All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (36 page)

One evening, as we dined at his favorite restaurant in New York, I recalled the incident in Geneva. “How could you lie like that?” I asked. “What did you think a young journalist like me would think of you?” He laughed. “First of all, I didn’t know you were in the room, so I thought I could say whatever I wanted with impunity. Second, the difference between us is that I’m a politician and you’re not.” He then gave me a piece of advice: “Write your novels, tell your Hasidic tales, but don’t ever get involved in politics. It’s not for you.” At another dinner, as if forgetting his own advice, he suggested that I succeed him as president of the Memorial Foundation and the Claims Conference, both financed by the Germans. I refused. (But I remained close to the World Jewish Congress, especially after Edgar Bronfman, seconded by his aides Israel Singer and Elan Steinberg, assumed the presidency.)

My friendship with Teddy Pilley deepened after Geneva. He worried about me, and whenever I found myself in pressing financial need, he would come up with some international conference where I could exercise my talents as an interpreter.

In the spring of 1960 I visited him in London. The telephone rang, he answered, and I heard him say in French, “What’s the date? Okay, I think I have someone for you. Wait a minute, let me check.” He turned to me. “What are you doing next week?” I told him I had no plans. “Can you get away for some urgent, well-paid work?” Of course. “He says it’s all right,” he told his caller. “Come over tomorrow, and I’ll introduce you.” He hung up and told me, “That was Prince Andronikov, De Gaulle’s personal interpreter, a wonderful man.… His problem is that Ben-Gurion is coming to Paris on an official visit next week with his own interpreter, and De Gaulle hasn’t one. The General thinks it’s a question of national prestige.” Andronikov had called on my friend to find a Hebrew interpreter. I agreed, of course. To be De Gaulle’s interpreter, to be present at his talks with Ben-Gurion, was an
honor, a privilege. “Promise me you won’t pull another Geneva,” Teddy added. I promised.

The next day we had dinner with the prince. Teddy was right: He was quite a man, cultivated and well informed, capable and efficient, a master of his craft. He explained in detail how the summit would be organized. He, too, insisted on confidentiality, and I gave him my word. It was a full evening, and I was too excited to sleep. I pictured my encounter with the Israeli prime minister, and suddenly I froze. I realized I would have to back out of the project.

I had covered Ben-Gurion’s most recent visit to Washington, and he and I had played a kind of private game. I had a friend in his entourage who informed me of his whereabouts, and wherever he went, I would be there waiting for him: the White House, Vice President Nixon’s home, the Senate, the House of Representatives. And every time he saw me, Ben-Gurion would exclaim, “What, you again?” I was terrified at what would happen if he saw me standing alongside the General at the Elysée Palace, and I decided I couldn’t do it to him. Especially since, in a way, I would be part of the opposite camp.

Despite the late hour, I called Teddy and told him of my decision. He tried to reason with me. “All you have to do is inform Ben-Gurion in advance. I’m sure he’ll agree.” I stood my ground and finally came up with a decisive argument. “Teddy,” I said, “I may not be able to resist temptation. It would be a fantastic scoop and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you or your friend the prince.” There was a long silence. “Idiot,” Teddy finally said in his warm drawl. “This is going to cost you a lot of money and a historic opportunity to see two great men at work.” He sighed. “What you say is foolish, but once again I’m proud of you.” Professor Samuel Sirat, a future grand rabbi of France, acted as De Gaulle’s interpreter.

With hindsight I regret this decision. But perhaps I just wasn’t sure of myself. Perhaps I feared I would be unequal to the task.

I had similar worries when Maurice Carr, correspondent for the
Jewish Chronicle
of London, asked me to replace him for a few months. I was dying to accept: not only was the Anglo-Jewish weekly prestigious, it paid its correspondents well and reimbursed them for their expenses. But what about the language barrier? My English was inadequate. “Don’t worry,” the editor in chief declared. “You can send us your articles in Yiddish.” I finally accepted and was very unhappy when Carr returned.

•   •   •

The first official negotiations between West Germany and Israel opened in early 1952 at the Vassenaar Château in the Netherlands. My paper was eager for me to cover the event. Dov knew I was personally as well as professionally interested in these negotiations, and he made what he considered a generous offer: The paper would pay my travel costs. Visa formalities were settled in twenty-four hours. I was beginning to feel like a real reporter.

