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(01:07):
Brian Mark Rigg. He's written fivebooks, but he's actually grew up being
an evangelical Christian, discovered he wasJewish. He's written two books that I
find fast and Hitler's Jewish Soldiers andthe Rabbi Saved by the Gestapo, a
story about how the sixth Lebaba CherRevue was saved by the Gestapo. Fantastic
story which we were discussing on thisvery special edition of talk Line, where
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five, six nine one. Hopeto see you're there. You're listening to
Talk Line with Zev Brenner, America'spremier Jewish broadcast on the year since nineteen
eighty one. And now here's yourhost, and we are back, and
we're very pleased. I spend quitea while, I would say maybe ten
years or more since we last hadour guests on the air. Were very
(06:02):
pleased that he joins us again.He's very accomplished. He's a professor.
He's written five books on the WorldWar Two and on the Holocaust. He's
a historian, he's been an Israelimilitary he is actually his two books that
I find very fascinating is The RabbiSafe for Hitler's Shoul Soldiers, which is
(06:23):
about how the previous Lebaba Chrevie wassaved by the Gestapo and Hitler's Jewish Soldiers.
So, Professor Brian Mark Rigg,thank you for joining us again.
Hey there, thanks so much forhaving me. It's good to be back.
You good to be back. Soyou're a fascinating story because you grew
up as an evangelical Christian but thendiscovered somehow that during your research on the
(06:46):
Holocaust and World War Two that youreally weren't Evangelical Christian, but you were
a Jew. Yeah. I wasraising a very Protestant environment, and when
I was a freshman at Yale University, I decided to go over to Germany
to research my family's background and learnthe language of my ancestors, especially since
(07:06):
the Wall had come down in nineteeneighty nine in Germany, because a lot
of my family's towns where they hadcome from were behind the Iron Curtain,
so I was now able to goto East Germany and research my family's background
and make a long story short,I found all these Jews and the family
branches on my mother's side that Inever knew about. And what I assume
(07:27):
happened was when my great great grandparentscame over, they were just tired of
anti Semitism and they just told everybodythat they were Lutherans and Protestants, never
thinking that a great great grandson wouldgo back over to the old country and
dig up the family bones, ifyou will. And so you know,
when I came back to Yale Universityfor my sophomore year with this information,
(07:47):
I sat down with a rabbi fromOrsmaic at the hill L there at Yale's
name was Rabbi cast Net, andI showed him all my documents and he
got real excited and said, youknow, barokhim plus be God. You're
a Jew, you know, becauseit came down to my mother's line.
And I asked him, well,I always thought I was a watch,
(08:07):
So you know, what does itmean to be a Jew? And I
got a scholarship to go to Orsomakand Jerusalem and study in the Yeshiva there,
and you know a few years later, I certainly is ready military.
So I've embraced my Jewish background.I'm an ethical humanist now and I'm a
member of the American Jewish Committee,and I was on the Holocaust Museum board
here in Dallas, and so youknow, I was a member of hell
(08:30):
L at Yale. So I've embracedthat background, and I've kind of come
full circle with my ancestors rejecting it. Now I've embraced it. And you
know, my oldest son wants toserve in the Israeli military, so he's
continuing on that tradition of embracing itas well. So I am who I
am and that is one big partof my identity certainly, and it since
(08:52):
wresting. So I did, howdid your parents take to the fact that
you discovered you were Jewish? Youknow, my dad, I ironically,
you know, a lot of peoplealways thought he was Jewish. He was
nickname in high school was the Rabbi. But to my knowledge, he has
no Jewish background. I mean he'sactually through him. I'm related the way
(09:13):
in the Conqueror and one of thefounders of Philadelphia, Sir John Linton.
But he was fine with it.But my mom and her family, the
ones who actually had them, youknow, Jewish ancestry, they were a
little disconcerted at first. And youknow, we had a little bit of
a family many me. I wastrying to understand why we didn't know about
(09:35):
this, and a few of themwould pipe up, you know, Brian,
we have enough problems as it isas a family. You know,
we don't need anti Semitism too.And I would basically counter saying, well,
you know, you love Jesus andhe was a you know, he
was a Jew. And they're like, well, no, that that was
different. I was like, no, it's not. He was a rabbi,
you know, he was one ofthe most successful, you know,
(09:56):
Jewish figures in history, and soeventually a few of them have come around
and have embraced at My mom everynow and then goes to a Messianic synagogue.
And when I told Rabbi Castinette that, you know, you kind of
you kind of pipe, it's like, oh, Bay, you know,
that's worse, right, because youcan't be Christian and Jewish at the same
time. If you Jewish or Christianand Messianic congregations mess it all up and
(10:18):
it's it's yeah. But you know, the positive thing about that is that
there there is a little bit moreembracing of it within my family. And
so, you know, at firstthey were very disconcerted about it. But
you know, now after you know, well over twenty years of me going
over to Israel, i mean,you know, and showing to people the
documents that I have, you know, it's part of our history. Now.
(10:41):
Wow, So it's amazing. Areyou going to write a book about
your spiritual honesty? Well, youknow, I'm working to some degree on
that right now. You know,so many people have encouraged me to write
a book called In Search of Hipper'sJewish Soldiers. So, you know,
my my own Jewish discovery and Jewishidentity parallels with the research that culminated in
(11:03):
my first book, Hitler as theJewish Soldiers, because I fell into that
subject matter at the same time whenI was, you know, finding out
about my Jewish background. And soyou know, I have been working on
that for about twenty years. I'veoften taught you know, good Lord.
You know, when I first startedthat, I was in my thirties.
I was like, you know,what do I have to offer to humanity
(11:24):
to be writing my autobiography, youknow, about the historical process of documenting
you know, my PhD that thenturned into four books on World War Two
and Nazi Germany. But you know, now I'm looking at it more introspectively
and coming back to a lot ofthe interviews of the men that I interviewed
(11:46):
twenty twenty five years ago, youknow, and all of them are basically
not whip us anymore. And Ithink, you know, doing that odyssey
of how I did the research foralmost ten years and interviewing over five hundred
men of Jewish Santa serves the Nazimilitary, and then at the parallel experience
of me learning about my Jewish backgroundand spending time in Israel and studying in
(12:09):
yeshiva's and learning about you know,German Jewish history. I think it's very
interesting and I can tie in alot of historical themes in new subject matters
and interesting personalities. Because I gotto be friends with the former Chance with
Germany, Helmut Schmidt, who hadJewish background, he was in the Nazi
military. I got to interview youknow, Hitler's bodyguard, Hitler's secretary,
(12:33):
a couple of his generals. Iwas meeting, you know, very prominent
rabbis like Rabbi Besser in New Yorkand becoming good friends with him. That
he was supporting me, And soI think this does have relevance two different
themes about you know, exploring youknow, racism, exploring that hey,
(12:56):
we're part of one race, thehuman race, and also exploring from a
different angle of the Holocaust once again, which we can't study enough because we
continue to have genocide in the world. So when we say never again and
it continues to happen again, wesee we have a lot of work to
do, you know, with takumolam or you know, it's kind of
reminds me of what George Orwell said. He said, you know, every
(13:20):
morning I wake up and there's aside of me that wants to enjoy the
world, and then there's another sideof me that wants to save it,
and it makes planning for the daydifficult. And I think that's where I'm
at with this kind of like personaljourney of writing the down. So if
you think it's for the question debyeah, I think I'd love to say,
bring that out in the next yearor so. So I want to
get back to Hitless Jewish Solt lateron. But the book that I was
(13:43):
fascinated by and you've written it wasreissued in twenty sixteen. The rabbis say,
by Hitler's soldiers, you deal withthe previous Lebaba Cherabi, the sixth
one who was saved by the Gestapo. It's a great story. Yeah,
thank you so much to Yeah,it's actually the ad there the German Secret
Service that was and a lot ofpeople interchanged Gestapo and av there. That's
(14:09):
a common common mistake, but itwas the German Secret Service that got into
it. Yeah. It got reissuedin two sixteen. When my um when
you know, when I documented theGerman personalities who rescued the Lobabacher Revie,
the sixth Lobboscher Revie, josephs auctioneershim. I started writing about this and
(14:31):
researching in the nineteen ninety two andninety three, and then I really kind
of dove into it ninety four,right when the seven Lobbaher Revie passed,
and it became an essay at YaleUniversity, and it came out of Masters,
and then it became a book thateventually came out with Yoe University Press
in two thousand and four. Whenit came out, it was about a
(14:52):
three hundred and twenty page book.At the time. I had all these
people get in touch with me whowere connected to the rescue in certain ways.
Members of Brandeis families, members ofBenjamin Cohen's family, who was in
the brain trust of FDR and wasinstrumental in helping the Rebbe. One of
(15:13):
the main German personalities who was secondin command of Gering's for Your Plan.
His name was Helmett Voltos and wasreally key in getting the Rebbe out of
Europe. His daughter got in touchwith me. The lobbyists in Washington Sea
that was critical for linking the lobobitarycommunity with the establishment in the State Department.
(15:35):
Max the Road, his family gotin touch with me and make a
long story short, I got aboutanother ten thousand pages worth of documentation to
rewrite the book in respects to bringout a second edition in a richer edition.
The second book is almost six hundredpages along Ernst Block with the German
(15:56):
soldier who was on the ground,who actually found the rebby and got him
out of Warsaw Alpham underneath the knowsthat the SS and rescued him without him.
Also, you really don't you don'thave a kabbad in America? Um?
