Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number

by Jacobo Timerman

  Logically speaking, this simplified everything. The violence of repression was necessary inasmuch as Argentina had been chosen as the objective. Repression would be less if the world would only understand the avant-garde role being performed by Argentina. But the world failed to understand this, and certain democracies, as well as the Vatican, were continually raising the issue of violation of human rights. Furthermore, the Western press kept publishing reports on these violations. The explanation for this stemmed from the same mechanism, namely, the anti-Argentine campaign. So we are presented with a coherent logic instead of the earlier mere reincarnation of Nazi phobias:

  1. World War III has broken out.

  2. World War III is not a confrontation between democracies and communism, but between the entire world and left-wing terrorism. This permits the maintenance of diplomatic relations with Communist countries and the acceptance of Russia as the principal partner in Argentine foreign trade.

  3. Argentina has been chosen as the battleground in the initial phase of World War III.

  4. Argentina is alone and misunderstood by those who ought to be her natural allies, the Western democracies. Hence, the unleashing of the anti-Argentine campaign.

  Every week, in the clandestine prisons where I was held, courses were given on World War III. These sessions went under the rubric of the “Academy.” They were generally given by an army intelligence officer, and attendance was obligatory for the entire staff of torturers, interrogators, and kidnappers.

  During these sessions the content of news articles was often analyzed, and the conclusions that were reached—unbeknownst perhaps to the participants—invariably coincided with those of the members of the Nazi Party during the early years of that organization. Corrupt Western democracy was incapable of confronting the onslaught of communism; Europe would go red; and only staunch Nazis could contain the Communist power.

  Following some of these sessions, my guards would be tempted by the possibility of talking to one of the chief perpetrators of this heinous plot to annihilate Argentina, certain aspects of which had just been analyzed in class. They’d come to the door of my cell and, through the crack sometimes, or by opening the door, they’d ask me questions, presumably to confirm what they’d just been taught. Once I briefed them on the Jewish lobby in the United States. They had to be taught how to spell “lobby” in English. Another time, I told them about the first Zionist Congress in Basel, and they wanted to know when a decision had been reached to have two Zionist states, one in Israel and one in Uganda, and why the idea of Uganda had then been abandoned in favor of Argentina.

  Another day the “Academy” meeting took a dangerous turn. Simon Wiesenthal, the man who pursued Nazis, had divulged the existence of an important war criminal in Argentina, and Germany had requested his extradition. The Argentine government, ever eager to demonstrate publicly that it was not anti-Semitic—despite its failure to ban anti-Semitic violence among its security forces—consented to the extradition of the German subject, allowing him, however, to escape first to Paraguay. Those who attended the Academy in the clandestine prison where I was held felt that a true betrayal had taken place against their National Revolution. They all passed me by without saying a word, although at night they tied both my hands to the bars of the bed and left me there for twenty-four hours, something they hadn’t done for a while.

  What was the ideology of the armed forces? It could only be discerned through its activity, its repression, the world that it hated, but was hard to pinpoint in its public statements, which were impregnated with euphemisms and protocol denouncing official corruption and subversion and defending true democracy.

  Naziism did not exist. There was no such thing as missing persons. Nor secret trials. Nor the death penalty.

  Hate and ignorance. What you don’t understand you destroy. In his last book, Night of the Aurochs, unfinished when he died, the American writer Dalton Trumbo has his central character, a member of the SS, comment of the Jews: “I don’t understand these people; and, because I can’t understand them, I kill them.”

  While Trumbo was writing the book, he confided to a friend: “The thing I seek to apprehend, the demon I’m trying to capture, is the dark lust for power that all of us have, the perversion of love as the inevitable consequence of power, the delights of perversion when power becomes absolute, and the grim conviction that in a period during which science has become enslaved by politics-cum-theology, all of this can happen again.”

  9

  For one month I’ve occupied a cell in the penal institute of the armed forces, situated about eighty kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires, in the section of Magdalena.

