See How They Run (23 page)
“What exactly has happened?” asked Leonid Brezhnev. “Will someone please start at the beginning for me? At ten-forty-five this morning something terrible happened that I still don’t quite understand.”
“From the beginning then,” said General Iranov. Relative silence took over in the drab rumpus room.
“At ten-forty-five this morning, Jewish commandos—”
“
Not Mossad
. Freelancers. Tel Aviv is sending us screams saying that they have no part in this. They want to know how they can help us. They want to send Mossad operators.”
“Yes. Clearly. At ten-forty-five, the Jews attacked Olympic Village as well as some of the more vulnerable athletic sites. A show of force, as I said a minute ago. …”
“Premier, it was simply impossible to prevent this, with one million tourists roaming through Moscow like some untamed traveling circus, some gypsy carnival. We would have had to arrest every one of the tourists, and taken them down to the cellars in Lubyanka for interrogation.”
The other leaders and Politburo members nodded either sympathetically or politely. Yuri Iranov was known to protect his flanks at all times, but he was also a proud, solid policeman.
“Yes, yes, please go on,” said Viktor Tvardevsky, the First Secretary of the Communist Party. “You don’t have to make any excuses for your work, General. Not to me anyway.”
“The Jews claimed to have plastic bombs scattered through a hundred thousand spectators in Lenin Stadium. They claimed to have a nuclear device in the Rossiya Hotel, and canisters of nerve gas placed all around the city. Right on Kalinin Prospekt, for one.
“They have already demonstrated technological proficiency, as well as unusual discipline and organization for a guerrilla group. They include experts from Mossad, MI6, Shin Beth. They appear to have one of the CIA’s technicians with them.”
Vasily Rublev of the GRU winced. “Oof. All of those bastards are madmen anyway. They recruit actual mad boys from American high schools. Boys who try to blow up their hometowns wind up working in CIA laboratories.”
General Iranov crushed out his Papirosi cigarette. “Among the group, we know Colonel Essmann, formerly of Mossad. Malachi Ben-Eden we know also. Some Russian Jews are involved, of course. The American actress Alix Rothschild is here to get them some support and sympathy.”
“What is your estimation of the terrorists?” Brezhnev asked. “How do you sum up what has happened so far?”
Yuri Iranov paused for a moment. The Russian general understood that if he made a mistake now, the others were going to remember it for a long, long time.
“If they are willing to die, we are in for terrible troubles. Even beyond what you are all imagining now.”
The KGB leader groped for an appropriate image.
“Consider, if you will, that all of our agents inside New York City suddenly ran amok. How would the New York City police be able to stop them? How do you begin to find them in such a large city? The answer is,
you don’t
. You suffer terrible casualties.
“Personally, I suspect that the plot has to do with their trying to reproduce some aspect of Germany’s prison camps right here at the Olympics. In Russia, we’ve never really dealt with anything like this before. Do we arrest all of the tourists?”
Brezhnev was shaking his head from side to side. “Have we actually spoken with them yet? What do these people have to say for themselves? Where are they now? Please go on, General Iranov.”
“They strike, and they run. We don’t know where they are. We don’t know how many they are. They are somewhere among the million tourists inside Moscow. They’ve sent us a document listing their demands, and they say they’ll contact us again.”
General Iranov glanced at the faces around the conference table. “Would you all like to read the wonderful demands of Dachau Two? I must warn you first they will make you sick with worry. These are intelligent people we are dealing with. These are not adolescents with a few machine guns and a death wish.”
Iranov gestured and one of his lieutenants handed out mimeographed copies of the demands.
“Oof, oof, oof,” Rublev of the GRU was complaining before he had finished half of the first page.
General Iranov was right. It was far worse than any of them had been imagining.
The original demands read inside the Kremlin that afternoon were censored severely before their general release to the public. As they subsequently appeared in major newspapers, the demands of Dachau Two were as follows:
Yes, the Jewish nation has finally learned the sad and tragic lessons of our fathers—“Yea, when a man rises up to strike you, rise up and strike him down first.”
