All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (29 page)

The
Altalena
arrived off the coast of Israel at Kfar Vitkin, but, strangely, was denied permission to drop anchor unless all of its cargo was handed over to Tsahal. The Irgun commander decided to take the ship to Tel Aviv. There, on Ben-Gurion’s orders, the Palmach greeted it with artillery fire, sinking it. The operation was commanded by high-ranking officers whose names would later shine in the Tsahal firmament: the future general and minister Moshe Dayan; future archaeologist, general, and minister Yigal Yadin; future minister of foreign affairs Yigal Alon; and a young officer as staunch as he was shy, the future chief of staff, minister of defense, and prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Gurion was stubborn. His directives spoke of an “enemy” that had to be liquidated at all costs. He demanded unconditional surrender, seeking to humiliate as much as to defeat. Respected rabbis and political leaders tried to convince him that mediation was not only desirable but possible. In vain. There would be no mercy for the “enemy.” Anglo-American volunteers refused to open fire on the ship. “We didn’t come here to kill Jews,” they said. Some officers (among them Dayan’s aide) took a similar position. But these acts of conscience were exceptional. For the Irgun, this battle was lost in advance. There was talk of twenty victims, nearly all of them camp survivors. Was it true that some Palmach officers drank to their victory? Begin, in tears, issued an appeal to his troops: “No vengeance, no civil war, no fratricidal struggle!”

During a stormy Knesset debate Ben-Gurion made a speech that to this day I find hard to comprehend, let alone forgive. Justifying his order, he declared: “When the Third Temple is rebuilt, the cannon
that fired on the
Altalena
will have a place of honor.” I was angry at Ben-Gurion. Later—much later—I came to feel lasting admiration for him and for his political vision (in spite of the
Altalena)
.

In its issue devoted to the event,
Zion in Kamf
published a polemical article brimming with prophetic indignation by Israel’s leading editorialist, Dr. Azriel Carlebach (translated from
Maariv
by a rabbi, Eliézer Halberstam, a member of the Irgun and scion of a prominent Hasidic dynasty). Inspired by this text, entitled “The Sacred Cannon,” and deeply moved by the event itself, I wrote a piece that appeared under the byline Ben Shlomo. In it I recounted the tragedy of two brothers belonging to opposing camps. The Irgun fighter becomes the victim of his brother, a Palmach soldier.

Thinking back on it now, I find it curious that my first published article dealt with an evil that has always afflicted my people’s history. Was it merely an accident that Cain and Abel, the first two brothers of the Bible, were murderer and victim, and that the children of our patriarchs quarreled incessantly? There was scarcely a generation not cast into turmoil by some internal Jewish schism, scarcely a century not marked by some Jewish ideological conflict, by various splits and sunderings: Isaac against Ishmael, Jacob against Esau, Judah against Israel, the Pharisees against the Sadducees, Maskilim against Hasidim, Bundists against Zionists, Communists against everyone else. What about the Jewish solidarity so praised in our literature and decried by enemy propaganda?

Yet I believed in it. I wanted to believe in it. In my eyes, to be a Jew was to belong to the Jewish community in the broadest and most immediate sense. It was to feel abused whenever a Jew, any Jew anywhere, was humiliated. It was to react, to protest, whenever a Jew, even an unknown Jew in some distant land, was attacked for the simple reason that he was a Jew.

It never occurred to me that a Jew might be capable of spilling Jewish blood, of waging war on other Jews, and surely not on Jews who refused to fight back. The renegades of the Middle Ages were exceptions, as were the kapos during the war. In both cases the perpetrators were marginal figures lacking all authority. But here were good Jews—indeed, Jewish soldiers, even Jewish heroes—firing on their brothers, survivors of hell who had come to aid them, to join their cause, to fight alongside them, to participate in their marvelous adventure.

I couldn’t accept it. I told myself it wasn’t true even as I read the
articles and dispatches and examined the photographs. It couldn’t be true. The prime minister of the newly risen Jewish state had not issued such orders. The officers of the Palmach had not carried them out. They had not denied the wounded medical care. The soldiers had not fired upon camp survivors and former partisans floundering in the sea. The dead were not dead.

