upworthy

nazis

Pop Culture

Nazis demanded to know if ‘The Hobbit’ author was Jewish. He responded with a high-class burn.

J.R.R. Tolkien hated Nazi “race doctrine” and no problem telling his German publishing house about it.

J.R.R. Tolkien by Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons Joseph Goebbels by Vitold Muratov/Wikimedia Commons

In 1933, Adolf Hitler handed the power of Jewish cultural life in Nazi Germany to his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels established a team of of regulators that would oversee the works of Jewish artists in film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press.

Goebbels' new regulations essentially eliminated Jewish people from participating in mainstream German cultural activities by requiring them to have a license to do so.

This attempt by the Nazis to purge Germany of any culture that wasn't Aryan in origin led to the questioning of artists from outside the country.

Nazi book burning via Wikimedia Commons

In 1938, English author J. R. R. Tolkien and his British publisher, Stanley Unwin, opened talks with Rütten & Loening, a Berlin-based publishing house, about a German translation of his recently-published hit novel, "The Hobbit."

Privately, according to "1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again," Tolkien told Unwin he hated Nazi "race-doctrine" as "wholly pernicious and unscientific." He added he had many Jewish friends and was considering abandoning the idea of a German translation altogether.

The Berlin-based publishing house sent Tolkien a letter asking for proof of his Aryan descent. Tolkien was incensed by the request and gave his publisher two responses, one in which he sidestepped the question, another in which he clapped back '30s-style with pure class.

His publisher sent the classy clap-back.

In the letter sent to Rütten & Loening, Tolkien notes that Aryans are of Indo-Iranian "extraction," correcting the incorrect Nazi aumption that Aryans come from northern Europe. He cuts to the chase by saying that he is not Jewish but holds them in high regard. "I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people," Tolkien wrote.

Tolkien also takes a shot at the race policies of Nazi Germany by saying he's beginning to regret his German surname. "The time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride," he writes.

Here's the letter sent to Rütten & Loening:

25 July 1938 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

assets.rebelmouse.io

This article originally appeared three years ago.

From Your Site Articles
humanity
Popular

A Kanye West fan forum responded to his antisemitism with a deluge of Holocaust education

A heartening response to his horrifying interviews.

Photo by Pixabay/Pexels

Train tracks leading into Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

Kanye West (who has legally changed his name to Ye) has been making headlines—again—not only for his bizarre public behavior, but for blatantly antisemitic remarks he made in recent interviews.

There's no question that Ye's comments praising Hitler and Nazis and denying that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust are hurtful and dangerous. There's no question that bad actors are using Ye's antisemitic comments to push their white nationalist agenda. The question is whether Ye fans would allow their admiration of his musical talents—or whatever else they like about him—to overshadow the fact that he is now regularly spewing pro-Nazi rhetoric to millions of people.

In at least one corner of the internet, fans are responding in what may be the most effective and meaningful way possible—by countering Ye's commentary with a deluge of Holocaust education and remembrance.

Reddit's r/kanye subreddit is a page dedicated to discussing all things Ye, and it currently has more than 700,000 members. After Ye's interviews on Tim Pool's podcast and Alex Jones' Infowars this past week, in which he spoke of loving Hitler and Nazis while complaining of being wronged by Jews, members began flooding the forum with posts about people who fought the Nazis in World War II, information about the victims of the Holocaust and remembrances of those who were murdered in the genocide.

It was a heartening response to Ye's horrific views, and especially powerful coming from people who consider (or considered) themselves huge fans of the artist.

One example is this post of a photo showing emaciated prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp with a quote from Ye's Infowars appearance, in which he said, "I don't like the word 'evil' next to Nazis."

from Kanye

Another poster shared a photo of three survivors of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp, showing the tattoos of their prison camp numbers on their forearms.

from Kanye

Another shared a photo of the "Book of Names" at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the names of those murdered in the Holocaust are written.

from Kanye

Dozens of posts shared in the subreddit include photos of Jewish children who had their childhoods destroyed, people who suffered in concentration camps, heroes of the Holocaust who helped saved lives and more. Judging from the posts and comments, there appears to be widespread agreement on the subreddit that Ye's antisemitism must be condemned in the strongest terms and that people need to know that his statements about the Holocaust are wrong.

