Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  Both yesterday evening and this morning, the telephone never stopped ringing. People wanted to make sure we were still alive, to confirm that nothing serious had happened, that it had “blown over.” Apparently there have been a lot of casualties, but you can’t find out yet how many. The revolt has undoubtedly been quashed as an “armed coup.” Sima has issued a new order, making outlaws of those who continue fighting. People are falling over themselves to disclaim allegiances and retract opinions. The general appears inflexible: not a word that suggests hesitation. He has announced harsh penalties for leaders and instigators. The fallen soldiers will be buried tomorrow with great solemnity, the rebels also tomorrow, but “without any honors.” Things are still very confused politically. Who will be in the new government? The general has announced a reorganization of the Guard under his own direct leadership, but it is not yet known which people he will rely on to do this. The German attitude also remains to be explained: it must have stunned the life out of them in the ranks of the Guard. I am thinking of Ghiţă Racoveanu, or Haig, Cioran, Dinu Noica, Mircea Eliade (lucky as ever, if he’s still in London).

  It was a minor event, then, which fortunately had no consequences (up to now, at least) yet explains a lot of other things. Yesterday morning, candles were burning opposite our building at the corner by the Thoiss pharmacy, where one of the soldiers fell. Passersby stopped and asked about him. Agitated little groups looked toward our building, running their eyes up its nine floors and down again, with a strange expression of wonder and menace. When I went out, I also walked up to one group (new ones were forming all the time). In the middle of five or six passersby, I glimpsed that poor madman who once used to wander with a switch and whistle from one streetcar to the next, giving imaginary signals for it to stop or start, and who often came up to Maryse’s Ford in the evening and offered to keep an eye on it (Maryse used to give him a few coppers). Well, that stuttering half-wit was telling how “a yid woman fired with a revolver last night, from the roof of that building over there—and a trooper was hit.”

  “A yid woman, you say?” asked an elderly gentleman, quite well dressed, quite unruffled.

  “Yeah, one o’ them yid bitches!”

  “And didn’t they do anything to her?”

  “You bet they did. They arrested her, took her away.”

  I looked closely at the people listening. Not one of them did not believe what was being said; not one had the least doubt about the truth of this absurd story. For a moment I thought of interrupting and saying something myself: that it was all completely stupid; how could they imagine that a Jew, especially a woman, could be so mad as to fire with a revolver from the roof (!!) of a nine-story building, or that she could have aimed so precisely from that distance? Did they not know that the soldier fell yesterday in a real street battle, in which hundreds of bullets were fired? But what was the point of asking these questions? Who would have listened? Who would have tried to think rationally? Isn’t it easier and quicker to believe what others tell you?—“A yid woman opened fire.” I walked on to do my shopping. When I came back, other passersby were talking about the same thing. But this time the “yid” was a man, not a woman; some said he had been captured, others that he had not; some specified that he fired from the fourth floor (where no one has lived since the earthquake), others that no one knows where he fired from. I think someone suggested making inquiries in the building, or expressed surprise that this had not already been done. Later I spent a little while at the window, watching how the news spread, how the groups became larger and more agitated. Was it far short of an attack on all the Jewish apartments in the building? Look, that’s how a pogrom begins.

  Tobruk has fallen. It happened the day before yesterday, but the news came from so far. It seemed so remote to us, for whom everything could be over in a flash!

  Saturday, 25 January

  Not much news. The Legionary papers have been closed down. (Again I think of the fate of Cuvântul.) A new declaration from the General [Antonescu] explains how the revolt and the repression unfolded. The street still does not seem the same as usual where the fighting took place. In the imposing square before the National Theatre, the shop fronts and the big windows of the central telephone exchange are riddled with bullets. In Vacâresti and Dudesti,4 apparendy, everything is like after a big earthquake or a terrible fire. The number of dead is still not known. Hundreds or thousands of Jews—but no one can say exactly.5 Nor is it known how many soldiers died, or how many Legionaries. Maybe the count has not yet been made.