How did it end up that theUnited States government got in touch with
Germany and helped rescue the Rebbee?How did it all come about? Let's
(16:19):
give our wardings a taste of whatyou wrote about. This is you know,
this is one of the most remarkablerescues of War War two, if
not the most remarkable. And I'mquoting a dear mentor of mine, Michael
Barabaum, who was one of themost instrumental people with the washingtonc holocoust Museum.
He ran the show of foundation.Just a brilliant mind and a wonderful
(16:40):
Holocaust scholar, and he helped mewith this research and has written support u
you know, blurbs and reviews forit. Just wonderful man. So how
did this happen? How does thisremarkable rescue happen? Well, Lbabacher Rebbie,
the sixth Lobarbicher rebbee Um and thetwenties, was being persecuted by the
Soviet Union and in the late twentieshe was sentenced to death, and our
(17:03):
government got involved because of a lotof the lobobators here had contacts to Senator
Robert Wagner in New York, hadcontact the Brandies at the time, and
a few others, and it basicallythere weren't the Lobabishers in the United States
at that point. There weren't thatmany, but they had some key contacts.
And as we all know today,you know, one Lobabisher can make
(17:26):
himself feel as if he's one hundredpeople, you know, because they're very
loud and very vocal about things.They're passionate about, especially with their kabat
houses all over the world, Sothey're very even though they're back then they
were a small number. They werevery similar to what they are now,
which means they get out there.They're very aggressive, they're very president in
(17:47):
the community. So when the SovietUnion Stalin was going to kill him,
they basically mobilized their contacts in Americahelped rescue him. The Rebbie did get
out of He came to American innineteen twenty nine and he did a good
will tree. He met Brandeis,he met other politicians. He actually met
(18:07):
President Hoover at the White House,and so he had these contacts kind of
you know, already established. Now, let's past for a nineteen thirty nine
when Germany invades the Rebie is rightoutside of Warsaw and the main center for
Kabad called Altvak, and he wastrapped there because you know, Jeremy took
(18:32):
it over so quickly, and onceagain, his followers here in America started
mobilizing all the political contacts they had, especially from what they had had ten
years before, and they were gettingin touch with Benjamin Cohen, who was
part of the brain trust under FDRwrote the New Deal. They got in
touch with Brandis, they got intouch with Centator Robert Wagner, they got
(18:52):
in touch with you know, PhilipKleinfeld, very prominent politicians at this time,
and they even got up to aSecretary State, Cordell Hall. And
Cordell Hall was actually married to aJewish woman. He was not real proactive
with Jewish issues, but it didreach him and the reason why they contacted
him is because of his Jewish wife. And so this even you know,
(19:15):
I had to get to FDR.I haven't found anything in Hyde Park,
but if Benjamin Cohen knew about it, he definitely breathed the president. So
basically the government at the time,they were getting so much pressure, they
basically said, okay, we willtry to help you get the ready out
(19:36):
and they did it for political reasons, not for humanitarian reasons. As we
know with the Saint Louis and otherfamous events in World War two, America
was horrible with helping with the immigrationissues of Jews that needed to get here,
especially under Assistant Secretary of State Breckonrich Long, who was a horrible
(19:57):
human being and was a them atall in my estimation. But anyway,
America at the time that the governmentofficials were involved, you know, there
might have been some that we're thinkingof it from a humanitarian point of view,
but by and large the reason whythe higher ups decided to act on
it is because they said, hey, we can get a lot of good
will here, a lot of goodwill from the Jewish community, and this
(20:18):
guy was presented to them as thePope of the Jewish world. So they
were looking at it like, Okay, this guy has a lot of prestige
and it can help us. Sothey basically got in touch with Robert Pelle
in the Foreign Affairs Office, whohad had very good relations with Helmet Voltot,
who was Gering's second in command ofthe four Year Plan, and they
(20:42):
had met at the Avian Conference innineteen thirty eight when the world met there
in that town in Switzerland to talkabout the Jewish immigration crisis, and basically
nobody wanted to do anything but behindclosed doors, Volta told pell if there's
ever some Jews that you want toget out of Germany, you just let
me know and I'll help you.So when Brand Dynth and Visermin Colan and
(21:06):
others got in touch with hell oncethey got the green lights from the State
Department in the White House to dothis, Bell went to Voltat and as
Voltat, can you help us out, you remember what you promised me back
in nineteen thirty eight, and Voltasaid, absolutely, we will help you
out. And remember America is notat war with Germany at this time in
nineteen thirty nine. They want tokeep it. They have diplomatic relations open,
(21:26):
they want to keep relations good.They want to stay out of war,
and so Germany wants to keep thatstatus quo. They're fighting Poland they're
gonna they got declared war, gotdeclared against them from England and France.
So they're looking again at the TwoFront War. So at this time period
they want to keep America out becausethey remember in nineteen seventeen when America came
(21:48):
in, it devastated Germany and basicallybrought a conclusion to World War One with
Germany's defeat. So Voltat got Gurningsfor permission and others to act on this,
and he went to the head ofthe German secret service, the abb
there Admiral Kanaris, who was knownto be against the Nazis and who was
known also to have a lot ofpeople of Jewish descent in his organization that
(22:14):
he had helped get aryanized and hadgiven special clemency to remain in the military
and in the cryptology departments of theGerman military secret service. So Panaris,
when he heard this and the delicatesituation, he says, absolutely, I
know exactly who I would ask todo this, and we can get this
done. To go up to Warsawand find Rebbie Chearson and his entourage and
(22:40):
get them out of Warsaw and getthem in America. I want to pick
up. I want to pick upon that store. It's a fascinating story
our guests. Professor Brian Rigg haswritten five books. We're discussing two of
them. The Rabbis Safe by Hitler'sSoldiers as well as Hitler's Jewish soldiers.
We're gonna be right back. Areyou looking for the best deals on furniture,
(23:03):
Look no further than North Carolina Furniture. After forty five years in business,
they're closing their doors forever. Thatmeans gigantic savings for you. Everything
in stock is on sale, includingbedroom sets, dining room sets, sofa's,
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Their loss is your game. Getfifty percent below retail prices on everything
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(23:47):
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Greater Windows dot com. You're listeningto talk Line with Zev Brenner, America's
premier Jewish broadcast on the year sincenineteen eighty one. And now here's your
host and we are back our specialguests, as Professor Mark Brian Rigg.
(26:22):
He's written fascinating books. We're lookingat not only Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, which
will be upcoming, we'll look atthat. We're looking at how the how
the German cigarette police helped save theLebaba Cherebbe so I interrupted you, Professor
Rigg. We were in Warsaw whereit's nineteen thirty nine and they're sent to
actually this secret service of the Germanyis sent to find the Rebbe in Warsaw.
(26:45):
How did they find the rebbe LebabaChebbi Barba shnarrison. The Lebaba chers
had given all the information that theyknew about where the ReBs whereabouts were in
Otwock and then later on in Warsawplaces where he was staying, and they
turned this over to the State Department. Then the State Department turned it over
to the German Secret Service. WhenAdmiral Canaris, who was head of the
(27:07):
advert the German Secret Service, decidedto help out with this rescue. Once
he was asked to do so,he picked a gentleman by the name of
Ernst Bloch, who was a quoteunquote half Jew and had been riyanized by
Hitler and allowed to remain in themilitary. He was a decorated World War
(27:29):
One soldier, had a PhD ineconomics from the University of Berlin, was
a brilliant mind, and you know, Canaris just basically had a conversation.
It was like, Hey, you'regonna go up to Warsaw. You're gonna
take some of your guys. Oneof the guys that he was going to
take was what it was called aquarter Jew, but was raised by his
Jewish grandfather who was a rabbi andhe knew Yiddish, and so he said,
(27:51):
you gotta take these groups up there. You're gonna go up and find
the most old Orthodox rabbi in theworld basically, and you're going to rescue.
You can't miss him. He looksjust like Moses, you know.
And these weren't Jewish soldiers or halfJewish soldiers. So the German Army,
the Nazis knew who they were,but they koshered them to stay in the
(28:11):
army. Basically speaking, that's right. You know when if people who are
listening in it just sounds shocking toyou. If you do me the honor
of looking at my first book,Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, I go into the
Nuremberg Laws, the Nazi racial laws, and how crazy it was that when
you studied them, you realize whenthe people were designated as half Jews and
(28:32):
quarter Jews in Nazi Germany, oneJewish grandparent, quarter Jew, two Jewish
grandparents half Jew, These people werecalled Micheline and they actually, if they
were young men, they were requiredby law to serve in the Valmaks,
the German military. They didn't havea choice. Now, if they did
well, they could get special clemencyand get aryanized like Ernst Block and right
(28:53):
up to the ranks. But basicallyeverybody had to do service in Nazi Germany.
If you were a half two quarterJew or if you're a quote unquote
area, if you were more thanfifty percent Jewish, then you were not
allowed to serve. But these guyswho were have to choose and quarter Jews,
they had to serve. So itwasn't that crazy that you had a
lot of people in the Abbar innineteen thirty nine that actually had this background.
(29:17):
So Canaries picked these men with hisbackgrounds. He trusted Block and implicitly
and he said go up there andfind him. So Block is going up
around Warsaw with you know, agroup of four or five German soldiers dressed
the soldiers, Oh yeah, yeah, Block German soldiers. Yeah yeah yeah.