Like a disillusioned lover, I sought in vain for some reasonable explanation. The Irgun people had one: Ben-Gurion has always hated what we are and what we stand for. They cited his official program during what was called “the season,” when his opponents were persecuted and hunted. To combat the Irgun all those suspected of membership were to be fired and refused aid and shelter. Their threats were to be resisted, if necessary by collaborating with the British police. At the time the main enemy of the Jewish establishment in Palestine was not the British occupier but the Irgun fighter. That’s how it was, I was told. The leopard does not change his spots, nor the Haganah its tactics.

I could not accept this portrait of Ben-Gurion. A great Zionist, a Jewish idealist like him, could not be a monster. But I would not be seen again at the recruitment office at Avenue de la Grande Armée. I bore a secret wound whose scar would be a long time healing. It was a case of loyalty not so much to the Irgun as to my adolescence. In any event, there was no Irgun in Israel anymore, no Lehi either. Both were dissolved. But they still functioned in the Diaspora, carrying on activities that today would be considered public relations.

I decided to visit Bea again. She was still waiting for her visa, and I had to go through the usual procedure: long lines at the police station, requests for visas, irritating, humiliating interrogations, lifesaving stamps.

Bea’s camp was gradually emptying. Many people left for Israel, others for more distant lands. The Germans seemed happy to be rid of these Jews. Ben Shlomo—yours truly—wrote an article on the subject, entitled “Victors and Vanquished,” which raised the question: Even if the Germans are vanquished, are we the victors?

I was now writing a lot, mostly for the trash can. Joseph didn’t want me to deal with politics anymore, and I too had had enough of issues that divided the Jewish people. To support one side while criticizing another, to defend one group while condemning another, was not at all to my taste. I was more interested in literature and philosophy.
I wrote a long study on Spinoza and another on Muhammad and the Koran. Neither, of course, had anything to do with the Irgun or current events, and one of our “superiors” was kind enough to call attention to that fact. What was the renegade of Amsterdam doing in a paper in which “renegade” meant Ben-Gurion? Fortunately, Joseph backed me up. He hoped to broaden our readership by appealing to intellectuals. We were no longer an underground publication—if indeed we ever had been—and, like any self-respecting newspaper, we could no longer be content with tendentious news reports and polemics. Thus reassured, I prepared several cultural articles and background pieces for the months to come. But in January 1949, shortly after the
Altalena
catastrophe, the Irgun offices in Europe shut down. Élie Farshtei and his lieutenants, Joseph among them, were recalled to Israel. I received no orders or aid from anyone. “Why don’t you come with us?” Joseph asked. I promised to think about it.

Now unemployed again, I turned back to my studies with renewed vigor, reading everything I could get my hands on. I finally discovered modern French literature: Malraux’s
La Condition humaine
, Mauriac’s
Le Baiser des lépreux
, Roger Martin du Gard’s
Jean Barois
, and of course the existentialists. I devoured novels and memoirs about the Resistance. There were days when I was so absorbed in my reading that I never left my room. I had nothing to seek in the desert.

Shlomo Friedrich came to my rescue with a few translating and editing jobs that allowed me to pay my rent, but my situation remained precarious. The OSE had long since suspended its subsidies. Sometimes I couldn’t afford to eat. I thought about going back to Porte de Saint-Cloud to smile at the salesgirl in the cheese shop, but the prospect embarrassed me. I wondered how long I would keep feeling sorry for myself. I felt uprooted and out of place. I no longer belonged to Europe. Bea had finally left for Canada. Shushani had disappeared, probably for good. Hilda and her husband were barely getting by. I often went to their home in the evening to baby-sit for their son Sidney, whose crib took up the whole “living room.” They wanted to go into business, but in the meantime they had just enough to live on. Sometimes I went back to Versailles for a decent Shabbat dinner, but Our Place had changed completely. Only Hanna hadn’t changed. She was as distant and sarcastic as ever. So be it. I had other worries. Nicolas sent me a long letter urging me to join him. Israel Adler sent me a one-word message: Come. The weeks passed quickly, and soon it was Passover, springtime. Suppose I went to Israel for the
summer? I discussed it with Georges, Hildas brother-in-law, who held an important post in the Amaury press group. He thought it was a good idea and said he would arrange to get me a press card. The war in Israel was over, but there was still the armistice, which was not the same thing as peace. It would be the fulfillment of my dream: at last I would be a war correspondent. But how would I report on a war without war? Well, I would find plenty of other subjects, like the life of the new immigrants, and Israel as a land of refuge for all the sons and daughters of the Diaspora, Israel, the beginning of redemption. There was no way to tell how long I would stay. The important thing was to be there.

