All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [37]
Some commentators have compared the “elders of the Judenrat” to Pétain, ascribing the same good intentions (the effort to interpose themselves between the conquerors and the conquered) and the same errors (one cannot mingle with the enemy without being drawn into his logic) to both. But I don’t like analogies. No Jewish “elder” commanded the powers or resources of a Pétain or a Laval. The Judenräte headed not states but prisons. And let us not forget that the “elders,” too, were condemned to death because they were Jews. They enjoyed special privileges and they were able to eat their fill, but did they hold the power of life or death over their fellow Jews? Here we must say no, not really. The killers and their accomplices kept this right for themselves. True, the various Jewish officials could bestow favors, appoint assistants, and issue work permits, ration cards, or housing permits to relatives or friends, who were thereby granted a moment of respite until the next “action.” But no more than that. In the end all the ghettos were liquidated, along with their chiefs.
In our ghetto these ethical questions did not arise. Its leaders had no dilemmas of conscience to confront. We stayed too brief a time for a new social structure to be established or for conflicts to erupt. There was barely more than a month: that was not enough for our rules and customs to wither. True, the Germans appointed an assimilated engineer to the post of Judenälteste, or Jewish elder, but it was still the president of the community who had the ear and the respect of its members. We listened to the chief rabbi, not the police. I don’t know of a single case in which anyone is alleged to have been beaten or humiliated by the Jewish police or the Judenrat. Despite the overcrowding and strict rationing, there were no incidents of hatred or rancor. There was little or no corruption.
With hindsight I realize that it was in the ghetto that I truly began to love the Jews of my town. Throughout the ordeal they maintained their dignity as human beings and as Jews. Imprisoned, reduced to subhuman status, they showed themselves still capable of spiritual greatness. Against the enemy they stood as one, affirming their faith in their faith. Yes, I know very well that a community cannot be judged on its behavior over just a few weeks. But this is a question not of judgment but of love.
And I do love them, the Jews of my town, the Jews of the ghetto. That’s why I glorify them in my writings—and I make no secret of it. Unlike some of my colleagues, I refuse to dwell on ugliness and abjection. My characters are not sexually obsessed or pathologically greedy. Of course, they were not all messianic dreamers and aspiring poets. What of it? The enemy has heaped enough abuse on these Jews without my adding to it. He cast them into the mud and then denounced them as dirty. He starved them and then mocked their weakness. He distorted their features and then ridiculed their appearance. He tortured them, sickened them with sorrow and solitude, then called them madmen.
But to me the Jews of Sighet are neither ugly nor repulsive. Stripped of their property, crushed and mutilated, they still embody the nobility of Israel and the eternity of God, while their enemy—who is your enemy as well—embodies all that is most vile in man. I shall act not as their detractor, but as their melitz yosher, their intercessor. But no, I speak too soon. Who am I, what special merit entitles me to intercede on their behalf? They have no further need of that. On the contrary, may they be intercessors for me and mine on