IT ALL BEGINS with an innocent enough statement by a White House spokesman at the beginning of 1985. President Reagan will be traveling to West Germany. There is specific reference to the fact that the official program does not include visits to former concentration camps. At once, voices are heard: Some wonder; others are indignant. Had the spokesman not mentioned this detail, it never would have occurred to the reporters to turn it into an issue. But now they view it as a challenge, as though Ronald Reagan wanted to show the country and the world his new attitude toward Helmut Kohl’s Germany. It was to be a “normal” attitude based on relations between two peoples that were now allies and friends. The past was buried. Or, as Chancellor Kohl would say, normalized.
Then the other shoe falls. The White House spokesman announces that in the course of his trip to Germany, the president will visit a German military cemetery. No one knows which one. It will be revealed later: Bitburg. The name means nothing to the reporters. It will soon be famous.
People will long remember the tempest aroused by this news, not only among Jews, but also among veterans of the two wars. The editorials are harsh, the commentaries ferocious. Former soldiers send back their military medals, won on the battlefields of Europe. For the first time since his election, Reagan does not have the support of the people. The Great Communicator is having trouble communicating. The White House tries to justify itself—reasons of state, the duty of reconciliation, NATO, the defense of Europe. Most Americans reject these arguments. Yet, at the start of the polemic, everyone thinks the cemetery in question is reserved exclusively for soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht. The country soon learns that the cemetery at Bitburg also shelters tombs of the SS.
Now the entire nation is outraged. Public opinion unanimously decries the decision. The past is recalled, specifically the atrocities carried out by the SS. The letters “SS” project terror. When Bitburg is mentioned, Auschwitz comes to mind. The White House is besieged. It defends itself as best it can, that is, badly. The drop in the polls is telling; the myth of Reagan’s invulnerability has been shattered.
In truth, even if it had been just a Wehrmacht cemetery, it did not deserve a visit from an American president. I know that Germans like to stress the difference between the “good” soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the “bad” SS, and that to earn Germany’s goodwill the West played along. Yes, there is a difference. But from that to whitewashing the Wehrmacht is a big step. One cannot forget that it was the Wehrmacht that gave logistical support to the SS units raging against the Jews. Historical documents confirm this, and they are irrefutable. The deadly Einsatzkommandos could not have operated at Babi-Yar, Minsk, and elsewhere—in Ukraine, White Russia, and Warsaw—had they not had the active cooperation of the Wehrmacht. The SS were more guilty, that is true. In fact, the Nuremberg tribunal declared all the SS formations collectively guilty. And here is the president of the United States preparing to officially, solemnly, bestow on them the honors of our nation by placing a wreath on their tombs!
Telegrams by the thousands pile up in the White House mail-room. Petitions and appeals pour in from all corners of the country. The Senate and the House are unanimous: A visit to Bitburg is a grave error, a gratuitous provocation. Republican officeholders are tearing their hair out. Reagan is moving heaven and earth to get some support. Henry Kissinger telephones me: He understands my position, but the president himself has called, so he cannot help but support him. Too bad, but his support doesn’t change things one iota.
To placate irate tempers, at least irate Jewish tempers, the president’s chief of staff, Donald Regan, invites a few Jewish Republican leaders for a briefing. Though I am not in that category, I am also invited. Ex officio, as president of the Memorial Council? Perhaps.
Around the table are gathered Max Fisher, the wealthy philanthropist and dean of Jewish lobbyists to the Republican administration; his political friends Gordon Zaks and Richard Fox; and Kenneth Bialkin, the New York lawyer and Jewish community leader.
The administration is represented by Chief of Staff Donald Regan, Patrick Buchanan, and Ed Rollins. Buchanan, a journalist, is the president’s adviser for communications, Rollins his political adviser. Of the three, Regan is the only one I know—we met at Colgate University a year or two ago. I had given the commencement address, and he had made the speech welcoming the new students. My words had been tinged with pessimism, while his had been strikingly optimistic. Pleasantly, he reminds me of our dialogue: “Shall we continue it today?”
Some of the Jews present express their opposition to the Bitburg visit: Zaks firmly, Bialkin diplomatically. Fisher is reluctant to criticize the president’s decision openly; he recognizes the administration’s concern with the possible consequences of a diplomatic incident. Why, he argues, aggravate the tensions between Americans and Germans? Why place the pro-American Kohl in a delicate position? We need to think in terms of air bases and the short-range tactical nuclear weapons the United States maintains in Germany.
I sit there thinking to myself that this is doubtless how things happened during the Holocaust; the Jewish leaders came here to plead for European Jews but wound up saying the same things as their hosts. Probably there was much talk about the situation at the front, but little or nothing about the massacres in Poland.
Among the high American officials, only Rollins speaks against the visit to Bitburg. For what he claims are political as well as moral reasons, Buchanan is in favor of the trip. He argues that, above all, we must avoid giving the impression that the president is yielding to pressures from the Jewish community. I ask him: “But you don’t care if he yields to German pressures?” Regan proposes what he considers a fair solution: The president will also go to Bergen-Belsen. He insists on the “also.” Does this mean that Bitburg remains on the program? Yes. I respond with a plea: “Give up Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen.” In vain.
As we leave the White House, Bialkin turns to me and asks: “Did you notice that during the discussion Patrick Buchanan was constantly doodling, scribbling on the yellow pad in front of him? Since I was sitting on his right, I glanced over. Would you believe me if I tell you that he was scrawling two words over and over: ‘Jewish pressure, Jewish pressure.’ That is what obsessed him in this whole affair, that is what he is afraid of.” In Max’s plane that takes us back to New York, Bialkin repeats this several times, always with the same bewilderment.
By coincidence, an event that had been decided upon much earlier, a ceremony awarding me the Congressional Gold Medal, is about to be scheduled. This medal represents a rare and prestigious distinction—it has been awarded to no more than one hundred or so individuals in all of American history.