  Troops and tanks are still moving about the streets. The last buildings in which Legionaries took refuge are being cleared. This morning, on Bulevardul Elisabeta, I witnessed the occupation and emptying of the Regal cinema—until now a Legionary stronghold. The city is dead after ten in the evening, with shows prohibited after nine; the restaurants are closed and no one is allowed to move around. But during the day, people are lively, talkative, full of curiosity, and in the end relieved. This also has something to do with the incredibly fine weather, as on a sunny day in late March, except that it is mid-January. Especially in the morning, the streets are as packed as on a public holiday. People embrace each other, noisily exchange greetings, ask each other questions. At the barber’s today everyone was talking about what happened in tones of approval, surprise, excitement. Mr. Costel, the owner, said that “the army was a match for the situation,” and that “those Legionaries are a bunch of criminals.”

  Yesterday Cioran said to Belu that the “Legion wipes its arse with this country.” This is more or less the same as what Mircea said at the time of the Câlinescu repression: “Romania doesn’t deserve a Legionary movement,” when nothing would have satisfied him but the country’s complete disappearance.

  Haig presented himself this morning at the office―comme si de rien n'e-tait.6 More amusing is the fact that Gyr7 did the same thing, having made intransigent speeches the day before yesterday in the Theatre square. Now comes the moment for telegrams of devotion.

  Sacha Roman spent all three days of the revolt in the cells at police headquarters, arrested by Legionaries. Very many Jewish prisoners were killed. He had a miraculous escape. Pity that, being a vain and “pretentious” man, he does not know how to keep his story simple.

  Sunday, 26 January

  Lassaigne called round yesterday and told me some priceless details. On Thursday he was at a key point, on Balkan Federation Square, a few dozen meters from the Legion’s headquarters on Strada Roma. The square was literally blocked by Legionary demonstrators. Some German motorized units arrived and were greeted enthusiastically. The Legionaries shouted, applauded, acclaimed: “Heil Hider! Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce! Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!” Without saying anything, the Germans took up position at the entrance to each of the streets leading into the square: Roma, Sofia, Londra, etc. The demonstrators constantly shouted their acclaim, convinced that the Germans had come to their aid. The troops kept arriving, greeted with the same enthusiastic cries. But then what a stunning blow! Once all the exits had been closed and the encirclement was complete, an officer ordered the demonstrators to leave. And everyone left. Just like that.

  I had a talk with Camil about the events. It would be quite funny to note the variations in his attitude over the last few days. But that is not what I want to write about now. On Wednesday evening things were at fever pitch at Cimpineanu 58. Camil had lost his head (he who loses it so easily). The only other person in the whole building was Marietta Rare§. The other Marietta and Haig were at the theatre, “on the barricades.” Much later Marietta Sadova, looking pale, haggard, and tearful, arrived from the Presidency where she and Codreanu’s wife had tried in vain to gain an audience with the General. “They’ve started shelling us!” shouted Marietta (how well I can hear her voice!). But she was no less certain of victory. “Everything is in our hands. General Dragalina is on his way to Bucharest. General Coroama is on our side. Antonescu is lost.” I think of the bewilderment she must hav
e felt the next morning, when she heard how much things had changed overnight.

  No definite news about the development of the political situation. Who has been arrested and who not, who sides with the regime and who is leaving—we know nothing at all.