"This is officially a Holocaust awareness sub," wrote one poster who shared an infographic about how many young people are woefully uninformed about that piece of human history.

The transformation of the subreddit is a testament to the power of social media. Though misinformation spreads fast and social media can easily become a cesspool of toxicity, when people use it for good it can be a place where reasonable, righteous voices rise to the top.

It's certainly sad and frustrating for folks who have felt a connection with Ye's music to witness him spiraling further and further into bigoted madness. Feeling the need to speak out against someone who has been a positive force in your life isn't a comfortable spot to be in. But there are views that are unconscionable and messages that simply cannot be tolerated, and Ye's remarks egregiously cross both of those lines.

Fandom doesn't mean fanaticism and no reasonable person can possibly defend the antisemitism Ye is pushing. (Heck, some of the most unreasonable people aren't even trying to defend it.) Whatever his mental health situation may be, attacking Jews and supporting Nazis is wrong and harmful and needs to be named as such.

Simply calling it out isn't enough, though, when falsehoods flow freely. Sharing accurate education about the Holocaust so that people can gain a deeper understanding of the scale and systemization of the world's largest genocide is one way to not just call out antisemitism but to battle it with truth. The Holocaust carried out by Hitler and the Nazis is a historical reality no one should remain ignorant of and no one should get a pass for denying, no matter how famous or once beloved they may be.

From Your Site Articles
holocaust education
Equality

A little-known 'Japanese Schindler' risked everything to help 6,000 Jews escape the Nazis

Israel's Foreign Affairs Min./YouTube

In the autumn of 1939, Chiune Sugihara was sent to Lithuania to open the first Japanese consulate there. His job was to keep tabs on and gather information about Japan's ally, Germany. Meanwhile, in neighboring Poland, Nazi tanks had already begun to roll in, causing Jewish refugees to flee into the small country.

When the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania in June of 1940, scores of Jews flooded the Japanese consulate, seeking transit visas to be able to escape to a safety through Japan. Overwhelmed by the requests, Sugihara reached out to the foreign ministry in Tokyo for guidance and was told that no one without proper paperwork should be issued a visa—a limitation that would have ruled out nearly all of the refugees seeking his help.

Sugihara faced a life-changing choice. He could obey the government and leave the Jews in Lithuania to their fate, or he could disobey orders and face disgrace and the loss of his job, if not more severe punishments from his superiors.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Sugihara was fond of saying, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't, I would be disobeying God." Sugihara decided it was worth it to risk his livelihood and good standing with the Japanese government to give the Jews at his doorstep a fighting chance, so he started issuing Japanese transit visas to any refugee who needed one, regardless of their eligibility.

What started as 10 or 20 refugees asking for help soon grew to the hundreds. For six weeks in the summer of 1940, Sugihara issued and signed as many visas as he could before he was reassigned, sometimes working 18-hour days. The final tally totaled more than 2139, but experts estimate that 6,000 to 10,000 Jewish lives may have been saved by Sugihara when accounting for children and spouses traveling with the visa-holders.

The problem of the refugees safely making it to Japan was also taken care of by Sugihara. He spoke fluent Russian and managed to negotiate with Moscow for Polish Jews to be granted safe passage through the Soviet Union.

The visas issued by Sugihara would eventually become known as "visas for life," and according to the Washington Post, an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 people living today can trace their own lives back to those visas. One survivor has dubbed Sugihara the "Japanese Schindler." (German factory owner Oskar Shindler, of "Schindler's List" fame, saved the lives of an estimated 1,200 Jews.)

