00L. [~~~5 FLYERS FROM ANTI-NAZI DEMONSTRATIONS IN NEW YORK~~~]

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00L. [Jewish Socialist Flyer for the Massive 1942 Madison Square Garden Anti-Nazi Rally] American Representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of Poland [the Bund]

[FLYER] TO ALL WORKERS OF AMERICA….PROTECT THE TORTURED JEWISH MASSES! TSU ALE ARBETS-MENSHN IN AMERIKE…. BASHITST DI FARFEYNIKTE YIDISHE MASN! ...צו אלע ארבעטס-מענשן אין אמעריקע באשיצט די פאַרפּייניקטע יידישע מאַסן

New York, American Representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of Poland [the Bund], 1942. Item #43431

1st edition, 2-sided bilingual flyer in English and Yiddish, 4to, [2] pages.

Dramatic bilingual Bundist flyer from for the now-famous massive July 21, 1942, Madison Square Garden anti-Nazi Rally. The flyer directly addresses the use of poison gas against the Jews and denounces the Nazi goal of “the physical annihilation of the entire Jewish population.”

The rally denounced the Nazi mass murder of Jews, demanded armed defense for Jews in Palestine, and to call for the punishment of German officials responsible for the "extermination of whole groups and classes," particularly targeting the destruction of European Jews.
The event was organized by the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith, and the Jewish Labor Committee, with over 22,000 attending and listening to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of Massachusetts, among others (A photo of the two of them at the rally can be seen online at
https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/rally-against-hitler-atrocities-mayor-la-guardia-of-nachrichtenfoto/515570882). A message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt was read, expressing sympathy for the victims and vowing that the perpetrators would be held to "strict accountability" after the war.
The massive demonstration took place shortly after reports in May 1942 concluded that Germans had embarked on the physical extermination of the Jewish population on Polish soil, and highlighted the growing urgency felt by American Jewish organizations to compel the United States government and the United Nations to act against the genocide.
The opening line of the flyer, We come to you with an urgent appeal that has reached us through the tall and thick ghetto walls in Poland, references the secret reports from the Polish Underground from June 1942, the month before the rally, when Polish leaders in London received detailed reports from the Warsaw ghetto confirming the mass murder of Jews.
Several months later, in November 1942, Jan Karski presented eye-witness accounts of the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Izbica transit camp to the Polish government-in-exile and Western Allies.
Indeed, by December 1942, the US State Department confirmed the veracity of the reports, leading the Allied nations to issue a declaration condemning the "extermination" of Jewish people.

The text of the English side of the flyer reads:

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TO ALL WORKERS OF AMERICA
We come to you with an urgent appeal that has reached us through the tall and thick ghetto walls in Poland:
PROTECT THE TORTURED JEWISH MASSES!
Barbarism prevails in all of suppressed and enslaved Nazi Europe. The Hitler beast bathes in a sea of human blood. Terror and death, destruction and annihilation–that is the horrible fate of all peoples and countries subjugated by the Nazi-Fascist forces.
The axe of fascism has, however, fallen in the most gruesome manner on the heads of the Jews in Europe and particularly on the heads of the Jews in Poland. The latest reports tell of such beastly murders, that the human language cannot describe. Not only tens and hundreds of innocent persons, but entire communities with tens of thousands of inhabitants are being annihilated within the space of hours or days. "The Jewish ghetto of Vilna has, to a great extent, been slaughtered out and destroyed"-- this is quoted from one of those reports!
There is no method too brutal for Hitler's murderers. Even death weapons that are forbidden to be used in warfare– even poison gas, is being used by the Nazi bandits to murder the defenseless Jews–both young and old, women, children and the aged!
The Hitleristic murder machine has taken more lives since the occupation of Poland than the Nazi motorized divisions did during the military encounters in September, 1939. As far as the Jews are concerned. Hitler is not satisfied with just torturing and enslaving them. His goal is– the physical annihilation of the entire Jewish population.
A fate of punishment and death in Gestapo cellars looms at every moment for every Jew in Poland, as well as in all of Nazi-occupied Europe. The Jews are suffering untold hunger, typhus and all of the horrible hell, that the Nazis have created for them. More persons are dying out among the half million Jews in War- saw's ghetto than among the eight million inhabitants of Greater New York.
We all know that wars are gruesome and particularly this war that is being waged by the mighty Nazi war-machine. However, even in this war limits to cruelties can be drawn. Even the Hitler beast can be curbed.
The conscience of the world must now be aroused. Ways and means must immediately be found to stop the bloody work of the Nazi hangmen. A warning by all free peoples and by their governments to the Hitler bandits must be issued immediately. After such a warning, action must be taken that will deprive these hangmen of the desire to murder the Jews of Poland, Rumania and other countries.
WORKERS! Your brothers and sisters in Poland have not lost their belief in the future. They are deeply convinced, that the mighty anti-Hitler block, with the United States, Great Britain and Soviet Russia at its head, will crush the axis of reaction and fascism. They believe, that when victory will be achieved, the liberated peoples of Europe will not only destroy the Nazi. monster, but will abolish the unfortunate social order of capitalism, persecution and exploitation, that breeds fascism, reaction and anti-semitism.
The Jewish masses of Poland know that their deliverance is possible only there where they live and struggle, that it is inseparable from the deliverance of the Polish working people. They look with hope toward the establishment of a new, independent Poland and a new Europe, that will destroy all roots of reaction and anti-semitism and will build a Socialist Order of liberty and equality for all.
However, until that moment comes, the free nations of the world must not allow millions of persons. Jews and non-Jews to diel

