Jan Valtin Reveals Further Anti-Nazi Experiences
VALTIN, JAN
Jan Valtin Reveals Further Anti-Nazi Experiences Reply to Critics Tells Of His Underground Activity in Hitler Reich By JAN VALTIN I WOULD like to voice my mild astonishment at seeing The *...
...After confessing the crime, Mussolini gagged the Italian people to avoid punishment...
...He also "criticised" the Polish Ministry of Information for not seekine to bring about a betteSIjriderstanding between Jews and Poles in England /and,in Poland...
...The job reserved for Mussolini by Hitler was to stab the Italian people in the back by plunging them into a war they did not wish to enter...
...He would have to admit that his review is the—long discussed and prepared—expression of a disgruntled group of ex-Germans whose misfortune consists in their ability amd tendency to resurrect in America the dismal, long-dead political squabbles of pre-Hitler Germany...
...HERE is not the place to enter into discussion of the causes of anti-Semitism, but one thing is certain :Anti-Semitism in the Polish ruling circles is so ingrained that one could not honestly organize a government consisting of ten Poles who are not anti-Semites...
...Nonswer came from the fascist bench...
...ANOTHER Tenth,of June—and another year...
...Several months ago responsible Britons were startled to discover that while one of the avowed aims of Great Britain in fighting this war is to destroy Nazism and, by implication, racial hatred and anti-Semitism, in their midst a small group of prominent Poles were publishing an openly anti-Semitic magazine entitled Jestem Poliakem (I am a Pole...
...Firl...
...Ignacy Schwartzbart, Jewish member of the Polish National Council, still finds it necessary to be on the alert in contending against anti-Semitic influences...
...It is quite obvious that the vast majority of Polish officials would not mind that the status of the Jews in resurrected Poland (and not only of the Jews but of all the other numerous national minorities) should correspond to their status in the pre-war Poland—a condition, incidentally, which contributed in great measure to the defeat of the country...
...I cam* to America to build a new life, not to keep alive nor to play up to meaningless and antiquated political groups which meant little in pre-Hitler Germany and less today...
...Fact is that I did work at slave labor and hunger rations for more than three years in Hitler's prisons...
...Some people may call it a mere coincidence, but the ftet remains that Mussolini's major crimes against the Italic people took place on that day...
...It will triumph all over the world...
...Firl, nor Mr...
...Reimann or Mr...
...Firl and his backers' seem to me like men who attack a sailor home from a stormy voyage because the sailor did not, nor had intended to, produce "scientific" data about the height, weight, temperature and chemical composition of the turbulent waves he was lucky enough to cross alive...
...Mr...
...When Mussolini, who never was elected It power by the Italian people, received power .from the King, Matteotti carried on his opposition in Parliament, tenaciously, amy by day, until Mussolini dissolved the Parliament, with the hope of getting rid of all oppositionists like Matteotti...
...Nothing has been heard of them since...
...The Buffoon who has been the laughing stock of this war, dared to defy America...
...I was there...
...But (is police did not move...
...The uw..elections were held April 1924...
...Director of the Anglo-American Division of the ISH...
...Indeed, its very first days as an independent state were heralded by a wave of pogroms against Jews and Ukrainians...
...Member of the Secretariat of the ISH...
...Why did Mr...
...Member of the Secretariat of the Red Seamen's Union of Germany...
...Indeed, while General Wladislas Sikorski, Premier of the Polish "Government-in-Exile" and Commander-in-Chief of the reorganized Polish forces now serving with the Allies, was speaking beautifully and...
...Italians Mark June 10 for Duce's Crimes On That Day He Slew Matteotti, Roselli, Entered World War II By LUIGI ANTONINI «j}lE 10 marked a chain of crimes committed by Musso-J lini...
...The'clamor, for justice became tremendous...
...But before his day will be over, he will see the end of all his Quislings, he will see the revolt of the Italian people against Mussolini's regime, against Mussolini's war...
...Schwartzbart nevertheless felt compelled to protest that "the new constitution of Free Poland has not discarded the anti-Semitic laws of the previous governments...
...Poland has probably suffered more under the Nazi occu^ pation than any other of the conquered nations...
...I have neither the time nor the Inclination to enter into sterile discussions about times that are dead and the doings of men who are corpses, politically or otherwise...
...Firl, in presenting the assertions of M. as authentic information, has stooped to the role of a peddler of Stalinist defamation...
...Firl states that "Wollweher never was a member of the inner circle of the German party leadership...
...Instead be saved) him again by lulling the opposition.with the promise of a coming change in the government...
...Secretary 0*mb.e International Seamen's Club of Hamburg...
