Here Comes Trouble (38 page)

“You’ll have to discuss that with the police chief,” he said and then motioned us to start walking back into town.

We returned to town and went to the city hall, where we found the police chief besieged by other reporters who apparently had met the same fate as ours. Sizing up the situation, it appeared that the reporters from the Knight-Ridder group were having the most luck with the chief, so we moseyed over to them and hung close as if we were part of their team. Finally, the chief got on the phone and told the command post on the cemetery road to let this group of reporters through. So off we tagged along, looking like we were their photographers.

Once back at the checkpoint, the barking cop let us pass. Our joy at this coup soon subsided as we were told this was only the first of
seven
checkpoints we would have to get through.

The next two police checkpoints were fairly easy with lots of
Guten Morgens
and
Howdy-doodies.
The fourth stop required a search, but not of our bodies, so Gary’s banner went unnoticed.

The fifth group of police—now looking less like police and more like a well-muscled group of blond army rangers with a strange homoerotic vibe—were a bit more testy because our credentials were not the
official
White House ones which were for the select group of thirty news people in the preapproved pool who were allowed to be in the actual cemetery just feet from the president. But because Gary spoke perfect German—and I spoke perfect bullshit—we somehow were able to talk our way through this, the penultimate checkpoint.

The cemetery was now in sight. We were amazed we had made it this far and decided that a bold move would now be required to make it past the final gate that would bring us into the Promised Land. Out of nowhere a truck carrying the TV equipment for CBS News pulled up. The guys driving it started to unload their metal boxes and crates. I sauntered up to them and asked them if they needed any help.

“Sure,” said one of the crew gruffly. “Grab a couple of those.”

And this, dear readers, became one of the few times in my life that looking like a roadie was turned into a plus. I picked up the box, Gary walked in tight behind me, and before you could say
“Deutschland über alles,”
we were inside the Bitburg cemetery, free to roam around as we pleased!

The Bonn bureau chiefs for
Newsweek
and the Associated Press, both of whom we had met in Bonn (where we confided in them what our real plans were) spotted us and ran over to greet us.

“How the hell did you guys do this?” asked Ken Jones of AP, a big grin on his face.

“I mean, all they’ve (the Germans) talked about for two months,” added Andrew Nagorski of
Newsweek,
“is how they’ve worked out the most sophisticated security arrangements for this trip—and then you come into town, crack it, and just walk right in.” We smiled the smile of those who have swallowed the canary. They promised not to blow our cover.

About an hour before Reagan was to arrive, the Secret Service appeared in two black vans to “mag the cemetery,” meaning they were going to do one final sweep of the place for bombs—and re-check everyone’s credentials.

We were all herded back to the outside of the cemetery so the police could “sweep it.” All that work—and now we were no longer in the cemetery! They put us in a field beside the cemetery and promised we’d all be let back in once the sweep was completed. When the cemetery was deemed secure, they set up an airport-style metal detector and lined us all up to go through it. Ten, fifteen minutes passed and the Secret Service couldn’t get the metal detector machine to work. (This led one of the German police to remark, in English, “Stupid Americans—they can put a man on the moon, but they can’t get a simple thing like this to work!”)

The Feds finally gave up on the contraption and got out their handheld metal detectors and began wanding everyone in line, one by one. They were also doing full-body hand searches—the kind that would discover a humongous banner tucked inside Gary. It looked like the adventure was over.

We were about twentieth in line and things were moving pretty slowly. Then, as the person in front of Gary stepped up to be searched, the Secret Service chief came over and said, “We’re running out of time. Skip the body searches and just use the detectors.” Whew. Gary and I walked through without a hitch.

But now we had to get back into the cemetery, and to get back in we would have to prove we were part of the press pool again. Damn. We didn’t have those blue White House press cards, and we noticed them hauling a few people away who didn’t have them, either. They were being sent back over to the field and out of sight of the cemetery. This was not acceptable for Gary and me. We decided that instead of being sent to the time-out field, our best bet was to circle back just outside the cemetery gate but still be right in the middle of all the action. We placed ourselves beside the path that Reagan’s limo would have to go down in order to enter the cemetery gate. The location was perfect. There was no way Reagan was going to miss us. We didn’t need to be with the pool anyway, as they continued to be led around by their noses to the officially approved spots. None of these reporters would be within earshot of Reagan in order to ask any questions. Plus, where we were now, we were with the pack of real journalists who were not under any obligation to follow the rules.

It was just minutes away from Reagan’s arrival, so we took our place on the path and prepared to take out the banner. We were in an area that was filled with German police, the international press, and a few families who had the misfortune of living in the neighborhood.

Word spread that the motorcade was on its way. Gary and I—mostly I—were getting increasingly nervous. Suddenly, I began to freeze.
What the hell were we doing?
I knew that the instant we reached inside our coats to whip something out, we were going to be pounced on, or worse. This was nuts, I decided. The face of every German cop and grunt looked like they meant business. And we were about to become their business—their bloody business.

In my panic, I spotted ABC news correspondent Pierre Salinger (former press secretary to President Kennedy), and instantly came up with an idea that might protect us from being pummeled. I went over to talk to Salinger.

“Mr. Salinger,” I said nervously. “My friend and I are here and we’re not part of the press. We’re here to perform an action when Reagan arrives—a nonviolent action. His parents are Holocaust survivors.”

“How did you get in here?” he asked, bemused.