In the spring of 1984, the U.S. Mint is authorized to strike a gold medal in my likeness. We have to choose the artist. For once the decision is easy: the talented artist Mark Podwal. We have already collaborated on a book about the Golem and on a Haggadah. The front of the medal will show my likeness taken from a photo by the legendary photographer Roman Vishniac. Above it, three words: AUTHOR—TEACHER—WITNESS. For the back, Mark draws an open book: Jerusalem and the shtetl, facing each other. On the page representing the City of David, Mark inscribes, in letters barely visible to the naked eye, a verse from the Psalms, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem …”
The White House has been in touch with Congress and me to set a date for the award ceremony. Though the medal is offered by Congress, tradition calls for the president to bestow it. Congressional aides suggest October, then January, then April. The president’s aides say yes, then maybe, and change their minds and the date several times. In the end they settle on April 19, 1985. That suits me perfectly. For us it is an unforgettable and historic date: The Warsaw uprising started on April 19, 1943. The technical details remain to be settled, but the White House decides to hold the ceremony in the East Room. Three hundred seats have been set aside for Cabinet members, guests of the president and myself, members of the Memorial Council, and representatives of the media.
Once the Bitburg affair becomes public, however, the White House decides to change the venue. We are now told that the award ceremony will take place in the Roosevelt Room, which can barely accommodate forty people. I am now entitled to a total of four invitations. Obviously the president’s staff is trying to scuttle the ceremony, fearful that I might use the occasion to evoke the controversial trip. Everything is arranged to ensure its taking place very quickly, almost secretly. It puts me in the unpleasant position of having to cancel invitations sent to friends in Congress, members of the Council, and friends from abroad. Several senators call the White House asking it to reverse its decision. My own intervention with Reagan fails as well.
Meanwhile the Council holds an extraordinary meeting. There is only one item on the agenda: Bitburg. There are words of resentment, anger. After privately consulting with me, Sigmund, so emotional that he is on the verge of tears, proposes that the entire Council resign in protest if the president really chooses to go to Bitburg. Most members consider that “solution” premature. Let us wait: There are still three weeks before the scheduled trip. Yet something must be done, if only to register our disagreement. I consider refusing the medal. But it is not a presidential award, rather one given by Congress on behalf of the American people. How can I refuse such an honor?
Finally a short and solemn resolution expressing our concern, our anguish, is passed unanimously. We appeal to the president’s humanism, to his understanding of history; we shower him with praise even as we ask him to cancel his visit to the SS cemetery.
After our meeting we hold an improvised press conference. I say improvised because, since 1978, we have never used that particular form of communication. Most probably we are the only governmental agency that has never used the services of a press attaché. To my mind, the Holocaust and public relations do not go together. We are doing our duty; let the press do what it is supposed to do. Only this time it’s different. As we face the television cameras, the microphones, the flashing lights, we must try to reconcile firmness and discretion, opposition and respect. To a reporter asking me whether I intend to resign, I reply: “I don’t believe that will be necessary; I don’t believe the president will be going to Bitburg.” He wants to know whether I know something they don’t. I assure him that I do not. I know the president; he is a man of dignity; he will not ignore the wishes of the American people; he will not pay homage to the SS. Actually I am not so sure, but I tell myself there is nothing to be lost by seeming optimistic.
The country is in a state of upheaval. People are talking about nothing but Bitburg. Why is Reagan being so stubborn? Chancellor Kohl has painted him into a corner. Why doesn’t he try to get out?
Back in New York I call another special meeting of the Council. Sigmund reintroduces his resolution asking the Council to submit its collective resignation to the president. I am for it, and this time I say so openly. Nevertheless a majority is against resignation. I fail to understand them; why are they so afraid of opposing the president’s decision? And why are my fellow survivors so attached to their official titles? “Resigning would be a premature act,” they say. “The trip is more than two weeks off. Why rush?”
The day of the ceremony is getting closer. The journalists are harassing me day and night. How many times must I repeat that the president’s visit would be a mistake, both morally and politically? And that there is no way the president will whitewash the SS, whose crimes continue to haunt our generation?
From Washington, I am told to expect a call from Marshall Breger, Jewish affairs adviser to the White House. I am also told that Breger is a practicing Orthodox Jew and that surely he will understand our position. When he calls I tell him what I think of the presidential trip. He does not agree with me. I guess that is his job, but I cannot fathom how a devout Jew can concur in an anti-Jewish policy. He should resign. But few low-level officials ever do. They need to earn a living; they need to feel important. Well, it’s his problem.
Abe Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb, the powerful editors of the New York Times, are with us, not only in their professional capacity but as friends. As Jews. They are men of conscience, and they are an ideal team. There are those who fear them, and others who swear by them, but all agree that they are superb professionals. Marion and I keep them informed of developments. Sigmund acts as liaison with Capitol Hill. The atmosphere becomes more and more tense. The ceremony is scheduled for the following Friday. We still don’t know anything, including whether we will be allowed additional guests. And most important: Will we succeed, at the last hour, in persuading the president’s advisers? Or will the visit to Bitburg take place?
Suddenly there is a new question from the reporters trailing me: Will I attend the ceremony, or will I boycott it? To maintain the suspense I do not give a definite answer. But my speech is ready. Well, almost. Abe and Arthur are positive about it. Its tone is respectful but firm and uncompromising. As always, since I rarely write in English, Marion offers precious, indispensable suggestions.
On Wednesday, April 17, we take the shuttle to Washington. Elisha accompanies us. He will celebrate his bar mitzvah in June. I see that he looks a little troubled. Is it his bar mitzvah or our nervousness?
Per Ahlmark, former deputy prime minister of Sweden, outspoken foe of anti-Semitism, and talented poet and writer known for his moral courage, has come from Stockholm. We meet for lunch. He gives us sad news: Our friend Tim Greve, editor in chief of the Norwegian newspaper VG, has been diagnosed with cancer. None of us touches the food.