HITLER'S HANGMEN MUST NO LONGER BE ALLOWED TO GO UNPUNISHED !
WORKERS OF AMERICA! The Jewish masses of Poland demand protection from the free nations of the world, not only because they are the most persecuted among the persecuted, but also because they are partners and co-fighters in the war against Nazi world rule. Despite unspeakable dangers, the Jewish masses of Poland are carrying on a courageous underground struggle against the Hitler oppressors and–together with their Polish comrades–are making their contribution in life and blood towards the fight of to- day and the victory of tomorrow of all freedom loving nations of the world.
In behalf of these Jewish fighters for freedom, relaying through us their appeal to the world, we ask you, Jewish and non-Jewish workers of America:
Protect your brothers and sisters!
Let the strength of the United Nations stop the atrocities of the Nazi murderers!
AMERICAN REPRESENTATION OF THE GENERAL JEWISH WORKERS' UNION OF POLAND
New York, July 21, 1942 175 East Broadway, Room 401, New York City”

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Under the headline, JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS HOLD ANTI-NAZI RALLY AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, a report appearing the next day noted that “Thousands of community leaders, political figures, and Jewish citizens gathered at New York City’s Madison Square Garden last night to speak out against the Nazis’ campaign to terrorize and slaughter the Jews of Europe.
An official message from President Roosevelt that was read to the audience focused on America’s intention to preserve democracy and end the atrocities being committed by Hitler and the Axis powers.
‘The American people not only sympathize with all victims of Nazi crimes but will hold the perpetrators of these crimes to strict accountability in a day of reckoning which will surely come,’ he said. ‘I express the confident hope that the Atlantic Charter and the just world order to be made possible by the triumph of the United Nations will bring the Jews and oppressed people in all lands the four freedoms which Christian and Jewish teachings have largely inspired.’
The president initially articulated these ‘Four Freedoms’ in his State of the Union address on Jan. 6, 1941. It was an appeal towards maintaining the fundamental freedoms that everyone in the world should be able to enjoy, he said. They are freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
The entire audience stood for the reading of the president’s brief message. Throughout the night, the attendees cheered every time Roosevelt’s name was mentioned.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s message was also read last night and it held similar sentiments to the president’s: ‘On Oct. 25 last, both President Roosevelt and I expressed the horror felt by all civilized peoples at Nazi butcheries and terrorism and our resolve to place retribution for these crimes among major purposes of this war,’ he said….
Despite being one of the main targets of war crimes and ethnic hatred, Jews have been in the forefront of resistance to Nazi aggression through military enrollment and civil defense, according to Churchill. He disclosed that more than 10,000 Palestine Jews are serving with the British Middle East forces and 20,000 more are enrolled in police groups in the area.
‘Great numbers [of Jews] are employed in that front line constituted by pursuits and industries essential for the prosecution of war industries and in various services for civil defense,’ he said. Churchill also stated that Jewish communities around the world have made their contributions to the Allied cause.
In addition to the rallying cries of leaders and attendees, there was a solemn commemoration and chant for the thousands of Jewish men, women, and children who have already been slaughtered since the Third Reich took power in Germany”
(https://blogs.shu.edu/ww2-0/1942/07/22/jewish-organizations-hold-anti-nazi-rally-at-madison-square-garden )

For another contemporary report, see the Jewish Telegraph Agency’s description of the upcoming event from a week before, at
https://www.jta.org/archive/demonstration-in-new-york-will-condemn-nazi-mass-murder-of-jews
Madison Square Garden was also the site of the largest pro-Nazi rally in the US, three years earlier.
In February 1939, as Europe teetered on the edge of war, 22,000 Nazi sympathizers gathered at the Garden for a rally organized by the German American Bund (no connection to the Jewish Bund, the publisher of this flyer), during which swastika flags flew alongside a portrait of George Washington and signs demanding, “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans!” were typical.
We could locate no recorded examples of this flyer anywhere using OCLC, ArchiveGrid, or a google search.

Some toning and creases, touch of edgewear, probably brought home from the rally, overall Very Good- Condition. Exceedingly rare and Extremely important. (Holo2-163-31-XX).

Price: $1,300.00