(29:37):
Block has his iron crosses. Youknow, he's in his credit his
military officers uniform, and he's goingdoor to door trying to get the Lababachers
to trust him. Now, what'sinteresting at this time is you're getting information
out of Warsaw that they know theseGermans are coming there and trying to get
find the Revie and they don't trusthim. And then the White House in
(30:00):
the States Departament is writing back saying, no, you gotta trust him.
The Week sent them to you andresponded to Lobabach's in New York. Yeah,
the Lobabascher's and Jafe Jacobson was thesecretary of the organization here and he
was getting a lot of telegrams andyou know, the telegraphs from Europe about
(30:25):
this case. And so they wouldturn this over to this wonderful guy named
Max Road who was a lawyer,and he was keeping everybody informed and the
proper information going to the proper chainof command, if you will, to
get it over to Germany. Eventuallythe Rebbie decide trust block and hands themselves.
(30:48):
They kept knocking out the hideouts afew times before they get knocking.
Yeah, and at the end andthe Rebbe finally said if he comes back,
then led him in. And Iactually interviewed one of the German soldiers
and a couple of the Jewish studentswho were there with the Rebbie when this
happened. And you know, Iinterviewed the Rebbie's grandson, uh, you
know, Rebbi garrari Um. Youknow, I was wonderful, it was.
(31:11):
I was blessed to get a meetingwith him. And you know he's
a huge person in this whole debateabout the library and then so on,
um. And so he was therewhen the German soldiers came and I interviewed
him. So the Rebbie, youknow, it's interesting the Lobobter hagiography,
if you will, and the mythologyis that they believed the Jew in a
(31:32):
German uniform from World War One cameand rescued them. You know, that
was one version. Another version wasthat it was an angel in human form
they came and rescued them. Anotherversion that it was a Jew that had
hidden his background and had you know, found a German uniform somehow and pretended
to be a secret service. Andthen there was you know, the other
story that this was indeed a GermanGerman officer. Once the Rebbie decided to
(31:55):
trust him, the block was flabbergastedwhen the Rebbie said, I'm not going
to leave unless you take you know, some of my closest family members and
my secretaries and someone up to abouttwenty people, because the Block was only
planning on taking the rebbe and youknow, maybe his wife and two kids,
grandkids, and that's it. Youknow, maybe up to six or
seven. So you know, eventuallyBlock gets the necessary trained documents and the
(32:22):
travel bachelors and everything that he hasto have to take twenty ultra Orthodox Jews
through SS checkpoints hideout. While thiswas negotiating, what did they take him
to a different place? Well,you know eventually when um when when the
rebby finally turned himself over to Blockcare, Block had a truck and kind
(32:49):
of like an elongated um uh semitruck as well, and he would put
he put he put them all inthe uh the vehicles, and then it
looked I think from what I've beenable to ascertain, he took them to
a few of the germans Um barracksthat were in the area. And you
(33:12):
know the first thing he did withthem is to get them clean. I
mean they had been under siege andwarsaw with no plumbing, no no ability
to clean themselves washed their clothes formonths and so um, you know,
the first thing, you know,a lot of the clothes were discarded.
In fact, some of the OrthodoxJews found themselves having to wear some German
(33:34):
uniforms while they were cleaning up theirup clothes or finding some of their clothes
for them. So so it lookedlike for a few days they were in
a kind of secure area and ofbarracks and military barracks, and then they
were they were planning their escape,if you will. And as Block is
going tough these SX checkpoints to getout to a train station because he was
going to first take them to Berlinto then get him up to Riga.
(33:57):
That was the goal. Uh,you know, he had to pretend like
he was going to take these guysout to shoot him because you know,
a lot of the intelligency at thetime and Jewish leaders were sited. The
ss F found them, they tookhim out and killed him because they didn't
want people to have leadership. Sothe rebbee was obviously a prime you know
prize for the ss and Block knewthis well. He did a great job
(34:20):
pretending you know that he was gonna, you know, mistreat these Jews.
He'd get out and talk to thess men at the checkpoint saying, you
know, we're taking these Jews outsideof wars Now, we're gonna make him
dig their own grade. We're gonnakill him. And then he would get
back in the truck and he lookat you know, the Rebbe and say,
hey, don't worry about it,and I'm Jewish, I'm here to
protect you. And it's a remarkablestory how Block was able to get him
(34:40):
to Berlin and then from Berlin toget him up to Riga and to make
a long story se work because Iknow we have questions, you know,
in a wheelchair, Well, thisis what's crazy. I mean, the
Rebby was not in good health.He was obeest, you know, he
was. He was probably five footeight, maybe five foot nine. He
(35:02):
was about two hundred and thirty twohundred and forty pounds. He smoked heavily,
sometimes three packs a day, Hehad MS, and he was wheelchair
bound. So you know, duringthe bombing of Warsaw you have these almost
you know, you could almost saycomical tragic scenes where you know, he's
(35:22):
being carried down by three or fourYeshiba boys who are not very you know,
physically fit downstairs and trying to gethim into bunkers and putting him in
you know somethings. They had toput him on a stretcher and get him
around. So he was you know, he had a nurse with him that
had to help him dress and cleanhimself, and he was not in very
(35:43):
good shape physically at all. Andso during this whole process you're having to
do extra you know, care toget him to certain places, to help
him get clean, to get himdressed, to help him, you know,
get fed, and so on.So yeah, you bring up a
very interesting point to add a wholenew dimension of drama to the story.
(36:06):
And you know, they kind ofmake make the long story short because it
is this, you know, almostsix hundred pages of information that I have
m you know, when already getsthe riga, the stall war starts rallying
in saber. We'll be right backwith more and we'll look at the how
the secret Service of the Nazis savedthe previous Lobamas. Joseph Sneerersen The Jewish
(36:32):
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seven. You're listening to talk Linewith Zev Brenner, America's premier Jewish broadcast
on the air since nineteen eighty one. Now here's your host, and we're
back with Professor Bryan Mark Riggs.So you were telling the story about getting
(38:08):
the Rebbe out, so let's pickup again. Okay, great, Yeah,
So when they got him to Germany, Bloc turned around, and I
think it was because partly to throwoff a cent of the SS, but
also it was because a lot ofthe train links to the north of Warsaw
had been destroyed in the war withPoland. So when he got to Germany,
the train link getting up to Rigawere open, so he got him
(38:30):
to Rega. While he was inRiga, Stalin started rattling his saber about
taking over the Baltic States, whichis something he wanted to do. He
had told Hitler that that was kindof the deal. He got one half
of Poland and Hitler got the otherhalf. And Stalin had made a point
that when he kicked the Rebbe outof Russia in nineteen twenty nine, you
(38:53):
know, instead of killing him becauseof the US pressure, Stalin did say,
if you ever come back here,we're going to kill you. And
so the Rebbie knew that if Stalintook over this area, he was done
for. So they were pushing theImmigration Office really hard at this time because
although all these different governments and entitieswere working on behalf of the request of
(39:17):
the American government, you still hadthe Immigration Office having to you know,
basically issue visas to get them here, and they haven't done that yet because
you have a whole bunch of antiSemites there, which were horrible people like
breckan Ridge Long. Eventually they getthe visas and he gets one of the
last planes from Riga out before Stalintakes over. And Stalin starts arresting a
(39:39):
lot of rabbis in the Baltic Statesin nineteen forty people don't realize and sending
him off the Gulags and killing him, just like Hitler was doing in thirty
nine in Poland, finding the intelligenciaand the leadership of different groups that he
wanted to take out, one ofthem being Jews. Obviously killing the rabbis.
Stalin was doing the same thing.So they was lucky you got out
(40:00):
to Stockholm, and from Stockholm hetook a train to Guttenburg. From Gottenburg
he took one of the laugh shipsthat could get out of the Baltic Sea.
Because Hitler was about to invade Norwayin Denmark and cut off the Baltic
Sea, he sent all his Uboats off the coast of Norway. Ships
leaving before and after the Reavy shipthe dropping home he was on were sunk
(40:22):
by torpedoes. It's just one thingafter the other that you're just like,
man, there's a lot of alot of miracles, right, that's happened
to Yeah, I mean, youknow that's what that's what the religious say.
You know, what do you say, you did the research, What
does it seem to you if theywere bombing other boats and his survived,
or even there his escape, therewere bombing around him and he's still escaped,
(40:42):
would you call that miraculous? Well, you know, it's definitely extraordinary,
no doubt. You know, whenyou look at it, you're just
shaking your head. But you know, there's there's a one thing you could
do. You could flip it onthe other side. You could say,
okay, hey, this is reallyrealracles. God was involved, how him
was behind it. But then youhave to say, well, hey,
(41:04):
wait a second out of the sixmillion Jews that were slaughtered one point five
million were children. Where were themiracles there? You know what, why
why wasn't he rescuing them? Youknow, listen, we don't understand why
the Holocaust took place. But ifyou're looking at from a from looking you
did the research, and you seethat everybody bald was dying, that literally
(41:25):
their bombs, and there's whether it'son the boats or even in Poland and
getting out into the odyssey, andthat he's going through Germany with an SS
officer. So you have to say, this is not your typical thing.
This is so it's just a miraclethat he got out. You can look
at the Holocaust. You know,you're right there. I mean, you
know, but the religious love todefine that significant in it. Me as
(41:49):
the historian, I just look atman. You know, you're you're playing
craps, you're playing uh Russian Rouletteand uh you know, you're getting really
lucky several times. And um.So he you know, he gets on
this ship. It's actually stopped afew times by German U boats and when
they found that there's no contraband onboard, they continue to let it go,
(42:13):
even though they did they see aRevan there with a beard and his
entourage. Did they see that one, Yeah, they would have seen.