Marian Craig calls from the Council offices to inform me that Michael Deaver has been trying to reach me. I consider Deaver the adversary. More than just an adviser to Ronald Reagan, he is the one who, on the American side, bears responsibility for Bitburg. He is reputed to be wily, arrogant, and self-satisfied, and he beats all records for unpopularity among the president’s staff. He led the group that months earlier had gone to Germany to prepare the presidential trip. He was the one to whom they showed the Bitburg cemetery. Did the Germans tell him of the SS graves? They swear they did. I have no desire to speak to him, but, then again, perhaps he has good news. I call him back. He can no longer be reached, but Arthur Burns, U.S. ambassador to Germany, comes on the line. I know him. We met in Newport, Rhode Island, during a conference about the first Jews who came to America. A Jew who has no problem with his Jewishness, he tells me that “he has been asked” to speak to me. “Since the president is going to Bergen-Belsen, I consider Bitburg acceptable,” he tells me. I do not agree. He goes over the same geopolitical and diplomatic arguments. To those he adds the necessity of not letting down Kohl, Washington’s great ally. I let him have his say, but my response is still no. I tell him: “To me it’s a question of Jewish memory. Bitburg will taint that memory. That must be avoided.” He has done his best to convince me. He too has failed.
Thursday morning we attend the annual Day of Remembrance. It takes place in the Rotunda. There is a procession of flags of the particular army units that liberated the camps. We go through the ritual: the songs, the lighting of the six candles. Feelings are running high because of Bitburg, as is to be expected.
Most congressional leaders are present along with personalities from the worlds of politics and religion. Secretary of State George Shultz represents the administration. His speech, delivered in his slow and dignified style, is not just eloquent—it is moving. I am not surprised. Shultz is the humanist on Ronald Reagan’s team.
In my speech, only partly devoted to the subject that is on our minds, I evoke the inhumanity that the SS symbolizes. At one point I speak directly to Shultz and ask him to “be our intercessor.”
He understands me. His spokesman, Bernie Kalb, confirms it later. The secretary of state calls his ambassador in Bonn several times, hoping to convince Kohl not to insist on Bitburg. But to Kohl, this visit to the military cemetery is too important. He needs the image of Reagan bowing before the graves of German soldiers, including the SS. Shultz personally expresses his reservations to the president, but Reagan feels committed to Kohl. Even a partial rehabilitation of the SS will reinforce Kohl’s popularity, and not only in the nationalist circles of the German right.
Peter Petersen, an old parliamentarian too close to Kohl for my taste, tries to reason with me: “You are wrong to condemn all the SS. There were bad ones, but there were also decent ones: Not all of them were running concentration camps; many of them fought at the front.”
But for me there were no “good” SS. The German tactic is obvious: to whitewash the SS. It is the final step in a carefully conceived plan. To begin with, Germany rehabilitated the “gentle,” “innocent” Wehrmacht. And now, thanks to Kohl, it was the turn of the SS. First of all, the “good” ones. And then would come the turn of the others. And once the door was open, the torturers and the murderers would be allowed in as well. Bitburg is meant to open that door. From Kohl’s point of view it makes sense, but it is difficult to understand Reagan. Why is he so intent on compromising himself in this affair? He has nothing to gain. Deaver and Buchanan are harming him, can’t he see that? Officials in the State Department tell me that Kohl bears full responsibility for this debacle; he convinced Reagan that if the visit were canceled it would be his, Kohl’s, defeat, and hence that of the alliance between the United States and Germany.
Following tradition, the Council gathers in full session after the ceremony of remembrance. The schedule for the day includes an urgent matter dealing with the future museum. We must choose between two designs, Zalman Einav’s and the one proposed by Sonny Abramson’s architect. The first is sober, modest. I prefer it to the other, which reminds me of a glorified supermarket. But we are on the eve of the White House ceremony. Everyone is more preoccupied by Bitburg than by architectural models. People come and go constantly. The vote is taken while I am outside giving an interview on television. Abramson’s banal proposal wins. I listen to Benjamin Meed’s panegyric praise: He loves this design; he believes in it; he knows now that the museum will be built; therefore, it’s the greatest day in his life. Someone tells me that the rules were not followed; there was no quorum. We’ll see about that later.
In the corridors it is impossible to move without running into a photographer or a reporter. Everybody wants to know whether I’ll go to the White House. The suspense continues for another few hours.
In my hotel room with Marion, Elisha, Sigmund, and Per, I review my acceptance “response” to Reagan. Later I have a copy dropped off at the White House. No one had asked for it; I consider it a matter of courtesy. I want the president to know in advance what I intend to say to him tomorrow. Who knows; a miracle is still possible.
A journalist calls: Am I aware of the secret meeting being held at this very moment, in my hotel, on a lower floor? Breger has brought together a group of Jewish leaders to discuss Bitburg and to exert pressure on them in the hope that they might put pressure on me.
There’s nothing surprising about this. Most of the Jewish leaders refuse to support me. They tell me of the importance of conciliating ethics and politics. Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey advises me to keep a low profile. Don’t make waves, he says, don’t rock the boat. Why be in conflict with the president? Other Jewish personalities also preach moderation, appeasement. After all, Bitburg is but one episode in the Jewish community’s relationship with the president. It is better to compromise. There will be other crises; we shall need the president’s goodwill. Amazingly, these are the same leaders who after the ceremony hasten to congratulate me and applaud my courage, adding: “You know that I was on your side, believe me, I was.”
The evening is hectic, interrupted by “urgent” calls. Insiders pass on the latest piece of information from “reliable sources,” or a last piece of advice. Elisha acts as switchboard operator, secretary, and spokesman. I am told that some reporters are spending the night downstairs, near the elevators, waiting for a scoop. It all reminds me of the old days, when I was a reporter.
Friday morning a limousine takes me to the studios of CBS, NBC, and ABC. It has been ages since I worked as a journalist, but today especially I would have preferred the role of interviewer to that of interviewee, perhaps because I know in advance the questions that will be put to me: Am I going to accept the medal from the president? (Yes—a refusal would mean offending the American people.) What am I going to say to him? (That he should change his mind.) What is my stand on collective guilt? (I don’t believe in it.)
