Inuzuka spent long enough with the statistics to feel sure he knew whatever they could tell him. Then, passing through a sliding door into a small garden, he returned to the subject that had preoccupied him for the past several days.
The Germans were becoming impossible: simultaneously they were deeply suspicious of Matsuoka's recent signing of a neutrality pact with Russia and bursting with inflated confidence over their military invincibility. (With some justification, he had to admit their military had just taken only a week to conquer all of Yugoslavia.) The combination of suspicion and arrogance was not a pleasant one, but that it should be causing strained feelings at the top of the Axis alliance was of only academic interest to Inuzuka. What he had to deal with on a practical day-to-day basis was the increasing pressure he himself faced from German sources over Japan's official treatment of the Jewish refugees.
"Why are you being so nice to the Jews?" he had heard more often than he cared to recall. "We Germans do everything in our power to wipe this plague off the earth and you, our allies, do everything you can to help them. You give them cement for their useless synagogues - cement needed by Japanese soldiers! You actually permit them to import strange food for their so-called Passover festival! And didn't Japan almost go back on her word to stop issuing transit visas in Moscow when some Japanese shipping company realized there was money to be made in transporting Jews? Everything you do is to help the Jews! This is no way for a sincere ally to act!"
He sighed: Germans could be so unpleasantly overbearing. Usually, he could turn aside the questions with accommodating answers: "we had more cement than we could use that month . . . it was only wine and a flat, tasteless cracker - harmless foods . . . we would not really have begun issuing the transit visas again (though he was not at all sure that was true) . . ." But he had to admit this pressure was wearing him down. Something would have to be done, something he could point to and say, "See that? We too are working on the Jewish problem." Exactly what "that" should be, he wasn't sure. But he'd had some ideas - he would talk them over with his colleagues after this afternoon's meeting.
Inuzuka looked critically at the careful array of rocks and shrubs that created an entire landscape out of a corner of ground. Tubercular or not, his wife was a clever gardener. He thought, briefly, of his younger and considerably more vivacious mistress back in Shanghai. Though he'd never thought to ask, he suspected that gardening was not one of her talents. With a private smile, Inuzuka went inside to get ready for the meeting.
A few days later, early in May, Kobe Jewcom received a politely worded order: two leading representatives of the refugee community were to appear in three days time, in Tokyo, for a military interrogation. The order was signed by the chief secretary of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
11
THE FULL JEWCOM EXECUTIVE BOARD of directors met that night in Ponve's home. The living room was comfortably arranged, with Chinese carpets on the polished floor and exotically carved teak furniture softened with embroidered Chinese silk cushions. But the room was filled with anxiety and apprehension. The very word "interrogation" was over-burdened with fear. For generation upon generation of European Jews - from the Jews in Rome of the third century through the Rhineland Jews in the Middle Ages, the Spanish communities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, right up to the present day in Germany and Russia - the word "interrogation" had been nothing more than a formal prelude to a whirlwind of chaos and destruction which the majority culture then felt free to inflict upon its Jews. An interrogation always resolved itself into a trial, a trial without jury, a trial in which the verdict was a foregone conclusion, to be reached through loaded questions.
"Why do you Jews drink the blood of Christian children at your Passover celebrations?"
"Why do you Jews write vicious slander against the son of God, and then have the audacity to say we are misinterpreting your words?"
"What exactly is the excuse you Jews have for denying the divinity of the Savior?"
The announcement of an interrogation was the opening move, the formal statement-of-intent that inevitably preceded the destruction or exile of a community.
"But they don't do things in this way in Japan," one of Jewcom's directors pointed out. "It must be the Germans putting them up to it."
"Not necessarily. The Germans have made enough converts by now. The Japanese could very well have figured this out all by themselves. They know how things like this have always been done."
"No! It's not them alone. If the order had come from the super-nationalists in the Gaimusho, I'd agree with you. But from the navy? What does the navy have to do with us anyway?"
"Inuzuka is in the navy."
"So Inuzuka knows he's welcome here any time - any time - and we will answer any questions on any subject. No, I don't think Inuzuka had any part in this. He knows us too well to use a word like 'interrogation.' And he wouldn't send a formal command. He's a friend. . . ."
Ponve rapped on a Chinese cedar chest and order was restored. There could be no question of refusing the order; the point to be decided, therefore, was which two leaders should represent the refugees who, in fact, recognized no single leader because they were by no means a single community. Overall, they consisted of many tightly knit groups, each too fervent in its own beliefs to join even briefly with the others. Only two things did the refugees have in common: they were all, in one form or another, Jews; and the overwhelming majority came from Poland. Beyond that, they shared no political viewpoint; they looked up to no one religious leader. They did not even share a culture hero who might at least speak for the hearts of the people if not for their minds. The executive board pondered the problem, finding no solution. Finally, Alex Triguboff spoke up:
"So, we approach it from another angle. We know there aren't any leaders, but who would the Japanese consider leaders? After all, what does 'Jew' mean to them? A religion. And who, in Japan, is the religious leader? The priest. And who is a Jewish 'priest?' A rabbi - these days, that's as close as we can come. So, we simply ask two rabbis to go to Tokyo!"