...But, on that day...
...The struggle for the defeat of Hitler—and with him all other totalitarian tyrants—is not helped by sectarian squabbles and long-winded dissertations about "historical truths...
...Had I instead, in my book, cast the SAP people into decisive and heroic roles in the German underground movement, they would, doubtless, not be so disgruntled now...
...The trouble with the economic anti-Semites is, of course, that at the proper moment he blossoms out as a full anti-Semite...
...I now list some of the official positions which I held in Comintern-dominated organizations: Secretary of the International Seamen's Club in Bremen...
...he built the totalitarian state...
...At the first meeting of the new Parliament, on May 30, ' 1124, Matteotti spoke...
...He was not J«ied, His master, Hitler, had better Quislings for that job...
...Mussolini did not stab France in the back...
...Few believe them...
...Winston Churchill is now on record as desiring to restore the Polish Republic...
...Where/was Mr...
...And we know also that the greatest crime of Mussolini's "•urinal career was committed on the 10th of June, 1940...
...The German underground movement against Hitler was organized in 1933...
...but his victims, the soldiers at the fronts, the prisoners and their families at home, greeted lils jpticb with those significant sounds than in Italy are called «ptjn»cchi"' and here in America, in a rough translation, we eSD "Bronx cheers...
...Several weeks later, he was found, assassinated and mutilated, buried is a small hole, in a wood, in Rome...
...Some escaped...
...Thus, while the Polish people have received and are entitled to receive the sympathy and encouragement of Americans, both Jewish and Gentile, it is nevertheless distressing to note the difficulty that the Polish "Government-in-Exile" experiences in checking anti-Semitism in the Polish army, among Polish refugees and particularly in the ranks of government officials...
...the President should have said: ?hi this 10th of June, the hand holding the dagger stabbed iinie back all the Italian people...
...His name, for Mr...
...Commonly regarded as an "appeaser" in relation to the Poles, Dr...
...Firl ? It grew and gained experience, under painful losses, in 1934 and 1935...
...I made, and still make the claim that it is a personal document...
...One of them found the janitor who had seen Matteotti spirited away...
...Member of the Transport Commission of the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers...
...They were subsequently caught by the Nazi Gestapo and handed over to the Soviet G.P.U...
...I was there...
...It was later discovered that the murder had been "committed by a band of laid political assassins...
...Yes, we call the Italian people to revolt, because we want them to contribute to the victory of liberty by breaking the chains of slavery, by showing the world that we have been right the countless times we have proclaimed that the Italian people are not responsible for the crimes of the "Man of JUNE 10th...
...America which is not trembling before Hitler, certainly will not be frightened by the "Duce...
...HPHE "Man of June 10th" this year spoke like a Quisling...
...Few peo-t pie were strolling on.the bank of the^iber River—along the promenade named after Arnaldo da Brescia...
...OF THE NIGHT...
...Kassolini made a speech this year on June 12...
...IVJfR FIRL states that my "former friends and companions "* related their dramatic experiences to me," and that I made free use of their stories...
...If the status quo is maintained in restored Poland, what will happen to the seven million Ukrainians, close to four million Jews, thousands of Lithuanians, Czechs and Germans ? The Poles will of course promise "equality" to the national minorities who comprised more than one-third of the pre-war republic but again few will believe them...
...punished...
...When the session was adjourned, he taliiis friends: "That man, Matteotti, must not speak anymore...
...Indeed, he was, he said, against racial anti-Semitism, nevertheless he had nothing to say about the gruesome and ill-fated pogroms in Przytek and Minsk-Mazowieck, for racial anti-Semitism is after all a direct result of economic anti-Semitism...
...Special instructor to the Central Strike Committees of the German Shipping Strike of October 1931, the Dutch Shipping Strike of 1932, the Dockers' Strike in Glasgow and Grangemouth in 1932, the Swedish Shipping Strike in 1933 and the River Strike in Northern France in 1933, as well as the strikes against German ships in Antwerp in March and May, 1933, and the General Strike in Strasbourg in the summer of that year...
...It was enough for them to know ftat the murder had been committed on the 10th of June...
...Firl or his informants "work in a factory" under Hitler...
...Firl not use this spicy bit of calumny in his review...
...Mussolini's henchmen may have hailed his speech with their usual "alala...
...Well, he was, most definitely so...
...International Instructor of the ISH in Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, England, Denmark, Norway, Danzig and Sweden...
...IGNAZIO SILONE, the famous Italian writer, who is well V informed, because he likes occasionally, to live ia a town, •$*8ar l!ie*flafeTr%(oMe"f?lo breathe the Italian air, a few days ago wrote me a very .significant letter, which concluded: "After the illusoty success in the Balkans, the Italian people, like the dog of the Bible, seem affected again by their usual vomiting...
