My Uncle Abraham Reports
Published as a paid advertisement by the "Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews"
in The New York Times, Friday November 5, 1943
Reproduced in America and the Holocaust, Volume 5, editor: David S. Wyman, Gerland Publishing Inc., 1990. Document No. 62
By Ben Hecht
| I have an uncle who is a Ghost. But, he is no ordinary Ghost like so many dead uncles. He was elected last April by the Two Million Jews who have been murdered by the Germans to be their World Delegate. Wherever there are conferences on how to make the World a Better Place, maybe, my Uncle Abraham appears and sits on the window sill and takes notes. That's how he happened to be in Moscow a few weeks ago. My Uncle Abraham sat on the window sill of the Kremlin and listened with great excitement, to one of the Finest Conferences he has ever attended since he has been a World Delegate. He heard every word that Eden, Molotov and Hull spoke. Last night my Uncle Abraham was back in a Certain Place where the Two Million murdered Jews meet. It is the Jewish Underground. Only Ghosts belong to it. When the Two Million Souls had assembled, my Uncle Abraham arose and made his report to them as World Delegate. "Dishonored dead," said my Uncle Abraham, "Fellow Corpses, and Ghosts from All Over. Of the Moscow Conference I have this to report. The Conference made a promise that the world was going to punish the Germans for murdering all the different peoples of Europe - Czechs, Greeks, Serbs, Russians, French hostages, Polish officers, Cretan peasants. Only we were not mentioned. In this conference, which named everyone, only the Jew had no name. He had no face. He was like a hole in Europe on which nobody looked." A Ghost from the Lime Kilns of Warsaw spoke. "Why is this?" asked this Ghost, "why is it that we who are dead without a Name in the Conferences of Fine People?" "This I do not know," said my Uncle Abraham, "I can only report what exists. Jews do not exist, even when they are dead. In the Kremlin in Moscow, in the White House in Washington. In the Downing Street Building in London where I have sat on the windows sills, I have never heard our name. The people who live in those buildings - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill - do not speak of us. Why, I don't know. We were not allowed by the Germans to stay alive. We are not allowed by the Four Freedoms to be dead." A woman Ghost from the Dynamite Dumps of Odessa spoke. "If they didn't mention the two million murdered Jews in the Conference, isn't that bad for four million who are still alive? The Germans will think that when they kill Jews, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill pretend nothing is happening." And from the Two Million Ghosts came a great cry. "Why is this silence? Why don't they speak of Us?" My Uncle Abraham raised his hand. "Little Children," my Uncle Abraham spoke: "Be patient. We will be dead a long time. Yesterday when we were killed we were changed from Nobodies to No-bodies. Today, on our Jewish tomb, there is not the Star of David, there is an Asterisk. But, who knows, maybe Tommorrow - !" This ended the Meeting of the Jewish Underground. My Uncle Abraham has gone to the White House in Washington. He is sitting on the windowsill two feet away from Mr. Roosevelt. But he has left his notebook behind. |