“We had some credentials and we’re from Flint,” I said, thinking that sounded dumb.

“OK, well, I won’t blow your secret,” he promised.

“Could you do something else for us?” I asked. “We’re really scared that they are going to hurt us. When we pull out our sign, will you make sure your camera is right there on us so that they will see that this image is going out live on TV. I have a feeling the last thing the Germans want today is footage of themselves beating a Jew in the Bitburg cemetery.”

He laughed heartily at that. “No, they don’t want that,” he said, still chuckling. “I like this. I like this. OK, you have my word—we’ll have the camera right there on you to protect you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

Down the street we could begin to hear a rolling cheer from the crowd. The motorcade was in sight. This was it. Gary put his hand quietly under his coat. He was trying to time it just right so that he would have time to get it out and hand me one end while he took the other—and have that occur just as Reagan got to us. Do it too soon and the cops would have us out of there before the limo ever hit the gate. Do it too late and we’ve missed our opportunity. At what he believed to be the precise moment—this man of Flint who was as anally organized and on time more than anyone I knew—yanked out the bedsheet, flipped one end over to me, and quickly unfurled it before anyone noticed what was going on. Now with Reagan just ten feet away, we thrust the banner toward the limo, inches away from the windows where we could plainly see the expressions of the faces of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The smiling president read the banner and his face turned instantly to what could best be described as confusion. Nancy was not confused and stared right at us with disgust.

The police surrounded us immediately—as did the cameraman from ABC News. The police saw the camera and made the snap decision not to beat the living crap out of us. We had humiliated them with this security breach—and God knows they wanted to mete out our punishment right then and there. But this was the New Germany, and cooler heads prevailed. As the Reagans were now through the gate and getting out of the car, we remained in our spot. The authorities asked us to put away the bedsheet and, not wanting to press our luck, we complied.

The wreath-laying ceremony at the graves lasted an entirety of eight minutes. Before we knew it, here came the Reagans again! So, disobeying orders not to, we pulled out the bedsheet, one last chance for the president to think about what he just did. “THEY MURDERED MY FAMILY.”

With the Reagan limo speeding out of the cemetery and into the history books, the real craziness began. The locals, who had been cut out of the shortened presidential ceremony, now were allowed to march into the Bitburg cemetery and conduct their own wreath-laying action. They kicked it off with some rogue old German shouting randomly, “Jews, go home!” (He was quickly silenced as, well, there were no Jews left in Bitburg who had a home to go to.) It became obvious he was referring to Gary and me, upset at us for unfurling our banner. He had nothing to worry about. We had no interest in staying in Bitburg.

With the roadblocks now removed, a steady stream of Bitburgers were jamming the road to get into the cemetery. By the hundreds they came to make a point—by laying wreaths and flowers on the graves of the dead Nazis.

The highlight of this “People’s Wreath Laying” came when the representative of the American Veterans of Foreign Wars, Gerard Murphy, and his German counterpart from the Nazi veterans group laid a joint wreath on the SS graves and declared World War II over—again.

“We need to forget about the war and the Holocaust,” Murphy said in his speech at the cemetery. “It does no good to remember the past. The present situation demands that we join together to fight our common enemy—communism.” The crowd cheered. We left.

Heading out of town, we hitched a ride with a German woman who was headed to Hanover and in the direction we needed to go to fly home. She stopped at the Bitburg gas station to fill up before we hit the road.

“You know,” I said, “this gas station used to be the Jewish synagogue here before the War. A man in town told us it was burned on Kristallnacht (the night in 1938 when Nazis across Germany destroyed Jewish businesses, homes, and temples). Some people wanted to put a plaque on it.”

She said she knew nothing of this, and we had a quiet ride north—except for her wanting to know more about our extermination of the American Indians. Oh yeah, baby, ev’rybody got their holocaust.

As we got near Hanover, Gary suggested we stop at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which his parents were liberated from in 1945. The lady said she didn’t know where that was—or
what
it was. We thanked her and got out in town and took a taxi out to the site.

We arrived at Bergen-Belsen as the sun was setting over the many weed-covered mounds that were the mass graves. Hill after hill concealed the fifty thousand bodies that were piled underneath. No gravestones, no Stars of David, no names of anyone. Just dirt piled high and grass growing on top. No one else was there besides us.

Gary said he wanted to be alone for a while.

I went and sat on a bench and wrote this story.

A Blessing

M
Y PRIEST HAD A CONFESSION
he wanted to make to me.

“I have serious blood on my hands, Michael,” Father Zabelka said softly. “I want you to know.”

We were sitting on the porch of my newspaper office, Father George Zabelka and I. He was the former pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Flint (the church in which I would later be married). Father Zabelka was now retired but still working, doing a whole host of projects in the Flint area, including helping out as a volunteer at the
Flint Voice.

Living in downtown Flint, I had stopped going to Mass about six years prior, and so “Father George” was the closest thing I had to a priest, as I still very much believed in the central tenets of the Faith: to love one another, to love your enemy, to do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. I agreed that one had a personal responsibility to assist the poor, the infirm, the imprisoned and the looked-down-upon. But I wasn’t much in favor of many of the church’s edicts when it came to certain issues, usually the ones that hurt people (gays), made others second-class citizens (women), and used the fires of hell to scare people about sex.

I enjoyed my weekly or monthly meetings with Father Zabelka, and I would even attend services he would conduct at churches in Genesee County. He became my de facto pastor.