And the Sea Is Never Full (27 page)

After the morning session I ask Yitz to gather nine men in a private room. For that day, the 18th day of Sh’vat, is the anniversary of my father’s death, and I must recite the Kaddish. The impromptu minyan attracts more than the requisite quorum. Even non-Jews attend. In accordance with tradition, I officiate. I repeat the
Amidah
, with its eighteen benedictions. Suddenly, my voice breaks. I cannot suppress the sob that rises and chokes me. I see my father’s face, his many faces: the one I saw on Shabbat; the one at the Sighet railway station; the one I saw in camp, during the first few days; and finally, the one of the end. I look at him, and he looks at me, as if to ask me what I am doing here, at the White House. This has never happened before, but I cannot go on. I try to hold back my tears as I implore my father not to go away, not to abandon me among all these strangers. Did I shout the Kaddish? Did I whisper it? It stays with me when the session resumes that afternoon.

We appoint the special committees: education, finance, international relations, and a “committee of conscience,” which could just as well have been named “human rights commission.” To Sigmund, I assign the task of organizing the annual “Remembrance Week” ceremonies. I share my thoughts: Since it is forbidden to remain silent and impossible to speak, how does one commemorate a community massacred a thousand times? What prayer must one recite, what forms must one invent?

From the very beginning, the meetings are dominated by the question of the specificity or universality of the Holocaust. Does our mandate apply only to the Jewish victims? What about the Gypsies? The Poles? The Ukrainians? And the homosexuals? After all, other nations, other ethnic and social groups, also endured the horrors of the Nazi regime. For instance: I am haunted by the tragedy of the Armenians, which inspired Hitler to remark, speaking of the Jews: “Who will remember them? Who still remembers the massacre of the Armenians?” But if we included the Armenians, why then would we exclude the Cambodians? We have passionate discussions, stormy sessions. Arthur Goldberg maintains that since our mandate contains a specific name, the Holocaust, it refers exclusively to the tragic fate of the Jews. Other members of the commission, Americans of Polish, Ukrainian, or Lithuanian descent, don’t agree. My position is that the Holocaust is a Jewish tragedy with universal implications. Any attempt to dilute or extrapolate it can only distort its meaning. As a
Jew, my duty is to evoke the Jewish tragedy. But in so doing, I incite other groups to commemorate their own.

Behind the scenes, I rely on Saul Lieberman, Yossi Ciechanover, Bernie Fischman. And, of course, Marion. I do nothing without asking her advice.

I have already referred to Dr. Lieberman and to Yossi. Bernie is a lawyer, a humanist: I don’t know anyone as concerned with human rights as Bernie. As soon as he has knowledge of a violation committed anywhere, of any injustice that strikes any human being, there he is, sounding the alarm. I believe him to be the best informed, most passionate man in the world. He and his colleague Arnie Forster have provided me with the information that has allowed me to become involved in more than one fight on behalf of prisoners and victims.

Three months after its inauguration, the commission organizes its first ceremony of remembrance. It takes place in the Rotunda, the great hall of the Capitol. This is where the nation honors the memory of its heroes. It is where, in 1963, its leaders came to pay their final homage to JFK.

Of course all Washington is present. President Carter has kept his promise. He participates in the ceremony. From that day on, thanks to Sigmund’s efforts, similar ceremonies will take place in all fifty states of the country.

As we begin, President Carter notices a small boy sitting opposite us, next to his mother. “Who is that?” he asks me. “My son, Elisha.” “How old is he?” “Seven.” The President motions him to come forward. Bewildered but poised, Elisha leaves Marion and joins us. He will watch the program sitting on the President’s knee, a photo that will make the front pages. When asked, he sums up his reaction: “It was pretty uncomfortable—the president’s knees are kind of hard.”

President Carter speaks movingly and conveys a strong sense of history. But I am troubled by his reference to “eleven million victims.” In the car that takes us back to the White House, I ask him where he obtained this figure. The source: the writings and speeches of Simon Wiesenthal. He insists on including all victims: six million Jews and five million non-Jews. I tell the president that this figure does not reflect the facts. The president is astonished: “Are you saying that there were no non-Jews in the camps?” I explain to him that yes, there were, and some of them were heroes of the Resistance and brave humanists, but that they did not number five million; they were a fraction
of that figure. Among the others there were fierce anti-Semites and sadistic criminals whom the Germans released from their prisons in order to supervise the camps. “Would it be just, Mr. President, to honor their memory together with that of my parents?” The president never cited this figure again.

