He Wants To Know

Apropos Holocaust Day:

From: Fred Lazin

Subject: an issue with prof. Dena Porat and her work on abba kovner


dear colleagues

a few weeks ago at the Center for Jewish History I met Dina Porat who had recently spoke about Abba Kovner. I mentioned to her that I had once read that Kovner at a ceremony at kibbutz lohemei hagetaot for the memory of the six million had said something like 'we have not come to praise those who went like sheep unto slaughter'. She answered me that i had to be mistaken and what were my sources. She emphasized that he never had anything negative toward those victims who did not resist. I wrote her the following note but got no response.

Maybe she or some of her students can explain to me why my impression of Abba Kovner not praising victims who did not resist is mistaken.


chag sameach

fred lazin

_________
> Dear Dina,
>
> We met last nite at the Jewish Book Award Dinner. I told
> you that I had wanted to attend your lecture at NYU but that I
> had to speak in a Temple in Westchester. I was attracted by the
> title
> of your talk.
>
> I told you that I had once read that Abba Kovner in 1946 or 1947
> at a memorial ceremony at Kibbutz Lohemie Hagetaot had said
> something like 'we should not sing praises to those that
> went like sheep unto slaughter' . (I am
> paraphrasing). You replied (to paraphrase 'no way;
> impossible. Abba Kovner never cast dispersions or criticized
> those who did not resist. What are your sources?'
>
> When I came home i looked up the incident in a book by Gunther
> Lewy (I had done some of the research for the book in 1968) and
> found the following which is also attached.
>
>
>
> From Guenter Lewy Religion and
> Revolution (NY: Oxford University Press 1974)
>
> Lewy writes on p. 99 “Convinced of the utter senselessness
> of meekly submitting to death at the hand of the Nazi murder
> squads and of regarding (p. 100) such death as a sign of nearing
> national redemption , the Jewish underground in Wilno in
> January 1942 pleadingly called upon the Jews of Wilno not to “go
> like sheep to the slaughter” [1] and instead to struggle against
> the Germans in every conceivable way for there was nothing to
> lose. A surviving leader of the same underground group, Abba
> Kovner, recalled the courage of those who had fallen fighting
> > but he went on to deny the meaningfulness of the death of
> those many others who had failed to retaliate. “We shall not
> bestow the title ‘hero’ on those who were exterminated in the
> slaughter
> pit. We, unlike others, shall not reserve a place for them
> in the Temple of Heroism. We dare not even say that they died a
> martyr’s death…The community of Israel was not consciously
> martyred..Our people as a whole went to death like a flock
> of sheep.”[2]
>
> 1. The phrase occurs in a pamphlet of the Wilno underground,
> dated January 1 1942, and is cited by Gideon Hausner,
> Justice in
> Jerusalem (NY, 1966), p. 216).
> 2. World Hashomer hatzair, The Massacre of European Jewry
> (Kibbutz Merchavia, 1963), pp 224-225.


Fred A. Lazin
Lynn & Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government
Dept. of Politics & Government
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Beer Sheva 84105 Israel