At almost 10 o’clock we go to the White House. At the gate we run into the Israeli ambassador, my old friend Meir Rosenne, whom I have invited. Breger walks over; there is instant antagonism between us. Breger tells me I know his in-laws. To get into my good graces, he mentions the Talmud. Since I don’t react, he comes to the point: He feels my speech is somewhat long. In other words, he’d like me to shorten it. In other words, he’d like me to remove the critical passages.
I don’t react. In the antechamber I glimpse Rosenthal and Gelb. Marion joins us. The four of us retreat to a corner for a brief, last-minute consultation. I tell them of my hurried, unpleasant conversation with Breger and that I’m going to try to see the president before the ceremony. I want to try one last time to convince him. They’re skeptical, and so am I. I ask them what I should do if an attempt is made to cut my speech. “In that case,” Rosenthal says, “you don’t make a speech. You say thanks for the medal and you read your text in front of the cameras and the press, outside, on the lawn.”
Just then Breger comes running. Breathlessly he tells me that Donald Regan is waiting for me in his office. On our way there, Breger resumes the attack. I still don’t react. Regan greets me warmly. I ask him if he has read my speech. Yes, he has read it. No objections? Absolutely none. And the president? No objections. So it was only Breger who wanted to censor me. Why such zeal from a man whose roots, if not his emotional ties, are in Jewish Eastern Europe? Why would a Jew—an Orthodox Jew, to boot—behave so contemptibly? To win points from his superiors? His punishment follows almost instantly.
Regan escorts us into the Oval Office. With us is Peggy Tishman, an intelligent, elegant lady devoted to various Jewish causes who heads a cultural group that organizes an annual “Week of Jewish Heritage” event, which this year is under the president’s auspices. Why have the two ceremonies been linked? Probably an idea of Breger’s intended to minimize the importance accorded the event honoring me. Regan presents Peggy to the president, who politely says he knows who she is; then he presents me. The president interrupts him: “There’s no need; we know each other.”
Now comes Breger’s turn. Clearly, the president has no idea who he is. Regan has to explain to him that Breger deals with Jewish affairs at the White House. Poor Breger, who has been boasting everywhere about his personal relations with the president, who has been speaking on his behalf, supposedly expressing his wishes—I watch him turn pale: The president has treated him as one would a stranger.
After we sit down, Peggy and I speak of our concerns, of what is troubling us. I say: “Mr. President, it’s not too late. Imagine for a moment the following scenario: You deliver your remarks, you hand me the medal, I respond, you already know my response. When I finish speaking, you return to the microphone and simply say: ‘Very well, I shan’t go.’ Do that, Mr. President, and people everywhere, Jews and non-Jews, young and old, Republicans and Democrats alike, will applaud your decision. They will say: ‘The president of the United States doesn’t really need advisers; he decides.’”
“Too late,” he says to me with a grave, sad smile. He has just spoken to Chancellor Kohl on the telephone. The German leader has told him that if the visit to Bitburg is canceled now, it will be a “national catastrophe” for his country. The president is committed. Break his promise? Unthinkable. I feel sorry for him. I know he feels trapped, and that if it depended solely on him, he would decide differently. The threesome of Regan, Deaver, and Buchanan have in fact made the decision in his place.
It’s almost 11 o’clock. We take our leave of the president and walk in the direction of the Roosevelt Room. Squeezed together like passengers in a subway during rush hour, the guests are already there. There are about forty people, fifty at most. Vice President George Bush is there, as are the president’s chief advisers, the four congressmen who had introduced the bill proposing me for the medal, and the press pool. NBC is broadcasting the ceremony live, as is CNN. Elisha and Marion are seated in the first row. Just behind them, Sigmund, Abe Rosenthal and his wife, Shirley, Arthur Gelb and his wife, Barbara. The president enters at precisely 11 o’clock. The audience stands, waiting for him to sit down. As always, images from long ago flash through my mind. I see myself back home, in my little town. It is morning. I’m going to shul. It’s winter. It’s snowing. I am alone in the street. No—not quite. I hear footsteps. Someone is following me. To assault me? To protect me? How does one measure the road from Sighet to the White House? The president speaks well, of Jewish history, Judaism, the weight of heritage, ethics and culture, Jewish suffering—no one can read a text as he does. But he is tense, as I am, and, evidently, as is the audience. There is a sense of history unfolding.
The president covers me with praise. He appears to be attributing to me everything that is good in the world at this moment in time. Do I feel flattered? No, not really. Embarrassed? Not that either. It’s something else. There is this sense of the unreal I have whenever I listen to people talking about me. This time it’s even stronger, as though I were somewhere else, centuries ago. I hear my name. I get up and approach the president, who, with a smile, offers me the pen with which he has just signed the Jewish Heritage Proclamation. Then he hands me the gold medal. There is applause. Who is being applauded here? The Jewish child from Sighet? Out of the corner of my eye I see Marion, and I look at Elisha. I feel emotion gripping me. That’s how it is; it is enough for me to look at my son to feel a lump in my throat. Has he any idea of what he represents for his father? I had not planned this, but as I leave the podium I walk over to him and place the medal in his hands.
In fifteen or twenty minutes I try to cover the entire problem, my entire life. With the respect due the leader of the world, with the affection I feel for the man who has always shown me friendship and understanding for Jewish concerns, I feel it is important to tell him that “it is not a question of politics but of good and evil.” I stress that it seems to be the opinion of a majority of Americans that “that place is not your place, Mr. President. Your place is with the victims of the SS.” I say: “When the decision was taken to go there, you were unaware of the presence there of SS tombs. But now you know.” Therefore he should cancel. I tell him why. I dwell briefly on the immensity of the crimes committed by the SS. “I have seen them at work. I have known their victims. They were my friends. They were my parents….” I remind him that on another April 19, in 1943, the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto found themselves abandoned by the Allies; all the clandestine networks in occupied Europe received arms and money from London, Washington, even Moscow, all except the Jewish resistance fighters of the ghettos. I speak of their feelings of isolation, abandonment, of the hostility they had to face, and of the behavior of the free world’s leaders: Though they knew what was happening, they did little. In fact they did nothing to save the endangered Jewish children. A million Jewish children perished, I say; if I spent my whole life reciting their names I would die before I finished. “The Jewish children, Mr. President, I saw them, I saw them being thrown into the flames, alive.” Did I convince him? Television images show him overwhelmed, his face reflecting pain. Did I succeed in making him realize how deep a wound he was inflicting on countless victims, their families, their friends?
