by Elie Wiesel
During that session a diplomatic incident occurs that goes almost unnoticed. Seated at the same table the Serb and Bosnian representatives avoid looking at each other. Normal. But when the Serb begins to speak, the Bosnian leaves the hall. Between the two men there is an abyss of blood and death. Here and there a few delegates comment in whispers. That is all. A moment later everybody is speaking of other things.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Walesa tells me on his way out. The American ambassador, who never leaves my side, specifies “after the concert.”
Finally, in a small room next to the stage, I find myself face to face with the president of the Polish Republic.
To my astonishment, he is the one who attacks: “We’ve known each other for years. We were friends. But ever since I was elected president, we have had no contact.”
I answer that I don’t like to disturb him. “Before, it was different….”
Should I tell him I did not appreciate the anti-Semitic overtones of his last electoral campaign? This is not the time. Right now we need to resolve the crisis that could well jeopardize the spirit and content of tomorrow’s ceremony. I convey this to him cautiously. He responds, punctuating his thoughts by gesturing with his hands.
“Since you perceived a crisis, why didn’t you pick up the phone and talk to me? Friends talk to each other. Between friends problems can be settled quickly.”
Should I answer that he too could have called me? Instead, I explain that I called his minister in charge of the commemoration, called him five or six times, and each time was told to speak in Polish for he understood neither English nor French nor German. Walesa nods and listens.
I convey to him the grievances of the Jewish organizations. I explain to him why we feel offended. I ask him whether he remembers our visit—our very first—to Birkenau and Auschwitz. Yes, he remembers. And at that moment his attitude changes; even the room suddenly appears lighter, more cheerful. The situation is defused. From that moment, everything goes quickly, very quickly. Walesa asks me what I want. I answer: “The Kaddish, and all the customary prayers….” Before I even finish, he agrees. What else? I would like him to say what we Jews never stop repeating in every language on earth, that the Holocaust is, above all, a Jewish tragedy, unique of its kind. Again, he agrees. And he adds: “And then we’ll be friends again, promise?”
The next day he keeps his word. First at Auschwitz, then at Birkenau, he mentions the singularity of Jewish destiny in these places. Opening the general ceremony, a rabbi recites the Kaddish, chants the El Maleh Rakhamim, and then intones the credos of the martyrs. Centuries ago, those were the affirmations made by pious Jews who, rather than convert, went to their death by fire and by sword.
Of course the organizers had also invited clergy: Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and a Muslim qadi. Some found that strange: Had there been Muslims in Auschwitz? Were we not forgetting the SS Muslim divisions? And the Mufti Hajj Amin el-Husseini of Jerusalem, Heinrich Himmler’s friend? In 1942 Himmler acted as his guide to this very place. Better to let it go.
Journalists, delegates, and survivors congratulate me on a victory. What a victory…. I think of those whose cemetery is the sky, and I feel not at all victorious.
Let us return to the fact-finding mission in 1979. Back in Warsaw, the president of Parliament and a few influential members of government invite us to a farewell cocktail. They never knew, they never bothered to find out, that for us it is Tisha b’Av, a day of fasting. A journey that had begun in an atmosphere of little understanding ends in embarrassment.
Next stop is Kiev, the beautiful Ukrainian capital and its gardens, the city and its anti-Semitic past. Kiev means Babi-Yar. Babi-Yar means Jewish suffering, Jewish memory, Jewish anger. I still remember fragments of images of my first visit, in 1965: the cowering old men in the synagogue; the mute woman, her memories sealed—a survivor from the ravine of death, she had lost the use of speech. I could not understand: The massacre had lasted ten days; people could hear the crackling of the machine guns; and yet the Jews made no effort to flee or hide. No, I could not understand: Day after day Jews were being murdered, and the population had done nothing to save their neighbors.
