And the Sea Is Never Full (43 page)

We see nothing of Uman, a small hamlet where no Jews live anymore. We’ve come to tell the late Master of our love for his teaching, to meditate and pray on his grave. We plead for his intercession—Rebbe Nahman had promised his followers, “Whosoever will recite psalms on my grave—in the prescribed order—I will help him.”

By now, night has fallen. The wind is determined to blow out the candles we’re holding to shed light on our psalters. The flames resist. Our shadows dance on the wall behind the grave. In the street a few villagers seem scarcely surprised by our presence. They’re accustomed to seeing Bratzlav Hasidim, especially around Rosh Hashana. Such was the Master’s wish: to attract to Uman as many followers as possible for the High Holidays. And they came. Even during the Stalin era they crossed the frontier illegally to be with the Rebbe, who, before dying, had promised his disciples that his flame would continue to shine until the coming of the Messiah. Some of the disciples were arrested, thrown into prison.

Rabbi Koenig of Safed, son of the famous Rebbe Gedalia, recites the psalms. We repeat them after him. There is an air of mystery to our gathering around this grave, for, in general, there is no cult of the dead in Judaism. And yet…. There comes a moment when Rebbe Nahman’s followers stretch out on the tomb of their Master, dead for more than two centuries. And I too stretch out beside them. And deep down I too address my secret requests to Rebbe Nahman.

Then a Hasid starts chanting a Bratzlav melody, and we all join in, repeating the words drawn from a psalm of King David. We repeat
them fervently, our eyes closed, our minds aflame. And we start dancing around the tombstone. It’s getting late; all the better—one prays better at night. It’s getting cold; never mind. We dance the way Hasidim dance, hand in hand, flinging our arms from front to back and our heads up and down. At first we dance slowly, then faster and faster, our eyes shut, our hearts open, our souls seared by a burning wound; we dance as though we were being drawn to the heights of those prayers that go up all the way to the seventh heaven; we dance like madmen whose beings stretch out toward
the
Being, whose fire wills itself to become incandescent. No one will be able to stop us, no power will be able to muzzle us; we sing as we weep, we weep as we sing, and from afar, very far, I believe I’m hearing a strange and yet uncannily familiar voice, and it is telling very beautiful but extremely disquieting stories, in which princes and beggars meet in enchanted woods and inflict harm on one another in order to better fight evil and sadness. Now and then, exhausted and out of breath, one of us tries to stop the dance or at least to slow its rhythm, but then another begins to dance with new vigor. And we go on.

We take our leave of Rebbe Nahman with regret. I knew I loved him, but I only now realize just how deep my attachment is. Though I am a Hasid of Wizhnitz, I had claimed Bratzlav as my own, never acknowledging how profoundly I was tied to him.

In the bus we are silent. The young Rabbi Gabbai passes around almonds and dates brought from Safed. To me they have a special taste. I think of Rebbe Nahman and of his adventurous journey to the Holy Land. Hardly had he set foot there when he felt the need to tear himself away and go back home.

I, too, believe that a part of me has remained in Uman.

Another memorable journey followed, though of a different order. Invited by Moses Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Romania, I have come to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the murderous pogrom at Iasi that occurred in June 1941. It seems the Romanian government considers this visit important. The Romanians are obviously trying to please the foreign visitors. I am housed in one of the official—and luxurious—residences of the president. The permanent ambassador of Romania to the U.N., Aurel Munteanu, escorts us in all our travels. I tell him how outraged I am by the renewal of anti-Semitism, however traditional it may be, in his country. Two widely circulated weeklies
are fomenting hatred against the fifteen thousand Jews, most of them elderly, who still live in Romania, and against world Jewry, which they accuse of every imaginable and unimaginable sin. Every cliché is used. Among other things, the anti-Semitic propagandists dare to write, without fear of ridicule, that Israel’s goal is to colonize Romania. Still, it’s not the stupidity of the anti-Semites that embarrasses me; I’m used to it. It’s the passivity of those who allow it to flourish, those who don’t oppose it, who don’t chase the liars from the public arena, who don’t say to them that no honest person will believe their senseless lies, that no reasonable person will believe that the Jews have established concentration camps in Romania in order to practice genocide. Nevertheless this is what local anti-Semites are saying and repeating with impunity.

I am received in private audience by President Iliescu and his prime minister, Petru Roman, who are soliciting my help in Washington, especially in economic affairs. I answer that I cannot assist a regime that tolerates hatred. I cite the minute of silence that their Senate has observed in memory of the Fascist dictator Antonescu, the virulent anti-Semitic campaign of a substantial segment of their press, the xenophobic statements of certain officials…. “But what about the starving children,” Roman interjects, “are you forgetting them? Even if the grown-ups are guilty, why punish the children?” My answer: “Don’t make us responsible for their hardships; it is
you
who bear the responsibility! Silence the hatred in your country, and the whole world will come to their aid and yours.”

Iliescu seems sincere. He initiates proceedings to bring to justice the editors and writers of the anti-Semitic weeklies. He also invites me to accompany him to Sighet, so that I may show him my birthplace, and then to Rezavlia, the village near Sighet where he was born. Much later, I read in the press that the Romanian government has decided to turn my house into a museum. The people who live there are worried about what will happen to them. I promise them that as long as they are not offered other decent lodgings, they can stay on in their home—or rather in mine.

