LIBERTY FOR THE CONDEMNED
BERGER, MORROE
Liberty for the Condemned . HeWewed by MORROf BERGER JJFI L/NE rO A PROMISED LAND. By Ira A. Hirschnxann. Vanguard. 208 \ .pages- '2-75* LmmBE tragedy of European Jewry in World War II can...
...Early in the book the discussion of the needs of the refugees and their betrayal by all governments is crowded out by Hirschmann's impressive references to special planes, confidential previews of things to come...
...Hirschmann's dramatic efforts get pretty funny after awhile...
...No doubt Scribner'b shed the jacket with its flattering flaps out of simple propriety...
...Another example, this from the poem starkly entitled "Legs": "Poor man's steering wheel, You drive us abroad Like train or automobile...
...The Ambassador refused, and advised Mr...
...They left it to the book alone to toast the House of Seribner's on its centennial in publishing...
...But Mr...
...Messrs...
...ScRIBNER'S made it tough for the writers assigned to comment on this book...
...Without the jacket we miss the bubbling blurb—that handy device for easing the labors of a harassed book reviewer...
...1. Mr...
...But what Mr...
...12.50...
...The agressiveness of a department store executive may have been what was required for the accomplishment of the task set for Hirachmain...
...More of it would appear in the magazines if their literary editors, as a elaas, had better taste...
...MlSS MERRIAM's book is the latest volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets, edited by W. H. Auden, and comes to public view with the additional Messing of Archibald MacLeish, who contributes an introduction...
...Hirschmann to go home because he would "get nn•heiV with Bulgarians, Rumanians and Tdrka...
...And I mean it...
...Or did they try to prove, with this volume, the poor status of current American poetry...
...All they provided was a glassine wrapper — stuff that repels printers ink...
...These letters, between editors and authors, are dexterously woven into a faithful biography of a fascinating business...
...they were, as the author himself puts it in quotes, "on our side...
...MacLeish and Auden to urge the publication of this book...
...It would be too cruel to quote further...
...208 \ .pages- '2-75* LmmBE tragedy of European Jewry in World War II can perhaps never be fully 1 aaaununieated to those who were not its victims, but at least the outlines of the ,. A story become clearer aa the reports increase, Ira A. Hirachmann, a leading Isjoitmmt a tore executive and patron of the arts, tells in Lift Line to a Promised toad his and America's part in the attempt to save thousands of Jews from annihilation in the Balkans...
...The embarrassing and obvious fact la that Miss Merriam is a nervous soap-boxer with a "message...
...Leaving aside Magna Carta (because it was not at all what Mr...
...Moat of thorn, alas, don't know a lovely lyric from a lamppost...
...This official revealed that the Rumanian and Bulgarian Ministers to Tura»y, while their countries were still Nazi •atellites, "had had the respect of the Russians all along" and were being retained in office by the Russian occupation authorities...
...The first important exaggeration Hirschmann offers is the statement that the order "establishing the War Refugee Board ranks with the great liberal documents in history and continues ihe tradition of Magna Carta and the Bill ef Rights...
...Hirschmann paid another visit to the Soviet Embassy, where he spent "several Profitable hours" with the First Secretary...
...Her very first poem, "My Mother," seto the tone of the entire volume...
...They failed to dress it in a "dust jacket...
...When one separates fact from interpretation ia Hirschmann's account, his achievement looks more modest than is suggested by his emotional prose...
...Happy Birthday...
...In recording the Scribner saga, Roger Burlingame quotes copiously from the letter-riles miraculously preaerved, despite predatory arachnids, reorganizations, and many movings from a Nassau Street brick chapel in 1846 to their present Fifth Avenue location...
...Earlier in his story Hirschmann tells us what he did when the Director of the War Refugee Board informed him of the presence of 50,000 Jews in an area between the Bug and Dniester rivers...
...As far as I could tell, if we accept his story Hirschmann accomplished two significant things, the first of unquestioned merit, the second somewhat naive and perhaps wot so fortunate in the light of subsequent events...
...A few faded photographs filched from the "Darrow wall" or borrowed from the Culver collection would have helped...
