The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas

by Christopher Robbins

  The widow of Frederick White, another CIC agent who served with Michel, provided a photograph of the men together. (Agent White had been given a set of Michel’s Dachau photographs. On the back of one, a picture of the corpse of a young man lying face down, he had written: ‘Looks as though the kid cried himself to death.’)[288]

  Questions over Michel’s service with the Thunderbirds were decisively answered when he was invited to a reunion of the 45th Division in Oklahoma City, where he was reunited with his former comrades-in-arms. Henry Teichmann, who he had not seen for 58 years, greeted him warmly, and more than a hundred Thunderbird veterans have since written to the Los Angeles Times deploring the paper’s treatment of Michel. One, Bedford Groves, had served in combat with Michel in both the 180th regiment and the Counter Intelligence Corps, and remembered how he undertook the workload of three agents.[289]

  The article also attempted to demonstrate that Michel did not discover the Nazi Party membership file. It quotes an account by Stefan Heym, a writer who worked as a journalist for the US Army before becoming a committed Communist and settling in East Germany. Heym’s account was not so much about the discovery of the file in May, about which he only knew what he was told by the mill owner, but of the announcement of the discovery at a press conference the following October. He wrote a lengthy, fictional account of the discovery in the form of a satire of the Americans; his non-fictional account is highly unreliable.

  George Leaman, who wrote an official history of the Nazi files for the Berlin Document Centre, was asked by Rivenburg to compare Stefan Heym’s account and Michel’s. He declared that the former was ‘on the mark’.[290] But when contacted after publication of the article, Leaman admitted that he had not read Heym’s account for at least eight years, and was unaware of recent archival discoveries. These clearly state that the file was discovered in early May by Michel’s 45th CIC unit. A report written on 20 May records ClC having ‘been advised’ of sixty-eight thousand kilos of documents at the mill, going there, posting guards, and informing the authorities.[291]

  Rivenburg chose to ignore an account published in his own newspaper, which quoted the mill owner remarking on the arrival of ‘an American GF in early May 1945.’[292] Also ignored were the documents taken from the mill which remain in Michel’s possession. These include an original letter written by Himmler to a Dr Ludwig Dittmar; court case filed by Goering against Julius Streicher concerning the employment of a Jew on the anti-Semitic Der Sturmer, which mentions Streicher’s sexual abuse of young boys; a lithograph of the hanging of Court Jew Suss in Stuttgart in 1737; an album of watercolours given by Himmler to Hitler’s adjutant, Julius Schaub, commemorating the SS campaign in Greece; and a Nazi propaganda recording. It is accepted fact that official and court documents of this kind were found at the mill.

  The undisputed authority on the Berlin Document Centre is Robert Wolfe, senior archivist for thirty-five years at the National Archives for captured German and European war crimes records and post-war occupation records. He unreservedly accepts Michel’s account after an examination of the documents. A Purple Heart veteran, combat infantry officer from the war, and press censor and military government official during the post-war occupation, he also knows the reality behind the paper.

  Wolfe was not only senior archivist at the National Archives, but also the consultant to the State Department for the Berlin Document Centre for thirty-four years. In that capacity he wrote official reports on the history of the records, including an account of their discovery and capture at the paper mill at Freimann, the Munich suburb. ‘Michel Thomas’s most important contribution to history and justice is unquestionably his discovery, identification, and preservation of the Nazi Party and related records awaiting pulping at the Josef Wirth Papier-Pappe-Wellpappenfabrik (paper-cardboard-corrugated paper mill). Those records were the most important documentation of the war. If they had been pulped in that paper mill, we would not have been able to prove, in spite of the deniers, that the Holocaust or other victimisations occurred. Whatever success the victors had in the punishment of war criminals and the denazification of Germany was based in considerable part on the possession and access to these personnel records of the Nazi Party and its subordinate formations and organisations, discovered, identified and reported by CIC Agent Thomas. If anyone of us could make such a contribution in our lifetime, it would be enough.’[293]

