THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Rabbi's bleak message to the Jews of Northern Ireland on goals of Nazism

From the News Letter, September 14, 1939
A man pauses after laying down a wreath during a remembrance event in the former Nazi concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg north of Berlin Friday, January 27, 2006. European leaders remembered the Holocaust on Friday, the 61st anniverary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz and the neighboring Birkenau camp on January 27, 1945, as the Second World neared its endA man pauses after laying down a wreath during a remembrance event in the former Nazi concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg north of Berlin Friday, January 27, 2006. European leaders remembered the Holocaust on Friday, the 61st anniverary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz and the neighboring Birkenau camp on January 27, 1945, as the Second World neared its end
A man pauses after laying down a wreath during a remembrance event in the former Nazi concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg north of Berlin Friday, January 27, 2006. European leaders remembered the Holocaust on Friday, the 61st anniverary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz and the neighboring Birkenau camp on January 27, 1945, as the Second World neared its end

“To have left the latest diabolic attempt of the Nazis unchallenged would have meant the death knell of human liberty in Europe,” remarked Rabbi J Shachter, MA, in his Hebrew New Year message to the Jewish communities of Northern Ireland published in the News Letter on this day in 1939.

He continued: “The cause which we are called upon to serve and defend is not merely one of patriotism – it is the cause of humanity.”

Rabbi Shachter in his address added: “The year that is passing into oblivion was just a corollary of a series of years, pregnant with tragedies and calamities to the life of mankind generally and to Israel in particular. The year being ushered in under the shadow of what may prove to be the most fateful conflict in human history, a struggle waged between barbarism and civilisation, between a future of black dictatorship and that of peace and liberty.”

Rabbi Shachter pulled no punches in his criticism of Nazism and the German leader.

He said: “It was clear that such a brutal system as Nazism, which emerged six years ago, forged by a handful of on frenzied fanatics, mad with passion for power and lust for human blood, did not intend to stop at the frontiers of the German Reich. Its aim was the achievement of German hegemony over the universe. In spite of all efforts, the modern Moloch, with his medieval fanaticism, could no longer be appeased by reason and human understanding.”

He added: “His appetite for domination was insatiable; with the swallowing up of each victim grew his lust for more. If the European system with its moral values of civilisation had to be saved from annihilation, it became evident that the cry ‘Halt!’ taken up by the great democracies was inevitable.”