“I’ll make you a costume as Herzl, or Tolstoy, both great men. You’ll wear a beautiful beard, and look at the world with seriousness. And you’ll recite words from some of the books they’ve written.”
“But everyone will laugh at me.”
“Only the goyim will laugh. Jews don’t laugh at intelligent, studious people.”
“Mother, why do they hate us?”
“Because they don’t understand.”
Yes, my mother in good faith believed that if the anti-Semites understood us, they’d stop hating us. But understand what? Our traditions? Our religion, our culture, our personality? She never told me.
One might suppose that I’m still asking the same questions a Jewish child of ten might ask, and exist in the realm of replies set forth by a humble Jewish woman who read with difficulty and held a very vague notion of the world. But from all the replies given to the ancient question of why we are hated, is there any more intelligent than another? Is there any one that’s valid? I’ve never found an answer that even remotely suggests the well of anguish experienced by a person who feels hatred. I’ve not found one reply among philosophers, men of religion, or politicians.
Everything that’s been written can illuminate only certain circumstances. The role of the Jew in various periods of history, the relationship of the Jew to production, culture, politics. The position of the Jew in slave society, in the Middle Ages, at the outbreak of the Renaissance. Jewish mobility in urban society, Jewish vitality in great revolutions. Jews who played a key role in the transition from one historical epoch to another. The reactions of non-Jews toward their own problems as catalyzed by their relationship with Jews. It has all been studied, digested, restudied, repeated, translated, studied again, prophesied, explained, and reclassified; and yet each time I approach the memory of that voice shouting “Jew” at me in a clandestine prison in Argentina, I still can’t understand why an Argentine soldier who was combating leftist terrorism—irrespective of his methods—could feel such hatred against a Jew.
My mother was not the only one to assume that a good explanation could clarify her in the eyes of interrogating goyim. She was not the only one to assume that we were hated because we were not understood. In 1935, the Nazi government studied laws aimed at modifying the Jews’ legal situation in Germany. Jewish community leaders published prominent notices in Berlin newspapers enumerating the names of Jews who had been decorated for their conduct in the ranks of the German army during World War I. The notices stated that the Jews were good German citizens and had proved it. But later, in September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed nullifying German citizenship for all Jews. Jewish leaders in Germany believed that the crux of the problem stemmed from the Nazis* inability to understand them, and that the latter simply had to be informed that the Jews were good citizens, even a trifle militaristic, moreover xenophobic when it came to the French, as well as anti-Communistic.
In 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin. Some members of the U.S. team were Jewish. They qualified for the Olympic Games and hoped to beat the German athletes. This would prove to the Nazis that there’s no such thing as Aryan superiority and that the Jews are not inferior to other human beings.
During the preparation of this book I accumulated endless data, anecdotes, interpretations, statistics. Yet what use is there in reproducing it all, superimposing one more typographical deluge upon another, even though it be differently organized and selected? To take certain books that were written on the basis of other books, and to write yet another book; then what? Would the goyim understand and cease to hate us? Would Jews understand why we are hated?
I prefer to attempt a different approach, devoted exclusively to describing the imminent danger at this moment, in this period, and under present circumstances. Ignoring the diverse shadings within the interminable shifting hatreds among the different classes of society in this period. Signaling only the chief dangers, the chief hatred that can actually lead to extermination.
When the extreme Right combats its natural enemies, its most hated object is the Jew. Its hatred is focused upon the Jew. This hatred inspires the extreme Right, exalts it, elevates it to romantic, metaphysical heights. Its natural enemy is the Left, but its target of hatred is the Jew. When it comes to the Jew, hatred can branch off into something greater than the Marxist peril.
Directed toward the Jew, hatred can attain novel dimensions, original forms, whimsical colorations. Hatred toward the Jew needs no system, discipline, or methodology. All you need do is allow yourself to be carried along, allow the hatred to drag you, overwhelm you, imprint itself upon you, arouse your imagination, your phobias, your areas of impotence and omnipotence, reticence and impunity. Regardless of the magnitude or diversity of its hatred, members of the extreme Right can employ it in their relationship to the Jew without having to alter their final goal of fighting for a totalitarian society whose aim is extermination of the Left and of democratic forms of life.
When the extreme Left combats its natural enemies, it can color the rigidity of its stagnant political philosophy with variations based on international conspiracy, foreign influences, demagogic and opportunistic alliances. The messianism inherent in its analysis of the role that it’s been called upon to play in society finds a necessary pawn in the Jew for its Manichaean game. It’s the old story of Good and Evil, Revolution and Counterrevolution, and nothing can match the speed whereby a Jew is identified with Evil. It’s easier to get a young Uzbek, who dreams of being able to wear blue jeans some day and see a John Wayne movie, to hate a Jew than an American. Hatred of the Jew adds a spicy and delicious ingredient to the struggle for World Revolution. An aura of mysterious forces, which can stir the fear and hatred instilled in our psyche and biology. The Jew can satisfy this quota of irrational hatred required by every human being, but which a systematized ideology such as the extreme Left is unable to acknowledge in its relationship with society. Therefore, why not leave the window open, at least a crack, to allow that hatred to filter in? And against whom else if not the Jew? Is it hard perhaps to pinpoint the Jew as the enemy? The mere fact that the extreme rightists seek to utilize him as their enemy is clear indication that he is not—that the Jew, even in this area, plays a role that is at once confusing, mystifying, and concealed. This fact in itself is an incitement, is it not, to identify him more clearly and precisely?
