It is industrial England that is fighting this war . . . those scores of gloomy towns half buried in thick smoke with their long dreary streets of little houses all alike and the rather short . . . folk usually with bad teeth, who aren’t much to look at, but who happen to be among the most highly skilled and trustworthy workmen in the world.
All the while, British agents were spreading rumors in the American media about Hitler’s alleged plans to dominate the Western Hemisphere and outlaw organized religion. The combination of respect for England and contempt for the Nazis pushed an ambivalent population toward the brink of commitment; a survey at midyear revealed that although 70 percent of U.S. voters still opposed entering the war, an equal percentage favored defeating Germany at all costs, even if it meant jumping into the fray.
The improving transatlantic relationship was enhanced further by the arrival in London of a new U.S. ambassador, John G. Winant. During the Blitz, Ambassador Kennedy had retreated each night to the suburbs, discouraged expatriate Americans from participating in the home guard, and been openly pessimistic about British prospects. The new emissary took a flat in central London, cheered the volunteers on, and expressed full confidence in England’s eventual success. Delight in him was evident from the beginning; Winant’s train was met at Victoria Station by the king, the first time in history that a monarch had so welcomed a foreign diplomat.
As his meetings in Great Britain neared their climax, Harry Hopkins dined with Churchill in Glasgow. Before taking his leave, he looked directly at the prime minister and said, “I suppose you wish to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return. Well, I’m going to quote you one verse from that Book of Books: ‘Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Even to the end.’ ” This recital of Ruth’s pledge to her mother-in-law is still referred to whenever British and U.S. leaders express public affection for each other. At the time, it caused Churchill to weep. In subsequent months, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of tanks, trucks, torpedo boats, food, and firearms of all description were transferred from the arsenal of democracy to English hands.
LIKE AHAB PURSUING his whale, Eduard Beneš was intent on hunting the Munich pact across every diplomatic ocean “until it spouts black blood and rolls fin out.” Beneš felt that his decision not to fight had been the right one but knew that many of his followers disagreed. He was deeply hurt by their criticisms and by the widespread assumption that T. G. Masaryk would have exhibited more spine. Had Beneš shown weakness at the moment of crisis? He did not think so, but if he were to save his reputation—and his country—he could not waste a minute brooding; Munich must be harpooned.
His first step had been to gain recognition of the provisional government in exile. The second would be to persuade England to drop the modifier. As Jan Masaryk reminded any who would listen, the Czechoslovaks who had died fighting the Nazis were not “provisionally” dead. To my parents and their friends, the unfairness with which we were being treated was plain. The Crown had appointed ambassadors to the other exile groups; we had to settle for a liaison officer. At diplomatic gatherings, our representatives, although back on the guest list, were given the worst seats at every table and the rear positions in any line. The Polish and Serb contingents in London had no humiliating adjectives before their names. Beneš knew that he would never be able to erase Munich if his government was not viewed as fully legitimate. For him to be taken seriously, he must first be treated equally, especially since his principal goal—to see our country restored to its prewar borders—was not a priority for any other international leader.
In addition to his quest for full recognition, Beneš had three major concerns: to settle differences among Czechs and Slovaks without damage to the cause; to maintain contact with supporters back home; and to demonstrate his country’s commitment to the Allied success. Propaganda played a key part in those efforts. In January 1941, a Czechoslovak Institute began operating in London with the purpose of promoting the country’s culture and educating the English about the “people of whom we know nothing.” To generate enthusiasm, the government printed martial posters (“Czechoslovaks! The hour of your liberation is coming!”) and distributed “V for Victory” patches (“A Free Czechoslovakia in a Free Europe; Czechoslovakia Fights for Victory!”).
Because the headquarters of the government in exile had suffered damage during the Blitz, new and expanded offices were set up at 8 Grosvenor Place in London’s center, while Beneš moved his residence to Aston Abbotts, a village of four hundred on the outskirts of Buckinghamshire. There he lived with Hana in an ivy-covered two-story house complete with a croquet set on the lawn, a study piled high with books and maps, and—on his desk—a framed copy of “If,” Rudyard Kipling’s ode to courage under fire. Approaching his fifty-seventh birthday, Beneš was showing his age. His hair had turned silver, and his habitually grave face was marked by ever-deepening bags beneath his eyes. As always, he worked constantly, conducting business at Aston Abbotts on weekends, on Mondays, and in the evenings. On other days, he made the ninety-minute commute to London in a chauffeured Daimler. Like many Europeans, he communicated with his hands as well as his mouth. When not reading, he used his eyeglasses as a prop, waving them about, holding them pensively, then raising them again to drive a point home.
Madam Benešová usually kept to the background, but her passions, too, ran deep. During World War I, her husband had offered her a divorce to shield her from political persecution. She had refused and donated most of her personal wealth to the independence campaign. Unable to escape Austria-Hungary, she had been arrested for revolutionary activities and imprisoned for eleven months, during which she had endured severe interrogation. Hana Benešová was of stocky build with a pleasant round face and pinned-up brown hair; she wore hats, as most people did at the time, along with sensible coats and often a pearl necklace and earrings. She was the honorary president of the Czechoslovak Red Cross, established a nursery for exile children in London, and helped procure basic living supplies for impoverished soldiers. Although she spoke only rarely in public, she did take an occasional turn at the BBC microphone, advocating democracy, patriotism, and community service. Like most people within the exile community, she was counting the days until she could return home.