After the ceremony I am literally pulled out to the lawn, where I find myself facing the media. I never thought there were so many reporters accredited at the White House. Questions are flying from every corner. The coverage is live. How does one come up with ten original answers to ten journalists all asking the same thing?
My speech makes headlines everywhere. The New York Times, the Washington Post, most American newspapers reprint it in full. Newsweek magazine writes that my “impassioned plea was surely one of the remarkable moments in the annals of the White House.” Chris Wallace of NBC: “It was one of the most extraordinary scenes I’ve ever watched in my three years at the White House. Like a professor addressing a pupil, Elie Wiesel told the president that …”
Inside, champagne is being served. A marine officer hands me a sealed envelope; I withdraw to a corner to open it. It is a hastily scribbled note: “I’m in the office next door. I’m here on a mission, so I cannot show myself. I saw you on the screen just now; I’m proud of you.” I recognize the handwriting; it is that of Jacques Attali, at that time President Mitterrand’s special adviser.
The marine officer returns: Chief of Staff Donald Regan wishes me to join him in his office. To criticize me, to tell me of his displeasure? No: He congratulates me. And, interestingly, on the president’s behalf, he thanks me for my courteous and respectful tone. After all, I could have said anything I chose. I could have, with the whole country listening, flaunted my disappointment. We appreciate your moderation, Regan tells me. To show our appreciation we wish to propose the following: Come with us to Europe on Air Force One. Together you and the president have made history today, and that way you’ll continue what you started. I listen to him, thinking naively that I have prevailed. If I am invited to join them on the trip, it must mean that I have persuaded them. I instantly think of a problem: How am I going to come back? If I go to Europe with the president, how am I going to be back in time for my class at Boston University? After all, they won’t be giving me another plane, presidential or not, for the trip home. While these thoughts go through my mind, Regan keeps on describing our future exploits—a stop here, a reception there, the president will speak, I’ll respond…. The dialogue begun today will thus be continued for the greater glory of men of goodwill. Whenever he stops to take a breath, I ask: “And then?” Meaning: How am I going to get back to the United States? Regan, in full swing, can’t be interrupted. And then, he says, we’ll go here, there…. I insist: “And then?” “Then,” says Regan, “we’ll quickly dash to this place of damnation, Bitburg and….” This time I manage to interrupt him: “Mr. Regan, I don’t understand what you’re saying: I desperately don’t want the president to go there, and you want me to go there with him?”
(Regan later wrote in his memoirs that I had promised him beforehand not to make a speech when the medal was given me. My lawyers immediately demanded a retraction and an apology. Under the threat of legal action, he gave us both.)
• • •
During the weeks that still separate us from the fateful trip, people from throughout the country continue to exert pressure on the White House. Jesse Jackson comes to tell us that he is leading a delegation to Dachau, to see and to testify. Articles and letters from readers abound in the press.
To the end I cling to the conviction that somehow, at the last minute, the president will not proceed with the scheduled visit. I say so to all the reporters: He won’t go, you’ll see, he won’t go. I was mistaken. In the end, President Reagan did go to Bitburg. That day, I was in New Jersey for a conference. There was a television crew on-site, and I was asked to comment on the presidential visit live. I chose to dwell on the symbolic significance of his act: “With these few steps taken by the president, forty years of history have been wiped out.”
When the president and Kohl arrive in the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, Menachem Rosensaft (son of Yossel and Hadassah) and other children of survivors from this camp offer them a “welcome” that respectfully takes issue with the trip. The German police attempt to manhandle some of them, but, aware that the eyes of the world are on them, they decide to be more polite.
Bitburg is a turning point. Kohl knows it, and we know it. Relations with Germany are changed forever. The SS, former or current, will no longer be considered outside the law. Bitburg will remain a “response” to Nuremberg.
Never before and only rarely afterward did I receive so much mail, extraordinary not only by its volume but by its content. By standing up to the most powerful man in the world, the former refugee in me had in just a few minutes touched a thousand times more people than I had with all my previous writings and speeches.
One evening, dining at a restaurant with Marion and friends, I notice at the other end of the room an admiral in full uniform celebrating a birthday with his family. Suddenly he sees me. He gets up and walks over to our table, salutes me, and thunders: “I am Admiral ________. And I must tell you: Though the president is my commander in chief, it is you I am proud of.”
A news commentator later said to me: “In fact, Bitburg did do some good; it allowed you to teach America something about history and remembrance.”
Perhaps, but I could have done without it.
• • •
Just as sin begets sin, so shame begets shame.
The spectacle of the cemetery visit will be accompanied by presidential statements that many consider more offensive, more outrageous than the visit itself. To justify his decision Reagan declares that the SS buried in Bitburg were victims in the same way and to the same degree as the prisoners murdered in the concentration camps. The angry reaction of the survivors surprises no one. Never before had anyone dared push blasphemy as far as in this odious comparison. To thus link the SS to their victims transcended the limits of decency.
Hadassah Rosensaft, a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, whose candidacy I had presented to the commission and later to the Council, calls me in despair: “How could he, how dare he say what he said?” She tells me that she is now sorry for not having voted for the collective resignation of the Council. I try to calm her: “In two days we’ll have another session. If a new proposal to resign collectively comes before us, will you vote for it?” Her answer is instantaneous: “Absolutely. You may count on me.”
