The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (62 page)
Read The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas Online
Authors: Christopher Robbins
Acknowledgements
The first person I have to thank is the six-year-old child who made a vow not to forget the significant events of his life. This book would not have been possible without the originality and sensitivity of that small boy who was Michel Thomas. I also need to thank the adult he became, who early in our relationship told me, ‘You can ask me any question about any area of my life and I will try to answer it honestly.’ This has often been difficult and painful, but Michel always proved as good as his word.
I would also like to thank my lifelong friend Charles Fawcett for first bringing the life of Michel to my attention and for introducing us. Charles is one of the few men who Michel rates as a genuine unsung hero of the Second World War. As a young American art student living in Paris when the Germans occupied the city - before the United States entered the conflict - Charles married a total of six Jewish women he had never met to save them from deportation and death. He later worked with Varian Fry in Marseille in a dangerous enterprise smuggling literary and artistic figures wanted by the authorities over the Pyrenées. (Michel was unaware - because Charles had never mentioned it over the decades - that he went on to fly with the Royal Air Force and fight with the French Foreign Legion.)
Many of the French documents from the camps and courts, including much of the documentary evidence of the deportations in general, have been made available as a result of the life’s work of the Parisian lawyer, Maître Serge Klarsfeld. His archive of the papers of foreign and French Jews deported to their deaths during the war, including many thousands of identifying photographs of the individuals themselves, guarantees that no one died unremembered. It is a magnificent undertaking.
It is also worth stating - as the author of a biography of a man whose identity is rooted in his Jewishness - that I am not a Jew. I mention this to explain that there is no special pleading, and also to underline the integrity of Michel’s universal vision in that he should permit his story to be told by an Englishman brought up as a Christian. ‘I never thought about it,’ Michel answered, when I brought this to his attention. ‘It is not an issue.’
(Many Polish Jews with the name Robinowski, who emigrated to America, adopted the name Robbins. My own tribe is less exotic. Mud-rooted in Wessex, it took several hundred years to get from Milton Abbas to Bristol, via Weymouth. However, in the words of the Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtuskhenko, ‘In the presence of anti-Semites, I am a Jew.’)
For many years after the war, Michel’s was a lone voice in his insistence that the Vichy government of France was not directed by Germany, but was an independent and enthusiastic proponent of home-grown fascist, anti-Semitic policies. It was not until 1977, with the publication of Vichy-France by Robert Paxton - which met with a firestorm of hostile criticism in France - that this view began to receive scholarly support.
Similarly, Michel was first ignored and later contradicted, in his charge that the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps knew the true nature of Klaus Barbie’s Gestapo past when they first employed him. And also that he was merely one of a number of known Nazis recruited by American intelligence. Even when the United States Department of Justice published its official report on the intelligence community’s connection with Barbie, the government insisted it was an isolated case. Further research, most notably by Tom Bower in a series of books linking Nazis to the post-war scientific, banking and intelligence worlds, has proved that Michel’s view was not only correct but understated.
And perhaps one day, some government, university or school might even be prepared to investigate Michel’s method of teaching languages. It is a tragedy that this is not being done. At first the attitude of obstruction and rejection displayed by the educational establishment was a mystery to me, and I am grateful to Marvin Adelson and Herbert Morris, of UCLA, for an insight into world of academic
Realpolitik
.
There is, however, one gap in Michel’s remarkable memory. Recall has been less than perfect in the case of the names of certain people and places from long ago. While every effort has been made to give the correct ones, these have not always been possible to verify. And some names in the book have reluctantly been changed by the author at Michel’s insistence.
I am particularly grateful to Ted Kraus, Michel’s Counter Intelligence colleague in Ulm, after the war. Ted gave me his time to explain a complicated world and reproduced numerous photographs for me. Thanks are also due to Nigel Levy, the producer of the BBC documentary on Michel’s language teaching technique, for his generosity in sharing contacts and personal experiences.
I owe thanks to many people who have helped me in all sorts of areas during the writing of this book: Don Bachardy, Daniel Balado, Margaret Barrett, Sara Bodle, Livia Bracamonte, Taina Dundas, Jenny de Gex, Harold Goodman, Carroll Gray, Dorris Halsey, Donald Hawkins, Linda Howard, Sally Hughes, Laura Huxley, Hans Joohs, Behram Kapadia, Angelina Rasza, Leo Marks, Charles Morin, Catherine Munson, Joseph November, Danny Parker, Walter Platz, Mike Reynolds, Patrick Robertson, Leslie Robinson, Andy Savoie, Emma Thompson, James Weingartner, and Darrel Whitcomb.
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my agent and friend Mark Lucas, who contributed time and effort far above the call of duty. I would also like to thank Mark Booth, my editor, and Rate Parkin, at Century, Random House UK, who have been so enthusiastic about the project from the beginning; and Liz Rowlinson, at Century, for keeping the book on track during a tight schedule.
And as always, I am indebted beyond words for the love and support of my trusted critic and confidante, Mary Agnes Donoghue.
End notes
- Expulsion of German Jews to Poland: See Marrus & Paxton,
Vichy France and the Jews
, p 25. - Uncle’s letter: The letter was written in Sosnowice, Poland, on 4 December 1939, and hand-delivered to New York by Edgar Schlesinger, a friend of the family, on 18 February 1940.
- Quota numbers: In contrast, Frank Foley, passport control officer at the British Embassy in Berlin, provided forged passports to numerous Jews, and broke the rules of his own government by providing visas for Palestine. Foley was actually head of MI6 in the German capital and at great personal risk went into concentration camps to save Jews. He is credited with saving many thousands of lives. See Smith, Foley, passim.
- American haven: Germany and Italy did not declare war on the United States until 11 December 1941, in support of Japan. America had declared war on Japan on 8 December 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
- Unfilled quotas: The quota for refugees to the United States from Austria and Germany for 1938, the year the visa was applied for, remained unfilled. Wyman,
Paper Walls
, p 221. - Birth date: Michel does not believe in chronological age. ‘People pigeonhole you the moment they know your age. So I do not tell them. Let people work it out. My birth date is a footnote to my life.’ He was born on 3 February 1914.
- Russian Poland: The Poles in Prussian Poland were subjected to a similar, if less severe, form of Germanisation. Poles in Austrian Poland were treated more liberally. After the revolution in 1917, Russia recognised Poland’s right to self-determination; the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 led to the recreation of Poland as an independent republic.
- German army in Lodz: Gilbert,
First World War
, pp 103,106-7, 347. - Casualties during Lodz campaign: Dupuy & Dupuy,
Encyclopaedia of Military History
, p 944. - Lodz in First World War: See Singer,
The Brothers Ashkenazi
, passim. - Childhood memory system: Michel is well aware of the pitfalls of recovered memory. Memories can merge and blur, or be superimposed with information gleaned at a later date. But he feels confident that, because he consciously thought about preserving memory at such an early age, he is able to differentiate between the real and the received.
- Freida’s collapse: Michel remained dry-eyed throughout the many interviews and conversations about his life which explored almost unbearably painful areas, but as he described this incident he almost broke down.
- Breslau between the wars: Lacqueur & Breitman,
Breaking the Silence
, pp 28-30, 36. Due to the fortunes of war and the ironies of history, Breslau is now a Polish city. Although German since the Middle Ages, it reverted to Poland after its capture by Soviet troops in May 1945. It was the one major city in the country not to surrender before VE Day. The German population was subsequently deported and largely replaced by Polish settlers. The town was renamed Wroclaw. - Legends of the Gods
: This was one of the books Adolf Hitler had in his room as an impoverished student in Vienna. Kershaw,
Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris
, p 41. - Wagner’s influence on Hitler: see Fest,
Hitler
, p 56. - Hohenzollern: The great Prussian family of leaders dating back to the eleventh or twelfth century. They created strong, disciplined armies dedicated to military excellence, and eventually united and ruled Germany. Their reign came to an end with the defeat of Germany in 1918 when William II was forced to abdicate.
- Ideal Marriage
: Dr Velde seems to have been a champion of little women. ‘Women of short stature and small bones can often meet all requirements in the flexibility and capacity of their vaginae. And in their sexual vigour and efficiency are also conspicuous, not only in coitus, but in their buoyant reaction to the mental and physical stress and strain of menstruation, pregnancy and parturition, their fine flow of milk, and easy conception. In short, little women approximate most often to the typical womanly ideal.’ In support of this view the doctor quotes ‘the saying among the English common people: “Little women - big breeders”’ (Van de Velde,
Ideal Marriage
, p 206 and passim. (The doctor went on to write post-honeymoon marriage manuals such as
Sexual Tensions in Marriage and Fertility and Sterility in Marriage
). - Nazis come to power: Bullock,
Hitler
, pp 253-7. Reegan;
Second World War
, p 27. - Jewish life in pre-war Germany: ‘Quoting Goethe at every meal’, see Raplan,
Between Dignity and Despair
, pp 3-93 passim. - Saarland: Under the Treaty of Versailles, in 1919, coal mines in the rich Saar valley were handed over to France for a period of fifteen years in compensation for the destruction of French mines during the war. The treaty also provided for a plebiscite to decide its future. In 1935 more than ninety per cent of the electorate voted for reunification with Germany.
- Karl Hamburg: A lifelong friend, the men lost touch until after the war when Michel found a book on philosophy written by Hamburg in a Beverly Hills bookshop. He wrote to the publisher for his friend’s address. Dr Charles Hamburg taught at Columbia University, New York, before becoming the Dean of Philosophy at Tulane University, New Orleans.
- ‘Praised be that which toughens’: See Irving,
Hitler’s War
, p 377. - Michael Nelken: Michel Thomas was later to use the name Rent as a middle name in memory of his friend.
- Dachau: ‘Empty huts in a gravel pit’, the camp was run by the local SS, already known as one of the most savage and brutal platoons in Bavaria. The camp was immediately enlarged to hold five thousand prisoners. It was further expanded throughout the war to become a notorious death camp. Gilbert,
The Holocaust
, pp 32-3. - Wilhelm Furtwangler: The conductor remained in Germany through most of the Second World War and although an avowed anti-Nazi, his position and prestige were such that he avoided direct persecution. He was exonerated of charges of collaboration after the war and enjoyed a highly successful international career.
- Just a matter of time: For the grim fate of the Jews of Lodz during the war see Gilbert,
The Holocaust
, passim. - Jews of Lodz: See Singer,
The Brothers Ashkenazi
, passim. - Oscar (Usher) Kohn: Only Uncle Usher survived. Despite the dismissal of his great-nephew’s predictions, Oscar Kohn did leave Poland a year later, and went to live in Cuernavaca, Mexico. When the Germans invaded Poland, less than two years after the conversation with Michel, the occupying Nazi governor, Hans Frank, appropriated the Kohns’ luxurious house. The Bussians also took a large slice of Poland for themselves. After the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact dissolved on Hitler’s invasion of Poland the country was reduced to a battleground. And after the Germans lost the war the Soviets dominated Poland, until the collapse of Communism. Michel had been prophetic. The men met up in Mexico after the war and Uncle Usher vividly recalled their conversation in Lodz. He admitted to being so removed from reality that when he finally fled, he was shocked and offended to be jostled in the chaos. But he kept his wry sense of humour. The only hurt he suffered, he said, was to his dignity: ‘I lost my high silk top hat.’ The novel,
The Brothers Ashkenazi
, written in 1936 by Israel Joshua Singer - brother of Nobel prizewinner Isaac Bashevis Singer - about the rise of a great industrial family in pre-war Lodz, is in many ways a fictional biography of the Kohns. The story charts the rise and fall of two brothers in the textile manufacturing business. One is generous and outgoing, the other hard and miserly. Asked which one best represents Uncle Usher, Michel replied: ‘Both!’ - Suzanne Adler: Suzanne de Lhosa, nee Adler, died in Nice, France, in 1992.
- Nuremberg Laws: In September 1935, Adolf Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws. These deprived German Jews of fundamental civil rights, reducing their status to that of foreigners within their own country. They were forbidden to marry non-Jewish Germans, and not allowed to employ German females in their homes under forty-five years old. They were also forbidden to fly the German national flag bearing the swastika. Friedlander,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
, p 142. - Alfred Adler: By the time Michel was studying in Vienna Adler had already moved on from the city - to the United States in 1935. He had been one of the founders of psychoanalysis, together with Carl Jung, as a student of Sigmund Freud. Freud later denounced both men as psychoanalytical heretics. He died in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1937.
- Hitler on
Anschluss
: Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p 3. - Hitler’s youth in Vienna: See Jenks,
Vienna and the Young Hitler
, passim. - Cardinal Innitzer: Shirer,
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
, p 350. - Freud leaves Vienna: The colleague was Ernest Jones, who became Freud’s biographer. Jones,
Life and Times of Sigmund Freud, Vol. III
, p235. - Excesses in Vienna: Other eyewitnesses to events following the
Anschluss
were William L. Shirer, legendary foreign correspondent of the
Chicago Tribune
, and G.E.R. Gedye of
The Times
. ‘The behaviour of the Vienna Nazis was worse than anything I had seen in Germany. There was an orgy of sadism’ (Shirer,
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
, p 351); ‘The streets of Vienna were an inferno. As I walked through or drove past the mobs... one of the many sentimental phrases applied by the Viennese halted my brain - Das gold’ne Wiener Harz. There was little trace of golden hearts written on these hate-filled, triumph-drunken faces, and the memory of it makes one’s stomach queasy’. (Gedye,
Betrayal in Central Europe
, p 284). - Polish passports rescinded: The first law modifying citizenship was passed by the Polish parliament on 31 March 1938, followed by a decree cancelling the passports of foreign residents in October of the same year. Friedlander,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
, p 267. - Evian Conference: See Friedlander,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
, pp 248-9. - Dianne Dudel: Michel’s cousin married Ileahu Ben Elissar, who became Israeli ambassador to the United States, and at the time of writing is the ambassador to France.
- Ernst Ehrenfeld: After completing his prison sentence, Ehrenfeld served in the French Foreign Legion throughout the war. He survived to marry a French woman, and settled in France.
- English general rages: Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, in Fuller,
The Second World War
, p 55. - Maginot Line: Home, To Lose a Battle, pp 25-32; Kemp,
The Maginot Line
, passim. - Jean-Paul Sartre quotation: From his memoir,
Paris Under the Occupation
; quoted by Ousby,
Occupation
, p 22. - General de Gaulle: See De Gaulle,
Memoirs
, pp 30-1. - Italians held off: Home,
To Lose a Battle
, pp 564-5. - Hitler at Compiegne: William Shirer wrote notes in his diary after watching Hitler through binoculars. Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
, pp 742-3. - Defeat of France and armistice: The fullest accounts are carried in Shirer,
Fall of the Third Republic
, and Home,
To Lose a Battle
. - Albert Camus quotation: Camus,
Notebooks 1935-1942
, p 146. - Resisters of the First Hour: See Paxton,
Vichy France
, p 39. - Vichy’s anti-Semitic laws: See Marrus & Paxton,
Vichy France and the Jews
, pp xi-xvi, 3-20. - Influence peddling: Court document No. 69, Correctional Judgement 600, Nice Tribunal, 9 January 1941.
- Acquittal: Court document No. 175, Case 17, registered in Nice, 17 January 1941.
- Residence denied: Refus de Séjour, issued by authorities in Nice on 14 February 1941.
- Internment order: Proposition Internment, Nice: Code # 151W21898: Transport 17 Juifs au Camp Le Vernet, 26 April 1941. Document provided from the archive of Serge Klarsfeld.