...M. during all this time...
...to Berlin and not to Moscow or Siberia...
...In a war with America the Italian people would work and pray for the victory of America...
...He suppressed the freedom of the press, he dissolved the opposition parties, he opened the concentration amps...
...Anti-Semites, alas, never learn...
...Even the Ukrainians, who were mercilessly persecuted for over two decades by the Polish Pans, forgot their just grievances and fought side by side with Poles for a free and independent Poland...
...It is a matter of record and newspaper reports that I was arrested in Germany and condemned to thirteen years' imprisonment for high treason (Vorbereitung zum Horhverrat und Rddelsfuhrerschaft in schwerem Landfriedensbnich...
...Jan Valtin Reveals Further Anti-Nazi Experiences Reply to Critics Tells Of His Underground Activity in Hitler Reich By JAN VALTIN I WOULD like to voice my mild astonishment at seeing The * Modern Quarterly join the Nazi Weckruf, PM, the Commentator, Peoples World, Daily Worker and the New Masses in their general attack against my person and my book, OUT...
...Fifl falls into inconsistencies when he describes Dimitrov first as a banished right-winger, and then as Stalin's darling because he "blindly followed Stalin's orders...
...The trial was one of the most publicized in Nazi Germany (Rote Marine Prozess) and ended in nine death sentences...
...Poles, according to the Nazis, are not even entitled to the status of second-class citizens, for they are an inferior race not far removed from the Jews...
...This is a new and fresh evidence that the Italian people reject fascist propaganda...
...When the Treaty of Versailles granted Poland her independence, it alsojguaranteed to Poland's national minorities: the right to equality of treatment, the right to acquire nationality and the right to live, personal liberty and freedom of worship...
...Firl's information, is Stalin...
...Another day jsjsedr but still Matteotti was not seen...
...It was a public scandal...
...It becomes clearer every day, however, that a Poland restored upon the old basis without a radical change in its social and economic make-up will merely contribute additional headaches to post-war Europe...
...He'had the French upper classes who worked for him, he «d many French "cagoulard" generals and he had the *™*n Communists working for him at Stalin's order, as the American Communists and their Vito, Marco and also Antonio, work for Hitler at Stalin's order...
...Their reaction since the publication of my story is proof that the blow has hart them...
...Mussolini was to be a Quisling, to govern Italy according to the orders coming from Berlin...
...Despite fascist violence, jistteotti was re-elected together with more than 120 of his party candidates...
...At the same time, ten military Jewish doctors resigned in protest against the rabid anti-Semitism in the Polish military forces...
...he proved that the so-called fascist majority was a fraud...
...h Parliament, Matteotti's"friends repeated, the question...
...Matteotti was deadr—there was no more leadership in the opposition...
...Reimann, nor Mr...
...The reviewer states that I could never have received instructions from George Dimitrov, since he was, during the period described by me, "in political banishment in Berlin...
...In connection with General Sikorski's plan ' for a "Polish-Czechoslovak Federation," he demanded that there bp no discussion of the Jewish problem without Jewish participation...
...What are the sources of his "information...
...What, I ask, does Mr...
...He said that in a war with America, Japan would respect the Axis...
...Hi* speech was intended to'please his fitter in Berlin...
...Secretary aaS"ie Division Interclubs in the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers...
...Firl...
...Besides, the Comintern bosses in Mocow were not Russian...
...I refer to an organization, known in Germany as the So-zialistische Arbeiterpartei (SAP), the members of which, despite their numerical insignificance and political impotency, nevertheless claim to be the only ones in possession of a medicine which could cure all the political ills of Germany...
...The ideal of the Italian people is the humanitarian ideal of Matteotti...
...Labor and liberal circles in the United States and Great' Britain are clamoring for the Allies to state their war aimfe, but it has been generally overlooked that prominent representatives of the Polish "Government-in-Exile" already stated some of their "peace" aims...
...OUT.when Matteotti did not speak any more, millions of fStalians asked: "Where is Matteotti...
...I ignored this insignificant group, and that is why they are angry...
...Are we to witness a repetition of the same errors, the same tragedy...
...Where were Mr...
...fo^this end, he enacted new election laws conceived so as ta give the party' in power a parliamentary majority...
...A political party which fully represents the political ideal of Matteotti,' the British Labor Party, today keeps alive the British people's resistance against Hitlerism...