WINSTON CHURCHILL’S COUNTRY estate, Chequers, was but a few miles from Aston Abbotts. On February 26, 1941, the prime minister’s luncheon guest was Dr. Beneš, who then and at subsequent meetings delighted in his company. The president described Churchill to a friend as “at last an Englishman who understands the fundamentals of this war and what it means to Europe.” To Beneš, the Second World War was partly a continuation of the first—a struggle between a militaristic Germany and the West, but with Russia better positioned than before to tip the balance. He was convinced that, despite the Hitler-Stalin pact, Germany would soon invade the Soviet Union and that Moscow and London would end up fighting on the same side. This view was strengthened by reports from his intelligence service that he dutifully passed on to Churchill.
During the meal, the president invited the prime minister to visit Czechoslovak troops. The invitation was accepted, and on April 19, Churchill journeyed by car to the military encampment, which had moved south from Cholmondeley to a base near Leamington Spa. There he inspected the soldiers, who stood ramrod straight in their best uniforms and wore helmets that looked like inverted soup bowls. After lunch Beneš pressed into the hands of Anthony Eden, now foreign secretary, a memo making the case for unrestricted recognition of Czechoslovakia. As Churchill prepared to leave, the soldiers broke into a chorus of “Rule, Britannia!” in heavily accented English. Slavs are generally rousing singers, and Churchill quickly maneuvered his portly frame out of the car to join in. The following day, he sent a note to Eden: “I see no reason why we should not give the Czechs the same recognition as we have given the Poles.” Eden replied,
“I agree.”
Was this another step forward for Czechoslovak democracy? Not yet. Before taking official action, Eden felt obliged to submit the memo to legal experts, who found the paper’s anti-Munich tone offensive and were unimpressed by its core argument. Beneš had resigned, and another man had taken his place; by what logic could the Foreign Office conclude that he was still president? Beneš was a lawyer himself and should have understood this, yet he continued to pester; he was without question an irritating man. This perception was shared by the most influential U.S. diplomats. Hopkins had refused to meet with Beneš during his London visit, and Kennan held the bizarre view that the puppet president, Hácha, was the better leader. In any case, Kennan did not believe that Czechoslovakia either would or should be reestablished regardless of who won the war. Another impediment arose when, in April, Germany lashed out in the direction of Yugoslavia and Greece. The incursion created a danger to British interests that would engage the attention of Churchill and Eden for the next two months. While London delayed, Beneš sat at his desk, perhaps pondering the fifth line of Kipling’s poem: “If you can wait and not be tired by waiting . . .”
Churchill and Beneš inspect Czechoslovak troops.
Associated Press
SATURDAY NIGHT, MAY 10, 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped more than seven hundred tons of bombs on London, starting two thousand fires and damaging such symbols of the empire as the British Museum, the Tower of London, the House of Commons, and Westminster Abbey. More than 1,400 Londoners were killed. For the English, it was the cruelest bombing of the war.
Soon after, around the time of my fourth birthday, my parents decided that we had had enough; it would be safer to move outside the city. Fortunately we had somewhere to go. My father’s brother, Honza, lived with his wife, Ola, and children, Alena and George, in a stately sixteenth-century house adorned by wisteria and yellow roses in Berkhamsted, northwest of London. Years earlier, my uncle had begun working with Grandfather Arnošt in the field of construction supply and prefabricated houses. In 1937 or 1938, he had established an outpost in England for the multinational firm that employed them. In the spring of 1939, his family followed. Alena, three years older than I, would be told later that her family had left Prague because of my father’s involvement in politics. She does not remember any arguments, but I can recall loud disagreements between Uncle Honza and my father. Perhaps the cause was their differing temperaments, or maybe it was just a case of sibling rivalry. In any event, from my bedroom above the kitchen, I often heard the two men quarreling late at night, even if I didn’t know why.
On weekends, Czech friends came to visit, bringing with them—due to the wartime shortages—a contribution of food. It was with the encouragement of such company that, one afternoon at the end of that May 1941, my parents were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith in a ceremony at Sacred Heart Church. I was baptized as well, though I have no memory of the ceremony.
When, in 1997, I learned that my family heritage was Jewish, I assumed initially that my parents had converted to Catholicism in order to escape the Holocaust. This was, of course, inaccurate. We had already been living in England. In any case, conversion had meant nothing to the Nazis. So why did my parents make this choice? Certainly, they had not been attempting to deceive their friends and acquaintances to whom their Jewish ancestry was no secret. Surprised, and with no parents to ask, I could only speculate from the distance of more than half a century. I have nevertheless thought hard, trying to understand their decision.