They would have seen, well,they would have seen a lot of the
people on the board. In fact, uh, you know, they would
have looked at the protocol list andthings of that sort to make sure there
was no body that were enemies ofthe state trying to get get away.
(42:35):
So they left. They left theletter jew An alls Orthodox leader. Well,
they may not know who he waswhen they may have seen the name,
but they saw Jews on there.That didn't raise any red flags with
the Germans that the Creek Sarna atthat time, the German navy was very
uninterested in the Nazi racial laws.They were strictly looking at this from a
protocol point of view to make surethat there wasn't any contraband on board that
(42:59):
was hilating international law and that therewas anything and the nothing that was going
on that you know, say theunderground of you know, the Polish military
or something like that trying to getout and establish you know, an army,
which they did, but they wantedto make sure none of those personnel
were there. So that's strictly whatthey were doing. And so they released
(43:22):
the ship after looking at it twicetwo different submarines, and then it arrived
at Battery Park in New York innineteen in March of nineteen forty. And
now that's why you have the headquartersat seven seventy of Lebavic in American one
of the largest his city communities inthe world. Now, what's interesting,
(43:44):
A lot of people don't know this, and I document this also very thoroughly.
Had you not had the rescue ofthe sixth Lebabi cher Rebby, you
would not have had the rescue ofthe seventh lebach Revi, which was his
second cousin and also his son inlaw. He was trapped in VC,
France at this time, and theRebbie used some of his contacts in the
government to open up the BESA departmentthere once again with breckan Ridge Long.
(44:08):
Actually, Breckan Ridge Long wrote aletter uncustomarily to get Monochamendo Snearson out of
the Now that's a miracle. Howdid he get him to do that?
Because he's he was an anti semiOh he was horrible. He was a
people call him the American Eikeman.I think there was so much political pressure
on him that he was in hewas a political animal that he realized.
(44:30):
You know, okay, this oneI have to actually let him in because
of all the people who were callingup on my line. Now, you're
right, I think less than wegot yourself on trouble on the air with
us. Will you right? Oncethe Rebbie Robbert josph Snearson came to America,
that he spent more resources trying toget his books than his followers out.
Will you Yeah, he did.You know, when you look at
(44:51):
the historical record, I mean there'sa lot of things. He's not a
good leader in many respects, unlikehis son in law and his s cousin
Monaca Mendel Snerson, who was agood leader. I will say that the
Storcal records very clear on that whenJoseph A. Leux Schnerson came here,
he started pointing the singer at allthe Jewish leaders here saying they were causing
the Holocaust. That he was savedbecause he was doing a true Judaism everybody
(45:16):
else was not, and he wascreating a lot of enemies in discord.
And then also when you look atwhen he went back to the government most
often to ask for favors. Hewas obsessed with his library, which he
eventually got out of Europe, youknow, semi truck full of books,
(45:37):
thousands of books in nineteen forty one. And that's where you see most of
the efforts in the archives. TheNational Archives was his library. He was
obsessed with his books, and alot of the books were secular. You
have Karl Marks dust capital of HeinrichHeine, who works he was a book
a file. And so when youlook at that, and I've had a
(45:59):
lot of scholars like Michael barrebound,they just they're just disgusted that he was
focusing so much on the books.And also that he was saying that the
Holocaust was God's punishment for Jews fornot being and that's not a good way
of building consensus, building bridges,of building lobby groups to put pressure on
American government. In fact, hewas really ostracized by the Jewish community by
(46:22):
forty two, forty three because ofhis hell fire and brimsome preaching, if
you will, condemning everybody, andso yeah, that that got me in
hot water. But it was,you know, it's it's the fact,
it's what the evidence shows. Imean, I wish I could have found
evidence that he didn't focused on libraries, but he focused strictly on just rescuing
lives, and that he was banginghis cane against the White House asking for
(46:45):
help to rescue Jews, and thathe was working with reformed Jews like Rabbi
Cutler and Rabbi Comonobits of the VADs. They were phenomenal and they did this,
but the Rebbie Sharson did not.And I wish I could have said
that because he would have sold morebooks and the Lobobits wouldn't have been you
(47:06):
know, cruel toward me and andand saying negative things because I'm just the
messenger here, I'm the historian.I tell the fact. And they didn't
like what they heard. But theyhave a hard time with history when it
goes against their movement or it's criticalof their leaders. But what you had
with most religious groups. But here'sthe thing that Professor Rigg is, why
(47:30):
wouldn't the Rebbi even try to savehis followers. It wouldn't make any sense.
And he had someone getting his youknow, the son lover of Manakamendlshners
in the inter United States, andwell he helped pave the way for that.
Why wouldn't he go beyond that?It just doesn't make any sense.
He had the same thing with thezatmar Rebbie. You know, he gets
(47:51):
out. He doesn't do a lotof stuff for his followers either, but
he got out. He got out. When did he get out towards the
end of the war. Because hegot out and it was aist, it
was a Zionist, will help gethim out er. Yeah, So you
know what, you bring up avery valid point. I think when you
(48:13):
look at his newspaper, in hisletters, and his far bringing. At
this time, he was so devastatedwith what was going on that he really
turned to theological explanations and theological focusum feeling like if they appease God and
they make God happy and he stopsthe Holocaust, that's the fastest way that
(48:37):
he could rescue his followers instead ofdoing what helped rescue him, which his
political action and lobbying and so on. So his his theology really blinded him
to what really needed to be doneis to work in the real world and
not jump into these realms of spiritualityand trying to explain to people why God
(49:00):
is doing what he's doing, andthat you know, the mind of God.
So I think that's one thing thatyou see that it was really you
know, but think about it.He's not unique here of abandoning a lot
of his followers because of theological mandates. I mean, Pope Pious the eleventh
and then Pope Pious the twelfth didnothing when Germany was taking over Catholic countries
(49:22):
left and right. And when Germanyattacked Poland, which is a totally Catholic
country and was killing Catholics, PopePious the twelfth said nothing. And so
he also was a disgrace when itcomes to what he should have been doing
to protect all of his faith populationin the adherence to his church. So
(49:45):
you have many cases of religious leadersfalling down on the job, as you
will, and not exhibiting good leadership. And unfortunately rebie Joseph, his Auctioneerison
was a very pathetic and poor leader. At I don't know I would say
that apathetically. But the point is, though he was listening, he was
(50:06):
The Soviet Union wanted to kill him, Stalin wanted to kill him, the
Nazis wanted to kill him. Hegot out it serfinitly had an impact on
him. It had to have animpact living the way he'd did in the
conditions. So uh, you know, maybe it affected him in a certain
way where you know, it wasn'tthe same person he was prior to the
Soviets and the Nazis, Right,I mean you bring up an interesting point.
(50:29):
I mean psychologically he was a victimof the Holocaust. Yeah, yeah,
he definitely was. And you wouldthink with a person who actually had
experienced some of the Holocaust, Imean he didn't know all the details because
the ghettos happened after he got rescued, but he definitely knew the Nazis were
not there to help the Jewish communityin any sense of the word. Where
(50:52):
it becomes pathetic is when when youthink you're speaking on God's behalf and when
you think you are the example ofwhat everybody else should do, and you're
standing in condemnation of others. Thenthat's where you do not build up the
necessary channels of communication to build kindness, to build understanding, to build respect,
(51:21):
and building up a Jewish community front, American front, to really confront
this Holocaust that was coming and takingour brothers and sisters. And you know,
he's one example of many different Jewishgroups that didn't really bond well together
during World War Two. If youwant to read an interesting book called about
this is called The Abandonment of theJews by David Yeah. And it's really
(51:45):
tragic that a lot of our Jewishleaders at that time, from different sets,
we're not doing a good job ofbringing people together. But I will
say this, two examples of peoplewho were not pathetics, who were phenomenal
from the US the world were RabbiCutler and Rabbi Commentl this of the vaud
and they did do everything that I'mtelling you that the Rebby did not do.
(52:08):
So when I say pathetic, I'mmeaning this guy. If he was
wise and he was a good leader, he would have been able to bring
people together and fight against this evil. Instead, he was causing dissension,
anger, and political unrest within hisown Jewish community in New York. And
this is what's tragic, because peopleare dying at this time, and he's
(52:34):
more concerned about theological mandate and standingin judgment of all these other people of
what he thinks they're not doing accordingto Hallaka, And this is what's what's
I think he was affected by whathappened then was looking for answers as to
why he was happening. And youmay not agree with yeah, but so
(52:54):
he had issues dealing with what wasgoing on as many Jews that went through
the whole thing. Our guests,Professor Brian Rigg has written five books.
