by Elie Wiesel
And what about my faith in all that? I would be within my rights to give it up. I could invoke six million reasons to justify my decision. But I don’t. I am incapable of straying from the path charted by my ancestors. Without this faith in God, the faith of my father and forefathers, my faith in Israel and in humanity would be diminished. And so I choose to preserve the faith of my childhood.
Did I say “choose”? In truth, it is not a real choice. I would not be the man that I am, the Jew that I am, if I betrayed the child who once felt duty-bound to live for God.
I never gave up my faith in God. Even over there I went on praying. Yes, my faith was wounded, and still is today. In Night, my earliest testimony, I tell of a boy’s death by hanging, and conclude that it is God Himself that the killer is determined to murder. I say this from within my faith, for had I lost it I would not rail against heaven. It is because I still believe in God that I argue with Him. As Job said: “Even if He kills me, I shall continue to place my hope in Him.” Strange: In secular circles my public statements of faith in God are resented.
From Montreal, another urgent call. Bea: Is there a nobler soul, a more charitable spirit? Though gnawed by cancer, my beloved sister never complains. She repeats over and over: “Not to be afraid, not to be afraid.” But I am afraid for her. As long as she did not know the nature of her illness, she seemed to hold fast. She remained active, went to her office between treatments. Why did the oncologist have to tell her the truth? She continues to repeat that all will be well, that we should not worry. But now when I visit the hospital I notice that she can barely smile. The last time I saw her, she spoke of her two children, Stevie and Sarah, more passionately than ever.
We are in Italy when, at the end of August 1974—according to the Hebrew calendar, the twenty-ninth day of the month of Ab of the year 5734—I receive the news. My brother-in-law Len is crying into the phone. I remain mute until I pull myself together to call Hilda but am still unable to move my lips. “What is it? What is it?” she asks. I finally whisper: Bea. Hilda cries out. A foolish thought crosses my mind: Just today I recited the prayer for the coming month; I must have prayed badly.
Marion is with me. So is Elisha. Does love console? I am inconsolable. Does love soothe? It soothes and is indispensable. We speak of Bea—her last visit with us, our last conversation. Language is cruel: We are already speaking of her in the past tense.
I fly to Montreal via New York. At La Guardia Airport, all the flights are booked. I run from one counter to the other, imploring the airline clerks. Finally I secure a seat.
Steve and Sarah have arrived from Israel, where they had been vacationing. Hilda is here too. I see people I know, others I do not. Bea had many admirers and friends. She was loved for her kindness, her compassion, her sense of humor. One of her friends tells me that a few days before her death, Bea had told her that she was terrified. She had seen our parents in a dream. They were expecting her.
And that was it. Life. Death. Three children from Sighet had been reunited after the war, and now only two of us are left. A thought tears through my brain: We had never spoken of her experiences over there. Now it is too late.
I tear my clothes as is the custom. I recite the traditional prayer: “Blessed art Thou, our God and King of the Universe, Judge of Truth.” The family slowly follows the coffin. I see nothing, nobody. All is dark around me, darker still inside me. I speak to Bea, entrusting to her messages and tears for our parents. “You will see them again. In three days your soul will rise to heaven, tell them …” The eulogies. The interment. The sense of irreparable loss. And later, traditional meals: How to touch them? The services, morning and evening. How to hold back the sobs as Steve recites the Kaddish? The ancestral rites. The condolences. It is the first time I am able to observe a week of mourning.
Seated on a low stool sitting shivah, I listen to the visitors who come to comfort us with the traditional words: “May God comfort you together with the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” Each has a story to tell about Bea. Her altruism, her integrity. No one had ever seen her angry. As for me, I remember her at home, in Sighet. When she fell ill with typhus, she had stayed in a room that was off-limits to us. Later I admired her resourcefulness, her courage. She was always ready to undertake missions most men considered too dangerous. Her work in the displaced persons camp. A walk through Paris with her: I look at the photograph. She wears a beret.
Certain midrashic texts suggest that the soul of the dead floats through the house during shivah. And I can indeed feel my sister’s presence.
