This Amazon warrior has become something of a schoolmarm, a veritable Ms Manners of the raging Cultural Wars. Thus, say I, “I don’t like delivering savage soundbites nor does debate as a blood sport turn me on.” Primly, I say: “Ideological opponents should engage in civilized exchanges and they should keep talking rather than retreating into dangerous silences or into overt warfare.
Oh what fine and pretty words–but what about those moments in history in which we must either act or we become collaborators in the death of others?
Either we rescue the child trafficked into sexual slavery or she dies, both slowly and soon enough, while she is still young. Either we rescue the victims of genocide or they die. There are no second chances. Memorial plaques and Truth and Reconciliation Committees do not resurrect the dead.
And acting always means risking everything: safety, happiness, health, our own lives, and perhaps the lives of our intimates. But, at certain moments in history, heroism is our only alternative. At least if we are heroes.
Some people pride themselves on non-stop talking; they never act. Instead, they consider “talking to the enemy” a moral virtue. But if talking substitutes for and glorifies non-action, then let me suggest that talking may be better suited for safe, not perilous times.
These thoughts lead me back to a film I saw at the Israeli Film Festival. “The Darien Dilemma” is a haunting and powerful drama made by a father and filmmaker son: Erez and Nahum Laufer.
In 1941, 1000 Viennese Jews were stranded on the frozen Danube awaiting rescue or certain death. The “Darien” was the name of the ship that the nascent Mossad (Israeli Secret Service) had purchased in order to transport these Jews to safety in Palestine. The “Dilemma” concerns how a small group of Palestinian Jewish heroes handled a direct order to abandon these Jews to their deaths–simply because the ship was needed as part of a larger political deal the Mossad had just forged with the British; the ship was to be used to help sabotage German oil supply lines.
What does it mean to disobey an immoral order or an order with which one disagrees? Is preserving the future of the Jewish state a greater good than that of saving imperiled Jewish lives? What kind of monsters can make such decisions? What kind of monsters can refuse to do so?
In this instance, and to their enormous credit, the Mossad members debated this decision for one full month. They reluctantly voted to obey the direct military order–and then they changed their minds and decided to disobey it. However, it was too late for the Darien refugees. There was no ship for them. Except for 200 teenagers whom the Mossad spirited away to join another Palestine-bound ship, all eight hundred refugees were shot to death by Austrian troops whom Hitler had impressed into service.
The film operates on several tracks at once. The historical moment is captured, not only with archival footage but by an Israeli theatre troupe whom we see in rehearsal and then as they re-enact a spell-binding dramatization of the events in Istanbul, Vienna, Bucharest, Tel Aviv, Belgrade, and Bratislava. More: Some of the living survivors of the Darien, now in their eighties, are interviewed on camera. It all works, as a dream does, and we do not know what is “real” from what is “acted.” All disbelief is suspended.
The hero of the film is a woman–Ruth Klieger. She was also a member of the same Zionist Youth movement that I joined in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a mere seven years after the Darien drama took place. Klieger was born in Kiev, Ukraine. She was fluent in nine languages, had received a law degree in Vienna, and was very beautiful (a fact she used to save other Jews, not merely to take care of Number #1).
Klieger left Palestine to re-enter a dangerous Europe. She personally commanded “The Tiger Hill,” the last ship to arrive in Palestine before Word War Two began and “The Hilda,” which arrived in Palestine in 1940 with 726 refugees. Ruth worked with the Hagana and the Mossad in Bulgaria, Istanbul, and Cairo. She discovered a Nazi-Egyptian plot and helped put Anwar Sadat into jail. Klieger also worked with the “Free French Forces” in Cairo.
Klieger was the first Mossad agent to enter liberated Europe. She conducted the first Passover seder for the survivors of Bergen-Belsen. Klieger was also part of the delegation at Lake Success when the United Nations declared Israel a state.
Yes, it has been rumored that Klieger and Ben-Gurion were more than just comrades and friends but whether that was true or not, Klieger still refused her final commission: According to some, Klieger had never been accepted as an equal by her mainly male comrades. She entered the private sector in Israel where she also excelled.
What a story! What a hero! In this lucky instance, heroism not only paid off–Klieger herself died in her bed, so to speak, and not in a Nazi interrogation cell, in Tel Aviv, in 1979.
Friends: Run, don’t walk to your local bookstore. I am told that Klieger was once the subject of a best selling biography by Peggy Mann. Read it–I’m certainly going to do so. But also, try to rent this wonderful movie as well–it will haunt and inspire you and you will never, ever forget it.
May we, in Klieger’s merit, acquit ourselves as nobly.
A fitting tribute on this Veterans’ Day to veterans of another common struggle that brought the US onto the side, however belatedly and reluctantly, of freedom loving Jews. The parallels with the contemporary conflict are painfully close.
All who understand what we face today should honor these martyrs to human decency by seeking out and watching this film rather than the mindless trash being offered up by Hollywood’s out-of-touch elite.