...The "Commander-in-Chief" of the Polish armed forces, General Rydz-Smigly, and his pro-Nazi foreign minister, Colonel Beck, ran for safety to Romania but the two Jewish Socialist leaders, Victor Alter and Heinrich Ehrlich, remained in Warsaw to defend the city...
...A Republican mem-led the Parliament, Eugenio Chiesa, rose and pointing an ?swag finger toward Mussolini, shouted: "The Government" xiimt, .therefore, the .Government jsan accomplice V Musso-dlttrembled...
...THE Polish authorities—or was it Downing Street?— showed good faith in banning from the army the anti-Semitic publication Jestem Poliakem, but Dr...
...Rome had paid them...
...In the Modern Quarterly my book is reviewed by a Mr...
...Since when did Stalin organize a world.-wide campaign to save the life of a "politically banished" comrade from the talons of the Gestapo ? Mr...
...Some of them were arrested...
...KJ\R FIRL States that I "did not work in factories" and therefore knew nothing about the moods of the German underground anti-Nazi...
...Who, please, are these "former friends and companions ?" They are, I assert, one BM, who had no "dramatic experiences" to relate simply because he deserted the movement early in 1933 and came-to America to hide, and who has had no touch whatever with the German underground movement for eight years...
...M. risked their necks long enough in Hitler Germany, as I did, to learn who became the murderous dynamo/ of the underground party...
...A young Italian university professor, Nello Rosselli, hd gone from Italy to France to visit his brother, Carlo iosselli, an anti-fascist leader living in exile after a dramatic escape from the concentration camp in the Island of Lipari...
...Where was Mr...
...The most ironic aspect of the problem, however, is the fact that during the famous twenty-day siege of Warsaw, when Nazi planes rained death and destruction upon Poland's capital, it was the organized Jewish workers, together with their Gentile unionists who organized to defend the city long after the colonels, generals and barons filed the country...
...His statement that I made the claim of having written an "historical document" is both undocumented and dishonest...
...Racial hatred "in Poland, unfortunately, is as old as the Polish nation...
...M. had never met either me or my wife in Germany...
...Firl falls into another inconsistency, when he first states that Moscow only decided the general policy of the party line, leaving its concrete, application to the German leaders, and then says that "Stalinists slavishly followed instructions of a Moscow leadership...
...Instead he proposed con- * tiafc the war...
...Firl states that "Valtin's general ignorance of the German underground movement is astounding...
...Mussolini /remised that justice would be done and that if there was a flime, the criminals Would be discovered and...
...R. M. Firl, in his review of the book in the Modem Quarterly, does not base his statements on first hand knowledge, but on hearsay, rumor and malicious gossip purveyed by others...
...A janitor of s nearby building was looking idly about...
...The peasants of Italy looked upon him as a Jesus...
...The trouble with the German underground movement was that all the clever strategists sat outside of 'Germany, discussing matters in the cafes of Parijt, Prague and New York, leaving the little dupes to carry on in Germany until they got it in the neck...
...He is a Georgian...
...Where was Mr...
...General Secretary of the Red Seamen's and Dockers' Union (Einheitsverband) in Germany after Hitler's ascent to power...
...1 On that day, President Roosevelt said: "On this 10th of .&Be the hand holding the dagger stabbed in the back a •eighbor...
...He gave the reporters the number of the car..- The reporters found that it had been hired by Mussolini's assistants, Finzi, Mari-aelli and Rossi...
...This reviewer's statement, therefore, that I "belonged-to a group of Communist seamen who were delegated for messenger work is, in its implication, misleading and dishonest...
...He did not repent plunging Italy in the war...
...Polish Anti-Semitism Creates Rancor in England, Problem for Post- War Republic By LEON DENNEN HTHE blood on the ruins that was the Republic of Poland ¦ has not yet dried but Polish anti-Semites wnd found refuge in England, a friendly -foreign country, are already working on plans to exile the Jews after the war is won and- Poland restored as a sovereign state...
...The King should have ordered Mussolini's arrest...
...There was, and is, only one boss...
...I'was there...
...In those memorable and horrible twenty days the blood of the unwanted Jew, the superfluous human being, flowing from Nalewki intermingled with the blood of the "ruling" and superior Pole into one red stream...
...My object in writing OUT OF THE NIGHT was to deliver a blow against both totalitarian systems...
...Some newspaper reporters did the job...
...When' did Mr...
...On the 10th of June, 1937, Carlo and Nello Rosselli were fraud dead in a wood not far from Paris...
...But the Ital-h& anti-fascists did not need to wait as long as the police to know the real assassin...
...Firl does not say...
...HAVE never made the claim that OUT OF THE NIGHT is an "historic document...
...He could not speak for several days...
