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n558  0230  18 Jan 81
BC-HOLOCAUST-01-18
    BOOK REVIEW. See SKOKIE companion review.
    
    THE TERRIBLE SECRET: The Conspiracy of Silence Surrounding Hitler's
Final Solution. By Walter Laqueur. Little, Brown. $12.95.
    
    By Gerald Green
    (c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service)
    (Gerald Green is author of the television drama and novel
''Holocaust.'' His newest novel, ''Murfy's Man,'' will be published
in March.)
    
     In Roberto Rossellini's memorable 1959 film, ''General Della
Rovere,'' a scene takes place in an Italian jail during World War II,
in which the SS has rounded up several dozen Genoese citizens. One
man protests that he's a businessman, he has no politics, and should
not be there. Nearby, a group of other detainees stand in a circle
and pray. One of them turns to the businessman and asks, ''And what
about us? Why were we arrested?'' And he patiently responds, ''Yes,
but you're Jews.''
     Reading Walter Laqueur's excellent-and depressing-book on the
silence, the disbelief and the conspiratorial indifference of the
world to the mass murder of Europe's Jews, I could not help being
reminded of ''General Della Rovere.''
     For when all the shameful facts have been established, when all the
excuses are made, all the arguments over whether Auschwitz could or
could not be bombed are reviewed, the chilling truth emerges-nobody
gave a damn about Jews. They'd been fair game an awfully long time;
they were a nuisance; they were a distraction and might hamper the
war effort; they asked for it; they exaggerated and whined and were
full of self-pity; and after all, mes amis, they did kill Christ,
didn't they? (As Hitler carefully explained to a visiting delegation
of German clergy, a bit edgy over nasty reports out of Poland, he was
only carrying out more efficiently what they, the holy moral leaders
of Christendom, had been more or less recommending for two thousand
years. Nicht wahr, meinen Herren?)
     Prof. Laqueur, one of our most lucid, courageous and original
historians (Georgetown, Tel Aviv University), makes the important
point that the facts of the ''final solution'' were available all
over Europe by 1942, even though the details were unknown. Why then
did leaders so frequently misunderstand them and reject them?
     His research, much of it based on newly discovered materials,
reveals certain fascinating, if not totally unexpected explanations.
     For one thing, there was no ''written order'' from Hitler to kill
the Jews. Criminals tend not to put their plans in writing. Cunning,
a born liar and schemer, Hitler somewhere in the recesses of his
brain must have suspected that someday he and his gang of scum would
have to answer for their abominations. Meanwhile, the SS
Einsatzgruppen were shooting Jews by the tens of thousands in Russia.
One wonders at a civilized Western mind that could ask the question,
''But there was no specific order to kill Jews, was there?'' One
might respond, ''Who was pulling the triggers at Babi Yar?
Hawaiians?''
     ''The whole scheme was beyond human imagination,'' Laqueur
writes.And so it was. Although news of mass shootings in Russia and
Poland leaked out almost immediately-this campaign preceded the more
efficient gas chambers-wishful thinking, even on the part of Europe's
Jews, blocked any real comprehension of the Germans' grand design,
Laqueur writes:
     ''It was a failure of intelligence and imagination caused on one
hand by a misjudgment of the murderous nature of Nazism, and on the
other hand by a false optimism.''
     This explains part of the disgraceful story. But not all. In
Britain and the United States, reports on the Holocaust-originating
largely from courageous Polish resistance fighters-were suppressed or
underplayed. Writes Laqueur: ''The British and U.S. governments
showed much concern tha
     Others knew. The Vatican, the Swedes, the Swiss, Stalin. In all of
these quarters, lack of interest and disbelief helped suppress news
of the atrocious crimes. The war effort was paramount: the fate of
Jews was a needless digression. The appalling truth, Laqueur writes,
was ''disbelieved or dismissed from consciousness.'' When the Allies
liberated Bergen-Belsen, someone said, ''No one had known, no one had
been prepared for this.'' Not quite. No one was prepared because no
one had chosen to believe.
     And so the sorry evidence continues to pile up. The Terrible Secret
is terrifying and sobering, a scholar's thorough account of the most
dreadful crime in history, and the willingness of seemingly civilized
men to ignore such a crime, and in effect, be party to it.
    I have no argument with any of his conclusions. But I do wish he had
stressed a bit more the ancient, honored, deep-rooted hatred of Jews
that ran through European thought like some underground river of
venom. Oh, yes, it has to be said: Without the fertile soil of
religious anti-Semiitism, it is doubtful that the seeds of Nazi
hatred would have grown into the poisonous flowers of Auschwitz. If
this is painful, it is factual, and the West and its clerical leaders
might as well face up to it.
    ''Yes, but you're Jews.''
    ENDIT GREEN
    
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