And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs 1969

by Elie Wiesel

  Words of Remembrance

  WHEN PRESIDENT CARTER appoints me to head the newly created Holocaust Memorial Council, I foresee the difficulties awaiting us. By now I am no longer a novice. My most urgent task is to establish a list—once more. It seems as though one does nothing else in Washington. I ask Arthur Goldberg to stay on with me. He declines; he does not believe in the museum: “You’ll see, it will be created at the expense of Jewish remembrance.” He feels that it would be better not to embark on a project that he thinks can only end in compromise. “I am your friend,” he tells me. “I know Washington. This is not for us.” I beg him to change his mind, to trust me, without success. I am deeply sorry.

  Still, there is no shortage of candidates. As during the establishment of the President’s Holocaust Commission, we must take into account the religious and geographical considerations that influence all decisions on the federal level. But even that is not enough, and the White House calls us to account. It seems we have forgotten a factor that politically weighs more heavily than the others—the ethnic factor. After all, we are on the eve of an electoral campaign.

  We have the first alerts, the first disagreements. The Council membership list evidently displeases the White House; “too many Jews,” the President is rumored to have said. His adviser Stu Eizenstat exerts pressure on us along those lines. The new Council director, the eminent law professor and civil rights activist Monroe Freedman, acts as our liaison to the administration. A distinguished-looking man who has returned to traditional Judaism thanks to his wife, Audrey, a convert, Freedman impresses people with his graciousness and precision of thought. Unlike many others, he is not in awe of Washington or power, and his integrity prevents him from getting involved in political maneuvers. He expresses a pessimism that events eventually confirm. Example: We are asked politely but insistently to accept a Pole, that is, a non-Jewish American of Polish origin. His connection to the Tragedy? None. He is to represent the Polish nation, which, undeniably, has suffered as well.

  So my friend Arthur had been right. I call an urgent meeting with my close collaborators and ask for their advice: Should we resist the pressures? For Frank Lautenberg, industrialist and future senator from New Jersey, compromise is unavoidable; he thinks that a rejection would signify the end of the project, the end of the memorial. “Sometimes,” he says, “if it is for a just cause, one may sell one’s soul to the devil.” Siggi Wilzig, a Jew from Berlin and a survivor of Auschwitz, flies into a rage and—fortunately—puts him in his place. In Miles Lerman’s view, if it were a Ukrainian he would say no, but a Pole, that’s something else, less serious. How is it less serious? The discussion leads nowhere. As for me, had the White House asked us to nominate a Pole who had been a deportee or had fought in the resistance, I would have said yes without hesitation; but I am opposed to the political argument that imposes on us the representative of one ethnic group or another. If we went along, tomorrow we could be pressured to accept a representative of any minority, be it Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, or even German. More discussions follow, all just as sterile. Pressures from my fellow survivors weigh on my judgment. Finally, a majority favoring compromise takes shape. We shall have to trust the White House; after all, a council with minor political motivation is better than no council. And of course we can always resign later. I report the situation to Arthur. Predictably, he says: “I knew it; this is only the beginning. You can’t win with these people.” His predictions came true: After the Pole, a Ukrainian was recommended—I mean imposed on us—then a Hungarian, then a Lithuanian … all perfectly honorable men, worthy of our trust, but we have become part of the machine.

  My displeasure is no secret. Neither is the administration’s. As a result, our relations with the White House deteriorate. As everywhere in a bureaucracy, there is no end to the intrigues. Cliques form and there is an attempt to pit me against some official or other; I no longer recall whom. Eizenstat is annoyed, and I am disappointed. It becomes more and more difficult to make decisions, even important ones. To be sure, Congress offers us unconditional support, but since Congress is dependent on the executive branch, for all practical purposes it is impossible to function.

  The first internal crisis breaks out: Monroe Freedman feels compelled to dismiss his deputy. The latter, taking advantage of the fact that I was out of the country, allegedly engineered the hiring of a candidate with a questionable past. Monroe derailed the maneuver immediately. But because the deputy falsely informed the White House that I had approved the candidate, the administration concluded that I had gone back on my word—and was furious.

  As a consequence of our tense relations with the White House, it becomes impossible to get the president to attend the second annual Day of Remembrance, and so it does not take place. Monroe and I exchange bitter letters with Eizenstat. We feel that he is politicizing the Council, and that our not having a ceremony that year is his fault.

  The second conflict: One of our Council members is an American of Armenian origin; Set Momjian is among my closest collaborators. He is helping us commemorate the tragedy endured by his people during World War I. This, of course, angers the Turkish government, which threatens to revise its policy toward the United States and NATO. So here I am, to my great chagrin, mixed up in international politics. What a joke: If NATO falls apart, will it be our fault? But that’s Washington; there is no way to escape politics or comedy. Personally, I am pleased that an Armenian has a seat on the Council. I would be even more pleased if a Gypsy were there too.

