Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 7: The Final Solution
York the “Einstein Fund of Ambijan” (acronym for American Birobidzhan Committee),
whose purpose was “to help refugee colonization of Birobidzhan.” There
were other operations in New York, which aided Jews resettled in Birobidzhan
immediately after World War II.
There were also Jewish organizations, such as the Joint Distribution Committee,
which aided Jews in other parts of the Soviet Union, and there also existed in
New York the Committee for Aid to Minsk and Neighboring Towns. There also
existed UNRRA programs in White Russia (Byelorussia) and Ukraine, which will
be commented on below. These efforts to aid Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union
had the public support of prominent Jews, e.g. Albert Einstein expressed appreciation
to the Soviet Government for helping “hundreds of thousands of Jewish people”
by giving them a home in the USSR. 390
While the Soviet Union encouraged the absorption of Jews, it also made a specific
agreement with the Communist government of Poland for the repatriation of
those who had been Polish citizens on September 17, 1939. The agreement, made
in July 1945, specifically included those resident on territory annexed by the Soviet
Union in 1940 and provided that such people could either elect Soviet citizenship
or Polish citizenship. With respect to Jews, it was eventually decided that the
deadline for making the choice was June 30, 1946.
As we noted in Chapter 1 (p. 31), Reitlinger concedes that the post-war Jewish
population of the Soviet Union might very well have exceeded the pre-war figure,
on account of the addition of Polish (and Baltic and other) Jews. He regards the
Jewish Observer estimate of 500,000 Polish Jews who elected to remain in the
Soviet Union as “very conservative,” and concedes huge and insuperable uncertainties
in this connection. Thus, although the Russians were willing to let Polish
Jews leave before the June 30, 1946, deadline, they nevertheless encouraged their
absorption into the Soviet Union. This could account for an enormous number of
the Jews who had been resettled to the East by the Germans. It is pointless, however,
to try to infer anything from alleged population statistics offered by the Russians
or by Jewish organizations. 391
5. Many of the uprooted Jews might have returned to their original homes or at
least to their original homelands in Europe. We have seen that the Russians were
willing to allow Polish Jews to leave the Soviet Union, and we should assume that
a similar policy was practiced toward Jews of other nationalities. It is only possible
but not probable that the Soviet Union absorbed all of the Jews who had been
deported East by the Germans from Germany, the Netherlands, etc.
At first thought, it might appear that the clearly logical course after the war for
any uprooted Jew would have been to return to his original country of residence.
This is not the case, however, for various reasons. For one thing, in perhaps the
majority of cases there was nothing to return to. The main reason for this was the
German program called “Action Reinhardt,” in which Jews deported to the East
were deprived of almost all of their property; their furniture, any livestock, busi-
390
391
New York Times (Jul. 20, 1945), 9; (Sep. 7, 1945), 5; (Nov. 25, 1945), 32; (Mar. 10, 1946), 2;
(Apr. 17, 1946), 27; (May 13, 1946), 18; (May 17, 1946), 5; (Dec. 2, 1946), 5.
Reitlinger, 534, 542-543; New York Times (Jul. 8, 1945), 1; (Mar. 24, 1946), 3.
273