The ceremonies of remembrance, established by act of Congress, become annual events. I claim paternity, but their exemplary execution is assured by Sigmund, who invests in them his time, talent, and passion. We owe him our gratitude. I am also deeply grateful to President Carter for spontaneously accepting, at our first meeting, the idea of an annual commemorative session. Of all the projects related to my work in Washington, this is the one that has given me a genuine sense of accomplishment.

Meanwhile we are actively preparing our official trip to Eastern Europe. There is no problem with pre-Jaruzelski Poland. All the visas are granted, all requests agreed to. Not so with the USSR. The Soviet Embassy here informs us that all decisions will be made in Moscow. To avoid the looming difficulties, Arthur Goldberg accompanies me to the Soviet Embassy. He knows Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin well, and we enjoy a cordial, friendly conversation. Though this is before the Russian intervention in Afghanistan, there is plenty of distrust. What might be the purpose of a commission of inquiry in the USSR, if in fact that is what it is, the Ambassador asks. He understands that we might want to conduct an investigation in Poland, but what might we be looking for in Moscow? I mention Babi-Yar. Well, yes, he can possibly understand Babi-Yar, but Babi-Yar is in Ukraine. How to tell him something he surely guesses, that my wish to go back to Moscow is only vaguely connected with our declared mission? Since 1966, I have been dreaming of returning to “my” Jews of silence. On the pretext that hotels were overbooked, I have been systematically refused a visa. Now, as head of a presidential delegation, I shall get it. Dobrynin confirms this to me.

Still, I don’t obtain everything I request. Until August 1979, almost to the eve of our departure, the Soviets stubbornly refuse to issue visas to two members of my party, Yitz Greenberg and Miles Lerman. I learn of this in France, where, with Marion and Elisha, I am spending a few weeks completing
The Testament
. There follows a flurry of transatlantic conversations. My own feeling is that we must show solidarity and inform the Soviet authorities that, because we don’t have visas for everyone, we are canceling our trip. Sigmund Strochlitz
alone supports me. Hyman Bookbinder counsels moderation. Yitz’s assistant, Michael Berenbaum, urges us to go forward. In his view, our mission should proceed as planned, never mind the “undesirables.” Clearly we are not on the same wavelength.

Another incident interferes with our preparations. The Union of Soviet Writers offers to give a dinner in our honor. I accept. This will be the first time I shall be able to converse with people likely to have known the Jewish writers Der Nister and Peretz Markish. But I ask to see the guest list. Evidently displeased, the Union directors politely answer that the guest list is their business. I don’t remember what made me do it, but I remain firm: In that case, no dinner. The list arrives a day later. The Yiddish poet Aaron Vergelis is on it. An unrepentant Stalinist, he is unacceptable to me. Russian Jewish writers in both Israel and the United States have proffered serious charges against him. I myself heard him telling New York reporters in the mid-sixties that Russian Jews were living very well, that they enjoyed full freedom, and that campaigns on their behalf were based on lies. In his monthly magazine he went so far as to accuse me of being a CIA agent—why else would I fight so hard against the Soviet Union and Communism? And so, while I have no wish to judge him, I also have no desire to shake his hand. The Writers Union reacts angrily: It is their privilege to decide which of their members will attend their dinner. I respond that, in that case, we too will decide with whom we dine. A new list arrives: Vergelis’s name has disappeared. Finally, everything appears settled.

The delegation includes several members of the commission, members of the advisory board, and representatives of various Jewish organizations, among them Judy and Irving Bernstein, of UJA, and the Miami art collectors Irma and Norman Braman.

A native of Poland, Benjamin Meed insists on my sending him to Warsaw ahead of the delegation, as a kind of scout. He implores me to entrust him with the mission of making sure that our program is set by us and not by our hosts. “I know the Poles,” he says. “We had better be careful.” My instructions to him are simple and precise. From the airport we shall go first to the Ghetto to pay homage at the Monument to the Ghetto Fighters. Only then shall we go wherever our hosts wish to take us.

