Kurt Weill and We Will Never Die — Historical Film Footage

Memorial Pageant calls for the rescue of European Jewry

United States, March 9, 1943
[English, 1:37]

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Transcript:

The pageant "We Will Never Die" is New York's Jewish protest against Nazi massacres. In Lublin, five hundred of our women and children were led to the market place and stood against the vegetable stalls we knew so well. Here the Germans turned machine guns on us and killed us all. Remember us. [Narrator:] And a great dramatic appeal is made as Paul Muni tells of Nazi crimes against helpless people. [Muni:] There are four million Jews surviving in Europe. The Germans have promised to deliver to the world by the end of the year, a Christmas package of four million dead Jews. And this is not a Jewish problem. It is a problem that belongs to humanity and it is a challenge to the soul of man. [Narrator:] Then a lament for two million people. [music]

The pageant "We Will Never Die" is New York's Jewish protest against Nazi massacres. In Lublin, five hundred of our women and children were led to the market place and stood against the vegetable stalls we knew so well. Here the Germans turned machine guns on us and killed us all. Remember us. [Narrator:] And a great dramatic appeal is made as Paul Muni tells of Nazi crimes against helpless people. [Muni:] There are four million Jews surviving in Europe. The Germans have promised to deliver to the world by the end of the year, a Christmas package of four million dead Jews. And this is not a Jewish problem. It is a problem that belongs to humanity and it is a challenge to the soul of man. [Narrator:] Then a lament for two million people. [music]

After word reached America of the Nazi killing of European Jewry, pressure mounted on the Roosevelt administration to help European Jews. To spur action, playwright Ben Hecht prepared a memorial to the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, "We Will Never Die." The pageant, sponsored by the Zionist Revisionist Bergson Group, was part of a mass demonstration at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Later seen in other US cities, the show was part of the Bergson Group's effort to pressure Washington to act decisively to rescue Europe's remaining Jews.