This session is as tense, as agitated as the last. The president’s ill-chosen words weigh on us. It is impossible to ignore them, brush them aside—or, as they say, “live with them.” What line of conduct are we to adopt? Sigmund renews his motion to resign as a group. I note with sadness that he and I are still in the minority. In the end, only Irving Bernstein, Bob McAfee Brown, Siggi Wilzig, and Norman Braman vote with us. Most of our colleagues—including the survivors—oppose the motion. I am the last to take the floor. I say:
There comes a moment in the lives of every one of us when we must justify our presence. For us, this is the moment. I cannot quite see how we can continue to serve a president who has just insulted the memory of our dead. Since we have been appointed by him, we have only one option: to signify our disagreement by resigning. Otherwise we lose the moral right to defend that memory. Our resignation will leave only a small trace, but a trace nevertheless: Two or three phrases in this document will recall that we were able to resist the temptations of cowardice.
I slowly look around the table. The uneasiness is tangible. Many eyes are cast down. The meeting is still in session when I am asked to step outside for an urgent call. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is on the phone. He seems beside himself with fury. He has learned that some of us are thinking of resigning. He warns me and asks me to warn the others on his behalf that if they resign, he will take steps, he will denounce them to the media, and then we shall learn what he’s capable of. I don’t argue. What’s the point?
That day, the day of the shameful vote against collective resignation, I decide that I have had enough. At the first opportunity I shall hand in my resignation to the president. Marion agrees. In fact it has been months, if not years, that she has been urging me to quit. Washington is taking too much of my time. I am forced to spend hours and hours on the telephone. And then things are not right with the Council: too many intrigues, too many jealousies; endless ideological and ethnic quarrels; requests from one side, recriminations from the other; Washington millionaires who are grumbling, philanthropists who have other priorities, money that’s not coming in fast enough. I had stated from the start that collecting money was not my forte. With Sigmund’s help, Miles is doing the best he can, but it is going slowly. We have hired professional fund-raisers, but their advice costs us more money than they bring in. I use my lecture tours to support Miles’s efforts. There is no lack of promises. I try to motivate some of the Hollywood moguls. Steven Spielberg sets the example. One of the moguls will install an electronic system in the future museum, another will take care of the video systems. But there is little progress. I no longer have any “influence” on nominations. The signals are anything but ambiguous: I am not to expect any cooperation from the administration.
Sigmund is against my quitting. So is Irving Bernstein. They urge me to wait—a few weeks, a few months. They say my resignation might be interpreted as an attempt to politicize the Council and its mission. In the meantime, Sonny and Bud have become more active, and they are clamoring for more authority, obviously at Sigmund’s expense. The feeling between the two factions is evidently one of animosity. I have to intervene more often, too often. How can I escape this atmosphere of arguments, of quarrels? I spend hours appeasing one side or the other—a waste of time. I don’t show it, but I’m losing patience, especially since I continue to have doubts about the very mission that has been entrusted to us. Who knows, perhaps the museum had been a mistake after all. And what if Jimmy Carter had been right? Jewish memory has survived without museums; it has survived thanks to writing, thanks to books, thanks to schools. In addition to the Day of Remembrance, we could have created archives and educational programs. All our problems, all our difficulties stem from the creation of the museum. Without it we would have been spared all these grandiose and expensive traps. Or we could have renovated the brick building that had been offered us. The Holocaust and luxury are incompatible. Now it’s too late; impossible to go back.
So we persevere. Sonny insists that we hire his friend Shaike Weinberg, former director of Beit Hatefutsot, the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, who is now living in Washington. I hesitate. I know that museum. Young Israelis like it for its technical novelties. Here we call them “gimmicks”—gadgets, tricks, special effects. I worry that while this approach may be useful for children in secondary schools, it might not be right for a museum dedicated to the Holocaust.
In Washington, the administrative team is going through its own series of crises. Monroe Freedman has decided to return to academia. I propose to the White House to replace him with Leon Jick, professor of contemporary Jewish history at Brandeis University. He is turned down. I suggest Sister Carol Rittner. Suggestion rejected. Finally, an active Jewish Republican, Seymour Siegel, who was himself succeeded by Richard Krieger, succeeds Monroe Freedman.
Sonny and Bud are getting impatient. They’re having difficulty getting along with Sigmund, but toward Krieger they soon become downright aggressive. He refuses to be manipulated, which, in turn, exasperates them. As he is responsible for the implementation of the Council’s decisions, he insists on checking all expenses. Sonny has fits of anger. He wants nothing to do with either Sigmund or Krieger. He acknowledges my authority but not theirs. In fact, he would like to replace Sigmund as chair of the committee handling the construction of the museum. I am against it: I don’t wish to humiliate a survivor and a friend. Thereafter, Sonny turns openly hostile. Bud, of course, takes his side. In a way I understand them: Building is their business. Why do we get involved with it? If only we would leave him alone—that’s all Sonny asks. What does this museum mean to him? Just another building project? Nothing but a pile of bricks and cash? I refuse to believe that.
On July 2, 1986, I go to Washington one more time, hoping to restore peace between the adversaries. My notes from that day reflect my mood:
I cannot believe what I read and hear. What is happening to them? Why such antagonism? Why such hostility and suspicion? I once thought that our team would be inspired by the grandeur of its mission; I thought we would be happy working together, that the time between our meetings would seem long…. Instead, what do I see? Absurd rivalries, petty intrigues….
Once more I try to convince them. But peace lasts only until the next argument—especially since Sonny now has a new reason for being unhappy. The architectural design that had been approved in my absence has been demolished by an article in the Washington Post. We shall have to find a new architect. Arthur Rosenblat, a fine-arts specialist brought in by Sonny, suggests James Ingo Freed, a noted associate of I. M. Pei. I meet with Rosenblat and Freed separately. Both impress me favorably. But I wonder why, though both are Jewish, neither has ever felt the need to visit Israel. And what concerns me even more: Freed confesses to me that even though he’s a refugee from Germany, he has never been interested in the Holocaust. He has repressed his past. Should we hold this against him? I don’t think so; I like him and his work. I spend many hours with Freed, who wants me to share with him my vision for the museum. He listens silently. Occasionally he asks a question. Then another. He stays with me until he is sure he understands. I like his approach. I consult I. M. Pei. He confirms that Freed is excellent. I decide to hire him. I write the Council: “… By its magnitude, the Holocaust defies language and art: and yet one and the other are necessary to tell the history that must be told. In James Freed we have found an architect capable of mastering this unique challenge….”