With Elisha and his cousin Steve, I see Iliescu again, around the end of July 1995. The situation is unchanged. The anti-Semitic papers are still spreading their poison, while Antonescu’s memory is more and more widely revered. I try to make Iliescu understand that he must oppose this vigorously, that it is important for the reputation of
his country, that his honor is at stake. But he is afraid of upsetting his citizenry: Too many people view Antonescu as the only leader who fought against the Soviets. I rejoin that Hitler, too, was anti-Soviet. Iliescu promises to find an occasion to speak out and to give the people his own low opinion of Antonescu, who was Hitler’s ally during the war. Will he find the necessary self-confidence and strength? I hope so, for I believe he is sincere.

Vienna, 1992: a happening. Some sixty or seventy thousand young Austrians have converged on the Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square) to demonstrate against the renascent fascism in their country. Singers and rock musicians, among the most famous, take up the major part of the program. I would not have believed that I would ever willingly attend, let alone participate in, this kind of event, whose very noise would normally make me flee.

Some time earlier I had received a letter from the Austrian minister of culture and education offering to organize an “Elie Wiesel Day,” in the course of which my books would be discussed, after having been studied in all the schools. My response had been: “Thanks for the kind invitation; I accept. I shall come to Vienna the day after Kurt Waldheim leaves.” The infamous past of the former secretary-general of the U.N. is well known. Declared persona non grata in the United States, he has, for all practical purposes, been banned by the leaders of most civilized countries, the notable exceptions being certain Arab leaders, Helmut Kohl, and, sadly, Pope John Paul II, who all visited or received him.

But now Austria has elected a new president, and I feel free to come and meet the youth of Vienna.

The press is largely favorable to the demonstration. Austria clearly wants to close the regrettable parenthesis opened by Waldheim. But to do so it must reject the Fascist-leaning nationalism of Jorg Haider, who a year earlier had declared that there were some positive aspects to the Third Reich’s policies, notably with respect to employment. A demagogic politician, he seems to be a darling of the media. Evidently the Austrians, who have never confronted their Nazi past, easily identified with Haider’s xenophobic program. The polls are troubling; the number of anti-Semites in Austria is climbing. A well-known commentator publishes in the
Kronenblatt
, a tabloid with a large circulation, an article denying the gas chambers. I’m told that I’m the target of death threats. The demons are not all gone. For all
these reasons Austrian democrats wish to strike a major blow “for Austria.” For them this demonstration presents the ideal occasion.

As for the place, it is symbolic: It was here, in this immense square, that half a million Austrians gathered in 1938, the day after the Anschluss, to salute Adolf Hitler as their beloved Führer. Indeed, I’m told proudly, I shall deliver my speech from the very balcony from which he had harangued the ecstatic crowd. It is a tempting prospect, I admit. It seduces me.

Though Marion was just a little girl at the time, she remembers hearing the speech over the radio, as she remembers the change in her neighbors. She lived through the very horror the youth of Vienna are demonstrating against today. Since Hitler, no one had been permitted to speak from that balcony. Strange, but I sense his evil shadow; I feel it enveloping this square, this city, this country. But these young people united in their quest for change merit our setting aside our anger. I have written a text. I decide not to read it. I choose to improvise.

An incitement to rebellion? No. An appeal to my listeners to repudiate their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. Intervention in a country’s internal affairs? Never mind. Austria has lived equivocally and hypocritically too long. It must shake itself. I have confidence in its youth. They will do what must be done.

Chronicle of a Deposition

S
PRING 1987
. Why would I testify at the Klaus Barbie trial? I never even met Barbie. At the time he was terrorizing and torturing his victims in Lyon, I was a long way from France: first in Hungary, then in Auschwitz. And even though I am concerned with this trial, follow it passionately, and consider it of paramount symbolic importance, I prefer keeping up with it through the media—as an observer, not as a witness.

These are the arguments I offer to attorney Alain Jakubowicz, who on behalf of the Jewish community of Lyon has come to ask for my help. Though I had asked some friends for advice, among them Bernard-Henri Lévy, and Marc Kravetz, and several of them urged me to accept, I remain negative.

“You’re all crazy,” I tell them. “It would be enough for the defense lawyer to ask me some geographical or biographical questions, like, Where were you during the Occupation? Were you in Lyon? Were your parents living in France? for my testimony to become irrelevant. Let his victims depose. That should be enough; that will be enough.”

But the lawyers for the plaintiffs, and several historians, insist. To be sure, the deposition of the victims is essential, but … I still resist. So then they talk about context, milieu, testimonies in the public interest, until in the end I have to give in. There remains the problem of scheduling. Jakubowicz suggests that I be deposed on June 12, which, because of prior commitments, does not work for me. My preference is for June 3, that is, the eve of Shavuot. Jakubowicz persuades Chief Justice Cerdini to call me as the first witness to enable me to return to Paris before nightfall, before the beginning of the holiday.

So here I am, for the first time in my life, a witness in the trial of one of the killers of my people.

•   •   •

For weeks I have followed the debates from New York and Japan, which I am visiting, and I have been commenting long-distance on them daily for France-Inter Radio. I read as many newspapers and reviews as possible, familiarize myself with the entire cast of characters, noting Cerdini’s solemn demeanor, Barbie’s sarcastic smile, his lawyer’s hateful vehemence, the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ earnest determination, and above all the witnesses, the survivors: the mothers who try hard not to weep but do, the men who in a barely audible voice attempt to express the anguish of the underground fighter, and to describe the torture that Barbie and his henchmen inflicted on them. I admire the courage, the selflessness of the resistants: I love, I totally empathize with, the woman who as an adolescent girl saw her father shot before her eyes, as I admire the counselors, men and women, who risked their lives trying to save the Jewish children in their care. I said this before the trial, and I repeat it here: This trial will be remembered above all because of these witnesses; it permitted them, at last, to speak freely, to protect a past that many choose to reject and others deny. This trial is necessary for the world to be able to hear certain words said in a certain tone of voice.