To make sure that my plan could work in practice, I went to the Jewish Agency and met with a deputy director who was enthusiastic. “By all means,” she said. “A good sentimental, romantic story is always useful for aliyah. The doors of the country are open, but too few Jews are entering.”

The mother of Méno Horowitz, a Versailles comrade who was studying agronomy, worked with me. We prepared a plan. In May or June I would join a group of immigrants and make the trip with them, from the train station in Lyons to Haifa. After that we would see. The group happened to include a few Irgun veterans, but they were leaving Europe for good, and I was ashamed to admit that I was less idealistic and above all less courageous than they. Then there was the detail of what I would live on in Israel. Surely the paper would employ me only on a free-lance basis. Still, my wallet was not quite empty: a few thousand francs (my life’s savings) plus one pound sterling, a gift from Freddo.

Arriving at the station carrying a suitcase stuffed with my tefillin, a few articles of clothing, books, and my unfinished manuscript on asceticism, I ran into my friends Baruch and Louis. The former adored Jack London’s novels, the latter fine food. Everyone was in excellent spirits. The elated young
olim
, or immigrants, sang and drank, alert and open to camaraderie as never before. They talked laughingly of their amorous conquests, while I dreamed of Hanna and Niny. I never said goodbye to either of them. In Niny’s case I had a good reason: She was on a training program in the United States. “What about you?” someone asked in the dark of night. “Come on, what’s with the secrecy? Some woman must have made you happy. Or miserable.” I pretended to be asleep. My buddies felt good. I should have, too, but I was unable to share in their joy. I pictured myself at the station in Sighet,
waiting for my dead father, gripped with anguish, wondering whether the train would come. At last it did. The locomotive gave three long whistles, but no one opened the doors. The train was empty.

Trucks were waiting at the station in Marseilles to take us to the transit camp. As we drove through a tunnel, Baruch asked me to close my eyes. I did. “Now open them,” he said. When I obeyed, the sight of the sea took my breath away. Coming from the mountains as I did, I was stunned by its immensity and mysterious power. My heart beat faster, as though I were on my way to a lovers’ rendezvous. I would never escape its grip.

Our first stopover was a lodging house near Bandol. There was an atmosphere of permanent excitement. Families were reunited; couples formed, fell in love, and promised each other eternal bliss. I took notes. People gathered in groups according to political affinity and spun countless projects and plans. I scribbled. That’s what I was there for. Some went into town to shop or have fun. To complete my image as a great reporter I bought myself a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses.

Feverish discussions were held in the shadow of every barracks. Would we all be housed together when we got
there?
How were we going to make a living? Was military service tough? “Sure it’s tough,” said a stocky man with lively features, “but consider this: Once I was a partisan, an underground fighter hiding in the woods like a hunted animal, not daring to come out except after dark, and now I’ll proudly wear the uniform of the Israeli army.” His companion, a stooped man with pinched lips, disagreed: “Yes, a very pretty picture, but I’ve had enough fighting for one lifetime, spent enough nights standing guard, faced death too often. I wouldn’t mind a little peace and quiet.” Voices were raised in agreement and disagreement. Some feared the armistice would drag on, others that it would be broken, but everyone was concerned about it.

At night I sat on my cot, listened to conversations, and jotted down notes. It must be a way to relieve tension—when men gather among themselves, invariably someone tells a locker-room story. Everyone laughs, and then someone tries to top him, going for bigger laughs. But I didn’t feel like laughing. I thought about all the girls in Versailles and all the unknown women in trains who didn’t know how much I loved them, and about all the sins I lacked the courage to commit.

Eventually, the conversation died down, the final murmurs eliciting no more than weary sighs. The barracks dozed off. It was late,
but I couldn’t sleep. I can’t imagine why, but it seemed like a good time to draw a kind of balance sheet. I pictured myself back home, listening to my father wonder aloud whether we should leave everything behind and set out for Eretz Israel. I heard him whisper, “Do I have the strength to start all over again at my age?” How many fathers in how many towns felt that same fear? And then there was our lack of imagination. We had entrusted our future to God, never suspecting that the enemy had already taken possession of it. How could my father and all the Jews of Europe have been so naïve and blind? Nothing could have prevented them from emigrating to Palestine fifty years or even thirty years before. Back then you didn’t need visas or travel permits. What bound us to lands so consistently thirsting for Jewish blood? I thought about all the people of my town and of my life who could not be with me on my journey.