00O. [A Yiddish Call to Action for Massive Madison Square Park Anti-Nazi Rally] United Hebrew Trades

[FLYER] TSU DER FOLKS-DEMANTRATSYE FUN TSER UN TSORN! [Translation: ALL OUT TO THE PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION OF GRIEF AND RAGE!] !צו דער פֿאָלקס-דעמאנסטראַציע פון צער און צאָרן

No Place [New York], Fereynigte Yidishe Geverkshaftn [United Hebrew Trades], 1944. Item #43416

1st edition, broadside (single-sided flyer) 4to. In Yiddish.

[Translation]: “[ALL OUT] TO THE PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION OF GRIEF AND RAGE!
Monday, July 31st, 4:45 PM
in Madison Square Park

Sisters and brothers!
We invite you to participate in the great public demonstration that will take place
Monday, July 31, 4:45 p.m.,
in Madison Square Park, Madison Avenue and 24th Street

Millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis in all parts of Europe. Young and old, women and men were driven into gas and death chambers and destroyed. In the current hour, the greatest danger for those still alive in the Nazi countries.
The Hitlerian beast, which conquered and humiliated countries and murdered millions of people, is ready to strangle and murder the surviving remnants of the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Hungary are now in danger of death, the tens of thousands of Jews left alive in Poland, in France, in Belgium, in the Czech Republic, where they are under Hitler's rule.

In order to express our grief and anger, to cry out our grief and appeal for help to the United Nations at the last moment, a public demonstration is called by the Rescue Committee of the General Jewish Conference.

We cannot and must not remain silent. People must help save the survivors. Come express your feelings, desires and demands! It is demanding that the United Nations do everything possible to stop the death march! It is demanded that all those who are guilty of the murders will be brought to justice!
The Nazi victims, who are now struggling between death and life, must know that we are with them.
At a conference of representatives of the trade union organizations, called by the Jewish Labor Committee, it was decided to actively participate in the great national demonstration. We must do everything we can so that the demonstration will be imposing and effective.

Leave the store no later than 4 o'clock. Marched to the site of the demonstration, in Madison Square Park. Overtime is not allowed on this day.
With Trade Union Regards,
United Hebrew Trades
Reuven Guskin, President
Maurice Tigel, Vice-President
William Wolpert, Executive Secretary”


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.

Staple hole in upper right corner margin, slight corner loss to lower left margin, no text affected in either case, light toning, about Very Good Condition. Rare and displayable (Holo2-163-30).

Price: $450.00