  The military routine is strict. I’m in an isolation cell, given one hour of recreation a day, at which point I’m allowed to walk around the yard but not talk to other prisoners. When it rains, recreation is suspended. It is now winter, and when one of the three ward officers is on guard he orders recreation to take place very early in the morning so that we can’t enjoy the sun, which reaches the yard around eleven. I receive visits on Saturdays and Sundays only from members of my immediate family. I’m allowed to take a hot bath three times a week, and meals are served four times a day.

  As always, the problem is the toilet. This cell doesn’t have one, and I must bang on the door whenever I need to go. One’s needs, of course, are not conditioned by the guards’ parsimony.

  Everything conforms to the rules. I can read Spanish newspapers, but not the English-language paper published in Buenos Aires and sold legally on street newsstands. The officer’s explanation is that every publication must pass censorship, and the censor is unable to read English. I tell him that if there were anything objectionable, the government wouldn’t authorize publication of the newspaper. He’s unauthorized to carry the dialogue so far.

  I’m being detained in a military jail because I shall be appearing before a Special War Council, and must therefore spend a period of isolation in this institution. The Jewish New Year is approaching, and the Day of Atonement. My wife is requesting permission of the military tribunal for a rabbi to visit me: officially, there is freedom of worship in Argentina. The request goes unanswered, but both days the Catholic priest in the prison visits me in my cell.

  The government modifies the Code of Military Justice before the trial is to begin; in other words, it changes the rules of the game after it’s been determined that I’m to be examined before a military tribunal. Until now, an accused person could designate as his defense lawyer a military officer of any rank, either in active service or retired. A retired officer, whose career is over, has greater freedom of action; he isn’t anticipating promotions. This clause is now modified, with the stipulation that the officer must be of lower rank than the president of the military tribunal. The president of the War Council that is to examine me is Colonel Clodoveo Battesti, hence my defense lawyer must hold a rank beneath that of colonel. Finally, I must select him from a list submitted to me by the War Council. I know no one on the list and am therefore choosing at random.

  I had intended to designate as defense lawyer a personal friend, once president of the country, who I’m sure would have been unintimidated by threats. I must settle on a young officer whom I don’t know but who’s in active service, certainly aspiring to fresh promotions, and accustomed to receiving secret orders when necessary. In any event, to eliminate any doubts, he informs me at the interview in the military prison that this mission is an act of service. It’s clear that if he’d had a choice, he would not have accepted, but he prepares conscientiously for the task of defending me. With respect to the torture I underwent and recount, he consoles me: these are errors committed in the course of an extremely difficult investigation. Yet I have the impression that, intellectually, he’s attracted by the issue and will fight to defend me up to the limits of prudence dictated by “an act of service.” I sense at least a desire on his part to understand every professional aspect of the function of a journalist. I ha
ve no illusions about the political dimension or the criminal brutality inflicted upon me during interrogations.

  Those who knock on my door four times a day to deliver food are four young prisoners, deserters. Their jail sentences range from three to five years. Mornings, at dawn, they clean the ward, wash the meal utensils, and sing beautiful religious songs. They are Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian sect whose young people refuse for conscientious reasons to serve in the armed forces. Although the Argentine constitution guarantees freedom of worship, the armed forces do not accept the principle of conscientious objection. As children, therefore, they’re already aware that on reaching the age of eighteen, they will have to serve an extended period in prison. They don’t escape, but accept the punishment as part of their religious faith. They are gentle and peaceful, and perform all the jobs and services in the prison.

  They’re aware that I’m incommunicado, and whenever they knock on my door and it’s opened by the guard, they always find some way to exchange a few words. During the day, I wait for those four opportunities to talk to someone. And at night I recall the words they uttered, say them aloud, repeat them.

