Woman Doctor Flees Nazi Camp, Faints of Hunger on Warsaw Street

A terrible tragedy was revealed here when a young woman who had fainted in the streets was brought before the local magistrate. She was clothed in rags, and had been observed wandering about the streets of Warsaw for several days, apparently homeless.

On inquiry it appeared that she was a Jewess by the name of Dr. Leopoldina Komet, a physician and a Doctor of Philosophy, who had escaped from Germany. She was the daughter of a wealthy Leipzig Jew, who had studied at the University of Vienna, and had then practiced as a doctor in Leipzig. When Hitler came into power, she was arrested and put in a concentration camp, from which she managed to escape to Poland. She got to Warsaw on foot, and had vainly been trying to find a position as a physician or even as a nurse. She had walked about penniless and homeless, until she fainted of hunger.

On being asked why she had not registered with the Warsaw Refugee Committee, she replied that she had not wanted to fall a burden to anyone, and she had been too proud to ask for help.

A sum of money was immediately collected among sympathizers and presented to her, but she refused to accept it, and walked back to the vaults in which she had been spending her nights. However sound may be the Aryan clause in robbing protective colorationist Jews of their mantle of convenience, it also takes away from honest converts their proven right to serve the Church in which they feel they belong. When a Jew becomes a Christian in order that he may qualify for the post of Privy Councillor, or conductor of the State Opera House, you may dispute his sincerity as an apostate, but when he becomes a Christian in order to serve as pastor in some humble little community, you have not the same right to doubt.

There is in Alexandria today, for example, the young scion of a rich Jewish merchant who played his part in the night life of the capitals of Europe. He also used to be an ardent Zionist. Today he spends his summers, not in Paris, but in Alexandria, in study and in prayer, a convert to Catholicism who now believes that the Jews will inherit Palestine only when, and if, they return to it as Catholics. One of the most saintly scholars of the Church of Rome in France still calls himself Max Jacob. There are apostates from Judaism who are really apostates against Judaism and not for Christianity. They are the ones who wish to revenge themselves for slights suffered and for the general sense of inferiority which the creed of Judaism sometimes inflicts upon its people. But there is no doubt that positive motivations have operated to make sons and grandsons of Jews honest servants of the Christian Church. There is in Brazil today, for example, a Russian Jew who is one of the most successful Baptist missionaries and writers of missionary tracts. He toils for his creed under his Jewish name. He ascended soapboxes for Christ on the streets of London when he could not yet speak the English language and used to be thrown down Whitechapel stairs for his proselytizing pains. He went into the wilds of Brazil and there encountered not only the normal disadvantages under which missionary zeal in the wilds suffers, but also the animosity of the predominant Catholic faith there. He may be a mistaken, but he is an honest, convert to Christianity.

The Aryan clause challenges the right of this man to serve an adopted creed. While it does, missionary organizations are right in protesting against its application, however divided in opinion Jews may feel about it. While the Aryan clause is bringing back to the Jewish fold Jews whose Christian veneer was thin, it is also compelling to return to Jewry many whose instinctive loyalty is not to Judaism. Jews should take them back with feelings that may be described as mixed.