Q:
Could it really be correct what you are saying that the Holocaust was due to the cooling off in the enthusiasm, in view of the fact that there were so many yeshivos and so many rabbis in Europe?
A:
And the answer is, there certainly were yeshivos. Certainly, there were great rabbis. But there certainly were great cultures of atheism. You have to know that the Bund in Poland was one of the major parties among Jews. The Bund was a radical party. It was a Marxist party and it drew the second biggest number of votes in the Jewish election. The first biggest number was the leftist Zionists. And the leftist Zionists were not much better than the Bund. The leftist Zionists were also Marxists and they ran the tarbut school system. It was the biggest school system in eastern Europe. And in the tarbut schools children were taught to be atheists. I was in Europe from 1932 to 1938, and I saw how fast they were rolling downhill. And therefore, there’s no question, if we’ll be most charitable, we’ll have to say it was because of cooling off. We’re being charitable when we say “cooling off.” It was actually much worse than that. That was the reason for the Holocaust.
TAPE # 338