  The guard understands the ruses they use to talk to me. But he feigns ignorance, though occasionally reprimanding them with a glance. They ask me if I have a plate. “Do you have a plate?” A few words. And I answer, “I do,” making it a couple of words more. They tell me that the pizza is rather cold, and the soup better; or they’ll add that it’s a good idea for me to eat fish because it strengthens one’s sight. Or they’ll ask whether I want some more bread, or would like to sweep my cell, or was I given a towel? I’ve managed to hold dialogues of up to twelve words.

  They are workers, peasants, day laborers, humble men. They advise me that there will be hot water at night, or predict that it will be less cold in the morning. They look for every conceivable way to convey to me that civilization has not come to an end, that I’m not the last remaining mortal enclosed in this cell, and that the possibility still exists of experiencing cordiality, camaraderie, solidarity, congeniality. Sometimes I have some chocolate, and the guard gives me permission to share it with them.

  The headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Argentine armed forces is located in an old, rundown palace in the heart of Buenos Aires, about a thousand meters from the Government Building. I’d spent the night incommunicado at the central headquarters of the Federal Police in Buenos Aires, and was informed by those who transported me in a car trailed by two other cars that I would not be tied up, but that any wrong move on my part could mean my death sentence.

  The military play military games; they love to imagine the danger of someone who presents no danger at all. Similar situations recurred time and again during my captivity. While I was under house arrest in my fifteenth-floor apartment, a police helicopter would often circle above the building, using its spotlights to illumine the room where I was enclosed. Once there was a light failure in my building, and within five minutes a military helicopter was hovering over the building and another opposite my room, illuminating it. They thought the Israeli army was about to launch an Entebbe-style operation to liberate me.

  At the headquarters of the Armed Forces Supreme Council where Special War Council No. 2, which is going to examine me, is located, the military amuse themselves with all the attributes of protocol and the greatest possible imitation of legality. The seven members of the tribunal—three representatives from the army, two from the navy, and two from the air force—have all had in their possession for some time a copy of my statements, background on the case, presumed statements that I was forced to sign without having been able to read them first. From a reading of these documents, they concluded some time ago that it would be impossible to accuse me of any crime, and that after my interrogation the decision would be: lack of sufficient evidence for a trial.

  Until the very moment of my appearance before the military court, I remained uninformed of the grounds for my arrest, the reasons, or even the accusations against me, if any existed. The court is simply to decide, after weighing the entire case, whether sufficient charges exist to justify a trial. But since they know in advance that no such charges do exist, they devote the day and a half allotted to my questioning to unleashing their ideology, neuroses, fantasies, hatreds, and phobias, and even manage to interject some amusing questions.

  The protocol, of course, is strict. I mount the steep stairway, escorted by guards who hold my arms gently but firmly. At the top, I'm received by a uniformed army officer accompanied by two officers of lower rank. I'm invited, yes invited, to pass into a small office where I’m supposed to wait. Everything is correct and proper, though it’s quite likely that these officers now offering me coffee are the very ones who were smiling in the clandestine prisons when I was jolted into the air by electric shocks while blindfolded.

  The same officer takes me to the courtroom of the military tribunal where Special War Council No. 2 will be in session. It is an immense hall, about ten meters wide and twenty-five meters long. Dark, without windows, ancient, its walls covered with huge paintings that depict the great battles of Argentine independence, the conquest of the southern desert, and the war against the Indians. Dark boiserie, red curtains, high ceilings. I’m ordered to take a seat on a small, round, backless red bench—the famous bench of the accused. I’m at a far end of the huge room. At the other end, on a high dais, stands the crescent-shaped table of the military tribunal.

  To my left is an army officer, the prosecuting attorney; to my right, the defense attorney, also an army officer. He will intercede only if an accusation is formulated; that is, if the tribunal decides that the trial is to take place. Alongside me is a small table with microphones. Behind, two young naval officers serve as stenographers.