  Monday, 27 January

  Yesterday afternoon I went with Lereanu and Comşa to see the “batrie-fields.” It is clear that there was a lot of shooting in the air. Apart from a few bullet-scarred buildings on Strada Londra, nothing indicates that there have been major battles. Neither the Legionary headquarters on Strada Roma nor even the Guards’ barracks (which is said to have been shelled) are seriously damaged. The greater disaster was in Vacaresti, and especially Dudesti, where not one house or makeshift hut escaped plunder and burning. Try to imagine the district ablaze on Wednesday night while gangs of hooligans went round shooting all those terrified people. Here and there, a few premises with Romanian names have been left standing. But the “Romanian Shop” notice on a window or wall did not always stave off disaster. You can see quite a few devastated houses and shops with a sign that, by a sad irony, was supposed to protect them: “Christian Property,” “Romanian House,” “Romanian Owner,” or even— somewhere in Vacaresti—“Italian Property.” Yesterday, Sunday, was the fourth day since the cataclysm, so a lot of the damage would have been concealed or removed. But it is still an overwhelming sight. And all this has hit the poorest of the poor, living in the most wretched conditions— small-scale craftsmen and traders, humble, careworn people barely able to scratch out a living. Here and there, beside the ruins, you see an old woman or a near-naked child crying and waiting. Waiting for what? for whom? In front of the morgue, hundreds of people wait in line; there are so many missing, so many unidentified corpses. Today’s Universul is full of Jewish obituaries; the cemeteries are full of fresh graves. The number of dead Jews is still not known—several hundred, in any event.

  Today, as yesterday, there is no official statement, no news, no indications. Is this hesitation? Reticence? Fear? A change of attitude? Compromise? An attempt to reach a deal? It’s a strange silence that allows anything to be assumed.

  Last night I dreamed of Nae Ionescu. He was headmaster of the school in Brăila, I one of the pupils (though at my present age). He stopped me downstairs, to the left of the staff room, and shook my hand. Then he said: Don’t be surprised or angry if I sometimes don’t answer your greeting as I do that of any other pupil. But the dream was longer and more complicated, with many other characters.

  Evening

  The dead soldiers were buried today. There were seventeen of them: two officers (a major in the geographical section, a captain in the medical corps), a platoon commander T. R. [reduced service] and fourteen sergeants, corporals, and privates. Very few, fortunately, for three days of revolt in which there was a lot of shooting on both sides. The number of casualties among the Legionaries is also probably not as high as rumor would have it. (There was talk of six thousand! Absurd!) The real figure is not known.

  The new government has been formed. All its members are generals with the exception of Crainic8 at Propaganda, an appeals judge at Justice, and a doctor at Health. The only civilian remaining from the old cabinet is Mihai Antonescu, now without portfolio. Of course, the Legionaries will interpret Riosanu’s departure as a concession to themselves. Otherwise no indication of how things will develop.

  Music. I have listened to a lot of things recently, at least on the calmer days. Brahms’s Piano Concerto (to which I must return: I had thought it was boring, but as I get to know it I feel closer to it), a trio in B minor, and a quintet. A beautiful Beethoven serenade, and this evening his Ninth Symphony. I enjoyed listening to Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto (I didn’t recognize it, but I guessed it was by a Russian from the last century— most likely Glazunov). Franck’s symphonic variations. Chausson’s symphony (surprised I knew it so well, and that it was so beautiful). Finally, last night, a Mozart serenade that I didn’t know before. With the Kleine nachtmusik and the serenade for two orchestras, that makes his third serenade I know. Also a symphony I didn’t know (No. 29—or 31!—the “Paris”).

  During the days of the revolt, I read only Shaw and Molière; Shaw’s Fanny's First Play. Now I’m on Act Two of Man and Superman. Coping quite well with it from the language point of view.

  Wednesday, 29 January

  The official toll of civilian deaths was published today: a little over three hundred. It does not mention how many Legionaries, how many Jews. The figure seems too low. It is still being said that more than six thousand Jews died. But maybe it will never be possible to know for sure. Many Jews were killed in Bâneasa forest and dumped there (most of them naked), but another batch seems to have been executed at the Strâulesti abattoir. In both cases it is likely that they were horribly mutilated before being killed. Jacques Costin’s brother could hardly be recognized at the morgue by his relatives; he had four holes in the head alone. Beiler, the lawyer, was riddled with bullets, and his throat had been cut.