Often, when I lecture in Montreal, I go to her grave to recite a psalm. Engraved on her tombstone are the names of those dear to us who never had a grave of their own.
For Israel and the Jewish communities of the Diaspora, 1974 ends on a note of defeat. Yasir Arafat’s appearance before the U.N. General Assembly was an indecent spectacle. The sight of this terrorist in uniform preaching morality to all of mankind—“In one hand I hold an olive branch, in the other, a gun!”—was distressing. Has the world forgotten the attacks, the assassinations committed by him and his minions?
I publish an article in the New York Times and Le Figaro, “Why I Am Afraid: Ominous Signs and Unspeakable Thoughts.” Here are excerpts:
I admit it sadly: I feel threatened. For the first time in many years I feel that I am in danger. For the first time in my adult life I am afraid the nightmare may start all over again or that it has never ended, that since 1945 we have lived in parentheses. Now they are closed. Could the Holocaust happen again? Over the years I have often put the question to my young students. And they, consistently, have answered yes, while I said no. I saw it as a unique event that would remain unique. I believed that if mankind had learned anything from it, it was that hate and murder reach beyond the direct participants; he who begins by killing others, in the end will kill his own. Without Auschwitz, Hiroshima would not have been possible. The murder of one people inevitably leads to that of mankind….
… There are signs, and they are unmistakable: the sickening sight of a diplomatic gathering wildly applauding a spokesman for killers. The scandalous exclusion of Israel from UNESCO. The arrogant self-righteousness of certain leaders, the cynicism of others. The dramatic solitude of Israel. The anti-Semitic statements made by America’s top general. Anti-Semitism has become fashionable once more both in the East and in the West…. Is it conceivable that Hitler could be victorious posthumously?
… And so, the idea of another catastrophe is no longer unthinkable. I say it reluctantly. In fact, it is the first time I say it. I have chosen until now to place the Holocaust on a mystical or ontological level, one that defies language and transcends imagination…. If I speak of it now, it is only because of my realization that Jewish survival is being called into question….
… And so I look at my young students and tremble for their future; I see myself at their age surrounded by ruins. What am I to tell them? I would like to be able to tell them that in spite of endless disillusionments one must maintain faith in man and in mankind; that one must never lose heart. I would like to tell them that, notwithstanding the official discourses and policies, our people does have friends and allies and reasons to advocate hope. But I have never lied to them; I am not going to begin now. And yet….
Despair is no solution. I know that. What is the solution? Hitler had one. And he tried it while a civilized world kept silent. I remember. And I am afraid….
Some twenty years later, as I transcribe this text, I wonder whether I was right to be so wary of Arafat. Yes, he was responsible for deadly terrorist activities, which it was my duty to denounce. But at the same time, he was a freedom fighter in the eyes of his people. I was asked to meet Arafat many times. Was I wrong to refuse? Are those who claim to have chosen peace over terror not to be believed? Is Arafat, therefore, to be looked upon as a moderate, a peacemaker, the head of a nascent state rather than of a clandestine military organization?
Summer 1974. We
are on Long Island, in the Hamptons, the village of Amagansett, where Marion has transformed a ruin into a beautiful country house. I work badly and fitfully because I spend hours in front of the television watching the Senate and House investigations into the Watergate affair. What we are seeing is the vitality of the nation’s democratic institutions at work. The once-powerful witnesses stand humbled before the investigators. Isolated from his faithful and arrogant lieutenants, the President of the United States seems to be alone in his fight for survival. The dismissal of his attorney general for having refused to fire the prosecutors is dubbed the “Saturday Night Massacre” by the media. Nixon makes an astounding statement on television, that he is “not a crook.” The Supreme Court orders him to hand over the tapes of his conversations with his aides. The threat of impeachment. This is the stuff of Greek tragedy: the fall of a “hero” who has displeased the gods. All we can do is watch. His last speech. His farewell to the weeping White House staff. His flight to California, his arms raised in a sign of victory. The bland confirmation of his successor, Gerald Ford.