  The section in the article questioning Michel in regard to Klaus Barbie relied on the account of the debacle over the trial described in this book, but was heavily and unfairly edited. Again, no mention was made of a Resistance document, written in 1944 and verified by the French government, of Michel’s arrest and escape from the Gestapo in 1943 at the time of Barbie’s raid on UGIF (Union Général des Israelites de France). Rivenburg claimed to have spoken to Serge Klarsfeld, but the lawyer denied he had ever been contacted. The article quoted Le Monde as saying at the time of the trial that Michel had ‘a taste for make-believe’. This was a mistranslation of ‘A une manière de s’exprimer, a un goût trop prononcé de paraître, de multiplier les détails’. An accurate translation of this would be: ‘A way of expressing himself, a taste for showing-off, and for over indulgence in detail.’[294]

  The article even challenged Michel’s account of playing a boule slot machine in the foyer of the Monte Carlo casino in 1941. ‘Casino officials, after consulting their archives and various experts, say the type of slot machine Thomas describes “to our knowledge was never in Monte Carlo”.’ Contrary to the reported opinion of these unnamed ‘archivists and experts’, the Historical Department of the Société des Bains de Mer - the company that owns and runs the Monte Carlo casino - provided a copy of the annual agreement between the casino and the maker of the boule slot machine from the beginning of September 1940 to the end of August 1941 - the exact period that Michel describes playing such a machine.[295]

  In regard to Michel’s language courses, the paper implied that they were no better than other intensive courses, could not be replicated, and essentially consisted of nothing more than a traditional technique re-packaged. ‘Although vague on details, Thomas says his approach is to create excitement in students... He doesn’t want to reveal his methods for fear his ideas will be stolen or distorted.’ Far from being vague on details, or refusing to reveal the method, the language recordings are available in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and widely sold in both the USA and Great Britain. (In Britain, where Michel has become something of a minor celebrity through his courses, he consistently occupied fourteen of the top fifteen language audio titles, selling hundreds of thousands of units.)[296]

  Jackie Kearns, the headmistress of a British school experimenting with Michel’s method, was quoted as saying it was merely an old technique brilliantly re-packaged. She denies saying any such thing, and insists she was misquoted and misunderstood. Michel had taught a number of thirteen and fourteen-year-olds French for four days at her school, and their grades instantly rose from Cs and Ds to Bs and Cs. Her real assessment of Michel’s technique - ‘Outstanding!’ - was buried at the very end of the article.

  The Los Angeles Times’ attack on Michel Thomas has forced him to spend close to a million dollars in an attempt to be heard before a court of law, and preserve his good name. The paper chose not to defend the veracity of the article, but their constitutional right to publish it. Their lawyers did not seek expert opinion, but adopted a strategy to stop the case getting to court, and responded to the suit by employing a legal mechanism to have the case dismissed.

  The so-called Anti-SLAPP Statute was supposed to provide a means to expose and dismiss at an early stage worthless actions filed for the purpose of chilling ‘the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech’. It had been introduced by the legislature to protect tenants’ associations, environmental groups and individual activists against large corporate developers with deep pockets. The corporations had used litigation to stifle protest by bringing libe
l actions against people who made statements in public meetings. The original purpose of the statute had been stood on its head as a media conglomerate with unlimited resources used it in an attempt to stifle the lone voice of an individual. The bully Los Angeles Times was crying victim, a rich irony.

  The burden of proof was now shifted to Michel to establish a ‘reasonable probability’ that he would prevail in the claim, or he would not even be allowed to go to court. A wealth of sworn declarations from people of impeccable academic qualifications had been presented to the court. Expert opinion supported by a mass of new evidence was unequivocal that Michel had been telling the truth.