Only four journalists were accredited to both delegations: Sam Jaffe of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency; Marcel Rosen, editor of the official organ of the Jewish community of Düsseldorf; Alfred Wolfmann of Berlin Radio; and myself, the only correspondent working for an Israeli daily. The Dutch authorities advised us that for security reasons we, like the delegates, would remain virtually sequestered throughout what promised to be a highly dramatic conference. Despite the political and economic issues at stake, the event was of greatest import for its historic significance. For the first time, German and Jewish officials would confront the consequences of a common past marked by the former’s legalized brutality and the latter’s acknowledged suffering.

The Israeli public followed the negotiations closely, and was divided by the ethical questions they posed. Passions were aroused, as though a religious war had erupted. Should money from the Germans be accepted? Ben-Gurion and Goldmann said yes; Begin shouted no. Ben-Gurion quoted the Prophet Elijah: “Thou hast killed, shalt thou also inherit?”—meaning the victim’s possessions. Begin affirmed that Jewish blood was not for sale and that the Jewish dead were not bargaining chips. Survivors, even the leftists of Mapai and Mapam, were generally against. There were daily demonstrations and petitions. Debates raged in every community, every kibbutz, every family, arousing antagonism and scorn.

I personally was against. To take this money—the sum of a billion dollars had been mentioned—would be the first step toward a normalization I considered premature, for it would surely lead to economic and political collaboration between the two peoples. And I believed that both would inevitably lead to a betrayal of the memory of the dead.

When Israeli delegates asked me whether I would prefer that stolen treasures remain in German hands, I replied: Why not let the government of the United States serve as intermediary? Let Bonn consign
the sums in question to the Americans, who could pass them on to the state of Israel. But even so, surely, the Germans would never give back everything they took from us.

(The Israelis now say that without German reparations there would have been no heavy industry in their country. Possibly not. But many of those projects nourished with German money went bankrupt. The luxury liners of the Zim shipping company, for example, were all sold.)

Passionate discussions filled our hours of waiting in the corridors of Vassenaar, as the delegates dealt with technical aspects of the accord. Marcel Rosen was for, Sam Jaffe was in the middle. Alfred Wolfmann participated in the discussion only in my absence. That was because at our first encounter he had insisted on introducing himself to me “honestly,” as he put it, as a former Wehrmacht officer who had served in occupied France and very briefly in Russia. He had never been a Nazi, but described himself as a loyal citizen of the former Reich and the present Bundesrepublik. He said he wanted things to be clear. “Very well,” I told him, “let them be clear. You will of course understand that under these circumstances there can be no relations between us. Of course, if I knew for certain that you committed no crime against my people … But since I don’t, it’s better for us to keep our distance.” I never spoke a word to him after that. The Israeli officials also treated him with a distrust he grudgingly accepted. “Look at the Germans,” he said to Sam. “Look how friendly they are with you Jews.…”

There was solemnity and drama in the opening session. The two delegations, equally grave, stood facing each other without shaking hands. The symbolism was inevitable. Yet Professor Franz Boehm, who headed the German mission, was a democrat above all suspicion. It was thanks to him that relations between the two sides grew more relaxed, becoming first cordial and later even amicable.

But between Wolfmann and myself, the situation was unpleasant. I could not bring myself to treat him as a colleague. I could not fraternize with an officer who had pledged loyalty to Hitler. Still, I would sometimes steal a glance at him. He was a wonderful craftsman, his analyses were clever, and usually accurate. He and Sam became buddies, to the point that one day I heard them arguing about something that had nothing to do with politics: Was Hebrew a difficult language to learn? Sam claimed it was. Alfred arrogantly insisted it was no more difficult than any other. In fact, he was prepared to bet a hundred
florins that he could master Hebrew within a few months. Sam turned to me. “Did you hear that?” I advised him to take the bet. Alfred asked me if I too would like to bet. I pretended I hadn’t heard him.

“How much is a life worth?”

“I have no idea.”

“Think about it, please.”

“I can’t.”

“Try. You have to admit it’s an important question. The Germans are ready to pay for murdered Jewish lives, so we have to draw up some kind of price list, don’t we? For instance, does a child’s life go for as much as an old man’s? Do a university professor and a beggar fetch the same price? I mean, you can’t just toss all these Jewish lives in the same bag, can you? We’re businessmen here, aren’t we? So let’s do business.”

“Shut up.”

“Why, am I being unreasonable? Illogical?”

“Shut up. For the love of heaven, shut up.”