We're discussing two of them, TheRabbis Safe by Hitler's Soldiers as well as
Hitler's Jewish soldiers. We're going tobe right back. We're the people of
the book. So where's yours?Have you ever wanted to write and publish
(53:15):
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never know how you did all thegreat things in your life? I'm New
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Jewish Leaders Books writes and publishes booksby Jewish leaders, people who lead
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(53:37):
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We love to hear from you.Contact us using talk Line Network as the
portal. We got a great showfor you tonight. We'll seek the professor
(01:07):
Brian Mark Rigg. He's written fivebooks, but he's actually grew up being
an evangelical Christian, discovered he wasJewish. He's written two books that I
find fast and Hitler's Jewish Soldiers andthe Rabbi Saved by the Gestapo, a
story about how the sixth Lebaba CherRevue was saved by the Gestapo. Fantastic
story which we were discussing on thisvery special edition of talk Line, where
(01:30):
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room sets, us love seats,and much more. Take advantage of this
once in a lifetime sale before it'stoo late. They're closing their doors forever
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waiting for. Their loss is yourgame. Get fifty percent below retail prices
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lead in their companies, their communities, their synagogues, their philanthropies, and
their families. We don't just writethe book for you. We can publish
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and emailman, and I'm just remindingall of you of the AMIT Annual Yomi
(04:54):
Yun Day of Learning Seminar four WomenBuy Women on Wednesday, June nine,
twenty twenty three, at ten amat the Sephardic Temple. The seminar is
titled Choose Your Story, Change YourLife. How the power of storytelling in
the Tower has the ability to reshapeour interpersonal relationships. The keynote speaker is
(05:17):
Brucha Rutner, head of School atCentral Yeshiva University High School for Girls and
you know E's at Heloja at theKent Mill Synagogue in Silva Springs, Maryland.
Registration is at nine thirty. Formore interaction and to register, please
contact the amid office two one,two, four, seven, seven,
(05:39):
five, six nine one. Hopeto see you're there. You're listening to
Talk Line with Zev Brenner, America'spremier Jewish broadcast on the year since nineteen
eighty one. And now here's yourhost, and we are back, and
we're very pleased. I spend quitea while, I would say maybe ten
years or more since we last hadour guests on the air. Were very
(06:02):
pleased that he joins us again.He's very accomplished. He's a professor.
He's written five books on the WorldWar Two and on the Holocaust. He's
a historian, he's been an Israelimilitary he is actually his two books that
I find very fascinating is The RabbiSafe for Hitler's Shoul Soldiers, which is
(06:23):
about how the previous Lebaba Chrevie wassaved by the Gestapo and Hitler's Jewish Soldiers.
So, Professor Brian Mark Rigg,thank you for joining us again.
Hey there, thanks so much forhaving me. It's good to be back.
You good to be back. Soyou're a fascinating story because you grew
up as an evangelical Christian but thendiscovered somehow that during your research on the
(06:46):
Holocaust and World War Two that youreally weren't Evangelical Christian, but you were
a Jew. Yeah. I wasraising a very Protestant environment, and when
I was a freshman at Yale University, I decided to go over to Germany
to research my family's background and learnthe language of my ancestors, especially since
(07:06):
the Wall had come down in nineteeneighty nine in Germany, because a lot
of my family's towns where they hadcome from were behind the Iron Curtain,
so I was now able to goto East Germany and research my family's background
and make a long story short,I found all these Jews and the family
branches on my mother's side that Inever knew about. And what I assume
(07:27):
happened was when my great great grandparentscame over, they were just tired of
anti Semitism and they just told everybodythat they were Lutherans and Protestants, never
thinking that a great great grandson wouldgo back over to the old country and
dig up the family bones, ifyou will. And so you know,
when I came back to Yale Universityfor my sophomore year with this information,
(07:47):
I sat down with a rabbi fromOrsmaic at the hill L there at Yale's
name was Rabbi cast Net, andI showed him all my documents and he
got real excited and said, youknow, barokhim plus be God. You're
a Jew, you know, becauseit came down to my mother's line.
And I asked him, well,I always thought I was a watch,
(08:07):
So you know, what does itmean to be a Jew? And I
got a scholarship to go to Orsomakand Jerusalem and study in the Yeshiva there,
and you know a few years later, I certainly is ready military.
So I've embraced my Jewish background.I'm an ethical humanist now and I'm a
member of the American Jewish Committee,and I was on the Holocaust Museum board
here in Dallas, and so youknow, I was a member of hell
(08:30):
L at Yale. So I've embracedthat background, and I've kind of come
full circle with my ancestors rejecting it. Now I've embraced it. And you
know, my oldest son wants toserve in the Israeli military, so he's
continuing on that tradition of embracing itas well. So I am who I
am and that is one big partof my identity certainly, and it since
(08:52):
wresting. So I did, howdid your parents take to the fact that
you discovered you were Jewish? Youknow, my dad, I ironically,
you know, a lot of peoplealways thought he was Jewish. He was
nickname in high school was the Rabbi. But to my knowledge, he has
no Jewish background. I mean he'sactually through him. I'm related the way
(09:13):
in the Conqueror and one of thefounders of Philadelphia, Sir John Linton.
But he was fine with it.But my mom and her family, the
ones who actually had them, youknow, Jewish ancestry, they were a
little disconcerted at first. And youknow, we had a little bit of
a family many me. I wastrying to understand why we didn't know about
(09:35):
this, and a few of themwould pipe up, you know, Brian,
we have enough problems as it isas a family. You know,
we don't need anti Semitism too.And I would basically counter saying, well,
you know, you love Jesus andhe was a you know, he
was a Jew. And they're like, well, no, that that was
different. I was like, no, it's not. He was a rabbi,
you know, he was one ofthe most successful, you know,
(09:56):
Jewish figures in history, and soeventually a few of them have come around
and have embraced at My mom everynow and then goes to a Messianic synagogue.
And when I told Rabbi Castinette that, you know, you kind of
you kind of pipe, it's like, oh, Bay, you know,
that's worse, right, because youcan't be Christian and Jewish at the same
time. If you Jewish or Christianand Messianic congregations mess it all up and
(10:18):
it's it's yeah. But you know, the positive thing about that is that
there there is a little bit moreembracing of it within my family. And
so, you know, at firstthey were very disconcerted about it. But
you know, now after you know, well over twenty years of me going
over to Israel, i mean,you know, and showing to people the
documents that I have, you know, it's part of our history. Now.
(10:41):
Wow, So it's amazing. Areyou going to write a book about
your spiritual honesty? Well, youknow, I'm working to some degree on
that right now. You know,so many people have encouraged me to write
a book called In Search of Hipper'sJewish Soldiers. So, you know,
my my own Jewish discovery and Jewishidentity parallels with the research that culminated in
(11:03):
my first book, Hitler as theJewish Soldiers, because I fell into that
subject matter at the same time whenI was, you know, finding out
about my Jewish background. And soyou know, I have been working on
that for about twenty years. I'veoften taught you know, good Lord.
You know, when I first startedthat, I was in my thirties.
I was like, you know,what do I have to offer to humanity
(11:24):
to be writing my autobiography, youknow, about the historical process of documenting
you know, my PhD that thenturned into four books on World War Two
and Nazi Germany. But you know, now I'm looking at it more introspectively
and coming back to a lot ofthe interviews of the men that I interviewed
(11:46):
twenty twenty five years ago, youknow, and all of them are basically
not whip us anymore. And Ithink, you know, doing that odyssey
of how I did the research foralmost ten years and interviewing over five hundred
men of Jewish Santa serves the Nazimilitary, and then at the parallel experience
of me learning about my Jewish backgroundand spending time in Israel and studying in
(12:09):
yeshiva's and learning about you know,German Jewish history. I think it's very
interesting and I can tie in alot of historical themes in new subject matters
and interesting personalities. Because I gotto be friends with the former Chance with
Germany, Helmut Schmidt, who hadJewish background, he was in the Nazi
military. I got to interview youknow, Hitler's bodyguard, Hitler's secretary,
(12:33):
a couple of his generals. Iwas meeting, you know, very prominent
rabbis like Rabbi Besser in New Yorkand becoming good friends with him. That
he was supporting me, And soI think this does have relevance two different
themes about you know, exploring youknow, racism, exploring that hey,
(12:56):
we're part of one race, thehuman race, and also exploring from a
different angle of the Holocaust once again, which we can't study enough because we
continue to have genocide in the world. So when we say never again and
it continues to happen again, wesee we have a lot of work to
do, you know, with takumolam or you know, it's kind of
reminds me of what George Orwell said. He said, you know, every
(13:20):
morning I wake up and there's aside of me that wants to enjoy the
world, and then there's another sideof me that wants to save it,
and it makes planning for the daydifficult. And I think that's where I'm
at with this kind of like personaljourney of writing the down. So if
you think it's for the question debyeah, I think I'd love to say,
bring that out in the next yearor so. So I want to
get back to Hitless Jewish Solt lateron. But the book that I was
(13:43):
fascinated by and you've written it wasreissued in twenty sixteen. The rabbis say,
by Hitler's soldiers, you deal withthe previous Lebaba Cherabi, the sixth
one who was saved by the Gestapo. It's a great story. Yeah,
thank you so much to Yeah,it's actually the ad there the German Secret
Service that was and a lot ofpeople interchanged Gestapo and av there. That's
(14:09):
a common common mistake, but itwas the German Secret Service that got into
it. Yeah. It got reissuedin two sixteen. When my um when
you know, when I documented theGerman personalities who rescued the Lobabacher Revie,
the sixth Lobboscher Revie, josephs auctioneershim. I started writing about this and
(14:31):
researching in the nineteen ninety two andninety three, and then I really kind
of dove into it ninety four,right when the seven Lobbaher Revie passed,
and it became an essay at YaleUniversity, and it came out of Masters,
and then it became a book thateventually came out with Yoe University Press
in two thousand and four. Whenit came out, it was about a
(14:52):
three hundred and twenty page book.At the time. I had all these
people get in touch with me whowere connected to the rescue in certain ways.
Members of Brandeis families, members ofBenjamin Cohen's family, who was in
the brain trust of FDR and wasinstrumental in helping the Rebbe. One of
(15:13):
the main German personalities who was secondin command of Gering's for Your Plan.
