Another Great Musical in "Bloomer Girl"
The New Leader Book Page The Tempering of llya Ehrenburg By VERA ALEXANDROVA m TEMPERING OF BVSSU. By llya Ekrsnburg. Translated frsm the Russinn * Almmisr K*un; Now York. Alfred A. KnoPf, l944....
...His first reaction to the October-Revolution •14 ft hostile one (cf...
...The day of June 22, I;<-11, was the hardest blow in Ehrenburg's life...
...But many of these articles, probably addressed to English and American readers, have an undertone of reproach contained in the phrase "we are lighting alone against the common enemy...
...All his various ¦ -----i—i ------j-.:__„#_______ ttjDian) "»-» »~-r----- -rr---------- — that time he later put into hi- novel "The Atsenture* »f Julio Jursnito...
...Portraits of the Jewish World By EVA HINDUS DOWNFALL...
...But gradually while travelling through the whole country during the Civil War, Ehrenburg became somewhat conciliatory toward the Bolsheviks...
...Only then did Ehrenburg recognize that if Hitler was going to win this war it would mean the victory of naked brutality over all lhat mankind has cherished for renin lies...
...Gellerman has read "every word of the 10,000 pages of testimony before the Dies Committee, and he lias compressed his arduous research into a clear and compac^ brief against its methods...
...This sensitive youth who experiences a traumatic emotional shock in early adolescence is the best developed character in the novel, and it Is into hit mouth that the author putt what secmt to be hit own belief about the solution of the Jewish problem—namely, that the problem of any minority can be solved in only one way—"By unification , . n One teritory, one spiritual center, one langusge, one people...
...12.50 In "Downfall" Salman Shneour hat given ut an absorbing novel baaed on the life of a Jewish family during the German occupation of Warsaw In 1915...
...tU page...
...Here he wrote a series of aevels such as "The Adventures of JnU* Jurenito," "A Street in Moscow," "Th* Agitated Life of Loiaik Roilthmantz," "Bmbenf," which were more or Ism condemned by Soviet critics as writings of "a new-bourgeois...
...In lfJ7 he returned to Russia...
...Martin Dies —A Political Autopsy By CONSTANCE HAUSAMANN MARTIN Dlt.S...
...This springs, of course, from the fact that they were no mil as propuganda for a "second front...
...The only way in which they can be checked with a minimum of danger to the democratic rights of others is by responsible investigation and relentless exposure...
...So much has happened since then"—remarks Ehrenburg in its preface—"that to me the pages of this book seem infinitely remote...
...As a .dioolboy, Ehrenbunr became sympathetic to the Revolution of 1906, but toon after left Russia and went to France, becoming a refined esthete...
...The Dies Committee, Prof...
...For certainly there is no doubt that the committee was undemocratic in its methods and prejudiced in its conclusions and became a political weapon against those who did not subscribe to the committee's definition of "Americanism...
...Shneour is considered to be one of the three greatest Hebrew poets of our time...
...the poem "The Prayer for Russia...
...In.it sppear new feelings concerning the value of the human being, of common folk, sensationa which for the first time in his life illuminate the pa^cs of Ehrenburg's writing...
...Gellerman's conclusions, however, lire not bused on his indictment of the Dies Committee as such, but are his own personal opinions and not very well substantiated...
...The Tempering of Ru**ia it a collection of articles which first appeared in English, American and Soviet newspapers, dealing with the events af the first year of the Soviet-German war...
...But as is shown in his novel "The Fall of I'urt*" he soon accepted the official sophiit scheme about the "capitalist character" of the second World War, which has nothing to do with "our uar...
...Witnesses were selected with •a eye to proving what the committee wanted to prove and those questioned l** given no chance to testify freely...
...were labeled "un-American" in*tcriminately according to the whims of Pi committee or on the advice of their •woeter of Research, J. B. Matthews, '*- onetime Communist...
...The narrative opens with a German lieutenant's fateful visit to the great leather firm of Reb Jacob ScheU...
...la IMS be returned to Paris and tried at establish himself as a politically indeleadent writer...
...For this novel, Ehrenburg won the W4_ Stalin Fiction Award...
...Tke deep economic crisis of Europe aad America st the beginning of the thirties, which coincided with the first achievement of the Five-Year-Plan in Soviet Russia, left a strong mark on Ehrenburg's spirit...
...Many of Mr...
...But to long as Communists and Fascists are active in this country there will always be the danger of new Diet Committees which jeopardize the rights they seek to protect...
...Roy Publishers...
...Vladek Schatz comet through as a fine etching in contrast to the oil paintings of the various women in the book...
...It was as though she had kept a piece of the night outside with its little golilen stars...
...An examination of the business follows during which the cynical officer's fancy it caught by tha beauty of Schatt't youngest daughter Marcha, who it her father's cathier...
...I became a journalist, only a journalist, whose place is on the firing line...
...Schata family...
...Aft<r {he collapse of France Ehrenburg returned to Russia...