  Despite this, the court found against Michel. Alex Kline stood in the back of the courtroom as the first judgement was handed down. ‘The slick-suited lawyers from the Times looked very pleased with themselves. Rivenburg grinned and gloated. It was a depressing spectacle - I felt sick, actually physically nauseous. It seemed such an obvious and grievous wrong that Michel was to be denied the opportunity of restoring his honour, and was not even to be allowed his day in court to prove before a jury that he was not a liar.’

  The ruling seemed to have nothing to do with freedom of speech, but supported the overweening and uncontested power of the press. The might and money of the Los Angeles Times - owned by the enormously rich Chicago Tribune group - had been wielded against a man attempting to salvage his good name. No attempt at apology had been made, no right of reply offered. In a town where there is effectively only one newspaper, there was no other recourse open to Michel but lengthy and expensive litigation. And now even that had been denied.

  In essence, the court’s judgement stated that the article was defamatory, but not intentionally so - and was constitutionally protected, as it merely stated opinion rather than provable facts. ‘Implications that Thomas lied about his past would be defamatory... A reasonable reader or juror might conclude, after reading the article and considering the various points of view presented, that Thomas had in fact lied about his past. But no reasonable juror could find that Defendants intended to convey that impression.’[297]

  This makes no sense and seems contrary to simple logic. By the exclusion of documents, and the omission of facts, the whole thrust of the article was that Michel was lying. Otherwise, there was no peg for the article to hang upon.

  In regard to the malice, the judgement declared: ‘Dr Kraus’s testimony regarding his conversation with Defendant reporter Rivenburg does not itself prove malice. Plaintiff can argue that malice has been shown by Defendant Rivenburg’s failure to quote Dr Kraus without using the actual testimony of Dr Kraus.’ Once again, if Michel was allowed to argue malice, the article had to be defamatory.

  With the motion to strike granted, the Los Angeles Times was entitled to be awarded attorney’s fees. The paper’s lawyers immediately submitted a bill for $120,000. The Court has since ruled that the amount is ‘clearly excessive’ and that the lawyers for the paper had ‘engaged in rampant multiple billing, billing up to four separate items for a single meeting or review of a single draft or document. Padding in the form of inefficient or duplicate efforts is not subject to compensation.’ Defence counsel was ‘Ordered to submit new documentation of hours, limited to time spent and costs incurred on the special motion to strike alone, with all duplicate billing eliminated.’ This highly unusual ruling was a humiliation for the lawyers representing the Los Angeles Times, who had been publicly reprimanded for padding their legal costs.[298]

  Subsequent appeals have been denied. ‘I now feel that even my friends greet me with doubt in their eyes,’ Michel said. ‘Most hurtful is that the Jewish community think I’m a liar. I have finally felt the hundredth blow of the whip.’

  The reference to the hundredth blow was an allusion to his friend who had been interned in Dachau before the war and whose subsequent written account was not believed - something made more painful because it was contemptuously rejected by the émigré Jewish community in Paris and New York. He had killed himself in despair. And now Michel was not believed and questioned over his own experiences at Dachau, similarly doubted and rejected by members of the Jewish community, with no means at his disposal to correct the record.

  A great many people have come to Michel Thomas’s support. Over three hundred and fifty people signed a letter of protest to John Puerner, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, asking that the paper consider the evidence they have been shown and publish an article setting the record straight. The signatories include scores of prominent persons from the world of business, law, diplomacy, academia and the arts. Among them are Flint Whitlock, author of the definitive history of the 45th Infantry Division campaign in Europe in the Second World War; Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of US News and World Report; and former United States ambassador, Walter Curley. Michel’s celebrity students who have sent letters of protest include Carl Reiner, Emma Thompson, Raquel Welch, and Warren Beatty. New York Times columnist, Anthony Lewis, wrote ‘The case of Michel Thomas is indeed troubling.’[299] The Friends of Michel Thomas have produced a website - http://www.michelthomas.org - reproducing all of the documentary evidence supporting his life story. But not a word about the controversy has appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

  A great newspaper has demeaned itself. The Los Angeles Times, in its own published code of ethics, claims: ‘Our duty is to the truth. We pledge to seek and report the truth with honesty, accuracy, fairness and courage... We will deal with people fairly and compassionately. In every case, we should strive to achieve balance and fairness in all reporting and news decisions. Fairness should be used in sourcing, writing, editing, photo play, layout and headline writing. Getting all sides of the story is the minimum requirement.’