Sonny and Bud favor his candidacy but remain on the offensive about everything else. Sonny has the support of his friend in Congress. Through his wife, an influential member of the Republican party, Bud has access to the White House. They are determined to reduce Sigmund’s influence. To my great surprise and chagrin, Miles Lerman rallies to their support. Not only has he become their defender, but their accomplice as well. He comes to see me to “confide” that if Sigmund is not removed from the museum committee, Bud and Sonny may well withdraw from the project. My instinct tells me this is so. In fact, I shall have proof of it a few days later. Bud comes to see me at home. After the usual banter, he comes to the point, an ultimatum: If I keep Sigmund, Sonny and he will call it quits.
Though Sigmund is unhappy when I tell him of the conversation, he agrees, though reluctantly, to give in. But I am not ready. There is another reason besides loyalty. Again, the same one—I refuse to humiliate anyone, especially a friend.
To Miles, who tries to overcome my resistance in the name of a ruthless pragmatism—which I understand but reject—I respond that I cannot sanction publicly humiliating a man as devoted as Sigmund. “Moreover,” I tell Miles, “he is your best friend.” He replies that if I don’t submit to their ultimatum—he doesn’t use this word, but the sense is there—it means the end of the project. And, he insists, the project is more important than any individual.
This whole business upsets me terribly. What about friendship? How does one sacrifice a close friend? It was Sigmund who gave him his first chance and supported him inside the Council. He would not have been nominated if Sigmund hadn’t begged me to do it. And then hadn’t he learned yet that one human being is more important than all of man’s endeavors?
I feel exhausted and dangerously close to a red line that I am not ready to cross. On the one hand, I refuse to hurt a friend; on the other, I don’t want to harm a project that at this point has little chance of succeeding without Sonny and Bud. There is only one solution. Resign. I shall announce my resignation at the beginning of December, at the regular Council meeting.
En route for Washington one December evening, Sigmund and I stop off in New Jersey, where I am to give a lecture at a local university. Afterward, we have dinner with Sam Halperin, a survivor and a successful businessman, in the company of his associates. I don’t tell them of my decision; Sigmund and Marion are the only ones who know. Siggi Wilzig, bubbling over with energy, promises me that things would work better without Sonny and Bud. He guarantees that twenty-four hours after their resignation a new builder will put himself at our disposal. “I want to speak to him,” I say. He immediately puts me in contact with a famous builder, Bill Zeckendorf, who confirms what Wilzig has said. Only I am tired of all the promises of all these people, the ones I know and the ones I don’t. Whom can I trust? Nevertheless I try one more time. I say to Halperin: “You are in real estate and construction; why don’t you take over the project?” He answers that he cannot, that the moment is not right; he’s too busy with too many things.
That settles it. My absolutely final effort has failed. The next day I hand in my resignation to the White House. Everyone is astounded. Donald Regan’s reaction is: “What? You’re resigning? But the president has just reappointed you for another five years! Is it something we did?” He is worried about possible political consequences. I reassure him: “It has nothing to do with you.” My reasons are personal. This is not quite true, but almost. Since the Bitburg affair I have not felt right. How can I “serve” under a president who “objectively” (using Marxist terminology; once is not a habit) has whitewashed the SS by comparing them to their victims? But that is not the only reason.
Back from the White House, I know that word has leaked out. Sigmund is sad, but there is nothing he can say to make me go back on my decision. Marion is happy; Marian Craig, my loyal assistant, is unhappy. Miles suggests that I take a year’s leave. I shrug my shoulders. Yitz Greenberg and Alfred Gottschalk, president of Hebrew Union College, beg me not to abandon the project. I tell them that it’s too late. Technically that is not true: A simple call to Regan and everything could be as before. But that’s just it—I don’t want things as they were before.
The Council meeting is pathetic. There is a series of sentimental appeals imploring me not to go. With the exception of Bud and Sonny, almost all the members ask to speak. I would be too embarrassed to repeat what was said—yes, embarrassed, not flattered. They question me, plead with me, make me promises. Some use emotional arguments, others prefer logic. They are not unlike children fearful of becoming orphans.
As always, I listen to them attentively, just like at the university, where from the start I have always tried to set an example. I owe it to my students and to my colleagues not to let myself be distracted. I concentrate on what each one has to say. My personal opinion, or any comment I have, is given only at the end.
I look out over the assembled Council members with a mixed feeling of accomplishment and failure. All things considered, we did some good work. Sworn to preserve memory, we had all been resolute in fighting defamation and oblivion. We reached certain goals, fought certain battles, and obtained victories of which we can be proud. Not many. So what? I refuse to judge my colleagues, those who fell short. We all have our own way of doing what we consider to be our duty.
As far as I am concerned, I consider it my duty to relinquish the reins. I acknowledge my shortcomings: I am a poor manager, a bad administrator. I have problems giving orders, and I am incapable of hurting anyone, even in the name of supposedly sacred aims. I don’t like firing people. I abhor reprimanding, punishing. I would rather write, study, and teach than “preside.” In my letter to President Reagan, which I read to the plenary session, I suggest that since the project has now entered the practical, concrete phase, my successor ought to have the qualities required of a C.E.O., someone able to administer, organize, and navigate through budgetary labyrinths.
A few weeks later the White House appoints Bud Meyerhoff. Together with his friend Sonny Abramson, he will monitor the work of the Council. They bring back Berenbaum and Weinberg, take revenge on Sigmund (who will no longer be a member of the executive committee and will not even be reappointed as a member of the Council), and dismiss Richard Krieger and then Professor Eli Pfefferkorn—in short, all those who were close and devoted to me are removed.
From that time on, whenever a survivor comes to see me to tell me about what is going on in Washington during the meetings and behind the scenes, I stop him or her; I would rather not know. With my resignation I gave up the right to criticize. I want my successors to do their work without criticism from me. Once the project is realized and the museum is built, I’ll speak my mind—not before.
