The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (57 page)

His energy remains boundless as he leaves his base in New York to travel around the world, teaching for weeks at a time in London, Los Angeles or Monte Carlo. He remains forever on the move. Plans are under way to present the language courses in condensed form on tapes and CD, and a scholarly book on the method itself is being prepared. His celebrated charisma is really no more than the energy of his belief in himself and those like him. He continues to have faith in the inestimable power of the individual. ‘I believe in the power of one. Never to give in. And that a person should never feel or say that he or she is powerless as an individual.’

The eighteenth-century Italian poet, Alfieri Vittorio, a passionate advocate of liberty, wrote, ‘Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.’ The test has been passed in the life of Michel Thomas, who always chose life in the most dire circumstances when death appealed as the soft option. But some human pain penetrates so deeply into the soul that courage is not enough.

The precious family letters in the battered cardboard folder remain unread.

Afterword

At a time when Michel Thomas should have been celebrating the unprecedented success of his recorded language courses in Great Britain and the United States, a dark shadow was cast across his life. A long article, mocking in tone and hostile in content, appeared in the
Los Angeles Times
inviting its readers to entertain the idea that he was perhaps something of a fantasist and a fraud.

The piece succeeded in raising questions about Michel’s life without answering them. Readers were left in little doubt that the reporter believed him to be less than a war hero, and possibly something of a con man. In order to protect his good name and reputation, Michel would now be obliged to commit most of his financial resources and summon the mettle of earlier days in a battle that would pit David against Goliath.

The request for an interview by the
Los Angeles Times
seemed straightforward. The hardback edition of
Test of Courage
had been favourably reviewed by the paper some months earlier and briefly appeared on its best-seller list.
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Michel was well known in the city where he had spent thirty years, and was happy to grant an interview. A reporter, Roy Rivenburg, accompanied by a photographer, arrived at Michel’s hotel and immediately demanded to see ‘the packet of letters’. At first, Michel did not understand until the reporter, grinning broadly, explained that he wanted to read the letters mentioned at the beginning of the book. These are the ones described as having such explosive emotional content - the despair of parents trapped in Germany facing deportation and death - that Michel himself has never been able to read them. He ignored the request, but did produce documents and photos, and submitted to a four-hour interview.

Rivenburg reached me in London some time later for a phone interview. Less than five minutes into our conversation I sensed someone on the warpath. The relentless, negative nature of the questioning felt like a police interrogation. ‘You seem very sceptical,’ I said.

‘Well, this story is overwhelming.’

I explained that it was an extraordinary story, but that more than two years of research and interviews had convinced me of its truth. Rivenburg countered by saying that he had spoken to the colonel who had led the first troops into Dachau and that he had never heard of Michel. It was apparent the reporter had no military knowledge, and failed to understand why a regimental infantry commander would not have known of the presence of a divisional CIC agent on the day of liberation. In addition, there were a great number of troops from two separate divisions present in the camp, which was vast and spread over many acres, not to mention chaos, murder and high emotion.

Rivenburg then said that the Pentagon had no records of Michel’s military service. I explained that the Pentagon was not the place to look for military records, which were kept at the National Military Personnel Records Centre in St Louis, where many files had been destroyed by fire in 1973. I repeated the unusual nature of Michel’s induction, and referred to a wealth of other documentary evidence that confirmed his service. I offered to supply copies so the reporter could see for himself that they were genuine, and referred to particular documents lodged in the US National Archives.

‘What is the name of the man you dealt with at the National Archives?’ Rivenburg asked.

This was said in such a manner that I interpreted the question to mean that he was sceptical that such documents existed - the underlying suggestion being that I had invented them. After the interview I immediately called Michel in New York and told him that I was left with a very uncomfortable feeling. ‘It was very negative. As if he didn’t believe anything.’

‘As you know, I welcome scepticism,’ Michel said. ‘It is to be expected. I am going to talk to him again and answer all his questions.’

Michel submitted to a second long interview, flying down especially from San Francisco for the encounter. He courteously answered every question as well as he could, but the reporter wanted to know details that would confound anyone’s recall after sixty years. Rivenburg asked for a description of the foyer of the Monte Carlo casino in 1941, and the position of the slot machines; he asked about the terrain surrounding Dachau, the position of rivers and bridges, and the layout of the camp; he wanted to know the number of storeys in the building that housed the Jewish refugee association in Lyon during the war, whether it had an elevator, and if the office doors carried identifying plaques; he asked the colour of various Nazi Party membership cards discovered in Munich.

At last, Michel lost his temper. ‘I seem to remember no sign on the door of the office - but if there was one you will say I am lying? And I am supposed to remember the colour of cardboard cards after sixty years?’

The motive behind such an investigation remained mysterious. At first I imagined the newspaper thought it had stumbled on a fraud similar to Binjamin Wilkomirski. This was a man who wrote a powerful Holocaust memoir,
Fragments
, describing his life as a child separated from his parents during the massacre of Jews in the ghetto of Riga, Latvia. Told in a series of disjointed, harrowing flashbacks, the author chronicles his escape by boat to Poland, the horrors of a child’s experiences in concentration camps, and his earliest memory - the execution of his father.
[257]

First published in German in 1995, the book was translated into twelve languages, became an international best-seller and won prestigious literary awards all over the world. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, DC, sent its author on a six-city fund-raising tour across the United States. Serious critics were universally impressed, and the
Los Angeles Times
lauded the book as a ‘classic first-hand account of the Holocaust’.