This was critical dogma we should have learned in ancient Rome, when the legions destroyed and desecrated our land, exiling us, forcing us to live in the desert for the first time.
It was a sad lesson we should have learned in Spain during the Inquisition. Or in Poland. Or in the Russian Pale
.
But most of all, this was an object lesson that should have consumed each and every Jew with a burning hatred for you after the fires of Dachau, Treblinka, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Belsen, Ravensbruck, Buchenwald, Maidanek, and Riga consumed the bodies of our mothers, our fathers, our sisters and brothers, our precious little babies
.
This holocaust, this attempted extermination of an entire race, horrified and fascinated even you. Yet you could not begin to understand or, more important, to feel what it all meant
.
As of July 18, however, we believe it will be seen that the Jews have finally learned the lesson of history
.
It will be seen by all that we have shed our “sheep-to-slaughter mentality and traditions.”
The world must now learn to reckon with us on its own brutish level. The docile, acquiescent, “moral” Jew has undergone a metamorphosis. A new, stronger breed of Jew has emerged. The Warrior Jew. Ready to combat racist hatred with force, with power, with our lives
.
This has become necessary because Gentile hatred of Jews has not diminished since the fall of Hitler and Nazi Germany
.
Rather, all over the world, there has been a subtle Nazi rebirth—a rebirth of vicious anti-Semitism
.
Civilized countries have knowingly permitted former Nazi war criminals to live and prosper within their borders. Former SS officers have become influential members of the Austrian Parliament, the German Bundestag, the United States House of Representatives. In Germany alone, more than seven million Nazi criminals remain unpunished. Of the men and women who once staffed Dachau Konzentrationslager, to take just one example, only 140 of more than seven thousand have ever been brought to justice
.
Note this well
.
The Nazis did not suddenly appear in 1933, then disappear in 1945. Any man or woman who can think at all must know that
.
The Nazis are ever with us
.
On September 2, 1972, the Federation of West Germany was informed by Rabbi Dr. Michael Ben-Iban that heavily armed bands of PLO terrorists were preparing to attack the Israeli Athletes at the Munich Olympics. Germany, however, did nothing to stop these murderers. Furthermore, the West German government subsequently participated in the “staged” hijacking of a Lufthansa 727 airliner at Zagreb. During this charade, the surviving fellaheen who had participated in the Munich massacre were released back to the PLO
.
For these and innumerable other crimes against all Jews, the German people must now pay a fair penalty, a long overdue penalty
.
As symbolic payment for Germany’s injustices, we demand:
THE GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENTS MUST IMMEDIATELY MUST IMMEDIATELY EXECUTE THE FOLLOWING NAZI CRIMINALS CURRENTLY LIVING IN THEIR RESPECTIVE COUNTRIES
.
1.
Friedrich Peter—present chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party, this former commander of the infamous SS “Murder Brigade” took part in massacres of civilians resulting in approximately 20,000 deaths.
2.
Hermine Braunsteiner—the notorious murderess of Majcenek, who is now supposedly standing trial in Désseldorf.
3.
Dr. Josef Muller—a former high-ranking Gestapo officer, Muller is presently the director of a high school in Kelkheim, Germany.
4.
Hans Gogl—former officer in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Gogl was responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews as well as airmen from the Royal Dutch Air Force.
5.
Manfred Roeder—a modern-day advocate of Adolf Hitler’s plan to destroy the Jews, Roeder practices this art where it is easiest—in Austria. Although brought to trial in 1963, Roeder has never spent a single day in jail.
More facts!
While Germany and Austria continue to participate in thinly veiled anti-Jewish activity, so does a more subtle offender—the United States of America
.
Let it be known by the world, therefore, that, since 1945, the United States has pursued a policy of nonprosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Americas. Of protection of neo-Nazi organizations. Of racial discrimination against Jews
.
So be it. We have learned to expect as much from the Gentile countries of the world
.
What we will not allow, however, is American participation in the economic strangulation of Israel
.