His name was Helmett Voltos and wasreally key in getting the Rebbe out of
Europe. His daughter got in touchwith me. The lobbyists in Washington Sea
that was critical for linking the lobobitarycommunity with the establishment in the State Department.
(15:35):
Max the Road, his family gotin touch with me and make a
long story short, I got aboutanother ten thousand pages worth of documentation to
rewrite the book in respects to bringout a second edition in a richer edition.
The second book is almost six hundredpages along Ernst Block with the German
(15:56):
soldier who was on the ground,who actually found the rebby and got him
out of Warsaw Alpham underneath the knowsthat the SS and rescued him without him.
Also, you really don't you don'thave a kabbad in America? Um?
How did it end up that theUnited States government got in touch with
Germany and helped rescue the Rebbee?How did it all come about? Let's
(16:19):
give our wardings a taste of whatyou wrote about. This is you know,
this is one of the most remarkablerescues of War War two, if
not the most remarkable. And I'mquoting a dear mentor of mine, Michael
Barabaum, who was one of themost instrumental people with the washingtonc holocoust Museum.
He ran the show of foundation.Just a brilliant mind and a wonderful
(16:40):
Holocaust scholar, and he helped mewith this research and has written support u
you know, blurbs and reviews forit. Just wonderful man. So how
did this happen? How does thisremarkable rescue happen? Well, Lbabacher Rebbie,
the sixth Lobarbicher rebbee Um and thetwenties, was being persecuted by the
Soviet Union and in the late twentieshe was sentenced to death, and our
(17:03):
government got involved because of a lotof the lobobators here had contacts to Senator
Robert Wagner in New York, hadcontact the Brandies at the time, and
a few others, and it basicallythere weren't the Lobabishers in the United States
at that point. There weren't thatmany, but they had some key contacts.
And as we all know today,you know, one Lobabisher can make
(17:26):
himself feel as if he's one hundredpeople, you know, because they're very
loud and very vocal about things.They're passionate about, especially with their kabat
houses all over the world, Sothey're very even though they're back then they
were a small number. They werevery similar to what they are now,
which means they get out there.They're very aggressive, they're very president in
(17:47):
the community. So when the SovietUnion Stalin was going to kill him,
they basically mobilized their contacts in Americahelped rescue him. The Rebbie did get
out of He came to American innineteen twenty nine and he did a good
will tree. He met Brandeis,he met other politicians. He actually met
(18:07):
President Hoover at the White House,and so he had these contacts kind of
you know, already established. Now, let's past for a nineteen thirty nine
when Germany invades the Rebie is rightoutside of Warsaw and the main center for
Kabad called Altvak, and he wastrapped there because you know, Jeremy took
(18:32):
it over so quickly, and onceagain, his followers here in America started
mobilizing all the political contacts they had, especially from what they had had ten
years before, and they were gettingin touch with Benjamin Cohen, who was
part of the brain trust under FDRwrote the New Deal. They got in
touch with Brandis, they got intouch with Centator Robert Wagner, they got
(18:52):
in touch with you know, PhilipKleinfeld, very prominent politicians at this time,
and they even got up to aSecretary State, Cordell Hall. And
Cordell Hall was actually married to aJewish woman. He was not real proactive
with Jewish issues, but it didreach him and the reason why they contacted
him is because of his Jewish wife. And so this even you know,
(19:15):
I had to get to FDR.I haven't found anything in Hyde Park,
but if Benjamin Cohen knew about it, he definitely breathed the president. So
basically the government at the time,they were getting so much pressure, they
basically said, okay, we willtry to help you get the ready out
(19:36):
and they did it for political reasons, not for humanitarian reasons. As we
know with the Saint Louis and otherfamous events in World War two, America
was horrible with helping with the immigrationissues of Jews that needed to get here,
especially under Assistant Secretary of State Breckonrich Long, who was a horrible
(19:57):
human being and was a them atall in my estimation. But anyway,
America at the time that the governmentofficials were involved, you know, there
might have been some that we're thinkingof it from a humanitarian point of view,
but by and large the reason whythe higher ups decided to act on
it is because they said, hey, we can get a lot of good
will here, a lot of goodwill from the Jewish community, and this
(20:18):
guy was presented to them as thePope of the Jewish world. So they
were looking at it like, Okay, this guy has a lot of prestige
and it can help us. Sothey basically got in touch with Robert Pelle
in the Foreign Affairs Office, whohad had very good relations with Helmet Voltot,
who was Gering's second in command ofthe four Year Plan, and they
(20:42):
had met at the Avian Conference innineteen thirty eight when the world met there
in that town in Switzerland to talkabout the Jewish immigration crisis, and basically
nobody wanted to do anything but behindclosed doors, Volta told pell if there's
ever some Jews that you want toget out of Germany, you just let
me know and I'll help you.So when Brand Dynth and Visermin Colan and
(21:06):
others got in touch with hell oncethey got the green lights from the State
Department in the White House to dothis, Bell went to Voltat and as
Voltat, can you help us out, you remember what you promised me back
in nineteen thirty eight, and Voltasaid, absolutely, we will help you
out. And remember America is notat war with Germany at this time in
nineteen thirty nine. They want tokeep it. They have diplomatic relations open,
(21:26):
they want to keep relations good.They want to stay out of war,
and so Germany wants to keep thatstatus quo. They're fighting Poland they're
gonna they got declared war, gotdeclared against them from England and France.
So they're looking again at the TwoFront War. So at this time period
they want to keep America out becausethey remember in nineteen seventeen when America came
(21:48):
in, it devastated Germany and basicallybrought a conclusion to World War One with
Germany's defeat. So Voltat got Gurningsfor permission and others to act on this,
and he went to the head ofthe German secret service, the abb
there Admiral Kanaris, who was knownto be against the Nazis and who was
known also to have a lot ofpeople of Jewish descent in his organization that
(22:14):
he had helped get aryanized and hadgiven special clemency to remain in the military
and in the cryptology departments of theGerman military secret service. So Panaris,
when he heard this and the delicatesituation, he says, absolutely, I
know exactly who I would ask todo this, and we can get this
done. To go up to Warsawand find Rebbie Chearson and his entourage and
(22:40):
get them out of Warsaw and getthem in America. I want to pick
up. I want to pick upon that store. It's a fascinating story
our guests. Professor Brian Rigg haswritten five books. We're discussing two of
them. The Rabbis Safe by Hitler'sSoldiers as well as Hitler's Jewish soldiers.
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Greater Windows dot com. You're listeningto talk Line with Zev Brenner, America's
premier Jewish broadcast on the year sincenineteen eighty one. And now here's your
host and we are back our specialguests, as Professor Mark Brian Rigg.
(26:22):
He's written fascinating books. We're lookingat not only Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, which
will be upcoming, we'll look atthat. We're looking at how the how
the German cigarette police helped save theLebaba Cherebbe so I interrupted you, Professor
Rigg. We were in Warsaw whereit's nineteen thirty nine and they're sent to
actually this secret service of the Germanyis sent to find the Rebbe in Warsaw.
(26:45):
How did they find the rebbe LebabaChebbi Barba shnarrison. The Lebaba chers
had given all the information that theyknew about where the ReBs whereabouts were in
Otwock and then later on in Warsawplaces where he was staying, and they
turned this over to the State Department. Then the State Department turned it over
to the German Secret Service. WhenAdmiral Canaris, who was head of the
(27:07):
advert the German Secret Service, decidedto help out with this rescue. Once
he was asked to do so,he picked a gentleman by the name of
Ernst Bloch, who was a quoteunquote half Jew and had been riyanized by
Hitler and allowed to remain in themilitary. He was a decorated World War
(27:29):
One soldier, had a PhD ineconomics from the University of Berlin, was
a brilliant mind, and you know, Canaris just basically had a conversation.
It was like, Hey, you'regonna go up to Warsaw. You're gonna
take some of your guys. Oneof the guys that he was going to
take was what it was called aquarter Jew, but was raised by his
Jewish grandfather who was a rabbi andhe knew Yiddish, and so he said,
(27:51):
you gotta take these groups up there. You're gonna go up and find
the most old Orthodox rabbi in theworld basically, and you're going to rescue.
You can't miss him. He looksjust like Moses, you know.
And these weren't Jewish soldiers or halfJewish soldiers. So the German Army,
the Nazis knew who they were,but they koshered them to stay in the
(28:11):
army. Basically speaking, that's right. You know when if people who are
listening in it just sounds shocking toyou. If you do me the honor
of looking at my first book,Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, I go into the
Nuremberg Laws, the Nazi racial laws, and how crazy it was that when
you studied them, you realize whenthe people were designated as half Jews and
(28:32):
quarter Jews in Nazi Germany, oneJewish grandparent, quarter Jew, two Jewish
grandparents half Jew, These people werecalled Micheline and they actually, if they
were young men, they were requiredby law to serve in the Valmaks,
the German military. They didn't havea choice. Now, if they did
well, they could get special clemencyand get aryanized like Ernst Block and right
(28:53):
up to the ranks. But basicallyeverybody had to do service in Nazi Germany.
If you were a half two quarterJew or if you're a quote unquote
area, if you were more thanfifty percent Jewish, then you were not
allowed to serve. But these guyswho were have to choose and quarter Jews,
they had to serve. So itwasn't that crazy that you had a
lot of people in the Abbar innineteen thirty nine that actually had this background.
(29:17):
So Canaries picked these men with hisbackgrounds. He trusted Block and implicitly
and he said go up there andfind him. So Block is going up
around Warsaw with you know, agroup of four or five German soldiers dressed
the soldiers, Oh yeah, yeah, Block German soldiers. Yeah yeah yeah.
