Author’s introductory note: Last November (2011), I sent to this newspaper my below article about a fascinating Krystallnacht event at a local synagogue. Unfortunately, the newspaper did not have space to publish the article on a timely basis last November. The editor suggested that I resubmit the article the following November (2012). Here is the article:
During recent weeks, I attended several fascinating local speeches and programs.
The first program, by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, was sponsored by the Iranian Mothers’ Association on the anniversary of Krystalnacht (November 9th, 2011) at Beth Haddassah Synagogue on Steamboat Road.
Rabbi Tokayer is a true Great Neck gem. He is the former Chief Rabbi of Japan, a phenomenal speaker, a multi-lingual profilic author (including 20 books in Japanese), and the beloved founding Rabbi of Great Neck’s Cherry Lane Synagogue, where he served the community for many years prior to his retirement. At Cherry Lane, Rabbi Tokayer frequently regaled the congregation with fascinating stories about his experiences in the Far East.
At the recent Beth Haddassah program, Rabbi Tokayer first spoke briefly about Krystalnacht, the night of broken glass in November 1938, when Nazis destroyed over one thousand German-Jewish synagogues, destroyed 7,500 businesses, ransacked thousands of homes, and carted 30,000 Jews off to Dachau to be tortured and in many cases, murdered. Rabbi Tokayer then spoke about how virtually every Western nation, including the U.S. and Britain, slammed shut all the avenues of escape to the endangered Jews of Europe. The Evian conference convened to address the “Jewish problem” achieved nothing. Instead, nation after nation refused to accept Jewish refugees. Britain refused to allow more than a tiny trickle of Jews into their promised homeland in Israel (then referred to as Palestine). FDR refused to lift the United States’ minuscule visa quotas.
Rabbi Tokayer then recounted the voyage of the S.S. St. Louis (often referred to as the “Voyage of the Damned”). The S.S. St. Louis left Germany in 1939 with over 900 Jews, and was first turned away from Cuba. (Cuban officials revoked the passengers’ Cuban visas.) The ship then sought to land in port after port in the U.S. – but FDR turned the S.S. St. Louis away from America’s shores back to Europe. As a result, many of the passengers died at the Nazis’ hands.
(These events were sadly familiar to me. All the boys who had been in my father’s class in school were transported to Dachau on Krystalnacht. My great-grandmother and several other relatives were passengers on the ill-fated St. Louis, and other close relatives were trapped in Germany and perished after unsuccessfully attempting to obtain American or other visas.).
The foregoing grave situation – a world that had closed the avenues of escape from the Nazi killing machine – was the backdrop for the next portion of Rabbi Tokayer’s fascinating presentation.
Rabbi Tokayer showed us his documentary film, “Conspiracy of Kindness,” about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese counsel to Lithuania during World War II. At enormous personal risk to himself and his family, and without authorization from the Japanese government, Sugihara provided transit visas to several thousand Jews, thereby saving them from extermination by the Nazis. The audience was particularly moved when we heard how Sugihara hand-wrote visas 18 hours per day, and, after being forced to close the Japanese consulate, continued to write visas even at the train station, and on the train (to throw out the window) until the train moved out of the station.
Rabbi Tokayer movingly spoke about how Sugihara stated that acted as he did simply “because it was right,” and never asked for anything for himself. In all likelihood due to his unauthorized provision of visas to Jews seeking to escape the Nazis, Sugihara lost his job with the Japanese diplomatic service after World War II. He had a difficult life thereafter, including working at menial or distant-from-home jobs to support his family.
Sugihara’s heroism is familiar to some people here in Great Neck. I casually mentioned seeing Rabbi Tokayer’s wonderful presentation to a friend, who promptly informed me that his mother-in-law was one of the people saved by Sugihara’s brave, humanitarian acts.
“Conspiracy of Kindness” is well worth seeing. Everyone present in the audience was spellbound by this extraordinary documentary film. And seeing this film with Rabbi Tokayer’s introduction made the film even more special. Sugihara’s message – to do the right thing simply because it is right – is an inspiration to us all.
Elizabeth Berney, Esq.
Great Neck
