his Army post after 20 July 1944, when repression of "Mischlinge" in the military resumed; he was killed in April 1945. Contends that Schneersohn, as well as all of the Habad leadership, failed to understand the urgency of helping the Jews stranded in Europe; he never deplored the lack of U.S. actions in this regard and he shunned any protest actions. Compares his attitude to that of Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who was ready to cooperate even with the Pope if it were possible to save a single Jewish child. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism)
Thesis, Dissertation, English, ©2004
Yale University Press, New Haven, ©2004
dissertations
xvii, 284 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, portraits ; 21 cm
9780300115314, 0300115318
1051016064
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