  At a command, we all rise to our feet, and the members of the tribunal enter through a side door. They walk slowly, erect, firm of step. Uniformed, wearing caps, they climb the dais, remain standing in front of their chairs until ordered by the president of the tribunal to be seated. We all sit down. They keep their caps on. The scene is imposing, the air sparking with tension. We remain serious and silent.

  The secretary of the tribunal, an army officer, reads the data on me. I’m asked whether it’s correct. I answer affirmatively. Only the president of the tribunal may speak; the other members pass him the questions they wish to ask, written on slips of paper. Approximately every forty minutes, the president interrupts the session and orders a five-minute break. The sessions, in total, last about fourteen hours over a period of two days. At each interruption, the entire ceremony is repeated: We rise to our feet, the members of the tribunal retire; we rise to our feet, the members of the tribunal enter. The president asks: “Are you a Jew?”

  Answer: “Yes, Mr. President.”

  A world of courts. And a world of the accused. Civil, military, religious courts—everything has been judged, is judged, and will be judged. And always, throughout history and the present, I’ve been among the accused. I never judged anyone, and never shall.

  At what point did I assume so much guilt? Or did I only assume it when it was indicated that I was guilty? Is it thus a role assigned to me, this role of sinner, criminal, or simply culpable party—something that pride has obliged me to assume in order to convert it into a virtue? Have I assumed guilt merely for the potential, or mission, of transforming it into a virtue? Omnipotence? The sin of vanity? Or is it the temptation of delusion, employing a dynamic that converts Evil into Good? The exacerbation of Evil as a more immediate potential toward Good?

  If you add up all the victims and victimizers, they form such a small percentage of the world population. What are the others engaged in? We victims and victimizers, we’re part of the same humanity, colleagues in the same endeavor to prove the existence of ideologies, feelings, heroic deeds, religions, obsessions. And the rest of humanity, the great majority, what are they engaged in?

  On that day in September 1977, how many of us in the
whole world were seated upon the accused man’s bench? How many were judged for what they did? How many were judged for having been born? The war against Naziism had ended thirty-two years and four months before, the Nazi criminals have been tried and sentenced, anti-Semitism has been defined, concretized, pinpointed, and cured. And yet, these same thirty-two years and four months later, in the city of Buenos Aires, I continued to be a citizen under total suspicion, proven to have been born on the wrong, absurd side of humanity; involved, due to birth and stupidity, or perhaps sheer inclination, in the treacheries under judgment into which I had relapsed. But judged by whom? And when? In which remote corner of Spain, Germany, France, Poland, Russia, or Syria? In different countries, at different superimposed junctures, in repeated countries and repeatedly, with cumulative and repetitive accusations, always to return to the same place, mine, yet unacceptable because it’s intolerable: I was born a Jew.

  I was not born a Zionist, the accusation usually paired with that initial suspicion of one’s birth.

  Nor was I born a dissident, a seemingly inevitable derivation of birth.

  Nor was I born a young leftist, a defender of prisoners, an activist in organizations for the defense of human rights.

  The biological consequences of original sin—the birth of an individual born a Jew.

  And yet there’s someone at this moment seated on a backless red bench, fifty centimeters high, in Cuba, and he isn’t a Jew. What becomes intolerable is the notion that perhaps there are no Others, that the Other doesn’t exist. But there may be someone in Czechoslovakia seated on a chair, if not a bench, in front of an ordinary table, if not a dais, someone who isn’t a Jew; and the existence of that Other is what makes my fate seem open still to appeal.

  In this world of tribunals and of the accused, I search fervently for the relief that should be forthcoming from the Other, if truly we belong to that vast little group of victims. But once again I find only consolation, not identity. I find the consolation of solidarity, but not that of inevitability, for though we share the same aspirations, his guilt is not inevitable, and he will always be lacking the guilt needed to reach me. And if he is unable to reach me, it means that I am united with him, but not he with me. Not in the fullness of my guilt, which I possess in its totality, but which he possesses only in part.