What really hurt and disappointed me? That when Sigmund was excluded from the executive committee, of which he had been a part since the beginning, not one survivor rallied to his support. A comrade, a colleague had been humiliated, and they all looked away. The same was true for Pfefferkorn. No one spoke up to save the job of this Holocaust survivor.
How can these people labor for remembrance of the past when in the present they flout the dignity of living people? But then, perhaps, I expect too much of them. They are human, hence capable of anything. Just like everyone else.
This said, the new team deserves praise. Miles and Bud excel in the art of collecting funds. People who refused to help earlier now show themselves more generous. The New Jersey group’s gift comes to several million dollars. The project is taking shape. Hundreds of specialists are at work.
• • •
January 1993: I visit the essential part of the museum, and my first impression of the building itself is positive. But paradoxically, the museum, by trying to say everything, does not say enough. Yes, there are the ghettos, the yellow stars, the terrified men, the starving children, the corpses in the street, the cruelty of the torturers, the misery of the victims. You enter through the cattle car imported from Poland. You walk on the cobblestones of the Warsaw Ghetto. “Identity cards” are distributed at the entrance. These things are designed to make things look authentic, to give the visitor the impression, if not the feeling, that he or she is there. Upon leaving, the visitor will be able to say: “Now I know everything; I understand.” Later he or she will say: “I was there.” I had a different vision of the museum. I should have liked the visitor to leave saying: “Now I know how little I know.”
And then: There is this huge bas-relief that shows—yes, shows—the process of annihilation. The Polish sculptor has depicted the inmates upon arrival, upon assembling at the ramp. He “shows” the selection, the march to the “showers;” he “shows” the members of the Sonderkommandos pushing the victims into the antechamber to undress and then into the gas chamber; then you “see” the corpses being “treated” by the “dentists” before being sent to the furnaces. You “see” it all. You “see” too much.
That is how it is: By trying to illustrate too much, reveal too much by contrived means, it all becomes too facile.
The men and women who have gone through concentration camps and try to speak of it know the boundaries of language. They speak in order to tell us that no words can possibly communicate the unspeakable. In trying to show everything, you conceal the essential. It is not by “seeing” the ramp in Birkenau that the visitor will feel what those newly arrived Jews felt as they moved toward the selection. In this case the saying “less is more” is apt.
Also, though the building is powerful, you become aware of the magnitude of the ambition and the means expended. As though it had been decided that this museum had to be “the best, the greatest in the world.” All these computers, all these videos, all these ultramodern technical and electronic effects, all those buttons to press, all those photographs accumulated to shock you, make you weep. It is an enormous enterprise worthy of our capital. James Freed has produced an excellent piece of work. If there is fault, it lies with those who conceived and shaped its content.
Publicly I have said nothing until now, but in truth I would have preferred a more sober, more humble edifice, one that would suggest the unspoken, the silence, the secret. I think of a talmudic saying: The children of Israel deserved to be delivered from Egypt because they had safeguarded their mystery. Here, the sense of mystery is missing.
And yet…. Upon revisiting the museum sometime later, I change my mind to some degree. It is undeniably impressive. The first section, which covers the rise of Nazism in Hitler’s Germany, is excellent. The maps, the statistics, the photographs are magnificent. The same is true for the way the lack of any “response” from the Allies and the neutral countries is presented. The builders’ devotion is so evident that I silence any impulse to criticize. In fact I often praise the museum in public.
I take part in the official opening, together with Presidents Bill Clinton and Chaim Herzog, on April 19, 1993. Once again, it is that symbolic date: the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
It is raining that day and it is cold. I am soaked, and so is my text. I had worked on it until three in the morning and now it is illegible. I have no choice but to improvise. I evoke the genesis of the project under President Carter, the deep reasons that impelled me to give it form with the words: “For the dead and the living—we must bear witness.” I tell the story of a woman in her kitchen, preparing for Passover in 1943, discussing the news from Warsaw. She wonders: “Why did the young Jews there think it necessary to rebel? Couldn’t they have waited quietly for the end of the war?” My speech ends with this small sentence: “That woman was my mother….”
Three weeks before the opening, Bud Meyerhoff, my successor as chairman of the Council, is suddenly stripped of his functions. Why? There are bizarre rumors. Some say that, together with his deputy, William Loewenberg, he refused to invite Chaim Herzog to speak at the inauguration.
Now and then, members of Congress and members of the Jewish community call, asking me to return to my old post, which Miles has been coveting for a long time. Sigmund is for it, but Marion is dead set against it. Friends point out that now that the museum exists, I would no longer be burdened by administrative tasks. I refuse. Having been gone for almost seven years, I don’t feel I should take up the reins again. Though the idea of launching a project never fails to seduce me, once a project is realized I tend to lose interest.
Besides, the museum does very well without me. The public is lining up outside, people from all over the world, Jews and Christians, young and old—altogether more than two million visitors in a year. It is impossible to get tickets without waiting days, weeks.
And, more important, those who have seen the exhibition leave overwhelmed, full of enthusiasm and admiration. It seems the museum is playing a pedagogical role of the first order. I help as much as I can. After all, this museum is not meant for people such as myself who know and who remember, but for the others, the multitude who know nothing and for whom the Holocaust is not unlike all the other episodes of the war. I am pleased to see that so many people have finally become interested in learning the dark history of the twentieth century. After all, that was the purpose of all my work on this project and that of my fellow survivors. Yes, I am grateful for having been allowed to contribute. And I thank the American people and all those who have helped.
In general, things have changed on the leadership level. Twenty-two years ago, I appointed Yitz Greenberg as Director of the President’s Commission. Now he is the Council Chairman, Miles’ immediate successor. As a teacher and Rabbi he is sensitive to Holocaust-related matters, and this is a good omen for the future. My apprehensions seem unfounded.
Having said this, I repeat: For my generation, nothing is completed. Just like knowledge, this achievement is tinged with anxiety. I cannot help but think: “All this is good and well. And yet….”
Indeed, and yet.