There was general agreement at Triguboff's premise and his conclusion. The question now was which two rabbis to send. One candidate was apparent: the Amshenover rebbe.
The rebbe was decidedly not the most cosmopolitan of the rabbinic refugees; and as a Hassid, he was certainly not, philosophically, the most representative rabbi. But he was a mensch - a fine man, deeply involved with his fellow men, warm, helpful, tolerant - articulate.
The Amshenover rebbe was a talker. He could captivate an audience, of one or a thousand, even if his hearers intellectually didn't believe a word he was saying. Definitely, the rebbe should be asked. And to accompany him? There were several suggestions, but the final choice was Rabbi Moses Shatzkes. Rabbi Shatzkes was not a great orator; but from his youth he had been recognized as one of the most brilliant Talmudic scholars in all of Europe. Besides, of all the rabbis in the Kobe refugee community, Shatzkes had held the highest position. At an unusually early age, he had been chosen to be the chief rabbi of Lomz, a focal point of European Jewish learning.
Anatole Ponve was due to depart for the United States within days, so Leo Hanin was delighted to accompany the two rabbis. It would be the job of Alex Triguboff to drop in at the Kobe office of Naval Intelligence, and, as Ponve suggested, "see if you can find out anything more about the circumstances of this 'interrogation.' Maybe - who knows? - maybe they just pulled the wrong synonym out of the dictionary."
The next morning, however, Naval Intelligence was not answering questions, it was asking them.
"Who will be coming to represent the Jewish refugees?" the officer in charge wanted to know.
"It hasn't been finally decided, but probably two rabbis, two religious leaders."
"Religious leaders, I see. What are their titles?"
"Rabbi Shimon K-a-1-i-s-c-h and Rabbi Moses Shatzkes, S-h-a-t-z-k-e-s.
"Those are titles?"
"Those are their names."
&
nbsp; "Ah, yes. But what are their titles?"
Triguboff paused, uncertain. "Rabbi Kalisch is known as the Amshenover rebbe. Rabbi Shatzkes is sometimes referred to as the Lomzer rabbi."
"Is a 'rebbe' higher than a 'rabbi'?"
"Higher?"
"Yes, higher, more powerful, more respected."
"No, not higher. Just a little different. A little more personal."
The intelligence officer appeared genuinely puzzled.
Triguboff tried again: "The difference between 'rabbi' and 'rebbe' is very slight," he said. "Both men can properly be addressed as rabbi. And both are very well respected by all the refugees and all of us. And by Jews all over the world," he added. (There was considerable doubt that anyone outside of his immediate circle of followers and a few acquaintances had ever heard of the Amshenover rebbe; but certainly the Japanese didn't have to know that.)
The officer nodded; but Triguboff's answer wasn't exactly what he had wanted to hear. He too tried again.
"How high are they?"
Triguboff didn't know how to answer that. He knew the officer would never understand an accurate answer that rabbis don't come in grades. There are some who are particularly scholarly. Others, the "rebbes," develop extremely close personal relationships with their followers. There are full-time rabbis, and rabbis who spend their entire lives as shoemakers or furriers and never turn their ordination degree into a profession. But no type is higher or lower than any other.
"They are both very high," he said, finally.
"But how very high?" the officer insisted.
"They are as high as possible! They are . . . are next to God!" Triguboff exclaimed.
From a Jewish point of view, this was such a totally meaningless concept that Triguboff wondered later how the words had entered his mind in the first place. But the intelligence officer was not a Jew.
"Ahhh! They are next to God. Now I know. Yes, yes, 'Next to God.' That is very, very high. Thank you, Triguboff-san. Thank you for coming."
The intelligence officer rose and directed his visitor out the door. Triguboff hung back, trying to learn more details; but the officer would not hear him. It seemed that the interrogation was not to be discussed beforehand. The two "next-to-God" rabbis would have to cope with it as best they could with no advance information.
Walking unhappily back to his business office, Alex could almost sense what might be coming: the interrogation; some sort of charges, probably espionage; a deportation order. . . . And then what? Would the United States finally let down the barrier? Would Australia open up? Where would nearly two thousand people go? And if Japan expelled the Jewish refugees, how would she feel about the twenty-five resident Jewish families who had been responsible for them?
The Sunday evening overnight train to Tokyo left Kobe exactly on schedule. On board, along with the normal passenger contingent of some two hundred and fifty Japanese was the small entourage of Jews. The Amshenover rebbe and Rabbi Shatzkes had both agreed instantly to represent the refugee community at the interrogation. Rabbi Shlomo Shapiro, a tall young linguist, had offered to help with the translating; and Hanin was ready, as always, not only to translate but to do whatever else he could to bridge the cultural gap between Japanese and Jew.
