M. S. Arnoni

Arnoni was born in Łódź, Poland in 1922.{{Cite news |date=February 22, 1985 |title=M.S. Arnoni |url=https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1985.02.22.001/78 |access-date=January 10, 2024 |work=The Detroit Jewish News |pages=78}} He was born as Meniek Sztajer, the son of an engineer.{{Cite book |last=van den Berghe |first=Gie |title=Met de dood voor ogen: Begrip en onbegrip tussen overlevenden van nazi-kampen en buitenstaanders |publisher=EPO |year=1987 |isbn=9789064456947 |location=Antwerp |pages=497}} In 1944, Arnoni and his family were held in the Łódź Ghetto. In August of that year, he was sent to Auschwitz before he was liberated in May 1945. He later wrote a memoir about his time in the Łódź Ghetto and Auschwitz, called Moeder was niet thuis voor haar begrafenis (Mother was Not at Home for Her Funeral).{{Cite book |last=Dresden |first=Samuel |title=Persecution, extermination, literature |last2=Dresden |first2=Samuel |date=1995 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-7668-7 |location=Toronto |pages=96}}

Arnoni moved to the United States in 1954.{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Fulton |date=November 7, 1962 |title=Washington Report |work=The Punxsutawney Spirit |pages=4}} In 1959, Arnoni founded the monthly magazine The Minority of One,{{Cite book |title=Currents on the Left: An Annotated Bibliography of Radical and Left-wing Journals |publisher=California State University |year=1974 |pages=10}} which he described as an independent journal "dedicated to the eradication of all restrictions on thought."{{Cite book |last=Fischbach |first=Michael R. |title=The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2019 |isbn=9781503611078}} The magazine's Board of Sponsors included Bertrand Russell, Albert Schweitzer, and Linus Pauling.{{Cite book |last=Feinberg |first=Barry |title=Bertrand Russell's America: His Transatlantic Travels and Writings |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2013 |isbn=9781135099480 |pages=198}} It was known for its articles on the peace movement, civil liberties, and criticism of both American and Soviet foreign policy.{{Cite news |date=December 4, 1961 |title=U.S. puts the heat on an editor |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_guardian_1961-12-04_14_8/page/4 |access-date=January 10, 2024 |work=National Guardian |pages=5}} By 1967, the magazine had a circulation of 26,000.{{Cite news |last=Goodman |first=Roger |date=January 19, 1967 |title=Arnoni Hits Viet Policy |url=https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/952/1/1967_01_19_68_14.pdf |work=California Tech |pages=3}} Oleg Kalugin alleged that Arnoni unknowingly accepted articles on foreign policy for publication that had been prepared by the KGB.{{Cite book |last=Kalugin |first=Oleg |title=The First Directorate : My 32 years in intelligence and espionage against the West |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=1994 |location=New York |pages=53}}

Arnoni was one of the first journalists to criticize the Vietnam War.{{Cite book |last=Rid |first=Thomas |title=Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2020 |isbn=9780374718657 |location=New York}} In 1965 he called for the organization of a war crimes tribunal, modeled on the Nuremberg trials, to judge American war crimes in Vietnam.{{Cite book |last=Klinghoffer |first=A. |title=International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights |date=2002 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |isbn=9780312299163 |pages=106}} Arnoni proposed this idea to Bertrand Russell who initially rejected the idea but Russell later used it as inspiration for his International War Crimes Tribunal in 1966.{{Cite journal |last=Andersson |first=Stefan |date=Winter 2011 |title=A Secondary Bibliography of the International War Crimes Tribunal: London, Stockholm and Roskilde |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/879978 |journal=Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies |language=en |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=167–187 |doi=10.1353/rss.2011.0003 |issn=1913-8032}} In May 1965, Arnoni gave a speech at the 35-hour protest at University of California, Berkeley arranged by the Vietnam Day Committee, where he advocated for volunteers to join the North Vietnamese and fight against the American army.{{Cite book |title=Student Protest: The Sixties and After |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2014 |isbn=9781317880486 |editor-last=De Groot |editor-first=Gerard J.}} At another anti-war protest in October 1965, he wore his concentration camp uniform and told the crowd that the victims of the Holocaust would implore them "not to be silent in the face of the genocidal atrocities committed on the people of Vietnam".{{Cite book |last=Brightman |first=Carol |title=Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure |date=1999 |publisher=Gallery Books |isbn=9780671011178 |pages=27}} He engaged in a debate with Sidney Hook about the war, through a series of letters to the editor, published in the September 25 and October 23, 1967 editions of The New Leader.{{Cite book |title=Letters of Sidney Hook: Democracy, Communism and the Cold War |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2015 |isbn=9781317466192 |editor-last=Shapiro |editor-first=Edward S. |pages=293}}

The Minority of One was also critical of the Warren Commission and published articles by prominent critics of the government's investigation into the Kennedy assassination.{{Cite book |last=Talbot |first=David |title=Brothers : the hidden history of the Kennedy years |publisher=Pocket Books |year=2008 |location=London |pages=267}} In March 1964 Arnoni published an advertisement in The New York Times in the form of an open letter to Earl Warren, arguing that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy, since "whenever a head of state is assassinated there is a strong likelihood of a political plot behind the act".{{Cite book |last=Kelin |first=John |title=Praise from a Future Generation: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the First Generation Critics of the Warren Report |date=2007 |publisher=Wings Press |isbn=9781609403386 |pages=155}}

Arnoni was critical of negative leftist attitudes towards Israel, arguing in support of the country in his article, later expanded into a book, Rights and Wrongs in the Arab-Israeli Conflict.{{Cite journal |last=Elazar |first=Daniel J. |date=1969 |title=The Rediscovered Polity: Selections from the Literature of Jewish Public Affairs, 1967-1968 |journal=American Jewish Yearbook |volume=70 |pages=175}} In 1969, in response to his frustrations with these critics, as well as American involvement in the Vietnam War, Arnoni left the United States and moved to Israel. In 1971 he moved to the Netherlands, where he published the newsletter In Search of Facts, Ideas, and Challenges.Haag, Jaap. “Guide to the International Archives and Collections at the IISH: Supplement over 1993.” International Review of Social History, vol. 39, no. 3, 1994, pp. 518. JSTOR, {{JSTOR|44583333}}. Accessed 15 Jan. 2024.

Arnoni married Dutch composer Tera de Marez Oyens in 1976.{{Cite web |last=Baars |first=Michael |date=February 20, 2018 |title=Wansink, Woltera Gerharda (1932-1996) |url=https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Wansink |access-date=January 10, 2024 |website=Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland.}} He was the namesake of the M.S. Arnoni Award, presented by the magazine Jewish Currents.{{Cite book |last=Harap |first=Louis |title=The image of the Jew in American literature : from early republic to mass immigration |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0815629915 |location=Syracuse |pages=xii}}

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Category:1922 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:Auschwitz concentration camp survivors

Category:American male journalists

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:Łódź Ghetto inmates

Category:American foreign policy writers

Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists

Category:American political writers

Category:American magazine editors

Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent