In Quest: Journal of an Unquiet Pilgrimage 9780231884228

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IN QUEST

IN QUEST JOURNAL OF AN UNQUIET PILGRIMAGE

SIGMUND DIAMOND

COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY NEW YORK

PRESS 1980

Sigmund Diamond is Giddings Professor of Sociology and Professor of History at Columbia University. Portions of this book appeared, in somewhat different form, in The Antioch Review, 35(1). Copyright © 1 9 7 7 by the Antioch Review, Inc., reprinted by permission of the editors; in Present Tense, copyright © 1 9 7 6 by Present Tense, published by the American Jewish Committee; and Moment, 4 (March i 9 7 g ) : 4 g - 5 3 . All used by permission. T h e quotes f r o m W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and " T h e Unknown Citizen" are reprinted f r o m The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945). Copyright © 1945. Used by permission. T h e two selections f r o m the poems of Emily Dickinson are reprinted by permission of the publishers and the trustees of Amherst College f r o m The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, editor. (Cambridge, Mass.: T h e Belknap Press of H a r v a r d University Press.) Copyright © 1 9 5 1 , 1 9 5 5 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Diamond, Sigmund. In quest. 1. Europe—Description and t r a v e l — 1 9 7 1 2. Israel—Description and travel. 3. J e w s in Europe—Social conditions. 4. Diamond, Sigmund. 5. J e w s in the United States—Biography. I. Title. D975.D48 914'.04557 79-26717 ISBN 0-231-04842-4 Columbia University Press New York Guildford, Surrey Copyright © 1980 by Columbia University Press All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America

For

Steve and

Betty

There are a hundred reasons why I should send Your Excellency my poems. I will name only one: I love you. That is reason enough. . . . I was long perplexed as to the nature of poetry. People told me: "Ask Schlegel." He said: "Read Goethe." That I have done faithfully, and if I ever amount to something I know to whom I owe it. Heinrich Heine to Goethe, December 29, 1821

CONTENTS PREFACE

ix L

LONDON

9

ARLES ST. REMY

11

PARIS

l4

HAMBURG

18

LÜBECK

20

BREMEN

24 27

W E S T BERLIN E A S T BERLIN W E S T BERLIN WARSAW CRACOW WARSAW

3° 35 36 42 56

KIEV

61

VILNIUS

70

RIGA

86

TALLINN

101

LENINGRAD

1!

3

MOSCOW

128

ODESSA

147

BUCHAREST MIERCUREA C I U C

157 162

BUCHAREST

164

ISTANBUL

167

TEL AVIV

»73

JERUSALEM

186

T E L AVIV

187

JERUSALEM

211

REMEMBRANCES A SUMMING U P

213 218

INDEX

223

PREFACE F O R a number of years my desire to see the birthplace of my mother and father had been growing, and the summer of 1975 seemed to provide a propitious time to make the journey. I had been selected to be Fulbright Lecturer at Tel Aviv University for the academic year 1 9 7 5 - 7 6 . Why not go to Israel by way of Poland and the Soviet Union? I could try to visit Ostroleka and Husyatin and at the same time I could see for myself something of a part of the world which had occupied a central place in my life and in my thought for many years. But the USSR did not mean to me in 1975 what it had meant earlier. I knew what it had meant; I was not sure what it meant now. The desire to end my own uncertainties was one of the temptations that led me to undertake the journey. During the 1940s I had been a member of the Communist Party. T h e USSR had changed since then, and so had I; respect remained, but hardly affection, and certainly not the earlier tendency, sometimes even eagerness, to suspend judgment in order to save belief and, as I thought, meaning. How would the contrast between what I once was and what I now had become affect my perceptions? Curiosity lured me on; suspicion held me back. Suspicion—and fear, fear that what I would see might reveal aspects of myself, at least of what I once was, that I would prefer not to confront. In anticipation, the possible disappointment with the present reality of the USSR seemed less painful to bear than the probable disappointment with the reality of my own history. In the end, curiosity—and obligation—conquered. The curiosity I could account for. The obligation—to what, to whom?—still leaves me somewhat puzzled. We always live ix

X

PREFACE

where we were born and when we were born, and my journey to the East was also a journey into my past, an obligation to myself, undertaken in the hope that I might ease my restlessness if I could "return" to parts of the world I had never seen but in which I had "lived" for many years. But the past into which I was preparing to journey was not "my" past alone; I had appropriated what others had done—to some I wanted to say "thank you," to others "I hate you"; to some I wanted to say "I know," to others "I don't understand." I never had the illusion that I could call it quits with any of the others whose work I had appropriated (even with those whom I had repudiated); but some I wanted to celebrate—my parents, who gave their lives for their children; and those who died at Auschwitz, who gave their lives, for what? I was not sure about why I felt as I did about Jewishness; I certainly did not feel that way about Judaism, if by that one means a matter of conviction as to a right way of life. My attachment was to a people of history rather than to a set of beliefs. At least I had always thought so, but perhaps on this, as on other matters, I had begun to change. I was not sure; perhaps the journey would tell me. But of one thing I was sure: I would have wished to tell my parents some of these things; since I could not, I would tell my children. What follows is the account I kept of my journey. It was written at odd hours, mostly late at night in hotel rooms, and it never left my person from the moment I began it until I arrived in Tel Aviv. I saw much, but one thing I did not see; the Soviet authorities would not give me permission to visit Husyatin, my father's birthplace. It would have been an innocent passage. Many years ago I read The New Exodus, by Harold Frederic, foreign correspondent of the New York Times. It was published in 1892. In it he reports on his investigation of anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia: E d m u n d B u r k e confessed, over a century ago, that he knew not the method o f drawing up an indictment against a whole people. T h e task is no easier now than it was in 1 7 7 5 . Moreover, the world's j u r y , grown callous to sensation and wearied with ever-multiplying claims upon its sympathies, takes, in these latter times, a deal of moving. Not even Burke risen f r o m the

PREFACE

XI

dead could hold its undivided attention for a second four days' speech. . . . My own share in the gathering of materials is represented by a long and painstaking journey through Russia. . . . T h e tour was made without official assistance, and, I am happy to believe, escaped official notice. This fact prevented my making personal studies of the Czar's domesticity, of M. Pobiedonostseff's piety, of General Ignatieff's urbanity, and of other similar fascinating features of polite Russia, concerning which so much has been written. T h e Russia I saw was not polite. . . . T h e people of Moscow live almost without newspapers, or, better, without European news. Scarcely a breath of the outside Western world touches them. . . . Moscow has much the same feeling toward the Jews that the Emir of Bokhara might have—that is, one of contemptuous tolerance in good-humored times, of grim ferocity when the ugly mood is on. T h e mere suggestion that the Czar and the Holy Synod actively disliked them would be enough to provoke a persecution. These Moscovians, however, would have no thought of a fear of consequences such as might deter the Bokharan despot. They are proudly incredulous of Europe's power to make them a f r a i d . . . . Hence, when it becomes known in Moscow that Western Europe, and particularly that meddlesome part of it presided over by the Lord Mayor of London, is protesting against something which Moscow is doing, the news impels Moscow promptly to do that something with increased fervor and energy. . . . T h e indignant interest with which Christendom has followed Russia's career of internal persecution and inhumanity is, at its best, of a sentimental character. However shocked the nations may have been, none of them has allowed the feeling to affect in any tangible way its friendly relations with the Government of the Czar.

Some times it seems as if all books on Russia, no matter when they were written, are contemporary. It would be temptingly easy to see in Frederic's words evidence that nothing has happened—temptingly easy, and wrong. Russia has changed, and so have the world and the Jews. But I remember that when I first read Frederic's book it was presented as a description of social reality in the dead past, in support of the proposition that under the new regime such things could not happen. T h e nature of socialism itself, to say nothing of the policies of government, excluded that. For me, therefore, Frederic's book is not so much a diagnosis of what lay behind or of what lay ahead. It is a way-station on the journey that I have taken. Russia and Israel and the United States have been my ports of call as I have journeyed back and forth between where my parents lived and my children live.

Oh some Scholar! oh some Sailor. Oh some Wise Man from the skies! Please to tell a Little Pilgrim Where the place called "Morning" lies?

IN QUEST

LONDON

T

H E National Portrait Gallery has a special exhibition on the young English poets of the 1930s who expressed so much of the temper of that period and of the times that came later—Auden, Spender, MacNeice, Isherwood, Lewis. I first saw Auden in 1939 or 1940 when he gave the Turnbull Lectures at T h e Johns Hopkins University. He was young and blond and his face was unlined, and I don't think I understood what he was saying and I did not like him. I remember comparing him with the Turnbull Lecturer of the year before, Archibald MacLeish: handsome, articulate, committed, a man of action as well as of thought, a member of the Lost Generation who had found his way home. T h e comparison was not favorable to Auden. America Was Promises and The Irresponsibles—collective security and social reform in prose poems and poetic prose. How was it possible not to be inspired by them? But it has been years since I have read MacLeish seriously (when I try I find him sententious and pompous) and for at least as long I have read and re-read the poems of Auden; and it seems to me I never cease to learn from him. In a glass case at the exhibition yesterday I found a clue to what excites my interest and admiration. There was a notebook kept by Auden between 1929 and 1936, open to a page with parallel lists of terms. T h e column to the left was headed "Social Terms"; the middle column and that to the right were entitled "Glossary of Christian and Psychological Terms." Some of the entries are as follows (I was still writing when the guards came by to escort me to the exit; the Gallery was closing):

LONDON

2

Society, the happy Society, the unhappy The revolution The Communist Party The capitalist system The ruling class

Heaven Hell Purgatory The four archangels SatanDevils The

The Unconscious The repressed unconscious The consulting room The four great ganglia of the body The Censor The repressed instincts

I remember the smooth face of the boy who spoke so haltingly in Baltimore more than 35 years ago, and I see now the face of the man in the years before his death—furrowed like ancient mountains—and I think I know why and I sorrow for his suffering and bless him for his vision. The friend with whom we're staying is eager to have us meet one of her friends. "He's Cambodian—very keen, very bright, and very left, you know." She looks at me intendy, almost challengingly, as she speaks those words—"and very left." I tell her I'd be delighted to meet him, and we all have drinks in the garden. He left Cambodia fourteen years ago; he is completely out of touch with his parents, but recendy established contact with a brother who is now a refugee in Thailand. "My family was very rich; that made it possible for me to leave Cambodia. I took my first degree in America. I was accepted as a scholarship student at the East-West Center in Hawaii. I studied for two years in Paris; then I came to the School of Oriental Studies at the University of London. I was working for a Ph.D. in Cambodian history. I was doing a thesis on Angkor, when I became deeply involved in the current political struggle. I became a committed activist and have given up working for my degree, though I'm still an assistant at the school." He talks about the help he is giving to a reporter for The (London) Times who is writing on American policy in Cambodia. "He has interviewed many of the people around Kissinger, but he is relying on me for the facts about Cambodia." I ask him about the Cambodian refugees in Thailand.

LONDON

3

"There are about 20,000 of them," he says; "and many others in France, Canada, and the United States." He is trying to get his brother to France. I ask him about the reports I read sometime ago about the forced evacuation from the cities of Cambodia. "Are these reports accurate?" "Yes, indeed," he says. " T h e cities have been emptied. When the Communists—to whom Cambodia owes its liberation—took over, too many people were living in the cities. More food production was needed, there was a health menace, and the danger of counter-revolution was very great. The Communists had no choice." " N o choice?" I say. "There's always a choice, if nothing more than not to do what you are doing." "But if you look at it as a Marxist-Leninist . . ." And I interrupt: "And do you?" He says proudly: "Of course. I am a Communist." And we are o f f . I find myself trapped and frustrated, unable to decide whether to try harder to understand why he is what he is, to argue with him, to try humor, or simply to tune out. So I do all these things, none of them well. "A Marxist-Leninist view clearly shows," he says. "Whose Marxist-Leninist view—Mao's, Tito's, Stalin's, Brezhnev's, Boumedienne's?" He remains imperturbable. "A correct view of the situation . . ." I congratulate him on the correctness of his view. "It follows from the materialist position that . . ." "You are a very religious man," I say—and for the first time he bridles. "Religious? I am the opposite of religious. I am a materialist." I ask him if he can tell me under what conditions his interpretation of the world would be rendered false. He seems not to understand, and I ask him how he would go about testing the validity of his theories. "By looking at the facts," he says. "But which facts, and what would they have to show to prove to you that you might be wrong?"

4

LONDON

"I have turned my back on my past," he says. "Why do you tell me that?" I ask. "What conclusion am I supposed to draw?" "I was a member of the feudal class, but I have rejected that," he goes on swifdy. "I accept the fact that you have rejected your position," I say. "Am I to infer that you are right to have done so, that your having done so proves the correctness of your theory? Does your rejection of your social position say something about you or about your theory?" "I am, as a Cambodian, a victim of oppression," he says. "I am a victim of oppression, too; I'm a Jew." He says nothing about that. "I suffered from the oppression of imperialism. I did not suffer from economic oppression, because I came from a rich family. My becoming a MarxistLeninist was the result of a conscious decision . . ." "But I suffered from economic as well as social oppression," I tell him, "because I was a poor Jew." Again he acts as if he had not heard the word Jew. And again it is the barb that he is religious that gets under his skin. "But I reject the concept of God." "Of course; you've replaced him with history." "Precisely," he says on a note of triumph, "and that makes me a materialist, a Marxist-Leninist." "It certainly does," I say, "and like a devout Christian or a devout Mohammedan or a devout Jew you know the truth and knowledge of the truth gives you the courage to go on." "But I'm speaking of an ideology, not a religion," he says. "A religion is mystical." We go on and on, and I'm grateful when our hostess gives nervous signs that she would like an end put to the discussion so that she can serve dinner. I shake hands with him and say we must continue our talk sometime. We won't. What I found most troubling was his absolute silence when I said—and repeated—that, like him, I had been a victim of oppression since I am Jewish. I knew, of course, that his silence did not give consent. I don't even think it was evidence of his ignorance of the historical facts; what frightens me is that I think it means

LONDON

5

that he identifies me as one of the oppressors. He has gone beyond ignorance; he has rewritten history and now believes his own fictions. Reflections on Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land": None of us can escape the tension that boils up from the conflict between what we think we are and what we would like others to think we are. T o live doggedly in accordance with the former is accounted honesty, but how do we know we do not try to sell ourselves to ourselves as we do to others? Then honesty becomes another form of huckstering. We present that side of ourselves that we think will appeal; it is rarely a total fraud, but it is a partial truth, one of the pieces of ourselves. We try desperately to appeal, and ingratiate our way to acceptance. When we feel our disguise is in danger of being penetrated, either by the one we are trying to seduce or by a rival, we become fearful; and the self we presented, which was more agreeable than we are, becomes more hateful than we are. If we would not try so hard to appear better than we are, we would less often have occasion to act worse than we are. The desire to lift the burdens off the backs of others is especially acute among those who are barely capable—or incapable—of coping with their own burdens. It is as if they ask to be excused for their own weakness by proclaiming their desire to help others. It is not the example of Jesus which leads us to want to help our suffering brethren. We legitimize ourselves by making a religion of our need to appear less selfish than we are. Why do we search for a historical Jesus when what Jesus represents is a prehistorical truth about our nature? We do not seek a historical Satan, though he, too, represents a truth about ourselves. Is it because we want to believe people can act as nobly as we would like to think we can, but cannot bring ourselves to believe people more often act as ignobly as we fear. It is curious that goodness should be historicized, while evil remains Platonic; that Jesus is historical, Satan mythical.

6

LONDON

T h e d i f f e r e n c e between religion (or ideology) and history: In the beginning was the Word; in the beginning was the World. F o r the true believer, the World contaminates the Word.

We had dinner the other night with a relative of Shirley's (a distinguished student of both M a r x i s m and Jewish history) whom we had not seen since 1962. H e had not been especially friendly at that time; I suppose I was f o r him a representative f r o m the S u p r e m e Headquarters of A m e r i c a n reaction a n d corruption. But on this occasion he was charming and pleasant—until he learned that we w e r e going to visit the U S S R on our way to Israel. T h e n he became quite agitated: "Promise you'll be careful. Don't d o anything rash. Y o u know you'll be watched." H e said very little on the drive home, but when we arrived the warnings were r e p e a t e d — a n d they have a f f e c t e d me.

O n e piece of the Parthenon frieze shows a La pith and a Centaur—their legs intertwined, locked in mortal combat. O n e must kill the other, yet each without the other is nothing; only the relationship makes each worth remembering. I f the Centaur had killed the Lapith b e f o r e the artist had portrayed the event, the Centaur would have been unknown to history; in killing his enemy, he would have destroyed himself. Also in the British Museum is a cult figure f r o m Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh. It, too, d e p e n d s on a relationship, this time between the object and its viewer. Since it is a statue of a cult figure, clearly the point is that the object should inspire certain beliefs and therefore certain behavior on the part of its viewers. B u t what beliefs? Probably Ashurbanipal's subjects knew, but I do not—and I search f o r clues. T h e eyes of the statue are black sockets. " D o not look into me f o r guidance," the statue says. " Y o u see in m e what is not there—what you want to see or are driven to see. You make me what I am, but

LONDON

7

you are frightened by the thought that my power comes from you."

T h e phrase "You cannot escape History" has an interesting ambiguity. Does it mean that we cannot escape being judged for the consequences of our acts? That history will judge us? Or does it mean that we cannot escape the burdens placed on us by the acts of our ancestors? T h a t we cannot make a fresh start and begin from a new beginning? T h e first meaning involves ourselves and our posterity, whose good opinion we solicit; the second involves ourselves and our ancestors, on whose activities we pronounce judgment as if we were a panel of doomsmen. T h e great conflicts of history are not those of class struggle, but those of generations, each of which convicts its ancestors of those crimes they committed for which they feel they still suffer. T h e true subject of historiography is, then, the change that takes place over time in what each generation thinks are the crimes for which they must hold their parents guilty. But what determines what each generation feels to be those historical crimes? That is determined by the politics of the present. Each group (blacks, Jews, the proletariat, women) seeks to convince us that our ancestors are guilty of certain crimes and not of others. T o catch our conscience by making us judge our ancestors is to make us choose between different courses of action in our own world. Do the acts of our ancestors have no meaning except what we choose to give them? We are frightened by the thought that it is we who have the power of decision; we seek relief in the god of Ashurbanipal, who tells us what to do, or in the course of history, which tells us what to do. T h e Lapith and the Centaur have a quality in common with the admonition that you cannot escape history. In precise details appropriate to the time and place of their creation, they, like the aphorism, present a problem that transcends the circumstances of the moment: the problem of relationship, between contemporary antagonists (or lovers), between past, present, and future. It is in this tension between abstractness and particularity that art lies. Too much particularity and we

8

LONDON

become merely relevant and timely; too much abstractness and we are lost in another's solipsism.

Magical thinking in the modern world: T h e Ethnographic Division of the British Museum tells us that for most aborigines death is not a "natural" phenomenon; it is caused by sorcery, by the operation of evil, and it may be prevented—or caused—by magical means. T h e result of such a belief is an extraordinarily activist attitude; people act to prevent death or to cause it by the appropriate magical means. Photographs show Australian aborigines, like dogs on the scent of a bird, "pointing" in the direction of the malefactor and then working their magic against him. Nothing is more congenial to the modern temperament than the notion that the evil or tragedy that occurs in society is "unnatural" in the same sense that death is unnatural to the tribesman; they are the result of the behavior of malign persons, and the proper therapy requires the same kind of activism that the tribesmen show in warding off death or inflicting it. We, too, "point" in the direction of the malefactors—the class enemy, the religious enemy, the backward elements, the treasonous elements—and isolate them or kill them. T o ward off misfortune requires constant vigilance and ceaseless activity. T h e world is a fearsome place—danger lurks in unexpected places, the unknown lies in ambush, and death is always there. T h e myths of the aborigines provide the explanations that make life in the presence of terrible uncertainty bearable. So do the myths of the moderns.

ARLES

M

Y consciousness of being Jewish is hardly acute in Southern France; my Americanness is more salient. Still, it is there, and I wonder whether it is summoned up by claims of the past or anticipations of the future. T o be a Jew anywhere means something. What it will mean to be an American. Jew in Germany, in Eastern Europe, and in Israel I am not sure. I can't confine that uncertainty to the months ahead; it intrudes now, sometimes in the form of a not-unpleasant curiosity about the past, sometimes less pleasantly. In the Christian Museum at Aries, entirely surrounded by Christian sarcophagi, are two medieval Jewish tomb inscriptions: "This is the grave of the Master Meir" (possibly a reference to a Rabbi Meir of Narbonne in the thirteenth century), and "Here lies the body of . May his soul rest in peace; he never committed a sin." Yesterday we visited the walled city of Aigues Mortes, and learned that it was from there that Louis IX left on his crusade to the Holy Land. The walls themselves were built by Eudes de Montrueil, whom St. Louis had also commissioned to build the walls of Jaffa. Some years ago we had seen the statue of St. Louis in the Church of St. Peter in Jaffa, where Peter had raised Tabitha from the dead, and had walked in all that remains of Eudes de Montrueil's fortress—a single room. At Saintes-Maries de la Mer in the Camargue we visited the fortress church of the Saintes-Maries, which contains the bones of Marie Jacobe and of Marie Salome and of their servant, Sarah, patroness of gypsies—and we wondered how they had come from the Holy Land to the Camargue. A leaflet issued by the church explains it: "The breviary of the diocese of Aix 9

io

ARLES

informs us: 'A persecution was created by the Jews. With Matthew, Mary Magdalen, Lazarus, Maximin and many others, Mary Jacobe and Salome were arrested and embarked on a ship without sail or rudder which, guided by Providence, happily landed on the shores of Provence.' " " . . . a persecution was created by the Jews"—across the street from the church, on the wall of the Catholic youth center, a plaque records that in 1948 Monsignor Roncalli (later Pope John X X I I I ) came to Saintes-Maries de la Mer on a pilgrimage. Did he see the literature issued by the church? In Narbonne, in the Museum of Medieval Archeology housed in the ancient Palace of the Archbishops, I saw a fragment from the "epoque Carolingien"—a broken piece of marble with three designs cut into it: on the left, a cross that radiates beams of light; in the center, "a shield of Solomon and a star of Hiram"; on the right, two ears. It is called "Marble with esoteric signs." T h e cross and the shield of Solomon are clear enough. It's the ears that I find cryptic. Are they d e a f ?

ST. REM Y

T

H E other day in Avignon we returned to the synagogue that we had seen once before—fourteen years ago. We found it on Place Jérusalem, a bit smaller than it had been in my memory. It was Saturday afternoon; the synagogue was closed, and, not wishing to disturb the Sabbath of the custodian I did not ring his bell. We did not, therefore, see the interior, but I have the powerful memory that carved into marble tablets on the walls are the names of all the deportees from Avignon. Perhaps it was because we did not enter that I noticed the exterior of the building more carefully. It is not surrounded by a wall, nor is it set back from the street. It does not have a Star of David, nor a menorah, nor any other mark that might distinguish it as a synagogue except a Hebrew inscription over the entrance; I do not know its date. T h e most strildng characteristic of the building is that there are no windows, at least none that face the streets. Were they afraid of being looked at by others? Were they afraid of what they might see if they looked out? Or were they oblivious to the world outside?

On the primitive town map of St. Remy that we received at the hotel, we noticed—in tiny print—a place called "La cimitiere juive" a few kilometers outside St. Remy, just off the road to Les Baux and quite close to the asylum where Van Gogh was confined. Yesterday we drove to it. It was deserted, surrounded by a high stone wall with an iron gate on which a Star of David stood in relief; the gate was locked. When I peered through the bars of the gate I could see weeds and 11

ST.

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brambles and scraggly trees growing everywhere; it was unkempt in a most un-French way. Very few tombstones had survived, and many of those were eroded or battered almost beyond recognition. But someone still attends, or the gate would not be locked. Who? A n d attends to what?—survivals of Judaism? property? Later, we drove to Cavaillon and went to the eighteenthcentury syngagogue and, in the basement, the Musée J u d e o Comtadin. T h e synagogue is tiny but elegant, with delicately carved and painted woodwork. Fourteen years ago when we were here, we were told by the custodian that the arrival of North African J e w s in the aftermath of the French withdrawal f r o m Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia had resulted in the reestablishment of a small Jewish community in Cavaillon, and in the renewed use of the synagogue on special occasions. But it seems not to be used now; tickets of admission (at two francs per person) are issued by the local Syndicat d'Initiative. When I asked the custodian about the cemetery at St. Rémy and how I might enter it, he replied, "I don't know. St. Rémy is a long way o f f . " St. Rémy is, in fact, about 18 miles (29 km) f r o m Cavaillon. Below the synagogue (which is on rue des Hébreus), in the same room which houses the museum, are the oven of an earlier medieval synagogue, where matzos were baked, and a number of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century prayer books, found in the "cemetery of books" under the old synagogue. In the afternoon, in Carpentras, we visited the cathedral of St. Siffrein, which has a flamboyantly Gothic "Portal of the J e w s " (no one was there to explain the name) and the famous synagogue, on Place Juiverie. It is larger than the one in Cavaillon, and more elaborate—especially the inside marble staircase that leads u p to the synagogue on the second floor. T h e walls of the hallway on the street level were placarded with posters about trips to Israel, summer jobs on kibbutzim and summer courses in Jerusalem, and the work of O R T [Organization f o r Rehabilitation through Training] and W I Z O [Women's International Zionist Organization]. In a room under the stairs one young woman was polishing menorahs, another

ST.

R£MY

»3

was washing the floor. Upstairs, a man in very tight shorts was snapping dozens of pictures. A card covered with cellophane was lying on the lectern on the bema [the place where the Torah is read and the cantor sings]; it caught the light and I went over to look at it. It was the Kaddish [the prayer for the dead], transliterated into French for those who could not read Hebrew.

PARIS

P

A I N T I N G S and politics: I admire the Davids, but I cannot really like them; the viewer is always exhorted to e n g a g e in some great action o r to think some noble thought as the prelude to such an action. Nothing is questioned about the historical event being portrayed, nor are the complexity or ambiguity of the event evoked by looking at the painting. History is not something to be analyzed; it is a vast reservation of events to be p l u n d e r e d — i n the interests of the state. I p r e f e r my art to be m o r e subversive. A r t , theology, and politics merge in a special way in the fourteenth-century Sienese painting, The Fall of the Rebellions Angels, by the Master of the Rebel Angels. F o r Georges Marchais, the secretary o f the French Communist party, they d o not m e r g e because politics is all. R e f e r r i n g at a press conference the other day to the execution of a child rapist and murd e r e r , Marchais said that crimes are caused by evil social conditions. T h e rebellion of the angels took place in heaven; their crime could not be the result of a "sick society." What, then, caused it? F o r the Sienese Master, inordinate ambition; but is this the result o f a special set of social conditions? C I B A , the giant multinational pharmaceutical company, would seem to a g r e e with Marchais. T h e kinds of hotels in which we have been staying have very little reading matter, so when I discovered in the entrance hall a medical j o u r n a l , La Semaine des Hopitaux de Paris (dated May 8, 1 9 7 1 ) I devoured it. C I B A ' s two-page ad f o r its tranquillizer called T A C I T I N E placed it squarely on the side of Marchais's theology, not St. Augustine's: »4

PARIS

5 Ce ne sont pas vos Qui sont malades Mais le temps Que nous vivons.

patients

E u r o - C o m m u n i s m : For H e n r y IV, Paris was worth a mass. For Georges Marchais, Paris is worth a heresy.

Many tourists like to have their pictures taken while they a r e s t a n d i n g next to great works of art. O n e by o n e , several y o u n g J a p a n e s e w o m e n posed smilingly in f r o n t of Delacroix's Liberty Guiding the People. Exactly t h r e e paintings away a g r o u p of Russian tourists q u e u e d u p b e f o r e Gros's Napoleon at the Battle of Eylau to have their pictures s n a p p e d . I was w o n d e r i n g a b o u t the possible relationship between t h e p e r s o n being p h o t o g r a p h e d a n d his o r h e r choice of t h e p a i n t i n g to b e identified with, w h e n all my hypotheses were s h a t t e r e d : a n Israeli boy of nine or ten was snapped by his a d o r i n g f a t h e r s t a n d i n g b e f o r e Manet's reclining n u d e , Olympia. By f a r the most p o p u l a r object to be p h o t o g r a p h e d with is t h e Venus de Milo. Matronly Italian w o m e n pose stiffly with h e r , while t h e i r sons take their pictures a n d their h u s b a n d s look o n benignly. J a p a n e s e women have their pictures with t h e V e n u s taken in g r o u p s . D u r i n g all t h e time I watched, n o m a n h a d his p i c t u r e taken with the Venus.

Looking at a painting by D o m i n i q u e P e y r o n n e t , Femme Couchee, I was struck by a quality of primitivist p a i n t i n g that I had not especially t h o u g h t a b o u t b e f o r e — t h a t while "primitive" is a "style" of painting, it is also an a t t i t u d e toward life, an attit u d e at least partly conveyed by the contrast between t h e subject m a t t e r a n d the stiff, naive, almost trance-like m a n n e r in which it is p r e s e n t e d , an attitude which implies a set of values with which to j u d g e the subject m a t t e r . W h a t suggested the t h o u g h t was that Peyronnet has painted a n o t h e r p a i n t i n g on the wall above the couch on which t h e w o m a n is lying—and it

i6

PARIS

is d o n e in anything but a primitive style; it is a landscape—as naturalistic as anything Courbet painted. Clearly Peyronnet could paint naturalistically; he chose not to. What started as an observation about primitivist painting led m e to think about paintings-within-paintings as visual quotations. I could r e m e m b e r several of those seventeenth- a n d eighteenth-century paintings of picture galleries, in which dozens of paintings—many of them easily recognizable—hang on the walls. A n d I could r e m e m b e r Matisse's paintings of his studio, in which the paintings on the walls a n d the easels are his own. T o demonstrate the authenticity of the scene that has been painted, to establish a "truth" about the subject of a portrait, to become part of the decorative pattern of the painting itself—the quoted paintings I could r e m e m b e r serve all of these purposes. And I f o u n d myself looking for still other examples of quoted art, a n d I f o u n d m o r e than I thought I would. T h e r e was a Picasso still-life; on the wall behind a table was a picture—at least there was a f r a m e , but it was empty. Perhaps it was a mirror; if so, it reflected nothing. T h e r e was an Emil Nolde; on the wall above the table with a still-life arr a n g e m e n t h u n g a painting of vividly primitive dancing figures, whose awkward vitality contrasted with the serene formality of the objects on the table. T h e r e was a large construction, La Boite en Valise by Marcel Duchamp; in a series of small boxes were a n u m b e r of reproductions of his own paintings (on each of which it was clearly noted that it was part of the Arensberg collection) and contemporary magazine advertisements, p u n n i n g on the name Apollinaire. T h e r e was Maurice Denis's Homage à Cézanne; B o n n a r d , Denis, Vollard, Redon, a n d a n u m b e r of others are g r o u p e d a r o u n d an easel on which stands a Cézanne still-life. In a Chagall painting of a Russian village, the painter—palette in hand—looks in two directions. T o the right is a painting he has done: Jesus on the cross. T o the left is a red T o r a h cover, the tablets of the Law, and sabbath candles. But the most specatcular example of quoted art was in a painting by an artist of whom I had never h e a r d — G u d m u n d u r Erro. The Background of Pollock has a double portrait of Pollock in the f o r e g r o u n d , s u r r o u n d e d by

PARIS

»7

thundering horses, who seem to be directed by an officer in Nazi uniform, racing toward him. In the background, on the wall, are dozens of paintings, among which I recognized a Max Beckmann self-portrait, Picasso's Three Musicians and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Braque, Munch, Matisse, and a selfportrait by Van Gogh, which is being pinned to the wall. Yesterday time and space were annihilated at Chartres, not only by the beauty of the cathedral but also by an experience we had there. In the cathedral treasury, hanging under glass, were two large belts of wampum, ex voto offerings to the cathedral chapter given by some Huron and Abenaqui Indians of Canada in the seventeenth century. They had once hung on the walls of the crypt, but now had been moved to the treasury for safe-keeping. In the archives of the Département de L'Eure is the correspondence (in French, Latin, and thé Indian languages) dealing with the offerings. By a strange coincidence, the chapter had just received a letter f r o m an Indian in Quebec asking if the wampum belts in fact existed. T h e r e is an oral tradition that his ancestors had sent them, he wrote, but no records, and he would like records for his people's archive. I decided to write to him myself. T h e seventeenth century and the twentieth, the Old World and the New World, an Abenaqui Indian and a New York professor—all coming together at Chartres. But why didn't Henry Adams see the belts when he was here? Was it because he knew so much what he wanted to say that he didn't look? And if he had looked, would he have seen them? He could not have found a better symbol of the unity he wished to celebrate.

HAMBURG A T the Hagenbeck Tiergarten: Zoos, like cemeteries, • Z j V express the social attitudes of those living around them: (1) Three middle-aged to elderly grownups, all smiles and joviality, place a child at the foot of an Indian totem pole (gift of the city of Seatde) and tell her to hold her arms above her head while she is being photographed—and then it can be seen that one hand is missing (is she a Thalidomide baby?). In Cordoba a number of years ago, the women who shoved a handless child into our path were at least trying to appeal to us for money. But what was the need these Hamburgers gratified? (2) T h e animals at the zoo are the very model of a docile, disciplined labor force: the elephants and chimpanzees accept donations of food for themselves, but turn over all monetary contributions to their keepers. They have been trained to accept crumbs from the table to produce a profit for their masters.

In the Hamburg Kunstmuseum there is a silver plate, designated only as having "a Hebrew inscription." Was it there during the Nazi period? Was it acquired later—from whom? In the great Art Nouveau gallery there is a tapestry by Frida Hansen of the Milky Way; it, too, has a Hebrew inscription. Did it continue to hang during the 1930s? In the Fine Arts Museum there is a painting by Joseph Israels of a young woman seated next to a window. It was presented to the Museum by Paul Warburg in 1933. Has it hung continuously? Was it the subject of high-level discussions? 18

HAMBURG

>9

The trouble with the German language is that it forces one to respond to the subject under discussion with either too great seriousness or too little. Who can take seriously a people who say, "Unser Restaurant, ein Eldorado fur Feinschmecker"? But yesterday at the zoo I heard a child who was looking at the apes say, "Achtung! Zwei Rassen Affen"—and my blood froze! The price we pay for taking them too seriously when they deal with trivialities is that we don't take them seriously enough when they deal with important matters.

LÜBECK

1

A S T night I had noticed that the synagogue of Liibeck is listed with other religious estabishments in the city's official tourist information leaflet. Since it is close to St. Annen's Museum, where we had planned to go this morning, we decided to walk to the synagogue first. We were surprised that it is so large and apparently in such good condition. Children were playing on the grassy plot in front of the synagogue, which was set back from the street, but the building was locked. "Sinagoga," they smiled—"geschlossen." I tried the doors again and was about to leave when I saw a young woman walking along the path that went around the side of the building. I asked her about the synagogue, and she accompanied us to an apartment building next door where she took us to the caretaker and his wife. We introduced ourselves, and were ushered into their somewhat shabby but meticulously clean apartment. Pictures of their daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren who live in Nachariya, Israel, were on the wall; on a small table were pictures of their two sons, both still at home. Like driftwood, Mr. and Mrs. R. were cast up on the beach at Liibeck after the war; he came from Cracow, she from Vilnius. He pointed to the pictures of his sons, and said that one was studying medicine and the other would probably study law. "They will go to Canada or the United States," he said sadly, but with a smile on his face. "There is no future for young Jews in Germany. As for the old Jews, they remember, they remember, but they are dying. Anti-Semitism is still very much alive here, but it is damped down." And he added bitterly: "The fascists support it and so does the Left." 20

LÜBECK

21

Liibeck:

Ihe

caretaker of the synagogue

and his wife: castaways of war

It was a hot, muggy day, and his wife, overweight and breathing heavily, mopped her forehead and nodded in agreement as she listened to her husband talk to us. He opened a photograph album he had got from a German soldier who had been on the Eastern front, and he talked as he showed us the pictures. He pointed to some snapshots of the Nazi commandant of a camp in Poland, and as he showed us the pictures of the officer, sitting erect on a white horse, taking the salute of his troops, he told us that he had been an inmate of Bergen-Belsen and that his family had died at Auschwitz. He turned the pages of the album, and we looked at photographs the soldier had taken of a trip from Lvov to Ploesti, of Italian soldiers on the Russian front, and of Jews in the Ukraine digging their own graves. A record player of ancient vintage stood on a cabinet in the living room; near it were a few American and Israeli records, but we could not hear them because the turntable was not working, and Mr. R. was embarrassed and disappointed. He took us downstairs and outside to the synagogue, unlocked the door, and escorted us to a large room to the right of the vestibule. The walls were hung with pictures of the synagogue as

22

LÜBECK

it was before the Nazis; it was s u r m o u n t e d by a large d o m e and had an imposing façade, both of which had been removed by the Nazis who had encircled the building with a wall and incorporated it into St. Annen's convent next door. O t h e r pictures h u n g on the walls: of the f a m o u s Rabbi Carlebach of Liibeck, of old Jewish families looking as stiffly formal as the bourgeois families of T h o m a s Mann's Liibeck, of the liberation of the city in 1945. T h r e e or f o u r heavy, ornate bookcases contained the books belonging to the synagogue. For years they had been in St. Annen's convent and were only now being removed; d a m p and musty, with limp, discolored pages, they a d d e d to the air of sad unhealthiness that pervaded the room. Some of the books dealt with Judaism, but there were a large n u m b e r of G e r m a n , English, French, and American classics: Goethe, Lessing, Emerson, Kipling, and Victor H u g o were there, standing side by side in uniform bindings; it had been years since they had escorted anyone on j o u r n e y s of the mind, and what terrible j o u r n e y s had been the fate of those who, lovingly and trustingly, had last travelled with them. "My sons read the English books now," Mr. R. broke the silence; "there's no one else here." H e gave me a few books, and I gave him some money for the synagogue, and we returned to his a p a r t m e n t . I took some pictures of him and his wife to send to his d a u g h t e r . When I told him that we were going to Poland and the Soviet Union on o u r way to Israel, he became very agitated, twisting his h a n d s and shaking his head. "You must be very careful in the East," he warned; "they have faces like masks and they d o not mean what they say. And be careful here, too; don't talk to the Greeks and the T u r k s and the Arabs." He never asked a favor of us, did not even ask for o u r names a n d address. We shook h a n d s and said shalom, and left the building. As we walked t h r o u g h the courtyard in front of the synagogue, I looked back and saw him looking down on us f r o m the window of his living-room. We waved, and so did he, very slowly, until we could not see each other. And I thought of how we left our children at the airport in New York. We kissed each other and

LÜBECK

23

said Good-bye and waved until we turned a corner and suddenly they were no longer there. But they have a future and we have some part still to play in it. But Mr. R. has only a past, and how can we enter into that? He saves his letters from his friends and a few relations in the United States and in Israel, and I am sure he savored the interruption of our visit. How else could it be, for otherwise he lives only with the deafening silence of the past. Buxtehude is buried in the Marienkirche in Lübeck; the Katharinenkirche has an impressive frieze with sculptures by Barlach and Mareks that demand compassion from the passerby; Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann lived here, clothed in culture and comfort until the Nazis came, honored now that the Nazis have gone. Mr. R. lives here now; he did not ask to come, he was not made welcome when he came and is not honored now, and he lives wrapped in such fear—of the~past, of the present, of the future—that the compassion of Barlach and the culture of Mann cannot even penetrate it. T h e Lübeck Tiergarten is in Israelsdorf. Mr. R. did not know why the village was given that name. Outside Lübeck is Jerusalemberg; the cemetery is the Moisling. Why? And why do I notice?

BREMEN

T

H I S is the city from which my parents left for America at the turn of the century. It is a modern city; it is a medieval city; it is a baroque city—it is a city that faces the ocean and looks out on the world. But nothing o f their world is here. I never read the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms. I read the telephone book—and look up Cohens and Schwartzes and synagogues. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, I once found a Comanche Cohen—and laughed; in Bremen I find a Max Cohen, Wilhelm Leuschner Strasse 4—and do not laugh. Who is he? Why is he still here? Where did he come from? What did he see?

T h e St. Johannkirche is a fourteenth-century Franciscan church. Why is there a Star of David on the façade? T h e Evangelical Church o f Our Lady, near the Rathaus, has an enormous equestrian statue of von Moltke on the façade.

Lord Byron described the guillotining in Rome o f three thieves: " T h e second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow indifferent), I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though I would have saved them if I could." Our fathers lived in a world pervaded with death, but they devised a way o f defeating it; beautiful boys and girls were transformed into flowers and trees, and heroes cheated their murderers by flying into the heavens as comets. Out o f death came myth and history—the program o f art; what death destroyed, art resurrected. Neither can we hold back death, 24

BREMEN

«5

and like our fathers we invent myths (called ideologies) to cheat death by making the dead significant not as surviving in the form of some other natural object (a flower, a tree, a star) but in the form of a new society. Man is born man; he cheats death by being reborn as a class. What can I do about the Jews who died, to cheat death of its victory? And I think once again of art as defiance of death. Isn't this appallingly objective, a view that justifies the most horrifying experiences? Since death must come in any case, the issue is: Do we bow to it, or do we use it—even our terror of it—to see deeper than we did before? The death of our fathers forces us to create new meanings and new forms to contain them. If we make art out of Auschwitz, death will not have been defeated, but life will be made more bearable. But what is the myth we can make of Auschwitz? Caesar became a comet; but six million comets? Orpheus became a tree; but six million trees? And what is the new society whose existence is secured and sanctified by the death of the six million? Can we find a myth that is not so difficult for us to believe as to make their death ludicrous, nor so easy for us to believe as to relieve us of the torment of knowing what we are? The creation of myth implies the sharing of belief, but the truth is that I do not know whether, after what has happened, there is any belief we can share or the will to share it or a language in which to express it. Having seen Satan, can they possibly have any interest in, any patience for, the innocence— however beautiful—of those who have never spent a season in hell? And what have we to o f f e r them? Even if we were to hold back nothing, to show them all we are, would they see anything they had not already seen, learn anything they had not already known? They would know that any myth we could create could not cancel a moment of their agony; it could only give solace to those who did not experience that agony themselves. And that, perhaps, is our greatest debt to them: having seen Satan themselves and survived, they require us to create a myth which does not obscure us from ourselves. Should we mark 1945 as the Year 1, the beginning of a new era of history? T h e death of one man required conversion on

26

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the part of those who believed that a new meaning had been given to human history by that death. T h e death of the six million is far more ecumenical. It does not require conversion as the price of salvation; it calls for something nobler. Knowing that there is no salvation, we are called upon to restrain the intensity with which we believe in whatever gives meaning to our lives. I look out over the city from which, separately, my parents left for America more than seventy years ago. They were not led by a myth of enchantment and delight; they were dogged by misfortune, the children of grief, and they lived as they had to. Where will the road end for us?

WEST BERLIN

I

N the Belvedere of Schloss Charlottenburg there is a Seder plate, dated 1770-1786, showing the four sons of the Seder story against the background of the architecture of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was presented as a gift to the museum in 1974. Who gave it? Where had he obtained it? The elegant Watteaus raise no such questions for me. They draw attention to themselves, not to their history, and are therefore so restful. In totalitarian societies, four's a crowd, three's company, two's a conspiracy, and one is a counter-revolution.

In the Benin bronze collection at the Dahlem Museum is a chained figure surrounded by guards, including one with a gun. Another group depicts a king on his throne, preceded by his wives or concubines. Everything is clear and explicit; nothing is uncertain or ambiguous. We are charmed by the naïveté or sophistication of the workmanship, but we are not turned inward on mysterious journeys. The art is not savage; it is domesticated. What accounts for the lack of any abstract quality to the art? The first group shows a prisoner, but it does not present the concept of captivity; it is a graphic portrayal of what happens to a law-breaker, but it does not lead us to ask questions about law itself. The second shows an attribute of the king, and a domestic one at that; the majesty of the concept of kingship is not to be found in the artist's presentation of a king's household. In the enigmatic smile of a kouros there is so much more than a facial expression; there is the esthetic expression of abstract thought. 27

28

WEST

BERLIN

T h e Kempinski Hotel, where we are staying, is on Fasanenstrasse, almost directly opposite the Jüdische Gemeinde, which stands on the location of the great Berlin synagogue, burned on Kristallnacht in 1938. All that now remains of that synagogue are a fragment of a single column at one end of the building and an arch over the main doorway. On the night of the burning, did the guests in the nearby restaurants watch the fire from the windows as they dined? Did they eat faster as they saw the looting? Did they leave an especially large tip for the waiter because they felt expansive? It took twenty years to put up the new building. Now, less than twenty years after that, the men sit nervously in their offices and speak to me about eastern Europe with obvious reluctance and fear. Do they see in me something that reminds them of the past, as I see in them a memory of the past that is not yet dead and will never die? T h e terrible truth is that I am not sure about those to whom I speak at the Gemeinde. Will they tell others what I have said to them? Terror forces us in upon ourselves; we are frightened away from trustfulness. That is the success of totalitarian regimes—they destroy social connections. Yet such a regime is distrustful of the consequences of its own success. If we do not speak to others, if we do not reveal ourselves, how can it be sure of us?

Tuxedos seem to have a special meaning for me, and I am pleasantly jealous of those who wear them well—as an artifact of a time and place, more than as an item of apparel. Maitres d'hotel in the United States always seem to me as if they were ready for a return of the big dance bands of the 1930s, when I did not know how to dance but wished so hard that I could. Head waiters in Central European hotels wear tuxedos as if they expected in an instant to show Count Esterhazy and that smiling woman who is not the countess to a private dining alcove, up the carpeted stairway around the corner. What will be the image of the good life evoked—forty years from now—by the sight of blue jeans and T-shirts? Did I always find refuge from the raucous democracy of my politics in the

WEST

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2

9

quieter aristocracy of my daydreams? I have long been aware of the contradiction between the two. For much of the time that contradiction has been a source of embarrassment for me—a tell-tale sign of hypocrisy, an inability to commit all of myself to what I believed. But I think now that I am grateful for the contradiction. I will not deny that I learned much from what I did in pursuance of my political beliefs, but how can I deny that I would have learned less if I had lost myself totally in them?

EAST BERLIN E crossed over the line today, and it was reminiscent of earlier trips to Prague and Budapest, only more menacing. From the train window one can see four fences of barbed wire (topped with vertical spikes where the buildings come close to the fences) inside the Great Wall itself. And there were blockhouses with soldiers peering through binoculars (no doubt Zeiss) and tommygunned soldiers. And there was a long wait for the visa—a very long wait, with no explanations, no smiling faces, no quip to make time pass pleasantly, but with rapidly appearing and disappearing soldiers who simply shut down their windows and make off behind closed doors. All doors in East Berlin are closed—and all of them are locked. Doors are inherently ambiguous; they are both invitations to enter and warnings to stay out. East Berlin allows no ambiguities; doors are exclusively warnings to stay where you are. East Berlin produces roadmaps instead of landscapes. But the people—do they tire of knowing where all journeys begin and where they end? Do any journeys end in lovers' meetings, or do they all end in the production of an agenda—concretized and finalized—for the next meeting? All officers and civil servants carry attaché cases. Most often they are bright and shiny, even when those carrying them are wearing baggy, sloppy uniforms, but I saw one today that was crisscrossed with adhesive tape—was it a status symbol suffering from old age, but still full of dignity, or was it a signal that its possessor was not in favor? From a second-floor window of the Zeughaus, once the arsenal, now the National Historical Museum, I watched the ceremony of the changing of the military guard in front of the monument honoring the victims of 3 0

EAST

BERLIN

3

fascism just across the street. T h e victims of fascism are honored with military music played by a crack band whose every drummer brings his sticks down on the drum-head at exactly the same instant, at exacdy the same angle. They are honored—the victims of fascism—with military maneuvers by graygreen uniformed, steel-helmeted soldiers who goosestep with awesome precision, led down Unter den Linden by that batonwielding officer who stepped smardy at the front of the troops of Frederick the Great, of von Moltke, of Hitler. And at my back as I watched the parade was the presentation of a version of history that purported to show how different the present was from everything that had come before it. Why, then, this vestige of the past, which can hardly be accidental? Dialectics and historical inevitability were the keys to the historical exhibits. Capitalist development side by side with the growth of labor organization; the frivolities of the rich alongside the miseries of the poor (actually, the Berlin apartment of the poor, ca. 1900, did not look too bad, though it would have been crowded)—the conflicts that resulted from these contradictions and the victories that were achieved in these conflicts are all the inevitable result of the flow of history. How comforting! There was very little in the exhibits about the death camps, but there were a few cases of memorabilia relating to the German pogroms of the 1930s. Harry Truman is enshrined in East Berlin, not as a participant in the Potsdam Conference but as the Senator from Missouri—quoted in the New York World-Telegram which is on display—who said at the outbreak of the Russo-German War that the United States should support whichever side seemed to be losing. There was not a picture of Roosevelt or Churchill, not even at Yalta or Teheran or Cairo. And there were the names I remembered from so long ago—Johannes Becher, Muhsam, Bodo Uhse, Eisler, Hans Beimler, Ludwig Renn—and Thaelmann, Thorez, and Dimitrov. Did they create the DDR, or did the Red Army? What would they say at the sight of that strutting drum major? I cannot say goodbye to all that, for how can I murder the self I was and annihilate the past I lived? And I would not say goodbye to all that, even if I could, for there is

EAST

3*

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much that I cherish, even now, in the friendships and in the enmities I made and much that I learned from the experience of fighting, and losing, and fighting again. I d o feel sad about what was wasted and what was trifled with, but it would be a waste to sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of beliefs. And more wasteful still to gnaw at myself for having believed. "Hate the sin but love the sinner," says the Christian; I have learned to cherish the belief and be skeptical of the believer. I heard on the radio tonight that Robert McNamara had approved the idea of murdering Fidel Castro. McNamara— paragon of all the virtues of the Kennedy years: young, brilliant, efficient, liberal, effective, man of thought and man of action. Defend the Free World, shouts McNamara, and points the pistol at Castro. Defend the Socialist Motherland, shouts Brezhnev or Honecker or . . . , and puts up barbed-wire fences to make a cage of his country. Peace is war conducted by other means. T h e higher the ratio of waiters to diners in any restaurant, the more likely it is that the restaurant is in a People's Democracy. T h e ratio of waiters to diners is in inverse proportion to the speed of service. T h e demography of the past has a special relation to the demography of the present in East Berlin. Crowds flock to the antiquities in the Pergamum Museum; several blocks of Unter den Linden, stretching as far as the Brandenburg Gate (the historical and political heart of the DDR) are deserted, except for a few youth groups there on an outing. T h e difference is qualitative as well as quantitative; the people in the Pergamum Museum smile—those on Unter den Linden do not. But surely it is not the sculpture in the Museum that makes them smile. And surely it is not the architecture of Unter den Lin-

EAST

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33

den that keeps them f r o m smiling. Was it Brecht who said that the Germans would never have a revolution because at the climactic moment they would obey the signs to keep off the grass? T h e Historical Museum is full of warning signs; the Pergamum Museum has none. T h e r e is no civic culture in Central or Eastern Europe; the key to politics is interest. "How can we obtain the suffrage?" the French asked the King, and were scandalized when he answered: "Enrichissez-vous." T h e Communists have done exactly that. T o those they favor, they say: "The toy is yours to play with; enjoy it." And the favored are animated by no larger vision than the defense of their jobs and their new-found honors (those gray-green uniforms! those pistols in swinging holsters! those attaché cases!). But those who do the work and have not proved themselves worthy of rewards—what animates them? Defense of the Motherland? Defense of a new social order? Acceptance of historical inevitability? I doubt it. They want things, and they will sabotage the system where and when they can until they get thern. In the United States, civil disobedience makes civil rights an issue on the political agenda. In the East, civil disobedience makes the United States the breadbasket of the USSR. Is it the historical fate of the Jews to place matters of conscience on the agenda of mankind? It is a heavy burden to bear. Others d o not like to have the finger of guilt pointed at them, and those who point the finger must be made uneasy by their awareness of the difference between their lives as they live them and as they should be lived. Why, then, do we bear the burden? Is it because, having become so familiar with Satan over the centuries, we know that he dwells within us as well as within our enemies and can be contained only if we are all bound by the rule of law? If so, then our role as prodders of the conscience—our own as well as others'—is a product of our history, not of our virtue. And what will happen if the course of history changes so as to allow us to escape the burden? In the United States, we are free to be only as good as

34

EAST BERLIN

others. Is that good enough? T o be a nation in its own land has been a dream of the children of Israel. The state exists, and Israel now may act like other states. It is the answer to a prayer, the culmination of a dream, the promise of blessed relief from that millennial burden. But is it good enough to be as good as others? Does it require tragedy to make us better than we are? Does it require the sound of slaughter—for us as well as for others—to hear the voices of prophecy?

WEST BERLIN A T the Nierendorff Gallerie today I saw several issues of a ^ J V pacifist art magazine, Der Bildermann, published in Berlin in 1 9 1 6 ; its editor was Paul Cassirer. I wondered where I had recently come across that name, and suddenly I remembered. In one of the American Jewish Committee's oral history interviews with several hundred Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who eventually came to the United States, there is a transcript of an interview with Paul Cassirer's nephew. He is now living in the Middle West; and in his memoir he speaks movingly of the delights of growing u p in his father's house, where he met so many of the cultivated people of Berlin, and of the problems of bringing u p his children in the comfort and freedom of his own home.

35

WARSAW

I

N the "Hotel Club" at the Europeski Hotel, one can watch color T V , read foreign newspapers, and drink. At 9:30 P.M. on Saturday, there were about 25 young people watching a TV sports program; as soon as it was over they left, even before the next program was announced. I was the only one who remained, and, in solitary splendor, I watched a program devoted to the opening of a new steel mill in Wroclaw. Did the others know what was coming? Nobody read Humanité or any of the Russian newspapers or any of the trade journals that hotels in the People's Democracies seem to specialize in. All western newspapers—the London Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Paris Herald, Le Monde—are at least five days late; but, unlike the Prague of several years ago, they're here.

Scholars write about the effect of social structure on national character, and the difficulties involved in working out the relationships are enormous. The influence of regime on national mood is much easier to demonstrate, and more plausible. Some regimes evoke suspicion; paranoia is not individual pathology, but self-defense. What seems to be a general attitude of slackness or unconcern may really be an intense privatism growing out of a fear of entangling alliances or too much self-revelation. "Only connect," E. M. Forster said, and in his "beloved republic" connection would not be entanglement and self-revelation would be the basis of connection. But his republic was the republic of love, where connection may survive the surprises of discovery; and love is hardly the Polar Star which guides 36

WARSAW

37

these regimes. "Only connect with us," the regime says; the forms of thought and activity—like art, like the interpretation of history, like democratic politics—which suggest the possibility of new relationships with the self and with the world are stringently limited or proscribed, for out of new relationships may come the dangerous discovery of alternatives. But do the people here experience these limitations as deprivation? Do they mourn their loss? My mother had a terrifying saying, an artifact of her history: If you hang long enough you get used to hanging. Do you lose the memory or the hope of living?

I remember vividly that as a child I thought of Classical Rome as bright and sunny, a city of white shadowless streets. Medieval Europe was a time and place where the sun never shone; men were dressed in rough black clothes and they looked furtive and never walked erect. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when I expected the imminent coming of fascism, I would look intently around me, as if to penetrate what I saw in front of me by looking through it, and wonder what Detroit or Cambridge would look like when fascism did arrive. Would the sun be dimmed? Would the shadows be longer, and darker? Would the colors be drab and faded? And wouldn't the people see all this and, seeing it, wouldn't they cry havoc and put an end to it? Last night, in the little restaurant Kammiene Schodki in the old town square in Warsaw, we were seated next to a couple who spoke English, and through the hubbub it was possible to catch the drift of the conversation. She was large and blonde—and German; he was thin, wiry, dark, bearded in the Quattrocento manner—and not American. On and on she raced—about her former husband, her divorce, how she was trying to bring up her child, her difficulties with men, why women should not have to choose their husbands' names if they did not want to, her former in-laws, the situation in Italy, in America, in England . . . and all the while he said nothing, but occasionally yawned and sipped his wine. I felt like a voyeur, though I received no gratification from my voyeurism. When they left, a younger couple took

3»

WARSAW

their seats. Again they spoke English; she was Polish and he said that he originally came from Buenos Aires (I had thought at first that he might be an American Jew). And again it was the woman who talked—and revealed herself; and again it was the man who nodded and made an occasional comment. And again the conversation seemed to have little or nothing to do with politics and the great public issues. "You had a happy past," she told him; "I think I am strong now, but I cannot forget how unhappy I was. . . . I was hoping to take you to an opera or concert, but I did not know if you were well enough to go. My sister lives in a village in Russia; we do not get along." Why should people worry about the great public issues, why should they say Yes or No to fascism or communism or to anything else, when they have their unhappiness to occupy them? What do we expect society to do about the German woman's misery with her former husband and the Polish woman's inability to get over her unhappy childhood? And why should I expect them to be concerned about my fears regarding the political regimes in which they live? At what point—and when—do the personal and the political intersect? I wasn't aware of any particular excitement as we drove toward Ostroleka, my mother's birthplace, but the little telltale signs of tension began to show. T h e fact is that I did not realize how tense I was until I saw the roadsign that announced we had entered Ostroleka. It was like coming to the end of a pilgrimage; but the pilgrims to Santiago, or Rome, or Canterbury, or Jerusalem had shrines to seek, and what had I to see? I was sure that nothing from my mother's time had escaped destruction, but the truth is that I was hoping that I would spy some vagrant graffiti, overlooked by the destroyers, that would reveal this place as the place where my mother had been born and spent her childhood. Where was her home? Where was the path she must have walked to the Narew River she had told me about? Where was the synagogue, and where was the market place? We walked around the town and heard the church bells chime, but the mute stones remained mute. What

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39

shouted to us were the plastic, the neon, the cinderblock, the placards proclaiming the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of liberation—and they shouted of things I did not want to hear about. It was not so much that I found them offensive (in any case, where can they be escaped?), as that I was in search of something else, f o r which they could not provide the answers. But what was it that I was looking for—my mother? my history? Without the one, to whom did I belong? Without the other, where did I belong? A n d if I found them, would they recognize me? Would I want to claim them? I had seen pictures of the Ostroleka marketplace of long ago, and I went in search of it in places where it might have been; I f o u n d two candidates, but I couldn't be sure. I did see a number of curved, winding streets, quite narrow, paved with cobblestones, f r o m which little dirt lanes departed at odd angles; they were utterly unlike the straight streets in the obviously new part of town, and they clearly could have been there in my mother's time. T h e r e was an occasional wood house, with sagging roof, jagged-tooth decoration along the line of the eaves, and doors whose boards were laid out in some sort of geometrical pattern. I don't know whether they dated f r o m my mother's time, but they were clearly old and I hoped that they did. I asked several people for the location of the Staro Miasto, and got blank or smiling responses, equally uncomprehending. A woman who saw me taking pictures of a wooden house told me—in German that was even more halting than mine—that she was a teacher; when I told her why I had come to Ostroleka, she went with me to the office of the lnspektor f o r assistance. One of the three men there could speak a bit of G e r m a n . I told him my mother had gone to America f r o m Ostroleka about 70 years ago. "Do you have any family here?" " N o n e , " I said. "What was your mother's name?" Was it my imagination, born of fear, or was it really true that he seemed cold when I answered—"Mirtenbaum." "That's a G e r m a n name," he said, and added, " T r y talking to old people. I don't live here myself."

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WARSAW

Shirley and I entered the car for the return to Warsaw, and then I ducked back out to see if I could visit the largest and most impressive building in town—a church that stood nearby. I walked to the rear of the building, pushed open a door, and found myself in an enclosed cloister. A woman and child passed without giving me a look. I pushed open a number of doors, all of which led to broom closets and storage bins, and then found a sign announcing that this was the Cloister of St. Bernard, built in the seventeenth century. It was the church whose bells had tolled noon when we arrived in town. I opened another door and found myself in an impressively large church—ornately baroque, with gilt-painted ceiling and capitals, a large organ, decorated stone floor, and many statues and plaques on the walls. Another Polish baroque church, I thought, and began comparing it with those I had seen in Warsaw. And then suddenly I realized that this was

Ostroleka: The Cloister of St. Bernard: one journey's end

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4«

the only building in Ostroleka that was certainly there in my mother's time. I stopped being a tourist and amateur art historian. What had this church meant to her? I'm sure she had seen it; it could not possibly have been missed. But I am equally sure that she had never been inside; they would not have allowed her to defile it by her presence, and she would have been too frightened to want to enter it. How strange that her son should be standing in the one undoubted building of her time, looking at a part of Ostroleka that she had never seen, while the Ostroleka she knew had disappeared. Trucks and busses and electricity have come, and neon signs and plastic dishes; and the mud and the marketplace have gone—and so have the Jews. I left the church—suddenly it was a baroque building again—and drove back to Warsaw. "Amerika, du hast es besser, hast keine verfalienen Schlósser," wrote Goethe—and of course he was right. That I could tell my mother about the Ostroleka she had never seen, were she alive, is d u e entirely to the fact that she came to America. Had I been born in Ostroleka and been circumsized in the shadow of the Cloister of St. Bernard, I should have ended as a cinder at Auschwitz. And yet, as I left Ostroleka, I wondered about Goethe's line. History is the story of fallen castles and castles that decayed before they were completed, and even in America the first castle fell on the day after Columbus's arrival. As to the Jews, since the fall of the Temple they have always lived in the shadow of ruined castles—other people's— or with the memory of ruined castles—their own.

CRACOW

T

H E tumbril that carried us to Auschwitz this afternoon was a streamlined air-conditioned tourist bus, the driver's radio blaring out the sound of jazz. In the seat next to me sat a young blonde girl in blue jeans; her foot tapped out the rhythm of the jazz. T o what tune did they go to Auschwitz 35 years ago? The bus drove on through the loveliest countryside we have so far seen in Poland, far prettier than what is to be found north of Warsaw. On either side of the narrow winding road rich farm land rises and dips over gently folded hills; sheep graze, ducks waddle sedately along the side of the road, chickens run idiotically over the plowed fields, and here and there a grove of trees offers dark, cool protection against the bright sun of the open fields. It is all so green. Was it really green in 1943, or do we think so because we know it must have been? When they peered through the cracks in the sides of the trucks that carried them to Auschwitz, or through the sides of the cars on the railway line that parallels the road, did they not see the sheep and the ducks and the chickens? What was worse—to have been so consumed by fear as to be oblivious to the world, or to have been so insanely sensitive to it that the ordinarily banal became monstrously larger than life? T h e bus turned a corner, and there was a turn-out where drivers can park their cars and rest. Did they use the turn-out in 1943, or were they kept on too tight a schedule to smoke a cigarette or relieve themselves? And if they rested, what did the occupants of the trucks do? Did the children ask their mothers why the trucks had stopped? And what tender, playful lies did their mothers tell? 42

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H e r e and there the road becomes the main street of the villages that stand between Cracow and Auschwitz. T h e houses cluster around the bus stop or the local inn; log houses (the lines where the parallel logs touch each other are painted blue) dot the side of the road; the village church looks benignly on it all from its eminence. W h e n the trucks and the trains rolled through in 1 9 4 3 , was it all so regular that the local people set their watches by them? O r was it exciting—did the people eat faster? Did they make love in the afternoon? What did the men whisper to their women? W e arrived at Auschwitz and we saw it all—the barracks, the dungeons, the torture chambers, the walls at which they were shot and the gallows at which they were hanged, the showers and the gas chambers, the ovens in which they were incinerated and the cars, still standing on their tracks, that carried the corpses into the furnaces like coal is taken from the pithead of a mine. W e saw it all—the mountain of hair clipped from the skulls of the dead (dark hair, red hair, blond hair, hair in ringlets and hair in braids, some still with ribbons); the j u n g l e of brushes (shaving brushes, hair brushes, tooth brushes, clothes brushes); the spectacles (hundreds of thousands of them, catching the light f r o m the electric bulbs that illuminate the exhibit and turning it back to the viewer like a

Auschwitz: Journey's end for millions

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Auschwitz:

What separates the setting from the

suffering?

million—like f o u r million—accusing looks). T h e teeth; the thousands of suitcases, including the red patent-leather one of J a n i n a , "ein kleines Kind"—we saw it all. A n d why could I look no longer when I saw, in that continent of shoes, five wooden shoes? What insanity led me to nag at myself: where is the sixth, where is the sixth, where is the sixth? We walked out t h r o u g h the iron gate we had entered, the o n e over which the words a p p e a r , Arbeit Macht Frei. Across the

Auschwitz:

The Execution

Wall

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45

Auschwitz: The ovens

road stood a sign informing us that nearby was the Lenin Factory. Not fifty yards away, standing in a little green field, was a flock of sheep. Arbeit Macht Frei—"That Sheep May Safely Graze." If to recapture the vision of a world in which sheep may safely graze could be said to be the aftermath of Auschwitz, then out of that unspeakable carnage and horror something noble would have emerged; by their death they showed us the way to a better life. But I do not believe this has happened. In life, the prisoners of Auschwitz were the victims of the power of a state. T h e state deprived them of their freedom, of their families, of their dignity, of their lives; and it continued to exploit them even after death—their hair, their teeth, their bones were stolen from them. And now a new state has made a monument to show the horror of their fate, but it, too, is a monument that exploits them after death. For just as the camp in 1943 was a symbol of the power of the state, the me-

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Rutsimny Jbatr Zydm'M m.

Posters for

the Jewish

M.Jwwtskig

Theater in Warsaw—plays for an audience of ghosts?

morial camp in 1 9 7 5 is a symbol of the power of the state. From the first exhibit to the last, the point is to make a demonstration about the Soviet state, as it was for those who directed Auschwitz in the past to make a demonstration about the Nazi state. Exploited in life, the victims of Auschwitz continue to be exploited in death. T h e i r hair, their teeth, their

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bones were used—and now their history. When will they be able to rest? When will the furies cease pursuing them? When sheep may safely graze.

Nearly every day we were in Warsaw we walked in search of the Jewish Historical Institute and Museum that the tourist literature informed us was on Swierczewskiego Street, near Dzerzhinsky Square. We walked the street dozens of times, up one side and down the other, and though we discovered the Lenin Museum, where a friendly cloakroom attendant gave us a bonus of free posters and Lenin lapel pins, the Mosaic Museum, and dozens of government offices, we never succeeded in finding the Jewish Museum. One day, while going by train from Warsaw to Cracow, we struck up a conversation with a young Finnish couple; I noticed that the man had a large guide book to Poland, written in English, and I borrowed it from him in the hope that it might give more explicit directions about how to find the Jewish Museum. T o my delight it did; it gave a specific street address—Swierczewskiego 79—which I copied down, together with the addresses of the synagogues in Cracow we wanted to see. Yesterday we visited them. We went first to the High Synagogue on Josefa Street; there it was, with an impressive renaissance façade, standing next to what at one time may have been the Talmud Torah, still decorated with Stars of David on the front. T h e synagogue was empty and abandoned; the building next door had some offices and apartments, and bicycles littered the vestibule. Popper's Synagogue is now the headquarters of a (non-Jewish) boys' club; Isaac's Synagogue, which also dates from the seventeenth century, is an arts and crafts center. The Remu'h Synagogue, built in the middle of the sixteenth century, is the only synagogue still in use in Cracow. Set back from the street, surrounded by a high, thick wall which is entered through a rusty gate that must be leaned against to open, it stands next to a tiny cemetery; tombstones sprout like marble weeds, and hundreds of broken pieces of tombs have been cemented into

the wall that encloses the synagogue a n d the cemetery within a single c o m p o u n d . T h e c a r e t a k e r c a m e out to see us a n d to tell us to be sure to visit the synagogue, which we did. A betm, with wrought-iron grillwork, stood in the c e n t e r o f t h e small r o o m ; in the back, o f f to o n e side, was an even tinier r o o m f o r the w o m e n . " N o t m a n y p e o p l e c o m e , and we are o p e n only on Saturdays," the c a r e t a k e r said softly. H e himself was f r o m Russia; d u r i n g W o r l d W a r II he f o u g h t with the R e d A r m y on a n u m b e r o f f r o n t s and was wounded. Now he lives in Cracow, waiting. . . . It was a hot, sunny day, and as we left the synagogue we walked to the middle o f the s q u a r e — S i r o k a S q u a r e , o n c e t h e c e n t e r o f the Jewish c o m m u n i t y o f C r a c o w — a n d sat on a b e n c h in the shade o f a tree. A few dogs loped into the square, n o s i n g into the g a r b a g e ; two old people turned to look at m e as I took some pictures; t h e iron gate in front o f the synagogue c r e a k e d o p e n , a n d the

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caretaker shambled out, the money I just gave him clutched in his left hand, the key to the gate in his right hand. He locked the gate and turned to the right. We rose and went to the left, to the synagogue we had saved for last, the fifteenth-century Old Synagogue, a Gothic structure built in the style of the famous synagogues of Prague, Worms, and Regensburg. My Finnish friend's guidebook indicated that the Old Synagogue also contained a museum, and I was hopeful that I could learn from the custodian where I could find some leaders of the Jewish community to whom I might speak. T h e door was locked, but there was a bell; I rang it, and in a few moments the door was opened by a slim, handsome young man with black hair and (lashing dark eyes. As he was telling us the history of the building, another family—husband, wife, and small child—entered through the now-open door and joined us. When they had left, I introduced myself to the young man and told him of my interest in speaking with members of the Jewish community. He invited us upstairs and introduced us to a young woman who he said was his colleague at the museum. Another young man was in the room, but though he listened to our conversation intently he took no part in it.

Cracow: The Old Synagogue: exterior on Siroka Square

5°

CRACOW

I explained my interest in learning what I could about what still survived of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, but what I had thought would be an interrogation of them turned out very quickly to be an interrogation of me. For more than two hours we spoke, in German, interrupted only by a brief telephone call to make an appointment for me to meet with Mr. Jakobowitsch, the head of the Jewish community, the following day. T h e young man asked me question after question about Jews in the United States (why don't they know Hebrew? is it true that most of them are really atheists? did I know of Alfred Lilienthal and what did I think of him? is Israel really only a pawn in the imperialist diplomacy of the United States?) and about Israel. There was a certain sameness to his questions; sometimes hostile (though his manner was never hostile) sometimes naive, they seemed to me to be the kinds of questions that someone who was remote f r o m the situation might ask—someone dependent for his information on hostile sources. But I found nothing unusual in that; indeed, I thought it was only to be expected f r o m Jews in Poland, cut off from the rest of the world, subjected to a stream of antiIsraeli propaganda. After each question, and answer, the young man would start again. "Nur eine Frage" . . . what did I think of Lilienthal's definition of a Zionist as a Jew who collects money from other Jews to send to Israel? "Nur eine Frage" . . . what did I think of the claims of the Arab states against Israel? "Nur eine Frage" . . . what should be the future character of the Israeli state and society? After I had given him my answer to that question, I asked him for his views, and quickly but with great earnestness he said, "It should be a small state but a very powerful state." And when I asked him for his opinion of Arafat's view that there should be a binational state, he said impatiendy, "Of course not. Israel must be a country for Jews—for the Jews who are there and for all those who want to come and can come." T h e intensity with which he spoke and the obvious interest with which he and the young woman followed the conversation led me to have no doubt that I was speaking to Jews,

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somewhat naive, somewhat cut off from the world, to be sure, but whose commitment to Jewishness was to be seen in their devotion to the synagogue and to the Jewish Museum. I had given them my name and address at the beginning of our conversation; now I asked them to give me theirs, so that I would have an address to which I could send the literature they had requested. The young man demurred; he was a student, he said, and he preferred. . . . His voice trailed off and, in view of his reluctance, I let the matter drop. The young woman wrote her name on a slip of paper and passed it to me, and in an instant all the assumptions I had made about whom I was talking to and all the explanations I had offered to myself to account for the strangeness of their questions dissolved into uncertainty. For the first name of the young woman was Krystyna, and I knew it was hardly likely that any Jewish girl would bear that name. But if she, if they, were not Jewish, what were they doing there? And what had I said that I would not have said if I had known that they might not be Jewish? Deeply disturbed, I brought the conversation to an end; the ground under me had shifted and I did not know where I stood. They were not what they seemed to be and what I had every reason to expect them to be. Then who were they? What were they? And what would the others be whom I would be speaking to in Poland and the Soviet Union? Did the shalom I said as I shook hands with the young man sound as tremulous to him as it did to me? I hoped not, as we left the synagogue and walked out into the bright sunlight of Siroka Square. This morning, at 9:30, we went to the office of the Jewish community to see Mr. Jakobowitsch. "I have a letter for you," he said in a booming voice, and handed me an envelope addressed to "Herr Professor Diamond." I opened it and found a letter, in German, from the young man at the Jewish museum: Herr Professor Diamond: I am sorry that I did not give you my address and my name. My mother is Polish, but on my father's side I am descended from Frankists [followers of Jacob Frank, an eighteenth-century pseudo-messiah in Poland]. I want, though, to return to Judaism. When it will be possible,

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CRACOW

Herr Professor, will you send me books that tell the truth about Jews and about Israel? I am now not spiritually prepared for Judaism. My name and address are: PS: I can read German, English, French, and Russian.

In less than twenty-four hours the assumptions I made about who the young man really was changed twice, drastically, and each time those assumptions changed so, too, did my mood. He had been a J e w , and I was at ease; then he became a possible agent of the regime, and I was frightened and depressed; now he was a product of history, of the recent past and of the distant past, trying—as I was—to put the pieces of himself together in a way that would allow him to live in peace with himself and with his parents. Clearly he had decided not to create a new history of himself, a lie. He had to acknowledge his past, but did acknowledgement mean he had to be a prisoner of his past, a victim? Or was acknowledgement a condition of parole, if not of freedom? For a moment I felt elation. "Did you see this letter?" I asked Mr. Jakobowitsch. "Of course not; it was addressed to you." I handed it to him; he read it swiftly, returned it, and said unsentimentally, "We have enough Jews. What do we need him for?" And again my mood changed. I had seen a young man drowning in deep water, gasping f o r air, and his struggle broke my heart. Or was I simply succumbing to sentiment? Mr. Jakobowitsch seemed cold and callous, but who was I to judge? He, too, was a victim of history—his history, and it was a more bitter history than that s u f f e r e d by the young man— and now he had to hold the 700 J e w s of Cracow together until death made them all a fact of history. Perhaps then we might indulge in sentiment; for the moment, there were sick people to be taken care o f , and the poor to be fed, and letters written f o r those who could not write, and a kindly word f o r the sad and a sharp word for the self-pitying—and in the midst of all of this who had time for a young man who did not know whether he could be Jewish? Who would take care of those who had no doubt that they were Jewish? How foolish of me to feel that sympathy for the one precluded sympathy for the

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other, or that there must necessarily be a comradeship of victims. A n d so we talked; and so I learned that there are 700 J e w s left in Cracow, that most are between 60 and 85 years of age, that the young left in the late 1950s, that there has not been a religious wedding here f o r twenty years. Mr. Jakobowitsch had a taste for irony. " T h e r e were many J e w s who were high officials in the Communist party," he said. " T a k e Julius Katz-Suchy, f o r example. What did he know? Why did he get so high? He was not a learned man, he was not a professor; it was only because he was a communist. T h e y climbed to the very top of the stairs, and then they fell and broke their heads. When people climb so high they get dizzy and their fall is longer. A n d they brought nothing but trouble f o r the J e w s , because the goyyim believed that whatever they did was for the sake of the Jews. And then they were all swept away." With a twinkle in his eye, he told me about an important legal victory that the Jewish community had just won against the regime. " T h e r e were about 1 3 0 buildings here, including some synagogues, that were seized by the regime," he said. "We claimed that in the absence of heirs to these properties, the Jewish community was the legal heir, and we sued f o r the return of the properties, and we won." "Oh," I said, "and what are you doing with the buildings now?" "I said we won the case," he replied, "not that we have the buildings. We were given symbolic damages of one zloty per year, and they kept the buildings." When I told him about some Jewish art objects we had seen yesterday in an official government shop—a very large menorah, of the kind seen in synagogues, and some small brass ones, all very expensive and not allowed to be exported—he answered that there is now a brisk trade in the manufacture and sale of Jewish "antiquities" in Poland. "What you saw may have been authentic," he said, "but they may have been manufactured in some shop a few weeks ago." Just before I left I took a few pictures of him to send to his daughter in the United States; he sat behind his desk, no longer smiling, solemn in the fashion of those f o r whom to be

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photographed is still a state occasion. His eyes came to rest on a salvaged remnant of a Torah scroll in a case on the opposite side of the room. It was time to leave. "I hope American Jews will not forget the poor Jews of Poland," he said. I told him lamely that they were not forgotten; he shrugged and said, "It is not possible to do much for ourselves; we must be helped."

Normal physiological processes may result in the rejection of foreign bodies, like transplanted organs, but psychological processes work otherwise. I never knew how responsive my own mood is to the mood of others; I absorb their elation or despair through my skin by a kind of osmosis. Yesterday morning we had a delightful talk with Jerzy Turowicz, editor of the liberal Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, and one of his associates. Turowicz lives in the shadow of the regime; sometimes it relaxes the pressure on him, sometimes it increases the pressure, but it can never be evaded or ignored. Yet he retains his sense of humor and is full of spirit and vivacity. He talked about the Vatican, about détente and the Helsinki conference, about Gieryk and Gomulka, about the Jews of Poland and Israel ("Tygodnik was the only Polish paper not to attack Israel for imperialism during the Six-Day War"), and he even found time to talk about my own interests in colonization as a form of social planning. It was all done with wit and intelligence and sophistication, and there were moments—brief ones—when we were so caught up in the intellectual excitement of the discussion that the place and the circumstances were quite forgotten. But not for long. "This office may very well be bugged," said Turowicz, waving his arm, "but why shouldn't I speak frankly? What else will they learn about me that they don't already know? I believe in the possibility of small changes. In the short run I am a pessimist; in the long run, an optimist." It is his long-run optimism that I absorb, and I bounce down the steps from his office and Cracow seems to be not where it was nor what it was two hours before. Another day, another person—and another mood. This af-

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ternoon, entirely by accident, we met Professor B., a distinguished scholar, at the Jagiellonian University. He took us to the aula, pointed to the myriad of paintings on the walls, and gave us a copy of one of his books. But his mind was not on what he showed us. "This is how I fight the regime," he said fiercely as he handed me the book. "Tell my colleagues at Columbia University how catastrophic was the effect on intellectuals here of President Ford's refusal to see Solzhenitsyn. Even Polish communists were depressed. 'How can you expect us to be independent of the Russians,' they said, 'when even Ford is afraid to be independent?' Both countries, yours and mine, have much to answer for. I know the reputation that Poland has for anti-Semitism, and I don't want to cover up for it. But there is widespread sympathy and support for Israel here, even though it is underground. We admire its spirit of independence. For us it is proof that even a small country, based on principle, can survive. As for the United States," he said heatedly, "you are a great people, a generous people, but why are you so naive and gullible? How can you take Helsinki seriously?" He was angry and bitter and worried; and he was cultivated and generous and good humored. And I, who tend to be all one thing or all another, was full of admiration at how humanity survives even in the wastes of arctic political regimes. At breakfast this morning we met a Polish lawyer from Szczecin [Stettin] who was driving with his wife to Bulgaria for a vacation. We spoke French. Years ago, he said, he had been "governor" to the children of a Polish duke, and he welcomed the chance once again to speak French, "the language of culture."

WARSAW H E N I was a small boy I used to read about Tom Sawyer and Penrod Schofield with passionate envy for all kinds of reasons, but one reason which I have often thought of in recent years, and which has now engulfed me in a flood of feeling and memory, was that even their punishment seemed more a source of delight than pain. Tom and Penrod were spanked—sometimes by father, sometimes by an aunt, but always by a relative who was more pained than the receiver of the punishment. For years I thought of spanking as a quintessential^ Christian practice, in which no one really suffered, a custom which made for family solidarity rather than dividing fathers and sons. It was sweet, redolent of a world of white picket fences and blueberry pies and trout fishing and other Christian customs and artifacts. For I was never spanked; I was whipped—and that was far more serious. It called attention to the evil of the offense, and it hurt. Years later, when I confessed this, in some embarrassment, to an Italian friend, he nodded as if he understood exactly what I meant, and said, "They were spanked, you were whipped, but we were beaten." Today, in Warsaw, I went to the Jewish Museum, to the Noshick Synagogue, to the Jewish Theater, to the Ghetto monument, and I spoke to officials of the Jewish community center (not all of whom, including the director, are Jewish), of the Museum, and of the Historical Institute of the Academy of Science. Among the swarm of emotions and impressions which all but drowned me, the memory of my childhood contrast between spanking and whipping was especially sharp and distinct. I wondered why and I think I know. Americans abroad are innocents abroad; that's an old story,

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Warsaw: The Ghetto monument and modern housing

Warsaw: The Noshich Synagogue

and it remains true. In my childhood, spanking was the most serious punishment in the big world that surrounded me, and for the most part the crime for which it was inflicted was mischief: a hand in the cookie jar, a telltale spot of jam on a shirt, muddy shoes that betrayed a forbidden walk along the stream. T h e punishment reasserted the value that had been

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Warsaw: Part of an exhibit in the Jewish Museum: praying for the dead

denied or ignored, but because it saved the dignity of the offender it restored the unity of the family. But here in Warsaw—in what I saw, in what was said, in what I felt—there was no mischief, there was evil; there was no spanking, there was terror; there was no certainty, there were doubt and suspicion. Am I unprepared to face evil and incapable of understanding it? The evil and the terror do not reside only in memories of the past; that would be bad enough. They are survivors; they are here and they are now. T h e assistant at the Jewish community center who calms my fears that I may have said too much before I learned that the director is not Jewish—how can he say, "Don't worry, he's an honorable man," when he is the only survivor of a family of seven children, victims of the Lodz ghetto? How can the history professor with whom we spoke today live with the memory that his wife and daughter were burned? (He had broken down as we talked this afternoon. No tears flowed, but he held his head in

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his hands and his body was wracked with sobs: "So many others have gone, but I cannot leave this country, I cannot leave this country for personal reasons. It is hard to talk about family matters.") How can we bear to look at the names of the Polish gentile family—father, mother, and seven children between the ages of three and fifteen—all murdered because they had befriended Jews? How can we look at that photograph of corpses lying on a street in Warsaw, while a bearded old man in a tallis [prayer shawl] prays over them and Nazi soldiers, pointing, smirk and laugh? And the leaflets, mimeographed in the midst of unspeakable ghetto horror and misery, announcing that at its next concert the Jewish Philharmonic Orchestra would perform Vivaldi, Haydn, and Mozart—how could they listen? And the pictures of the Orchestra, the players posed as if for some turn-of-the-century tintype (serious, unsmiling, the instruments held firmly in their hands) until you notice that each one is wearing a Star of David pinned to the front of his jacket—how could they play? These are memories of the past. But the man who points these things out to us was until 1967, we learn later, a colonel in Polish military intelligence, a post he lost because, after the Six-Day War, all Jews became automatically agents of imperialism and enemies of the state. When he shows these horrors of the past to us, what are his feelings? When he says he would like to go to Bat Yam in Israel to look up old friends from the Polish army but that he has been denied a passport, is he being honest; or would he really like once again to be a colonel in Polish military intelligence—and how far is he willing to go to get what he wants? Each time I speak to someone here I wonder who he really is, and even when I speak to Jews I wonder if I have not said too much. Where evil reigns, nothing is what it seems to be; nothing, therefore, can be trusted— not even oneself. Who does these things? How do the innocent—the unknowing—protect themselves when they confront an evil they cannot understand? So I run away to another time, as to another place, and look at a sixteenth-century illuminated Italian manuscript of Jewish historical stories for children. Mv victorv is short-lived—

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Joshua and Solomon and David are there, to be sure, but so are Haman and the Egyptians. T h e mind boggles! At the duty-free shop in the Warsaw airport one can buy slivovitz, made in Poland, "kosher for Passover."

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Y first experience with Intourist: The car and driver that are supposed to be waiting for us at the airport arrive two hours late. They take us to the wrong hotel. My first view of Soviet television: The programs are either self-consciously cultural (like the ballet) or portrayals of public ceremonies (the dedication of a dam, a Komsomol meeting, a congress of something or other). In either case, the viewer is important as a member of an audience, not as at a play, where one empathizes with the protagonists, but as at an athletic contest or political rally, where one cheers the star or the leader. The most characteristic question in a hotel or administrative office: "What group do you belong to?" The most characteristic sentence in a newspaper: "Nineteen percent of the delegates were members of the Komsomol; 34 percent were workers in heavy industry; 23 percent were women." The most characteristic scene on T V : delegates from various organizations presenting bouquets to an official as a new something-orother is opened. People are important not in their individuality—that causes trouble—but in their representativeness. Is a society of poll-takers really any more interested in opinion than a society of ants? What would we learn from representative art? I have Auden's epitaph to "The Unknown Citizen": He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, A n d all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, 61

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For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. . . . Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace he was for peace; when there was war, he went. . . . Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. Saints are governable, but to produce saints the environmental protection agency of the state must remove the poisons that might corrupt the soul. T h e tension between individuality and classification creates anxiety and disorder—and may create art. Is socialist realism an esthetic of order and discipline? We look at Rembrandt's portraits, and we see inside ourselves, and others; we look at the statues of Lenin that clot the streets and we follow the direction of his pointing finger—we see what he wants us to see. Art is not an exploration; it is a designated highway on the social map, marked with the sites to which we are urged to make a pilgrimage and with those we are warned away from because of dangerous turnings in the road. (Our Intourist guide points to a statue of Lenin and says: "It is one of the best in the Soviet Union because it was done by an artist who knew him and is therefore true to life.") T h e r e is a special kind of historiography that must be very influential, particularly because it is inflicted on the eager and the unsuspecting—tourist history. T h e young Intourist guide who took us around this morning provided an interesting example: "The Polish gentry held the Ukraine in subjugation. Bohdan Chmielnicki carried on the liberation struggle with the help of Russia; we could not have done anything without Russian help. . . . It is good to tear down every one of these old houses; they are not pretty and they are of no value. We can make a model of one for the museum. . . . We have no professional politicians in the Soviet Union, as you do in the United States; all our leaders are workers, farmers, or intellectuals. . . . T h e churches were not taken care of until the state

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took them over; now they are well maintained. . . . In the nineteenth century people believed in God. . . . We liberated the Western Ukraine in 1939." But when we asked to be taken to Babi Yar and to the synagogue, which would have provided a glimpse of another part of history, she said yes to the first and no to the second: Intourist guides are not permitted to go to the synagogue.

In Cracow and Prague there are Lenin museums that pride themselves on the fact that Lenin was in those cities. In Kiev, our guide tells us that we must go to the Lenin museum— "Lenin was never in Kiev, but he took a great interest in the Ukraine." Of such stuff is divinity made. He appears here and there, now and then, but even when He does not, He is a brooding omnipresence in the sky. (The other day, while waiting for the Intourist guide at the Kiev airport, I picked up a copy of the list of French-language books published last year by Novosty Press. Tonight as I read it I noticed the title of a new biography of Lenin: Toujours Parmi Nous.) Proiidentia is as much an attribute of Lenin as of an emperor of Rome. "In the nineteenth century people believed in God," our guide says. In the Soviet Union, in the twentieth century, people believe in. . . . God manifested Himself only to the chosen, and only now and then did He appear before them; for the most part, He retreated to wherever in the universe He stays and was content to let people run their own lives. Lenin had much the bolder vision; he appears to anyone, anywhere, and he wants to help—he insists on helping—mankind solve all its problems.

St. Vladimir's Church was jam-packed with young and old for services at 6 P.M. today. The old were straight out of Gorki or Chekhov or Turgenev: an old man with grizzled hair and beard, a shapeless gray jacket and hat of the same cloth with a black visor took out his handkerchief and wept; an old woman kissed the icon of Mary and the Infant Jesus, and patiently rubbed the glass clean of any marks; a middle-aged man was

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on his knees, his head bowed; old women in black, silent, held thin candles. What do they pray for? What do they ask to be lifted from their shoulders? The slim, elegant old man, with handle-bar mustache, who took us from place to place in the church so that we could have a better view of the procession said not a word, but simply motioned us to follow him. When had time stopped for him? Yesterday our Intourist guide told us flady that she would not take us with the car to the synagogue: Babi Yar, yes; the synagogue, no. We would have to make our way alone. This morning, at the service bureau of the hotel, I said that under the terms of our contract we were entitled to the use of a car for three hours a day, for sight-seeing, for business, or for personal affairs; and I insisted that the car be used to take us to the synagogue. If the guide did not want to go along or to enter the building I had no objection, but according to the contract the car was ours to use. We were told the matter would be looked into, and a few minutes before 10 A.M. the guide announced to us that the car would take us to the synagogue after we had gone to Babi Yar. The car stopped along one side of a very wide, divided highway; we crossed it and found ourselves at a small, level grassy plot, with a few flowers. All there was to mark the spot was a small stone with an inscription and a wooden sign, stuck into the ground, also with an inscription. "What does it say?" I asked the guide. "It tells about the very large, impressive monument that will be erected here," she answered. Nearby, behind the stone marker and the wooden sign, a bulldozer was clearing the land. "It will be another housing estate," she said proudly. I was somewhat confused; the pictures I had seen of Babi Yar and the accounts I had read of it indicated it to be a deep ravine, but here the marker was on level ground. We got back into the car, turned the corner, and began driving toward the synagogue when the driver, breaking his two days of absolute silence, pointed out the window to the right and said, "Babi Yar"—and there it was, a deep ravine, densely vegetated, that

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snaked its way along for quite some distance. We never were told why the stone marker was so remote from the ravine itself. T h e car stopped in a run-down section of the city, with dilapidated wooden houses and dirt streets, and the guide told us that the car could approach no closer than three blocks to the synagogue; we would have to go the rest of the way on foot. We f o u n d the synagogue after a few misses; six or seven old men were sitting to the right of the building in a courtyard. I spoke Yiddish to them, asked for a yarmulke, and one of them pounded on the door. It was unlocked f r o m the inside and we entered. T h e old man turned on the lights and invited me to take pictures; he asked where I was f r o m and where I was going, and he listened to my answers rather matter-of-factly. When we left the building I shook hands with him and the other old men, and wished them good health, a good year, and shalom. "Everything will be all right if there is peace," one said. They did not whine or wheedle or ask for handouts, and I was impressed by their dignity. As I was taking a few pictures of the street, I was interrupted by the honking of an automobile horn. T h e Intourist car had driven u p in f r o n t of the synagogue, and our guide was motioning us impatiently to enter. Intourist provides deliverance from synagogues, not to them. In the Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Kiev, there is one Giovanni Bellini, one Gentile Bellini, one small portrait by Hals, an infanta by Velasquez, a Perugino madonna, a Rembrandt copy, a Donatello copy, a Cellini copy, and f o u r Rockwell Kents, all original. O n the relationship between quantity and quality: In Kiev the portliness of Lenin statues varies inversely with the length of time between his death and the date of the making of the statue. Careful investigation would yield a formula of the following type: for each decade following his death, Lenin loses an inch and a half from his waistline.

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After dinner at the Lybid Hotel we walked across the street to see Kiev's new department store. Shirley was tired and remained downstairs, while I went above to explore for phonograph records. I was standing at the counter in the record department, when one of two young men who were already there when I arrived pointed to a record and asked me, in broken but understandable English, if I knew who was pictured on the jacket of one of the records. "Of course, Shostakovich." "You have heard of him?" "Yes, I have; and I am interested in buying that record. Will you tell me how much it costs?" He told me, and said that it contained the First and Fourth Symphonies. "Do you like Shostakovitch?" "Yes"—but then I decided to d o some probing, by indicating that I also liked some Soviet composers who were less favored than Shostakovitch. And I added, "but I like Prokofiev even more." He smiled, and I felt bold enough to try for more. "I've gone to many concerts by Soviet performers in the United States: Rostropovich, the great violinist Oistrakh . . ." "David Oistrakh," the other young man said excitedly; "he was Jewish. Are you Jewish?" I said, "Yes." "So am I," he said—and I was back in a world I had no idea I would be entering so soon again. I told him about the difficulties we had had in getting to the synagogue this morning and what we had done to surmount them. "You have a Jewish head," he said, and then added ambiguously, "It's finished for us." I told him that my wife was waiting for me on the ground floor, and he said they would accompany me because it was safer to talk outside than inside the store. I asked them why they had decided to talk to me. "Because your shirt collar has buttons," he said, "and with such clothes you could only be an American. And we thought that if you were an American you might be Jewish, too; so we decided to talk to you." T h e four of us stood on the sidewalk in front of the store and talked. They were not students and

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they had no jobs because their passports contain the number that indicates they are Jewish. "How do you eat?" I asked one. "My mishpachah [family] helps. Once I had a friend in New York, on First Avenue. First he lived in Chicago, then in New York; he's dead now, but he used to send me clothes and I would sell them." T h e other young man told me that in Moscow many people would ask me for American shirts and blue jeans, and that I should be careful because some might be police agents. And then he asked, "Are there many Jews in New York?" I told him. "A Jewish city," he exclaimed—"and all of them rich." I tried to set him straight, but I am not sure he understood or even heard me. T h e young man who had first admitted to being Jewish showed me a jagged scar on his left temple and another one on the knuckle of his right hand. "Professor Barenboim was speaking to some people at Babi Y a r and there were many young policemen who began to hit him with sticks. I got very angry and hit a policeman; they clubbed me and I was in the police-house for 1 5 days. My mother has a bad heart; those 1 5 days were like 40 years for her." About Babi Yar he said angrily: "Why do the Russians take their girls to kiss there, and why do they leave their vodka bottles there? My grandmother and grandfather and their five sons and two daughters are lying there. And why is there no monument there?" I told him that there is a small stone marker and a sign which says that a memorial will be built. T h e two of them laughed. T h e other young man asked if many people in the United States use hashish; I said yes, and he said it was true in Russia, too. "We cannot go to the hotel with you"—it was just across the street and I had invited them there—"there are many police there and they will think we are trying to buy or sell something." And the other added: "We are not police agents. Be careful—do not buy or sell things or change money."

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They asked about Henry Kissinger—is he really Jewish; is he good for Israel? T h e boy with the scar said he hoped to get to Israel in 1977, but he was not sure he would be able to go. "It costs a lot of money to leave Russia." Then he said, "Sei gesund [be well]; shalom;" we shook hands and the two of them quickly crossed the street and did not look back, and my wife and I stood on the sidewalk and watched them. Once I thought that to stand on the sidewalk, look furtively, and talk in undertones was how people lived under fascism. I suddenly remembered the scene in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine; Kurt is explaining to his wife and children why he must return to Germany and they watch him as he leaves through the garden. Garden, garden . . . and I heard once again Stalin's warning to the Germans "not to stick their snouts into our Soviet garden." But I am standing in the Soviet garden, and I watch the two young men disappear, like Kurt, in the darkness of the enemy camp. There is no Ding-an-sich; context is all. Art critics have shown how the effect of a painting is altered as the frame changes. I look at the faces here. In 1942 and 1943 I saw them as the heroic soldiers of the Red Army and of the workers and peasants waging war against fascism; today, they seem threatening—and I experience human decency as a form of resistance, an occasion for celebration, not as normal. T h e hotel doorman who snaps his fingers at me and says in a loud voice that the breakfast room is not yet open is probably trying to be helpful, but in the circumstances of my visit I see it as peremptory—and I bridle; I will not be pushed.

In an egalitarian society that has broken with the ancien régime, why are all the important buildings called palaces? And why is the highest expression of contemporary architecture a mixture of Hotel Fontainebleu (Miami Beach) and international airport? Of course the doctrine has it that socialism will retain the best achievements of capitalism and use them for

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other purposes. But why do these "best achievements" invariably turn out to be variations of acrilan and plastic paint?

Our Intourist guide says: "In the nineteenth century people believed in God." We enter a museum and she points to a slogan engraved in marble and quotes: " 'Art belongs to the people'"—and she smiles, I think condescendingly. She shows us a painting of a Red Army soldier during the Civil War, surrounded by a band of Kulaks: "Look at his face. He knows he will die, but he is not afraid of dying." In a room filled with paintings of Cossacks, she points to one in which a Pole is offering some wine to a Cossack and says: "See, he is trying to bribe him to betray the Western Ukraine." We look at another painting—Lenin in the cab of the locomotive taking him from Finland to St. Petersburg; two men, intent on the present, stoke the engine, Lenin, intent on the future, looks out the window, staring straight ahead—he knows the way. Such assurance; such self-confidence: but isn't there a danger that those who are aware of their own limitations will conclude that they cannot hope to achieve such perfection and give up the attempt? But it is tempting to look for signs of resistance, and perhaps too easy to find them. In a retrospective of the paintings of a Ukrainian artist named Shovkoonenko (I'd never heard of him, and the Intourist guide obligingly spelled the name for me), who died recently at the age of 90, the work before 1914 is strikingly similar to that of the Fauvists and Monet; in the 1930s he paints factories, and in the 1950s and 1960s, only portraits and water-color landscapes. One has the feeling that in the 1930s he paid his dues, perhaps even willingly; one would like to believe that by the 1950s he was saying: "So far and no farther."

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H I S morning the three tourists flying from Kiev to Vilnius—Shirley and I and an elderly woman—were ushered aboard the plane and ensconced in seats in the tail before the Soviet passengers came on board. T h e old lady lives in Canada and has a son and daughter in Albany, but she was born and grew up in Lithuania, and is now on a visit to her family. We chat; she offers us chewing gum and tells us that she has a brother-in-law, a tailor retired from the men's clothing industry, who lives in Baltimore. For years my father was a local union officer with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Baltimore, and I helped him keep the dues records of the members. "What is his name," I asked the old lady, hoping that I would recognize it and establish a connection between my father and the present, between where I had been and where I was now. "Joe Kaluszta," she said. I did not remember the name, but I was glad I had asked. On our way to the Intourist office to ask about the lack of facilities we thought we had a right to expect, we found ourselves on a street near the railroad station that reminded me of pictures I have seen of streets and houses in cities like Vilnius and Kaunas and Bialystok. Dilapidated wooden doors opened into the front rooms of apartments or little shops almost on sidewalk level—only one or two stone steps led up to the doors from street-level; off to one side, a few steps led down to other doors that I supposed entered into the cellars. We had been sauntering, but now we walked more quickly and alertly—and purposefully. I had no idea where the synagogue in Vilnius is, 70

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Vilnius: A street in the old ghetto

but I had the powerful feeling that it must be near where we were walking, and we looked in all directions as we went along. We did not find it. At the Intourist office we asked the clerk where it was located. "Komjaunimo Street," she said; "you will find it there." We went to Komjaunimo Street, which turned out to be the street on which we had just been walking, the one on which I had thought the synagogue might be located; we searched but did not find it, although we poked our heads into every courtyard that lay behind the shabby buildings that line the street. I guess I was too cowardly to ask help from the rather lumpy looking young men who were walking on the street—would they be contemptuous? would they be angry? would they simply be uncomprehending?—and I was about to give up for the day when I spotted a middle-aged to elderly man, waiting at a traffic light to cross the street, who looked somehow different. "Please," I said, nearly exhausting my supply of Russian words, "synagoga." He answered me in Russian, and when I shrugged helplessly, he said, "Bitte," and I asked him in German. He replied in Yiddish, but it took me a moment or two to realize it. I said to him, "But you're speaking Yiddish. I speak Yiddish, too and I am a Jew. I am from New York." He smiled, shook hands, welcomed me to Vilnius, told me where

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to find the synagogue and described it to me, and then walked quickly away. H e obviously did not want to talk. We found the building, an imposing one for the neighborhood, set back from the street, behind trees and shrubs, and separated from the sidewalk by an iron fence with two locked gates, one held shut by several loops of wire, the other by an iron chain. T h e building seemed deserted. It was 4:30 P.M. on a Friday.

O u r record still stands. T h r e e nights in Kiev—three attempts at overcharging in the hotel restaurant. T h e fourth night in the U S S R at the restaurant in the Hotel Vilnius we discovered a 2.50 rouble overcharge on a 4.60 rouble bill. We complained to the waiter, then demanded to see the administrator to sign the complaint book. T h e money was returned.

This is no place for equanimity. This morning, on a hunch, we returned to the synagogue; the gate that yesterday had been locked with an iron chain stood open and we entered — a n d it was as if the clock of my life had been turned back 45 years. Thirty-five men, all of whom could have been my father, were there, wearing prayer shawls, but not yarmulkes, while the Torah was being read. T h e r e was the same religious anarchy I so well remember—men coming and going, talking about who knows what, praying in their own way, someone occasionally wiping his eyes. We sat alone in a corner, I with a handkerchief on my head. A man came toward me; I introduced myself, asked for a yarmulke, and was invited to come forward. T h e two men next to whom I sat said I should bring my wife with me. "It's all right," they said in response to my expression of surprise. We read the prayers, our reading frequently interrupted by their asking of questions. Did I know Mr. So-and-so in New York? Where had we come from? Did I know Yosele Rosenblatt—"I have his records. Would you like to hear them?" I answered that I had known Rosenblatt's son in Baltimore,

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where I had grown up, that I, too, had several of his records, some of them made many years ago, and that I had records of other cantors as well, the Kussevitskis, for example. And immediately my stock went up. "Why are you in Vilnius?" "Because it was a great city of Jewish learning. It was the city of Y I V O " [The Jewish Institute for Scientific Research]. "Yes, and Y I V O now is in New York. It is an honor for us to have an American professor here. Do you remember something of when you went to shul?" Snatches of prayers, of disjointed conversations came crowding into my mind like unexpected but not unwelcome guests, disconnected memories from rooms so long locked I had forgotten they existed. Had those memories been too long locked away? Do the members of the family get together only at funerals? What can I presume to say, and if I say anything why should I presume that they could believe me? So I take refuge in silence, but hope they can suspect that my silence is communion, not withdrawal. They allowed me to take pictures after the conclusion of the service, and we all shook hands and wished each other Gut Shabbos and shalom, and I made arrangements to return tomorrow to visit the cemetery. In the afternoon, in the Museum of Fine Arts in the old city, we met a young employee who spoke English with great effort and who was charming and delightful. I was struck by the one Lithuanian cubist painter of the 1920s, the few who painted like inferior Soutines, the power and liveliness of the woodcuts and etchings, and the dullness of most of the recent work. The young woman who insisted on accompanying us was interesting; at first her criticism was entirely programmatic—this painting is realistic, that shows how the people really lived, this one is considered excellent by our critics because the expression in the eyes of the subject shows his true character. But she would ask us which paintings we liked best, and why, and soon she began talking about color and design: "This painter has drawn the head of a girl with just a few lines, but Matisse is much better." She did not want us to leave, and she did not want to leave us, and insisted on taking

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us to the dungeons below the Museum. Later, while we were walking up Gorky Street with our map open before us, we heard someone call to us. It was the young woman and her girl-friend. They overtook us and insisted on taking us along the little streets that lead off Gorky Street. We exchanged names and addresses, I gave her a ballpoint pen stamped with the name of Columbia University and said I hoped we could show her the museums of New York as she had shown us the Vilnius Museum. She smiled gently and said, "It will never happen." This morning at the synagogue, we waited in a litde upstairs room for the shammash [sexton] to finish his business and go with us to the cemetery. An old woman came in, sat next to us, and we tried to talk in Yiddish. She had some relatives in Canada, a sister-in-law with two children in London (one of whom had gone to the United States), a nephew in Riga and one in Israel—no other family. "There are no Jews here," she said, "but food is cheap and I pay very little for my room; it's a nice room, not too little, not too big, and with heat and electricity it costs only nine roubles a month. Food is cheap; for the best apples only 40 kopecks. I have a nephew in Israel; he says prices are high. He has a car, but gasoline costs so much what good is it to him? Here I can go from one end of the city to the other for eight kopecks. If you have a job here it's all right. T h e Jews are flying away, but I'm an old woman and I'll stay here." We walked with the shammash to the taxi stand and tried to talk as we walked. "You said Yosele Rosenblatt has a son," he said. I repeated what I had told him yesterday. "I have his records; they are so beautiful; it's my greatest pleasure to play them." "Where did you get them?" I asked. "From Rabbi Teitel in America." "If I sent you more can you receive them?" He shrugged: "They sent tallisim, yarmulkes, zizith [garment fringes worn by Orthodox Jews] for the shul, but they did not

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give them to us; only some lulabim [palm fronds] and ethrogim [citrons] were delivered to us. At least if they had saved these things . . . but they destroyed them. Why shouldn't the people who sent them to us get their money back?" "Do young people come to the-s/ju/?" I asked. "On the holidays, and they sing and dance to records on Simhath Torah [holiday to mark the completion of the reading of the Torah], T h e others don't like it, but what can they do— shoot me, hang me?" We drove to the cemetery in a taxi, and he talked about Paneriai, where the Jews of Vilnius were slaughtered during the war, and I told him about our troubles with Intourist in trying to get there. Paneriai is only a few kilometers from Vilnius, and the city map shows that a local bus goes there, but each time I inquired at Intourist about where I might find the bus I had been told that visits to Paneriai were possible only in a rented car with an Intourist guide—at an extra charge of $35. Since our visa made no mention of Paneriai, we could not legally go there even though it is only a mile or so from Vilnius. He spoke to the cab driver about taking us, but the driver indicated his unwillingness or inability to do so. T h e old man shrugged and said sofdy, "We have lots of troubles here." We arrived at the cemetery; I noticed many families coming on foot, and suddenly remembered that this was the last

Vilnius:

The Jewish

cemetery

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weekend before Rosh Hashanah, when it is customary to visit the graves of family members. But these people were bringing little bouquets of flowers, and those were strictly forbidden in the cemeteries I had visited as a boy. T h e Vilnius cemetery is a new one (the old one was reduced to rubble by the Nazis), but the tomb of the famous Vilna Gaon and that of the last rabbi to have served in Vilnius were there, and the old man pointed them out to us. He asked me if I would take a picture of the gravestone of his son-in-law, who had just died, to bring to his son in Israel; he showed us the unmarked graves—mound after mound covered with grass—of some of the Jews of the ghetto. On the ride back he talked about the Soviet Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels. "The others called him Solomon the King; that's how good he was. Stalin killed him. We have so much trouble here, I cannot tell it all to you." We got out of the cab at the hotel. "I will tell my daughter about you," he said, "and if you see her tomorrow she will give you the address of my son in Israel so you can take the picture to him." And then we stopped and looked at each other; it was time to go and what else was there to say? "A gut Jahr; sei gesund" [A good year; be well] he said—and his lips quivered and his eyes reddened—and I saw one tear roll down his cheek. We shook hands and I put my arms around him as we stood on the street. "My father taught me: it's hard to be a Jew," I said lamely. And he laughed without making a sound and moved slowly down the street. There is no new man, no Soviet Man, here. Self-interest motivates behavior here as much as it does in capitalist America; material and psychic rewards and punishments are distributed in both places. T h e difference is in who is allowed to enter the game and who is excluded. T h e existence of the USSR, like that of the USA, is testimony to the most humane aspirations of man and to his corruptibility. T h e trouble is, aspirations are generally correlated with illusion, corruptibility with power.

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O n o u r way to the castle tower we saw an old woman piling u p leaves in the park with her hands, not even with the usual straw broom. I wanted to take a picture of her, but, reluctant to seem to be doing so, I pretended to be taking pictures of the nearby painting gallery. Another woman joined h e r and they appeared to be looking at me, so I gave u p the attempt entirely and we resumed the rather long walk u p the hill to the tower. We visited the small m u s e u m there, climbed to the top of the tower and watched a thick black cloud of oily smoke d a r k e n the sky over part of the city (even as in the United States); then we descended and sat on a bench to rest. O n e of the two women we had seen in the park below came u p the path, stood at the end of the bench, and kept staring angrily at us. I smiled at her, and was greeted by icy silence and an icier glare. Eventually her partner joined her, and we moved off with a cheerful "Dosvidanya" [Good-bye]. We walked back through the park, the two of them following us, and entered the top of Gorky Street, where we could no longer see them when we turned a r o u n d . We walked slowly down Gorky Street, snapping pictures of old buildings and peering into every open courtyard, f o r we had discovered that at least a century separates the architecture and the life of the street f r o m the architecture and the life of the courtyard. I poked my head into one courtyard to take a picture, and there she was—the angry woman of the park and the castle tower. I covered u p my surprise with a smile, but she could not restrain h e r rage, fear, resentment—what was it? A n d , flushing bright red, she ran muttering down the street making, I thought, straight for the police station. We went on to the Church of St. Anne and were sure she would be waiting for us as we arrived. She was not. In the Church of St. Jacobus, the church of the University, we met a jovial Pole and his pretty young daughter, visiting Vilnius on vacation. They were f r o m Bialystok. "This is really a Polish church, you know," the man said in French, "and this is really a Polish university. T h e university was f o u n d e d by Stephen Bathory." I established my credentials, and earned their friendship,

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when I said that Adam Mickiewicz had been a student there, and I am sure I won their undying affection when I pointed to a nineteenth-century statue that bore the name of its Polish sculptor and showed, on its base, that it had been cast in Warsaw. Standing in the courtyard, the man told me that he had a brother in Toronto who had studied psychology at the university there, could speak many languages, and worked now as an industrial psychologist. He told me, when I said that we had a little house in Connecticut, that the United States had had 49 states until Hawaii joined the Union, since when it has had 50. "The difference with Poland," he explained, "is that we had 40 departments until we went into the Soviet bloc. Now we have six." His young daughter giggled, pointed her finger at him in mock disapproval, and said, "Propaganda." I told him the old joke about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist in Poland; an optimist is one who is learning Russian, a pessimist one who is learning Chinese. His face crinkled with delight. We smiled at each other, he kissed Shirley's hand, and we said "Au revoir." The episode with the angry woman did not merit such serious concern and the incident with the Poles was not so hilarious as I then felt it to be; but as an outsider in this society 1 attribute more importance to events than they deserve. I scrutinize everything for its "real" meaning; nothing can possibly be what it seems to be—everything is a mystery that must be peered into and solved. My emotions go up and down like a yoyo. How do people protect themselves from this? Which people? Auden's "saints" (those who in everything serve the Greater Community) do not need to peer into events, for there is an interpretation at hand to explain them; they need only watch themselves, to make sure that they measure up to the standards of behavior expected of them. T h e others? Why should they look for other meanings when they have no reason to suspect that they exist? But the "damned"—those outside the faith—know that there are more meanings than the faith allows for, and they must watch events for telltale signs

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of meaning as compulsively as the saints watch themselves for telltale signs of weakness.

I stopped at the office where the old man's daughter worked to get her brother's address in Israel. I waited for someone to finish his business, then approached her. "Mrs. G?" I asked. "Da"—and she opened her purse and took out the tab of an envelope with a return address. She then took out an entire envelope and showed me that the two addresses were the same. "Spasebo" [Thank you], I said. She nodded and quickly smiled. I smiled, and walked out the door. All day today, even at the oddest moments, I have had a memory of yesterday. We were waiting upstairs in a little room in the synagogue, next to the still-smaller room in which the old man was doing his business. When he left, he locked the cashbox, then locked the d o o r to the room. We left together, and he locked the d o o r to the room in which we had been waiting. We descended the stairs; he locked two wooden chests in the vestibule, then locked the d o o r to the vestibule. We walked outside; he tested a window, then locked it. Finally, he put an enormous lock on the iron gate and double-locked it. Each time this 8o-year-old man unerringly picked the right key f r o m an e n o r m o u s j u m b l e of keys he carried in his pockets, and I was reminded of the drawing by William Steig of the little man who sits in the center of a box, which is in the center of another box, which is in the center of still another. . . . But here the boxes are locked. And when I break into one, as I did this morning when I saw his daughter, or yesterday when I went with him to the cemetery, I am overwhelmed by the thought that an infinite n u m b e r of locked rooms remain to be penetrated. In East Berlin, too, I am reminded, all the doors and windows were locked. How can you enter into a life that is not your own if you cannot enter other rooms?

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"It's an ill wind" department: T h e old ghetto in Seville is now the fashionable Barrio de Santa Cruz. Cordoba having expelled its Jews, now proudly boasts of having the synagogue of Maimonides, on a little street that debouches from the stately Plaza Yehuda Halevi. Where once the Warsaw ghetto stood, there are now masses of new apartment buildings. In Vilnius, Museus Street (once part of the ghetto) is now one of the newest, widest streets of the city—proudly pointed out by the Intourist guide as a showplace. Different social circumstances stimulate different psychological attributes. Those who live here must develop—as a matter of self-preservation—what seems to be a contradictory combination of passivity and incredible sensitivity to the slightest nuances that might indicate danger or hope. Since I do not live here, I do not have to suppress totally my capacity for indignation; but I find my sensitivity to things that would pass unnoticed at home increasing. This morning, as we were walking downstairs to breakfast at the hotel, we met Mrs. Kaluszta, the elderly Lithuanian woman from Alberta whom we had met on the plane from Kiev. As we stood on the steps talking in English, two other elderly women—hotel guests—passed us, overheard us, and asked in heavily accented English if we were from England. "No," I said, "from New York." "We're from New York, too, but we came originally from Lithuania and we are here to see our family." "You are from Lithuania?" Mrs. Kaluszta asked—"so am I." And at that I thought I saw the expression on the faces of the two New York women change almost imperceptibly, but nevertheless change; and I sensed, what?—fear, suspicion, unease. I was not sure. T o cover my own feeling of embarrassment and to give us something else to talk about, I mentioned that I was a teacher. "My daughter wants to go to medical school," one of the women said; "maybe she should talk to you." They continued on to the breakfast room and, after talking a few more moments with Mrs. Kaluszta, so did we. I went over to their table and gave them my name and New

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York address; since I was curious about my own feeling that they were reluctant to talk in Mrs. Kaluszta's presence, I thought I would create a sense of friendliness by writing out my name and address for them and expressing my willingness to talk to the daughter who wanted to go to medical school. I did so, and the women told me they were sorry not to have met me earlier; they could then have introduced me to their family here—a brother, nephews, and nieces. "He is a professor, one of his daughters is an engineer—it would be interesting for you to see how people here live." And then one of them said something that made me realize that my earlier suspicion was not without some basis: "My relatives helped make the revolution, and now they've broken with it." "Please write your names and addresses for me," I asked, "so that when I return to New York we can talk about our trip." I hoped, of course, that their names would confirm for me whether or not they were Jewish, which 1 suspected was the reason for their uneasiness with Mrs. Kaluszta. "My niece is coming today to take us to Paneriai," one said. "I want to go there too," I blurted out, "but Intourist says we cannot go except on an expensive specially arranged tour. I want to go very much, because I am Jewish." She wrote her name, and as she spelled it out, letter by letter, I silently pronounced it, and my heart sank: "C-U-L-L-EN," I said. "Yes," she said, "but I'm Jewish too. We're from Kovno— and yesterday my sister and I went there and saw the house where we grew up. I wish I could invite you to go to Paneriai with us, but it is a private car and I don't think my family . . ." Her voice trailed off. "But maybe you could go by car, too; it's a little expensive, but maybe." "Have you been to the synagogue here?" I asked. "Yes, but it was locked." "I went to services on Saturday and to the cemetery "on Sunday." Suddenly she came to life. "Did you see an elaborate tombstone, a big one, on the right near the Eternal Light? That's where my brother is buried."

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A few minutes later we went off to the Painting Gallery to meet Olga, the young woman we had met a few days before at the museum. We had two very pleasant hours with her. The Painting Gallery had once been the cathedral of Vilnius; a large classical building, it had a number of extravagant baroque chapels on the ground floor and a number of Gothic vaults—burial chambers of kings and counts—below. There were one Hobbema landscape, three Rembrandt etchings, a Dead Christ by Ludovico Carracci, a Courbet, and a few engravings by Diirer, Schongauer, and Daumier. And one illustration by Louis Philibert Debrecourt (who was he?), Enfants Juifs—children with side curls and wide-brimmed hats, with eyes much older than their faces, playing on a street in a town in eastern Europe. Ordinarily, I doubt that I would even have noticed it; here, it seems a symbol of victory or a sign of death. Olga was delightful. We exchanged addresses and we gave her a present when we left, and she said she would leave for us at the hotel a book on Lithuanian painting so that we would have a permanent record of some of the paintings of Walters, Rosenthal, and Purvitis that we had admired a few days ago. Standing outside the Painting Gallery, we decided, despite the dire warnings from Intourist, to try to go to Paneriai by taxi. We waited in the queue, and the second cabby to come by—after much gesticulating and pointing to the map— agreed to take us. It was a harrowing drive, the more so because of his propensity to pass other cars just as we were approaching a curve, but eventually we reached the area—a pretty pine forest, the ground covered with tiny wild flowers that resembled heather, a little village with many wooden houses and a large, modern gastronom, a turn into a dirt road, and, finally, a dead end. We had a few moments of anxiety when the driver indicated that he wanted to return to Vilnius at once, but he agreed—or so I thought—to wait for us until 3:30 P.M. We had just about an hour and a quarter to visit the museum and the sites of the mass graves. We made for the museum at once; the Intourist staff had said there was one there, and the large map, painted on a wooden board where the dead-end sign stood, showed where it could be found. We

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reached the building, but it was closed and locked up tight, with wooden slats nailed across the door. I peered through the windows into the two small rooms; they may have been a museum once, but all they contained now were a tile stove and a few crumpled newspapers lying on the floor. What has happened to whatever was in the museum? A n d what explanation would Intourist have o f f e r e d if we had taken the official tour? A h e a d , we could see the tall shaft that marks the center of the extermination camp. We walked to it, a memorial to the "Soviet citizens" who perished there. A n d then we walked down the winding lanes that took us to the pits where 100,000 J e w s were shot and buried. A t each pit flowers were growing and there was a painted wooden sign telling o f the "Soviet citizens" who had been murdered there. At one of the pits there were the littered remains of a picnic—beer bottles, paper napkins, some bones, cigarette butts—and I was reminded of the young man in Kiev who spoke so bitterly of Babi Y a r . A s I walked back to the memorial column, I saw the two old ladies f r o m New Y o r k , with two members of their family. T h e y gave Shirley a flower to put at the base of the column. We smiled and said we'd meet again. We walked down the path to where we'd left the taxi, but it wasn't there. We had a moment of anxiety, but only a moment; the driver had not yet been paid, and I was sure he would not f o r e g o that. In five or ten minutes he appeared, indicating that he had gone o f f to buy more gasoline. T h e drive back to Vilnius was like the return f r o m Auschwitz: memories of the dead to the beat of rock 'n' roll on the radio. T h a t night, in the hotel room in Vilnius, I read in a book I had bought the other day at a book-store here (Documents Accuse, Vilnius, 1970): Einsatzkommando 3, Secret State Document, Kaunas, Dec. 1, 1 9 4 1 — General summary of all executions carried out in the sphere of action of Einsatzkommando 3 up to Dec. 1, 1 9 4 1 : . . . 133,346 Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish Children Prior to the taking over of the security duties by the E K 3 the partisans themselves killed Jews through pogroms and executions 4,000 •37.346

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I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by EK3. There are no Jews in Lithuania any more except the work-Jews and their families which total . . . [some 34,500]. . . . The carrying out of such actions is first of all a problem of adequate organization. . . . T h e Jews had to be collected at one or at several collecting centres. Their number required to select an adequate place for the trucks which had also to be dug out. T h e road of approach from the collecting centres to the trucks averaged four to five kilometres. T h e Jews were driven to the place of execution in batches of 500, the distance between the batches being no less than two kilometres. . . . In Bokiskic one had to drive 3,208 people 4.5 kilometres before they could be executed. In order to complete the work in 24 hours one had to detach for driving or guarding more than 60 men from the 80 Lithuanian partisans available. The remaining rest which had to be relieved every now and then did the work together with my men. One must bear in mind that lorries are available but seldom. Escapes which happened now and then were failed [wr] exclusively by my men at the peril of their lifes [.wc], . . . The distance we had to cover while approaching the place of execution and then returning from it in the course of each action totalled from 160 to 200 kilometres. Only clever timing helped us to carry out five actions a week. . . . Jager SS-Standartenfuhrer [pp. 2 3 1 - 4 1 ] A n d then, f r o m the District Physician o f the Public Health B o a r d o f the District o f V i l n i u s to the Gebietskomissar o f Wilna-Land, July 30, 1942: Re: Interment of corpses and carcasses. . . . In the Paneriai Forest near the station of Paneriai the common graves are situated on somewhat higher sandy grounds. T h e common graves are round in form and measure some 30 metres round. If any depression happens to occur it is filled out with earth. The graves are fenced in and are under constant surveillance. They are under the control of the German security police. . . . All the common graves are under constant police surveillance. In case of need the covering layer is made thicker. There is no danger of epidemics, [pp. 260-fii] T o have died h e r e — a n d to live h e r e now—requires the n u m b n e s s o f an etherized patient a n d the sensitivity o f an animal to d a n g e r . H o w can o n e live this w a y ? A n d I hear the old man say, " I listen to my r e c o r d s o f Yosele Rosenblatt. It is my greatest p l e a s u r e . "

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Paneriai: The death camp—"All the common graves are under constant police sun'eillance . . . There is no danger of epidemics."

Our last day in Vilnius. We walked to the park and looked at the statue of General Cherniakovsky, the liberator of the city. On the pedestal were two friezes: women and children come to him with flowers, workers and grizzled peasants doff their hats in respect. It is the Ara Pacis, and we were back in imperial Rome. We go to the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum. Nothing in the shops of Vilnius can compare with the peasant wares and tools of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries— let alone the objets d'art of the aristocracy—in dignity, design, craftsmanship, and beauty. T h e contrast is appalling. At the door is a guest book in which we are supposed to write our comments. I see the names of people from India, Laos, Egypt, Iraq, and the republics of the USSR—and of two Lithuanians from Chicago. I write in the book: "A lovely museum, but in an ethnographic museum why is there no mention of the work of all the ethnic and religious groups in Lithuania? Professor Sigmund Diamond, Columbia University, New York, USA." A small thing, but I feel better.

RIGA

T

H E Riga Hotel looks from the outside like a somewhat rundown artifact of imperial Europe in the days before the First World War, and one expects in an instant to see Louis Calhern, dressed in what looks like the uniform of a Czarist cavalry officer, whistle for a taxi to take some suave, elegantly dressed couple to a nightclub on the Rue de la Paix. T o my surprise, I learn the hotel was built in 1956. Inside, it is shabby; the carpets have lost whatever color they might once have had, the plaster crumbles sadly from the walls, and the shower arrangement in our bathroom—a skinny nozzle that gurgles water, when a string is pulled, direcdy onto the broken tile bathroom floor—is exactly the same as the one we had six years ago in an ancient hotel in Kusadasi, Turkey. This morning we waited more than an hour to be served breakfast. At the next table a party of three men and a woman were being served swiftly and obsequiously by our waiter. They did not have to say a word to him; their dirty dishes were whisked away and more food and drink were brought without a sound being uttered—a raised eyebrow was enough—and the waiter looked concerned, and I thought fearful, to make sure his service left nothing to be desired. After we had waited nearly fifty minutes from the time I had given our order, I walked into the kitchen in search of the waiter. There was not one, but several kitchens; I found not only our waiter, but several—many more than could be found in the dining room itself—and for each waiter there seemed to be at least six or seven other kitchen workers, cooks, washers, and others. The waiter said he would soon be with us, and when he came to our table, I said in German, with what I thought 86

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was heavy irony, that the people at the next table who had been so well taken care of must indeed be very important to rate such service. T h e irony was lost: "Ach, Ja, .they are Bulgarian-Russian communists." And then came the latest installment in what has become an almost daily quarrel with Intourist. Yesterday on our arrival I learned that Intourist had not scheduled our guided tour of the city until the day of our departure; when I protested, it was shifted to this morning at 10:30. When the guide had not appeared by 11 ¡30 a.m., I went to the woman in charge of Intourist services at the hotel to complain. "You will wait only a few more minutes," she said, or commanded; "in London I had to wait for an hour." "Did you complain?" I asked. "You should have." "You should speak politely to me, please." And then I did the unpardonable, what I had been warned by the Kremlinologists at Columbia that I must not do. I spoke loud enough for others in the room to hear, and said that while to speak angrily might be nye kulturny [uncultured], it is also nye kulturny to take money from foreign guests in return

Riga: The Peilavas Street synagogue, Rosh Hashanah

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for services which are promised and contracted for but not delivered. She left in a rage, but in a few moments another official arrived, full of apologies: we will be taken for three tours, not one, and the first will start at 2 P.M. today; sorry, sorry, sorry. We left with much hand-shaking and many expressions of friendship, and walked through the old city of Riga. Eventually we found the synagogue, a large building of which one side ran along Peitavas Street and the front opened on a small courtyard with a few wooden benches. Of course it was locked; tomorrow is the first night of Rosh Hashanah, and we will see if it will be open then. When we returned to the Intourist desk at the hotel at 2 P.M., eager to begin our tour, we were told that a conference of Protestant clergymen had, alas, preempted all the tour buses for the afternoon. Again—sorry, sorry, sorry; but tomorrow it will be different.

It was interesting to visit the Gallery of Latvian Art on Gorky Street. T h e old ladies who sold the admission tickets, checked the bags, and guarded the rooms smiled and could not have been more pleasant; they seemed delighted to have us visit—and also surprised. The permanent collection of Latvian art was, on the whole, rather dull, but there were some exceptions. By far the most interesting piece of sculpture was a laughing faun-like head by one Ginsberg, done toward the end of the nineteenth century. There were some good landscapes by Shishkin and two oil portraits and some impressive drawings by Ilya Repin. An academic portrait of a woman by L. Pasternak (1862-1945)—I assume he was Leonid, the father of the writer—was not especially exciting. There were three old friends: 1) Janis Rosentala, 1 8 6 6 - 1 9 1 6 (who signed his paintings J a n Rosenthal), who began as a nineteenth-century realist and then did portraits that sometimes are reminiscent of Manet and Renoir; 2) Janis Walters, who moved from nineteenth century realism to Vuillard and began to apply his paint in short, heavy, thick daubs; 3) Vilhelms Purvitis, who did only landscapes which, however, changed in style from

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Corot to Pissarro. All three had begun painting by the end of the nineteenth century, and it is clear that they were breaking with tradition and were in touch with artistic currents outside Latvia. Rosenthal and Walters were finished by the early twentieth century; Purvitis continued to do his landscapes until relatively recently, but his style was unaffected by later political developments. Three small forays into "modernism"—and that is all. By the 1930s it all changed; socialist realism and, more recently, socialist symbolism, which is the USSR's cooptation of modernism in art, became dominant. The main characteristics of contemporary style seem to be a combination of Peter Hurd and Rockwell Kent. A large exhibition of contemporary woodcuts and etchings from the various republics of the USSR was Sahara-like in its monotony. Even in the 1970s Lenin is a visible symbol of "The Way": soldiers, workers, peasants, cosmonauts are inspired by him. In Vienna, in Breughel's painting of the vision of Paul on the road to Damascus, hundreds of figures crowd the canvas, and it is hard to find—far-off in a corner—the drama of Paul caught in the grip of his vision. The meaning of the vision for us is heightened by its apparent meaninglessness to others. But in contemporary Soviet art nothing is left to chance and subdety is clearly felt to be counter-revolutionary. A soldier, alone at night, in some faroff outpost, is reading a book. Whose book? Overhead is the figure of Lenin, a copy of Pravda clutched in his hand, his brow furrowed with thought, inspiring the young soldier— and us. A Kalmuck sits in a room in his tiny house; through the window we can see Lenin and brightly lit electric bulbs, and we are reminded of the dictum: soviet power plus electrification equals communism. There are no discoveries in this art, only illustration of the texts.

When Intourist moves, it moves with a vengeance. There was no wait for breakfast this morning; the Intourist representative at the hotel did not want our tour held up. And we had two tours today, not one, to compensate us for the inconve-

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niences of yesterday. There was no car available for the morning tour, so Intourist put at our disposal an entire bus; four of us—the driver, Shirley and I, and the young guide, smiling shyly with nervous embarrassment—drove through Riga as if on a stately royal progress through medieval London. In the afternoon we were transferred to a taxi; by that time we had come to know our guide very much better. She was Estonian, from Tallinn, but was now living in Riga with her Latvian husband, a chemist specializing in forest products. She was pleasant, lively, and informative, and she seemed to take special delight in telling us of her interest in folk art and folk music and in hearing that we shared that interest. On the drive back from the fascinating outdoor Ethnographic Museum, a treasure trove of folk art, she mentioned that she had two daughters, six and seven, and we told her of our two children—what they're like, what they do. "But you are so lucky," she turned suddenly quite serious, "you must be very proud of them." "We are; they are decent people and they're lots of fun to be with. We're their parents, but we are also good friends." "When they were little, did you know what you wanted them to be?" "Not in any detail," I said, "but in a general way. We did not care whether they would be doctors or lawyers, but we did hope that they would get a good education." She was sitting in the front seat; she turned around to face us and became almost vehement: "You know why I am asking, don't you? I have two young children." " O f course," I said, "and you want the best for them." "Education is the most important thing," she said, "it makes for a more understanding person." I asked for her name so I could write a letter to Intourist about her, and as we shook hands to say goodbye her blue eyes were swimming, and I remembered something she had said earlier, when we were talking about her preference for the theater over movies. "We saw a play by Gorky in New York this winter," I had said. "I know," she had answered; "it was Summer Folk. I read in one of your newspapers that it was playing in New York."

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How had she obtained a New York newspaper? And where? Did she see them often? I had wanted to ask her all these questions, and more; but what purpose would that have served except to embarrass her? Perhaps, though, she left with the feeling that we were "understanding" people. It would be good to think so.

Between our two tours today, Shirley and I went to a bookstore we had spotted to look for posters. We found a series of reprints of powerful posters from the period of the Great Patriotic War, and several others of the kind we had found in

Jews, Americans, and other villains—poster purchased in a Riga bookstore

uni« c liM j iw fu*rei.t» h flnra«. B OH lf OH H TOH ME MACTEPCHOH.

Vilnius—anti-American and anti-Zionist, the figure of the J e w , with thick lips, huge nose, his hands clutching moneybags, straight out of Der Stürmer. I remembered a Soviet movie I had seen during the 1930s, Professor Mamlock, by Friedrich Wolf, a denunciation of Nazi anti-Semitism; it was one of the things which had led so many of us toward the Soviet Union.

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Tonight was Rosh Hashanah, and we walked to the synagogue on Peitavas Street. T h e gate was unlocked this time; it was 6 P.M. and we entered. T w o or three women were there and some men on ladders were cleaning the metal trimming on the Aron Kodesh [Holy Ark where the Torah scrolls are kept]. A tall, dignified man came toward me; I introduced myself and Shirley and asked him for ayarmulke. He said services would begin at about 7:30 P.M., and when I said that we would return he gave me a yarmulke and said with a smile that it had come from the United States. He pointed out where I should sit—in the front row, next to the Aron Kodesh. As we were leaving, we were approached by a large woman of indeterminate age and a thin, dark man, neatly dressed, wearing a cloth cap with a visor. The woman spoke Russian to us, and I went through my usual apologetic disclaimers. I spoke Yiddish to the man; he was delighted that a professor from New York had come to the Riga synagogue—"and you speak such good Yiddish." When I said that my father had come from the Ukraine, the woman tried again to speak to me in Russian and asked me if I knew so-and-so in New York. "Woman, don't talk such foolishness. He's an American; he doesn't know Russian. What do you want from him? Besides, how can he know all the Jews in New York?" He turned to me: "I had an uncle in Detroit. He was a tailor like me, but he became a builder in America. He came to see us before the war. I would have gone to America but the war came, and I lost my first wife, my daughter, my mother. I spent four years in Russia and was wounded twice." His lips quivered and he cried, and all I could do was touch his arm. We had a cup of coffee at the stand-up lunch counter of a nearby department store, then walked to a square near the synagogue to sit on a bench and watch the children play. We were sitting there, talking, when I felt myself becoming tense, alert, and expectant, though I was not sure why. Something about the situation had changed, and I looked from side to side to discover what it was. It was as if I were looking at something that I remembered; but what was it? And then I knew. Our square was located near a streetcar stop, and I be-

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came aware of an increase in the number of people getting off the streetcar and walking up the street. They were dressed in a wide assortment of clothes, but they all had something in common; each carried under his arm a package wrapped in newspaper. Now I remembered, and I was a child again. My mother had wrapped my father's tallis [prayer shawl] and machzor [prayer-book for the high holidays] in a newspaper and he was carrying them under his arm to shul. And that is where they were going. We stood up from the bench and walked toward Peitavas Street. An old man, a half block or so ahead, carefully put down his newspaper-wrapped package on a doorstep, took off the coat he was wearing, and began shaking it out and dusting it. He turned it this way and that, sometimes beating it with his hand, sometimes almost caressing it, until, satisfied that he had got rid of the last mote of dust, he put it back on, picked up his package, and plodded up the street again. We turned the corner into Peitavas Street, and were greeted by a sight for which nothing had prepared us. Two-thirds of the way up the block was the synagogue and there, on the street outside, the Jews had begun to gather—not a few of them, not timid and frightened and fearful, but a great noisy throng of men, women, and young people, standing on the street and crowding the courtyard that led into the building. We entered the synagogue; the tall, dignified man we had met earlier took Shirley upstairs, then showed me to my seat and brought me a machzor. T h e shul rapidly filled up; downstairs there must have been 700 to 800 people, most of them middle-aged to elderly, but with many more youngsters than I had supposed would be there, including a good many young girls standing at the back. How many women there were in the balcony I could not tell. I was struck by the variety of people there; the social contrasts were far more striking than in the synagogue of my youth in Baltimore, where everyone, with few exceptions, was poor and where all the parents had been born in eastern Europe, all the children in the United States. Here there were rich Jews and poor Jews, well-dressed and shabbily dressed,

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cosmopolitan and provincial, delicate and robust. But what most struck me was the bewildering variety of hats, each with its own character and each indicative of its own universe: brown felt hats with wide brims (like those worn in the 1930s by the Central Committee of the Communist Party as they took the salute of the Red A r m y from the top of Lenin's Tomb); gray hats with snap brims, like those worn by A1 Capone's mob; natty blue French berets; p u f f y black Basque berets; gauzy white painters' hats; shiny black leather caps like the one worn by Mottel the drayman; cloth caps—solid gray, Scotch plaid, white linen; white caps with black visors—props from a Chekhov play; here and there a Homburg; yarmulkes— black flat ones, high-crowned ones, embroidered ones; black and red square hats, brimless and embroidered, like those worn in central Asia; wide-brimmed Panamas and narrowbrimmed velours; and, among the boys, more than an occasional handkerchief knotted at the four corners. T h e older men tended to wear hats; the boys,yarmulkes or handkerchiefs, which—combined with their blue jeans, white terrycloth sport shirts, and beards (suavely Italianate or bushy) and modishly long hair—struck an incongruous note. But the ones who broke my heart were the men—all of them grizzled but some no older than I — w h o wore their Soviet medals and battle ribbons pinned to their jackets. T h e service was chaotic in that special Ashkenazic way. T h e cantor sang; the choir chanted; and the congregation carried on in seeming disregard of any order or system. When the hubbub grew too loud, one heard the sound (I remembered it from my childhood) of a hand being slapped against a machzor; and occasionally the shammash would berate the crowd while the cantor continued to sing. Every time I came to some conclusion about the crowd, about the service, about what it all meant, another look in another direction would show me how limited my conclusion really was. T h e man next to me would face the wall and cover his eyes, and when he removed his hand his eyes were red and r h e u m y — a n d I thought: Is he reliving the past or thinking of the future? And then he would chat with the man on his left, and I would realize that—at least

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for that moment—he was living in the here and now. T h e handsome young boy with the neatly trimmed beard whom I watched out of the corner of my eye: What was his future? And then I saw the boys and girls standing in the back— ogling each other, talking, walking back and forth between the large vestibule and the front courtyard. They seemed happy— living in that split second that exists between an endless past of misfortunes and a dark future they manage on occasion to forget both and to enjoy what they have and what they are. T h e service ended and I shook hands with the men around me and we said: "Le shanah tovah tikosavu" [May you be written down for a good year]. "Will you be here tomorrow?" one asked me. "I don't know," I answered. "I wanted to give you the address of somebody in America," he said. "I am staying at the Riga Hotel,—Room 3 1 5 . Leave it for me there." He looked at me: " T h e Riga Hotel is no place for us. We are living in Russia." T h e man next to me put his hand on his shoulder and said, "sh, sh." I met my wife and we walked back to the Riga Hotel, where my fellow-Jews are too frightened to go. T h e present was over; the future had come—and, alas, it was working. Art and Politics, cont'd: the Baltije Modes dress shop is located in a rather elegant building on Iela Lenina. T h e exterior, like so many late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century buildings in Riga, is eclectic, but not unattractively so—a bit of Art Nouveau, a touch of Baroque, some classical adornment, and, through it all, some of the Hanseatic Baltic style. T h e building bears the date 1 9 1 4 . We enter and find ourselves in the elegant ground-floor salon, where women select the materials from which their gowns will be made. Here the tone is distinctly Art Nouveau, with lunettes containing paintings on the walls and ceiling. T h e lunettes on the walls have pan-

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oramic views of old—that is, medieval—Riga. Those on the ceiling contain scenes of smiling yellow-haired peasant girls, respectful graybeards, hats in hand, and sturdy workers presenting bouquets to the Red Army soldiers who bring Soviet power in their tanks. T h e 1 9 1 4 paintings are gone, but the lunettes remain. Are the original paintings still underneath? What did they show? Pretty girls and faithful moujiks greeting the officers of the Czarist army? In the Museum of Western Art in Riga Castle there are exhibitions by two contemporary artists. T h e textiles of Georga Barkana, a Latvian, are superb; a variety of colors, textures, and designs forms a rich ensemble of rugs and tapestries. T h e forms are unmistakably modern, but the artist uses them in a way sometimes reminiscent of Navaho sand-paintings, sometimes of stained-glass windows, and, most exciting of all, of the medieval motif of the maiden and the unicorn. Upstairs is an exhibition of the oil paintings of Susanna Horn, an East German artist. There is one enormous painting: in the lower right sits Martin Luther King, surrounded by a swarm of black, brown, and yellow babies; above him stands Pablo Picasso, and beyond him Pablo Neruda; in the upper center of the painting—overweight, bearded, cigar clenched between his teeth—is Fidel Castro; Louis Armstrong blows his trumpet on the left, while Pearl Bailey and another black woman dance; swarms of women, all obviously healthy and fecund but a bit over-ripe in that special blonde Aryan way, are suckling babies whose arms and thighs seem to be rings of fat. Horn has discovered Léger; all her women have one eye covered by a hank of hair. All the white women are suckling brown babies, and all of them—whether they are at home, at a park on a picnic, or at the beach—have transistor radios. I am puzzled by the radios, all the more because the rest of the painting is so easy to read. Is the radio an icon of the technology through which we receive word of the New World to come? If so, then Horn is orthodox and devout. But perhaps the presence of the radio warns us that the serenity and peace of innocence can be polluted by the noise and static of modern technology. Then Horn is a social saboteur. And how does the

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audience read the painting? Do they see it as a commentary on the Bible? Even so, it may have elements of heresy. Is it a mirror of what is, or a vision of what is to be? T h e painter must be trained, of course, but so must the audience be trained—to look at the "approved" painting in the "approved" way. If we are properly trained, we look at a painting which is intended to be a mirror and we say, "Look where we are. See what we have." If we are improperly trained, we see the painting as a vision, and we may say, "Is this where we're going? Is this what will be?" It may be easier for regimes to control revelation than to control prophecy. T h e first must be seen to be believed, the second need not be seen at all; it may even thrive in blackness.

I went to the synagogue this morning to celebrate the first day of Rosh Hashanah. As I was walking down the aisle to the same seat I had occupied the night before, a man pulled at the tote bag in which I was carrying my camera and tape recorder (I am afraid to leave them in the hotel room) and said something about the sacrilege of carrying anything into the synagogue. When I arrived at my seat I shook hands with the men around me. One of them gave me a machzor and showed me the page that was being read. In an instant I was eight or nine years old again, sitting at my father's side while he pointed out the page (wetting his finger and turning from leaf to leaf) where the prayer was being said. I looked around that teeming room, and among the hundreds of faces—each so different from the other—I saw my father many times. But there were also Mr. Kurland, the shammash, and Mr. Londow and immaculate Mr. Harris and Louis Brill, who always needed a shave; and I stared in surprise because I did not see the kids with whom I went to Hebrew school. A man whose tallis had slipped pulled it back over his shoulder, and I was pulling at the fringe of my father's tallis while he tried to pull it back up. T h e man next to me was gesturing while he was praying. T h e index finger of his right hand would follow the lines of print across the page while he prayed aloud; then the fingers of the

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hand would make a clenched fist, which he wielded like a club, slowly, while the muscles in his arm bunched; and then, turning the palms of both hands up, his fingers apart, he would rock back and forth and plead. Mr. D., who sat on the bench across from me, told me he had brothers and cousins all over the world—in Buenos Aires, in New York, in Israel, in Capetown, and in Johannesberg. "If I could write my life over again, I'd write it differently," he said, "but I can't"—and he shrugged. "We do what we can," I said, and he seemed grateful for the comment. I told someone I saw no young people today. "No, but there were many here last night." I agreed. "One of my sons was here last night," he said, "but he didn't spend much time in the synagogue; he was outside. It's hard for him to come today; he's a student. My other son is in the army; he has 14 months still to serve—and he is on the Chinese border." Three of the five men in the pathetically wonderful choir came up to wish me a Happy New Year. I told them where we had been in Poland and the Soviet Union, and where we were going—eventually to Israel. "You went to Babi Yar?" one asked. I told him I had gone there and also to Paneriai; and I told him that Intourist was reluctant to take people to both places. He asked me if I had seen Salespils, the camp near Riga where so many were murdered. I told him no, and he told me: "They won't let you go. I left five brothers there." Another man, short, fat, with thick-lensed glasses and a sharp, sardonic sense of humor, said that I must tell the Jews of America that all is well in Riga: "See, we are praying in shul; we are nicely dressed; we have everything we want—right?" He pointed out that he was from Riga, one of the singers was from Russia, and I was from New York, and he said: "Kol Yisroel chaverim [All Israel are brothers]. Karl Marx said, 'Workers of the world, unite.' Tell me, was Marx Jewish?" "Yes," I said, "but he became a Christian."

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"A converted Yid. Tell me, the Rambam, was he also converted?" At first I could not believe that he had asked me such a question, and I said, " T h e Rambam? Moses Maimonides? Of course not." And I thought he was testing me (it had happened before) and I said to him: "Please don't worry about me. I am not a spy." O n e of the other men laughed sofdy, and the second singer turned back his jacket lapel to show me a mezuzah [parchment scroll in container placed on doorpost of Jewish houses] pinned to the inside. My interrogator looked a bit pained and embarrassed at my comment, but then he said, as if to mollify me by showing that he was willing to take risks with me, "Stalin lies in Hell. It's better for the Jews." As I left, someone whispered the n a m e of his brother in Rehovot. Would I please look him up?

It has been a long day. We saw so much, but it seems to me that I remember even m o r e than I saw. Even now, a childhood memory, even the memory of a fantasy, influences what I see when I look. T o this day, whenever I see the Susquehanna River I see it both as it is (straddled by railroad bridges) and as it is not (as I imagined it must have been when I first read about it, long before I saw it—its broad surface dotted with the canoes of an Indian war party appearing suddenly and silendy out of the mist). I sometimes try to fight this tendency by concentrating on the most minute details of the here-and-now that I am observing. Down with the past; I am here and it is now. But the past breaks through, and what I saw at the Peitavas Street synagogue cannot be separated f r o m what I saw at the H a r Zion synagogue on North Avenue in Baltimore. What is the truth about the Jews of Riga? I think of that sweet and lovely Intourist guide, who valued education because it made for a "more understanding person," and what seemed so certain yesterday is more doubtful now, not because I remembered something about her but because I re-

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membered something about myself. Would she have been so understanding if she had known we are Jewish? I had thought of mentioning it to her, but I had decided not to; I'm not sure why: partly, I think, because it had been a very pleasant day and I did not want to run the risk of spoiling it; partly because I was not sure that anything would be accomplished except to impose a burden on both of us; but partly, too, I am sure, because I remembered the fears when I was young on those occasions when I felt I had to admit being Jewish to those who did not know it. But my doubt is a truth about me, not about her. I do not want to believe it, but I cannot suppress it. So I live in between, and look for signs to tell me when I may trust my perceptions and when I must suspect them. The Museum of the History of the Latvian SSR in Riga Castle goes in a straight historical line from geology to prehistory to nomadism to feudalism and serfdom to capitalism, and culminates, of course, in the arrival of Soviet power. There is only one small detour: at the end of a long flight of stairs, on the top floor, is a round room—the only one with exhibits on that floor—cluttered in an almost maniacal way with Christian folk art of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. In the ethnographic section of the Museum, Jews are not mentioned, nor are they in the surprisingly small section dealing with the Nazi occupation. Their existence can be inferred only from the names of revolutionary and partisan leaders of the twentieth century—Nachman, Freiman, and Dubelman (the latter a postal-telegraph employee who died leading a strike before he was 21). But the inference can be made only if one knows that there are Jews—or were—and that there are Jewish names—or were. For that, one requires some degree of education. If education is so neglected, or so distorted, that a word is allowed to die—or is killed—then the world to which that word applies also dies, or is killed. "Education is the most important thing," our guide had said; "it makes for a more understanding person." And by preserving the memory of old worlds, even terrible ones, it makes possible the discovery of new, and better, ones.

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N Soviet hotels and restaurants, diners are treated as if they were committing nuisances on the post. It is the j o b of the waiter not to serve them, but to police the area.

In the Riga airport I had met a young Frenchman who was part of a large group of French tourists on their way to Tallinn. He began to chat, first about whether we had ever been to France, then about our visit to the USSR. "Are you pleased with what you find here?" he asked. "I like some of the people we've met and I'm impressed with some of the new buildings in Vilnius, but I am troubled that I can't buy the London Times, Le Monde [I added that cagily], the New York Times. I'd like to know what's happening in Portugal and in the Middle East." "You do feel cut off here," he said, "but if you could read Russian you'd see it all in the newspapers." "Of course, but only f r o m a single point of view. My feelings about my visit are colored by another matter," I went on, "I am Jewish . . ." He interrupted, his face smiling with surprise and perhaps even some pleasure, and he said, "I am, too!" And I continued: "Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah. I was at the Riga Synagogue. Did you go there?" "No, I was at a factory." I shook my head and said: "The people there were afraid." "Of what?" "They want to escape, but they are frightened to talk about it and n o one would go to the hotel to see me." 101

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He seemed puzzled. Later, aboard the plane, he came over to me: "About what we were saying, I saw no signs of antiSemitism." I told him about the posters we had bought in Vilnius and Riga. "The regime does not call it anti-Semitism, of course, but anti-Zionism." "That is a matter of nuances," he said. "About those posters, can you read Russian?" "Enough. Besides, you don't have to read Russian to understand them. There are the caricatures of fat men with big noses, wearing Stars of David and shiny black top hats, and clutching bags of money." He shook his head. "Aside from that, what do you think of the economic planning here?" "What can I say, where do I begin"—I made some remarks about the limitations of my visit to the Soviet Union, and then commented on what seemed to me to be the excessively large number of men and women, supposed to be working, who seem simply to be hanging around, going languidly through the motions of work. "Of course," I added, "I haven't been to a factory." He nodded, remained silent. A half hour later he leaned across the aisle and said: "I don't think they're very efficient here." The Historical Museum in the ancient Guild Hall conforms to the Soviet pattern—from geology to archaeology, then by historical stages from pastoral society through feudalism to capitalism and socialism; but the section devoted to the revolutionary movement is larger than in the museums in Vilnius and Riga. Once again, Jews do not appear except as revolutionary leaders in the twentieth century—Kriesberg, Höchberg, Singer. And once again, the section devoted to the Nazi occupation is small—only a single glass case. But that case contains a few items that I can hardly bear to look at, picked up from the debris left in the Nazi labor camp at Klooga on September 19, 1944, the date it was abandoned. The first is the identification card (complete with picture and thumbprint) of Jokubas Noachas Levas: all that remains to show that he once

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lived, brought happiness to some and heartache to others, and was put to death. The second is the identification card of Shepsul Proschow, born in Vilnius in 1 9 1 2 ; next to it is a snapshot of his young wife, Shepsul, and his two small children. T h e third item, water-stained and yellow, dated April 15, 1929, is the certificate granting the degree of Doctor of Medicine to Herr Aron Bernstein of Vilnius, from the Medical Faculty of the University of Jena. It is signed by the Dean, Dr. Ibrahim (I wonder what happened to him?) and attests to the fact that Bernstein received the grade of "Gut" in seven subjects. With what hopes this Jewish boy from Vilnius must have gone off to the great University of Jena, and with what joy he must have received his medical degree. What magic did he think the certificate would perform for him in the death camp at Klooga? There it is, pinned to the wall in a museum—like a butterfly under glass—the sole testimony that allows us to know that Aron Bernstein lived, gladdened his parents' hearts by becoming a doctor, and died 15 years later, his body left (with thousands of others) lying on the ground like logs in a lumber camp. In the display windows of the Viru Hotel (a beautiful building, put up by a Finnish consortium), there are posters in Estonian, Russian, and English: Do you know that: . . . At present there are 4.5 times more doctors than in bourgeois Estonia . . . 30,230 singers participated in the jubilee song festival in •969 . . . The annual catch of Estonian fishermen is 140 million kilograms . . . The length of cloth produced annually in the Estonian SSR is sufficient to girdle our planet six times along the equator. How good are the doctors? What do the singers sing? Who eats the fish and who wears the cloth? T o paraphrase Brecht, so many questions, so few answers.

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The Holy Ghost Church of Tallinn, with a famous painted wooden altarpiece by Bernt Nottke (some of whose work we had seen earlier in Liibeck), seemed to be closed when we tried to enter it yesterday morning with the Intourist guide. "It has been shut the last several times I've brought tourists here," she said; "you must try by yourselves another time." In the afternoon we returned, but the door was still locked. This morning, for the third time, we tried again; the door was locked, but as we were about to leave, a neatly dressed young man came out the next door and I asked him in German if we could enter the church. He said all we had to do was to ring the bell; I did so, and a woman came at once and admitted us—"Bitte, hereinkommen." We found the altar, and while we were looking at it the young man entered the church and came toward us. He pointed out that one wing of the altar was separated from it and was propped against the wall; one of its wooden figures was in Moscow for restoration. I told him we had seen the Nottke altar in Liibeck, and he seemed pleased when I said that it was now being repaired for placement in the Dom. He told me that he was pastor of the Holy Ghost Church, a Lutheran Church, and I introduced myself. He gave me permission to photograph the altarpiece and the early paintings on the wooden gallery that ran around three sides of the church, not very high above eye level. He talked of the history of the church and said that the congregation was now so small that the church had a difficult time. I told him we had attended the Lutheran service in the J u r a Church in Riga last Sunday; about 60 or 70 people were there, but the Catholic churches were jammed, especially in Poland. He seemed anxious to talk, but I wondered why a muscle in the side of his face kept twitching. I showed him my letter of identification from Columbia University. "Does this do you any good here?" he asked. "It did in England and Germany, but not especially here." He gave a thin smile: "I didn't think so; history and sociology are not favored subjects here. T h e Institute of Sociology at the University of Tartu has just been shut down."

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I asked him why the church was closed. "But it isn't really," he said. "Some years ago the ambassador from West Germany brought some groups of tourists here; since then we have been considered a security problem and we must keep the door locked. But we open it to all who ring, and Intourist knows that." I spoke about Turowicz in Cracow, and he mentioned that he had been in Prague in 1968 as a member of the youth commission of an international Lutheran conference, but had not been allowed out of the Soviet Union since. When he mentioned Prague, I told him we had been there and it had seemed to me to be a sadder city than Tallinn, but that East Berlin was the most depressing city we had seen. "The Russians are chauvinists," he said, "but in these other countries the people are unnatural. They have to prove that they are more ideological than the Soviets." He told me which were the operating churches in Tallinn, and I made a special point of marking them on my map. I thought I would be clever and disarming by asking him about Baptist and Methodist churches before inquiring about whether there was a synagogue. I did so, but I don't think I fooled him for a moment. He brushed aside my question about Baptist and Methodist churches and went straight to what was for me—perhaps also for him—the heart of the matter. "There is a synagogue here," he said, and he marked its approximate location on my map. "It has no rabbi now. One of my colleagues studied Hebrew with the rabbi, and he told me that the rabbi was dismissed when he refused a few years ago to sign the anti-Israeli statement that was issued by the rabbi of Moscow. So the regime got rid of him." I told him I had been to the Historical Museum and had seen the pathetically small display relating to the Nazi occupation. "Is it hard to get to Klooga?" I asked. "Actually it's easy," he said, "but not even Estonians are allowed to go there now, perhaps because it's so close to the border. There's a memorial column there, but that's all." I told him about the difficulties of getting to Paneriai, and he

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was interested to learn that the museum there was empty and shut tight. "There is no anti-Semitism here," he said wryly, "because there are so few Jews. There were only 5,000 before the war, and the territory was pronounced Judenfrei. Most of the people killed at Klooga were Jews, but they came from Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The Russian prisoners were not killed there; for the most part, they were put to work on farms." I told him that I was interested in the fact that none of the historical museums in Vilnius, Riga, or Tallinn mentions the coming of Soviet troops in 1939: "The people declared for Soviet power in 1 9 4 1 " is how they handle that chapter in history. "I never go to such museums," he said. I told him I had the name and address of a sociology professor at the University of Tartu, but that I had decided to get in touch only with people whom I had met and knew personally. "Have you written to any such people?" he asked. "They may or may not have received your letters." He laughed joylessly: "We know our letters from abroad are read. They are always delivered to us on Tuesdays, no matter when they are sent. And while normal letters have two postmarks—one from the city of posting, one from here—these have only one postmark, from the city of posting." A few other people had by now entered the church, because the door had remained open; and as they came near to where we were standing, our voices dropped and I talked of other things. I was afraid my continued presence might embarrass him and, in truth, I think he was both sorry and a bit relieved when I shook hands and said goodbye. But he handled very tenderly the ball-point pen bearing the name of Columbia University that I gave to him to express my gratitude.

All the tables were occupied at the shop at which we stopped for tea today, so we asked for—and received—permission to sit at a table with a swarthy young man. No one said a word for some time, but then Shirley and I began to talk to

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each other cautiously. "English—or American?" the man asked (I was pleased that we had been careful in what we had said, and annoyed that I was pleased), "What are you doing here?" I answered, and then asked "and you?" He was an engineer, a Muslim from Central Asia, recently arrived in Tallinn. I had heard that there was great resentment in Estonia at the large influx of Central Asians—"The politics of population transfer," they call it—but from whom I heard it I can't recall, anymore than I can now remember who told me in Vilnius that grandparents, who thought they had earned their retirement, were now voicing resentment at being unpaid babysitters for their grandchildren. It isn't the existence of the social problems that surprises me, but the relative ease with which a stranger—if only he walks the streets long enough—is made aware of them. This morning we took the tram in search of Lasteaija Street where the Lutheran pastor of the Holy Ghost Church had told us we would find the synagogue. He said it was in a private house, but we were sure there would be some distinguishing mark—a Star of David, a mezuzah on the door—by which we would be able to recognize it. We got off the tram at what we thought was the stop nearest Lasteaija Street, and asked a passerby where the street was located. It was pointed out to us, and twice we walked its entire length, each time on a different side of the street, without spotting the synagogue. I approached a thin, poorly dressed man and asked him for the sinagoga. He looked genuinely puzzled, then smiled with delight as if happy he could be of help, and asked in Estonian if I meant the kirik, the church. I could no longer understand him, but with his hand he made on his breast not the sign of the cross but the sign of the Star of David and he bent his head as if in prayer. I nodded Yes. He beamed and pointed to the building; we were standing virtually in front of it. He opened a gate (the building was set back from the sidewalk)

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a n d spoke to t h r e e burly m e n who were painting a g r e e n fence. T h e y , too, were friendly a n d h e l p f u l ; o n e of t h e m r a p p e d on the back d o o r of the house, a n d when a heavy-set w o m a n a p p e a r e d h e pointed toward us. She invited us to the f r o n t , a n d unlocked the d o o r . I i n t r o d u c e d us a n d spoke to h e r in Yiddish. We e n t e r e d a small n o n d e s c r i p t vestibule, t h e n t u r n e d left into a r a t h e r large room; it was t h e shul. She t u r n e d on t h e lights a n d said h e r h u s b a n d would soon j o i n us. In a few m o m e n t s h e came, a n d p r e s e n t e d m e with a yarmulke. H e was a r a t h e r stout m a n , b e a r d e d , with twinkling eyes—exactly as I have always pictured a certain type of Russian Jew. H e allowed m e to take some p h o t o g r a p h s , p o i n t e d to t h e Holy Ark a n d said that the T o r a h s were not kept t h e r e b u t in a locked safe next to it so that n o h a r m would c o m e to t h e m . H e took us into his living r o o m , where a third p e r s o n — a m a n who r e m a i n e d unidentified—-joined us. H e has a sister in the B r o n x , h e said; when I told him I live in M a n h a t t a n , h e waved impatiently as if explanations were unnecessary; "I know, I know, it's t h e main center." T h e b e a r d e d m a n , Mr. G., said he was t h e c a n t o r a n d the shohet [ ritual slaughterer]—and everything else. H e showed us pictures of the f o r m e r Tallinn synagogue—an i m p o s i n g building—now destroyed, and of f o r m e r rabbis a n d distinguished

Tallinn: Interior of the Lastaeaija Street Synagogue, in an apartment building

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Tallinn: The Lastaeaija Street Synagogue—exterior

members of the Jewish community. I told him we had been in Kiev, Vilnius, and Riga and had seen the synagogues there. We had not known about the Tallinn synagogue, but had been told about it by the Lutheran pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost (I had an idiotic impulse to laugh as I pronounced the n a m e of the church in Yiddish). "What did h e look like?" When I said h e was a young man, and described his appearance, they did not seem surprised. "We are on our way to Tel Aviv," I said. "It is a beautiful city," his wife replied. "Yes, it is; but Jerusalem is more beautiful." Mrs. G. wanted to know if I had been there before and what were the circumstances of my present visit to Israel. "What will h a p p e n there?" she asked; "it's a terrible situation." I agreed that it was very difficult, but I said I believed peace was possible. H e r husband then told me what I had not known—that a separate agreement had just recently been signed between Israel and Egypt. When I said that we could not find newspapers f r o m the West in the Soviet Union and therefore did not know what was happening in the world, Mrs. G. said we could read the Moscow News. I grimaced and said I had read it and it carried no news at all. "But you can listen to the Voice of America."

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"Not on the hotel radio," I said. She dropped the matter. I told them that I thought the agreement between Egypt and Israel was a good sign, and Mr. G. took obvious relish in saying that the Soviet regime was disappointed that the agreement had been signed. He has a sister and brother-in-law in Kfar Blum, and I promised to send them pictures I had taken of him standing next to the Holy Ark in the synagogue. He turned to Shirley: "I know your husband is a professor. Do you work?" And then, smilingly, "Why are Americans, especially the women, so thin?" We explained that we eat only two meals a day, and that our diet is different from the Russian—we eat much more fruit and vegetables, much less bread and potatoes. "And your meat is not so fat," his wife interrupted; "ours is very fat." I told him that we had been in the Riga synagogue for Rosh Hashanah, and that we would be in Leningrad—I hoped at the synagogue there—for Yom Kippur. Did I read Hebrew or speak it, he wanted to know, and seemed interested in my explanation that as a boy I had learned Hebrew as a language in which to pray, not as a language to speak. "Ani lo medaber Ivrit" [I do not speak Hebrew], I said—and he laughed and commented on my Sephardic accent. "What about the Jews in the United States?" his wife asked. "Is it bad for them under fascism?" I explained that we do not have fascism in the United States, that there are rich Jews and poor Jews, professionals and workers, but all can travel freely, go to the synagogue or not go, and that our children can go to the university and enter any profession. "How much does a professor make in the United States?" Mr. G. asked. When I told him he smiled quickly and said, "It's enough." We showed him pictures of our children. "Are they married? Of course your daughter must first practice medicine before she gets married." We told him that our children have their own apartments and, in response to his question, that our apartment has three bathrooms; actually it has two and one-half bathrooms, but I felt defeated by the thought of trying to explain the concept of half a bathroom and did not even attempt it.

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Tallinn: The caretaker of the synagogue: "Three bathrooms! Can't you arrange to give me oneT"

"Three bathrooms!" he exclaimed. "Can't you arrange to give me one?" "What about all the unemployment in the United States?" Mrs. G. asked. I admitted that it is a very serious problem, but I also pointed out that unemployment does not mean—as it once did—starvation and homelessness. " T h e state gives money for food and rent," I said, "and in the United States many of the unemployed even have television sets and automobiles." "Ah ha, automobiles," Mr. G. said. "It's not so terrible." We asked them about the Jews of Tallinn. "We have about 70 families," he said. "There's no rabbi here now, but I'm in charge of the gemeinde" [community]. He had an appointment elsewhere, and we rose to leave. In a tiny bookcase standing next to the wall I spied a copy—in English—of Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Mrs. G. noticed me point it out to Shirley and said, "I read English books, but I don't speak well. My daughter went to the University of Tartu and now teaches English in Riga." Mr. G. said something about the hard life of Jews, and I asked him if he knew the Sholom Aleichem story about the

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Kasrilevka Jew who told Baron Rothschild the secret of eternal life—"Come live in Kasrilevka; no rich Jew has ever died there." I told him that Sholom Aleichem is buried in New York. "I know," he said, "he must have a very large tombstone." We went outside, and as we shook hands to say goodbye, he was suddenly reminded of something: "When I was at school I did not learn English or German; I learned French"—and, smiling with pleasure as he recalled his lessons, he recited the doggerel through which he learned that C before E and I is soft, before A, O and U, is hard. In my walks through the streets of Tallinn I saw on countless occasions long queues of people snaking their way slowly forward to enter shops that were lush by Kievan standards, but contained goods so threadbare and bedraggled as hardly to justify the time and effort of waiting. And I was reminded of the souvenir shop in the Riga Hotel. It had been recommended to us by Intourist as the place to shop for amber. T h e first time we went to the shop it was closed; the next day it was still closed. On the third day two women were in the shop, but they refused to wait on us. The service bureau at the hotel explained that the shop closes for the entire month of September to take inventory. I stood in front of it and counted 26 shelves in the entire shop, of which four were devoted to liquor, two to perfume, and three to tobacco. It would have taken about two hours to count every item in the store, including each bead on each amber necklace.

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E N I N G R A D is a gorgeous city, so spectacularly beautiful along the river that not even the circumstances of our arrival last night nor today's oppressively tendentious spiel by the Intourist guide—for whom all of prehistory is contained in the Decembrist revolt and history itself begins in 1905—can affect it. Forty minutes after our jam-packed plane touched down at the Leningrad airport yesterday we were still aboard, hot, uncomfortable, hungry, headachy. We tried to pass the time by playing fingergames with a pudgy little Russian baby who was sitting on his mother's lap in the seat facing us, and by talking to a young merchant marine officer about to depart on a long voyage to Africa; but our discomfort grew—and so did the restlessness of our fellow passengers. The young stewardess stormed out of the cockpit and began talking rapid-fire to the passengers. "What is she saying?" I asked the merchant marine officer. "She says that the reason for the delay is that nobody can be found to wheel the moveable stairway to the plane so that we can disembark. T h e captain is furious, and wants the passengers to write letters to the newspapers." "Hurrah for the captain," I thought, but only smiled at the officer. Our Intourist tour today culminated in a visit to modern Leningrad, for which historic Leningrad is clearly only a preamble, and its climax was a visit to Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, where half a million citizens of Leningrad—victims of the Nazi siege—are buried. We walked along neat paths through well-kept lawns and carefully tended flower-beds, toward a great granite wall, decorated with heroic friezes, on which are engraved the words of Olga Bergholtz: "No one is >13

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forgotten and nothing is forgotten." T h e nameless dead are buried in low mounds of earth. From carefully hidden microphones in the trees along the paths came the voices of a choir singing "Träumerei." I stood and looked—at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the hundreds upon hundreds of visitors, and I listened to the mournfully sweet music. I thought of Auschwitz and its four million dead: there are no flowers there, no trees nor grass, only hair and glasses and shoes and false teeth. T h e r e isn't any music at Auschwitz; there aren't even any graves—the dead vanished with the smoke that came out of the chimneys. In the last scene of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, Moses, seething with rage at the sight of the golden calf and in despair at his apparent failure to convince his people that truth and beauty lie in the concept of law, smashes the tablets of the Law as but another graven image. What a burden Auschwitz puts upon us: to remember those who died, and to ponder the meaning of their death for our own lives without the aid of graven images and of "Träumerei." It is always good to remember the dead, but we ask less of ourselves—and settle for less than we are capable of giving—if we remember them for their patriotism, which is the lesson of Piskarevskoye, than if we remember them because their sacrifice reminds us of the necessity to subject ourselves to Law—which is the lesson of Auschwitz.

Everything in this country is organized in groups; nothing is allowed to take place in isolation. T h e r e are hiking clubs, chess clubs, checker clubs, soccer clubs, science clubs, reading clubs, camera clubs, fishing clubs, flying clubs, boating clubs . . . ad infinitum. T h e r e is no social—or physical—space around the individual which remains inviolate. Society systematically invades that space to bring the pressure of the community to bear on the individual so that he is constantly u n d e r surveillance and, more important, comes to feel that his life has meaning only if it is lived in accordance with the norms of the group. "The Soul selects her own Society," Emily Dickinson wrote:

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Then—shuts the Door— To her divine Majesty— Present no more— The integrity of the soul is maintained by her right, and ability, to choose the company she keeps. Here, the state requires the soul to be promiscuous. Professor L. tells us about the near-impossibility of writing about masturbation and teaching Soviet adolescents about its meaning. He attributes this backwardness to prudery. Perhaps; but masturbation is a solitary activity and is, therefore, profoundly dangerous to the regime, which cannot tolerate privacy. Note on the presentation of self in the Soviet Union: I have noticed over and over again that clerks and office-workers in the USSR whine and cajole when they speak over the telephone. They sound like the wheedling beggar in Moussourgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. But as soon as they hang up the telephone and turn to the customer or client across the desk, they act with rude peremptoriness, not to say arrogance. The explanation may have more to do with social relations than with psychology. They are not sure who the person at the other end of the wire is. The ambiguity makes them grovel. Despite the official equalitarianism, which ought to make such behavior unnecessary, they maintain the social connection in the manner characteristic of underdogs—by seduction, complaisance, and cajolery. But the petitioner whom they see faceto-face is a supplicant; no longer underdog nor bound by a civic culture which requires a sense of responsibility toward a client, the clerk can show his importance by a display of arrogance. After lunch, in the lobby of the Hotel Leningrad, I overheard three old men and a woman—members of a group of Canadian tourists—talking in seeming confidence to one another but, like a good many elderly people, at the top of their voices. The burly one with the gnarled cane pounded it on the

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hotel floor and said, " T h e J e w s are as g o o d as anybody else, but the Zionists a r e responsible f o r all the troubles in the capitalist world since the First W o r l d W a r . A n d listen to me, the Zionists control the g o v e r n m e n t in Washington. Ain't that r i g h t ? " he asked, j a b b i n g a finger at his m u m m y - l i k e f r i e n d . " R i g h t , right, y o u ' r e d e a d right," the m u m m y squeaked. " T h e s e people here aren't so b a d , " the first man continued, " a n d neither a r e the G e r m a n s . In the First W o r l d W a r , I was in the G e r m a n a r m y on the eastern front. I wanted to g o h o m e w h e n the w a r was o v e r , but I had to stay f o r a while to fight these fellows, but they weren't such bad fellows." T h e third m a n interrupted: " Y o u w e r e in the G e r m a n a r m y d u r ing the First W o r l d W a r ? S o was I . " A n d in an instant J e w s a n d Zionists w e r e forgotten a n d they w e r e s w a p p i n g stories like alumni at a 2 7 t h class reunion o r veterans at an A m e r i c a n L e g i o n convention. T h a t night, in the hotel dining r o o m , we w e r e seated at a table with a husband and wife f r o m Minnesota—medical missionaries with years o f e x p e r i e n c e in Asia and East A f r i c a . T h e y w e r e kind a n d g e n e r o u s people, disturbed by what they saw here and troubled by the plight of Israel, which they h a d visited. In a d a y o r two, they w e r e to leave f o r Vladivostok on the T r a n s - S i b e r i a n Railway, a n d — t h e y told us with deliciously mischievous smiles—they had b r o u g h t with them several c o p ies o f the Bible, translated into Russian, that they intended to leave in hotels in the cities at which they p l a n n e d to stop en route. W e talked about their visit to Israel and about o u r experiences with J e w s and o u r visits to c h u r c h e s in Poland and the Soviet U n i o n , and they told us about their work as missionaries. A s they rose to leave, they shook h a n d s with us a n d told us with great feeling that they would pray that we b e c o m e " c o m p l e t e d J e w s . " It would have been h a r d to be even wryly a m u s e d ; they w e r e so serious. It would have been worse to take o f f e n s e ; they w e r e so decent. T h e Intourist g u i d e w h o met us w h e n w e had arrived at the L e n i n g r a d airport had assured us that even though o u r hotel was a bit remote f r o m the center of town, w e w o u l d h a v e n o problem with transportation: "Mini-buses leave the hotel e v e r y

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ten minutes, and it is only six or seven minutes to the Nevsky Prospekt." Today we went to the mini-bus stand at 1 0 : 1 5 to go to the Museum of Russian Art, and found that the first bus was not scheduled to leave until 10:30; the second would leave at 10:43, ^ e third at 10:56—every 13 minutes for most of the day. Forty-five minutes later, shortly before the fourth bus was scheduled to arrive, the first had still not put in its appearance. I asked—in Russian—one of the two men in the line behind me if he could speak English. "I prefer to speak English," he said with great dignity. " N o doubt you want to know about the bus, about why it is late. In principle it is not late; only in practice is it late. The schedule says that the first bus arrives at 10:30 A.M., and theoretically that is quite correct. It is only a matter of understanding the proper relation between theory and practice." I said to him that since he showed so much detailed knowledge about the matter he must be from Leningrad. "No. I am a Romanian, and I find this very funny." "But I thought that in this society you had found a way of integrating theory and practice." "In principle, yes, but in practice, not yet." I told him that the emperors of ancient China used to maintain two court historians, the historian of the left hand, who recorded what was said, and the historian of the right hand, who recorded what was done. "But here the right hand of practice doesn't know what the left hand of theory is doing," I continued—and he laughed. Then, with mock solemnity, he said: "You are standing here reading the sign which says that the first bus is due at 10:30 A.M. It is now 11:3o, and the bus is not here. But since in principle the theory is always correct, what this proves is that you are not here. Your existence has been disproved." I was so filled with the pent-up frustration of trying to deal with official indifference or rudeness that, knowing I had a sympathetic ear, I was reluctant to see him go and I pressed on with my tale of woe. "This is the first bus of the morning and it's already more than an hour late. Where is the driver? Is he asleep? Is he drunk? Is he with his girl friend? Has the bus broken down? In the whole city of Leningrad is there no

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other bus available? I don't understand why people simply don't protest to that driver when he gets here." " Y o u don't understand," he said with slightly exaggerated patience. "When the driver gets here, the people will fall to their knees, they will kiss him in gratitude. A f t e r all, they know that he does not have to come, so they are grateful when he does come." Thirty minutes later, the bus still not having appeared, the Romanian and his friend left the queue, waved goodbye and expressed the hope that I'd get to the Russian Museum before the weekend. I stormed back to the hotel and explained the situation to the clerk at the transportation desk who had given us the information that morning about the regularity of the mini-buses. "It's not my responsibility," she said loftily. I showed my anger, and a trinity of Intourist clerks told me: (i) the Intourist representative at the airport had made a mistake in telling us that the mini-bus leaves every 1 0 minutes; (2) the mini-bus service is not a function of Intourist and, besides, the schedule applies only f o r the summer and summer is now officially over; (3) nothing can be done to change the information given out at the airport, the hotel, or on the schedule posted at the bus stop; (4) take it u p with Intourist in Moscow. I began to wonder whether there is such an organization as Intourist with headquarters in Moscow. "In principle, yes, but. . . ." I think I have an explanation to account f o r the constant abrasiveness of our contacts with officialdom here. As Marxist theory has long since demonstrated, under capitalism the transformation of people into commodities requires that they sell themselves; as a consequence, social interaction has a certain politesse that arises f r o m the need of each person to appeal to the other. Under socialism, the emancipation of humanity permits us to treat ourselves not as commodities; we are fully human and, therefore, have no need to be decent to each other. At breakfast the other day we asked f o r kefir [yoghurt] and were told there was none. Yesterday, as we walked through

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the balcony overlooking the part of the dining room in which "individual tourists"—those not belonging to any group—were seated, I saw glasses of kefir on the tables set up for the group tourists, and again I asked for it and again I was told there was none. I protested that the balcony tables had literally hundreds of glasses of kefir, and the head waiter said he would get us some. He did not. When we left, I pointed that out to him, and again he said there was no kefir. I took him by the arm, held him firmly, walked upstairs with him, and showed him scores upon scores of tables, each with six to eight glasses of kefir. He seemed embarrassed and said we could have some at once; I told him we had already eaten but tomorrow was another day. This morning I told the head waiter—a different one—that we wanted kefir, and the game began again, as stylized as a gavotte. He promised to get us some; we waited for some time and saw a waiter bring several glasses—not to us, but to the next table which was unoccupied. I reached over and took two of the glasses and placed them on our table. T h e waiter came over, saying that they were for a group. I told him that we were a group of two, and as good as any other group. Again he said they were not for us; I told him he could easily replace them by going upstairs for more. He grinned slightly, but kept on protesting. I told him civilly to take it u p with Intourist in Moscow. He brought over the headwaiter who said we'd have to pay for the kefir. I said "Nonsense" and told him, too, to discuss his problem with Intourist in Moscow. They left, and in a few minutes the first waiter returned with a third glass of kefir which he placed on the table with a flourish and a pazhalusta [please]. I thanked him. Within five or ten minutes all the diners were carrying glasses of kefir from the buffet to their tables; trays of it had been produced. I could not think of many examples in a life of rather strenuous political activity in which I had accomplished so much for so many with so litde expenditure of effort. I became dizzy with success.

Yesterday we spent the entire day with Professor G, and it was delightful. He took us to the royal palaces at Pushkin and

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Pavlovsk and he could not have been m o r e attentive or more urbane and charming. T h e r e was at first a kind of tacit understanding u n d e r which we spoke only of what we were seeing, the glorious architecture a n d furnishings of those great palaces; but I am sure it was not lost on either of us that the marvels we were seeing had n o t h i n g to d o with the Soviet regime—with one exception. W h e n he told me that both palaces had been totally destroyed by the Nazis and had only recently been rebuilt, I said that I f o u n d that very encouraging. "Why?"

"Because current workmanship a n d design are so shoddy that I had begun to think that the traditions of Russian craftsmanship were lost, but I see now that I was wrong." H e looked at me with a kind of tired pity: "No, you are right. We d o nothing h e r e to e n c o u r a g e such work; the gove r n m e n t sometimes provides limited orders—like this—and that's the end. It's the history of Russia; everything begins here and is developed somewhere else." We were with each other almost until midnight, a n d as we walked t h r o u g h the parks a n d , later, the streets, he m a d e oblique comments that allowed an outsider to see a little—-just a little—of the circumstances u n d e r which he lives. H e never uttered a denunciation, never m a d e a frontal attack, a n d some of his criticisms were mentioned with a kind of gentle irony. T h e sadness of a smile calls attention to the incongruity between the smile and the situation which evokes it. But must not the frustration the smile conceals sometimes explode in rage—where, when, against whom? We spent most of the daylight h o u r s today at the Hermitage; not even the stupidities involved in the endless queuing u p and in the waste of time resulting f r o m the fact that there were no printed plans of the layout of the m u s e u m could detract f r o m the beauty of the place. T h i s time I think it was the Rembrandt portraits that cut most deeply; u n d e r the circumstances, the inward gaze of the subjects took on unutterable significance. Later, we walked to the Leningrad synagogue. It was Yom

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Kippur, Kol Nidre night, and although we were early the crowd had begun to gather. We introduced ourselves and were shown into the building. It was by far the largest synagogue we had so far seen on this trip—a large room, with brilliantly lit chandeliers, a wide women's gallery, freshly painted yellow and white walls and trim, and with less than the usual number of naked fluorescent tubes for illumination. We were taken to a side courtyard and shown a small building which, we were told, was a chassidic shul. A n d then we returned to wait. I sat in the back of the room, refusing an invitation to sit as a guest in the front. Within a few minutes I had obviously become a subject of much curiosity, and within a few more minutes a host of people had formed around me. Where was I from; where was I going; why had I come; what did I think of Leningrad; how many Jews were there in New York? "Really? So many; what do they do; how do they live?" A burly man, shabbily dressed, asked me how I liked the synagogue; he compared it with the one in Budapest and told me he had been there. "See," he showed me the medal on his jacket, "I was in the tank corps; when I got to Budapest I saw the synagogue but there were no Jews." A n d then, in a sudden switch, he asked: "How old are you?" Feeling guilty and embarrassed, because I knew he would not believe me, I said "Fifty-five." H e looked startled, turned to the men around us, and said, "He's fifty-five. He's older than some of us, but he looks younger. Look at us—wrinkled faces and big bellies." I said something unconvincing about diet in the United States: "We eat less bread and potatoes, but much more fruit and vegetables." "Fruit," he said, "fruit," and shrugged with the air of someone who knew only the word. A younger man, wearing a beret, tapped me. on the shoulder and asked if I would meet with him. "When?" "Now." "But I cannot leave the synagogue now." "When will you be leaving?" "When the service is over, at about 9 o'clock."

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"You must see me; I am a refusenik and I have to talk with you." Three young boys came by; one of them, whom we had met earlier and who spoke a litde English, introduced the others, one of whom—when he learned we would be in Odessa later—said excitedly in Russian that he would look us up in the Intourist hotel there. The refusenik quietly appeared again, introduced me to another man—whom he identified as still another refusenik—and as he shook hands passed me a tiny slip of paper, folded into quarters, and said: "This is my story in English; read it and return it to me when we meet at 9 o'clock." I slipped it into my pocket just as the gabbe [head of the congregation] came by, took me firmly by the arm, and insisted that I sit in the front row. I could not refuse, and went with him. In a few minutes the service began and Kol Nidre was sung— and I was a prisoner of memory and desire. There was a choir of one middle-aged and five elderly men; the cantor—a tall, strongly built man—had a beautiful voice and the pleading, penitential wringing of the hands to go with the cantillation. The congregation was huge—about 2,500 were in the room—and they were much quieter and more orderly than the Riga congregation, and more uniformly drab in dress. Again I wondered, as I have so often during this trip, why were they there. What did it mean to them? But this time I became impatient with myself. They were there; that was enough—the significance of the event was not so much in what it may tell us about what led them there as in the fact that they were willing to bear the consequences of being there. A man and a woman sat next to me, and I learned that they were from Chicago; the woman was deeply pleased by the fact that in the Soviet Union "representative religious institutions" (the voice was the voice of the woman, but the words were the words of Intourist) were allowed to function. I felt relieved when they departed. A swarthy man with high cheek bones and a leather hat sat next to me, and in a few moments was

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123

Leningrad: The Synagogue on Yom Kippur

joined by his friend. In Yiddish the second asked the first, nodding in my direction: "Is he agoy?" I turned, grinning, and said in Yiddish: "No, I'm Jewish— and on both sides." He smiled with embarrassment; the other laughed uproariously. At ten minutes before g, I turned to them, wished them a good holiday, a good year, and peace, and walked to the entrance, where I met Shirley, surrounded by a group of men and women. As we walked through the vestibule we were joined by the refusenik and another younger man, hardly more than a boy, whom the first introduced as another refusenik. The four of us walked the streets of Leningrad for nearly three hours, with Mr. E. speaking nearly nonstop all that time. I never saw such a display of frenzied excitement: the need to talk, to hold on to a human contact, to tell a story so convincingly and compel-

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lingly as to gain help. I learned about his father, an old Bolshevik, arrested in 1937, who spent his life until he died in 1957 either in jail or under house arrest. I learned that he had been a plastics engineer, held patents in the United States and England, but had been fired and was now working as a postal employee since he had applied for an exit visa. T h e young man, an engineer, was working as a construction laborer since his application had been rejected. Mr. E. spoke rapidly and continuously—about himself, about his family, about the "scandal" of Russian Jews applying to go to Israel but really going to the United States and Canada, about how he and his friends studied Hebrew from books at night in their apartments or with old men learned in the Talmud, about how they were spied upon in their own apartments by some of their neighbors, about the need to bring pressure on the Soviet government to relax restrictions on emigration visas and the need to provide funds for those who can get such visas, about politics—Soviet politics, American politics, international politics. And all the while he talked about such matters he plucked from one of his pockets or from a compartment in one of the several billfolds he seemed to carry some scrap of paper—a newspaper clipping, a photo, a visiting card of an American from Annapolis, Maryland, someone from London, a Jew from Capetown, a tourist from Rome—a scrap of paper on which he had written his story or the point-by-point program of what must be done to help Soviet Jews and the names and titles of those to whom letters should be written—Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny. "The Soviets think Edward Kennedy might be elected and they want to get friendly with him. He should be asked to help us." He even had a list of the records his 17-year-old daughter, who was going to an art school (she had been refused permission under the quota to enter a school of architecture) would like to have: Paul McCartney, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Led Zeppelin. "She's still young," he said apologetically. By the time we arrived at the hotel he was calling me Sigmund; his hands fluttered and he spoke even more quickly. He said that I might keep the little slip of paper on which he

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had written his story so that I could tell others about him, but he asked that I tear it up before crossing the border; then he fished through his wallet for a picture of himself. I promised to do what I could and he repeated what he had said so often before—that he was not asking to come to the United States, but really wanted to go to Israel. "My father was wrong," he said; "there is no place for Jews here. They do not want us. It isn't our enemies we must be afraid of; it is our friends. What can our enemies do—kill us? But our friends betray us. Herzl was right, not the communists." And then he told me that the gabbe, who had been so effusively polite in the synagogue and who had insisted that I sit in the place of honor, had wanted to break up the conversation between the members of the congregation and me. " H e works with the KGB. A few years ago he got permission to visit Israel, and now he makes propaganda against the Israelis." And once again I felt the terror of living in a place where one does not know with whom one is dealing. We approached the entrance to the hotel, and he drew back; he could not go forward and he did not want to go back. "I know you will help, Sigmund," he said, and he kissed Shirley's hand in a gesture that had nothing to do with courtliness. We watched him as he walked back toward the Metro station, silent and alone. And we, silent but not alone, entered the hotel. In our room I unfolded the little slip of paper and read (and I have reproduced it here verbatim, with names and dates deleted): Damestic [sir] address: - U S S R - C C C P Leningrad , Street, tel Aged and sick 69 years old, widow of the volunteer and war-disabled veteran of the II world war, her daughter 38 years old; her daughter's husband 42 years old . . . and their daughter 17 year old. . . . 1974 they handed in an application to leave for Israel and after 7 months . . . they were refused up to 1979, under various ungrounded pretexts and false statements of some persons from former work (office) of where he has not been already working for two years. Offichal [iif] reason for "Refuse"—Secrets. It was not possible to know the secrets because of the nature of the work. As an example of work done by there is one patented abroad: pat. N . . . (London Patent Office)

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pat. N . . . i n USA on . . . Invitations our near relatives who live in Israel aged and sick sister 76 years old ( Street and members of her families); 65 years old tante , and . . . sister (number invitations-N . . . dated, N . . . dated . . . and . . . dated) and their numerous appeals to the Soviet authorities don't yield results. And now—long years of separation. We ask you to appeal to the leders [sw] of the many contres [sic] and leaders of Soviet government L.J.Breznew, A.N.Kosigin and N.V.Podgorni on the occasion of the humane and positive consideration of our requests. Our requests are of urgent character and need special care since they come from aged and sick members of our families. With great respect grateful members of families and

I stared at the photograph he had given me; his eyes looked enormous, and I thought of that mountain of spectacles at Auschwitz. I noticed that a number was printed on the side of the photograph; it was probably his passport number and it could have served to identify him if for some reason I were searched and it were found. I carefully cut off the number and on the back of the picture wrote my father's name and the year 1927. On the top floor of the Hermitage, near the galleries that contain the great collection of modern French paintings, there are a few rooms with small collections of contemporary art from other countries. Among the Italians there are one Tosi, one Congigli, one Parducci, two Morandis, and six paintings by the communist Renato Guttuso. The entire collection of contemporary American art consists of one Maurice Kish (an oil painting of a factory, dated 1936); one Maurice Pass (a scene of New York City during the depression); two paintings by James Wilson Morrice (one dated 1904, the other dated 1907); a head of a worker sculpted by Minna Harkavy in 1925; one Gutzon Borglum (a head of an Indian, done in 1901); one Frank Kirk (a painting of a Hooverville); one Joseph Biel (a painting of a poor farmer); two Alfred Maurers; and, inevitably, three Rockwell Kents. How were they selected? Did the artists donate them? Were they confiscated? Did the committee on acquisitions buy them? And who had the good taste and the courage to acquire the Maurers and the Morandis?

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The opulence of the Hermitage, of Petrodvoretz, Pushkin, and Pavlovsk is breathtaking, but it does more than attract attention to itself. In their heyday these palaces must have drawn attention to the squalor and poverty that surrounded them, at least for those with a feeling for contradictions. There is nothing for which Marxists pride themselves more than a sense for contradiction; it is the organizing principle of every historical museum we have seen from East Berlin to Leningrad: "As the contradictions sharpened between the rich and the poor . . . as the contradiction between the social relations and the forces of production. . . ." Why, then, do they not see the contradictions of their own society that are highlighted by the loving restoration of the opulent palaces— which draw attention not to squalor and poverty now, but to the catastrophic decline in standards of taste and workmanship and artistic autonomy? Or is the contradiction apparent only to those who have seen a different world or can dream of one? Even so, isn't the Hermitage an invitation to a dream?

MOSCOW

O

U R departure from Leningrad was a shambles and our arrival in Moscow was havoc. We were up at 6 A.M. in order to get an 8:20 car to the airport; and at 7 : 1 5 we stood at the door of the third-floor buffet where there was a sign that breakfast is served starting at 7:30. T h e door was locked, but it was made of glass and we could see into the buffet. T w o waitresses were there; they would talk with one another, disappear into the kitchen and then emerge, each one carrying a single dish, light up a cigarette and talk with each other again, slide a moist rag across the marble surface of the counter with all deliberate speed. At 7:30 I rapped on the door, but there was no response whatever. T h e line behind us had grown longer; others had to catch early planes and had been told that breakfast would be available at 7:30. A woman from California tapped with her key on the glass door and pointed to the sign saying it was open; the two waitresses looked up angrily and flounced out of the room. When they reappeared they went through the same motions, as if on instant replay on television: each carried a single plate through the swinging door that led from the kitchen; having put the plates on the counter, they lit cigarettes and chatted with one another; snuffing out the cigarettes, they wiped the top of the counter. With maddening imperturbability, they ignored the tourists who were by now banging on the door. On the other side of the glass door lay the Forbidden Kingdom, which we could see but could not enter. We left in search of a buffet on another floor. We found one, not scheduled to open until 8 A.M. It was open; we entered and had a cup of coffee. 128

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We checked in at the airport and were told that the departure of the plane would in due course be announced. When it had still not been announced 10 minutes before the scheduled departure, I returned to the desk to inquire. "You must wait some minutes," I was told. How many minutes? Why? No answers. We found a place to sit in the balcony and I began to prowl. I came across a group of tourists from New York, and among them was a former colleague in the History Department at Columbia University, now professor emeritus. His group had been scheduled to leave for Moscow at 8 A.M.; three hours later they were still waiting, with no explanation for the delay but with the unofficial solace of hearing that the weather in Moscow was bad. I covered every inch of ground in the waiting room, looking at the souvenir shops, at the books and magazines being sold, at the dozens of varieties of hard candies on display, at the souvenir postcards (there were none of the Rembrandts and Titians in the Hermitage, but dozens of the Leningrad airport, and scores of Ilyushins, Tupelovs, and other planes—in mid-flight, on the ground, passengers boarding them, passengers debarking). Everywhere I walked I was aware that I was being watched by the eyes of Lenin. They stared at me from pictures high up on the walls, from book jackets and magazine covers, from the sleeves of recordings of his voice, from tapestries and posters and lithographs and wooden plaques. What started as an idle thought became an obsession: could I find any place in that room where the eyes of Lenin could not find me? My aimless prowl, a defense against boredom, now became a purposeful hunt for a refuge . . . and at last I thought I had found it. I was standing between a long glass-curtain wall that looked directly over the airport—no place to hang a picture, not even of Lenin, there—and a small booth at which candy was being sold. Not a picture of Lenin in sight—no accusing stare, no beneficent smile, no look reminding us of our duty, no classic brow or furrowed forehead, no look that sees into us and through us from the nothing we have been to the all that we shall be. Not a picture. . . . I was home at last. And then, defeat; for there on a shelf in the candy kiosk were dozens of bronze Lenins,

MOSCOW

standing, sitting, frowning, smiling, pointing—and all of them looking straight at me. I fled him down the room to my seat. Sitting there, my heart returned to normal but my brain did not, and I began to consider the possibility of developing a board game, something like the Japanese game of Go. In COMECON countries it would be called "Revolution and Counter Revolution"; in Western Europe and the United States, "Civil Liberties." The point would be for one contestant to manipulate the red counters—Lenins—in such a way as to have an unobstructed view of every square on the board, while the other contestant would attempt to carve out areas of privacy in which he could not be observed by Lenin. My reverie was interrupted by a young man (I learned later that he was an Italian tourist traveling alone) who asked me if I would make room so that he could sit next to me. I did so, and like people in trouble we quickly became friends. He, too, was waiting for the Moscow plane; he had only a short time to make connections with an Alitalia flight to Rome, and his problem was made worse by the fact that he had to go from one airport to another in Moscow. We talked about our experiences in the Soviet Union: he could not understand why it was possible to buy bronze busts of Lenin at the Hermitage, or metal and plastic lapel stickpins of Lenin, but not reproductions of the great paintings; he spoke about his meeting with an Ethiopian student, ready to spout an anti-imperialist slogan at the drop of a hat, who admitted after a time that the "solution" of the national question in the Soviet Union seems not to have eliminated anti-black prejudice; he thought it funny that his Intourist guides, who answered his questions about why it was not possible to get Western newspapers in the Soviet Union with the stock reply, 'This is how the people want it," should show so much curiosity about the Mafia. "Maybe it's because in this country only the government has the right to commit crime. The Mafia stands for private enterprise, against government monopoly." We took turns in going to the booth in search of information about the Moscow flight; neither of us was successful. At one point he said excitedly, "I can fly

MOSCOW

'3'

from here to Helsinki, and I can get a plane to Rome there. Will you please watch my bag while I discuss it with Aeroflot"—and he dashed off. He returned very quickly, downcast: his visa said that he would be leaving the Soviet Union from Moscow, not Leningrad; there was no possibility of changing the arrangement. An announcement over the loudspeaker informed us that because of bad weather the Moscow airport was closed to all international flights; the Leningrad airport would be used for such flights. "If that's the case then I cannot possibly leave from Moscow, and they will have to let me leave from here. And if all international flights are now being re-routed to Leningrad, maybe I can get a plane for Rome from here." Again the Italian went off to the booth, but this time he returned smiling: "They indicate that something might be worked out." He picked up his bags, and we said goodbye, and I began to prowl again. My former Columbia colleague was still waiting for his plane to Moscow; he introduced me to a member of his group who generously gave me half her collection of crossword puzzles, lovingly cut from the pages of the New York Times, the London Times, the Paris edition of the Herald-Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, precious artifacts of other places, other times. Not far away was a group of twenty tourists from California. I came upon them in the midst of a one-sided quarrel between a husband and a wife, one-sided in the sense that he was noisily angry, while she remained serene and quiet. She noticed that I was watching, and in an innocent way tried to help me to understand. "He's angry because he wanted to go to New England this summer, and I was the one who thought it would be exciting to go to Russia. I was right; they won't believe this in Santa Barbara. But he has a point, too." A man detached himself from the California group and came over to talk to me. He was a clinical psychologist from Los Angeles, recently widowed, travelling with his sister, and not entirely comfortable with the Southern-California attitudes and politics of his tour companions. He had grown up in Massachusetts and had gone to college in New York City

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and in Wisconsin; the objectivity he practiced in his professional life he found difficult to apply here—these were travelling companions, not patients, and it was hard to live with such intimacy in an atmosphere so redolent of oranges, Ronald Reagan, the benefits of early retirement, granola, and the Rose Bowl game. We talked about our children, about education, about racial problems in the United States, and then suddenly he asked me if we had been in Kiev on our trip. I told him we had. "Tell me, did you go to Babi Yar?" "We did." " I s there anything there?"

I told him about the small stone marker and the wooden sign that tells of the memorial that will be built. He laughed: "They were both there six years ago." He went off to see if he could get some information about the flight, and returned with the news that his tour director—a Dane who specializes in tours to the USSR—had told him that the delay was likely to last for a few more hours, and that Aeroflot had decided to give lunch to his group since it was now 3 P.M., well after the three-hour limit after which, by international airlines agreement, food is to be served to passengers who are delayed in their journeys. I said I would look for the Intourist office at the airport to arrange that Shirley and I should get lunch; we, too, had been scheduled to leave at 10:30. He said he'd go with me, because he suspected there would be an argument and he wanted to know what would be said. The Intourist desk was in a different part of the building, cagily remote from the passengers; three young men were sitting behind the counter, one reading, the other two smoking and talking with one another. I noticed with some surprise that my Italian friend of that morning was standing at the counter. "I thought you had left already," I said. He raised his arms in surrender. "They agreed that I could fly to Helsinki. They put me on the plane, but it never left the ground. Then they came aboard and said I must leave. And now they cannot find my baggage." I patted him on the shoulder and turned to the men behind the counter. When I mentioned that we had been in the airport since 9 A.M., that

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our plane had been delayed since 10:30 A.M., that "group tourists" were now being taken to lunch, and that we, too, were entitled to lunch though we were merely "individual tourists," one of them replied that I should take up the matter with Aeroflot; "it's not Intourist's responsibility." I said that I had just come from Aeroflot, where I had been told that I should take up the matter with Intourist. He shrugged, said something to his colleague, and turned back to me with an air of helplessness. "Don't tell me you can't do anything," I shouted at him; "and don't tell me to take it up with Intourist in Moscow. We may die of hunger before we get there." T h e clerk who had been reading looked up from his book: "Do not shout in my country. It is not polite." "And do not take money from tourists for services which you do not provide. That is robbery." He stood up, reached into his pocket, and threw me a note: "If you are so poor, use that." I reminded him that since all Americans are millionaires I had no need for his money and that my concern was with peaceful coexistence and détente, both of which required the meticulous performance of contractual obligations; rather than being angry with me, he should be grateful that I was helping to keep his country honest. The first clerk asked me to wait for a moment, went off and then returned with a woman dressed in a blue uniform. She listened to me and said that my wife and I could eat lunch in the airport dining room. T h e psychologist and I returned to the main waiting-room, and then to the dining room. T h e California tourists were seated together, "in a group." Shirley and I were put at a large table against the wall, well separated from the others. We had been served all but dessert and coffee when the Danish tour director burst in and told us we must leave at once because the plane was ready to depart. We barrelled through the door, down the stairs, and were brought up short at the barricade that blocked our exit from the building; from that point we proceeded slowly to the plane. We boarded it, strapped ourselves in, and waited for takeoff . . . and waited . . . and

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waited . . . and waited. T h e door to the plane remained open and the moveable stairway remained in place, but we were given no explanation for the delay. Rumors began to fly; where they began I do not know but the one that circulated most frequently was that we were waiting for a group of Pakistanis who had somehow got lost. Tired, irritated, angry passengers were quick to give advice: let them go by flying carpet; let them go by Air India. And waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . until a young woman boarded the plane and announced: "You must wait for some minutes. We are not going with this plane. You will go to the dining room and be served lunch. Out." And out we marched, those having the least contact with reality trying to explain that we had already eaten lunch. T h e California tourists went straight through the door to the dining room, and we went with them; but we had no sooner entered the room when, with a shout, the waitress who had served us earlier came charging after us. Angrily, she refused to let us move forward or to listen to my explanation that we had been told aboard the plane to return to the dining room. She turned to a group of English tourists who were eating at a nearby table and, with much motioning of her hand toward us, spoke excitedly to them. "She says you are illegally trying to get two meals," one of the Englishmen told us. "Tell her we don't want any more soup; we just want to sit down with these people and wait for the plane." We tried to go by her, but she stoutly refused to allow us to sit with the Californians, whom she began to serve soup for the second time. We were shunted off to a dirty table, where—either because they had had enough soup for one afternoon or because they were overcome by the spirit of fraternity—we were joined by some of the Californians, the psychologist and the man who had wanted to go to New England among them. Not all the diners had finished the soup when the Danish tour director came running into the room: "Quick, the plane is about to leave. Let's go." And out we went, prodded along by Aeroflot employees. As we went down the stairs we met the young Italian coming up. He was carrying his luggage. "They

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found my bag," he said. "Now they tell me to have lunch in the dining room while I wait for the next plane." We boarded the plane—it was a different one, much larger than the first—and as we walked through the first compartment we were greeted smilingly by a large group of Pakistanis. They looked as if they had been waiting for us for some time but were too polite to show their annoyance. We walked slowly to the rear compartment and strapped ourselves into our seats. The jets began to whine, and from here and there in the rear came the editorial comments of tired and frustrated—but still cheerful—passengers. "Now hear this, now hear this"—in the solemn voice of a World War II naval veteran: "This is only a drill, this is only a drill." And from three women, veterans of many an hour of watching the Mousketeers on television when their children were small, came the refrain of the Mickey Mouse song: "M-O-U-S-E." Peeking through the curtain that divided the two compartments was the pale, harried face of the Danish tour leader. He took a deep breath: "It's awfully nice to see you here. Somewhere, sometime I may meet you all again"—and he withdrew. A young Australian couple sitting near us, too timid to tackle Intourist and Aeroflot, had had nothing to eat since they had left the hotel at 8 A.M. Several members of the English group demonstrated their solidarity by opening their travelling bags and taking out rolls, slices of bread, pats of butter, lumps of sugar that they had gathered up from the table when their meal had been interrupted. The young Australians were inarticulate in their gratitude. We arrived in Moscow well after nightfall, having lost nine hours for which we were paying deluxe prices forced upon us by Intourist. The tour groups were met by their leaders; they picked up their luggage and departed. As "individual tourists" we had to wait until the Intourist representative found it possible to deal with us. Eventually he came and we went with him to the area where the baggage was waiting to be claimed. One of our bags was missing. "It can't be," he said. "It never happens; you must be overlooking it." I had not overlooked it,

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a n d it was missing. W e r e t u r n e d to t h e Intourist office, where h e gave m e s o m e claim f o r m s to be filled out a n d said h e would call L e n i n g r a d to i n q u i r e a b o u t t h e matter. T h e call never went t h r o u g h ; " t h e lines a r e busy," h e said. H e picked u p the f o r m s I h a d filled o u t u n d e r his direction a n d said h e would go with m e to t h e a r e a w h e r e t h e baggage is p u t a f t e r it is r e m o v e d f r o m t h e planes. " A n o t h e r plane has j u s t arrived f r o m L e n i n g r a d ; p e r h a p s y o u r bag was placed on that plane by mistake." W e d r o v e to t h e shed; t h e bag was not there. We d r o v e to a n o t h e r building w h e r e , sitting behind a cluttered desk, M o t h e r Russia was d i s p e n s i n g administrative justice to a g r o u p of petitioners. T h e y w e r e p u s h i n g a n d noisy a n d alternately w h e e d l i n g a n d t h r e a t e n i n g in their e f f o r t to win her assistance in processing claims f o r t h e i r lost luggage. She was as wide as she was tall a n d almost as thick as she was wide, with high cheek b o n e s a n d eyes that pierced like lasers. T h e top of h e r desk was littered with ink p a d s a n d stamps; stony-faced, she would look at s o m e f o r m shoved at h e r by an i m p o r t u n a t e client a n d d e c i d e slowly—oh, so slowly—whether to place u p o n it the s t a m p that would m o v e it to some o t h e r desk w h e r e a n o t h e r p o t e n t a t e , equally wise a n d p o w e r f u l , would decide w h e t h e r to place a n o t h e r s t a m p u p o n it. W h e n t h e crowd a r o u n d h e r b e c a m e too noisy o r w h e n someone spoke with insufficient respect, she p u t d o w n h e r stamp, folded h e r a r m s o n h e r m o r e - t h a n - a m p l e bosom, impaled him with a look, a n d d e c a p i t a t e d him with a sentence. T h e next victim would a p p r o a c h a n d give h e r his f o r m , which she would r e a d with the care lavished by a scholar on s o m e ancient text . . . a n d re-read . . . a n d r e - r e a d , all this m e r e p r e l u d e to t h e climactic act of affixing h e r s t a m p . T h e Intourist r e p r e s e n t a t i v e gave h e r the f o r m s I had filled out a n d waited f o r h e r to s t a m p t h e m . She read t h e m ; like a j u d g e p r o n o u n c i n g sentence, she said "Nyet." H e looked surprised a n d spoke to h e r again; she did not look at all surprised a n d again said, "Nyet." H e clasped his h a n d s as if in p r a y e r , a n d , rocking back a n d f o r t h b e f o r e h e r , asked a third time. T h i s time she dismissed h i m without even a word. "Why won't she s t a m p t h e f o r m s ? " I asked.

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"Because she says she only stamps forms when they are presented to her in groups, and this is a single form." I exploded: "Then fire her. Who does she think she is, Madame Brezhnev?" "One moment please"—and he went off in search of higher authority. He returned a few minutes later with a man whose uniform proclaimed him to be at least a rear admiral. He spoke quietly to Gospozha Defarge. "Nyet." He tried again. Again, "Nyet." He tried a third time, and I realized with a sinking feeling that he was not a rear admiral, but only an extra f r o m a lost road-show of H. M. S. Pinafore. With the third "Nyet" he was disemboweled, and lay bleeding on the floor. Meanwhile, the Intourist man was speaking on the telephone; I did not know what he was saying, but when I heard the words "tourist," "professor," "Gospozha Brezhneva," I could guess. He hung up, went back to her desk, and spoke to her like a delinquent child pleading for mercy. She never once looked at him nor changed her expression; when he had finished she read the form again, looked at it, and stamped it . . . then read the first carbon, and stamped it, then read the second carbon and stamped it, then read the third carbon and stamped it. We drove back to the main entrance to the airport, where the Intourist man put us into a cab for the trip to Moscow. On the way the cab was flagged down by the police for exceeding the speed limit. We waited while the driver made his explanations to the police. While waiting to be checked in at the reception desk of the Intourist Hotel we watched in numb disbelief while two young Swiss scientists tried to tell the administrator that they were invited guests at a scientific conference and had been told by Intourist that they could get a room at the Intourist Hotel. "But we don't have a reservation in your name." "I know, but we have just come from the Intourist office and were told you would have a room for us." "But we don't have a reservation in your name." And, now in noisy desperation, "But Intourist said. . . ." "You have raised your voice to me. For that you will not get a room here." And I heard myself saying to the two young

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men, my voice faint and weak, "That's it; keep it up. Fight back; you won't win, but fight back." And suddenly the voice—my voice—was hushed, as if the speaker had become aware of his temerity. It was nearly midnight. We walked to the elevator and I heard someone say, "Professor Diamond." I turned around to see the Intourist representative from the airport, holding the lost bag and grinning. "It arrived on a later plane," he said proudly, vindicating more than half a century of the Soviet experiment. I tumbled into bed, and heard the young Frenchman on the plane from Riga: "Aside from that, what do you think of the planning here?"

My suspicion that Moscow does not exist has been confirmed. Until we arrived here, all disputes with Intourist ended with a "Take it up with the head office in Moscow." I hypothesized that there is no Moscow; there is only a hole where people think the city ought to be—it is a myth that someone is in charge here, a myth to maintain social control. Today, after a dispute at the hotel service bureau, I was told that the problem of my having paid de-luxe rates which entided me to tours which had not been provided was not the responsibility of the hotel but of Intourist: "Take it up with Intourist." Since we are in what is called Moscow, it was possible to perform a critical experiment to test my hypothesis. We found the head office, met several layers of officials (following innumerable phone calls at each level), but never saw anyone with the power to make a decision. A fellow-tourist with whom I discussed the matter advanced an hypothesis to account for the same behavior: Napoleon had conquered Moscow, and he was still alive and running the country on early-nineteenthcentury principles. There will be no improvement until the Russians liberate their country from the yoke of French bureaucracy.

Remembered vignettes: (1) seventeen young Red Army soldiers, standing in the men's room at the Hermitage, ankle

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deep in paper and urine, the air reeking of excrement, munching ham sandwiches and smoking cigarettes; (2) two young men savagely beating and kicking a third, at 11 ¡30 p.m. in Red Square, near the Kremlin Wall; nobody intervenes, and the victim crawls along the street to the Goum department store; (3) the old man on a street in Vilnius, who gives us directions on our map and whispers: "Es lebe die USA."

Before leaving New York I had promised to try to deliver a message to a Soviet professor who had been refused permission to leave the country to accept a professorship in the United States and with whom contact by mail had become uncertain and sporadic. T h e message was innocent: his book would soon be published in the United States and his case had not been forgotten. Some American newspaper correspondents had told me in Vilnius that it was not a good idea to go to see Professor X without calling first (for perfectly understandable reasons he might not find it expedient to see me), and I knew enough not to attempt to call him from the hotel. A day or two after our arrival I called him from a street telephone at the number I had been provided in New York. A man answered in Russian, and in Russian I asked if he could speak English. "Nyet." "German?" "Da." I asked for Professor X and was told he was not at that number; I was also asked what it was that I wanted him for. I knew that Professor X was being harassed by the authorities, and I thought it not impossible that, under these circumstances, his friends might be manning the telephone for him to protect him from threatening calls. I therefore persisted. "I have a message for him from the United States." "What is the message?" "It is a message for Professor X and I will tell it to him. Will you please tell me if I can see him?" "There is no Professor X here, but I will see that he gets the message." I began to feel like a character in an early Hitchcock film, and the feeling, while creepy, was not without a certain sense of excitement—until I remembered that the longer I talked

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the easier it was to trace the call. I put down the receiver and left the booth and quickly walked away. T h e next day I called again, but from another booth. This time the phone was answered by a man who spoke English, with an accent but very smoothly. "I'd like to speak to Professor X." "Oh, you want to speak to Sasha," he said gently and familiarly and disarmingly. "He's not here now, but I'll be glad to tell him what you want. What do you want to talk to him about?" (Were these his friends or police agents?) "I have a message from friends in New York, and I will give it to him." "But he does not want to see anyone. I will tell him your message. What is it?" T h e phone connection was suddenly broken, and I heard a continuous high-pitched whine. Again I left the booth and quickly walked away. T h e other evening, after dinner at the apartment of one of the newspaper reporters we had met a few weeks ago, I told the story of my telephone calls, but without mentioning the name of Professor X (I had told the reporter his name some weeks ago, when I first mentioned I would be trying to see him). T h e reporter left the room and returned with a slate on which he wrote: "What phone number did you use?" I read the question; he erased it, and I wrote the number I had called. "Professor X can no longer be reached at that number. You were talking to the police." T h e reporter erased that. "I can try to arrange for you to see X. Or I can deliver the message for you." Adventures with Intourist sometimes are funny; with the KGB, never.

T h e other day we invited one of the American newspaper reporters we met here to have dinner with us. We had heard that the restaurant in the National Hotel is one of the very best in Moscow, and we decided to eat there. I asked one of the clerks at the service bureau of the Intourist Hotel to make reservations for us. "I do not know the telephone number," she said. "But it's just around the corner; you can go there." I

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went off to make the reservation. At the second-floor restaurant of the hotel I saw a young waiter and asked him where I might make the reservation. He smiled pleasantly and succeeded in telling me that I must see the administrator, and he accompanied me to the administrator's office. As we were about to enter, a man came through the door, and the two of them spoke briefly. The waiter turned to me and said that the administrator was out at the moment but would soon return, and that she would arrange the reservation. I had only to "wait for some minutes." I waited in the hall outside her office. The man who had spoken to the waiter went in and out of the room, always in a rush, and when some minutes had become many minutes I looked at him inquiringly. "Moment," he said, placatingly. Moment followed moment, and still no administrator. The young waiter came by carrying a tray of glasses and looked at me in some surprise; I threw him a helpless glance, and he shrugged with equal helplessness. The man who kept dashing back and forth came by again, this time accompanied by two other men, and disappeared into the administrator's office. When they emerged they were smiling with satisfaction, as if diey had just concluded an important business deal; and I wondered—as I always do on such occasions—whether the deal I imagined was not the handing over of some money to guarantee that a reservation would be available and whether I was not missing the boat by not offering to pay something. I am not opposed to the payment of bribes in all circumstances ("in principle, yes, but . . ."), and I have paid them when the price was right and the service important enough. For me the problem arises because I am never sure that I am offering the bribe to the right person or that the amount may not be ludicrously too much or insultingly too little. And what if it should be indignantly refused? I would then be guilty of moral turpitude as well as bourgeois venality. I stood there, frozen immobility concealing the doubts that boiled within, when the administrator entered her office. I followed her at once. "Do you speak English?" I asked in Russian. She smiled shyly and said modestly that she did, but only a little. I said gallantly that she spoke very well

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indeed. "Intourist told me that I should come here to make a reservation f o r dinner tonight." " A h , Intourist"—and she smiled as she opened a large red book. "What is your name?" "Diamond." Her finger went f r o m line to line down the pages of the book. "But I do not see your name here." Her smile became a frown. I continued to smile. "I know that you d o not have my name; Intourist said I should come here to make the reservation with you." "Just a moment please"—and she closed the book and picked up a pile of notes through which she rapidly shuffled. "These are the Intourist reservations, and I don't see your name here." I tried again, still smiling; "Intourist has not made a reservation f o r me. T h e y told me to come here to make it f o r myself. T h a t is what I want to do—to make a reservation for dinner tonight." " O h , " she said; "you d o not have a reservation; you want to make one. How large is your group?" Since I was not sure whether the newspaper reporter would be able to join us f o r dinner after we had had our drinks (Shirley was waiting for a call from her at the hotel), I answered, "Either two or three." Beaming, she said, " A h , twenty-three." " N o , " I said—not angrily, though I had lost my smile—"not 23; two or three." I was afraid that she might tire of such a frustrating conversation and use the easiest method of terminating it—by simply saying that no reservation was possible. In my eagerness to keep the conversation going I resorted to smiles and flattery once again. "I am a professor in an American university. One of my young colleagues, Wesley Fisher, has written a book about the restaurants of Moscow" (I showed her a copy of The Moscow Gourmet which I was carrying) "and he says that the restaurant at the National Hotel is the very best in Moscow." T h e flattery worked; beaming, she picked up the red book again and again her finger moved from line to line. "Wesley Fisher . . . Wesley Fisher . . . Wesley Fisher. But I do not see your name here, Professor Fisher."

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"I am not Professor Fisher; I am Professor Diamond. Professor Fisher is the one who recommended that we eat here." "It was not Intourist who sent you?" "Professor Fisher is in New York. He told me that this is a great restaurant. But it was Intourist who told me to come here to make the reservation." She closed the book with a bang, pushed away the pile of notes from Intourist, heaved herself up from the chair, and said: "Come with me. We must find the headwaiter and ask him if he can make a reservation for tonight." And down the corridor we went. The restaurant at the National Hotel is made up of a series of unconnected rooms, and she poked her head into one after another—I just behind her—looking for the head waiter. She found him in Room 5. He was the man who had first spoken to the waiter when I had arrived—was it days ago?—and who had dashed in and out of the administrator's office while I had been waiting for her. She explained the situation to him. He listened, frowned, then looked at me and with a grand gesture picked up a small flag—the kind used in restaurants to mark tables that have been reserved—and placed it on a table next to the aisle. "He says the table is yours for tonight," the administrator said, beaming. I was dissolved by delight, and détente seemed quite reasonable as, gratefully, I shook hands with her and with the head waiter. She turned round and headed back toward the corridor; the head waiter returned to his business; and I walked slowly to the door, savoring the Art Nouveau decor of the restaurant. A few steps before the door I stopped in sudden despair; I had forgotten to tell the head waiter the time at which we wanted to eat, or to ask him the time at which he could receive us. I ran out into the hall in search of the administrator; she was not there. Neither was she in her office. I walked slowly back to Room 5; how was I going to make myself understood to the head waiter? I found him, and, splicing words of Russian, English, and German, I tried to make him understand; oh, how I tried.

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Impatiently he said, "Speak English; I can understand." I was stunned into silence and immobility, my mind a turmoil of thoughts I dared not express, could barely bring myself to acknowledge: the wasted hour with the administrator, who could not speak English; the lost hour with the head waiter who could. I managed to speak: "I forgot to ask you at what time we may come for dinner." He looked at me unbelievingly: "Anytime. This table is yours for the whole night." I crawled back to the hotel where I found Shirley, bravely holding on despite the visions of Lubianka Prison that had been flitting through her mind during the hours of my absence. I told her what had happened. She broke into uncontrollable spasms of laughter; I wasn't sure I knew why. Art, even in its less important aspects, has such power to create delight and to establish bonds between people. The other morning at the Tretyakov Gallery of Russian Painting we saw Serov's portrait of Morozov, the early-twentieth-century collector of French art. Morozov is sitting, his face and upper body turned in such a way that he seems to be looking through the corner of his eye. T h e entire background, against which Morozov's head is painted, is another painting which I thought was by Matisse. That afternoon, in the Pushkin Museum, we saw the Matisse that Serov had used as the background of his painting. It was like using a painting as a quotation, or like finding the document that solves some mystery, and it was gratifying that the mystery, for once, had nothing to do with consciousness of self or consciousness of society. Our guide through the Tretyakov and Pushkin Museums was a young Georgian woman, an Intourist employee who seemed shocked when the hotel clerk told us that she was not concerned that the car to which we were entitled had not shown up because she was "busy with 20 American businessmen and 20 businessmen are more important than one professor." T h e guide tried very hard to make up for the rudeness of the clerk; besides, she was interested in the art she was

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showing us. But not in all of it. We went first to a special exhibit of the paintings of the Lithuanian painter Ciurlionis, whose work we had first seen in Vilnius. There was one series on the creation of the world and another on musical motifs, all of them somewhat reminiscent of Redon and the French symbolists. The guide liked them very much; "There are not many paintings like those in our museums," she said—and she seemed interested when I spoke about Redon and the dreamlike quality of his paintings. We spent a long time with the icons, but she took us through the acres of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings almost at a trot. She stopped in front of a portrait by Kontchalovsky that looked like a puppet. "I love that painting," she said; "the subject could not possibly have looked like that, yet it is so much truer than these other things"—and she waved vaguely in the direction of the rooms through which we had just come. "I once saw a book—it was sent from England to a friend of mine—that had some pictures of paintings by Chagall. I liked them very much. Have you ever seen any paintings by him?" We talked about Chagall and about other Russian artists who had gone to the West or who were well-known there— Soutine, Lipchitz, Kandinsky. When I mentioned Malevich she said: "I have heard of him but I have never seen anything by him. I am told that some of the museums have his paintings, and so do some private people, but they are never shown." I told her about the great exhibit of Malevich that was held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York a few years ago, and I promised to send her a catalogue if it were still available. By the time we arrived at the Impressionist and PostImpressionist galleries, we had introduced her to a game we have been playing for years, and she entered into it with a vengeance. As we leave each room in a museum, Shirley and I turn to each other and allow ourselves to choose the three paintings that we would most like to have in that room. Most of our quarrels over possession are settled by compromise; if I get the Van Gogh I want in Room 1, Shirley can have the Picasso in Room 2, even though I also want it. But the Georgian guide, who was delighted with the game, played it

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with such seriousness that she brooked no compromise. What she wanted, she wanted, and what she wanted turned out generally to be what we felt were the finest paintings in the gallery. "You cannot have that Matisse," she said vehemently; "it's for me." When I said placatingly, "O.K., you win; after all, it's your country. But in the Metropolitan Museum it will be different," she looked startled, as if she had just awakened from a sleep of dreams, and smiled with embarrassment. It was a precious moment, and we were glad that we had seen into each other.

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E

X H A U S T E D by another dispute with Intourist, which failed to make the correct train reservations for our departure from the USSR, we retreated to the hotel bedroom to rest, frustrated and angry. In the late afternoon, we took a short walk along some of the wide, tree-arched streets, lined with the now shabby façades of great houses of the nineteenth century. I was looking for the broad flight of stairs down which the Czarist troops, shoulder to shoulder, with fixed bayonets, drove the people in the motion picture Potemkin. We

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found it; a large passenger pier is now on the other side of the street at the bottom of the stairs, and alongside there is an escalator—three kopecks to go up or down. We walked down, and with each step I could see the terrified face of the mother as she watches the carriage with her baby roll crazily down the steps just in front of the troops. T h e scene shifted, and I was tuned in to the second memory I have of this city of which I can have no memories because I have never before been here. My father, much younger than I am now, is telling me stories about the little village of Husyatin from which he came—its wooden houses, its muddy streets, the red cow with one horn. "But Odessa," he says wistfully, "that was a beautiful city." He had never seen it, but he knew some people who had and he knew its reputation for beauty. I was standing where he had only dreamed of standing when he was a child, and I wondered what he would make of it now. And then there was Mr. Schlaffer, my Hebrew School teacher when I was ten or eleven years old, who had come from Odessa. Sensitive and delicate, he wrote poetry—and was driven to frustration and despair by the barbarism of the hooligans he had to teach. He would walk up and down the aisles of the classroom, humming to himself or screaming at us, carefully breaking his cigarettes in half to make the pack last longer. "Hah, you call this an opera house?" he would say scornfully of the Lyric Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland. "Now in Odessa, there's an opera house!"—and he would smile, at home again. Now I was standing at the Odessa Opera House—but I could not smile as he did at what he had seen, nor speak with wonder as my father did about the things he would have liked to see, nor recapture the excitement I had felt when I first saw Potemkin. Too much has happened. My three points of contact with Odessa fed illusions which can no longer be sustained, illusions which served me for a long time, but which now get in the way of thinking and doing what must be done. T h e r e was a sweetness about the illusions; but my father and Mr. Schlaffer are dead, and so is David Oistrakh of Odessa (whose

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Odessa: The Opera House—remembrance of things unseen

records I have been unable to find here) and so is Isaac Babel (who was murdered) and no young Soviet that I have spoken to has ever seen the movie Potemkin. We took the bus to the synagogue today; we got off at the end of the line and, after a few wrong turns, found it. I had forgotten that today is Sukkoth [Festival of Tabernacles]. T h e courtyard at the side of the synagogue—which was well set back from the street—was crowded. As soon as I introduced ourselves we were taken inside. Again I was offered a seat at the front (indeed, in the synagogue there was a sign in Russian and English calling attention to "Seats for Guests") and again I refused. I was given a prayer-book (printed on the last page was a note that it had been distributed with the approval of U N R R A Headquarters, Ulm, Danube, November 27, 1946) and a tallis. My neighbors greeted me first with stares, but soon they returned smile for smile—and then the endless questions began, clichés by now, punctuated now and again by an angry word or the slap of a hand on a prayer-book by someone annoyed by the noise of our talking. There must have been between 400 and 500 people there, but except for one young man whom I later discovered to be a tourist none

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was younger than 45 or 50. I looked around, and for the first time since leaving New York I saw red-haired Jews; there seemed to be dozens upon dozens of them. The cantor and choir sang beautifully—as well as those in Leningrad, better than those in Riga. In the circumstances in which I heard the service—surrounded by people who have resisted both seduction and terror to remain Jews—I find myself at once elated, like a man who has returned to the familiarity of home after a long journey in strange places, and filled with sadness—after thousands of years of history, is this where we are? I am given an aliyah [called to the Torah], a distinct honor, and I surprise myself by being able to recite the two brachas [blessings] from memory. In calling me to the Torah, the reader garbles my name and my father's, but if God cares He will ignore the error and if He does not care. . . . The next aliyah was given to the one young man I had spotted in the congregation. He recited the prayers with a Sephardic accent and I knew that he could not be from Odessa. When he came over to shake hands with me, I learned that he was from Boston, had spent a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was now living in Toronto. He asked if I had been to Babi Yar and wanted to know if there was a memorial of any kind there when I saw it. I explained about the small stone, the flowers, and the wooden sign that told of the large memorial to be built there, and I mentioned that an American tourist I had met in Leningrad had said the same sign had been there for several years. The young man told me that he had been in Kiev the week before, and that no marker of any kind was to be found at Babi Yar. The stone, the flowers, and the wooden sign had all been demolished by bulldozers. I said goodbye to the men at the synagogue, and wondered if they felt as futile as I. I knew the feelings that my visit had stirred up in me, and I could not even tell them. But what feelings had it roused in them? Did they find it as difficult as I did to shout across the chasm of experience dividing us? In the afternoon the Intourist guide took us on a tour of the city. Lively and intelligent, she obviously wanted to please; and

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Odessa:

Lenin—an omnipresence in the sky

I was so anxious for a moment of peace that I was not especially annoyed by the obligatory canned spiel. I noticed the special type of tourist historiography—Russia "needed" a warm-water port, stated with complete imperturbability, as if need provided its own sanction; wars fought by Turks, Tartars, or whatnot were always for conquest, whereas Russia fought only for liberation. But it was a lovely day and I longed for personal détente with Intourist; I accepted it all with a smile. But the guide made several remarks which set my radar revolving, nearly all of which had to do with Jews. When I commented on the greater cosmopolitanism of Odessa than Kiev and tried to relate it to the existence of the port, she answered by calling attention to the large number of Jews here— and then spoke of Moldavians and Georgians and Greeks almost as an afterthought. When I said that people look different here from the way they do in Kiev, she referred once again to the large number of Jews. When she spoke of the im-

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portance of Odessa as a literary and musical center, she mentioned Babel and Sholom Aleichem after Pushkin, and David Oistrakh and Emil Gilels after Tchaikovsky and Chaliapin. At the end of the tour, I referred to the large number of Moldavians and other nationalities she had said were living in the city, and I asked if they tended to live among themselves. "No. T h e Jews live everywhere; there is no discrimination here now." I had not mentioned Jews, and I answered that I wanted to know about the Moldavians, Georgians, Central Asians, and others; I also said that living among the members of own's own nationality is not necessarily a matter of discrimination—it can be a matter of choice. "No," she said. "The Jews live everywhere and there are no ghettos now"—and we left it at that. At first I thought she herself might be Jewish, but when she said that she has been out of the USSR on several occasions—including four or five trips to Egypt—I decided that it was very unlikely she was Jewish; and I wondered whether our request at the hotel this morning for the address of the synagogue and functioning churches— and our visits to synagogues in other cities—had been taken note of by our hosts. In the late afternoon I walked alone in search of the apartment of the relatives of a friend. I had been unable to reach them by telephone the night before. I found the building in which they lived, walked into a cluttered inner courtyard, and asked a woman for the apartment of the M's. She called up to where a man in an undershirt was sitting on a balcony. He looked down at me, and in a moment was joined by a woman; a few moments more and a young girl with curly brown hair came running into the courtyard to take me upstairs. T h e man was standing at the door, buttoning his shirt, and his wife was standing at his shoulder. They showed me into the living room, and I told them that I brought them greetings from their cousin. They were friendly, but a bit aloof at first (why not? They didn't know me), and they spoke of the richness of the Soviet Union and of its beauties. I told them about the sweetness of some of the people we'd met, and of their courage and their desire to learn more about the world and

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about themselves. As we talked they became more animated, and their hospitality was overwhelming. A bowl of apples was produced, and pieces of cake, and nuts. Would I like coffee or tea, or maybe something stronger? I must eat this, I must drink that, I must take these four wooden spoons to my wife (it suddenly seemed like 1942, and these were the wooden spoons being sold to raise funds in Baltimore for Russian War Relief). Mrs. M. steamed in and out of the room like a tugboat, intent on its duty, plying between great ships. She brought in more cake, but before returning to the kitchen she opened the china closet and took out a tiny tin samovar, about three inches high, standing on a tin tray to which was glued a tiny plastic teacup. She handed it to me as if it were Meissen; "you must take it," she said—and then she gave me a copy of the short stories of Ivan Bunin. Her daughter went to her room and returned with some colored slides. "These are from the Roublev Museum," she said very loudly, as if she wanted me to be sure to notice that she was speaking English. We soon stopped speaking of the richness of the Soviet Union, and began to talk of corruption, of official stupidity, of the situation of the Jews, of the difficulties of moving away, anywhere. We promised to see each other again, and they drove me back to the hotel. On the way they pointed to a large building on Lenin Street, the first floor of which is now a bookstore, where Isaac Babel lived in 1924 (it is marked by a plaque) and to two impressive buildings, both former synagogues and far grander than the synagogue I had seen that morning. One now houses the local Odessa archives; the other—the former Brodsky synagogue— is now the headquarters of the cultural organization of the Democratic Republic of Germany. "But they do these things to churches, too," Mr. M. said drily. Odessa does have a certain flair and style and sophistication. Its Ethnographic Museum, with a large collection of Greek and Roman artifacts, some Scythian pieces, and a beautiful

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display of Byzantine coins, is far better than anything similar we have seen in Kiev, Vilnius, Riga, or Tallinn. And the art museum has some gems—a beautiful Gerard David of a sorrowing Mary with the head of the dead Christ; two portraits (of St. Matthew and St. Luke) by Frans Hals; a Caravaggio, a Titian, a Donatello head, an enormous Sebastian del Piombo, a Guercino, a Rubens, some Canalettos, Guardis, and Teniers. There is, of course, a Rockwell Kent. At 5 P.M. the M's came for us; they drove us through Odessa, pointing out not the new apartment houses—as the Intourist guides do—but the streets on which there are endless lines of private dachas. "How do people get the money for them?" I asked, and Mr. M. smiled sadly and protectively at me as if I were a defective child who needed special care. "There is lots of money here, and there are plenty of rich people. This is a country where corruption is everywhere, and the most important form of corruption is the government itself. It doesn't have to be so, but it's been this way for a long time and it will stay this way for a long time." "What is the cause of it?" "There is no organization here; there are no bosses— nobody is in charge. Nobody works, and nobody cares. They make speeches, they pass resolutions, now they are making a big noise about the 25th Party Congress—but they are only talking to each other; nothing is really affected by what they say." I asked him about the grain imports from the United States; do people here know about them, and what do they think about the fact that after fifty years of socialism and collectivization the problem of agriculture still has not been solved? "Of course not," he said; "in the villages the people tend to their own plots, not to the state lands, and they sell their produce in the city markets and keep the money. And the city people who must spend a month in the country to help out, they don't do any work, or, if they do, they work with the peasants on their private plots." It sounded like Jamestown under the Virginia Company in the early seventeenth century; when the company gave indi-

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vidual plots of land as an incentive to raise the morale of its officials, they produced tobacco on their private plots, not on company land, and sold it to Dutch ship captains, undercutting the company's prices. "It is no different in the factories," he said in answer to my question; "nobody really works here. Why should they, when everyone is treated the same? And people are afraid to take charge, because tomorrow they might not be in charge—someone else might be. So everybody tries to line his own pocket, and nobody thinks about tomorrow." T h e regime calls upon its people to give u p egoism, but if it acts in such a way as to lead them to feel that tomorrow is for apes and dogs, it gives them no principle on which to act but self, which is then condemned as criminal or stigmatized as antisocial. We drove past a large building. "Look at them," he said, pointing to a number of Africans and Arabs: "This is where we give them military education and training. What d o we need them for?" But he was deeply respectful as he took us to the Black Sea, where there is a monument to the Unknown Soldier and the graves of several soldiers who died in the siege of Odessa. "They were all so young. It's very pretty here. People come everyday with flowers." We watched several young boys and girls from the Komsomol, who stood guard at the monument, slowly goose-step by. "My mother was a communist," Mr. M. said. "I am not." And grinning slyly and pointing to his daughter, he said: "But she's a Komsomolnik." His daughter flushed scarlet and in a loud voice replied, "But I have to be. What can I do about it?" Mrs. M.—acting as if it were a spur-of-the-moment decision—insisted that we come home with them for dinner. We did so, but when she began to serve we could see that she had been preparing since early morning. Some relatives came to visit, and it was clear that Mr. and Mrs. M. had already told them about what we had discussed yesterday. We talked for hours, and when we left it was with reluctance on their part and on ours. I knew I could not solve their problems, and I felt helpless. For them, our departure meant that once again

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they were locked into their world, which might seem even grayer now that they had been given a glimpse of the outside. We said goodbye; we kissed Mrs. M.'s elderly aunt and she looked into our eyes as if she wanted to crawl in after her own gaze. We shook hands with the three men—very firm handshakes with a pat on the shoulder. Where would they all be next year? Their parents stayed; mine fled. Mrs. M.'s old father whispered: "We're not allowed to say 'Le shana habba be Yerushalayyim [next year in Jerusalem]. But I say it anyhow: 'Le shana habba be Yerushalayyim.' " And I said: "Kol Yisroel chaverim" [All Israel are brothers]. Long before the development of the sociology of knowledge, Marxist theorists discovered that the nature of social systems influences human thought and behavior. It has been reserved for a later generation of socialist theorists to apply that insight in a limited way; for them, the influence of social system on human thought and behavior remains valid for capitalist society, but not for socialist society, where deviations from "normal" thought and behavior are explained as atavistic remnants of capitalist ideology or as psychological aberrations. This unifocal vision of the influence of society on thought and behavior may be known as the law of the uneven development of the sociology of knowledge; stated in another form, in the kingdom of socialism, the one-eyed man is king, the two-eyed man is traitor. Stalin, who saw the world with one eye, governed; Sakharov, who sees it with two, is governed. T h e critical test of the validity of Lysenko's theory will be whether, in the future, Soviet man will have only one eye.

BUCHAREST

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A S T night we crossed the border to Romania at Ungeni. I

J was concerned that my diary might be discovered and read by the Soviet authorities as we were leaving, so I carried it on my person and it was not seen. All our literature was, however, taken from us as our luggage was inspected and was not returned for approximately 45 minutes. Who examined it and whether or not it was photographed I do not know; we were escorted into another room while the literature was examined. It included the calendar on which we had noted whatever tours and museum visits we had made, and the picture postcards we had collected all the way from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to the Dahlem Museum in West Berlin to the Czartorsky Museum in Cracow; but mainly it included the literature we had picked up—free of charge— in the waiting rooms of the various airports and railroad stations we sat in while in the Soviet Union. Enormous quantities of pamphlets and magazines, in all languages, are stacked up, waiting to be harvested by tourists. In Kiev I had made off with a collection of Lenin's letters printed in Vietnamese. At approximately 1 1 : 3 0 last night, waiting in the nearly deserted railroad station at Ungeni, I was charmed to find, in English, a series of articles by Lenin under the title A Great Beginning: How to Organize Competition? The question mark at the end of the title is not mine. I find it prophetic, or perhaps a typographical expression of disbelief. "This is competition?"—vocally, the inflection would convey the disbelief; in print, only the question mark can convert what seems to be the affirmation the author intends into the dubiousness we feel. But my favorite piece of travel read's?

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ing, also picked up in Ungeni, is a copy of Engels', The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. It is a little heavy, but it pays a greater compliment to railroad passengers than the Jehovah's Witness and Christian Science literature that monopolizes the racks in the Old Saybrook, Connecticut, station. If one must make a choice between the disorganization that results from the breakdown of government, as in Italy, and disorganization as the result of the activity of government, as in the Soviet Union, my choice is for the former, hands down. At the very least, it is cheaper, since one doesn't have to pay for the government's participation in the disorder. And, if there must be corruption, I prefer the kind that rests on financial bribery to the kind that rests on political influence. T h e former is impersonal; anyone can benefit so long as he has money, and corruption requires neither belief nor passion on the part of its participants. The latter requires far more of its participants; they must be corrupt with conviction.

Bucharest has none of the atmosphere of Russia and very little that makes one think of socialism. The Intercontinental Hotel is a combination of the Eden Roc in Miami Beach and the former Americana in New York; there are no statues or pictures of Lenin, no quotations from Holy Writ, only hordes of tourists and businessmen on expense accounts. T h e regime seems to have learned as much from Benton and Bowles as from Marx and Engels; the welcome mat is out for those in search of whatever Romania can provide—and Romania can provide favorable terms for oil-drilling companies interested in exploring for offshore Black Sea oil and it can provide all sorts of delights and thrills for tourists: medieval frescoed churches in Bukovina, geriatric treatment for antique patients in the Asian clinic, trips—even in the dead of night—to the Dracula country of Transylvania for tourists who still remain languid and limp after Acapulco and the Costa del Sol. Boule-

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vard Nicholas Balcescu is filled with the offices of Romanian representatives of foreign firms—Krupp, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemical. (Did Romanian students sit down in Dow Chemical's offices to protest the use of napalm during the Vietnam War?) T h e climax—the office of the Chamber of Commerce of the Socialist Republic of Romania! Warum gibt es kein Sozialismus in Rumänien?

The young man who escorted us on the day we went to the Historical Museum was enormously proud as he showed us the plaster casts of Trajan's famous column celebrating the victory of the Romans over the Dacians. No other people gave the Romans so much difficulty and no other Roman victory was celebrated with such a magnificent artistic monument. But when we read the catalogue of the Museum, we learned that the casts were made by agreement of the Romanian and Italian governments between 1939 and 1943, when both were Axis powers. Did the war between the Romans and the Dacians have the same meaning to the Romanian authorities then as it does now? Was it a war of liberation? The period 1939-43 ' s barely mentioned in the exhibits at the Museum, and there is no mention at all of Antonescu. In communist historiography, there are nonevents as well as un-persons; Ana Pauker and Gheorgiu-Dej never were.

We ate breakfast today in a very clean, very efficient selfservice restaurant near the hotel. I ordered sour cream and cottage cheese. Music was piped into the room—American music, ranging from George M. Cohan's "It's a Grand Old Flag" and Irving Berlin's "Easter Parade" to "Hello Dolly" and "Cabaret." In an instant I was in a state of molten euphoria; long-forgotten images flashed through my mind. The sour cream and cottage cheese I was eating: my mother's cousin Ike—from "the wealthy side of the family"—used to visit us occasionally when I was a boy, and I would watch with goggling eyes as he consumed gargantuan quantities of sour

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cream, cottage cheese, and black bread. T h e cream I was now eating looked and tasted as I remembered it years ago; it was thinner and runnier than it now is in New York, less sweet, and somewhat yellow in color rather than dead-white. As the nostalgia deepened, the euphoria grew. Both lasted until I walked around the corner to the El A1 office to check our reservations for the flight from Istanbul to Tel Aviv. Two plainclothes security men stopped me at the door and demanded to see my passport and visa. As 1 left I saw four or five soldiers standing nearby, keeping the office under surveillance. Nostalgia and euphoria could not survive; reluctantly I buried them. First formulation: Without the fear of death, men would be more willing to resist tyranny, but they would have less need to be creative. It is knowledge of our own mortality that leads us to stress our individuality, which is to say our creativity. Second formulation: Without the fear of death, men would be less willing to resist tyranny, for it is our need to assert ourselves that leads us to oppose tyrants.

T h e extraordinary frankness with which the Romanian who was our host one day spoke of the USSR confirmed our impressions that the contradictions within the Soviet system are deep and sharp. It is hard to see that the Romanian brand of what they call "national communism" has much to do with Marxism, and one guesses that if Romania were more remote from the Soviet border the regime wouldn't trouble itself by talking about a«)' variety of communism. What would do more to deepen these internal contradictions: depress the living standards of the people or improve them? Depression and prosperity both create perils for the regime. Fearful that changes made in response to demands resulting from either depression or prosperity would be construed as a failure of communism, what would the Soviet authorities do? Is it necessary to allow them a face-saving gesture, a "victory" that they

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can attribute to the Soviet system, to prevent them from taking some irrevocable step of great danger? Does one try to force them to acknowledge the inadequacies of their system, or is it enough that they change it—even while they proclaim its permanence? The bewildering variety of Marxisms—Soviet, Yugoslav, Romanian, Chinese, Islamic, African—indicates that there is no necessary relation between the content of Marxism and the social and political character of any particular regime. The significance of Marxism is that it provided the ethic that energized men to change their societies and, in some respects, their behavior; it clearly did not provide the blueprint for the society that was ultimately to replace the old regime. Marxism was the religion that moved us to change our world as, in an earlier time, Christanity moved people to change theirs. In the long run, efforts to create Christian states and Christian societies could not be sustained; the attempt to impose a form of governance and a code of behavior consonant with Christianity produced chaos, confusion, and destruction. The attempt was largely abandoned, and Christianity was held to be compatible with a wide variety of social systems, political regimes, and codes of conduct. Will the same happen to Marxism? Under Christianity, the sphere of the sacred contracted, and other aspects of life, while remaining subject to the critique implied by Christianity, were permitted autonomy. For the same to happen to Marxism, the authorities must be willing to run more risks than they are now, or see that they have no choice but to run them. The transition from sacred to secular will come when they are aware that to maintain the theocratic character of the state and society creates difficulties greater than the benefits of the security it provides—difficulties that can no longer be borne.

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OR three days we revelled in the monasteries of Bukovina. The frescoes of Sucevita, Arborea, Moldovita, and Voronet do not have the awesome majesty of the frescoes of the Yugoslav monasteries, but they are a fascinating blend of Byzantine tradition and folk art, and they left room for the individuality of local artists even though they worked within a rigidly defined program. But in the midst of all this Christian art, the outside world—of then and now—intrudes. All the monasteries have enormous frescoes of the Last Judgment, and in all of them Moses, carrying the Law, is shown striding toward Jesus. But at Voronet, the damned are led by the Armenians, the Turks, the Black Africans—and the Jews. The Jews gave law to the world, but in a world others derived from that law they remain outlaws. We stopped at RadauU to see the market, bustling with buyers and sellers of vegetables, fruits, ceramics, old clothes, pots and pans—a teeming scene that dates at least from the seventeenth century. As we stepped into the car to leave, I spotted on the building across the street a Star of David; curious, I approached it. It was an enormous synagogue, far larger than most of those we had seen in the USSR. It was Friday morning, and the gates were locked with iron chains. On Saturday, on the outskirts of the town of Humor, a few kilometers from the monastery, I noticed a large cemetery that overlooks a serene valley. Part of the cemetery seemed to be neat and orderly, but part was a jumble of leaning tombstones that reminded me of the Jewish cemetery of Prague. It was, in fact, the Jewish cemetery of Humor. And again it was locked with iron chains. The guide and driver waited, I thought impatiently, while I climbed the 162

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hill to take pictures. "Are there many Jews here?" I asked when I returned. "In Moldavia, plenty," the guide said, but we did not pursue the matter.

BUCHAREST

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N our return from our trip the driver insisted that the number of kilometers we had driven exceeded the 1,300 for which we had paid in advance. We had kept a day-by-day record of the mileage, and it showed we had driven less than the 1,300 kilometers, and therefore were entitled to a refund. Maria, the guide, agreed with us. T h e dispute erupted noisily, but finally we were grudgingly allowed a $ 1 0 refund. It was clear that the driver had added to the mileage in order to cover up his own personal use of the car, and Maria—who alone among the Carpathi Tourist personnel insisted that we were right—told us that this is standard procedure among the drivers. It was I who carried on the argument, but of course it was Maria who suffered. She bade us a tearful farewell; she had wanted everything to end well. We tried to assure her that she had been the best guide we'd ever had and that nothing that had happened would detract from the pleasure of the trip, but she would not be consoled. "I don't know why they behave this way; there is so much bureaucracy." She allowed Shirley to give her a small present, and when I said I'd like to send her a book, she told me that she was interested in American architecture, and she gave me her name but not her home address—Maria Kaminski. "It is a Polish name," she said. I know a number of Jews named Kaminski.

Vignette: Sitting on her haunches in the shade of a tree on Boulevard Balcescu, the main street of Bucharest, a gypsy woman teaches her baby how to beg. When he puts a few coins into a container, she smiles at him and gives him a crust 164

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of bread; when he doesn't get it right she throws water at him and slaps his face. It is like the elephant in the Lisbon zoo and the apes in the Berlin zoo, who receive crusts of bread when they perform properly. But this is the Socialist Republic of Romania, and these are people, not elephants or monkeys. Where is socialist humanism? Doesn't social structure make a difference, as we were taught—or is gypsy superstructure impervious to socialist structure? There was a joke in the 1940s: "What do you give to a man who has everything? Penicillin." T h e other day we met a wealthy American couple who are spending a few months here. T h e husband explained: "I asked my wife, 'What would you like for your 65th-birthday present?' We've been everywhere, done everything. Is there anything left?" There was, and she told him—a course of treatments at the clinic run by Dr. Ana Asian for rejuvenating the aging. Every morning our newfound friends leave the hotel for injections, baths, massages, and poultices at the clinic. They line up with other patients at a desk in the hotel lobby, waiting for the bus that will take them to the Asian clinic. At the next desk other tourists line up, waiting for the bus that will take them on a daylong tour of Dracula country in Transylvania. The other day in a bookstore in Cimpulung Moldovenesc I saw a large number of technical medical books, not at all like What to do Until the Doctor Comes. I asked the guide if there is a medical school, or at least a hospital, in the city. "No. T h e central office that ships out books decides the distribution." Today, in the window of a large bookstore in Bucharest, I saw some of the same books: Epilepsiile, Ghid de Neurologie, Elemente de Chemique Intestinale, Cancer Bronchopulmonar. On Madison Avenue they say: "Looks like a big year for neurology. Let's push it." Who makes the decision in Bucharest? Did he feel that people ought to read about epilepsy, or that it would sell?

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On our first day in Bucharest we went into an art gallery and saw some water colors that we liked very much, painted by an artist named Schlosser. After several days of indecision we decided this morning to buy one. I returned to the gallery and asked the director, a pleasant, cultured woman, if she could tell me something about the artist. "We handle only good artists here," she said, "and he is very good and quite well known. He is not young, and won't be doing much more. T h e name is not usual here. He is a Jew, I think, but he's Romanian."

ISTANBUL

T

H E morning I confirmed our El A1 flight reservations to Tel Aviv, security at the office was the tightest I have ever seen—with Turkish soldiers, Israeli guards, and sliding doors that were unlocked by buzzers. After breakfast we took a long walk in search of the Neve Shalom synagogue we had last seen on our visit here five years ago. (On that occasion we had met a Jewish merchant in his shop in the Covered Bazaar, and then had visited the nearby Beyazit Mosque. It was Friday, and I had forgotten that Friday is the Muslim holy day; the mosque was jammed. For all I knew, the speaker might have been preaching a jihad [holy war], and I felt an overwhelming urge to go to a synagogue that evening. We returned to the Covered Bazaar in search of the merchant we had met earlier, and in that rabbit-warren of shops and stalls we found him. When I told him I wanted the address of a synagogue, he told me how to find Neve Shalom, near the Galata Tower, and added that just that morning a grenade had been thrown at the synagogue. When we arrived that evening, the glass window was boarded up and two soldiers were sitting on chairs on the sidewalk outside.) This morning, as we walked down f r o m Istiklal Street toward the Tower, it seemed to me that there were fewer business establishments with Jewish names than there had been on our last visit. When we finally found the synagogue, the doors were shut tight and locked—on Saturday morning. A horse and wagon were on the street outside, throngs of people were hurrying by, and two men, selling grapes, sat outside the synagogue. When I tried to ask them about it, they shrugged and pointed to the locked doors. I took a photograph and left. .67

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When we were last in Istanbul we were struck by what had seemed to us to be signs of desperate, degrading poverty. Lines of beggars and peddlers had stood shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the Galata Bridge, selling shoestrings, metal cleats for toes and heels, matches—anything small enough to be contained in a cigar box. But the image that has remained sharpest is that of dozens upon dozens of men squatting or standing by scales placed on the sidewalk; for the smallest coin they would allow passersby to weigh themselves. Sometimes ten or twelve such men would be lined up in a row. I remember thinking, "Why does someone stand on A's scale rather than on B's," and I remember, too, that each made an effort to distinguish himself from the others in the row. One would decorate his foot scale with blue flowers, another with red plastic ones, and a few entrepreneurial types had rigged up electric bulbs that lit up when someone stepped on the scale. Today, however, we saw only a few people with scales. (We had seen several in the Soviet Union. Most of them were women wearing white smocks; does this qualify them to appear in Soviet statistics as paramedical personnel? In Odessa, the scales had a rod for measuring height attached to them. For however many kopecks it cost, the entrepreneur would write the customer's height and weight on a slip of paper and hand it to him. Another difference: in Turkey the scales are spring-operated; in the Soviet Union, they are mechanical.)

A startling thought: when we arrive in Israel, we will no longer have to seek out synagogues or look for Jews. T h e Jewishness of Israel cannot be in question, but my own Jewishness—how deep it runs, on what it is based, whether it will soften the criticism I am sure to make on other grounds—will be. What will these other grounds be? When will I yield to judgments that seem warranted because they are based on the demands of history and when to those that seem just because they are based on principles that are outside history?

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At the Asian collection in the Archeological Museum today we saw a number of Hittite reliefs from the palace of the Aramaian King Barrekup, dating from the eighth century B.C. Long lines of royal officials and musicians marched in some sort of stately procession. At first, each figure looked exacdy like the others, but a second look showed each to be different in a number of respects. On some, the folds of the garments flowed from lower left to upper right; on others, they flowed in the opposite direction; and on some the robes hung straight. T h e hems of the robes were entirely different, though the general appearance was the same. On some figures, the hair hung down the neck in five curls; on others, in two rows of three curls each. T h e cymbals held by the musicians had different designs; some were blowing single horns; others, double horns. Each figure on close inspection was different from every other one, but the total effect—despite the idiosyncrasies—was to convey a general idea: respect and awe for majestic power; the relief juxtaposed an abstract idea with individuality. Seeking out the differences among the figures did not dissolve the unity of the frieze; it made even more powerful the abstract concept that was the purpose of its creation.

Istanbul, whatever it may have been in the past, is not now a beautiful city; nevertheless, I find myself taken prisoner by it. In certain moods and in certain places I have trouble locating myself in time; and Istanbul is one of those places. We walk through narrow, twisting streets, clotted with honking automobiles and shouting, pushing people, and each step I take carries me backward and forward in time. Time does not move in sequence; it is broken, and I am caught in segments that are of the past, of the present, or of no discernible period, perhaps only products of my own or somebody else's imagination. Left foot forward: Justinian comes out of the wall to receive the tribute of his subjects. Right foot forward: Venetian and Genoese emissaries bow to the sultan and offer

ISTANBUL

Istanbul: Christians vs. Turks: shooting a movie in the basilica of St. Irene

presents he does not rush to accept. Left foot forward: the Greeks cower in their houses while Turkish mobs roam the streets. Right foot forward: wasn't that Peter Lorre, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, disappearing into a doorway around the corner? (Hallucination? Nonsense. Yesterday in the basilica church of St. Irene we saw oddly dressed men hacking at each other with swords. T h e Ottoman Turks were besieging Byzantium again—for TV, under kleiglights in the Christian church of St. Irene). Pulled forward into time, pushed backward into time, I feel myself becoming detached—not objective, but disconnected. I am not certain where I have been and am sure only that I do not know where I will be with the next step. Each step, therefore, is a step toward uncertainty and discovery. What piece of myself that I have never looked at before will I find with the next step I take? And what corner of the city will I see as I take that step? Time and the city and I fence with each other; I am not fully

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Istanbul: Hallucination or history?—the defeat of Byzantium by ' the Ottomans replayed for TV

at home here and now, and I am sometimes frightened by what I see and by what my seeing makes me feel. But the need to know what lies in the dark corners—of Istanbul and of myself—doesn't give me any choice. If I look carefully enough in the history of the city and of myself, perhaps I can find what I need to know: what I must remember and what I may forget, what I may still use and what I may discard, where I really was and where I thought I was. I do not know what I will find when I look into that history; if I did, there would be no fear, but there would also be no discovery. On board the El A1 flight from Istanbul to Tel Aviv: The trip has been a noisy one, as all El A1 flights are; the passengers hush only when the captain's voice comes on the intercom system with an announcement. "You can see the lights of Nicosia below," he says. "Off to the left you can see the lights of

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Beirut." Nicosia, Beirut—scenes of savage fighting; and where else? We come in low, roaring from the sea, over the lights of what must be Tel Aviv, and suddenly all the lights in the plane are switched on and the intercom blares a song. T h e passengers join in the singing. What will I find here? In the seat ahead of us two Turkish Jews kiss each other in relief. It's a happy beginning. Who knows about happy endings?

TEL AVIV

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H A V E written so little in my journal since arriving in Israel. Writing requires some detachment; whatever characterizes my relation to this country, it is not detachment. I feel so deeply troubled and tormented that writing seems like an evasion of involvement, an autistic profiting from a tragedy that seems to be unfolding.

Israelis are so critical of one another. It is as if identity is achieved by establishing one's opposition to others. One day a student began a report on a scholar's article by saying, "I disagree with everything he says"—though the student knew nothing about the subject. Another student said to me with surprise and indignation that I had not criticized everything that could have been criticized in someone's paper. "Why should I? Criticism shouldn't be combat." "If you don't, the student will think she's right." For these students, every issue requires a confrontation because there is a truth—discoverable by debate—that can resolve the issue. Differences cannot be harmoniously expressed, because they are evidence of the persistence of error. It had never occurred to me before that students needed to be told all their mistakes. "THE CONFIDENCE-MAN":

a novelette

He had not been an easy child to bring up, and like all parents—but perhaps especially like Jewish parents—his were deeply troubled about the future. One day they spoke to him: >73

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"This is not an easy time to grow up in, Jesus," they said. "Periods of transition never are; there are too many temptations, too many false promises, too many false gods. You must have something to rely on, something to believe in." "I do," he said. "I believe in myself."

From Children's Games in Street and Playground, by Iona and Peter Opie (London: Oxford, 1969), pp. 3-4: It appears to us that when a child plays a game he creates a situation which is under his control, and yet it is one of which he does not know the outcome. In the confines of a game there can be all the excitement and uncertainty of an adventure, yet the young player can comprehend the whole, can recognize his place in the scheme, and, in contrast to the confusion of real life, can tell what is right action. He can, too, extend his environment, or feel that he is doing so, and gain knowledge of sensations beyond ordinary experience. . . . As long as the action of the game is of a child's own making he is ready, even anxious, to sample the perils of which this world has such plentiful supply. In the security of a game he makes acquaintance with insecurity, he is able to rationalize absurdities, reconciles himself to not getting his own way, "assimilate reality" (Piaget), act heroically without being in danger.

How rational, how normal—and how unlike my own childhood fantasies, which were concerned less with making acquaintance with insecurity than with creating it—and in a particularly humiliating form. I had no difficulty in visualizing what heroism was nor was I so detached, even at an early age, from the society of which I was part as not to want, even desperately, the rewards and recognition given to the hero by the crowd. The problem was that it was clear to me that the road to glory was booby trapped to prevent my storming the citadel. I was very young when I made the acquaintance of the First World War—through tales told by relatives and family friends, through Saturday afternoon movies at the Schanze's Theatre and the Fulton Opera House, through stories in the pulp magazines that I devoured more hungrily than I did the food on the kitchen table. The adventures of my imagination were, unfortunately, tempered by an awareness of the reality of myself. T o dream of leading the charge that smashed

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through the Hindenburg Line was not difficult, but the vision, even in my mind's eye, could not be long sustained. Soldiers in the First World War wrapped puttees around their legs, and I knew I was so inept that I could not put them on properly. So how could I be a hero when I could not even look the part of a soldier? It was not the "plentiful supply" of the "world's troubles" that did me in, but the troubles I made for myself. How could I receive a medal from the grateful Czar for having taken a submarine from Riga to St. Petersburg through dangerous mine fields when, sad to say, I was afraid of the dark? My imagination was strong enough to show me scenes of glory (which always had to do with the conquest of others) but never strong enough to do away with reality (which always had to do with my inability to conquer myself). Into whatever role my fantasy projected me, some piece of myself—unbidden, unwanted, and unwelcome went along, dragging its feet when I wanted to fly, pointing behind when I wanted to go ahead, always remembering and reminding when I wanted to forget. Was my imagination not strong enough to create a new self, a self as heroic as I wanted it to be? Or was it too powerful, so powerful that I was frightened to look into the possibilities it might reveal? Inept and fearful and not heroic, but at least I was at home. So it was easier to think of changing the world than of changing myself. Changing the world entailed no price (and it always produced rewards); but changing the self (even one with which I was uncomfortable) was dangerous because it suggested possibilities whose outcome I could not be sure of. An imagination strong enough to visualize a new world gave birth to an obligation to create it. Would an imagination strong enough to visualize a new self have given birth to a similar obligation to create that self? We went to the Purim party for children given by the Tel Aviv municipality in the city hall plaza. What would the Opies have made of the children's fantasies? They wore their costumes with that air of mingled innocence and self-con-

Tel Aviv: Children celebrating Purim in the city hall plaza

Tel Avtv:

Purim:

Queen Esthers and Charlie Chaplim and Robin Hoods and pirates and . . .

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sciousness which makes them seem wiser than their years and yet still in need of protection. The costumes were a delight: There were, of course, Esthers and Mordecais and Ahasueruses—regal and stately; but there were also Japanese samurai and Bedouin sheiks and flamenco dancers; and sheriffs from west of the Pecos, with six-pointed stars on their chests, sauntered by. Charley Chaplin walked along in his peculiar gait, and passed fat Oliver Hardy going in the opposite direction. (Who was it behind that simpering mask— a Yemenite boy, a Moroccan, a sabra, an immigrant from America?) Three pirates, their skinny arms belying the fierceness of their painted faces, sailed by in their ship, the Jolly Roger flying from the masthead. Dark-skinned Maid Marians, whose mothers must have wondered as they sewed their daughters' costumes, giggled as they spotted gawky Sephardic Robin Hoods, quivers slung across their backs, on leave from Sherwood Forest. A Japanese television crew was on the prowl for pictures, their faces impassive until they saw in the crowd a Japanese father escorting his young son and his son's Israeli playmate—the children's eyes shining with excitement—and the camera crew caught the contagion. I saw two elderly men, grizzled and pot-bellied, their rifles slung across their backs, walking slowly through the crowd, their eyes darting from side to side, unsmiling as they watched—and I knew that childhood is not catching. Shirley and I went to the Arab Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem with our friend Yael to look for a workshop where wicker furniture and baskets are made and sold to support an Arab orphanage. The young man in charge of the workshop was an Arab refugee from Gaza—energetic, efficient, businesslike, affable, fluent in Hebrew and quite knowledgeable in English. We spent a delightful hour or so together. The night before and again this morning I had spoken with Yael's husband about the tragic events 24 hours earlier on the West Bank and in the Galilee. A number of Arabs had died during demonstrations; but here, under the influence of the good

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feeling brought on by the discussion with the Arab manager, such thoughts of tragedy dissolved. We were walking up the street after our visit when I remarked to Yael that the last hour had been lovely. "Why can't it always be like this?" "Politicians," she said, and shrugged. The three of us walked slowly up the street. I became aware that a teenager was running full speed down the narrow, twisting street toward us—I did not know why. At the top of the street an elderly woman appeared, pointing toward the boy and shouting something incomprehensible. It was as if in a dream. Only the boy seemed to be in motion; everyone else looked on—if they looked at all—as if in a trance. The Arab men in the coffee shops looked up idly and went back to sipping coffee, playing shesh-besh, gossiping, or just dozing. The boy had snatched the woman's purse. "Alies meines Geld," she said unbelievingly as we walked toward her; she turned toward her fellow Christian pilgrims from Germany, whitefaced and uncomprehending—"Alies was ich hatte." The contentment of only ten minutes earlier exploded, and I found that I had turned toward the Arabs sipping their coffee and was staring angrily at them. Shirley tugged at my sleeve and I left. A few minutes later I said to Yael: "You know, the Germans will know that it was an Arab who did it. Maybe that will affect how they feel about things here." I wasn't proud of myself for saying it. Was I holding "them" responsible for the purse-snatching? But that was collective guilt. Was I indicting "them" for not having stopped the thief? Neither had I. I'm not sure what responsibility, if any, I bore for the event I witnessed, but I am sure that to indict "them" is a means of avoiding having to think about the consequences of one's own action or inaction. Somehow this place keeps putting ultimate questions on the agenda, despite my every effort to push them aside as being inherendy without solution. Like a pilgrim I go back to the origin in the hope that from the place where it all began I will get a sense of direction and renewal of purpose. But it is not

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Kibbutz Palmachim: Seder service, Passover

enough; the future—or rather my desire to know it—keeps intruding. Nor is that enough, for if I think too much of where—like it or not—I feel I am headed, I think I have betrayed my origins, and somehow that seems to be the greatest treason of them all. We took my former student Frank Mannion, a Catholic priest, to the Passover seder at Kibbutz Palmachim. It was traditional enough to allow me to establish a link with my past, new enough to allow me to establish a link with my present. I looked around that large room—at the old people (what were they remembering?), at the young people (were they thinking of the future?), above all at the children (what will they remember of this seder in the years to come?)—listened to the singing and even tasted the spirit of the people. I pretended to take pictures so that no one would notice I was tearful. It was sad but sweet; I was proud of them and for the moment I was one with them. I wanted to touch Frank gently and simply point to some of the faces around us, and I wanted to grab him by the shoulder and shout, "Why can't they be let alone?" Two days later, on Good Friday, I walked the Stations of the Cross with Frank, among thousands of Christian pilgrims, and on Easter Sunday I participated in the Mass he celebrated in

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Jerusalem; Christian pilgrims at the Holy Sepulchre, Easter

the Church of Gethsemane, even to the extent of doing the "reading" of the day—an excerpt from Exodus. I was moved by the kindliness and generosity of Frank's words, by the simple devotion of two Irish nuns who were there, and by the breathless excitement of the little English boy who received his first communion; but I did not feel as though I belonged. Should I have been there at all, I wondered, especially after the Holocaust and even now, when there are still those who would murder Jews. Once again I could see that mountain of spectacles at Auschwitz, and it was as though each one looked at me with the accusation of betrayal. A few days later I took Frank to Yad Vashem [the memorial and museum for the victims of the Holocaust]. We could not go into the memorial hall immediately; a group of tourists was there and a memorial service was being held. Through the door we could hear a voice singing El Moleh Rachamim ["Lord full of mercy"]—and the effect was devastating, for it made me feel what I do not

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want to believe—not only that ecumenicity is betrayal, but that modernism is treason. Why do I feel this way? I have so little in common with so many of the Jews I meet here. I am offended and antagonized by so much of what I see in them, and I wonder why I weep for them. What is it that we have in common? I think it is our acceptance of a certain history and our willingness to accept the consequences of being called a Jew. Is there any sense more likely to be sharpened by even the dimmest knowledge of Jewish history than the sense of vulnerability? It is difficult to think of a history of the United States or of France being written on the organizing principle of the consequence of being American or French, but the consequence of being Jewish comes close to the heart of the history of the Jewish people—and a heightened sense of vulnerability is not the least of those consequences. Is this why I am uneasy even in the presence of so decent a man as Frank, even in the peace of the Mass? T o acknowledge being a Jew means accepting a view of history which demonstrates one's own vulnerability and the omnipresence of enemies. It is not antagonism which separates me from Frank, but my selfness. It would be so restful to be in communion with all, but would not communion with all be the annihilation of self? How can I convince "them" that my separateness is not a declaration of war or a battlehymn of hate, but an acceptance of myself? This place poses more problems than I can answer, and it does so with an insistence that can't be shaken off: how do I reconcile the claims of past and future, of myself and others, of tribalism and universalism, of my intellect and my feelings, of communion and identity? No part of me seems to be strong enough to win the struggle, nor do I want any part of me to win—for victory could be won only at the cost of the loss of something equally precious. I suppose the point is not to win the struggle, but to be able to sustain it. And there are things that help sustain the struggle. When we visited Lincoln Cathedral in England last summer, we learned about the legend of the crucifixion of a child, Little Hugh, by Jews during the Middle Ages. On the wall near the

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shrine sacred to Little Hugh is a placard telling of the legend and remarking that such legends, common in the Middle Ages, are not part of the heritage of Christianity that deserves to be cherished and remembered. When I pointed out the placard to the English friend who was with me, he smiled slightly and walked away. I felt as if a great burden had been lifted from me, and I said to him: "What a civilized thing to do." He said nothing, and I felt so safe.

Everyone here has a story. One of my students, a kibbutznik from Regavim, told me that he would be in Italy this summer, and when I told him that we would, too, he asked, "Milano?" and when I said yes he smiled and said we must look each other up there. " I grew up in Milano." "When were you there?" "From 1 9 3 3 to 1948. I also want to go to Rome. My wife has never been there and I was there only once. In 1947 I was working for the illegal immigration, and I was told to go to Rome and pick up a cow. So I saw Rome through a crack in the side of a truck that I was sitting in with the cow. It was a beautiful city." Ephraim, from Kibbutz Maagan Michael, had been sent to Italy immediately after the war to organize youth work in the DP camps. Shortly after his arrival he was told to go to France to prepare for work in North Africa. He went to Paris, not knowing a word of French, and was given the name of a sailor to meet in a bar in Marseilles and half a piece of cardboard with which to establish his identity; the sailor would have the other half. He met the sailor and asked about travel documents for Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. "If you apply for them officially, you may or may not get them—-just now the government doesn't want to upset the Muslims—but in any case it will take months. The other way is get on the ship and just go—and you can get some kind of document later." He got on board and went—and for two years shuttled between Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, teaching Hebrew songs to children, talking about the kibbutzim and the labor move-

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ment and socialism, encouraging emigration. "But you can't spend all your time singing Hebrew songs or reading and explaining Borochow and Gordon. You have to talk to them— so I learned French." When I asked him about the schools of the Alliance Israélite, he told a delightful story. Under pressure, the Jews in Tunisia agreed to admit Muslims to the Alliance schools. A rabbi in Sfax, who combined his course in Hebrew with some Zionist education, was embarrassed to find a young Arab boy in his class. "Why do you want to study Hebrew?" he asked. "Other subjects are much more important for you. I'll see that you are admitted." "But my parents want me to study Hebrew," the boy answered. "Your parents? Bring them here and I'll talk to them." They came. "Why do you insist that your son study Hebrew," the rabbi asked, "French, agriculture, engineering are more important for him." "Because when the Zionist state is established, we want our son to be the first ambassador from Tunisia." Yehoshua, the father-in-law of our friend Naftali, lives in a small house for retired people on a kibbutz. When he was fourteen he fought with the Red Army in Odessa. He lived in Western Europe and Canada, travelled in Latin America and the United States, and has lived for many years in Palestine and Israel. His two-room apartment is filled with mementos, all carefully organized, catalogued, and presented—his precious collection of coins, paper money, pipes, medals, and music boxes. He knows where and how he acquired each item. He says that looking at his trophies helps him remember his good fortune; he doesn't need any help to remember the bad times. In the post office an old woman hearing me speak to Shirley shyly asked me to help her write a cablegram in English to a relative just outside Naples. "I am allowed 20 words, including the name and address," she explained; and she showed me three painfully written drafts she had discarded. She had sent

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$ 1 0 0 to her relative the month before and had not received an answer. She wondered if something were wrong. I wrote the telegram. "Can you say that I will soon be going on a trip and would like to hear right away?" I explained that that would take more than 20 words. "Then don't write it. Besides, it will only confuse my sisterin-law. She won't know whether to send her answer here or to where I'm going." I congratulated her on her English. "I lived in America for six years—in New York, on 110th Street, on the West Side." I smiled. "I know it well. I live near there myself." "I can speak English all right, but my spelling is not good anymore. I don't get much practice." I turned the cable form to the reverse side, and asked her for her name and address, so that I could fill it out properly. Her name was Italian, as was that of the addressee. "Are you Italian?" I asked. "My husband was," she said. I asked for her address. She hesitated a moment. "I live in an old-age home, but I don't want them to know in Naples. I'd better give you my sister's address." On Israel's Independence Day, Shirley and I accompanied a friend to an old-age and convalescent home to visit her nephew's mother-in-law, an aged lady who had had a stroke. It was a lovely, warm day, and we wheeled her into the garden where we sat and talked. Her twisted fingers stuck out at odd angles from her corded, emaciated hands, but her dark eyes flashed. She accepted her imprisonment in the wheelchair, but did not bow to it. "I was born in Volos, in Greece; Greek was my language and I still speak it. But I grew up in Milan, and when I was married I went to live with my husband in Vienna, where he was in the textile business. We travelled—to Rome, to Florence, to Paris; where didn't we go? In 1939 we came to Palestine. I speak Greek, Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew—but I don't know Yiddish; I'm sorry. This is such a lovely home, and the people are so nice here. Some of the nurses are Moroccan, and they take such good care of

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me. There are four of us in my room, and we get along so well together. Did you see the flowers that grow in the box outside my window? They're beautiful. It was so nice of you to come to see me and to drink coffee with me and to talk. It is so nice here." We learned—though not from her—that the old woman's granddaughter would not visit her; the granddaughter could not stand to look at her emaciated body and sightless eye. Volos and Milan and Vienna . . . and a room in a convalescent home at Gadera.

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H E Israel National Library has devoted part of its exhibition on the United States Bicentennial to the theme of Jerusalem and the American Salems: the westward movement of Jerusalem from Salem, Massachusetts, to Salem, Oregon. I think of the Salem of the West as the dream of reason, the search for perfection, the plan and the theory on which the plan is based, the escape from the tainted past; the Jerusalem of the East tells us what went wrong with the plan—it is the tragedy that overtakes all dreams, the sense of limitation, the reminder that the denial of history cannot free us from it. Not to acknowledge the past does not increase our freedom in the present; it tightens our bondage to illusion. We cannot flee from what we are, but we cannot allow ourselves to be crushed by it. How to unite the two Jerusalems? T o strive for improvement without destroying in the name of improvement; to acknowledge our rootedness in history (the Jerusalem of the East) without relinquishing our dream of the future (the Salem of the West). Let there be a vision, but no more blinding visions.

T E L AVIV E leave soon, and the last few days have been taken up with an endless round of farewells. The visual images become sharper, almost painful; the memory of past events becomes softer, even blurred. And the sharpness of the images seems to emphasize the extraordinary contrasts that mark Israel for me, and to start a chain of thought that dwells both on the wonder of those contrasts and on the fearful possibilities they present. We walked along the esplanade by the sea in Tel Aviv, looking at the exhibits in a local arts and crafts show. Two men, standing side-by-side, were looking at some wooden plaques—all swirling lines like an Art Nouveau poster—produced by a recent Soviet immigrant. One of the men—elderly, bearded, a cloth cap with visor sitting straight on his head—was wearing a suit slightly too large for him—his tieless shirt buttoned at the throat, the top button gleaming in the light like a pearl. He could have stepped from the unpaved street of an Eastern European village that has long since disappeared. The man standing next to him was much younger; short and slight, very dark, he wore a black beret edged with shiny black leather. He might have been a Moroccan. They stood on the sidewalk and looked at the art, and occasionally they exchanged a comment—quietly, slowly, like two friends who are sure of each other. They were talking about something out there, not about themselves—and nothing about themselves seemed to inhibit their relationship. I stood and watched—and I could not tear my eyes from them. It was a wonderful moment and a wonderful vision—a vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, not a jungle—and like the creatures in that vision they were so different, yet so united. In the 187

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circle they have formed around themselves there was room for others—and for me. In a number of conversations I had with a leftist Italian professor attending a conference at the University, I felt u n d e r great pressure to talk about the USSR not as I found it, but more favorably, and to talk about Israel not as I found it, but less favorably. This is so, I think, for two reasons. I heard myself talk about my Soviet experiences, and it sounded like a dirge modified only by complaint. I looked for positive elements that I might speak about, because I did not want to sound like a chronic complainer and because I still retained enough of the political views on which I was nourished to be uneasy at being in the company of professional anti-Sovieteers. In the second place, I was aware that I would lose credibility with my listener if I simply told the story of what I had experienced—inefficiency, corruption, rudeness, terror. "But what about the Moscow subway?" he wanted to know in the words of the old joke. Having invested so much belief and faith not only in the USSR as a country, but in the idea that the correct ideology can move both men and mountains in the right direction, he found it impossible to believe that things could have been as bad as I described. So, unwilling to be consigned to the camp of reaction and fearful of losing the attention of those to whom I was speaking, I softened my account. And, of course, the USSR was the beneficiary. If the Soviet experiment were more successful than it has been, it would be easier to tell the truth and be believed. It is protected from much criticism precisely because it has been as unsuccessful as it has. T h e strategy of my discussion of Israel with my Italian colleague took the opposite form. T o present the country in a positive way is to appear to be a propagandist. Credibility depends, therefore, on exaggerating the difficulties, in conceding more to the critics than my own observations would have justified. In both cases, the need to maintain the rela-

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tionship with my listener seems to require a distortion of the truth as I see it. That a good deal of the strength of the USSR rests on the difficulty people have extricating themselves from what they identify with so closely is easy enough to understand. Is there any principle or emotion—national self-determination, pity, self-interest, justice, restitution—that can lead non-Jews to identify with Israel to the extent that an attack on it is an attack on their own self-esteem? Ideology transforms self-pity into politics, which is programmatic pity. Altruism and egoism are ethics to be found only in "utopian" social systems, such as socialism and capitalism. In the real world, self-pity is the wellspring of motivation. The basis of social conflict does not lie in the war of each against all, but in the gluttonous pride we take in the self-pity we feel and in the murderous rage we harbor against those who, by refusing to feel sufficiently sorry for us, do not let us indulge that feeling as much as we should like. The role of ideology is to legitimize self-pity, thereby eliminating whatever residual traces of guilt the self-pitying have and promising an inexhaustible supply of sympathy. Self-pity uncontrolled leads to anarchy; self-pity guided by ideology—or enlightened selfpity—provides the basis of social cohesion. Ideologies resting upon interest, either class or personal, will of necessity have only a limited period of effectiveness, for they are based on the assumption that the satisfaction of wants and desires will lead to the disappearance of friction. The demands of self-pity are, however, limitless and, indeed, are likely to be stimulated rather than satiated by the successful attainment of material goals. Social organization is possible only when the claims of self-pity are both acknowledged, thereby securing the allegiance of the multitudes, who yearn for both tea and sympathy, and masked, thereby allowing the multitudes to maintain the fiction that they are not acting out of naked self-pity, but selfless pity for others.

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Robert K. Merton explains individual responses to social systems—from conformity to rebellion—as variations in the degree of acceptance of the goals of society and of the approved means of achieving those goals. Acceptance of both goals and methods leads to conformity; acceptance of the first and rejection of the second leads to criminality; rejection of both leads to rebellion; and so on. It is appealingly rational, but it is a paradigm that was made for a simpler world. The goals of society are no longer—if they ever were—givens. For millions of people, they can be escaped—by migration to another social system with a different set of social goals. But emigration (a vote of no confidence in the country of origin) does not necessarily mean approval of the social goals of the new country. The example of Soviet Jewish emigrants in both Israel and the United States shows that an emigrant's rejection of many of the goals (and methods of attaining them) of his native society does not necessarily lead to his accepting them in the adopted society. It's good to be an entrepreneur in Israel or the United States, if that is what the Soviet émigré wants; but the would-be entrepreneur is disappointed that the state doesn't provide him with customers. It's good to be in Israel or the United States if one is a Jewish doctor, discriminated against in Russia because of one's Jewishness; but it is painful to be told that one's medical skills and knowledge are too primitive to be trusted. Experience with the goals and norms of one social system activates one set of anxieties and leads to one kind of protest; migration to a social system with another set of goals and norms minimizes the original complaints, but leads to another set of anxieties and to protests based on different vulnerabilities. Not all social goals and norms, even when we can define them, are of equal importance. Those that are likely to be most salient to us at any moment are the desirable ones we feel excluded from or the painful ones which discriminate against us. Migration to a new society—which means choice of the goals and norms under which we shall henceforth be governed—does not mean automatic acceptance of them; it means we must discover a new explanation for the miseries that now afflict us.

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Capitalism and socialism are indeed related, but not as Marx said. Socialism is not the product of the historical development of capitalism, created by capitalism's internal contradictions. Capitalism is the invention of socialism, produced out of the necessity for socialism to explain its inability to achieve its goals with the speed that had been predicted. T h e failure to achieve the classless society, for example, or the failure of the state to wither away, or the failure of the proletariat to grasp with sufficient eagerness the selfless discipline required by socialism are all to be explained, not as failures of socialism to achieve its goals but as consequences of the persistence of capitalist survivals even under socialism. All stage theories of historical development are similar in this respect: each stage is less the product of the preceding one than the earlier one is the invention of the later stage, produced by the necessity to find an explanation for its failures. T h e countries of eastern and central Europe are not really old countries; they only seem that way. They are unfinished countries, caught between the wreckage of the ancien régime and the inability of the new regime to complete what it began. It is better to visit a socialist country early in its history than late. Earlier, the state of incompletion can be excused by the magnitude of the task, and the sense of limidess future time can sustain the illusion that success is inevitable; later, the state of incompletion stands as testimony not to the magnitude of the task but to the flawed blueprint and inadequate equipment.

Today's edition of the International Herald-Tribune reports on a recent magazine article dealing with seventeen "improvements" that have been made in the official Soviet translation of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Some of the "improvements," of course, deal with Hemingway's characterization of communist leaders, but others are "political" only to those who see politics in every aspect of life and are afraid of their capacity to resist alternative explanations or the insidious seductiveness of "subjectivism." Communist concern with vocabu-

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lary—the coinage of proper slogans and the censorship of improper thoughts—is the unwitting tribute that structure pays to superstructure. "You are so ugly that you would be jealous of a toad," Karkov's mistress says to him in Hemingway's book, but the line is missing from the Soviet translation. Why? Is jealousy not to be associated with communists? Is it one of the "contradictions" of the Soviet system that the censors do not believe in what the theorists claim is the real engine of social progress? Can it be that the "proper" class structure has not eliminated jealousy? Have the authorities discovered that sentiments can alter structure? In capitalist societies, as socialist critics have overwhelmingly proved, social class plays an inordinate role in determining an individual's chances in life. Inequality and inefficiency are, therefore, rampant in capitalist society, since the position obtained by most persons is determined not by relevant criteria such as competence but by irrelevant criteria such as social class. The resistance that such social injustice should generate is decreased by the existence of false consciousness, which prevents the working class from perceiving the reality of social relations; false consciousness allows the state to reduce its reliance upon coercion to maintain its power; false consciousness is a functional equivalent of police power, and it is not the least of capitalism's iniquities that it requires dishonesty for its preservation. In socialist societies, social class plays no such predominant role in the determination of one's chances in life, and there is, therefore, no need for the existence of false consciousness to mask the nature of social reality. T h e social basis of honesty is established. The state, therefore, can rely on the honest use of coercion alone to maintain its power.

When I was last here, teaching at the Hebrew University during the academic year 1969-70, I interviewed all my American students. I was struck by how many had been involved in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and had come

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to Israel as a consequence of that involvement. It was not that involvement with Israel followed logically from involvement with civil rights—psychologically, perhaps, at least for several of these students—but not logically. They were refugees from a political movement that seemed to have no more room for them. Many had grown up in liberal Jewish families; for them, the extension of civil rights was a cause they had heard about since childhood. The relatively few who came from politically conservative backgrounds gravitated toward civil rights as part of their exodus from much of what they felt their parents stood for. "Black and white—unite to fight" was a slogan behind which they could comfortably march. Jim heard Allard Lowenstein speak at Yale, worked in the voter registration campaign in Mississippi, and wrote his Master's thesis in Jerusalem on the subject. Gene, from Chicago, knew Carl Oglesby and Paul Booth and campaigned for Dick Gregory. Fred belonged to a Jewish youth group in New Jersey, but it was more concerned with civil rights than with Zionism, certainly more than with religion. The only good thing Rachel had to say about growing up in Miami was that she had taught dance to a group of black children. These students had been thrown loose when the train of history went round a curve; many black organizations made it clear that participation by whites in the "movement" would be limited, might not even be welcome. Jim, Rachel, and the others, having been evicted, now became migratory workers in search of a cause to work for—and discovered they were Jewish. Some spoke with a note of bitterness about their experience, but puzzlement was more characteristic: the puzzlement of Joyce Cary's "Mister Johnson" who played the game, at high price to himself, according to the rules and then was punished by those whose man he had become. Puzzled or angry, these students were marked by the experience they had had, and—as a group—they seemed more critical, at least more independent, than other students. They were more "dovish," deeply worried about the Arab question, troubled by the orthodox religious basis for the definition of "Jewishness" (which was then a legal issue of great importance), and

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angered by what seemed to them to be the policy of the government, perhaps even the Israeli style, to insist on "correctness" at any price: "When someone makes his logical point, he walks away from the discussion; he's finished." I don't know what has happened to all the students I knew then: Jim, now Yehuda, is married to a Moroccan, has the family he felt he never had when he was growing up, and doesn't seem to be very interested in politics. Fred and Gene have returned to the United States; Rachel is married—Israel has its problems, she says, but it is not "so polarized that it will be torn apart by them." Not all my American students were of this type. Some were in Jerusalem for the same reasons that lead most undergraduates to want a year abroad—adventure, a change, fun. Some, especially children of refugees of the 1930s or of those who had been active liberals or leftists or trade unionists during that era, had a special feeling for or curiosity about Israel, born perhaps of the fact that they were children of parents who had experienced real or political uprootedness. A few, with the active blessing of their parents, were in search of husbands. One or two were exotics—the Baptist from Tennessee, in the land set apart by God to be the scene of history's greatest drama; the woman who, like the stage character of a Jew, answered every question with a question and shrugged her shoulders and turned up her hands with body-language as eloquent as an oration by Demosthenes: "I was born a Roman Catholic in Canton, Ohio," she said; "then I went to Pasadena and became a Protestant; now, thank God, I'm a Jew and here I am." My current American students at Tel Aviv University are different. The exotics are not here; the religious hothouse of Jerusalem provides a more flourishing climate for them than does modern, cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. There are more products of Jewish youth organizations than before; they are students who have been pointing toward this visit for much of their lives, and they hope that a year at the University, combined with work on a kibbutz and more study of the language, will tell them whether they have a taste for living in Israel or

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supporting it from abroad. But, unlike the veterans of the civil rights movement, there are virtually none who have had an active political experience; even Vietnam and the campus rebellions of the late 1960s seem not to have had any lasting effects on them, recent as they are. It's not that they have no interest in politics; the agenda changed and the heat has subsided. They are embarrassed by Watergate, but when they speak of it they are more likely to do so in words of ice than fire. And when they speak of politics they are more likely to talk about bureaucracy, inefficiency, delay, delay, delay—in the university as well as in the government—and about corruption, rather than about diplomacy and international politics. One of the sociology students at Tel Aviv University, an American who has been in Israel since the 1950s, has been writing a Master's thesis on changes in the family names of immigrants and on changing fashions in given names. There is so much material, and it is so rich, that we can almost design the equivalent of a series of laboratory experiments testing the effect of different variables. Who changes European or American family names to their Hebrew equivalents, so that Loewenstein ("Stone of a Lion"), for example, becomes Evenari, or Steinberg ("Stone of a Mountain") becomes Hareven? For some people, to change names is an expression of assimilation or patriotism, but some—like my friends the Hurwitzes—were born here and therefore have no need to assimilate; no one can doubt their loyalty or identification with their country. Why, then, do they resist changing their name? Does identification with one value seem to imply betrayal of another? When do families make the change in name: immediately upon arrival; after children are born and are in school; when they move to a new neighborhood where there are fewer of their old friends? Do the Sephardic Jews respond in the same way as the Ashkenazim? And who makes the derision—father or mother, or is it the result of a family discussion?

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Years ago, Arthur M. Schlesinger, in an essay on the naming of babies in American history, showed the influence of the popularity of military and political heroes; and I can remember how many black and poor families expressed their gratitude in the 1930s by naming their sons Roosevelt. Among the Sephardim in Israel, children may be named after living relatives. In the Jewish tradition with which I was familiar, a child was named after a dead relative. A few German Jews sported J r . or II as part of their names, but that was because they were rich. The Rostow brothers might be called Eugene Victor and Walt Whitman, and I know a man whose given names are Emile Zola, in celebration of the hero of the Dreyfus case, but that shows how emancipated and secular their families had become. Among the Ashkenazim, the tradition of naming children after dead relatives continues, but new sources of names have appeared: great heroes of biblical history; lesser known figures from the Bible, often identified with qualities that Jews are not especially associated with, like prowess in hunting; and simply words that sound lovely in Hebrew and express an attitude or belief of the parents—"Gift of God," for example, for the daughter of parents who never expected another child. T h e relation between names and things—how the name is supposed to influence the behavior of the thing and the behavior of the person who looks at the thing—plays an important part in Jewish history. T h e very name of this country and of the Jewish people came about, of course, as the result of a change in name. When twin sons were born to Rebecca, the older, Esau, appeared with the hand of the younger holding him by the heel; one interpretation is that the younger son was trying to hold Esau back and secure first place for himself. That story draws support from an etymology that derives the name Jacob, the younger son, from the Hebrew word for "heel." And so Jacob means "one who takes by the heel" and tries to trip up and supplant. By extension, the name connotes fraud and deception—which Jacob practiced upon Esau more than once. But then, in the greatest crisis of his life, Jacob wrestled with the angel of heaven. Jacob did not know who

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the angel was, but realized he could not be an ordinary mortal and demanded his blessing. T h e blessing took the form of a change in name: Jacob the "crafty" became Israel—"Thou hast persevered with God and with men, and hast prevailed." T h r o u g h struggle, the better elements of Jacob's character came to dominate. He had created a new identity, marked by his new name; recognition of that new name reminds us that our identity need not imprison us, that we can remake ourselves, and that we can make ourselves better than we were. Jacob's personal crisis had social implications, just as a rite de passage transforms a personal into a social event. Among the Kwakiutl, young men to whom the spirits had appeared celebrated their initiation into secret societies by dancing at the winter ceremonial, when the spirits gave them new names—to be used only in winter. T h e dropping of their summer names stamped them with a new identity; the group, with a new form of governance. T h e alteration in name was also an alteration in social system; the dominant power of the clans was taken over by the secret societies, those to whom the "secret" had been given by a spirit. T h e most intimate of personal problems—the character of one's identity—becomes a method of social control by being transformed into a belief or ritual. T o believe that Jacob made himself into Israel leads us to think differently—and therefore to act differently—about ourselves. Looking at a dance which celebrates the creation of a new identity, marked by a new name, out of a conflict with God, with death, with the enemy, we draw the necessary conclusion: that this is what we now are, whatever we were in the past, and that being true to ourselves requires that we act appropriately. T h e ritual is a strategy for making use of even the most personal properties—like identity—for solving recurrent social problems. T h e ritual is a behavioral proverb; it tells us that, faced with adversity or danger, Israel does this, Kwakiutl do that, if they are to remain true to their ancestors and to themselves. T h e Egyptian god Ptah, patron of artists and craftsmen, created the world and everything in it by naming them. I read in a newspaper the other day that in China the Wuting River

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("river that is never still") was renamed by an eighteenthcentury Manchu emperor the Yungting ("river that is always still") in an effort to keep it from flooding Peking. A recent street map of Canton shows that High-class Street has become Masses Road. This morning some of my friends at the University took us to an Arab village near Kfar Saba, just on the Israeli side of the West Bank, to visit the family of an Arab acquaintance who teaches in the local school and is a student in the University's Department of Education. He and his family—his wife and several small children—live in a modern house in the village. It has none of the beauty of so many of the older Arab houses, made of stone and seeming to grow out of the soft curves of the hillside rather than being placed there. It is a modern house, and shows the hallmarks of its modernity. Square and squat, it stands above the flat ground, now muddy from the recent rains, on columns of cinder blocks. The space below the house is a refuge for chickens and a few goats and a storage area for endless quantities of a bewildering variety of cannibalized mechanical contrivances—bits of automobile engines and bodies, hot water tanks, bathtubs, baby carriages,

An Arab village near Kfar Saba: Israelis—Arabs and Jews—and Americans

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An Arab village near Kfar Saba: Arab agricultural workers in the fields of a inllage near the West Bank

wire for fencing, batteries. The most striking visual characteristic of older Arab houses—blue paint around the windows and doors—is gone; color is provided by the bright curtains hanging in the windows and by dozens of potted plants and flowers. Nervous and proud, our host took us from room to room, and pointed out what was most important to him—the size of the rooms, the clean and shiny blond wood upholstered furniture, the refrigerator, the washing machine. ("Not many people have one. This was a present for my wife; I don't want her to have to work so hard.") I asked about his wife. "She is in the kitchen. You will meet her soon." We were in the hallway, standing near the washing machine, and he began to share his secrets with us: "I bought her from her family in East Jerusalem. She was very good and I like her, but she had only girls. I was thinking of divorcing her when she had a son." He called her and she appeared, carrying their chubby litde boy in her arms. She smiled shyly and wordlessly accepted all our compliments about her house and her baby. Anwar looked at her and she left. "Look at me," he went on. "My marriage is not what it should be. If it were really a good mar-

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riage, I would be fatter." H e seemed tense a n d impatient: " T h e r e is something wrong." We sat in t h e living-room and he told us a b o u t his family. T h e y had been t h e r e for generations a n d o w n e d a good deal of land o n which they grew cash crops like strawberries, picked in the m o r n i n g , flown that day to E u r o p e , and sold there the next day. H e was o p p o s e d to the r e t u r n of the West Bank to J o r d a n ; it is t h e source of his family's labor supply. H e spoke of his brothers: o n e was the h e a d - n u r s e in the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital; o n e worked in the branch of the Bank Leumi in Herzliah; o n e owned an aged MercedesBenz bus a n d used it to t r a n s p o r t school children a n d Arab laborers; one was a hired administrator in the Histadrut, the t r a d e union organization. T w o married sisters lived in Kuwait and Amman. As h e spoke, his brothers e n t e r e d t h e room. His f a t h e r , w h o lived not f a r away, came in. H e wore a Western suit a n d an A r a b kefiyeh [head-dress]; he did not speak English, but sat quietly, n o d d i n g graciously as each of us was introduced to him, and smiled an assent when asked if he might be photographed. Lunch was served in endless courses to t h e guests (six Israelis a n d two Americans) a n d to t h e m e m b e r s of Anwar's family (his f a t h e r , wife, f o u r brothers, and himself). T h e infant son sat on his mother's lap; his f o u r d a u g h t e r s did not eat with us—they were playing outside. I had noticed when we entered the d i n i n g r o o m that three of the brothers did not sit at the table, t h o u g h places had been set f o r all of us. T h e y stood beside the table to help with the serving, and t h r o u g h o u t the meal two or three of the b r o t h e r s b r o u g h t the food f r o m the kitchen a n d served it. We told Anwar's wife how delicious it was (she had d o n e all of the cooking and it must have taken days) but she only smiled a n d said nothing. A n w a r seemed delighted by o u r pleasure, but he said n o t h i n g to his wife, t h o u g h he talked to his f a t h e r a n d frequently chucked his son, sitting on his wife's lap, u n d e r his fat little chins. T h e dishes d i s a p p e a r e d a n d A n w a r began to talk about his j o b , teaching natural science to the children of his village. A

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half hour or so later, at his insistence, we trooped out of the house to visit his family's land. Strawberries were growing in long plastic hothouses, poking up through slits cut into sheets of plastic laid on the earth. The crates into which the fruit would be packed were neatly piled up. Near a number of sheds were several large tanks from which hoses led off in several directions. "We don't do any surface irrigating anymore," Anwar said excitedly. "Water for irrigation is mixed in the tanks with liquid fertilizer, which we get from the government, and all of it is piped underground to the strawberries. It is more efficient." Some Arab men and women, working in the fields and the hothouses, brought us a huge box of strawberries as a farewell present. On the walk back to Anwar's house, we passed his daughters playing with their friends; they laughed gleefully as he patted them on the head. "My father was different from most of the others here," Anwar said; "he made sure my brothers and I got an education." And then, rapidly—"When my daughters grow up they'll go to the University in Tel Aviv." (I thought of the Intourist guide in Riga—"Education is the most important thing.") The drive home was rather quiet; it had been a full day and things had to be put in place. I found myself thinking about an experience I had years ago when I was working in Detroit with the UAW-CIO. I had been involved in negotiating a contract with a large automobile parts company, and we had succeeded in winning a remarkable clause (it was 1946) allowing women to accumulate seniority while on maternity leave—as draftees did while on military service. The memory was quite vivid. The labor relations director of the company had approved the contract provision and we had initialed it, but on the day of the final signing he balked. We were angry, startled, then increasingly curious. He seemed reluctant to discuss the matter; if his opposition had been a matter of principle he would have been only too ready to orate, as our side always was. He was embarrassed, and haltingly he admitted the reason for it. How could he hold his head up in the locker-room of his golf club when it became known that he had signed a

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"maternity-leave clause"—the first of his sort to do so? Was it the words that bothered him? We were happy to suggest alternatives—"pregnancy" for "maternity"; would "lying-in" do?; and finally, in exasperation, when nothing seemed to work, some barrack-room words. Poor Mr. K.; he wanted to do the right thing. He would fight like a lion to maintain management prerogatives, but the fear that his friends might laugh at him made him a paper tiger. But why did I remember all this now? I don't know. Anwar is a modern man—he lives in a modern house, has a washing machine, teaches natural science, uses the most modern techniques of agronomy, wants to send his daughters to the university. But he had been about to divorce his wife because she had not borne a son and he fretted because he did not have the fat that would prove to the world that he was a happy husband. It's easier to accommodate to science and technology, to this sort of economic system or that sort, than it is to change attitudes toward women. Mr. K. could live with the UAWCIO, but not with his country-club friends who might snicker because he had signed a maternity-leave clause. Petroleum technology is compatible with socialism, capitalism, and Middle Eastern feudalism. What makes us feel that a different social system will make the sky fall? It is equal rights for women that will really tear things apart here.

We went again to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. I found it very moving to be in what is called the cell of St. Jerome. It is very plain, even austere, with only two or three narrow modern stained-glass windows to let in a little light. Some grafitti are cut into the rock walls, and the cell is located in what must have been a catacomb. On the day we were there, the cell, to which tourists hardly ever come, was being visited by a few Spanish pilgrims, led by their priest. They were singing, and the sound added to the mystery of the place. The place where Jesus supposedly was born is altogether different. The walls are black with the smoke of centuries of pilgrims' candles; guttering glass and ceramic oil

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lamps hang from the low ceiling; the air is thick with incense; black-gowned Orthodox priests, with curly beards, walk in and out. A wooden cradle is on the spot, marked by a cross, where Jesus was born, and in the cradle lies a plastic doll, hands and feet in the air. No one seems to be bothered, and I wonder whether questions of esthetic taste have any point here. We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday. The place was teeming with people, and the noise was deafening. Coptic, Armenian, Maronite, and Orthodox priests in splendid regalia paraded around the Sepulchre, the order of procedure rigidly defined. Men in fezzes, who probably owed their privileged position to franchises granted to their families in Ottoman times, marched in front of them, banging the heavy butt ends of their staves on the stone floor of the church with every step they took. Young men had climbed up the sides of the Sepulchre itself and were shouting and banging on it with sticks; I was told they were awaiting the reappearance of Christ. It was wildly anarchic, compared to the austere, almost military, discipline of the Roman Catholic observance of Easter. Only the aged (were they really as old as they seemed?) Greek women, pilgrims from the Mediterranean islands, were quiet. Dressed in black,

Jerusalem:

The Stone of the Anointing in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: the patience oj the pilgrims

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Easter procession of Armenian priests in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

their heads covered with black shawls, they knelt where they could here and there on the floor, their wrinkled hands holding long, thin tapers, only their lips moving occasionally, the quintessence o f patience. A few feet inside the church is a large rose-colored stone slab—"the stone of the anointing"—on which Jesus is said to have been laid after being removed from the Cross. It has been worn to a perfection of smoothness by the ceaseless, affectionate, compassionate caressing of centuries o f pilgrims. They rub it with their hands, with their cheeks, with palmfronds and even with Kleenexes, which are carefully stored away in purses to be taken home, there to be enshrined as precious relics from the Holy Land, touched by the stone which had touched the body of Christ. I watched a blackshawled woman shake a few drops of liquid on the stone from a bottle, set the bottle on the floor, and gently rub the liquid into the stone with her handkerchief. She had been doing it when I arrived and was still doing it more than an hour later. I looked over her shoulder to the bottle she was shaking on the stone. T h e label read Mennen's After-Shave Lotion. One of my favorite places in Jerusalem is the tiny chapel of Dominus Flevit, built on the side of Mount Olivet at the place

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Jerusalem: View of the Temple Mount from the Chapel of Dominus Flevit: The Cross and the Dome—architectural revenge for a historical defeat?

where Jesus wept, knowing what lay ahead. There are the remains of some ancient tombs, the mosaic floor of the original Byzantine church, some Crusader ruins, but the building itself is modern. It sits in a litde garden, amidst flowers and olive and pine trees, and hardly anyone comes to visit. Occasionally, one of the few Franciscans who maintain the place can be seen. When we were walking in the garden with an American colleague who was visiting us, one of the Franciscans walked over to us. "I heard you talking," he said, "and I became homesick and wanted to practice my English." He turned out to be an American, from Nebraska, and though he is one of the keepers of the kingdom (as I am not) he seems to understand better than I do that Jerusalem is not a historical reservation. T h e living have their claims. Still, it is hard to think about the present when one enters the chapel and looks out over the Old City. The room is tiny, but one whole wall is a window through which one can see all of Jerusalem: the sinuous wall surrounding the city; the clear silver dome of El Aksa and the shimmering gold of the Dome of the Rock; the open spaces, here and there studded with trees (and a few still-standing ancient columns of the Temple Mount); the heaped-up houses in the residential quarters; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, almost tucked into the sur-

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rounding buildings and dominated by the tower of the nearby German Lutheran church. Placed in front of the window is an altar and on it is a cross. If one stands at a certain spot on the Byzantine mosaic floor and looks through the window, the cross seems to be superimposed on the gold of the Dome of the Rock. Architectural revenge for a historical defeat? Of course not, but the view does suggest ideas, and ideas that put history on the agenda of today. Peg has left for her return to Connecticut. A Christian, the wife of a dairy farmer, she had made her first journey out of the United States. How did she respond to scenes and impressions which were already familiar to us, but which to her were foreign in every sense of the word? She must have been struck by overwhelming differences from the moment of her arrival, differences many of which she had nothing in her tradition or experience to help her bridge. The Lod airport was, as it always is, proof that the alternative to peaceful coexistence is not necessarily mutual destruction: it is noisy competition. The place bristled with soldiers and security guards, but far more noticeable were the pushing, shoving groups of men, women, and children shouldering their way through other groups—always in motion and always shouting. A traveller departing from or boarding a plane alone at Lod is almost certain to be a Westerner, invited to give a lecture at the university or for a consultation with the government. All others are escorted into and out of the country by groups called family. Space in the waiting room is fought for among waiting families; even affection enters into the competition between families—which will show the most happiness by shedding the most tears? What was Christian, Yankee, rural Peg to make of all this? "I flew El A1 non-stop from New York," she said when she had cleared customs, "because I wanted to get a total Israeli experience. I am very glad. It's so cheerful here." Shirley prepared Peg for her first visit to the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv by telling her about the noise, the crowds, the

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spitting on the sidewalks, the bargaining and the haggling. We got off the bus a block or so away from the market and walked the rest of the way, Peg barely looking to right or to left, intent on getting there. The noise picked up, and so did the number of people walking quickly in the same direction we were headed. We turned the corner and there we were. Shops stood side-by-side on the sidewalks for several blocks, selling chickens (live or dressed), turkey (legs, wings, breasts, cudets), olives, cheeses, fish, nuts (neatly displayed in burlap bags), salamis, flour and other grains, dried fruits. The street itself was lined with stalls, their owners shouting the superior quality—at lower prices, of course—of whatever they were selling: clothes, old and new, children's books and games, phonograph records, oranges, cauliflower, cabbages, beets, radishes, lettuce, dill, carrots, strawberries, bread. Specialization had gone about as far as it could go; some stalls sold nothing but dill, and one wondered: Can they make a living on that? A few of the shopkeepers sat quiedy and moved only to weigh a half-pound of almonds or fish two herrings out of the barrel, but all the vendors at the street-stalls were moving about and shouting—at their helpers, at their competitors, at their customers. I luxuriated in the smells and the color, as I always do, and hated the noise and the shoving. Peg, her hand to her mouth, was looking from side-to-side, pushed in whatever direction the current was strongest. I walked over to her and whispered nervously, "Make sure to keep hold of your pocketbook. You never know in these crowds." She cut me short without even looking at me: "I had no idea; I had no idea." On our way back from a visit to Sfad and the Golan Heights, we stopped in the morning at Tabgha to see the Byzantine mosaics, in the early afternoon at Tiberias, to see the Roman and Jewish monuments. The parking lot near the ruins at Tiberias was filled with busses and there were many more people than I had ever seen there before. A long line of them was slowly walking up the rather steep street that runs behind the ancient ruins toward the buildings on the hill above. They seemed to be walking toward the building that

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holds the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal-Haness—Rabbi Meir the Miracle-Maker—of Roman times. It was a blisteringly hot day, and Shirley and Peg decided to sit on the grass in the shade of a tree. I had discovered that these people were North African Jews, who had decided to stop at Tiberias en route to the rabbinic tombs at the top of Mt. Meron for their Lag B'Omer pilgrimage [traditional date of the death of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai], When it comes to pilgrimages I am a lemming; my joining them, therefore, was hardly a matter of conscious decision. Was this what it was like to be on the road to Compostela? A number of tents and canvas shelters had been put up on the street, and vendors were selling Coca-Cola and other drinks, falafel, pitah, and little boxes of sweet candies. The tomb of the Miracle-Maker is in one corner of a very large room. Standing by the iron grille that separates the tomb from the rest of the room, a few men were saying prayers; occasionally someone would approach the grille and throw over it a box of the candies that were on sale outside. Breughel would have loved the scene. Aside from the tiny oasis of silence that surrounded the tomb, the room was a bedlam of noise that caromed off the walls and made the floor vibrate in sympathy. A group of people had gathered around a woman who had fainted; the men brought glasses of water; only other women touched the victim—they sprinkled water on her face, rubbed her wrists, slapped her lightly on the cheeks, whispered to her. Another group of men was clustered around a plump, middle-aged woman who was dancing. Her skirt flared out, her bandanna was stained with sweat, she held out her arms and snapped castanets as she danced to the melody being played on some kind of oboe-looking instrument by a mournful young man. And nearly all the time she smiled; when she did not, it was to throw her head back and laugh uproariously. Men went back and forth from group to group selling drinks from complicated contraptions they carried on their heads and shoulders, or from bottles which they uncorked and then put back in the side pockets of their shapeless jackets. There were panhandlers everywhere: a few showed credentials au-

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thorizing them to collect for this or that charity; others volunteered that information; but most simply held out their hands mutely. A small building a short distance away was being used as a synagogue; it was crowded with men oblivious to what was going on around them. I walked back down the street. What has all this, what have they, got to do with me? I wondered. In Bunuel's movie The Milky Way, two pilgrims on the road to Compostela suddenly find themselves involved in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve; then, later, at the graduation ceremony of a Catholic school for girls, they hear a shot—in a few moments a group of tough, militant guerilla fighters carry in the body of a prelate whom they have just executed. The past, the present, glimpses of the future coexist on the same plane of time; and so does timelessness, sheer fantasy. How does it all get sorted out? When I got back, Peg was still under the tree, smiling at the North African women who had encircled her, holding out pieces of chicken, bread, onions, and eggplant for her. "They are so friendly," she said, "even though my French is so bad. Such generosity. Why are they so nice to me?" Back in Tel Aviv we went with Peg to a large open field where families were celebrating Lag B'Omer by singing and by toasting marshmallows over bonfires. It was late at night, and quite dark, and the flames could be seen everywhere. "We could never do this back home," she said. "The fire department wouldn't give us a permit; they'd say it's too dangerous. Look at this; these people can be trusted, because they can control themselves." At the large open-air Tel Aviv book fair, she had no eye for the books, even though she is a librarian and reads omnivorously. What she saw was the people. "Why, all these people are here in families," she said. "Imagine; a family outing at a book fair." Peg hit it off with the members of the kibbutz to which we had taken her especially to see the dairy farm. She knows the business from top to bottom. She listened attentively to the explanations offered by the supervisor, and occasionally she would smile her approval at him, or turn to me to say that thé

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operation seemed quite up-to-date. "What method do you use to keep your production records?" she asked the supervisor. "We follow the Cornell School of Agriculture recommendations," he answered. "You do? Why, so do we," she said—and they were off on a cow-by-cow comparison of butterfat production. I went off to look at the tiny museum—built with German reparations money bequeathed by a refugee who had died without family—that houses some antiquities unearthed at the kibbutz. T h e kibbutzniks politely tolerated me; they adored Peg. I suppose I need not have worried so much about how Peg would respond to her trip. I underestimated the Israelis and I underestimated her. I doubt, though, that I'll learn as much f r o m the experience as I should. Wanting them to like us and fearful that they won't is a lesson of history that has become a strategy of survival.

JERUSALEM A T Yad Vashem I was taken on a tour of the archives and / a was permitted to look at many of the oral history accounts taken from survivors of the Nazi terror. I asked especially to see them because I had been involved in the work of the American Jewish Committee in soliciting memoirs from survivors who had come to the United States. The differences between the two sets of memoirs is striking. Those at Yad Vashem are rather short. They tell virtually nothing of the narrator's life before the Nazis came—only what interviewers call face-sheet data (name, address, family status, and the like), and absolutely nothing about life in Palestine or Israel after their escape. T h e catastrophe takes up the entire field of vision; what came before and what happened later are excised. The AJC's memoirs are very different. The emphasis is on the Holocaust, of course, but an enormous amount of material has been collected on the lives of people before they were overtaken by the catastrophe and on what they have done and what has happened to them since their arrival in the United States. T h e content of the Yad Vashem memoirs was determined primarily by the fact that they were collected for legal purposes; they were depositions filed in support of claims. Nevertheless, the difference between the two sets of memoirs—however it may be accounted for—suggests still another unresolved problem, or, more accurately, a problem with a number of competing resolutions: the problem of the relationship between Israel and the diaspora. The Yad Vashem memoirs see no connection between the history of the Jewish people and the history of Israel; at least, they don't raise any questions concerning what that connection might be. Something happened out there, back then; 211

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what that has to d o with what is happening here and now is not explored. T h e A J C memoirs also concentrated on the experience o f the Holocaust, but opportunity was taken to create documentation dealing with a phase in the history o f the Jewish people o f which most traces have now been obliterated— Jewish life in central and eastern E u r o p e — a n d to relate the history o f the Jewish people to the history of the United States. Different though it was in so many respects f r o m earlier migrations, the migration o f the Jewish r e f u g e e s was seen to bear upon American history as well as Jewish history. T h e marginality of a Jew in a country in the diaspora is an old problem. T h e relation o f a diaspora Jew to Israel—not to Israel the concept, but to Israel the state—is not such an old problem, nor is it discussed as openly as I think it ought to be. Leaving philosophical issues aside, the problem has important political implications. Does a diaspora Jew show his Jewishness by supporting the policies of the government of Israel? If so, he has f e w e r rights than a citizen o f Israel, w h o frequently opposes his government. But to exercise that right o f opposition, must he become a citizen? If he does not, if he continues to live in the diaspora, does his identity with a belief require him, as some here seem to imply, to become a stooge? W h e n does his identity with a belief require him to enter the opposition? If he does that, how much credibility can his opposition command if he does not take the risk of living here? It is troubling to see how limited the discussion is. T h e tendency o f the government is to disarm outside opposition by making it appear to be disloyalty; support o f the government is support of Israel. For many Israelis, opposition by diaspora Jews is, at best, tasteless: "If you don't live here, at least be quiet. A n d if you say you support us, just send us your money." For many Americans, the answer is the same: "I support Israel," meaning, "I support the policy of the governm e n t " — o r "I don't live there, so I give." T h e r e is some point to all of these arguments. T h e d a n g e r is that the conventional ones prevent the mobilization of people whose participation would add strength and conviction to what is being d o n e here.

REMEMBRANCES THE MARKETS

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H E Carmel Market in Tel Aviv is a riot of noise and color. There are stalls and shops run by Jews from the Arab countries, but the general impression the market makes on me is that it is an artifact of eastern Europe. Perhaps that is why this market seems to be so familiar, though I never saw it before this trip to Israel. The chickens—the live ones squawking crazily, the dead ones with scrawny necks; middle-aged men doing the family shopping, spitting sunflower seeds into their left hands as they feel a chicken with their right; women idly tossing a strawberry or a grape into their mouths as they walk from stall to stall before they decide what to buy; the noisy sellers who grab for customers and the quiet ones who sit and wait—how different was it back then in Czernowitz or Pressburg or Muncasz? The market in Mahane Yehuda at Jerusalem is quite different—quieter, less lit by sunshine, more contained by architecture than the Carmel Market, which is a jumble of shops and stalls, more oriental. One is less certain that a man with a beard is an orthodox Jew from eastern Europe; he might be a Kurdish Jew. The Arab souk in the Old City takes on a different character depending on the day of the week and the hour of the day. Friday afternoon—holy to the Muslims—and the shops are boarded up and locked. The street is deserted, except for Jews walking to the Western Wall for evening prayers. Saturday morning—holy to the Jews, but all of Israel seems to have converged on this one spot to shop and look. Each shopper may know exactly where he or she is going, but the movement of the crowd seems mindless, less movement 213

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than Brownian motion. Buyers and sellers have joined in an assault on all the senses. Pink and pearly sheep carcasses hang from hooks in dimly lit butcher shops; brilliant red, orange, green, and white camel bags compete for attention with embroidery that connoisseurs can tell was made by this family in Bethlehem or that family from the hills around Hebron; Roman glass, Philistine pottery, Hyksos beads, and figures of Baal and Astarte, centuries old, compete with Roman glass, Philistine pottery, Hyksos beads, and figures of Baal and Astarte made yesterday. An old porter, his back bent so that it is parallel to the street, staggers under a mountainous load of boxes; he cannot raise his head to see where he is going, and shouts others out of his way. Occasionally, a donkey or a goat scampers by, whipped by a young Arab boy with a stick. T h e smell of frying fat hangs in the air. A few Bedouin women, their faces tattooed, walk by noiselessly, on their way to sell some recent finds they've made in the desert to an Armenian antiquarian whose shop is u p a litde side street. When I was a litde boy I read the novels of Joseph Altsheler about the adventures of the young pioneer Henry Ware in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky—and I felt more alive than I did in Baltimore. I feel more alive in this market than I do in New York. Akko: the market here is much smaller than those in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Some of the shops are now decrepit holes in the wall; others are located in shabby buildings that still carry traces of their Ottoman Turkish origin as inns or bathhouses. T h e streets are filthy; dirty water trickles down the gutters. But if you walk u p a side street, in a few moments you find yourself in another time, in another place: in a medieval courtyard—marble fountain in the center, surrounded on all four sides, except for the entrance, by two-story colonnaded buildings, straight out of Genoa or Pisa. T h e Duke or a rich merchant might be inside the house; outside, two wooden fishing boats lie in the arcade, and Arab fishermen repair their nets. T h e r e are two markets in Beersheba. One is very modern, and reminds me of the municipal markets built on the Lower East Side of New York when the pushcart peddlars were put

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Akko: Arab fishermen mending nets in a medieval Italian square

out of business. Long sheds of cement stand in what, I suppose, had been an open field only a few years ago. The space is shared by the merchants, each of whom operates his own stall: modern, efficient, and rather antiseptic. Nearby, one morning each week, the Bedouin have a market. Shoelaces, cheap glasses, plastic dishes can be bought here; and so can dark red Bedouin rugs, displayed by being tossed casually over the hoods or tops of the trucks that brought them here. Camels and goats can be bought here; children play with the kids and cuddle them until the transaction is completed. Father takes the money and shakes hands; the children prance away. Looking up, one can see the beautiful modern towers of Beersheba University. SOIRÉES Dinner parties are not exactly unheard of here, but one is more likely to be invited for an after-dinner visit, at which coffee, tea, fruit juice, and cakes and cookies in enormous quanti-

2l6

REMEMBRANCES

ties are produced. Conversation is seldom random; it is almost always purposeful: generally about politics (domestic and international) or some cultural event (a new book or play; a recent academic happening); but whatever the subject, the discussion is passionate and intense. Several years ago, some graduates of T h e Technion, a few of them now professors but most of them businessmen, decided to meet every two weeks to keep up the friendship they had formed as students; their wives, of course, shared in the good fellowship. But how could such an opportunity for improvement be lost? They still meet every two weeks for coffee and cake. But first comes a discussion with an invited guest on The United States after Watergate, or The Politics of Multinational Corporations, or Economic Planning in the Former British Colonies in East Africa (followed in two weeks by a discussion of Economic Planning in the Former French Colonies in Africa). An elected cultural chairman arranges for the speaker. There's an old joke about a Jewish boy who got involved with gangsters. While he was on his way to his mother's house for his usual Friday night dinner, the rival gang caught up with him and gunned him down. Alive, but just barely, he dragged himself to his mother's door and rang the bell. She answered and looked down at him. "Momma, momma," he said, bleeding from a dozen wounds. "Sh, sh," she answered, "first eat, then talk." With my friends, it's "First talk, then eat." Whichever has the priority, I'd always thought that the close relation between eating and discussing was characteristically Jewish; but a friend who is a professor at the Hebrew University reminds me that a symposium was a meal at which a problem was discussed and says that there is reason to believe that the Passover Seder—a meal and a lesson—may have been influenced by the example of the Greek symposium. I wish I knew more Iraqi and North African Jews. Do they eat and talk?

REMEMBRANCES

217

THE MUSEUM AT YAD VASHEM There are photographs here of the milk cans in which Emanuel Ringelblum hid the documents of the Warsaw ghetto that he and others had compiled so that the world would know what had happened. The Museum of the Dead Sea Scrolls has the ceramic jars in which the scrolls were placed for safekeeping when they were put in the caves at Qumran. The milk cans and the ceramic jars look very much alike. The story is told that when Simon Dubnow [Jewish historian and founder of YIVO] was taken by truck to be shot by the Nazis in Riga, he shouted: "Yidden, verschreib"—"Jews, write it down." BEERSHEBA

UNIVERSITY

I was invited to give the American Bicentennial Lecture at the University. I spoke in English; my talk was translated into Hebrew by a young French Jew. Among the students were "black Bedouins," whose parents had been slaves, recent Russian immigrants, the children of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, and Jews from Morocco and Tunisia. I have no idea what a lecture on American history meant to them. The subject was the development of the concept of citizenship in the United States. Did they see this as a problem of American history, or of their own?

A SUMMING UP E leave for Athens tomorrow. I read in my journal about the events of the past year and what I thought of them; I think of them now in the light of what I have seen and felt since, and I wonder about the basis of my judgments and about whether I looked in the right places for what I was seeking. My being Jewish is reason enough to have produced the emotions I felt in Germany and Eastern Europe, and yet I find that reason, while justified, troubling, for I should like to think that the decisions I come to, even when I am sure they are in accord with the historical record, are not based on values and principles that are entirely tribal in character. For that reason I feel oddly satisfied in finding that I am sometimes angry in Israel also. Israel, like the Soviet Union and the United States, provides its own reasons for anger; I love this country and its people and I would not (even if I could) deny my identity with them, but I am grateful for my anger, for it means that the judgments I make about this place—and others—are not based on my Jewishness alone. And I am grateful, too, that there are many here who feel the same way. Sometimes I am angry, but more often I am disturbed and concerned; but I cannot derive from those latter emotions the satisfaction, even if perverse, that I draw from my anger. The anger I feel derives largely from the judgments I make about the political behavior of the state and the behavior directed toward me—and others—by those whom I encounter in their official capacity as agents of the state or of some private administration. In the behavior of the state—any state—to its citizens and in the behavior of administrators to their clients

A SUMMING

UP

219

there is much to fill up the cup of indignation. But my sense of disturbance and concern is more troubling, for it leads me now to locate the source of the trouble in others, now to locate it in myself, and sometimes to wonder whether it is an injury that can ever be fully healed. When I am angry I am on the outside looking in, and I wish to remain outside or at least to have nothing to do with those who have committed the outrage. But here I do not wish to be on the outside, and my sense of disturbance and concern does not arise from a judgment—easily made—that a particular act is despicable, but from a feeling that even here—among those whom, because of my own history and the history I have made my own, I wish to share a comradeship—I am a stranger. In the Soviet Union the oppressiveness of the regime was so monstrous and so evident that we sought, when we could, by establishing personal connections to create a sense of common humanity; to have frustrated the regime by a smile, a handshake, a shared understanding about a painting by Matisse was a victory of the human spirit. But here the regime is not repressive (it is one of the glories of Israel that it is the freest of countries from Western Europe to the Pacific) and the constraints that limit the connections between people are not political. I understand that I cannot really be one with them until I am prepared to share their fate. The disturbing thing is, Why am I not prepared to make that decision? Why are they not prepared to allow a different one? And, most disturbing of all, why is it so difficult to discuss this matter—and far less important ones—without the intrusion of an aching sense of separateness that cannot be attributed to the character of political and social institutions and that most of those with whom I have spoken would wipe out could they only do so? In this country, differences between us and others (which in the USSR seemed so inconsequential, which, indeed, we pushed aside as impediments to the creation of the unity we sought above all to establish) often become so great as to be barriers preventing us from achieving the unity we seek. No doubt this is because we have so much in common, but I am forced to think about what it is exactly that we do have in common. Our

220

A SUMMING

UP

religion?—up to a point. Our history?—up to a point. O u r suffering?—up to a point. Our treatment at the hands of others?—up to a point. Our view of our mission in the world?—up to a point. Always up to a point—the point at which separateness steps in, the point beyond which I—and I am sure they—would like to go. I read over what I have written in this journal and am surprised at how many of my encounters deal with relationships and the meanings I derive from the attempt to enter them. My future waits in the wings; it cannot be introduced until my past has been performed. Here are the people to whom I want to speak, to whom I feel I must speak. T h e earth opened between us. Can I reach them? Do we live on separate continents? T h e god of Ashurbanipal and I look at each other, but what shall we make of each other? T h e unlocked door is an invitation to enter, to talk to whomever one finds inside—and to listen. Who will break down the locked door? And with what? I used to think about the color of hope and desperation. Was the grass green at Auschwitz? Classical Rome was bright and sunny; the sun never shone on medieval Europe; and when I thought that fascism was imminent I wondered, Would the sun be dimmed? Would the shadows be longer, and darker? A few days ago, in Heda Margolius's book I Do Not Want to Remember, I read about the deportation of the Jews f r o m Prague in 1 9 4 1 : "We had been ordered to report f o r transport, with no idea of our destination. . . . When I got up that morning, my mother turned away from the window and said, almost childlike, 'Look, the sun is rising. I thought not even the sun would rise t o d a y . ' " We stand on either side of the chasm, but it is not a chasm that must divide us; we have the language to bridge it. Auden spoke of sunshine and tragedy: About suffering they were never wrong, T h e Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along . . . In Breughel's Icarus, for instance; how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

A SUMMING

UP

221

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. T h e banality of the setting can rivet us to the suffering or obscure it. When d o we see the event and when do we overlook it? What is the connection between mountains, the sea, a shooting star to a boy fallen from the sky—between the scenery and the suffering? None of the encounters I had during this journey and none of my relationships—those attempted and failed, those attempted and established—really began when I first met them. T h e situations in which I found myself, what I saw, were only the newest forms in which old problems and old tendencies had shaped themselves. Neither were the responses I felt new, not even when I looked at things I had never seen before; I too have a history, and how I felt when I saw Thomas Mann's Liibeck or the few stones that remain of the Berlin Synagogue on Fasanenstrasse or my mother's birthplace or Red Square had its beginning in my past. No beginnings and no endings, either. Once I went to the point of Cape Ann the day after a hurricane had passed out to sea. T h e day was warm and the sun was shining; the white waves picked up pieces of the sun that glistened on the water and deposited them at the foot of the rocks that mark land's end. And down clambered a few young men who poked into the rock pools to see what the retreating waters had left behind. Far out the ocean heaved and a little wave formed, hardly more than a ripple. It moved toward the coast silently, gathering weight and speed, and when it hit the rocks it was with terrifying suddenness and with the earth-shaking sound of an artillery barrage. T h e young men held on to the rocks to avoid being pulled out to sea; when the wave receded they emerged from the water cut and bleeding. T h e hurricane had not ended. Nine months have passed since we left Europe. Ripples from the storm still come up on the beach. We have given

222

A S U M M I N G UP

messages and pictures to the Israeli relatives of some of those we met, and have looked at their faces as they listened to us. We have received letters from the United States from the families of some of those we met in Poland and the Soviet Union. Mr. Jakobovitch's "daughter" is not his daughter; she is his niece, the daughter of his murdered brother. T h e adopted son of Mr. X in Warsaw has discovered his real parents—long thought to be dead—since his arrival in Israel. T h e medical missionaries from Minnesota, who told us that they would pray that we become "completed Jews," are back in Minneapolis now. They distributed their Bibles to the Baptists of Moscow, and to us they write: "Knowing the supernatural presence and power of the living Christ in our own lives we can certainly say Yes to the Apostle Paul's words: 'My heart's desire and prayer for the Jews is that they might be saved.' " I have heard from the Indian in Quebec who was seeking information about those belts of wampum at Chartres. He is a sick man, he writes, and Quebec in winter is no place for a housepainter with rheumatism. Can I find him some indoor work in New York, maybe as a shoe salesman? Big tragedies and small tragedies. "God breaketh not all men's hearts alike," Richard Baxter wrote. Ripples from the storm (my storm) still roll up on the beach; and echoes from the Storm (their Storm) still thunder from the clouds. At Auschwitz I wrote about the dead: "When will the furies cease pursuing them?—when sheep may safely graze." Tonight I read what I had written in this journal about the museum in Tallinn: among the pieces of debris, now u n d e r glass, left at the death camp at Klooga, Estonia, is the identification card of Shepsul Proschow of Vilnius, born 1912, murdered at Klooga with his wife and children. I remember; Shepsul is the Yiddish word for sheep. What will separate the setting from the suffering? El Moleh Rachamim, [Lord God, full of mercy]. . . . Erbarme dich, mein Gott, Um meiner Zähren willen. . . . [Have mercy on me, Lord, For the sake of my tears. . . .]

INDEX Adams, Henry, 17 Aeroflot, 1 3 1 , 132-33, 134, 135 Aiguës Mortes, France, 9 Aix, France, 9-10 Akko, Israel, s 14 Alliance Israélite, 183 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 70 American Jewish Committee, 35, 2 1 1 American students in Israel, 192-95 Anti-Semitism, x-xi, 20, 54, 55,59,91,95, 99, 101-2, 106 Antonescu, Ion, 159 Arabs, 177, 178, 193-94, 199-201, 202 Aries, France, 9-10 Art, 7-8, 18, 24-26, 27, 62, 82, 88-89, 95-96, 126, 143-47, 154, 166, 169; and politics, 14-15, 95-97; primitivist painting, 15-16; paintings-within-paintings, 15-17; western art in Kiev, 65; modern Russian art in Kiev, 69; socialist realism, 89; socialist symbolism, 89 Ashurbanipal, cult figure, 6, 7, 220 Asian, Ana, 165 Asian clinic, 158 Auden, Wystan Hugh, 1-2, 61-62, 78, 220-21 Auschwitz, Poland, x, 21, 83, 114, 126, 180,220,222; meaning of, 25-26,42-47 Baal-Haness, Rabbi Meir, 208 Babel, Isaac, 149, 152, 153 Babi Yar, USSR, 63,64-65,67,83,98,132, 150 Baltimore, Maryland, 2, 70, 93, 99, 148, '53. 2'4 Barkana, Georga, 96 Barlach, Ernst, 23 bar Yohai, Rabbi Simeon, 208 Bathory, Stephen, 77 Baxter, Richard, 222

Becher, Johannes, 31 Beersheba, Israel, 214-15, 217 Beimler, Hans, 31 Benin bronzes, 27 Bergen-Belsen, Germany, 21 BerghoJtz, Olga, 113-14 Berun, Irving, 159 Bethlehem, Israel, 202 Brecht, Bertolt, 33, 103 Bremen, Germany, 24-26 Breughel, Pieter, 89, 208, 220-21 Brezhnev, Leonid I., 3, 32, 124, 126 British Museum, 6, 8 Bucharest, Romania, 157-61, 164-66 Budapest, Hungary, 121 Bukovina, Romania, 162 Bunuel, Luis, 209 Buxtehude, Diderik, 23 Cambodia, 2-4 Canada, 3, 17, 70, 1 1 5 Cape Ann, Massachusetts, >2 • Capitalism, 3 1 , 60-69, 100, 102-3, " 8 ' 156, 189, 191, 192, 202 Carlebach, Joseph, Rabbi of Lübeck, 22 Carpathi Tourist Agency, 164 Carpentras, France, 12 Cary, Joyce, 193 Cassirer, Paul, 35 Castro, Fidel, 32 Cavaillon, France, 12 Cemeteries, 11-12, 23, 47-48, 73, 74, 75-76,81, 113-14, 155, 162-63 Chagall, Marc, 16, 145 Chamber of Commerce of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 159 Chartres, France, 17, 222 Cherniakovsky, General, liberator of Vilnius, 85 Children of author, x, xi, 90, 110 China, 197-98 223

INDEX

224 Chmielnicki, Bohdan, 62 Christianity, x-xi, 4, 56, 100, 181-82; a n d variety of social systems, 161 ; Christian art of monasteries of Bukovina, 162; Christian pilgrims in Israel, 178, 1 7 9 - 8 1 , 2 0 3 - 4 . See also Churches, Jesus Churches: St. Peter in JafTa, 9; SauitesMaries in Saintes Maries d e la Mer, g; Marienkirche in Lübeck, 23; Katharinenkirche in Lübeck, 23; St. J o h a n n k i r c h e in B r e m e n , 24; Evangelical C h u r c h of O u r Lady in Bremen, 24; Cloister of St. Bernard in Ostroleka, 40-41; St. Vladimir's Church in Kiev, 63-64; Church of St. Anne in Vilnius, 77; C h u r c h of St. Jacobus in Vilnius, 77-78; Holy Ghost Church in Tallinn, ura 104-5; J Church in Riga, 104; C h u r c h of St. Irene in Istanbul, 170; C h u r c h of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, 180; Church of t h e Nativity in Bethlehem, 202-3; Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 203-4, 205; chapel of Dominus Flevit in Jerusalem, 204-6 Churchill, Winston, 31 CIBA, 1 4 - 1 5 Ciurlionis, Mikalojus-Konstantinas, 145 Civil rights movement in U.S., 192-94 Class struggle, 7 C o h a n , George M., 159 C o m m u n i s m , 38, 160-61 C o m m u n i s t Party, ix, 14-15, 53 C o m m u n i s t societies, 3 3 , 3 6 , 4 5 - 4 7 , 6 9 , 7 6 , 96-97, 107, 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 127, 153, 154-55. 158, 159, 160-61, 188-89, 192; see also Totalitarian Societies C o r d o b a , Spain, 18 Courbet, Gustave, 16 Cracow, Poland, 20, 42-55, 63 David, Jacques Louis, 14 Death, attitudes toward, 8, 13, 24-26, 45-47, 1 1 4 , 160 Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugène, 15 Denis, Maurice, 16 Détente, U.S.-Soviet, 55, 133, 143 Diaspora, 2 1 1 - 1 2 Dickinson, Emily, xii, 1 1 4 - 1 5 Dimitrov, Georgi, 31 Dreiser, T h e o d o r e , 111 Dubnow, Simon, 2 1 7 D u c h a m p , Marcel, 16 East Berlin, 30-34, 79, 105 Eastern Europe, 9, 191

Education, p o p u l a r views of, 90-91, 99, 100,201 Egypt, 109, 1 1 0 , 152, 197 Eisler, G e r h a r d , 31 ill Al, 160, 167, 1 7 1 - 7 2 , 206 El Moleh Rachamim, 180, 222 Erro, G u d m u n d u r , 1 6 - 1 7 Esau, 196 E u r o - C o m m u n i s m , 15 E u r o p e , Medieval, 37, 220 Evil, 5, 8, 58-59 Fascism, 37, 38, 68, 110, 220 Fisher, Wesley, 142-43 Ford, Gerald, 5 5 Forster, E. M., 36-37 France, 3, 9 - 1 0 , 1 4 - 1 5 , 181, 182 Frankists, 51 Frederic, Harold, x-xi Generations, 7 G e r m a n y , 9, 20, 22-23, 3'< " 6 . >78 Gheorgiu-Dej, G h e o r g h e , 159 Ghettos, 59, 80, 152 Goethe, J o h a n n Wolfgang von, 41 Gorky, Maxim, 90 Gros, Antoine J e a n , Baron, 15 Hamburg, Germany, 18-19 H a n s e n , Frida, 18 Hellman, Lillian, 6 8 Helsinki conference, 54, 55 Hemingway, Ernest, 191-92 History, 4 , 5 - 6 , 7 , 24-26, 1 1 7 , 186, 196-97, 211-12; personal, ix-x, 169-71, 218-21; historical m u s e u m s in communist societies, 30, 3 1 , 32, 47, 63, 85, 90, 100, 102-3, '°6> '53"54> '59. 222; American Jewish Committee, oral history project on Holocaust, 35, 2 1 1 - 1 2 ; communist historiography, 62-63, 106, 1 1 3 , 1 5 1 , 159; Jewishness a n d , 181, 2 1 0 H i d e r , Adolf, 31 Holocaust, 35, 180, 211-12 Holy Land, 9; see also Israel Honecker, Erich, 32 H o r n , Susanna, 96-97 Hotels, 28, 36, 66, 67, 72, 86, 103, 1 1 2 , " 5 . '37-38 Husyatin, USSR, ix, x, 148 Identity, a n d definition of Jewishness, x, 9, 178-82; self, a n d relationship to Israel, 173, 218-20; Israeli, 173; self, and fan-

225

INDEX tasies of childhood, >74-75; and changes in names, 195-98; of Jews in diaspora, 212 Ideology, 3-4, 6, 189; see also Religion Immigration, 187, 190 Imperialism, 54 Indians, Huron and Abenaqui, 17, 222; Kwakiud, 197 International Herald Tribune, Paris edition, 36, 1 3 1 , 191 Intourist, 61, 70, 71, 75,81,82-83,87-88, 89-90, 98, 105, 112, 116-18, 132-33, >35-3 8 ' >47: guides for, 62, 63. 64-65, 69,80,90-91,99-100, 104, 113, 116-17, 130, 144-46, 150-52, 201 Isherwood, Christopher, 1 Islam, 4, 167, 205-6 Israel, ix, x,6,22,50, 54,55,68, 109, 110, '73- '77. '84-85. '86, 188-89, '96-97. 198, 206; on being American Jew in, 9, 168, 218-20; and historical role of Jews, 33-34; U.S. Bicentennial celebrations in, 186,217; American students in, 192-95; relationship with diaspora, 211-12 Israels, Joseph, 18 Istanbul, Turkey, 160, 167-72 Italy, 158, 182 Jacob, 196-97 Jaffa, Israel, 9 Jakobowitsch, Mr., 50, 51-54, 222 Jamestown, Virginia, 154-55 Jerusalem, 109, 156, 177-78, 186, 204-6, 2 1 1 - 1 2 , 213-14 Jesus, 5, 162, 173-74, »02-3, 204 Jewishness, x, 4, 9, 99-100, 101, 168, 178-82, 193-94 Jewish Theater of Warsaw, 56 Jews, 10,12,25-26,33-34,41,115-16,167, 178-81, 211-12, 222; in Russia, xi, 21, 66-68, 74-76, 83-84, 92-95, 98-99, 100, 101,102, 106, 1 1 1 - 1 2 , 124, 150,151-53, 154-56; and Nazism, 35, 58-59, 83-84, 102-3, '°6; in Eastern Europe, 50-54, 162, 163; and names, 195, 196 John XXIII, Pope, 10 Johns Hopkins University, 1 Judaism, x, 1 1 , 12-13, 24, 27, 74-75, 76, 92, 120-21, 122, 149, 150, 175-77, '79. 207-9; see also Jewishness, Jews Kaddish, 13 Kaluszta, Mrs., Canadian visitor to birthplace in Lithuania, 70, 80-81 Katz-Suchy, Julius, 53

Kent, Rockwell, 65, 8g, 126, 154 KGB, 125, 139-40 Kibbutzim, 12, 179, 182-83, >09-10 Kiev, USSR, 61-69, 132, 150, 151 Kissinger, Henry A., 2, 68 Klooga, Estonia, 102-3, lo 5> Komsomol, 61, 155 Kontchalovsky, Petr Petrovich, 145 Kristallnacht, 1938, 28 Lag B'Omtr, 208-9 Law, 114, 162; see also Torah Le Monde, Paris, 36, 101 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 158; in art, 62, 65, 89, 129-30; museums of, 63; attributes of, 63, 69; letters and articles by, 157 Leningrad, USSR, n o , 113-27, 128, '»9-35 Lewis, C. Day, 1 Lilienthal, Alfred, 50 Lincoln Cathedral (England), 181-82 Little Hugh of Lincoln, 181-82 London, 1-8 London Daily Telegraph, 36 London Tim«, 2, 36, 101, 131 Louis IX, of France, 9 Lübeck, Germany, 20-23, 2 8 1 MacLeish, Archibald, 1 McNamara, Robert, 32 MacNeice, Louis, 1 Maimonides, Moses, 99 Malevich, Kazimir Severinovich, 145 Manet, Edouard, 15 Mann, Heinrich, 23 Mann, Thomas,'22, 23, 221 Mannion, Frank, 179-181 Marchais, Georges, 14-15 Mareks, Gerhard, 23 Margolius, Heda, 220 Marx, Karl, 98 Marxism-Leninism, 3-4, 160-61 Master of the Rebel Angels, Sienese painter, 14 Matisse, Henri, 16, 144 Merton, Robert K., 190 Mickiewicz, Adam, 78 Miercurea Ciuc, Romania, 162-63 Mikhoels, Solomon, 76 Missionaries, medical, 116, 222 Moldavia, Romania, 163 Montrueil, Eudes de, 9 Moscow, USSR, 118, 119, 128, 133, '35-38. 139, 221 Moses, 114, 162

ss6 Mosques, Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, 305-6; El Aksa, 205 Mt. Meron, Israel, 208 Moussourgslty, Modest Petrovich, 115 Mühsam, Erich, 31 Museums: National Portrait Gallery in London, 1 ; British Museum, 6,8; Christian Museum in Aries, 9; Museum of Medieval Archeology in Narbonne, 10; Musée Judeo-Comtadin in Cavaillon, 12; Hamburg Kunstmuseum, 18; of Convent of St. Annen's in Lübeck, 20-22 ; Belvedere of Schloss Charlotten burg in West Berlin, 27; Dahlem Museum in West Berlin, 27; National Historical Museum in East Berlin, 30, 32; Pergamum Museum in East Berlin, 32-33; Jewish Historical Institute and Museum in Warsaw, 47, 56; in Old Synogogue in Cracow, 4g; Lenin Museums, 63; Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Kiev, 65; Museum of Fine Arts in Vilnius, 73; Painting Gallery of Vilnius, 82; Archeological and Ethnographic Museum in Vilnius, 85, 106; Gallery of Latvian Art in Riga, 88-89; Ethnographic Museum in Riga, 90; Museum of Western Art in Riga, 96-97; Museum of the History of the Latvian SSR, 100, 106; Historical Museum in Tallinn, 102-3, 22s; Museum of Russian Art in Leningrad, 117; Hermitage Museum, 120, 126-27, 130, 138-39; Tretyakov Gallery of Russian Painting, 144-46; Pushkin Museum, 144-46; Guggenheim Museum in New York, 145; Ethnographic Museum in Odessa, 153-54; Historical Museum in Bucharest, 159; Archeological Museum in Istanbul, 16g; museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, 217; Museum of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 217 Myths, 5, 8, 24-26, 138

Narbonne, France, 9, 10 Narbonne, Rabbi Meir of, 9 National Portrait Gallery, London, 1 Nazi death camps and labor camps, 31,98; see also Auschwitz, Babi Yar, BergenBelsen, Klooga, Paneriai, Salespils Nazis, 21-22, 23,45-46,58-59,83-84,100, 102-3, 1 '3> 1 2 0 < 211-12 New York, 67,73,74,80,81,85,90-91,92, 112, 121, 184, 214

INDEX New York Times, x-xi, 101, 131 Nolde, Emil, 16 Nottke, Berat, 104 Odessa, USSR, 147-56, 183 Oistrakh, David, 66, 148-49, 152 Opie, Iona and Peter, 174-75 Ostroleka, Poland, ix, 38-41 Paneriai, Lithuania, 75, 81, 82-83, 84, 98, 105-6 Parents of author, ix, x, xi, 24, 26, 38-41, 7 ° . 93- 97. '»6. »48. 159-6°. 2«' Paris, 2, 14-17 Passover seder, 27, 179, 216 Pasternak, Leonid, 88 Pauker, Ana, 159 Pavlovsk, USSR, 120, 127 Peg, farmer's wife from Connecticut, 206-7, 209-10 Petrodvoretz, USSR, 127 Peyronnet, Dominique, 15-16 Picasso, Pablo, 16 Pinter, Harold, 5 Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, 113>4 Poland, ix, 21,22,50-54,55,58-59,62,69, 77-78, 104 Potemhn, 147-48, 149 Prague, Czechoslovakia, 30, 36, 49, 63, 105, 162, 220 Prokofiev, Sergei, S., 66 Proschow, Shepsul, 103, 222 Purim party, Tel Aviv, 175-77 Purvitis, Vilhelms, 82, 88, 89 Pushkin, USSR, 119-20, 127 Rrfusenik, 122, 123-26 Religion, 4, 5-6, 14-15, >61, 208-g; see also Ideology Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, 62 Renn, Ludwig, 31 Repin, Ilya, 88 Restaurants, 32,37-38,72,86-87,89- 1 0 1 • 118-19, 128, 133-35, 140-44, 159-60 Riga, Latvia, 86-100, 101, 102, 111, 122, 201, 217 Ringelblum, Emanuel, 217 Romania, 157, 158-59, 160, 161, 165 Rome, 159, 182; classical, 37, 85, 220 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 31, 196 Rosenblatt, Yosele, 72, 74, 84 Rosenthal, Janis, 82, 88, 89

227

INDEX Rosk Hashanah, 76, 88; in Riga, 92-95. 97*99' 1 0 1 • 1 1 0 Ras tropovich, Mstislav, 66 Russia, Czarist, x-xi; see also USSR St. Augustine, 14-15 St. Rémy, France, 11-13 Saintes-Maries de la Mer, France, 9-10 Salem, towns in America, 186 Salespils, Latvia, 98 Santiago de Compostela, 208, 209 Satan, 5, 25, 33 Sawyer, Tom, 56 Schlesinger, Arthur M., 196 Schoenberg, Arnold, 114 Schofield, Penrod, 56 Serov, Valentin A., 144 Shishkin, Ivan, 88 Sholem Aletchem, 111-12, 152 Shostakovitch, Dmitri, 66 Shovkoonenko, Ukrainian artist, 69 Socialism, xi, 31, 68-69, 100, 102-3, 1 156, 158-59, 165, 189, 191, 192, 202 Soirees, Tel Aviv, 215-16 Solzhenitsyn, Alcksandr I., 55 Spender, Stephen, 1 Stalin, Joseph, 3, 68, 76, 99, 156 Sukhoth, Odessa, 149-50 Susquehanna River, 99 Synagogues: Avignon, 11; Cavaillon, 12; Carpentras, 12-13; Lübeck, 20-22; Berlin, 28,221 ; Cracow, 47-49; Warsaw, 56; Kiev, 63, 64-65, 66; Vilnius, 70-75, 79, 81; Riga, 88, 92-95, 97-99. n o , 122; Tallinn, 105,107-8; Leningrad, 120-23; Odessa, 149-50,152,153; Radauti, 162; Istanbul, 167 Tallinn, Estonia, 101-12, 222 Tel Aviv, Israel, 109, 160, 167, 171-72, '75-77. 187-210, 213 Telegraph, London Daily, 36 Terror, 28, 58-59, 125, 150, 188, 211-12 Thaelmann, Ernst, 31 Thailand, 2 Thorez, Maurice, 31 Tiberias, Israel, 207-8 Times, of London, 2, 36, 101, 131 Torah, 13, 150; see also Law Totalitarian societies, 27, 28, 36; see also Communist societies Truman, Harry, 31

Tunisia, 182, 183 Turowicz, Jerzy, 54, 105 UAW-CIO, 201-2 Uhse, Bodo, 31 Ukraine, USSR, 62-63. 69 Ungeni, USSR. 157-58 USSR, ix, xi, 6, 21, 22, 33, 61, 102, 120, »3°. '54-55. '58. '60-61, 188-89, 191-92, 219; tourist history, 62-63, 1 '3< 151; Jews in, 65,66-68,72-73,74-76,79. 91,92-95,97-99,102, 103,105,108-12, 121-26, 150, 151-53 United States, xi, 3, 33, 55, 74-75, 92, 93. 110-11, 132, 149, 181, 201-2; history of Jewish survivors of Holocaust in, 35, 212; tourists abroad, 131-32, 133-35; Bicentennial celebrations in Israel, 186, 217; American-Jewish students in Israel, 192-94, 195 Universities: Columbia University in New York, 55, 74,85,87,104, 106, 129, 131; Jagiellonian University in Cracow, 55; university in'Vilnius, 77-78; University of Tartu in Estonia, 104, 106, 111; Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 192-94; Tel Aviv University, 194-95, 201; Beersheba University, 217 Venus de Milo, 15 Vilnius, Lithuania, 20,70-85,91,101,102, 107, 139, 145. 222 Walters, Janis, 82, 88, 89 Warburg, Paul, 18 Warsaw, Poland, 36-41, 56-60 West Berlin, 27-29, 35 Wife of author, 6, 78, 90, 91, 92, 93, 106, 111, 123, 125, 133, 144, 145, 164, 177, 183, 184, 206, 208 Wolf, Friedrich, 91 Women, 77, 199-202 Yad Vashem, 180-81, 2 1 1 - 1 2 , 2 1 7 YIVO [Jewish Institute for Scientific Research], 73, 217 Yom Ktppur, Leningrad, 120-21, 122 Zionism, 50, 116, 182-83. '93-95: antiZionism, 102 Zoos. 18, 23, 165