(29:37):
Block has his iron crosses. Youknow, he's in his credit his
military officers uniform, and he's goingdoor to door trying to get the Lababachers
to trust him. Now, what'sinteresting at this time is you're getting information
out of Warsaw that they know theseGermans are coming there and trying to get
find the Revie and they don't trusthim. And then the White House in
(30:00):
the States Departament is writing back saying, no, you gotta trust him.
The Week sent them to you andresponded to Lobabach's in New York. Yeah,
the Lobabascher's and Jafe Jacobson was thesecretary of the organization here and he
was getting a lot of telegrams andyou know, the telegraphs from Europe about
(30:25):
this case. And so they wouldturn this over to this wonderful guy named
Max Road who was a lawyer,and he was keeping everybody informed and the
proper information going to the proper chainof command, if you will, to
get it over to Germany. Eventuallythe Rebbie decide trust block and hands themselves.
(30:48):
They kept knocking out the hideouts afew times before they get knocking.
Yeah, and at the end andthe Rebbe finally said if he comes back,
then led him in. And Iactually interviewed one of the German soldiers
and a couple of the Jewish studentswho were there with the Rebbie when this
happened. And you know, Iinterviewed the Rebbie's grandson, uh, you
know, Rebbi garrari Um. Youknow, I was wonderful, it was.
(31:11):
I was blessed to get a meetingwith him. And you know he's
a huge person in this whole debateabout the library and then so on,
um. And so he was therewhen the German soldiers came and I interviewed
him. So the Rebbie, youknow, it's interesting the Lobobter hagiography,
if you will, and the mythologyis that they believed the Jew in a
(31:32):
German uniform from World War One cameand rescued them. You know, that
was one version. Another version wasthat it was an angel in human form
they came and rescued them. Anotherversion that it was a Jew that had
hidden his background and had you know, found a German uniform somehow and pretended
to be a secret service. Andthen there was you know, the other
story that this was indeed a GermanGerman officer. Once the Rebbie decided to
(31:55):
trust him, the block was flabbergastedwhen the Rebbie said, I'm not going
to leave unless you take you know, some of my closest family members and
my secretaries and someone up to abouttwenty people, because the Block was only
planning on taking the rebbe and youknow, maybe his wife and two kids,
grandkids, and that's it. Youknow, maybe up to six or
seven. So you know, eventuallyBlock gets the necessary trained documents and the
(32:22):
travel bachelors and everything that he hasto have to take twenty ultra Orthodox Jews
through SS checkpoints hideout. While thiswas negotiating, what did they take him
to a different place? Well,you know eventually when um when when the
rebby finally turned himself over to Blockcare, Block had a truck and kind
(32:49):
of like an elongated um uh semitruck as well, and he would put
he put he put them all inthe uh the vehicles, and then it
looked I think from what I've beenable to ascertain, he took them to
a few of the germans Um barracksthat were in the area. And you
(33:12):
know the first thing he did withthem is to get them clean. I
mean they had been under siege andwarsaw with no plumbing, no no ability
to clean themselves washed their clothes formonths and so um, you know,
the first thing, you know,a lot of the clothes were discarded.
In fact, some of the OrthodoxJews found themselves having to wear some German
(33:34):
uniforms while they were cleaning up theirup clothes or finding some of their clothes
for them. So so it lookedlike for a few days they were in
a kind of secure area and ofbarracks and military barracks, and then they
were they were planning their escape,if you will. And as Block is
going tough these SX checkpoints to getout to a train station because he was
going to first take them to Berlinto then get him up to Riga.
(33:57):
That was the goal. Uh,you know, he had to pretend like
he was going to take these guysout to shoot him because you know,
a lot of the intelligency at thetime and Jewish leaders were sited. The
ss F found them, they tookhim out and killed him because they didn't
want people to have leadership. Sothe rebbee was obviously a prime you know
prize for the ss and Block knewthis well. He did a great job
(34:20):
pretending you know that he was gonna, you know, mistreat these Jews.
He'd get out and talk to thess men at the checkpoint saying, you
know, we're taking these Jews outsideof wars Now, we're gonna make him
dig their own grade. We're gonnakill him. And then he would get
back in the truck and he lookat you know, the Rebbe and say,
hey, don't worry about it,and I'm Jewish, I'm here to
protect you. And it's a remarkablestory how Block was able to get him
(34:40):
to Berlin and then from Berlin toget him up to Riga and to make
a long story se work because Iknow we have questions, you know,
in a wheelchair, Well, thisis what's crazy. I mean, the
Rebby was not in good health.He was obeest, you know, he
was. He was probably five footeight, maybe five foot nine. He
(35:02):
was about two hundred and thirty twohundred and forty pounds. He smoked heavily,
sometimes three packs a day, Hehad MS, and he was wheelchair
bound. So you know, duringthe bombing of Warsaw you have these almost
you know, you could almost saycomical tragic scenes where you know, he's
(35:22):
being carried down by three or fourYeshiba boys who are not very you know,
physically fit downstairs and trying to gethim into bunkers and putting him in
you know somethings. They had toput him on a stretcher and get him
around. So he was you know, he had a nurse with him that
had to help him dress and cleanhimself, and he was not in very
(35:43):
good shape physically at all. Andso during this whole process you're having to
do extra you know, care toget him to certain places, to help
him get clean, to get himdressed, to help him, you know,
get fed, and so on.So yeah, you bring up a
very interesting point to add a wholenew dimension of drama to the story.
(36:06):
And you know, they kind ofmake make the long story short because it
is this, you know, almostsix hundred pages of information that I have
m you know, when already getsthe riga, the stall war starts rallying
in saber. We'll be right backwith more and we'll look at the how
the secret Service of the Nazis savedthe previous Lobamas. Joseph Sneerersen The Jewish
(36:32):
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(36:55):
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seven. You're listening to talk Linewith Zev Brenner, America's premier Jewish broadcast
on the air since nineteen eighty one. Now here's your host, and we're
back with Professor Bryan Mark Riggs.So you were telling the story about getting
(38:08):
the Rebbe out, so let's pickup again. Okay, great, Yeah,
So when they got him to Germany, Bloc turned around, and I
think it was because partly to throwoff a cent of the SS, but
also it was because a lot ofthe train links to the north of Warsaw
had been destroyed in the war withPoland. So when he got to Germany,
the train link getting up to Rigawere open, so he got him
(38:30):
to Rega. While he was inRiga, Stalin started rattling his saber about
taking over the Baltic States, whichis something he wanted to do. He
had told Hitler that that was kindof the deal. He got one half
of Poland and Hitler got the otherhalf. And Stalin had made a point
that when he kicked the Rebbe outof Russia in nineteen twenty nine, you
(38:53):
know, instead of killing him becauseof the US pressure, Stalin did say,
if you ever come back here,we're going to kill you. And
so the Rebbie knew that if Stalintook over this area, he was done
for. So they were pushing theImmigration Office really hard at this time because
although all these different governments and entitieswere working on behalf of the request of
(39:17):
the American government, you still hadthe Immigration Office having to you know,
basically issue visas to get them here, and they haven't done that yet because
you have a whole bunch of antiSemites there, which were horrible people like
breckan Ridge Long. Eventually they getthe visas and he gets one of the
last planes from Riga out before Stalintakes over. And Stalin starts arresting a
(39:39):
lot of rabbis in the Baltic Statesin nineteen forty people don't realize and sending
him off the Gulags and killing him, just like Hitler was doing in thirty
nine in Poland, finding the intelligenciaand the leadership of different groups that he
wanted to take out, one ofthem being Jews. Obviously killing the rabbis.
Stalin was doing the same thing.So they was lucky you got out
(40:00):
to Stockholm, and from Stockholm hetook a train to Guttenburg. From Gottenburg
he took one of the laugh shipsthat could get out of the Baltic Sea.
Because Hitler was about to invade Norwayin Denmark and cut off the Baltic
Sea, he sent all his Uboats off the coast of Norway. Ships
leaving before and after the Reavy shipthe dropping home he was on were sunk
(40:22):
by torpedoes. It's just one thingafter the other that you're just like,
man, there's a lot of alot of miracles, right, that's happened
to Yeah, I mean, youknow that's what that's what the religious say.
You know, what do you say, you did the research, What
does it seem to you if theywere bombing other boats and his survived,
or even there his escape, therewere bombing around him and he's still escaped,
(40:42):
would you call that miraculous? Well, you know, it's definitely extraordinary,
no doubt. You know, whenyou look at it, you're just
shaking your head. But you know, there's there's a one thing you could
do. You could flip it onthe other side. You could say,
okay, hey, this is reallyrealracles. God was involved, how him
was behind it. But then youhave to say, well, hey,
(41:04):
wait a second out of the sixmillion Jews that were slaughtered one point five
million were children. Where were themiracles there? You know what, why
why wasn't he rescuing them? Youknow, listen, we don't understand why
the Holocaust took place. But ifyou're looking at from a from looking you
did the research, and you seethat everybody bald was dying, that literally
(41:25):
their bombs, and there's whether it'son the boats or even in Poland and
getting out into the odyssey, andthat he's going through Germany with an SS
officer. So you have to say, this is not your typical thing.