...Of unequal artistic value, these novels are well com¦esed, vivid, keen in observation, ironic and sentimental...
...And from the dark blue around heri her golden head emerged like a moon /in a downy cloud...
...He visited Soviet Russia's new industrial plants in Magaaagpmk and soon after wrote his novel *8u*>f Chmos...
...Gellerman overlooks in his conclusions, although he mentions it in his book, is that Coi 'inunists anil Fascists in this country ea.n seldom be reached by judicial processes...
...By William Gellerman, Published In John Day...
...Many liberals "wara blacklisted by Dies because they Jappened to share the opinions of those P considered "un-American" or be*atM they advocated economic changes »ot acceptable to Dies and his colleagues...
...If the personnel of the committee had been different it might have accomplished its purpose, at the minority reports of Jerry Worlds thow...
...Sin,ce then his relations u) the Soviet government have become rioter and more official...
...This present Mr* can hardly be appraised without taking- note of his evolution...
...The Dies Committee wat created to combat the menace of totalitarianism* that seek to break the resistance of democracies by boring from within...
...The Soviet German pact on August 23, 1039 shook Ehrenburg, at least such rumors spread through literary Paris...
...By Xalman SAseeur...
...He is sirtcere in saying in the foreword to The Tempering vf Kiutia "on the first day of the war I forgot that I had previously written novels and poems...
...the piout, law-abiding Reb Jacob with an order to hand over the firm's books for a complete accounting of its stocks to the German army...
...Their activities are all the more successful and insidious because they usually disguise thentelves as liberals and speak in democratic accents...
...The lieutenant's visit to ReJacob's store marks the beginning of the total roiiiltcation and decline of the Jewish merchant's tremendous leather business...
...Yet lie agrees with the committee that "political organizations in the United States shown to be unelcr the influence of a foreign government should be outlawed...
...What Mr...
...Hit poetic gift becomes evident in the gallery of lush portraits of women he draws for ut...
...A cm \o,L M.M...
...But to the Anglo-American reader they inevitably suggest the question: Where whs Ehrenburg (and Rus.«ia) when Paris wan tailing or whin England was fiifhting alone...
...Those who were alarmed by newspaper accounts tf tha methods of the committee and the antics of its chairman will find subtutiation for their fears in William Cellerman's well documented book, "Maram Dies...
...When Martin Dies first urged the House of Representatives in VXV2, to pass his bill authorizing the congressional investigation of un-American activities, he stated that such an investigation "might jeopardize fundamental rights far more important" than those the bill was devised to protect...
...has a long and complicated history...
...Herr Lemke confront...
...He questions, for example, the necessity for ny sort of investigation at all, believing ";hat the case for our American form of government is so strong that it need not fear any other theory or form of government...
...It it became of hit lack of tuCcett with Marcha and her father's obvious distaste for Lemke's Insolent advances that the latter decides to revenge himself on the wealthy...
...I belong," says Ehrenburg, "to till" generation that lived through the World war and the Civil war and has accustomed to the sight of dead bodies, but fascist cruelties hsve exceeded all limits...
...In comparison with the methods of the G.P.U., however, the Dies Committee is an organization of innocents—and the Liberals would do well to keep this in mind...
...The reader becomes conscious of /.allium slim our's fine psychological insight into his characters as the story of the family's downfall progresses...
...When he speaks of Mlna Schatz, for example, he says: "Her closed eyes were mysterious, the rosy curve of her lips was pure and passionate, and against the white pillow her face, surrounded by its crown if black hair, was the noble lace of a princess and daughter of martyrs.* And of yet another lovely woman, Zosia Kalwary, he paints this picture: "She sat on her little red velvet sofa in her dark blue dress with golden spangles around her azure collar, around her high neck and on her breast...
...One cannot but feel that the downfall of the Schatz family, poignant though it is, becomes a much lets significant tragedy when compared with the horrible' fate of exteriqination of Jewish families In present-day Poland...
...Shncour's vivid characterization it also to be found among hit portraits of men...
...He ia particularly good in his sensitive treatment of women...
...But he mlds that the decision rhould lie rendered by the courts and not by a congressional committee...
...Gellerman points out, could not possibly have actomplished Its purpose of investigating in-American activities impartially bc•MM the committee was packed from •* very beginning with reactionaries who were more interested in airing their prejudices than in examining the facts, whea the conclusions of the committee •timed to be bated on the facts presented R was a matter Of coincidence of fact and prejudice rather than convergence of •rldence...
...But if he were appointed to take charge there would be no abridgement of "the undisputed right of every citizen in (he United States (o express his convictions and enjoy freedom of speech...
...The book's ending, however, is weak and unconvincing...
...The record, of the Dies Committee showa that Dies neither remembered hfs warning nor kept his promise...
...For although these groups use civil liberties to destroy them, they are, strictly speaking, within the law...
...WtL™ ' \%j[A EHBENBURG...
Vol. 27 • October 1944 • No. 42