  This code has been trampled in regard to Michel Thomas. To ignore the evidence supporting his life is to express contempt for those who suffered through a terrible time in history, and shows an utter lack of respect for those who risked their lives to fight the evil that caused it. Michel survived concentration camps and fierce combat, despite the efforts of Hitler, the Nazis, and Vichy collaborators, only to see a lifetime’s commitment contemptuously mocked in the press. But if his well-documented story is not to be believed, then whose is? What combat veteran or Holocaust survivor can meet a greater standard of proof? What evidence will ever be sufficient for the sceptics?

  A great wrong has been perpetrated. As a tidal wave of fresh hatred engulfs the world, Michel Thomas’s example of a single man’s struggle not to be overwhelmed by a previous deluge of evil offers hope. The story of his life records something more than survival, courage and heroics - it provides a portrait of a warrior against hate.[300]

  Postscript by Michel Thomas

  The LORD said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.’’ Genesis 4:10

  I can hear my brothers’ blood. I can hear the voice, the screams of the blood of my parents, my family, the blood of six million Jews, of more than one and a half million children. The Bible also says that ‘He who saves one life, saves the world. He who destroys one life, destroys the world.’ I also think of a quotation from Stalin: ‘The death of one human being, one child, is a tragedy; the death of millions, mere statistics’.

  The civilized world decided to set up a conference - the Evian Conference - in order to find a way, a so-called ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish Problem’. Suddenly the Jews, the existence of Jews, presented a problem to the world. Thirty-two nations convened to find a way to save Jewish lives. No solution was found. Nothing. The only thing that the conference showed was that the doors of all those nations and the whole world were slammed from the outside and not from the inside. It was at that time, after the Evian Conference, that Hitler realised that the world did not care; that there was no room for Jews.

  The Germans had not thought of genocide in the beginning. They thought first only of making Germany ‘judenrein’, of having German-occupied European countries free of Jews. But the failure of the
Evian Conference to find a solution prompted the Germans to set up the ‘Final Solution’. Hitler believed that the world would look away with total indifference. And he was right: he interpreted the silence of the world as acquiescence to his ‘Final Solution’.

  There was only one place in the world where the doors were not slammed. By fluke, that little place didn’t have any doors to slam. It was one section of one city - not even a country - the international section of the city of Shanghai. To land or arrive there, to get into that section, one did not need any visa or permit. So only those families, who by whatever chance managed to know about it and to get out in time, found a safe haven.

  All those who had family in the United States, who had all requirements for immigration, all affidavits, would have to wait for a number of the US quota system at that crucial time. Jews who had all their documents and guarantees were not allowed in and were put into gas chambers waiting for a number to come up. My own family was sacrificed on the altar of American quota numbers.

  So often I hear the question: what could have been done in order to save human lives? How often do I hear that one should have bombed railroad tracks? This is nonsense. Railroad tracks can be repaired very quickly, and there are other methods of transportation. The very easy, simple methods of saving human lives was to give passes, visas or papers to open any door. The Japanese counsel in Kaunas, Lithuania, when he saw what was happening, started issuing Japanese visas to Jews. The stamp of a visa into a passport MEANT LIFE. He saved lives, I don’t care how many, whether dozens of lives, hundreds of lives, thousands of lives. There was another counsel in Bordeaux, from Portugal, who gave stamps of visas, who saved lives. One talks about Wallenberg. How did he save lives, but by giving stamps, by giving papers? Whether he was authorised to do it or not, he took the initiative to do it - and saved lives.