All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [117]
On that particular day the session was stormy. Some European and Israeli delegates feared the negotiations would result in the practice of “forgive and forget.” Tempers flared. I had never seen such a disorderly, tumultuous debate. Everyone was talking at once, and we interpreters were swamped, unable to decide whom to translate. I passed a note to Teddy, who sat in the next booth. He passed a note back to me: “Translate Dr. Goldmann, he’s paying the bills.” So I concentrated on the president as he pressed his case like a general facing mutinous troops; but hardly anyone was listening, and those who were, shouted their disagreement. Goldmann hurled slogans and reprimands, but to no avail. I vaguely heard him say to a former Latvian minister, Rabbi Mordechai Nourok, a bearded old man with a prophet’s face: “This is not a matter of sentiment; the point is to save the economy—and therefore the existence—of the Jewish state.” The rabbi tried to answer, but Goldmann cut him off: “That’s why I wanted this to be a closed-door session. If the West German government found out the tenor of what you’re saying here, they might take it badly.” To which Rabbi Nourok, with a strained voice, responded, “And you’re more concerned about German sensibilities than about our brothers’?”
The discussion grew more and more violent. Would there be a commemoration of German crimes or not? In the end Rabbi Nourok asked: “We won’t even say Kaddish?” Goldmann’s response: “Which will profit Israel more, the Kaddish or German financial compensation?”
When the session ended, I asked my colleagues whether I had heard Goldmann right. Was he really against saying Kaddish for the victims? I needed confirmation, because when you are translating so fast, it is not easy to retain what is said. My colleague in the booth reassured me. I had heard right.
Now I had a big problem: As an interpreter I was sworn to secrecy; but as a journalist did I have the right not to report to the Israeli and Jewish public the outrageous words I had just heard? I asked Teddy for advice. He too was troubled. He could not fathom Goldmann’s position, but thought he must have had his reasons, reasons of state perhaps. “In any case,” Teddy said, “I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to report this in your newspaper. But you would have to resign from the team first.”
I panicked. Was I ready to give up two hundred dollars a day, not to mention the per diem, be poor again, go back to sleepless nights? It seemed too heavy a sacrifice. There were, on the one hand, food, the rent, the laundry, the métro, the shoemaker; on the other, the duty of informing my readers and, most of all, fidelity to memory. “So, what do you say?” Teddy asked. “What are you going to do?” Feeling myself go pale, I finally murmured, “I have no choice. I resign.”
Teddy’s face lost its habitual smile. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You know, I’m proud of you,” as though I had performed some heroic deed. But there was nothing heroic about it. A few hundred dollars just wasn’t worth it. My new friend continued to tell me how rare idealism was these days, but I listened with half an ear. Delegates were coming and going around us. The session was soon to reconvene—but without me.
I went to the telecommunications center and feverishly drafted a brief, indignant cable. It was a scoop, and naturally it made the front page, touching off a storm in both Israel and Geneva. Goldmann had to call a press conference, where Jewish journalists assailed him