A narrow street was used as the assembly area. At its end was a ravine. There the victims were lined up in rows and machine-gunned point-blank. As the shots rang out, the victims toppled into the ravine, the dead and the living. Kiev means forgetting legitimized. Kiev means outrage. How could a Jew not feel uncomfortable here?
The program is a full one. We are harangued, we watch documentaries never seen by the general public, showing roundups and tortures, humiliations and executions. We see villages set on fire, corpses mutilated. I am constantly nauseous.
The worst is still to come: in front of the Babi-Yar monument, a military orchestra and wreaths of every color. Red carpet and all the rest. It seems as if every official in Ukraine is here. Evidently these political leaders of Kiev are proud of themselves. One can no longer criticize them for the absence of a monument in Babi-Yar. There it is, the monument. Now, they seem to be asking, are you satisfied at last?
The huge Stalin-style monument is grandiose, pompous, banal, and outright vulgar. It is so large and ugly that it has a crushing effect. Never mind, I tell myself, that’s their business. It is not up to me to judge their lack of taste. But I can and must reproach them for their lack of decency and honesty, their distortion of historical truth, for the word “Jew” does not appear on the monument. The inscription describes the victims as Soviet citizens assassinated by the Fascists.
I am overcome by rage. I tell the Ukrainian officials that while I had been pained and outraged in 1965, when there was nothing here but emptiness to obscure the only thing that remained of the victims—their memory—that was nothing compared with what I was feeling now.
I ask them how they dare deal so shabbily with the truth. I ask who gave them permission, who ordered them to commit this sacrilege? Those Jews who were killed, were they killed because they were Ukrainians, or Soviets, or Communists?
Rarely have I felt such fury. I remind myself that I am representing the president of the United States, that I have no right to involve him in this way, possibly provoking a diplomatic incident. But I cannot think of that now. I shall think of it tomorrow.
The ceremony ends abruptly. We get into our bus and start off toward the airport. But why are we stopping on the way? The guides and chauffeurs respond that it is all in the program; a light lunch to show us Ukrainian hospitality. But who can eat or drink?
In Moscow, in 1979, we had two purposes: first, to secure the liberation of the “prisoners of Zion;” second, to negotiate the opening of the secret Soviet archives to American and Israeli scholars.
On the second point, we obtain polite promises and assurances. On the first, not even that. Are the Soviet authorities familiar with the State Department’s directives to us not to raise political problems? The situation is delicate. We may evoke the past, the persecutions, the racism, the anti-Fascist struggle, and the Holocaust, but not the fate of the refuseniks and dissidents, for fear of jeopardizing relations between the two powers. Hence our dilemma: to follow the rules and do nothing, or disobey and possibly embarrass the president, to whom Brezhnev, known to be touchy, would be sure to complain. The others defer to my judgment. What do the Talmud and our beloved Rashi say about this kind of problem?
These are my thoughts as we wait in a spacious drawing room in the Ministry of Justice to be received by Attorney General Roman Rudenko, former Soviet prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. I have a list in my pocket. The list, compiled by the special team dealing with Soviet Jews in the Israeli prime minister’s office, includes four names, among them those of Anatoly Shcharansky and Iosif Mendelovich. I know that Rudenko has personally taken part in their trials. Can I speak to him without risking an explosion?
The attorney general, in full dress uniform, covered with medals, invites us to take our places around a long table�
�the Russians adore long tables. In accordance with protocol—the Russians are mad about protocol, too—I face our host. Everything about him suggests authority and strength. His stature, his shoulders, the epaulets shining on his dark jacket, and especially his face. He is not someone you could oppose with impunity.
The discussion starts with a review of the aims of our mission. I say to him: “I am familiar with your role at Nuremberg.” He answers: “You may know a part of my life, whereas I know your whole life. I know about your literary activities and the others.” He stresses “others.” A bad omen? He promises that his department will cooperate with us. He wishes to be given a list of our requests. My colleagues seem pleased, but I am preoccupied by another list, a list of a different sort. After all, I cannot hand it to him in front of everyone, especially not in front of his own people; if he gets angry, I’ll be to blame. But then how will I manage to communicate the four names to him? I am determined not to go back to my room with the famous list, and so, after the session ends, I say to Rudenko: “Mr. Attorney General, I should be grateful if we could talk alone.” He wants to know why. Courtesy of the Talmud, I have an answer ready: “In order to explain to you why we need to be alone.” A fleeting smile crosses his stony face: All right, come along.