  But the business of nominations is not finished. Just as for the presidential commission, people are soliciting appointments from senators and congressmen who, in turn, exert pressure on us. Notables of both parties intervene. To be a Democrat is an advantage, to be a millionaire a trump card. Political connections are more important than personal merit. My proposals are rarely accepted. My points of view and those of the administration are too divergent. In the end, the Council will have sixty-five members, ten congressmen among them.

  Eizenstat attends the inaugural session, which is less moving, less “historic,” than that of the Commission a year earlier. Our friend in Congress, John Brademas from Michigan, the Democratic whip of the House, administers the oath. My speech does not deal gently with the administration. I aim at members of Eizenstat’s staff without naming them; I make it clear that I find their manipulations deplorable. Colleagues try to calm me: They tell me that once the mechanism is in place, everything will be all right. I am not convinced.

  So far, little is settled. For the moment, the White House has other worries, what with the hostage crisis in Teheran and the failure of the military action to free them. In Madrid for a conference, I am with Henry Kissinger as we witness the live broadcast of Jimmy Carter’s melancholy speech. He is clearly devastated, which is understandable: All those helicopters unable to take off, all those helpless military men. And those Iranian “students” tormenting their American prisoners, all the while mocking America. How can the Democrats hope to win the presidential elections after months and months of waiting and wallowing in indecision?

  Was it true that at the start of the crisis an Israeli emissary had been dispatched to Washington to offer the president the good services of the Israeli army and the Mossad? Was it true that Israel, strategically well placed, had been ready to undertake a rescue operation in Teheran? And that Carter had refused? A thousand rumors are circulating in “well-informed” quarters. All, of course, quite unconfirmable.

  If Carter had said yes he might well have been reelected. And so many things might have taken a different course.

  The arrival of President Ronald Reagan brings about a change in our relations with the White House. During a visit to Los Angeles, I meet with Ted Cummings, adviser to the new president on Jewish affairs and future ambassador to Austria, who tells me in no uncertain terms that the composition of the Council will have to be altered. He suggests a collective resignation in order to reconstitute the Counci
l on a new political foundation. “You must admit,” he says, “that not one member of the present Council is Republican!” He is right. And I am the only independent. “It is only fair,” Cummings continues, “for the Republican party to be represented.” Eventually he proposes a compromise—a partial resignation of the Council. I oppose it: “You can have my resignation right now. As for the others, you must handle that yourself.”

  Legally, the administration cannot divest us of our functions before our term expires. In practice, though, it is inconceivable that anyone would stay on against the president’s wishes. That is the tradition: Every president must have the privilege of naming his collaborators and representatives on every level of the administration down to the most insignificant, such as ours. But I am stubborn: If the Council is touched, I’ll leave. It will not be touched, but in the upper echelons of the White House a resentment of me will linger for some time. From that moment on, Monroe Freedman’s counterpart will no longer be a high official but a subordinate.

  Many of us feel that we are progressing too slowly. At the session of December 10, 1980, I express my position:

  … The Event we are dealing with is unique, and our attitude toward it must be too. Not being a governmental agency like the others, we cannot follow their example. We lack experience. What seems clear and effective for the existing official commissions is not so for us. We are dealing with the most burning subject of our lives, and in our work we are establishing a precedent for History. Future generations will wish to learn what we, the witnesses and survivors, have done with our memories…. Our words and our acts will await the judgment of our children and of theirs…. That is why the rhythm of our efforts will be feverish but not foolhardy, passionate but prudent. Let us adopt the adage of the great French poet Boileau: “Let us make haste slowly.”

  The Council must also deal with problems not directly connected with the creation of a museum. We meet to condemn the resurgence of anti-Semitism or to denounce the attacks on Jews in Europe. In fact, it is our “committee of conscience” that, according to our charter, should be in charge, but it is not working well. The committee may not be to blame; the Senate distrusts it because it fears we might make declarations and take initiatives that might be embarrassing to the executive branch.

  Meanwhile, surprisingly, on a personal level, I develop a friendly relationship with the new president.

  Our second annual Day of Remembrance, the first during President Reagan’s initial term, takes place not in the Rotunda but at the White House, for Ronald Reagan has just left the hospital. It is his first public appearance since the assassination attempt against him. The East Room is packed. The entire Washington who’s who is there. Six survivors light the six traditional candles. Cantor Isaac Goodfriend of Atlanta intones the customary prayers in memory of the victims. When my turn comes, I begin by giving thanks to God for sparing the president’s life. Then I read, in Yiddish (it is, I believe, the first time Yiddish has been heard in the White House), a poem that evokes the massacred Jewish children. I also speak of Israel, that people with a long history, which is also a modern people that should not be judged on isolated incidents. I conclude by addressing the president directly: “In our tradition, when a human being dies, we designate him our messenger on high to intercede in our favor. Is it possible, Mr. President, that the six million Jewish victims have become our messengers?”

  The president is visibly moved. It seems that tears prevent his reading the speech that has been prepared for him. I watch him as, behind the lectern, he rearranges pages and goes on to improvise a magnificent speech against racism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of discrimination.