  There were some miraculous escapes. (Aderca, almost comical in his naiveté, went knocking on the door of a den of Legionaries at Strada Burghelea 3, like a peaceable citizen in search of information! He was freed that evening, beaten up but alive, whereas others were killed in the same place on the same day.) The most amazing of all the cases I have heard is that of a lawyer, Mircea Beiner, who was grabbed off the street on Tuesday morning, taken to Baneasa, shot in the back of the head, and left for dead in the snow in the middle of the night; but early next morning he was awakened by the cold. Among hundreds of corpses, only himself and three others had not been finished off. Quite incredible!

  Biberi,9 who was in Turnu Severin at the time of the revolt, says it was so calm that if you didn’t have a radio, you were not even aware that anything unusual was happening in the country. The Legionaries there gave themselves up immediately, like so many sheep.

  Haig was arrested yesterday. This evening, Camil tells me, their house was searched from top to bottom. But I don’t think that anything will happen to either Haig or Marietta. Nothing ever does to revolutionaries of their ilk. I met Cioculescu and Streinu1 yesterday; they were very happy with events, not at all worried about how things would turn out. I could not say the same myself: I have all manner of doubts and fears. In my view, the regime is wavering and giving ground as it concocts a formula for temporizing appeasement. The difference between Cioculescu and me is that his judgment is “detached” whereas mine is made with the knowledge that my life is at stake in what is going on around us. I am beginning to think that, at least in moments of major crisis, “detachment” is not the best vantage point from which to understand things.

  Thursday, 30 January

  I see devastated houses, pillaged shops on absolutely non-Jewish streets that I would not have thought the pogrom could have reached in a single night. For example, this morning I saw a wretched little workshop on Strada Traian, beside the Tabacu streetcar stop, and again I trembled at the thought of what might have happened at home on Wednesday night. Some people, like myself, spent that night apart from their family—and the next morning they found no one left, nothing left. I see and feel again all the horror of that night.

  Derna fell this morning.

  In Berlin this afternoon, Hitler made a long speech in which he declared that he would win the war in the course of this year.

  Tuesday, 4 February

  I cannot (and would not wish to) forget the horrors through which I have lived. For the last few days, all I have read are the chapters in Dub-now’s History of the Jews about the great pogroms of the late Middle Ages. Whether the official figure is correct (three hundred Jews killed) or the much higher one that people mention in whispers (six hundred to one thousand), the fact is that we have experienced one of the worst pogroms in history. It is true that there have been moments in the past when the butchery was greater (during the First Crusade, eight hundred were killed in Speyer, eleven hundred in Mainz—and again ver
y many in 1348, at the height of the Black Death), but the average for a single pogrom was usually much smaller—fifty, eighty, or a hundred dead is the kind of figure that appears in Jewish martyrology, and Dubnow sometimes writes at length about smaller losses that have nevertheless remained in memory.

  The stunning thing about the Bucharest bloodbath is the quite bestial ferocity of it, apparent even in the dry official statement that ninety-three persons (“person” being the latest euphemism for Jew) were killed on the night of Tuesday the 21st in Jilava forest. But what people say is much more devastating. It is now considered absolutely certain that the Jews butchered at Străuleşti abattoir were hanged by the neck on hooks normally used for beef carcasses. A sheet of paper was stuck to each corpse: “Kosher Meat.” As for those killed in Jilava forest, they were first undressed (it would have been a pity for clothes to remain there), then shot and thrown on top of one another. I haven’t found anything more terrible in Dubnow.

  There have been countless Adolf Hiders throughout Jewish history. Favorable surroundings and critical moments were all they lacked for their local action to become worldwide policy, but in terms of ideology, methods, and style there is hardly any difference between them and the Führer. A certain Zimberlin in the fourteenth century, whose very similar movement in Strasbourg had its own uniforms (a strip of fur on the shoulder) and veritable assault battalions—the so-called Armleder. Two centuries later in Austria and Bohemia, another, more plebeian movement—called the Rindfleisch—was reduced to mere hooliganism. Most interesting and most significant, however, was the anti-Semitic, agrarian-based political and social movement led by Vinzenz Fettmilch in 1614 in Frankfurt.