American corporations have religiously followed the Arab boycott. American corporations have kept Jews from top managerial posts at Arab direction. American corporations have refused to deal with Israeli firms such as Clal Israel, Israel Discount Bank, Ampal Development, Israel Paper. …
EXXON CORPORATION, PEPSICO, ITT, CHRYSLER MOTOR COMPANY, MOBIL CORPORATION, AND OTHERS MUST THEREFORE MAKE PAYMENT OF TEN MILLION DOLLARS EACH TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL. … ONCE AGAIN, THIS PAYMENT OF MONEY FOR LIVES IS SYMBOLIC, A TOKEN THAT IS FAR BELOW THE COST OF THE ACTUAL DAMAGE INCURRED
.
And finally, we turn our attention to our hosts and comrades, the self-acclaimed “leaders of the people’s revolution,” the Soviet Union
.
If “Mother Russia” was ever a mother to the Jew, then may God make us all orphans
.
From our earliest experiences with the Russian people we have been treated to violent hatred, pogroms, discrimination, physical and spiritual murder. Inside Russia, Jews have never been allowed to own land. A Russian Jew wishing to return to his homeland of Israel must request “permission.” However, the mere act of requesting an exit visa means loss of job and livelihood, which is in itself a crime under Soviet Law
.
Russian Jews are stripped of all their human rights. This includes constant harassment by Soviet police; separation from family; eviction from their homes; arrest and imprisonment in Siberian corrective-labor camps for unspecified “anti-Soviet activities.”
We will no longer tolerate the imprisonment of Jews for practicing Judaism, however. We will no longer tolerate the denial to Russian Jews of their right to leave Russia and live in Israel
.
WE THEREFORE DEMAND THAT THE SOVIET UNION RELEASE IMMEDIATELY THE FOLLOWING JEWISH POLITICAL PRISONERS
.
1.
Anatold Altman—a simple, honest engraver now serving ten years in a Siberian labor prison.
2.
Hillel Butman—lawyer and engineer, serving ten years under strict regime for anti-Soviet activities.
3.
Mark Dimshitz—pilot, serving fifteen years for anti-Soviet activities.
4.
Arye Khnokh—electrician, serving seven years for anti-Soviet activities.
5.
Edward Kuznetsov—translator, serving fifteen years under “specially” strict regime in a labor camp for anti-Soviet activities. Also accused of being a Zionist.
6.
Mikhail Korenblit—dentist, serving seven years.
7.
Iosif Mendelevich—student, serving twelve years.
8.
Boris Penson—artist, serving ten years.
9.
Israel Zalmanson—student, serving eight years under strict regime at a labor camp for anti-Soviet activities. Also accused of being a Zionist.
10.
Vladamir Slepok—engineer, serving five years for hanging a banner from his Moscow apartment saying “Let us join our son in Israel.”
(The complete list of Russian Jew POWs, supposedly more than one hundred pages, was never released by the Novosti Press Agency.) The nations implicated in these pages have twelve hours in which to begin to comply with our just demands.
If there is no compliance after twelve hours’ time, we will begin to execute our harsh but just plan of vengeance. After twelve hours what happens inside Olympic Village is your responsibility.
THERE WILL BE NO DEADLINE EXTENSIONS BEYOND TWELVE HOURS.
In the first twelve centuries of the Olympic Games, the sacred trust was broken just once, by the Arcadian Army during the 103rd ancient Olympiad
.
Now, in our century, the peace has been broken twice within ten years
.
Truly, it is a sad time for all men
.
May God save us all
.
Along Moscow’s broad, Leninesque boulevards—Kropotkin, Gorky, Pirogovskaya—on the lime-tree-lined plazas around Olympic Village, the shock and confusion was unprecedented.
Well-heeled tourists, athletes with their colorful sweat gear, and gray, befuddled Muscovites staggered about the avenue with half-open mouths and dazed, dark expressions.
Necks were craned severely as people searched for hidden rooftop snipers and bomb throwers.
Lovers and families were held and hugged.
Religious people sat, or knelt, and prayed for the first time in half a century on the streets of Moscow.
Pushing his way through the crowds, David watched Russian soldiers in their brown uniforms with red trim.