...One does not lead the singing of "For he's a jolly good fellow" at one's own birthday party...
...Tab revocation, he felt, made it unnseessary to try to get the 45,000 Jews out of Bulgaria...
...In taking up the writing of this book, however, he could have gained by trying to follow the example of the Hebrew prophets, who knew not only when to be proud am) furious but also when to be humble...
...His impassioned account of the fate of Balkan Jewry and the work he undertook lesjeal Hirschmann aa a man of broad human sympathies, a'believer in human decency sol aa enemy of protocol...
...But in the very act of creation el the War Refugee Board it was obvious that America was offering little Mare than sentiment, for it was our government's intention to save re'ugees by trying to get them admitted into any country except our own...
...One leaves his book with a vision of him jumping in and out of giant C 64's and pacing up and down while waiting to meet someone or anticipating a decision of great significance...
...Hirschmann spent about five months in the Middle East in 1944 as first Special Attache of the State Department He was charged with carrying out the program of the newly-created United States War Refugee Board and went to Turkey with the siisaioa to save European Jews by getting them out of the Balkans, into Turkey and tkoa ta Palestine...
...Auden and MacLeish must have had dreadful collections of verse to choose from, or their judgment has lapsed...
...Often at the simple-minded political level of a Lillian Hellma'n movie, Hirschmann approaches her dramatic level as well...
...If they did, they .were wrong again...
...The same poem ends with this tortured image: "Your hands are scholarly with love...
...One wonders how thankful Bulgarian Jews are now for this service...
...Before leaving Turkey Mr...
...ChdrUt Seribner's Sons, New York...
...At one point he describes himself playing Beethoven on the piano in the home of the Ankara representative of the International Red Cross while waiting for the arrival of the Rumanian Minister to Turkey...
...74 vaees...
...American Poetry — Tinsel and Gold Reviewed By CHARLES ANGOFF FAMILY CIRCLE...
...Your drop deliberately As voided bill...
...Her poetical gift, in so far as she haa any, consists in the figurative pointing to the miseries of the world and saying, in effect, "It's terrible...
...It was really not very kind for Messrs...
...Hirschmann located hundreds of visas which had been 'lost" ia the British Embassy in Ankara, thus enabling 4,500 children to go from Bulgaria to Turkey, the transfer point on the route to the Promised Land...
...Consider the first four lines: "Suburban middle clang ami stoutening middle age, Your early poverty...
...It is regrettable that Mr...
...The plight of European Jewry deserves something better than this misleading and immodest recital...
...Most of thorn, indeed, brand lyricism aa aentimentaliam—which is to say, they don't like Keats or Shakespea/e or The Song ef Solomon or Emily Dickinson...
...Simply teirible...
...I made a note in my little book: 'Transnitria, f'ehle says, Break it up.' " These observations on the report of such h worthy undertaking may seem unduly harsh...
...2. He helped to prod Bulgaria into revoking its aati-Jewish laws in September of 1944...
...This makes it all the more unfortunate that he has written so pretentious a book that, despite the gravity of his subject and the undoubted importance of his mission, his own exploits and sacrifices seem to be his 'main theme...
...Hirschmann has nothing but praise for Russian diplomacy, and could fully understand the Russian's refusal to aid in getting refugees out of the Balkans...
...Hirschmann's material warranted was a magazine article of ordinary size, not a book padded with pride...
...By Eve Merrianu YaU University Press, New Haven, 1940...
...The discrepancy between reported fact aad Hirschmann's interpretation is apparent in his treatment of the Russian diplomats he met...
...Soon after his arrival ht Ankara he consulted the Soviet Ambassador to Turkey, asking him to intercede with the Bulgarians, with whom Russia was not at war...
...S3.75...
...BEH BLAKE* OF MAKING MANY BOOKS...
...Hirschmann thinks), the Bill of Rights is a great document because it was implemented to an unprecedented degree, ait because it expresses noble sentiasrats...
...There is much good, if not great, verse being written...
...347 pages...
...By Roger Burlingame...
...aad dramatic conversations that sound totally artificial...
...Burlingame ignored the picture morgue...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 3