  That same evening television commentators report: “Political circles in Washington were astonished today to hear President Reagan deliver a speech on human rights. But if one is to believe his closest advisers, he did not mean it. It was but an emotional reaction that …”

  Marion and I look at each other, stunned. How dare these advisers disparage the president in this way? In politics, say my friends in the capital, anything goes.

  Two weeks later, the telephone rings in my office. A well-modulated voice says: “Please wait a moment; the president of the United States would like to speak with you.” I am convinced it is a prank, until I hear the familiar warm voice. He says hello, and I am so taken aback that I can’t think of anything more intelligent to say than: “Mr. President, how did you find my phone number?” He bursts out laughing and keeps me on the line a good quarter of an hour. He begins by saying some nice things about my work. At the end he chuckles: “By the way, just so you know, I meant every single word in my speech.” Rumors about this conversation make the rounds of Washington dinner parties. After all, who but me would think of asking the president of the United States how he obtained a simple telephone number. This funny incident is followed by another, which has to do with France of the eighties.

  A month later I attend the investiture of François Mitterrand as president of France. During the luncheon at the Élysée Palace, he voices a concern to me: He doesn’t know the Americans well, and they don’t know him either; they are bound to mistrust him and his political philosophy. On the flight home I ponder this. I wonder how, in some small way, I could be of assistance to the new president. A wild idea goes through my mind: Why not write a note to President Reagan? Through the Council office I send him a brief personal message in which I tell him that I consider it my duty as an American citizen to offer him a psychological sketch of his French counterpart. And I add this suggestion: “If you could ring him directly, simply to say hello and congratulate him, as you did with me, I am sure that will facilitate your future relations.” Did he receive my letter? The fact is I received no answer. Oh well, I thought, surely it vanished into one of the proverbial White House wastebaskets. From the Élysée too, silence. Never mind. So what if I made myself look ridiculous. Luckily no one knows.

  Years later, a high official tells me that a secretary had indeed transmitted my letter to the president. And he had liked my suggestion. Call President Mitterrand? Why not. Only I had failed to mention that Mitterrand did not speak English. And Reagan has only a little French. An interpreter should have been called in. No matter: The two presidents succeeded in understanding each other. And during the meeting of the seven major economic powers that followed, their easy relationship surprised quite a few people.

  When it comes to the affairs of my own Council, I am less lucky. My requests to meet with the president run into insurmountable obstacles, despite the fact that after every one of our conversations he expresses his wish to see me again: Strangely, Reagan’s aides have much power. But why would the prospect of my speaking with their boss bother them? Why would it worry them? I have no idea, but the door to the Oval Office remains firmly closed to me. It opens only four long years later, during the Bitburg affair.

  End of October 1981: The international Liberators’ Conference—the need for which had become evident to me two years earlier in Moscow—takes place in the State Department with the participation of the secretary of state, General Alexander Haig, and the assistant secretary for human rights, Elliott Abrams. The opening session is both solemn and original: When American soldiers bring out German flags taken from the enemy and throw them at our feet, on the stage, even the toughest among the participants shiver. Present are representatives of some twenty countries, from both sides of the Iron Curtain, and this is the statement I make to them:

  … Some thirty-six years ago, we lived together a moment marked by destiny, a moment without parallel, never to be measured or repeated; a moment that stood on the other side of time, on the other side of existence.

  When we first met, on the threshold of a universe struck by a curse, we spoke different languages, we were strangers to one another, we might as well have descended from different planets. And yet a link was created between us, a bond was established. We became not only comrades, not only brothers; we became each other’s witn
esses.

  I remember, I shall always remember, the day I was liberated: April 11, 1945. Buchenwald. The terrifying silence broken by abrupt yelling. The first American soldiers. Their ashen faces. Their eyes—I shall never forget their eyes, your eyes. You looked and looked, you could not move your gaze away from us; it was as though you sought to alter reality with your eyes. They reflected astonishment, bewilderment, endless pain, and anger—yes, anger above all. Rarely have I seen such anger, such rage—contained, mute, yet ready to burst with frustration, humiliation, and utter helplessness. Then you broke down. You wept. You wept and wept uncontrollably, unashamedly; you were our children then, for we, the twelve-year-old, the sixteen-year-old boys in Buchenwald and Theresienstadt and Mauthausen, knew so much more than you about life and death. You wept; we could not. We had no more tears left; we had nothing left. In a way we were dead, and we knew it. What did we feel? Only sadness.

  And also gratitude. And ultimately it was gratitude that brought us back to normalcy and to society. Do you remember, my friends? In Lublin and Dachau, Struthof and Nordhausen, Ravensbrück and Majdanek, Belsen and Auschwitz, you were surrounded by sick and wounded and hungry wretches, barely alive, pathetic in their futile attempts to touch you, to smile at you, to reassure you, to console you, and most of all, to carry you in triumph on their frail shoulders; you were our heroes, our idols. Tell me, friends: In your whole lives have you ever felt such love, such admiration?

  One thing we did not do: We did not try to explain; explanations were neither needed nor possible. Liberators and survivors looked at one another—and what each of us experienced then, we shall try to recapture together, now, at this reunion, which, for me, represents a miracle in itself.