But a journalist writing in a Swiss paper exposed the book and its author as a fraud. The writer was never in the ghetto in Riga or the death camps, was not called Binjamin Wilkomirski, and was not Jewish. His actual name was Bruno Dossekker, the adopted Protestant child of a middle-class Zurich couple. Holocaust deniers and revisionists on the hard-right crowed over the fraud, declaring that the speed with which people had uncritically accepted the phoney account suggested much more about the Holocaust might be exaggerated or untrue. Left-wingers attacked the book as an example of Zionist propaganda. Those critics, reviewers and academics who had originally been enthusiastic about the book looked foolish, and became understandably fearful of being taken in again.

Bold frauds who insult the memory of victims of the death camps demand exposure. I was aware that despite all my efforts to provide convincing documentation, there were undoubtedly readers and reviewers of
Test of Courage
who remained suspicious of such an extraordinary life story as that of Michel Thomas. Perhaps Rivenburg, I reasoned, was merely voicing the same reservations. In that case, he would be doing Michel a service. All we had to do, despite the reporter’s clumsy manner, was answer questions and keep providing proof of the book’s veracity.

An Internet search of Rivenburg’s previous work for the
Los Angeles Times
, however, raised new fears regarding both his motivation and seriousness. He was a journalist who had previously written a short-lived ‘humour’ column, and specialised for a decade on trivia, except for a series of articles on partial-birth abortion. As a student of the Graduate School of Journalism, at Columbia University, New York, Rivenburg’s thesis was entitled
Deliver Us From the Devil: Exorcism and Deliverance in America
, and he has taught courses in subjects such as The Mechanics of Biblical Journalism.
[258]

A 44-year-old Roman Catholic of German origin, living in Orange County, Southern California ‘Without wife, children or pets’, more detailed research disclosed the reporter to be an accredited member of the faculty of the World Journalism Institute, a division of God’s World Publications, a Christian fundamentalist publisher located in Asheville, North Carolina, heart of the Bible Belt. The Institute, founded in 1998, is committed to providing a ‘focused, rigorous and highly theological journalism academy’ that trains Christian journalists from a ‘biblical worldview’ to infiltrate the mainstream media. Its mission statement is posted on the web: ‘In this age of mass secular media, the mission of the World Journalism Institute is to overcome the eclipse of God by providing a counter-thrust to the secular media and tepid Christian media. To this end, WJI must contend earnestly at the frontiers of human news and persuasion to uncover the currently obscured Word and truth of God. WJI must enlist technological means so the reading multitudes may hear the echoing voice of the incarnate Logos... By conditioning the public to accept moral decline, perversity and uncertainty, the secular media have aided the demonic concealment from the public of the coming judgement of a creator-God. In a sense, every Christian journalist is an evangelist.’
[259]

It seemed extraordinary that a reporter with this background should have been assigned by a paper like the
Los Angeles Times
to spend months writing a story on Michel Thomas. Alarmed, I made contact with Rivenburg and explained that Michel had been very upset at the way he had been questioned, and that in future I would answer any questions in writing. However, I agreed to organise a final conference call between the three of us. Rivenburg accepted this arrangement, but phoned Michel direct before the call could be set up. Among a number of aggressive questions, he asked Michel to prove that he had ever served with the US Army. Enraged, Michel put the phone down on him.

I had already twice emailed the editor of the Southern California Living section of the
Los Angeles Times
, Bret Israel, to complain about his reporter’s conduct. I was assured in a written reply that anything published would be balanced and that my concerns would be taken into account. But after the latest outrage I wrote again. ‘This is the third time I have written to you complaining of the continued harassment of Michel Thomas. On the 20th of this month you sent me a note assuring me that my concerns would be taken into account. And yet on Friday your reporter called Michel once again and asked a series of questions that suggested he was a liar. Not surprisingly, Michel finally put the phone down on him and told him to write what he wanted.

‘May I ask what the hell you are doing? What is the editorial motivation in putting a journalist onto this story for many weeks? What, indeed, is the story? I am aware that there are frauds in the world feeding off the Holocaust, and that it is certainly the job of a newspaper to report on and expose such men. By anyone’s estimation - even your reporter’s - Michel Thomas is a million miles away from this category.

‘Your reporter says that he seeks to make Michel prove the events of his life. And that he will write a fair and balanced story, and is open to hearing “evidence” on behalf of Michel. Has the
LA Times
put him on trial?

‘From the beginning all questions seem to be aimed at discrediting everything Michel has done in his life. Your reporter asks for descriptions of buildings, stairwells, office doors, casino foyers last visited over sixty years ago. Rivenburg says that his methods are standard procedure for the
LA Times
- methods which include running checks on Michel for court cases against him, and demanding documentary proof for every aspect of his life. This seems to be a very different standard from the advance negotiations on questions and story content made with public relations companies when you want access to a film star.’
[260]

This was a reference to a known practice among the feature editors of the
Los Angeles Times
, where deals are made with powerful publicists prior to interviews with famous movie stars. The bigger the star, the more concessions made by the paper. The results are worthless puff pieces, but are carried because movie stars fascinate readers and sell papers. But clearly, Michel, as a Holocaust survivor and Second World War veteran, was to be held to a more demanding journalistic standard.