Both sides considered the conference a success. When it ended, our little group broke up. Alfred held out his hand, but I turned away. He frowned. “I thought the war between our peoples was over.” I didn’t reply. Sam took a plane for Paris, Rosen for Germany. I went home by train, stopping in Antwerp, where I wanted to see my cousins, the Feigs and the Dicks. I checked into a modest hotel on Pelikaans Straat, filed my last dispatch, and went to bed. Early the next morning someone knocked on my door. When I opened it, there stood Wolfmann. I asked what he wanted. He said hello and made a move to come in, but I stopped him. “Go away,” I said. “I don’t want to see you. Not here, not anywhere.” He smiled, then shrugged and left. I went back to bed, but could not fall asleep.

A few weeks later he showed up at my lodgings in Paris. I was about to throw him out when he started talking—in Hebrew. It was surreal, a nightmare. “I win,” he said calmly. Taking advantage of my surprise, he came into the room and sat down in a chair near the unmade bed. Certain that he had practiced a few phrases just to impress me, I asked him to say something else. He did so without the slightest hesitation. The former Wehrmacht officer spoke fluent Hebrew. I waited for what might come next. Was he going to try to convince me he had learned Hebrew since our meeting in Vassenaar? He let me
wait a long moment, then said, slowly and deliberately, still in Hebrew: “I lied to you. I was never a Wehrmacht officer. I’m a Jew.” I wanted to grab him and shake him. Was he telling the truth in Vassenaar or in Paris? “I’m a Jew,” he repeated.

He was a strange character and his story was anything but ordinary: childhood in Germany; emigration to Palestine, where he joined the Communist Party; return to East Germany where he became a high party official; ideological disenchantment; flight to the West, where he was now a (anti-Communist) journalist.

But why the lie, why the game? His answer seemed insane: “Two reasons. First of all, for revenge. All you smart-ass Jews from Poland or Russia think you’re so superior. In Palestine they made fun of me because I was a Yekke, a German Jew. I was treated like a well-bred imbecile who would believe anything. So I wanted to show all of you that I could fool you.” And the other reason? “To show you it’s wrong to judge others too hastily An hour ago you found me contemptible because I was German. Now you like me because I tell you I’m a Jew.”

I looked at him and burst out laughing. He had invented that entire ridiculous, childish story, erecting a barrier between us, for “vengeance” and to win a kind of oratorical joust.

“Look,” I told him, “let’s call Sam. He’s probably at the office by now.” He was. “You owe me a hundred florins,” Alfred said to him in Hebrew. Now it was Sam’s turn to laugh. “I don’t believe it,” he kept saying over and over.

Alfred and I spent the day together. I liked him, but found him disconcerting. How could a Jew leave Palestine for Germany? “You forget I was a Communist,” he said. “The whole world was my country.” “Even Germany?” “Even Communist Germany” But why did he stay in Germany now? “Because I’m waging a battle I consider just—a battle against Communism and anti-Semitism.” Why couldn’t he wage that battle elsewhere? “It wouldn’t be the same.”

The truth is I didn’t understand him. I found it disturbing that Jews (many of them survivors) still lived in Germany. He told me I would understand someday.

After a silence he went on. “I was miserable and unhappy in Palestine.” Because he was a German Jew? “Because I was a Communist. I was a member of the most extreme faction, more Stalinist than Stalin. Close to the Arabs. People didn’t like it, and they made me pay. I couldn’t find a job. I was humiliated, treated like a traitor, dragged through the mud like a pariah.”

I introduced him to colleagues. We went to a press conference at the Israeli embassy together and had lunch with Sam Jaffe. It occurred to me that
Yedioth
had no correspondent in West Germany. I asked him if he would be interested. He said yes. I promised to discuss it with Dov, who agreed, but added, “Tell him the paper is not as rich as it used to be,” a tune I knew by heart. Alfred was delighted. He requested and obtained Israeli citizenship. He seemed at peace with himself. But then, as the years passed and he fought the Nazi resurgence in his country, his fear began to grow and he fell ill. In the throes of paranoia, he thought he had to be constantly armed. He saw Nazis everywhere, in the street, in front of his house. We talked often on the phone, and I tried to calm him down, to bolster his morale. I asked about his wife and daughter, whom I had met. Dov invited him to come and rest with his family in Israel. He went, but soon left again. Dov suggested he settle down in Israel, but he refused. He was afraid to leave Germany and afraid to live there. I called him from Tel Aviv to try to convince him, but he had become a prisoner of his fear. When I asked him what he was afraid of, he seemed incredulous. “You of all people ask me that? Don’t you know they’re here? They want to kill me, they want to kill all the Jews. Don’t tell me you don’t know it. It’s starting all over again. But this time I’ll be ready. This time I’m armed.”