Read Online The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas by Christopher Robbins - Free Book Online Page B
Book: The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas by Christopher Robbins
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Robbins
Ads: Link
Refugees, which in the fullness of time also achieved nothing.
The conference had been opened with a strong statement by its American chairman that the time had come for governments to act, and to act promptly. Newsweek reported: ‘Most government representatives acted promptly by slamming their doors against Jewish refugees.’ The Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter crowed in a headline: NOBODY WANTS THEM. Hitler himself, who had offered to transport the Jews anywhere on luxury liners, gleefully drove the point home. They complain in these democracies about the unfathomable cruelty that Germany... uses in trying to get rid of the Jews... But it does not mean that these democratic countries have now become ready to replace their hypocritical remarks with acts of help. On the contrary, they affirm with complete coolness that over there, evidently, there is no room! In short, no help, but preaching, certainly.’ [38]
At this stage, the Germans still wished to remove Jews from Germany and send them elsewhere. There was even a half-baked idea considered in senior Nazi circles to resettle them on the French island of Madagascar. Michel found the world’s rejection a moral outrage. ‘At the beginning the Germans would allow anyone to leave who had somewhere to go; their aim was to have a judenrein - Jew-free Germany. But there was not one single country - not one single country on the face of the earth that would accept Jews. They were undesirable. There was nowhere for them to go, not a desert or a jungle, not the North or South Poles. Nowhere.’
The world’s apathetic response to the fate of the Jews was a surprise to the Germans, an unexpected bonus that led directly in 1942 to the policy of the Final Solution and mass murder. ‘The Nazis were given the green light by the civilised world and decided to get rid of all the Jews through the chimney. The total indifference of the world was an unpardonable sin because it was more than the physical destruction of human beings, it was the spiritual destruction of human beings - the destruction of hope.
‘I make a sharp distinction between physical death and the death of the mind - the death of hope. People can die as martyrs with the belief system intact. But to go to your death with hope and faith taken away, to feel rejected by the world, to have belief torn from your heart, you become nothing... nobody.
‘There were those who despaired and found the situation hopeless. But it is not part of my character to be nihilistic or even cynical. I was not prepared to let reality overwhelm me. I wanted to find a way to fight back.’
It was a bleak time when nothing seemed to work and hope receded hour by hour. One day Suzanne met Michel in a café in a state of great excitement and announced she had found the solution to their problems. A British priest had generously offered to get pre-dated baptismal documents identifying them as Christians, and this would enable them to leave the country.
‘And you can do that?’ Michel asked.
‘We must go right away.’ Suzanne glowed with excitement and hope. ‘This will save our lives.’
‘How could you offer to do such a thing?’ Michel said, his anger building. ‘I am a Jew and I have to survive as a Jew.’
‘It’s just to get false papers,’ Suzanne said, exasperated. ‘It isn’t real. Does it mean so much to you to use fake papers?’
‘No, it does not mean much to use fake papers, but to deny my Jewishness and owe my life to that, how could I live with myself? I have to face myself every day and every night -how will I after this, denying who I am?’
They both became increasingly angry. Suzanne felt Michel was being stubborn and unrealistic, while he believed he had been asked to abandon the bedrock of his identity. He told Suzanne that he was shocked she did not know him better than to suggest such a course.
‘It will save our lives!’ she insisted.
‘Save your own life, not mine.’
‘How can you say
The conference had been opened with a strong statement by its American chairman that the time had come for governments to act, and to act promptly. Newsweek reported: ‘Most government representatives acted promptly by slamming their doors against Jewish refugees.’ The Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter crowed in a headline: NOBODY WANTS THEM. Hitler himself, who had offered to transport the Jews anywhere on luxury liners, gleefully drove the point home. They complain in these democracies about the unfathomable cruelty that Germany... uses in trying to get rid of the Jews... But it does not mean that these democratic countries have now become ready to replace their hypocritical remarks with acts of help. On the contrary, they affirm with complete coolness that over there, evidently, there is no room! In short, no help, but preaching, certainly.’ [38]
At this stage, the Germans still wished to remove Jews from Germany and send them elsewhere. There was even a half-baked idea considered in senior Nazi circles to resettle them on the French island of Madagascar. Michel found the world’s rejection a moral outrage. ‘At the beginning the Germans would allow anyone to leave who had somewhere to go; their aim was to have a judenrein - Jew-free Germany. But there was not one single country - not one single country on the face of the earth that would accept Jews. They were undesirable. There was nowhere for them to go, not a desert or a jungle, not the North or South Poles. Nowhere.’
The world’s apathetic response to the fate of the Jews was a surprise to the Germans, an unexpected bonus that led directly in 1942 to the policy of the Final Solution and mass murder. ‘The Nazis were given the green light by the civilised world and decided to get rid of all the Jews through the chimney. The total indifference of the world was an unpardonable sin because it was more than the physical destruction of human beings, it was the spiritual destruction of human beings - the destruction of hope.
‘I make a sharp distinction between physical death and the death of the mind - the death of hope. People can die as martyrs with the belief system intact. But to go to your death with hope and faith taken away, to feel rejected by the world, to have belief torn from your heart, you become nothing... nobody.
‘There were those who despaired and found the situation hopeless. But it is not part of my character to be nihilistic or even cynical. I was not prepared to let reality overwhelm me. I wanted to find a way to fight back.’
It was a bleak time when nothing seemed to work and hope receded hour by hour. One day Suzanne met Michel in a café in a state of great excitement and announced she had found the solution to their problems. A British priest had generously offered to get pre-dated baptismal documents identifying them as Christians, and this would enable them to leave the country.
‘And you can do that?’ Michel asked.
‘We must go right away.’ Suzanne glowed with excitement and hope. ‘This will save our lives.’
‘How could you offer to do such a thing?’ Michel said, his anger building. ‘I am a Jew and I have to survive as a Jew.’
‘It’s just to get false papers,’ Suzanne said, exasperated. ‘It isn’t real. Does it mean so much to you to use fake papers?’
‘No, it does not mean much to use fake papers, but to deny my Jewishness and owe my life to that, how could I live with myself? I have to face myself every day and every night -how will I after this, denying who I am?’
They both became increasingly angry. Suzanne felt Michel was being stubborn and unrealistic, while he believed he had been asked to abandon the bedrock of his identity. He told Suzanne that he was shocked she did not know him better than to suggest such a course.
‘It will save our lives!’ she insisted.
‘Save your own life, not mine.’
‘How can you say
Similar Books
