Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 2, 1986 Page: 2 of 30
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TEXAS JEWISH POST NEW YEAR ISSUE THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1986 PAGE
the cutting edge
BY EDWIN BLACK
While Jewish and Israeli leaders frequently
expect to be blamed as the "root cause" of
terrorist outrages, as they have been in Rome,
Vienna and elsewhere, the bloody terror wave
currently gripping Paris has not provoked that
response. "France’s relations with Israel will not
be affected,” declared an official French Source.
"If anything," said the official, "they will
become closer."
want us to do. And we will not,” declared the of-
ficial.
Five terror bombings in ten days, each
calculated to injure and maim as many innocen-
ts as possible, have aroused angry debate over
whether France is now paying the price for
earlier policies. For years, French policy was so
"even-handed” as to be pro-PLO, which was
criticized by many as only strengthening the
hand of terrorism. Moreover, France has been
willing to "Deal” with the most radical terrorist
"France's relations with Israel will not be af-
fected," . . . "If anything ," "they will become
closer."
Neither has a backlash against Israel
manifested in the mind of the average Parisian.
On the converse, "the French people are showing
a new sympathy and understanding for Israel,”
asserts David Harris of the American Jewish
Committee, a specialist on French relations.
These assessments were offered amid
speculation that France might succumb to
pressure and change its policy in the Middle
East, and that French society might scapegoat
Israel or Jews for its troubles.
"It's the opposite,” assured the French of-
ficial, who went out of his way to stress good
relations with Israel. "Prime Minister (Jacques)
Chirac visited Israel before his election, and five
or six cabinet ministers have visited since," he
explained. "Israeli Prime Minister Shimon)
Peres visits France often. We know that Israel
was one of the first to send warm messages upon
learning of the recent attacks. So ours is a very
fruitful relationship. To change our policy
anywhere in the Middle East, including towards
Israel, would be doing exactly what the terrorists
groups. For instance, just two months after the
bloody massacres at the Rome and Vienna air-
ports, widely attributed to the Abu Nidal
organization, France agreed to release two Abu
Nidal henchmen, Assad Kayed and Husni Hatem,
both imprisoned for assassination.
But France's appeasement policy has hardly
exempted Paris for terrorist attack, just as
Austria's policy has not exempted Vienna, Italy’s
has not exempted Rome and Greece’s has hardly
exempted Athens. In the avergage Frenchmen’s
mind, the terror outbreak supports the Israeli
contention that Arab terror is not just directed at
the Jewish State but against the entire western
world, a world which many Arab fanatics believe
they can intimidate over any policy question. In-
deed, for some terrorists, the west is a world
they simply want to disappear. „
The usual newspaper editorials seeking to
mitigate the violence with references to
Palestinian "frustration” are conspicuously ab-
sent. Instead, France understands that its wide
ranging Middle East posture is the focus. "They
want us to get out of Lebanon (where 1400 Fren-
ch soldiers serve with UNIFIL), and they desire to
get their people (fellow terrorists) freed from
jail,” asserts a French official, But France's role
in the Middle East, second only to America’s,
also includes support for Iraq in its war with
Iran, a contingent in the Sinai peacekeeping
mission, antagonisms with Syria and support for
Chad in its skirmishes with Libya.
Being at odds with Libya, Iran, Syria and
violent Lebanese factions makes France a target
for nearly all the major terror sponsors in the
Mideast. Half-hearted responses when earlier
terror attacks in France limited themselves to
Jewish synagogues and delicatessens now yields
the haunting incantation of pre-War Germany:
"First they came for the Jews, and I did nothing.
... And finally they came for me.”
Indeed, having initially concentrated their at-
tacks in France, terrorist organizations have
publicly announced that Italy is their next
target. As such, international terror organizations
seem to be taking the same approach to
civilization as militant unions have taken to in-
dustries they oppose. The war is first declared on
one company until goals are met; having set an
example, the union will pick off the others one
"The assassins, I assure you, will not escape
us,” Prime Minister Chirac has declared on
French National Radio. He warned that "those
who manipulate them,” a veiled reference to
state sponsorship, will be "piteously crushed” as
well. At this point, Chirac’s declaration means
"punishment but not quite retaliation,” ex-
plained an official French source, "although the
French people are crying out for it.” However, he
admitted that escalation to a policy of retaliation
could come any day, "depending upon what in-
cident might occur the night before.”
In this mood, the American Jewish Commit-
tee's Paris office reports that popular sympathy
for Israel is suddenly and dramatically increasing
as Frenchmen find themselves facing the same
terrorist threats Israel has stared down for years.
Today searches are required to enter major Paris
buildings, a thousand French soldiers augment
police patrols, borders have tightened, and stray
parcels are eyed with suspicion — the same
precautions Israeli society has long endured.
However, while French outrage swells, Jewish
leaders see a dangerous potential. "The entire
affair is fueling racist feelings toward Arabs in
France,” warns David Harris of the American
Jewish Committee, "and that could easily be
"The assassins, I assure you, will not escape
US." — Prime Minister Chirac
by one. The analogy only goes so far because the
objectives of terror groups are not economic en-
franchisement, but the disruption of open
democratic societies they seek to shut down.
All this is becoming increasingly clear to Fran-
ce. So outraged is the average Frenchman, that
the government finds itself inching down the
same road of retaliation first travelled by Israel,
and then by the United States, but disavowed by
France as recently as spring when America bom-
bed Libya.
transferred to Jews. Specifically, we’re watching
the National Front, led by Jean Marie Le Pen, a
purveyor of anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner feeling
who seeks out such situations."