Surrounded by a welcoming committee from the Veterans’ Ministry, Meed is waiting for us at the airport. He looks undone, forlorn. I never would have guessed he could behave so submissively. He tells
me it has been decided that we will be taken directly to the Polish monument, the one in the capital. His manner is pathetic. Evidently, for him, our hosts are not much different from the authorities he knew and feared long ago. “I tried to explain to them,” he says, his face crimson with embarrassment, “I really tried.”

In a VIP lounge, sitting around a table with the officials, we try to find a solution to this first crisis. Not being a diplomat, I take a firm stand that surprises even me. (Whatever happened to the shy Talmud student from Sighet?) I tell our hosts that we are here on behalf of the president of the United States for reasons not of foreign policy but of moral conscience linked to the memory of the Holocaust. Therefore either they will take us at once to the Ghetto, or else we shall, however regretfully, leave on the first plane out. The Polish officials stare in amazement and give in. Surely they did not realize what it meant to us, Jewish survivors, to walk on the Ghetto’s hallowed ground. They cannot understand why we insist so much on the Jewishness of the Jewish victims. After all, they lament, Poland lost six million citizens, of which only three million were Jews. They ask: “Weren’t we also victims of the Germans?” I reply: “Yes, you were. But we were the victims’ victims as well.”

This is my first visit to Warsaw, a city I learned to know and love from books. In fact, since Auschwitz, I have not been back to Poland. Is this how I had imagined my return? We move from frustration to frustration. The atmosphere is oppressive. Vanished is the Jewish Warsaw of Roman Vishniac, with its hungry students and their unfulfilled dreams. Aharon Zeitlin’s Tlomacki 13, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s poverty-stricken Nalevki, all these places immortalized by Jewish writers gone up in smoke. Warsaw, the most Jewish of all Jewish cities in the Diaspora, will not be Jewish again. Ever.

Most of the officials we encounter are courteous, even friendly, but I cannot help feeling that we are in inhospitable territory. People are not used to seeing so many Jews here. Are they afraid that we have come to claim what was stolen from us? I have heard too often of survivors being chased away from their former homes by their new occupants: “What are you doing here? Weren’t you killed?”

It is difficult to rid ourselves of the malaise that weighs on us. There is constant tension. The minister of justice, Mr. Buffa, is another disappointment. I expected more from a man entrusted with safeguarding justice. I speak to him of the “deniers,” those who on five
continents deny the Holocaust. The discussions are exhausting, endless. There’s a sense of having to fight for every scrap of truth. Exasperated, I finally cry out: “To whom can we turn for justice if not to the minister of justice?” I don’t know why, but at last there is a reaction. He suddenly becomes conciliatory and agrees to most of our requests: the opening of the archives, the exchange of documents, the creation of a joint commission to handle pending problems and unresolved matters.

We leave for Cracow.

Auschwitz. The watchtowers. The barbed wire.

Our guides are waiting for us at the camp entrance. They talk and talk. Marion makes them understand that we don’t need explanations. This is the first time I am back.

Auschwitz a museum! That is what is left—a museum. The plaque is offensive, deceitful. Evidently there have never been any Jews here, or if there were, they arrived here by accident, visitors who lost their way. To satisfy the curiosity and appease the feelings of foreign visitors, especially Americans, a Jewish block has been created. And it is closed, most of the time, “for repairs.” Schiller’s question, “History will judge society, but who will judge History?” comes to mind.

Surely it will be judged by its victims.

I walk past “my” block. The memories rush back: the first days, the first nights at Auschwitz; the apprenticeship of hunger, of death. The terrifying block 11: the prison inside prison. A place one left only for the scaffold or the firing squad. And where is Yossel Rosensaft’s dark cell? They all look alike. Dark. Stifling.

We continue on to Birkenau. Here too, it is the first time I am back in this cursed place. A steel fist is pounding at my lungs. It is daylight, but we are enveloped by night.

The silence of Birkenau is a silence unlike any other. It contains the screams, the strangled prayers of thousands of human beings condemned to vanish into the darkness of nameless, endless ashes. Human silence at the core of inhumanity. Deadly silence at the core of death. Eternal silence under a moribund sky.