Letters

The Nazis and the Zionists

Re "L.A. library reveals it has Nazi laws' first manuscript," June 26:

THIS article, reprinted from the Los Angeles Times, mistakenly implies that the document that ordered the Holocaust, signed by Adolph Hitler, has been found.

The original Times article included excerpts from the Nuremberg laws, including Section 4:

• (1) Jews are forbidden to raise the Reich and National Flag and they cannot show the National colors.
• (2) However they are allowed to display the Jewish colors. The exercise of this disposition is under the state's protection.

"Jewish colors" refers to the Zionist flag, which is now the flag of Israel. The statutory right of German Jews to fly their own national flag was protected even before they had a country.

The Bee version of the article said "[Skirball Cultural Center President ] Herscher lost 18 members of his family in the war."

But the original [Los Angeles] Times article noted that "his parents emigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1935, just after the Nuremberg laws were enacted." British-controlled Palestine had strict quotas for Jewish immigrants. The Nazis supported the Zionists and helped Jews enter illegally, devising an elaborate scheme to transfer money and even setting up farms in Germany to train the halutzim (pioneers) who immigrated to Palestine. The last Jews to enter Palestine with the help of the Nazis were 1,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944.

Generose Bogler
Sacramento

Our comment

 THE Editor of the Bee is Peter Schrag, a Holocaust survivor; his Washington Bureau chief is Leo Rennert. This was the newspaper that first printed the lie, originated by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, that David Irving provided the trigger mechanism for the Oklahoma City bombing.