The three of us—he and I and his interpreter—walk into his huge office. I am ill at ease: I am moving onto dangerous terrain; if I make a mistake, others will suffer. I beg the god of amateurs to help me, and I launch into my plea: “You said a moment ago, Mr. Attorney General, that you know all about me; therefore you know I’m not a political person….” He interrupts me: “Not a political person, you? Do you, perhaps, think that you’ll be able to deceive me? Do you, perhaps, think I am not aware of what you are doing against my country?”
I must have changed color. I open my mouth for air. He is still talking: “I know you came here in 1965 to write a defamatory book against the fatherland of Socialism. You came back a year later to write a play, also directed against us. Don’t bother to deny it; I know all about it. I also know the rest. Your articles, your speeches, your statements, I know them all. So don’t tell me that you’re not a political person!”
The verbal avalanche makes me feel as though I am literally shrinking. I am annoyed with myself for having pushed too hard. How am I going to get out of this? I must try: “I repeat, Mr. Attorney General, I am not a political person. If what I write sometimes has political connotations and repercussions, it is not my fault.” He does not seem convinced. He counters with a shrug: “Very well, let’s get on with it. You wanted to see me, you’re seeing me. Is there anything else? I am a busy man, you know.”
It is now or never. I hand him my list. He glances at it and tries to give it back. I refuse to take it. His face, his voice, his whole body stiffen: “I have no idea what or whom you’re talking about.” He is lying. I know it. I am sure of my Israeli friends; it was he who prosecuted the four refuseniks. “I can explain it to you,” I say. He is close to losing his temper: “I haven’t the time…. Your explanations don’t interest me…. Write me a letter through normal channels….” I tell him that he is holding that letter in his hand; it contains all the facts concerning the four cases that he should resolve on purely humanitarian grounds. He persists: “I’ve just told you—I don’t know them!” I answer that he undoubtedly knows someone who does. Now he sees red; his face is turning purple: “None of this pertains to me or my department.”
Our conversation has lasted some twenty minutes. Outside, Sigmund and Marion must be worried. Maybe they already picture me in a cell in the Lyubianka. As for me, I know that at most I am risking expulsion and a reprimand from the State Department. I can deal with those. And then, a small miracle: Abruptly his tone changes: “I’ll make a deal with you. Two of the four. Tell them to write me directly.”
So he knows that we have ways of contacting the prisoners in the Gulag.
The letters were sent. And he kept his word.
Saturday we make our way to Arkhipova Street. The huge synagogue is packed. How did these Jews learn of our presence in Moscow? As always, word of mouth functions here with tested efficiency. The rabbi is absent. “Well-informed” people speculate that he must have been advised to spend Shabbat elsewhere. But his assistants treat us with great respect. “Personal” messages are whispered to us: refused visas, separated families, official humiliations. Nevertheless these Jews do not give up hope. A man pushes his small son in front of me: “Take him to Jerusalem!” An old woman: “I don’t mind living here, but I want to die in Israel.” Young people tell me about their secret meetings in the cemeteries of all the large urban centers; they’ve been studying Jewish history and Hebrew. These Jews will never cease surprising me. They are amazing.
As I sit in synagogue, I scrutinize them, these people, so near and yet so distant, whom since 1965, in one way or another, I have never left. Do they recognize me? Some of them tell me they do, no doubt to please me. What matters is that I recognize them. I even recognize those I am meeting for the first time. Though impoverished, they do not seem unhappy. The spirituality they seek within their defiance confers on them an air of exaltation. Young and old, I admire, I love them all; I almost define myself in terms of the love that binds me to them. It is clear they have not come to pray—do they even know how to read the siddur?—but to communicate.
