00M. [A Bundist Call to Action for Massive Madison Square Park Anti-Nazi Rally] American Representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of Poland “Bund”

[FLYER] JOIN THE PEOPLES’ DEMONSTRATION AT MADISON SQUARE PARK TO PROTEST AGAINST HITLERS [sic] ATROCITIES. KUMT MASNVAYZ TSU DER PROTEST-DEMONSTRATSIYE IN MEDISAN SKVVER PARK קומט מאַסנווייז צו דער פּראָטעסט - דעמאָנסטראציע אין מעדיסאן סקווער פּאַרק

No Place [New York], No Publisher [American Representation of the Bund], 1944. Item #43414

1st edition, 2-sided bilingual flyer in English and Yiddish, 4to, [2] pages. The title on the Yiddish side translates as, ”Come en Masse to the Protest-Demonstration in Madison Square Park!”

The text on each side, one side in English and one side in Yiddish, is essentially the same:

Jewish workers [and people of New York]!

For over two years there has been coming to us from the Hitler slaughter house a call for urgent help and assistance. Two and one half years ago we published the first rescue call - the report from the underground Jewish labor organization (Bund) in Poland about the first massacred and gassed 700,000 Jews in the infamous death camps. Since then we have constantly been receiving reports about new slayings. Reports are streaming in from the death valley calling for assistance and rescue.

Czerniakov, Chairman of the Jewish Community of Warsaw, and Zigelbaum, ‘Bund’ representative in the Polish National Council committed suicide. Both have given their lives in order to arouse the conscience of the world. The civilized world however, remained unmoved by the desperate calls for help and assistance. The non-Jewish community remained indifferent. Even the Jews failed to give expression to their horror and indignation at the atrocities. Even those who on some occasions protested against the Hitler gory deeds [sic] satisfied themselves with mere words.

To date no comparable crime against civilized humanity has gone by without vengeance having been taken. There was no attempt from the air to destroy the death factories: no military actions were undertaken to hold the slaughter. The gallant Jews revolted in the ghettos but no help came from the outside world.

To date practically nothing has been done to supply food and medical supplies to the ghettos and labor camps. To date the neutral countries and the international Red Cross have not been pressed in order to care for and accord war-prisoner status to the victims of Hitlerism. No special rescue council of the United Nations has until now been brought into existence. The doors of the entire world are still closed to the Jewish victims.

The largest centers of Jewish cultural and social life have been ruthlessly demolished. We are horrified and grieved at the fate that has befallen the millions of our brothers and sisters overseas. There is no more urgent task than the need to dedicate all our strength and effort to the rescue of the surviving Jewish people.

Let the neutral countries proclaim that they will take under their protection the Jewish victims of Hitlerism!

Let a warning be issued to the effect that all those who are guilty of aiding Hitler in the persecution of the Jews will be punished mercilessly.

Havens in all allied neutral countries must be provided to all victims of Nazism!

The hour of decision is approaching. Sons of America and England are storming Hitler's fortress. The forces of the Soviet Union are in a whirlwind campaign to enter Berlin. Any day now, all cities formerly inhabited by Jews, will once again be free. We are soon to face the problem of reconstructing hundreds and thousands of demolished homes and rehabilitating similar numbers of Jews who have until now been hiding in forests and mountains.

The giant peoples' demonstration, Monday, July 31st, in New York must vow not to leave anything undone until the formerly big Jewish centers are once more on their feet.

To rescue every Jewish survivor; to heal the wounds of those still alive; to rebuild Jewish life; to destroy Anti-Semitism and all types of bigotry; to construct a new and better world of justice, social and national equality and freedom - a socialist world order - these are the aims towards which we must strive and fight until their ultimate achievement. To dedicate ourselves to these noble purposes is the minimum we owe the dead and the best way to remember the living.

AMERICAN REPRESENTATION OF THE GENERAL JEWISH WORKERS' UNION OF POLAND ‘BUND’

New York, July 31, 1944”


The rally was covered by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) the next day:

“Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews crowded Madison Square Park today at an open-air mass-demonstration in behalf of the Jews of Hungary and other parts of Nazi Europe sponsored by the 64 affiliated agencies of the American Jewish Conference with the cooperation of the American Jewish Committee and other national organizations.
Speakers at the demonstration included Assistant U. S. Attorney General Norman M. Littell, who is secretary of the National Committee Against Persecution of Jews; Dr. Stephen S.Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress and co-chairman of the American Jewish Conference; Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee; Henry Monsky, president of B’nai B’rith and co-chairman of the American Jewish Conference; Adolph Held, president of the Jewish Labor Committee, and many other noted Jewish and Christian leaders.
The huge mass-meeting in which Jews from all walks of life participated adopted a declaration stating that it is not yet too late ‘to save thousands upon thousands’ of Jews for the day of liberation. The meeting appealed in the first instance to President Roosevelt and the Government of the United States, and through them to the United Nations and to the neutral states…”

The original JTA covers, including a full list of the demands from the rally and other details, can be viewed at www.jta.org/archive/huge-open-air-demonstration-in-new-york-demands-rescue-of-jews-from-europe

Leading national Jewish organizations organized this July 31, 1944, Madison Square Park mass rally to demand Allied action against the Nazi slaughter of European Jews.
New York had at the time the world’s biggest Jewish population, with a Jewish community of around 2 million. The city had hosted numerous similar rallies over the previous decade, all focused on building opposition to Hitler and support for the struggling Jews of Europe.

Beginning on March 4, 1934, “One year after Hitler’s ascension to power in Germany, tens of thousands of New Yorkers gathered at Madison Square Garden to hear the words of Rabbi Stephen Wise. 'Despite the oceanic tragedy which has befallen us,' Wise pronounced, 'we Jews tonight, joining in the chorus of civilization, indict Hitlerism as humans, as members of civilized society before the high court of human judgment.'
Wise’s words resonated for audience members attending the rally that March night. Over the course of the evening, they heard from a chorus of voices representing the American public, self-identifying across different racial, religious, and ideological lines. Framed as a 'court,' the speakers at the rally gathered to indict Hitler for his crimes against civilization, an intentionally pointed term that would offend Nazi ideologues claiming to protect civilization through Aryan supremacy. This mock trial was part of a larger trend of American Jewish protest performances staged during the Third Reich that intended to garner support for the rescue of European Jews….
On March 27, the AJCongress [American Jewish Congress] successfully staged a rally titled Stop Hitler Now to an audience of twenty thousand Jews in Madison Square Garden. Outside of the Garden, thirty-five thousand people stood protesting and ten thousand more marched through Brooklyn in solidarity. Simultaneous protests also occurred in major cities across the country. The United Press estimated that one million protesters participated in the nationwide demonstration that day.
In retaliation to the American uproar, Hitler threatened a one-day boycott against German Jewish businesses, to be resumed three days later if ‘international protests’ did not cease. Wise, after speaking with Undersecretary William Phillips at the State Department, agreed to a brief silence on the matter” (Gonzalez, Maya. Imagining the “Day of Reckoning”: AmericanJewish Performance Activism during the Holocaust. Masters Thesis, UMass-Amherst, 2023. .https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/33069)
We could locate no recorded examples of this flyer anywhere using OCLC, ArchiveGrid, or a google search.

Light wear, Very Good Condition. Rare and displayable (B/BK5) (Holo2-163-29A-XX).

Price: $500.00