...Poland never lived up to these promises...
...Who was this Matteotti...
...Where did Mr...
...3 •. iijjNE 10,1924, was a warm afternoon in Rome...
...j...
...The most vile of this old lady's gossip is that Firelei, party name Herma, my wife,-had been a Gestapo spy...
...The term "historical document" was used by some reviewers...
...The best among them are semi-Jew-baiters or, like ex-Premier Skladowsky, economic anti-Semites...
...Suddenly a car rtopped . . . a group of gangsters stepped out . . . and as-unlted a slender, distinguished man, knocked him down and threw him inside the car which sped away, 'the following day the Italian Socialist Party announced did the Secretary of the party, Giacomo Matteotti, a member of Parliament, had failed to return home...
...n^^Pnus far all the appeals that Jews throughout the world Have made to the Polish "Government-in-Exile" to define clearly th&fstatus of the Jews in restored Poland have been dismissed with vague phrases by Britain's Ally in the "defense.of democracy...
...When he felt safe, Mussolini came into the open, and on the 3rd of January, 1925, in a speech in Parliament, took responsibility for the murder of Giacomo Matteotti...
...Matteotti had been killed...
...There have been, of course, a number of statements by Polish officials-in-exile regarding Jewish rights, but these were made to appease public opinion in the United States and Great Britain...
...Fact is that, during all this time, the thousands of other prisoners around me were the real elite of the German underground movement, coming out not only from factories, but also from mines, railroads, ships and from the army and the labor camps...
...But his speech did not express the feelings tie .people-of Italy...
...In this light, Mr...
...nobly at Carnegie Hall about the aim of his government "to build a nucleus of understanding among free nations'' and "several blocs of federated states in Europe," prominent Poles in England were openly proclaiming their aim to exile Jews from these "federated states...
...Firl know of Stalin's ways ? Since when did Stalin banish prominent Communists (and "right-wingers," too...
...There is also, I dare say, the ex-comrade's mother, an old Stalinist who came to America in 1939 for seemingly no other purpose thafeto spread vichniS rumors against .me...
...Firl jar Mr...
...On the third day, althe Italian people, from tbe Alps to Sicily, raised a tre-noKious chorus: "Where is Matteotti...
...The Board called upon the Polish "Government-in-Exile" to make clear that it repudiates the action of those who were thus abusing British hospitality, and to further make clear that it had broken with the anti-Semitic policies of the 1938 and 1939 governments...
...Editor of the Scheinwerfer, the Rote Wacht, the ISH Information Bulletin, the London Seafarer, the Belgian Afrosser, and the illegal Storm...
...When the black shirts waged their undeclared war against the peasants of the Po River Valley, he defended/ them...
...Few have forgotten Pan Skladowski's statement that -he is "merely" an economic anti-Semite, but when he was confronted with a wave of pogroms in Poland shortly .before the German invasion, he did little to stop it...
...Mussolini listened to him with crossed aims, in, angry silence...
...Fact of the matter is that old Mrs...
...Secretary of the League of Proletarian Writers for the North-West District...
...Dishonest also is the reviewer's assertion that I attempted to "make" myself a prominent leader of Communism, Throughdut my book I have made it clear that I considered myself as an "activist," a robot following orders...
...So Hitler cannot win...
...Member of the Presidium of the First"- World Congress of -Water Transport Workers...
...Mussolini saved himself by blaming his friends...
...It was decisively defeated in 1936 and practically exterminated in 1937...
...The trouble is that neither Mr...
...A man with the uncompromising spirit of Matteotti is leading America...
...Meanwhile, one fact is certain: The Italian people are not supporting Mussolini in this war...
...The Board of Deputies of British Jews denounced "the obscure group of irresponsible Polish journalists who were playing the Nazi game by attempts to foment anti-Jewish feeling...
...He proved that the only members of tie Parliament really elected by^the-people were tjfese be-kmpjig to the opposition...
...Firl...
...It may be possible...
...I repeat that I was in Germany when the underground movement was born, and remained in Germany until it was, for all practical purposes, wiped out...
...The New York Times of May 21 paints, a gruesome picture of terror and wanton murder inflicted by the Nazi conquerors...
...Ex-Comrade M. is angry with me because, in 1933, I wrote, an unfavorable report about him as a Communist who deserted the movement because his wages had not been payed with customary punctuality...
...Firl work during all this timet.T I hazard the guess that the reviewer and his informants have, in all their time, not met one-tenth the number of real German underground workers I have met and spoken to and fought should*^ to shoulder with during my years in Nazi prisons...
...Member of the Secretariat of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers...
Vol. 24 • June 1941 • No. 25