I was held in three clandestine sites in Argentina, and two legal prisons. I was able to exchange ideas with political prisoners prior to, during, and after my arrest. A curious fact emerged: in Argentina, the attitude of military examiners or police toward left-wing terrorists was the way you might feel toward an enemy. Sometimes, because of the individual nature of the people involved, or a passing frame of mind, it was even a relationship of mutual adversaries. These political prisoners were not spared when it came to torture or murder; but the psychological relationship was simple—confrontation with one’s enemy or adversary, and the desire to destroy, to eliminate, that individual.
With Jews, however, there was a desire to eradicate. Interrogating enemies was a job; but interrogating Jews was a pleasure or a curse. Torturing a Jewish prisoner always yielded a moment of entertainment to the Argentine security forces, a certain pleasurable, leisurely moment. At some point, a joke would invariably interrupt the task and give way to pleasure. Amid moments of hatred, when the enemy must be hated in order for him to be broken, hatred of the Jew was visceral, explosive, a supernatural bolt, a gut excitement, the sense of one’s entire being abandoned to hatred. Such hatred was a deeper expression than the mere aversion aroused by an enemy, for it expressed, in addition, the need for a hated object and the simultaneous fear of that object—the almost magical inevitability of hatred. One could hate a political prisoner for belonging to the opposite camp, but one could also try to convince him, turn him around, make him understand his error, switch sides, get him to work for you. But how can a Jew be changed? That is hatred: eternal, interminable, perfect,
inevitable. Always inevitable.
No, there can be no doubt my mother was the one who was mistaken. It is not the anti-Semites who must be made to understand. It is we Jews.
We’re at the military prison in Magdalena, in the province of Buenos Aires. I’m to be examined by a War Council presided over by an army colonel, and made up of two officers from each of the three branches of service. Before appearing, I’m to be detained in a military prison.
Since we prisoners are held incommunicado, only one of us is permitted to enter the shower at a time. But sometimes the guard gets fed up with the excessive control: opening a cell, leading the prisoner to the shower, waiting till he’s washed, leading him back again to his cell, shutting the cell, opening another cell. . . . When this occurs, the guard passes along the corridor, opens all the cells, and tells us to remain standing naked at our door ready to go for a shower one at a time.
At one such point, a guard passes in front of an elderly Jew and makes a joke about his circumcised penis—his clipped prick. The Jew smiles, too, and blushes. As if apologizing. Or at least that’s how it strikes the guard, who dismisses it with a gesture. The old man looks at me, again blushes, and I have the sense that he’s trying to explain things to me.
Two successive glances, almost simultaneous. The guard imagines he’s being asked forgiveness. I imagine that I’m being implored to understand. The guard forgives him. I understand him.
I’ve also spoken with Jewish prisoners from Soviet jails, and read their memoirs and articles. They too have confirmed that Communist interrogators have a different relationship with the enemy than they do with the enemy-Jew. The enemy can be converted; he wasn’t born an enemy. The Jew was born a Jew.
In Russian jails, similarly, the wardens—sometimes good-natured, mustachioed and bearded peasants—will crack a joke with a Jewish prisoner. And the prisoner, similarly, feels ashamed for that inexplicable nature of his, that inexplicable place he occupies in the world and in reality.
If one reads transcripts of the long interrogations that dissident Russian Jews have undergone, it’s possible to discern the precise moment at which the interrogation crosses the borderline of hope. Hope is something that belongs to the interrogator rather than to the prisoner. The interrogator always seems to feel that he can succeed in modifying the will of the interrogated. But in the case of Jews being interrogated, there comes a moment when one can perceive that the interrogator has lost all hope. And that moment coincides with a shift from general political topics to the theme of the Jew, the Jewish personality, the role that Jewish “ideology” plays in the interrogated prisoner.
Certainly I can perceive that difference when reading documents about Russian prisoners, and I saw it clearly when a shift occurred in the frame of mind of my own interrogators. Once they reached the Jewish theme, it was impossible to harbor any hope of resolution, for their lifelong opinions of Jewish designs were beyond modification, rooted in their existence and not in their political convictions.
Is Argentina an anti-Semitic country? No; no country is. But there are anti-Semitic factions operating in Argentina, as indeed there are in all other countries. Are they violent? More violent than some, less violent than others. And the military? Each time a military government comes into power in Argentina, typical anti-Semitic acts disappear (the bombs placed in synagogues and Jewish institutions), for a military government at the outset imposes a certain order. But the Jew as citizen senses that his situation is altering: military governments do not name Jews to public posts; state radio and television prefer not to hire Jews; and so on, although there are always a certain number of Jews designated to serve as a defense against any possible accusation of anti-Semitism.
