All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [90]
But I did know I was joining the fight, and that gave me a sense of joy I had never felt before: the joy of action—even better, the joy of underground action.
For me the Resistance was the essence of everything that was ethical and noble in society. Physical courage, self-sacrifice, and solidarity could be found even in the lower depths; total compassion, rejection of humiliation either suffered or imposed, and altruism in the absolute sense were found only among those who fought for an idea and an ideal that went beyond themselves. Nobility of action was found only among those who espoused the cause of the weak and oppressed, the prisoners of evil and misfortune. In my eyes, the anti-Nazi Resistance embodied that kind of nobility, and it disturbed me that I had not been part of it. True, I was too young to join the underground Communist network that distributed leaflets against the bourgeoisie in Sighet, and in Buchenwald I was too fearful and apathetic to join the clandestine organization of whose existence I was in any case unaware. Still, I felt frustrated and deficient, not whole. Now I had the chance to redeem myself.
The Irgun, of course, had nothing to do with the French Resistance. For one thing, the enemy was not the same. For another, I was quickly disabused of any romantic ideas about secret meeting places, passwords, nighttime journeys, pretty girls serving as liaisons. There may have been some of this in the Irgun, but I didn’t experience it. Nor was there in my experience any intrusive interrogation, detailed examination of my past, or oath with one hand on the Bible and the other on a revolver. There was just a friendly conversation and a handshake, nowhere near enough for a suspense film. If I imagined that I would be living a life of danger, I was soon disappointed: I was risking neither death nor imprisonment. Even deportation from France was unlikely. Stateless persons were rarely deported; that was one of the few advantages of the status. In the worst case, I would join Bea in the displaced persons camp. But underground or not, I was happy, for I was now part of a Jewish resistance movement.
Overnight I had a job, a way of life I would grow to love—for was there any more absorbing vocation or fascinating prospect for a boy of nineteen in this time of postwar turmoil? I read Joseph Kessel’s news reports, Camus’s editorials in Combat and Altman’s in Franc-Tireur, François Mauriac’s polemics in Le Figaro. I wanted to follow in their footsteps, stand at the nerve center of events, live in the midst of life, inform, explain, and participate in the planet’s upheavals. I pictured myself as a star foreign correspondent taking planes and ships, penetrating the Sahara or the jungles of Africa, making contact with lost tribes anxiously awaiting discovery. Only, reality did not tally with the dream.
The following Monday I presented myself at the editorial office. Joseph, the boss, showed me to a desk, handed me an article in Hebrew, and asked me to translate it. The article, published in the Irgun’s newspaper in Israel, was a denunciation of David Ben-Gurion and the Haganah and a paean to Menachem Begin, commander in chief of the Irgun. I translated the Hebrew words into Yiddish without grasping their meaning. I knew that the Haganah was fighting the British as hard as the Irgun was, and I couldn’t understand why the two movements hated each other so much. The article also mentioned the Lehi (the so-called Stern Gang), but what was its role? Perhaps I was too politically naïve to understand. I pictured the Jewish fighter as an idealist striving for the redemption of our people, a man of purity, motivated by the poetry of his