Because sleeping-car reservations had not been obtainable on such short notice, the rabbis and Hanin rode in a coach - which gave them no privacy whatever. The Japanese were much amused by the long, black formal satin coats and broad-brimmed hats of the two bearded old men. They laughed and pointed and talked, and every so often a particularly brave child would quietly come over for a closer look and maybe a gentle touch of the satin cloth. But the Japanese could not have been more gracious in their actual dealings with the "strange foreigners": extra room was made for the Jews; tangerines, balls of rice wrapped in seaweed, even sake was offered to them. The rabbis - accustomed to being the center of attention and knowing full well how similar the response would be if a Japanese in full kimono turned up in Poland - smiled at the children, politely refused the offerings of food and drink, and made themselves as comfortable as possible.
The mood changed abruptly, however, when a group of Nazi soldiers passed through the car. The Germans, taken completely by surprise at finding Jews in an otherwise unremarkable Japanese conveyance, reacted brutally. "Parasites! Pigs!" they screamed in German as they kicked at the rabbis legs, grabbed at their beards, spat into their faces. "You think you are safe here? Hah! You are safe nowhere. We will annihilate you. We will eradicate your whole stinking, sub-human race from the face of the earth! You are doomed, Jews. Soon you will all be dead."
Hanin could feel his stomach churning. There were few committed Nazis in Kobe, and those few directed their anti-Semitism into non-violent propaganda displays. Bare-faced hatred, physical abuse of defenseless old men was something he had only heard of in the vivid tales of refugees and in the railroad car. Hanin had no idea how to respond. He himself was not a violent person, not a fighter. But how could he simply sit there? Yet the rabbis were doing exactly that - sitting there, eyes averted, turning away from the spittle, avoiding those blows and kicks that they could avoid, accepting those they couldn't. Unlike Hanin, they had seen it before and much worse than this. Hitler's army, and Himmler's paramilitary Einsatzgruppen police had not come gently into Poland in 1939. The rebbe and Shatzkes and Shapiro knew that here they could make no response. Sometimes a Jew simply has to put up with what comes.
Fortunately, the encounter was not protracted. After one verse of the "Horst Wessel" song ("When Jewish blood flows from the knife, things will go much better . . ."), the soldiers, moved on, bored by the lack of response. In the unnatural silence that followed the Japanese passengers were aghast at the attack but did nothing to interfere - the rabbis cleaned themselves as best they could. Then, they took out the thermos bottles of hot tea that they had brought along, stirred in a few spoonfuls of jam, and began talking quietly, as if nothing had happened at all. Hanin excused himself and went to the lavatory where he was sick. As an omen, the acts of the Nazis did not bode well for the upcoming interrogation.
Toward midnight, the train passed along a stretch of track that lay right by the Pacific. The night was clear and the moonlight reflected off the quiet waves. The three rabbis talked and talked, about everything but the upcoming confrontation. Hanin, finally, could no longer resist asking a question that had been worrying him: "What will you say if the generals ask you why the Germans hate the Jews?"
The rebbe didn't even look up, only laughed softly. "ZorgZich nicht: don't worry about it."
"But I really do not anticipate a pleasant discussion with them, rebbe," Hanin continued.
Because of Hanin's concern, the rebbe gave fuller attention to the subject. "I think such exchanges never begin as 'pleasant.' But the beginning is less important than the end. If we are correct in our suspicions and fears, they will walk into the meeting room despising us. That we can do nothing about. By the way, do you know if there will be Germans at the meeting? That is, since you think the Germans put them up to this. . . ."
Rabbi Shatzkes also looked to Hanin for his response. Shatzkes' entire family - parents, brothers and sister and a vast network of cousins and in-laws - was still in Poland. Only his wife and a son had been able to get out with him. Every news report of German atrocities tore at his soul. The Germans were Edom and Amalek, Sodom and Gomorrah, Baal, Moloch and Haman all together, united and distilled into an essence of unmitigated evil. Violence was not a part of Shatzkes's personality. But he was certain that he could not sit across the table from a German and exchange words on any subject.
Hanin could offer no guidance. "No one would give any details. Naval Intelligence wouldn't even listen to Triguboff's questions. We have never before been in such a situation with the Japanese. Whoever has arranged this must purposely be keeping us in the dark."
"That in itself is, no doubt, part of the threat," Rabbi Shatzkes said. "You have said - everyone has said - that th
ere was never any problem before from the Japanese. So, why now? Is there anything someone might have done wrong? Any incident, any argument, even anything that might appear to be a personal slight or insult?"
"That was my first reaction: what have we done wrong?" Hanin said. "But I have wracked my brain and come up with nothing." He considered briefly whether or not to mention Warhaftig's aborted transit-visas-for-tickets scheme to them - in Japanese eyes, the Jews had lost considerable face over that. But he decided it was too complicated, and probably not important after all.
"We have very clean hands, I think," was all he said.
"There was a problem with the steamship company a few weeks ago, wasn't there?" the rebbe asked. A Jew promised something and the World Jewish Congress refused to back him up? But was that 'loss of face', as they call it, serious enough to warrant something like this?"
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