But this is past history. The military government that took power in Argentina in March 1976 arrived with an all-embracing arsenal of Nazi ideology as part of its structure. It would be impossible to determine whether this was backed by the majority or minority of the armed forces, though unquestionably anyone who was a Nazi, or merely anti-Semitic, didn’t have to conceal or disguise his feelings; he could act accordingly. Security forces could repress Jews simply because they were Jews. They could mistreat political prisoners for their politics as well as for being Jews. The secret services could prosecute individuals, basing accusations simply on the fact that they were Jews; the leaders of the repression could detain Jewish prisoners merely for the pleasure of having Jewish prisoners, without any need to stipulate a valid accusation against them.
This outbreak of anti-Semitism prompts a fresh approach to Argentina, but one no different from that historically familiar from other countries, episodes, and examples. When confronted by an eruption of anti-Semitic violence, whether avowed or disguised, explicit or implicit, no one helps the Jews—and, generally, not even the Jews themselves help one another. At least, not those in the country where it transpires. Once more the fact is confirmed, as in other countries, that in the face of irrational violence, anti-Semites find both allies and the indifferent, but seldom any appreciable number of opponents.
Judging from my experiences in Argentina of recent years, I’d say that the armed forces and trade unions could potentially become involved in extremely intense anti-Semitic activity if socioeconomic conditions allow. Political parties and the press will in all likelihood demonstrate indifference. Argentine Jews may then try to adjust to conditions without a struggle, passively accepting their reduced rights and the increasingly severe restrictions on ghetto territory. The Catholic Church will most probably stand alone in denouncing racism publicly. And, of course, there will always be a few suicidal individuals to join the Church in this battle.
Many times I’ve been asked whether a Holocaust is conceivable in Argentina. Well, that depends on what is meant by a Holocaust, though no one would have been able to answer such a question affirmatively in 1937 in Germany. What you can say is that recent events in Argentina have demonstrated that if an anti-Semitic scenario unfolds, the discussion on what constitutes anti-Semitism and persecution and what does not will occupy more time than the battle itself against anti-Semitism. It’s hard to foresee whether by then it will be too late or whether there will still be time to salvage something.
If we cared to formulate a historical equation, we could say that the conditions do exist: a profound political crisis, an economic crisis with an annual 170 percent rate of inflation that has lasted for several years, impotence on the part of political parties to come up with a minimally coherent response, the incapacity of the Jewish community to face straightforwardly its own reality, a totalitarian mentality among the majority sectors of the population, with a serious tendency toward messianic beliefs. If the outbreak of anti-Semitism has not until now assumed greater and more pronounced characteristics, this is because the balance of power within the armed forces has been under permanent debate in recent years, with the moderates weighing the potential international repercussions and concluding that these would be hard to withstand. But perhaps the Holocaust is in a way already occurring, as if the seeds were already planted. It depends on one’s view of anti-Semitism—or of a Holocaust. There are no gas chambers in Argentina, and this leaves many with a clear conscience. Yet between 1974 and 1978, the violation of girls in clandestine prisons had a peculiar characteristic: Jewish girls were violated twice as often as non-Jewish girls. (Must all anti-Semitism wind up in soap? If so, then anti-Semitism does not exist in Argentina, and it becomes a matter of accidental, coincidental situations, as the leaders of the Argentine Jewish community claim. But can there be anti-Semitism without soap? In that case, the Jewish community leaders are no different from the Judenrat of the Hitler ghettos at the beginning of the Holocaust.)
No one can predict what will happen in the future to the 400,000 Argentine Jews. But everyone knows that something terrible has already happened in recent years when you consider two facts: that the repression took place in the second half of the 1970s, not 1939; and that nothing equal to it had taken place
in the Western world since 1945, with the end of World War II. Each side offers its own explanation:
The government explanation: The Jews are free to engage in any activity in Argentina. They can leave and enter the territory as often as they wish; there is no discrimination against them. Episodes of torture of arrested Jews or specific violation of Jewish girls are isolated, and not government policy; no prisoners are arrested by virtue of being Jewish.
The explanation of Jewish community leaders: All this is certainly true, but the isolated episodes exceed government claims. Some Jews have been arrested without any formal accusation, or even an informal accusation that would be inadmissible in court. It’s best to work in silence in order to ransom whomever you can, rather than create scandals that might provoke the military.
A curious dichotomy exists. Argentine Jews are prepared to renounce many more rights and much more respect than the military believe; and the military for their part are much more fearful than the Jews realize of some kind of public Jewish self-defense. Provided that it is of a public nature.
I’ve often asked myself whether democrats believe in the existence of Naziism. The slogans, ideology, beliefs, and myths of Naziism sound so absurd that it’s impossible to conceive of Nazis acting with perfect rationality, convinced of their logic, constructing an internal coherence that links events and ideology until it produces hallucinatory results.
The Argentine government steadfastly insisted that I was not arrested for being a Jew, nor for being a journalist. Never, however, did it indicate why I was arrested or give any reasons for my arrest. At least, there was no official statement, no accusation filed against me.
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