Sugihara's son, Nobuki, told The Guardian last year that several myths have crept into his father's story, including that he was signing visas and throwing them off the train as he left and that his wife would massage his hands after long days of signing visas. There's no evidence that those stories are true, but there's a lot about his father's story that was left untold for much of his life.

Nobuki said that he had no idea when he was younger that his father was a WWII hero at all. Sugihara had been unceremoniously dismissed from government work after the war, and through the 1950s and 60s, he'd worked as a trader in a small coastal town in Japan. He didn't talk about how many lives he had saved with his visas.

It wasn't until an Israeli diplomat contacted the family in 1969 that Sugihara's sacrifice and courage came to light, but even then, the significance of it wasn't clear to Nobuki. But in 1984, two years before he died, Sugihara was declared "righteous among the nations" by Yad Vashem, the Israeli state organization that commemorates the Holocaust—an title that honors non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust. Since then, books and films have been made to share Sugihara's story.

Chiune Sugihara - Righteous Among the Nationswww.youtube.com

Though the Holocaust is filled with stories of heinousness and horror, there are also gems of humanity that shine out from that darkness and offer hope. Sugihara's story reminds us that human beings always have a choice to do what's right over what's easy or expected. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, when asked why he signed the visas decades after the fact, Sugihara gave two reasons: "They were human beings and they needed help," he said, adding, "I'm glad I found the strength to make the decision to give it to them."

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
holocaust
Popular

Biden campaign swiftly and soundly rejects neo-Nazi Richard Spencer's 'endorsement'

Richard Spencer/Twitter

As if the 2020 election season weren't quite wonky enough, infamous white supremacist troll Richard Spencer has decided to trade in his alt-rightness to go all-in on Joe Biden and the Democratic party. Unexpected—and yet not, considering the fact that Neo-Nazi attention whores aren't exactly known for making good sense.

"I plan to vote for Biden and a straight democratic ticket. It's not based on 'accelerationism' or anything like that; the liberals are clearly more competent people," he wrote on Twitter. I had to look up what "accelerationism" meant, so I started to read an article about it, but then I realized I was putting too much time into something Richard Spencer said and stopped. It doesn't matter. What matters is how the Biden campaign reacted to this "endorsement."

When white supremacist and former KKK grand dragon David Duke endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, Trump acted like he didn't really know who he was. How a candidate for the U.S. presidency would know nothing about one of the country's most famous white supremacists was a bit baffling, as was his wishy washy disavowal of his endorsement (which he blamed on a bad earpiece during an interview).

The Biden campaign probably wishes it could just ignore Spencer's clear cry for attention, but when a neo-Nazi says, "Hey, I'm on your team now!" it's necessary to say, "NOPE."

Director of Rapid Response for the Joe Biden campaign, Andrew Bates, tweeted a response to Spencer's announcement:

"When Joe Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of our nation against vile forces of hate who have come crawling out from under rocks, you are the epitome of what he means. What you stand for is absolutely repugnant. Your support is 10,000% percent unwelcome here."

Spencer had made headlines during the 2016 election for opening his alt-right conference speech with the phrase "Hail Trump," which was repeated by audience member who raised their hands in a Nazi salute.

It's also a bit hard to take Spencer seriously as supporting Democrats, considering he retweeted this message from Rose McGowan just four days ago:

"What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING? Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING. Why did people vote Trump? Because of you motherfuckers."

He may have simply jumped the Trump ship because he can see it sinking. "The MAGA/Alt-Right moment is over. I made mistakes; Trump is an obvious disaster; but mainly the paradigm contained flaws that we now are able to perceive. And it needs to end," he tweeted, according to Newsweek. "Walking into certain defeat, even death, is not heroic. It's foolhardy. I have no sympathy for martyrs. I admire winners."

He may admire winners, but he's getting no admiration from anyone at this point. The Biden campaign made it crystal clear that whatever game he's playing isn't going to fly. Denouncing neo-Nazis swiftly and definitively is what leaders should do, no matter what side of the political spectrum they're on.


From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
politics
Trending Stories