I thank Sue Fishkoff for the excellent writing in “Traitor or hero? Film examines role of Jews who aided Nazis” (March 1). But a perspective is missing.
Some collaborators saved Jews, especially toward the end of the war, to show proof they saved others, too. Even Adolf Eichmann and other Nazis pointed to their roles in saving Jews. The comment by the author that in the theater she wanted to yell to the deportees “Stop! Run!” is surprising. My relatives who were in those lines told me there was nowhere else to go. It was too late!
My uncle, Isaac Weisz, told me how he escaped the ghetto in Nagyszollos, Hungary. His mother was inconsolable about it to her death at Birkenau. He ended up in Auschwitz because he and his friends were caught on the edge of town in the forest after wandering in circles from being lost. Many fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto from the Revisionists and Socialists were murdered after the Uprising because of collaborators.
Nazi-occupied Europe was one big concentration camp. Nowhere to go, and only guesses about how to survive. I understand the impulse to warn them, but running for most was not an option by a certain point.
Mordechai David Pelta | San Francisco