This is so it's just a miraclethat he got out. You can look
at the Holocaust. You know,you're right there. I mean, you
know, but the religious love todefine that significant in it. Me as
(41:49):
the historian, I just look atman. You know, you're you're playing
craps, you're playing uh Russian Rouletteand uh you know, you're getting really
lucky several times. And um.So he you know, he gets on
this ship. It's actually stopped afew times by German U boats and when
they found that there's no contraband onboard, they continue to let it go,
(42:13):
even though they did they see aRevan there with a beard and his
entourage. Did they see that one, Yeah, they would have seen.
They would have seen, well,they would have seen a lot of the
people on the board. In fact, uh, you know, they would
have looked at the protocol list andthings of that sort to make sure there
was no body that were enemies ofthe state trying to get get away.
(42:35):
So they left. They left theletter jew An alls Orthodox leader. Well,
they may not know who he waswhen they may have seen the name,
but they saw Jews on there.That didn't raise any red flags with
the Germans that the Creek Sarna atthat time, the German navy was very
uninterested in the Nazi racial laws.They were strictly looking at this from a
protocol point of view to make surethat there wasn't any contraband on board that
(42:59):
was hilating international law and that therewas anything and the nothing that was going
on that you know, say theunderground of you know, the Polish military
or something like that trying to getout and establish you know, an army,
which they did, but they wantedto make sure none of those personnel
were there. So that's strictly whatthey were doing. And so they released
(43:22):
the ship after looking at it twicetwo different submarines, and then it arrived
at Battery Park in New York innineteen in March of nineteen forty. And
now that's why you have the headquartersat seven seventy of Lebavic in American one
of the largest his city communities inthe world. Now, what's interesting,
(43:44):
A lot of people don't know this, and I document this also very thoroughly.
Had you not had the rescue ofthe sixth Lebabi cher Rebby, you
would not have had the rescue ofthe seventh lebach Revi, which was his
second cousin and also his son inlaw. He was trapped in VC,
France at this time, and theRebbie used some of his contacts in the
government to open up the BESA departmentthere once again with breckan Ridge Long.
(44:08):
Actually, Breckan Ridge Long wrote aletter uncustomarily to get Monochamendo Snearson out of
the Now that's a miracle. Howdid he get him to do that?
Because he's he was an anti semiOh he was horrible. He was a
people call him the American Eikeman.I think there was so much political pressure
on him that he was in hewas a political animal that he realized.
(44:30):
You know, okay, this oneI have to actually let him in because
of all the people who were callingup on my line. Now, you're
right, I think less than wegot yourself on trouble on the air with
us. Will you right? Oncethe Rebbie Robbert josph Snearson came to America,
that he spent more resources trying toget his books than his followers out.
Will you Yeah, he did.You know, when you look at
(44:51):
the historical record, I mean there'sa lot of things. He's not a
good leader in many respects, unlikehis son in law and his s cousin
Monaca Mendel Snerson, who was agood leader. I will say that the
Storcal records very clear on that whenJoseph A. Leux Schnerson came here,
he started pointing the singer at allthe Jewish leaders here saying they were causing
the Holocaust. That he was savedbecause he was doing a true Judaism everybody
(45:16):
else was not, and he wascreating a lot of enemies in discord.
And then also when you look atwhen he went back to the government most
often to ask for favors. Hewas obsessed with his library, which he
eventually got out of Europe, youknow, semi truck full of books,
(45:37):
thousands of books in nineteen forty one. And that's where you see most of
the efforts in the archives. TheNational Archives was his library. He was
obsessed with his books, and alot of the books were secular. You
have Karl Marks dust capital of HeinrichHeine, who works he was a book
a file. And so when youlook at that, and I've had a
(45:59):
lot of scholars like Michael barrebound,they just they're just disgusted that he was
focusing so much on the books.And also that he was saying that the
Holocaust was God's punishment for Jews fornot being and that's not a good way
of building consensus, building bridges,of building lobby groups to put pressure on
American government. In fact, hewas really ostracized by the Jewish community by
(46:22):
forty two, forty three because ofhis hell fire and brimsome preaching, if
you will, condemning everybody, andso yeah, that that got me in
hot water. But it was,you know, it's it's the fact,
it's what the evidence shows. Imean, I wish I could have found
evidence that he didn't focused on libraries, but he focused strictly on just rescuing
lives, and that he was banginghis cane against the White House asking for
(46:45):
help to rescue Jews, and thathe was working with reformed Jews like Rabbi
Cutler and Rabbi Comonobits of the VADs. They were phenomenal and they did this,
but the Rebbie Sharson did not.And I wish I could have said
that because he would have sold morebooks and the Lobobits wouldn't have been you
(47:06):
know, cruel toward me and andand saying negative things because I'm just the
messenger here, I'm the historian.I tell the fact. And they didn't
like what they heard. But theyhave a hard time with history when it
goes against their movement or it's criticalof their leaders. But what you had
with most religious groups. But here'sthe thing that Professor Rigg is, why
(47:30):
wouldn't the Rebbi even try to savehis followers. It wouldn't make any sense.
And he had someone getting his youknow, the son lover of Manakamendlshners
in the inter United States, andwell he helped pave the way for that.
Why wouldn't he go beyond that?It just doesn't make any sense.
He had the same thing with thezatmar Rebbie. You know, he gets
(47:51):
out. He doesn't do a lotof stuff for his followers either, but
he got out. He got out. When did he get out towards the
end of the war. Because hegot out and it was aist, it
was a Zionist, will help gethim out er. Yeah, So you
know what, you bring up avery valid point. I think when you
(48:13):
look at his newspaper, in hisletters, and his far bringing. At
this time, he was so devastatedwith what was going on that he really
turned to theological explanations and theological focusum feeling like if they appease God and
they make God happy and he stopsthe Holocaust, that's the fastest way that
(48:37):
he could rescue his followers instead ofdoing what helped rescue him, which his
political action and lobbying and so on. So his his theology really blinded him
to what really needed to be doneis to work in the real world and
not jump into these realms of spiritualityand trying to explain to people why God
(49:00):
is doing what he's doing, andthat you know, the mind of God.
So I think that's one thing thatyou see that it was really you
know, but think about it.He's not unique here of abandoning a lot
of his followers because of theological mandates. I mean, Pope Pious the eleventh
and then Pope Pious the twelfth didnothing when Germany was taking over Catholic countries
(49:22):
left and right. And when Germanyattacked Poland, which is a totally Catholic
country and was killing Catholics, PopePious the twelfth said nothing. And so
he also was a disgrace when itcomes to what he should have been doing
to protect all of his faith populationin the adherence to his church. So
(49:45):
you have many cases of religious leadersfalling down on the job, as you
will, and not exhibiting good leadership. And unfortunately rebie Joseph, his Auctioneerison
was a very pathetic and poor leader. At I don't know I would say
that apathetically. But the point is, though he was listening, he was
(50:06):
The Soviet Union wanted to kill him, Stalin wanted to kill him, the
Nazis wanted to kill him. Hegot out it serfinitly had an impact on
him. It had to have animpact living the way he'd did in the
conditions. So uh, you know, maybe it affected him in a certain
way where you know, it wasn'tthe same person he was prior to the
Soviets and the Nazis, Right,I mean you bring up an interesting point.
(50:29):
I mean psychologically he was a victimof the Holocaust. Yeah, yeah,
he definitely was. And you wouldthink with a person who actually had
experienced some of the Holocaust, Imean he didn't know all the details because
the ghettos happened after he got rescued, but he definitely knew the Nazis were
not there to help the Jewish communityin any sense of the word. Where
(50:52):
it becomes pathetic is when when youthink you're speaking on God's behalf and when
you think you are the example ofwhat everybody else should do, and you're
standing in condemnation of others. Thenthat's where you do not build up the
necessary channels of communication to build kindness, to build understanding, to build respect,
(51:21):
and building up a Jewish community front, American front, to really confront
this Holocaust that was coming and takingour brothers and sisters. And you know,
he's one example of many different Jewishgroups that didn't really bond well together
during World War Two. If youwant to read an interesting book called about
this is called The Abandonment of theJews by David Yeah. And it's really
(51:45):
tragic that a lot of our Jewishleaders at that time, from different sets,
we're not doing a good job ofbringing people together. But I will
say this, two examples of peoplewho were not pathetics, who were phenomenal
from the US the world were RabbiCutler and Rabbi Commentl this of the vaud
and they did do everything that I'mtelling you that the Rebby did not do.
(52:08):
So when I say pathetic, I'mmeaning this guy. If he was
wise and he was a good leader, he would have been able to bring
people together and fight against this evil. Instead, he was causing dissension,
anger, and political unrest within hisown Jewish community in New York. And
this is what's tragic, because peopleare dying at this time, and he's
(52:34):
more concerned about theological mandate and standingin judgment of all these other people of
what he thinks they're not doing accordingto Hallaka, And this is what's what's
I think he was affected by whathappened then was looking for answers as to
why he was happening. And youmay not agree with yeah, but so
(52:54):
he had issues dealing with what wasgoing on as many Jews that went through
the whole thing. Our guests,Professor Brian Rigg has written five books.
We're discussing two of them, TheRabbis Safe by Hitler's Soldiers as well as
Hitler's Jewish soldiers. We're going tobe right back. We're the people of
the book. So where's yours?Have you ever wanted to write and publish
(53:15):
your own book? Are you concernedthat your family, friends and colleagues will
never know how you did all thegreat things in your life? I'm New
York Times best selling author Michael Levinand books are my babies. My company,
Jewish Leaders Books writes and publishes booksby Jewish leaders, people who lead
in their companies, their communities,their synagogues, their philanthropies, and their
(53:37):
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(55:24):
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