I will have to see “The Darien Dilemma.” Hopefully, I will not have to wait until it comes out in DVD. A used copy of “THE LAST ESCAPE: The Launching of the Largest Secret Rescue Movement of all Time” by Peggy Mann was available via Amazon.com. I should get it sometime late next week.
Judy
thanks for your Comments on “The Darien Dilemma” I think the following passage will interest you.
The following is my translation of 2 pages from Ruth Klieger Aliav 100 page testimony in 1978 given to Gershon Rivlin of Ben-Gurion Archive a few months before she passed away, the main part of this testimony is about her relations with Ben-Gurion, yet many other stories are told. Over 30 years passed since the following story took place and it was told,. (the words in brackets are mine)
———————-
I put my mind into reaching Eisenhower, at that time (1945) he was staying (Paris Headquarters) in Hotel Matinion and what I’ll ask for. I thought I’ll tell him that I’m the envoy of the people of Israel he’ll have to help me. I needed free access and passage, at that time there were no trains, planes, nothing, who could enter Germany?
I went to his bureau, there was a very sympathetic lady, young with white hair, she had a Red Cross armband, and I also saw her name, Cordila Trimbell.
I told her I want to see General Eisenhower, she gives me a stare
“For what?”
“Look, everyone cares for his own people, the Greeks see to their own (concentration camp) survivors, the Italians, the French, I’m with the Jews”
“How can the General help?”
“First of all I need free passage, I need to go to the camps in Germany”
” Young girl as you, you weren’t afraid to come to Europe?”
“I’m not seventeen” (Ruth was 36 and divorced)
She said she’d have to talk with his adjutant, “Come tomorrow”,
“I’ll wait outside maybe she can speak with him now, the situation is so and so, if she’ll see the people coming to me from the camps etc’ etc’.”
Yes she heard much about these problems, she’ll try.
She went in and came out “The General will see you for 10 minutes in the afternoon”.
I didn’t tell anybody, I was afraid they’ll laugh at me, won’t believe me, I was very careful not say anything.
In the afternoon I came to Eisenhower, he looks at me and even doesn’t ask me to sit, quickly I told him I need a permit for free passage for I have to travel etc’ etc’.
“You are from Unrwa?”
“I would like to be a part of Unrwa, but I don’t know how?”
“What are your recommendations?”
“My recommendation! I am the ambassador from my Government in Jerusalem”
I was standing already about 3 minutes,
“Please sit down’” and he continues
“What do you want to do? What do you need? We have a department that takes care of the refugees (Displaced People, DPs)
“How do I reach him? I don’t know him”
” I also didn’t know him… I’ll tell them to meet you, good luck and success”
I left and got a note from Cordilia Trimbell, and went to Colonel Ernest Witte.
I came, there is sitting a handsome tall young man with a smile.
“Sit, what can I do for you?’
“See, I have to send my people home, the refugees”
“Who are your people?”
“Jews!’
“What do you mean by Home? Where do you want to send them?’
” Home, to Palestine!”
“Oh, No”
For a second I thought what does this guy know about White Book, what does he know, why this response,
“I mean Palestine”
“No”
” No I don’t mean Palestine Texas”
“I am from Palestine Texas”
“I mean Palestine Middle East”
“Ah, what can I do? How can I help?
“First of all I need a permit, to travel by plane and trains, then I need a ship and trains’
” One minute, ever served in the army?”
“Sure, I am in the army” (Ruth was in the Mossad a unit of the Hagganah, underground army)
“What is your rank?”
“Colonel”
“I will give you a honor rank of colonel (in the US army) and papers go to the quartermaster and take a uniform.”
“What about a ship’
“I don’t have one”
” Yes you have, you have troopships taking the boys home’
“That is correct’
” So give the boys a week of good time in Paris, a ship will go from Marseilles or Toulon 10 days back and forth, Just a little good will and the boys they had a such hard time, rahmonous”
“I’ll see what I can do!, how will that help, the ship takes 500 soldiers, but civilians, women, children maybe 240 you can’t take more”
“OK”
At least something, till I will find out how to manage, maybe now after the war there will be ships, something will start…
In short I got the uniform, rank and permits of Colonel, and authorization to give permits who flies, who travels, in all I represent the US government.
The testimony continues in other matters, and doesn’t mention the ship.
Witte arranged for a troopship, “Ascanious”, Ruth packed the ship with 2600 survivors most of them from Bergen Belsen, the ship sailed for Haifa the Brits had to take them into Palestine, Colonel Witte wanted to repeat and do a second trip but Eisenhower put a veto on that. Yet he didn’t take any reprisal on Ruth, she continued to be a Colonel in US army and visited his headquarters on several occasions. Also Ruth arranged a meeting between Eisenhower and Ben-Gurion.
Nahum Laufer
Researcher
Erez Laufer Films
laufern@netvision.net.il
http://www.thedariendilemma.com