It is a turbulent year in every sector of American society. The public is repeatedly shaken by bizarre happenings, both at home and abroad. The young heiress Patty Hearst, abducted by terrorists, appears to have embraced their cause: You see a photo of her in the act of robbing a bank! There is talk of brainwashing, of rebellion against the class loyalties of her parents.
The greatest of Soviet writers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is forced into exile and finds refuge with the German writer Heinrich Böll. In France, Georges Pompidou dies in office and is succeeded by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. He has beaten the Socialist candidate, François Mitterrand, by 1 percent of the vote. In West Germany, Helmut Schmidt replaces Chancellor Willy Brandt, one of whose advisers had turned out to be an East German spy.
Northern Israel is under attack. The children of the villages and kibbutzim near the Lebanese border sleep in shelters; Arab shells kill eighteen inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona. Saboteurs are infiltrating the country from Lebanon and Jordan. There are far too many casualties on both sides. The worst of the attacks, the most heinous: eighteen children assassinated in the village of Maalot. Why do the terrorists target defenseless civilians? Their cowardice evokes horror. Is there ever a victory when the victims are children? I tell myself that though one day there may be peace between Israel and its neighbors, those responsible for the monstrous crime at Maalot will never be forgiven.
Notwithstanding the Syrian artillery’s attacks, the northern villages refuse to evacuate their children. Members of the elite units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) track down the saboteurs. Marion and I spend an afternoon on a military base, and at nightfall watch the soldiers depart for the nearby border. We wonder how many will return.
Nonetheless, there does appear to be some progress in the Middle East. The “step-by-step” policy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is praised in Israel when things go well, decried when things go poorly. It is around this time that I meet Kissinger, the first Jew to hold the premier U.S. cabinet post. His cold intelligence, monotonous voice, heavy German accent, and amazing analytic powers seduce and disturb. Foreign policy experts and Hollywood stars do everything and anything to be counted among his intimates. The Orthodox Jewish community is wary of him. They resent his having married a non-Jewish woman on Shabbat and his having taken his oath of office on a King James Bible.
Golda Meir likes him—though the story goes that she jokingly told Nixon, “My minister of foreign affairs speaks better English than yours.” She was, of course, referring to Abba Eban.
Kissinger is annoyed with Yitzhak Rabin, Golda’s successor as prime minister, for refusing to make certain territorial concessions in the Sinai that had been requested by Sadat. Two observation posts at the Mitla Pass are at issue. Israel does not realize the gravity of the situation, he says with great conviction. After a round of fruitless negotiations in Jerusalem, Kissinger, before boarding his plane at Lod, makes a statement to the press expressing his concern about the future of the Jewish state. For the first time in his career, he is seen shedding tears.
Back in Washington he reports to President Ford, who, apparently at the secretary’s urging, decides to reassess American policy toward Israel. It is easy to imagine the uproar in Israel. The fanatics accuse Kissinger of treason. He claims to wish to save Israel in spite of itself; he claims the very survival of the Jewish state is at stake. One day, much later, he confides in me that toward the end of the Yom Kippur War, as Ariel Sharon’s tanks surrounded the Egyptian Third Division, the Red Army had five thousand paratroopers ready to intervene.
In the summer of 1975, Marion and I board a military helicopter with Arthur Goldberg. The former Supreme Court justice and U.N. ambassador during the Six-Day War has been invited by the Israeli government to conduct an inspection of the contested zones in the Sinai. The general and colonels on board detail Rabin’s position, namely, that it is necessary to keep the two strategic passages until peace agreements have actually been signed. I understand nothing about military strategy, but I trust Rabin. As for Goldberg, he advises caution. A few years later, Menachem Begin gives back all of Sinai to Anwar Sadat, who at the time might well have settled for less.
• • •
In Southeast Asia, the hostilities cease: the first military defeat in American history. I happen to be in Secretary Kissinger’s office when an aide brings him a message. His face turns somber as he reads: The last American soldier has just left Saigon. He remains silent a long moment, then mutters something about the price of hostile public opinion and the restlessness on American campuses.
It is the start of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime under its leader, Pol Pot. Strangely, many leftist intellectuals offer the regime their support.
Early July 1976. America readies itself for its bicentennial. There are official ceremonies, parades, military processions, hundreds of tall sailing ships. The past is evoked to better appreciate the present. But on this Fourth of July, Americans are less preoccupied with their nation’s history than with the events taking place in the distant land of Uganda, where an incredible surprise operation is being carried out successfully by an elite commando unit of the IDF.
It all began on Sunday, June 27, when a band of Arab and German terrorists diverted an Air France plane en route from Paris to Lod via Athens and forced the crew to land at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. There were 230 passengers on board, 83 Israelis among them.
The world’s eyes turn to “Dr. Marshal Idi Amin Dada,” the outrageous dictator of this impoverished country. Will he help the hostages or the terrorists? Nobody knows. For this fat, jovial, but ferocious character—rumor has it that he throws his enemies into crocodile-infested waters—it is the perfect opportunity to star on the international stage.
It seems he has some indebtedness to Israel, where he trained as a paratrooper. This does not prevent him from siding with the hijackers, who demand the liberation of forty-seven of their comrades who are imprisoned in Israel and Western Europe.
Whose idea was this hijacking? Was it the PLO’s initiative? Then how does one explain the participation of several young Germans of the Baader-Meinhof group?
Israelis are tense. Should they negotiate with the terrorists? That would be contrary to Israeli policy, which is never to validate terrorists’ status by dealing with them directly—yet sacrificing the hostages was unimaginable.
Meanwhile, the terrorists proceed with the help of Idi Amin to separate the Israelis from the other hostages. They free the French but hold the Israelis.
Rabin asks his cabinet whether to negotiate. There is tension between him and his defense minister, Shimon Peres. The vote is unanimous: Yes, but only if a military option is excluded. The leaders of the opposition, including Menachem Begin, share this point of view. Human lives count more than principles. Rabin consults General Motta Gur, the army’s commander-in-chief and liberator of the Old City of Jerusalem, as to whether a military ope
ration is feasible.
In New York, with our Israeli friends Raphael and Dina Recanati, we discuss our concern that a military move is not viable. We wonder how the army could possibly transport units that far—some 2,200 miles—into hostile territory. And even if a commando unit reached Entebbe Airport, how could one prevent the terrorists from killing the defenseless hostages? In the end, we all agree: A military rescue is out of the question. None of us is prepared for Israeli logic: that because the operation seems impossible, it will be undertaken—and brilliantly executed.
What was the Mossad’s role? To provide information and photographs. And whose idea had it been to load into the giant plane a black Mercedes identical to the one in which Idi Amin liked to parade? Carried out with clockwork precision, the mission is successful. Tragically, there are four casualties: three hostages and the Israeli colonel Yoni Netanyahu. Four families are in mourning, but there is dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv. Begin, the opposition leader, congratulates Rabin.
It meant much to me when, months later, Yoni’s father, Professor Ben-Zion Netanyahu, author of a superb volume on the Inquisition, brought me letters from his son in which my work is mentioned. I then read in his posthumously published diary references to my novels.
In America there is less talk of the bicentennial than of Entebbe. Not since the Six-Day War has there been such a show of admiration for the Jewish state.
Among the hostages was a survivor of the camps. At one point he walked up to one of the German terrorists and showed him the tattoo on his arm: “It may have been your father who did this to me; the Germans wanted to murder me and my family. Now you will do the job?” The terrorist did not answer. But when the Israeli attack started, the hostage saw the terrorist aiming his gun at him. “I am convinced that in that final second, what I had said kept him from pulling the trigger,” said the survivor.
In 1977, the arrival of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in the Israeli capital turns history on its head. By then Yitzhak Rabin is no longer prime minister and Shimon Peres is no longer in charge of defense. Astonishingly, Menachem Begin has been elected to head the new government and selects Moshe Dayan as his minister of foreign affairs. Who could have imagined that the hawk from the right and the military man from the left would bring about a peace that the left had pursued unsuccessfully since 1948?