In Berkhamsted: (front, from left) George Korbel, Alena Korbelová, the author; (back) Ola Korbelová, Dáša Deimlová, Mandula and Josef Korbel
To begin, I doubt that theology played any role. My father had been raised in an almost entirely secular household; according to my cousin Alena, Grandfather Arnöst forbade the family from attending synagogue. To my knowledge, neither of my parents was much influenced by the Jewish thinkers who flourished in the early twentieth century, among them Martin Buber, whose Three Addresses in Prague (1909–1911) helped lay the groundwork for Czech Zionism. At the time of their marriage, my parents had recorded themselves as being without religious confession.
This does not mean that their feelings were exactly the same. On the surface, at least, my mother was more emotional and less cerebral than my father. Like many Czechs and Slovaks, she was a spiritualist who believed that there were mysteries for which science had no answer, and that the boundary between life and death was not as unbridgeable as commonly supposed. The fear and stress of the war years, made more painful by separation from loved ones, could only have deepened her quest for reassurance. Among my parents’ closest friends at this time were Jaroslav and Milada Stránský, both observant Catholics.* Jaroslav, a diminutive former professor and newspaper editor, was an official in the government in exile and a frequent contributor to the Czech-language radio commentaries. His family, also Jewish in heritage, had converted in the 1890s. Milada had grown up in a devout household and was eager to save souls. The encouragement of the Stránskýs might well have made the idea of conversion more inviting, especially to my mother.
A second, and I think even more telling, factor might have been my parents’ desire to underline our family’s identity as Czechoslovak democrats. Our home country was overwhelmingly Christian, and many Czechs and Slovaks unfairly associated Jewish culture with the enemies of their national aspirations. These prejudices, which had their roots in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had softened during Tomáš Masaryk’s republic, but the majority of Czechoslovak Jews still spoke either German or Hungarian. The yearning to be—and to be seen as—fully Czechoslovak probably explains why, during the war, my family dropped the umlaut from our last name, although the absence of that symbol on British typewriters may have contributed.* The name “Korbel,” accented on the second syllable, sounded more Czech and less German than “Körbel.”
Finally, and I suspect most crucially, I believe that my parents joined the Church because of the child they had had and the children they planned to have. My aunt Ola and cousins Alena and George had obtained baptismal papers while still in Prague, so their example might have had an influence. I expect that my parents thought life would be easier for us if we were raised as Christians instead of Jews. The reasons for such a conclusion, in the Europe of 1941, need little explanation.
People ask me now whether I regret my parents’ decision; I don’t know how to respond. It’s hard for me to imagine a life different from the one I have known or to compare what might have been with what was and is. I am a firm admirer of the Jewish tradition but could not—beginning at the age of fifty-nine—feel myself fully a part of it. Celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah with my grandchildren, I have reasons for gratitude that my origins are richer and more complex than I had thought; but still, I wish that my parents would have explained to me, when I was old enough to understand, what they had done. I would like to have had a chance to discuss every aspect of their deliberations. Exactly when did they decide and for what reasons?
Although wary of addressing such a hypothetical question, I feel it is important to add my belief—given all I know about their values—that my parents would not have made the choice they did had they waited four more years. The world in 1945 differed from that of 1941, as it has ever since. Nazi persecution of Jews was well under way at the time of our baptism, but the grim unfolding of the Holocaust was still in its earliest stages. Czech Jews had not been forced into concentration camps, nor were they yet required to wear the yellow star. My parents would have viewed their decision to convert as difficult but made with the next generation of their family uppermost in mind. By war’s end, the desire to be associated with Czech as opposed to German culture would have been even more powerful, but acting to substitute a Christian identity for a Jewish one would have been—in the absence of a genuine religious calling—hard to conceive. When viewed through the lens of the Holocaust, the mor
al connotations of such a choice had been altered irrevocably. Perhaps that is why my parents never found a good time to discuss the decision with me and seemed to avoid doing so with others. Before the slaughter of six million Jews, they might have found the words; after it, they could not.
JOSEF STALIN WASN’T ordinarily given to wishful thinking. He tended to expect the worst of others, which is why he engineered the murder of so many colleagues. Odd, then, that in the spring of 1941, he should choose to don rose-colored glasses. The previous year, he had been shocked by the speed with which Germany had rolled over France. He had hoped for an evenly matched contest that would have left both sides bloodied, drained of resources, and ripe for revolutionary change. Instead Hitler had felt confident enough to take on Great Britain, then plunge into the Balkans; he also had troops in North Africa and seemed intent on capturing Egypt and Crete. Those battles were still being fought.
The previous November, Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, had met with Hitler in Berlin. The führer had assured him that the English were done for and that their efforts at retaliation were ineffectual. No sooner had he made this boast than the two leaders were hustled—due to Allied bombing—into an air-raid shelter. Stalin did not think that Hitler would move against the Soviet Union until he was certain that he had won in Europe. Surely the Nazis were wise enough to avoid having to fight a two-front war? As a precaution, the Soviets did nothing to awaken Hitler’s ire. In the first four months of 1941, they had sold to Germany a quarter of a million tons of oil and 750,000 tons of grain. Stalin, like Chamberlain before him, was reassured by the knowledge of what he would do if he were in Hitler’s shoes; like Chamberlain, he was wrong.
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