I am given the maftir, the privilege of reading the chapter from Isaiah in which the prophet consoles his people; generous, poignant words that in their simplicity are so appropriate to the situation. Forming a semicircle around the bimah, the faithful silently repeat the words after me, word for word, hardly moving their lips. How many understand their symbolic meaning? But every one of them longs for consolation. And in my address, I tell them of my joy at being with them. If President Carter had created this commission just for these encounters, dayyenu—it would have been enough.
But our visit to the Soviet Union was about to produce a more concrete effect, one I believe is worth reporting.
Among the personalities whom the authorities have us meet there is a heavyset man, with an open, smiling face—General Vassily Petrenko, the liberator of Auschwitz. Upon meeting my young son, he removes one of his many medals and pins it to Elisha’s jacket. I instantly find him even more appealing. We isolate ourselves in a corner and exchange reminiscences. He describes to me the atmosphere in his unit as it prepared for the assault, and I describe to him the last day, the final hours inside the camp, the urgent discussions between fathers and sons, friends and comrades: What to do? Hide? In which barracks? And would the SS not clean out the death factory before retreating? To the general I say: “The Red Army was so close, so close; we were all praying for you and your men. No believer ever implored God with more fervor.” Petrenko answers that his soldiers had an idea of what they might discover in the camp, but that they could never have imagined the reality they found.
I say: “You could have advanced your attack by one day, by a few hours. You could have saved a great many prisoners, Jews and Russians.” He explains: “It wasn’t easy. There were logistical problems, strategic considerations. And then, I had to get the order from the Stavka, the High Command….”
And suddenly, as we chat, the general and I, as we exchange stories about courage and despair, an idea flashes through my mind: We must bring together the other liberators of camps—to listen to them, to thank them, and to ask for their support. Our testimony has been questioned, even refuted by Nazis and moral perverts. The voice of the liberators would make them hold their tongues. That was the genesis, in my mind, of the Liberators’ Conference that was to convene in Washington in 1981.
In the plane that takes us from Moscow to Copenhagen, where we go to express our gratitude to the Danish people for having demonstrated to the world that it was possible to save Jews, my Elisha, who until then had never complained about being hauled around the world, exclaims: “That’s enough! I’m resigning from the commission!”
&n
bsp; From Europe, that commission continues to pursue its fact-finding mission in Israel, the place where memory has been preserved better than anywhere else. We have endless meetings with the directors of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum. How can we put their concerns to rest? They are worried that the museum project we are planning will relegate theirs to second place. I believe they are wrong. Yad Vashem will remain the essential site of remembrance. It deserves absolute priority.
In the report we are about to submit to the president, we are proposing the creation of a museum. Such is the wish of most members of the commission. They feel that having entered into the era of the audiovisual, books alone no longer suffice. My position is that we Jews have never assigned much importance to museums. How are we going to “show” the Tragedy, when it is almost impossible even to speak of it? Could images be more eloquent, more effective? And what images? Those taken by the enemy? In the end I go along with the concept of a “living museum,” as long as the accent is on “living.” Now that the concept has been accepted by the commission, there remains the matter of drafting the report to the president.
With the exception of my introduction, it is written by an aide to the director. Unfortunately, it is badly written. In the end, our friend Lily Edelman undertakes a rewrite. It takes her a full three days.
Another ceremony: We deliver the report to the president in the Rose Garden in the presence of many dignitaries and congressmen. The president seems satisfied. We have proposed that a new organization be created to succeed the commission. The proposal has been accepted. What shall it be called? Just as they had for the commission, the White House suggests a name as long as a stifling summer day without water. Once again I invoke my authority to shorten it. It will be inscribed in various legal documents as the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, or just the Council. I summarize its purpose in a sentence to be engraved on the museum wall: “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”