Harris explained that Le Pen is "something
like Lyndon Larouche in that he straddles the
line of anti-Semitism. And he’s surrounded by a
number of ex-Nazi collaborators. If indeed
recent developments should strengthen Le Pen’s
hand,” says Harris, "there will be a very distur-
bing side to this whole episode.”
‘Righteous Among The Nations'
BY SUSAN BIRNBAUM
(Copyright 1986, Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
A Bronx, N.Y., woman has
honored the priest who "was
all that we had” as she and her
family hid from the Nazis
during World War II in Italy.
Monsignor Beniamino Schivo
was speechless when Ursula
Korn Selig called him in Italy
to tell him that he was to be
conferred as "Righteous
Among the Nations” at a Sep-
tember 11 ceremony at the Yad
Vashem Holocaust memorial in
Jerusalem.
In an interview with the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
Selig said she had tried for
years to forget about those
dangerous times in Italy, "but
now we have Kurt Waldheim,
who is president of Austria,
and we have President Reagan
who went to Bitburg (the Nazi
SS cemetery). I didn’t sleep all
night after Reagan went to Bit-
burg. That day I called the
Israeli Consulate.” She was
determined to honor the priest.
The consulate referred her to
the American Society for Yad
Vashem, but Selig was so ex-
cited, she telephoned straight
to Israel. The Commission for
the Designation of the
Righteous sent her a detailed
questionnaire of the events and
motives behind the person who
saved Jews.
Selig, born to a comfortable
life in Breslau, Germany, saw
the clouds darken over the
Jews when she was a little girl.
With her mother, Johanna, she
left for the placid beauty of the
Italian Riviera, where her aunt
and uncle had a hotel in
Alassio. By 1939, however,
changes had come to Italy, too,
and the fascists appropriated
the hotel.
Selig's father, Paul, had
stayed behind in Germany to
manage his department store.
When he lost it to
"Aryanization," he obtained a
precious visa for England. His
plans were to go there and
send for his family. He got as
far as the French border, Jews
were not welcome.
The family lived together
then, safe but without work,
six of them in an apartment. In
1940, when Mussolini declared
war, Selig’s father and uncle
were sent to an internment
camp in Salerno. Two days
later, the female members of
the family were shipped to
prison in Perugia for a week,
and then interned in a small
village, Collazzone, in Umbria,
where the local priest befrien-
ded them.
This compassion was more
than appreciated. For although
the conditions of the "free in-
ternment” on non-Italian Jews
were overwhelmingly mild, the
Jews were forbidden to interact
with civilians, could not receive
mail, and had to report to the
police four times a day.
In 1941, they were tran-
sferred to Citta del Castello,
near Perugia. Her father and
uncle were released from
Salerno and the six of them
lived in a furnished room. Their
government rations were
meager, but no less than the
other Italians were receiving.
The Bishop in Citta del
Castello allowed Selig and her
cousin the special privilege of
attending the convent school —
with no pressures to convert.
Father Schivo was director of
the seminary, and he not only
permitted them an education,
but brought them supplies and
extra rations.
On September 8, 1943, "our
worst moment came," Selig
recalled. The Germans arrived
and "persecuted the Jews with
a vengeance.” Schivo and
another priest, disguised in
village clothing, took the family
by night into the hills, an eight-
hour march, and hid them in
the summer villa of the
Silesian convent. Inside the
convent, they broke down a
side door and created a hiding
place for the six of them, on
the condition that the nuns not
know. "Then one day the Ger-
mans came,” she remembers.
"We hid in the woods. Schivo
came and hid us in a cubicle in
which was the oven the sisters
used for baking bread." The
family hugged the walls and
floors silently. The cold, bare
floor served as their furniture.
On Christmas Eve, 1943, the
priest, again without his
clerical garments, brought the
family food and spent the night
with them in the cubicle.
The oven, Selig recalls, was
near the German line of defen-
se, and the family was aware
that the priest greatly im-
periled himself. Selig remem-
bers the terrible bombing
wreaked by Allies and Germans
alike. They had to leave.
Another priest arrived to
escort her father and uncle
high in the hills, where they
remained for the three months
until the British Eighth Army
liberated that part of Italy. In
the meantime, Selig and the
other women hid in the woods,
where, she said, they joined
the Italian partisans.
She recalls nuns and priests
among them, and that they
were always under Schivo's
watchful eyes. Finally, when
they could not hide any longer,
Schivo in the middle of the
night brought them back to
Citta del Castello, where she
and her mother, alone now,
were dressed as nuns. Selig
remembers some Germans
stopping them in order to tell
them, "Good evening, Sisters.”
The "nuns” went to the Con-
vent of the Sacred Heart,
across the street from Shivo’s
seminary. There they were
locked in a room not permitted
to leave, because of the fear,
she said, that some nuns were
fascist.
They all were endangered by
American bombing, and Selig
remembers sadly that many
civilians and nuns died. She
can still hear the machine guns
reverberating as she and her
mother hid under the beds.
But their greatest fear was that
the priest might have been
killed. But, "after the bombing
subsided, he came running to
us. I embraced him. He was all
that we had.”
Shivo took them into the
seminary, now a hospital, and
again locked them in a room,
where they could not go to the
window, because of the bom-
bing. They spent their time
crouched on the floor, until the
English liberated the town.
Selig stayed in the town until
1950, when she and her paren-
ts came to New York. In 1955
they returned for their first
visit to the priest. Of course,
her most recent visit with him
took place in Jerusalem, where
Schivo, now 74, took his place
among the Righteous.
'He was all that we had
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 2, 1986, newspaper, October 2, 1986; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753133/m1/2/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .