An hour later I receive urgent calls from Yitz Greenberg—my former colleague at City College—and Sigmund Strochlitz. Both are aware of my conversation with the White House. Each, separately, tells me the genesis of the president’s invitation. The president had invited a thousand rabbis to the Rose Garden as a gesture of conciliation—his relations with Begin were tense, and he wanted to appease Jewish public opinion. The idea of the monument had come from Eizenstat.
It is impossible not to see the public relations game involved. I tell my friends: “This confirms my doubts: We must never use the Holocaust for political purposes.” Still, they beg me to accept. Sigmund tries to win me over by sentiment, Yitz by logic. I stand fast: My time is limited; I need it for my writing and my students. “But this is a unique opportunity to work on the highest level to ensure remembrance,” says Yitz. “It would be a pity to let it slip by or to allow some opportunist to take advantage of it.” Sigmund: “If you refuse, some politician or other will be nominated. Who knows what he’ll do with our memories.” To settle the discussion I suggest we wait for my meeting with President Carter. I’ll make the decision afterward. Marion’s view: “I know how much this means to you, but if you accept, turn this project into a living memorial, not just a monument.”
At the appointed hour I present myself at the White House gate. I’m always afraid of policemen, but these are polite, smiling; diplomats in uniform. Ed Sanders, the president’s adviser for Jewish affairs, is waiting for me. “Will it bother you if I’m present?” On the contrary, I’m pleased. This way, if I say something foolish he can intervene. He says, “I’ll leave you alone with him toward the end. In case you have confidential matters to discuss.”
I am nervous, but the president’s smile reassures me and instantly restores my confidence. We sit down opposite each other. Sanders takes a chair slightly off to the side. The president tells me he’s read some of my writings and quotes some short passages from memory. The skeptic in me whispers that an aide must have prepared some appropriate quotations. I thank the president, who proceeds to quote another sentence from another work of mine. And, with his famous smile, he adds: “I have something for you. I asked my CIA director, Stan Turner, to go through our archives for material on the places where you were held prisoner. This is what he found.” He holds out to me a file stuffed with photos, and we look at them together. (Later I will offer copies of them to the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem.) Taken by an American bomber flying over Auschwitz in 1944, they show the camp in broad daylight. I learn later that the navigator forgot to stop the camera that was filming the dropping of the bombs.
“I remember that day,” I say to the president. “American planes had been bombing the factories surrounding the camp. Germans were holing up in their shelters. As for us, the inmates, we were praying for the Americans to reserve some bombs for our barbed-wire fences, our watchtowers, our barracks. Since we were going to die, let it be for something.”
Bent over the photos, the president follows my finger, which moves from Auschwitz to Birkenau, from block to block. “Here is the ramp, the chimneys.” He listens to my commentary with an intensity that touches me. I ask: “Were these photos available to the president in 1944?” “Yes, they were.” “Then President Roosevelt couldn’t help but know what was going on in Auschwitz?” “That is correct.” “And nevertheless he did nothing. Why? Why did he refuse to bomb the railways leading to Birkenau?” The president seems uneasy, lost in thought. He doesn’t answer. When he looks at me, his smile is gone. He asks: “What can be done now?” I remain silent; does he expect an answer? He already knows the answer, for he continues: “We must fight oblivion. Isn’t that the purpose of all your work?”
Which brings us back to the question: Am I going to accept the nomination? I say yes, but… but what? “I’m against the idea of a monument.” I tell him that Jewish tradition is opposed to monuments. After all, when Jews left a country, they had to leave all they had built. What do I propose in its place? I suggest a teaching project, a national Day of Remembrance, preferably in Congress—in the form of a solemn joint session of Senate and House—or perhaps at the White House, with the president’s participation. The president gives his consent. Will he come to the first ceremony? Yes, he will.
I have one more request. I would like his permission to take a fact-finding mission to Eastern Europe to revisit the sites: Treblinka, Auschwitz, Babi-Yar. “Why not,” says the president, “that is only normal.” I glance toward Sanders: He’s in tears. As I leave, I say to the president: “If this project succeeds, Jewish history will never forget you.”
The president’s willingness to place his administration in the service of memory touched me. For I am painfully aware of the real, constant threat of forgetting. The Talmud says of Moses that by night he forgot what he had learned during the day. Elsewhere our sages insist on the fact that sometimes the Torah was forgotten. We do not even remember God’s own ineffable Name. How then can we hope that our own experiences will be preserved?
I leave the Oval Office with a title. From now on, by the grace and authority of the president, I may speak on his behalf, having assumed responsibility for what, in my own head, I have already named the “President’s Commission on the Holocaust.” Yitz Greenberg will be its director. He chooses as his assistant Michael Berenbaum, a young rabbi from Wesleyan University whose doctoral thesis deals with my writings. Marian Craig, a former White House employee, a young woman as lovely as she is efficient, will be the soul and the professional organizer of the team. I call Marion: “I hope you like Washington…. We’ll be coming here often.”
All at once I’m besieged by requests, congratulations, suggestions, insinuations; suddenly I am surrounded by people who seem to have only one purpose in life—to become members of the commission. Senators, members of the House, business tycoons all telephone to intercede on behalf of their donors or protégés. This one was at Mauthausen, that one makes speeches about Majdanek. There is no end to the pressures. I never thought that this project would generate so much interest. My problem is that I don’t know how to say no. Luckily the White House people know how, but their criteria are not always mine. Theirs are mostly political. Mine are simple: I would like to gather as many survivors as possible. Sigmund, who has become my right hand, advises me. As does Yitz, of course. So they, too, become targets of pressure. Mark Talisman, a former associate of Congressman Charles Vanik, and Hyman Bookbinder, of the American Jewish Committee, know best who is most important in the capital; they help us with the recruiting. We choose Bayard Rustin, human rights activist and organizer of the Martin Luther King, Jr., march on Washington; Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame University; former Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the U.N. Arthur Goldberg; and also historians, theologians, philosophers, and teachers who have devoted years to studying, exploring, and interpreting the Holocaust. Among the survivors, Yossel Rosensaft is sadly missing. But his widow, Hadassah, joins my team. Some survivors are rejected by the White House. I protest in vain. So I create a board of advisers and make them members.
There is much work to do. Arthur gives me the benefit of his experience. Having presided over many commissions, he knows how to survive them. He knows when to be tolerant and when to be inflexible, when to encourage and when to call firmly and tactfully to order. Arthur is one of this country’s most respected men. The fact that he is a member of my commission surrounds us with a protective zone.
I had first met him with Yitzhak Rabin, who had just been appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Arthur had told me about his war years, and how as an officer of the OSS he had occasion to converse with Arthur Zygelbojm, the Jewish Socialist leader, member of the Polish Parliament in exile in London. He described to me how Zygelbojm, in tears, pleaded the cause of Jews in occupied Poland. He was convinced that if only America knew what was happening, it would force the Germans to halt the massacres. Goldberg felt that it was his obligation to tell him the t
ruth. Soon after, Zygelbojm killed himself. Surely this was one reason why Goldberg, after the war, became a fierce defender of Jewish memory and human rights.
The inaugural session begins with a solemn ceremony. After the traditional minute of silence, I invite every member of the commission to introduce himself or herself. Each expresses his or her gratitude to the American people and its leaders for this initiative. My friend Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson from Washington State comes by to demonstrate his support. He thanks President Carter for choosing me to lead this commission. Senators and representatives of both parties are enthusiastic. Sigmund speaks of Bendin and Rabbi Gottschalk of Berlin. There is a special dimension to their speeches, which seem to be drawn from the most secret zone of their being. Some are sentimental, others matter-of-fact. All are solemn.
After the morning session I ask Yitz to gather nine men in a private room. For that day, the 18th day of Sh’vat, is the anniversary of my father’s death, and I must recite the Kaddish. The impromptu minyan attracts more than the requisite quorum. Even non-Jews attend. In accordance with tradition, I officiate. I repeat the Amidah, with its eighteen benedictions. Suddenly, my voice breaks. I cannot suppress the sob that rises and chokes me. I see my father’s face, his many faces: the one I saw on Shabbat; the one at the Sighet railway station; the one I saw in camp, during the first few days; and finally, the one of the end. I look at him, and he looks at me, as if to ask me what I am doing here, at the White House. This has never happened before, but I cannot go on. I try to hold back my tears as I implore my father not to go away, not to abandon me among all these strangers. Did I shout the Kaddish? Did I whisper it? It stays with me when the session resumes that afternoon.
We appoint the special committees: education, finance, international relations, and a “committee of conscience,” which could just as well have been named “human rights commission.” To Sigmund, I assign the task of organizing the annual “Remembrance Week” ceremonies. I share my thoughts: Since it is forbidden to remain silent and impossible to speak, how does one commemorate a community massacred a thousand times? What prayer must one recite, what forms must one invent?
From the very beginning, the meetings are dominated by the question of the specificity or universality of the Holocaust. Does our mandate apply only to the Jewish victims? What about the Gypsies? The Poles? The Ukrainians? And the homosexuals? After all, other nations, other ethnic and social groups, also endured the horrors of the Nazi regime. For instance: I am haunted by the tragedy of the Armenians, which inspired Hitler to remark, speaking of the Jews: “Who will remember them? Who still remembers the massacre of the Armenians?” But if we included the Armenians, why then would we exclude the Cambodians? We have passionate discussions, stormy sessions. Arthur Goldberg maintains that since our mandate contains a specific name, the Holocaust, it refers exclusively to the tragic fate of the Jews. Other members of the commission, Americans of Polish, Ukrainian, or Lithuanian descent, don’t agree. My position is that the Holocaust is a Jewish tragedy with universal implications. Any attempt to dilute or extrapolate it can only distort its meaning. As a Jew, my duty is to evoke the Jewish tragedy. But in so doing, I incite other groups to commemorate their own.
Behind the scenes, I rely on Saul Lieberman, Yossi Ciechanover, Bernie Fischman. And, of course, Marion. I do nothing without asking her advice.
I have already referred to Dr. Lieberman and to Yossi. Bernie is a lawyer, a humanist: I don’t know anyone as concerned with human rights as Bernie. As soon as he has knowledge of a violation committed anywhere, of any injustice that strikes any human being, there he is, sounding the alarm. I believe him to be the best informed, most passionate man in the world. He and his colleague Arnie Forster have provided me with the information that has allowed me to become involved in more than one fight on behalf of prisoners and victims.
Three months after its inauguration, the commission organizes its first ceremony of remembrance. It takes place in the Rotunda, the great hall of the Capitol. This is where the nation honors the memory of its heroes. It is where, in 1963, its leaders came to pay their final homage to JFK.
Of course all Washington is present. President Carter has kept his promise. He participates in the ceremony. From that day on, thanks to Sigmund’s efforts, similar ceremonies will take place in all fifty states of the country.
As we begin, President Carter notices a small boy sitting opposite us, next to his mother. “Who is that?” he asks me. “My son, Elisha.” “How old is he?” “Seven.” The President motions him to come forward. Bewildered but poised, Elisha leaves Marion and joins us. He will watch the program sitting on the President’s knee, a photo that will make the front pages. When asked, he sums up his reaction: “It was pretty uncomfortable—the president’s knees are kind of hard.”
President Carter speaks movingly and conveys a strong sense of history. But I am troubled by his reference to “eleven million victims.” In the car that takes us back to the White House, I ask him where he obtained this figure. The source: the writings and speeches of Simon Wiesenthal. He insists on including all victims: six million Jews and five million non-Jews. I tell the president that this figure does not reflect the facts. The president is astonished: “Are you saying that there were no non-Jews in the camps?” I explain to him that yes, there were, and some of them were heroes of the Resistance and brave humanists, but that they did not number five million; they were a fraction of that figure. Among the others there were fierce anti-Semites and sadistic criminals whom the Germans released from their prisons in order to supervise the camps. “Would it be just, Mr. President, to honor their memory together with that of my parents?” The president never cited this figure again.
The ceremonies of remembrance, established by act of Congress, become annual events. I claim paternity, but their exemplary execution is assured by Sigmund, who invests in them his time, talent, and passion. We owe him our gratitude. I am also deeply grateful to President Carter for spontaneously accepting, at our first meeting, the idea of an annual commemorative session. Of all the projects related to my work in Washington, this is the one that has given me a genuine sense of accomplishment.
Meanwhile we are actively preparing our official trip to Eastern Europe. There is no problem with pre-Jaruzelski Poland. All the visas are granted, all requests agreed to. Not so with the USSR. The Soviet Embassy here informs us that all decisions will be made in Moscow. To avoid the looming difficulties, Arthur Goldberg accompanies me to the Soviet Embassy. He knows Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin well, and we enjoy a cordial, friendly conversation. Though this is before the Russian intervention in Afghanistan, there is plenty of distrust. What might be the purpose of a commission of inquiry in the USSR, if in fact that is what it is, the Ambassador asks. He understands that we might want to conduct an investigation in Poland, but what might we be looking for in Moscow? I mention Babi-Yar. Well, yes, he can possibly understand Babi-Yar, but Babi-Yar is in Ukraine. How to tell him something he surely guesses, that my wish to go back to Moscow is only vaguely connected with our declared mission? Since 1966, I have been dreaming of returning to “my” Jews of silence. On the pretext that hotels were overbooked, I have been systematically refused a visa. Now, as head of a presidential delegation, I shall get it. Dobrynin confirms this to me.
Still, I don’t obtain everything I request. Until August 1979, almost to the eve of our departure, the Soviets stubbornly refuse to issue visas to two members of my party, Yitz Greenberg and Miles Lerman. I learn of this in France, where, with Marion and Elisha, I am spending a few weeks completing The Testament. There follows a flurry of transatlantic conversations. My own feeling is that we must show solidarity and inform the Soviet authorities that, because we don’t have visas for everyone, we are canceling our trip. Sigmund Strochlitz alone supports me. Hyman Bookbinder counsels moderation. Yitz’s assistant, Michael Berenbaum, urges us to go forward. In his view, our mission should proceed as planned, never mind the “und
esirables.” Clearly we are not on the same wavelength.
Another incident interferes with our preparations. The Union of Soviet Writers offers to give a dinner in our honor. I accept. This will be the first time I shall be able to converse with people likely to have known the Jewish writers Der Nister and Peretz Markish. But I ask to see the guest list. Evidently displeased, the Union directors politely answer that the guest list is their business. I don’t remember what made me do it, but I remain firm: In that case, no dinner. The list arrives a day later. The Yiddish poet Aaron Vergelis is on it. An unrepentant Stalinist, he is unacceptable to me. Russian Jewish writers in both Israel and the United States have proffered serious charges against him. I myself heard him telling New York reporters in the mid-sixties that Russian Jews were living very well, that they enjoyed full freedom, and that campaigns on their behalf were based on lies. In his monthly magazine he went so far as to accuse me of being a CIA agent—why else would I fight so hard against the Soviet Union and Communism? And so, while I have no wish to judge him, I also have no desire to shake his hand. The Writers Union reacts angrily: It is their privilege to decide which of their members will attend their dinner. I respond that, in that case, we too will decide with whom we dine. A new list arrives: Vergelis’s name has disappeared. Finally, everything appears settled.
The delegation includes several members of the commission, members of the advisory board, and representatives of various Jewish organizations, among them Judy and Irving Bernstein, of UJA, and the Miami art collectors Irma and Norman Braman.
A native of Poland, Benjamin Meed insists on my sending him to Warsaw ahead of the delegation, as a kind of scout. He implores me to entrust him with the mission of making sure that our program is set by us and not by our hosts. “I know the Poles,” he says. “We had better be careful.” My instructions to him are simple and precise. From the airport we shall go first to the Ghetto to pay homage at the Monument to the Ghetto Fighters. Only then shall we go wherever our hosts wish to take us.