April 11, 2005
NONE BUT THE RIGHTEOUS:
Acts of Quiet Courage (Bob Herbert, 4/11/05, The New York Times)
Felix Rohatyn knew that he and a handful of relatives had been lucky to get out of Nazi-occupied France in the early-1940's, when he was 12 years old. But there were details about the harrowing escape that have only recently come to light.Mr. Rohatyn, now 76, is the financier who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970's and later served as ambassador to France during the Clinton administration. His family was Jewish, and originally from Poland. In the fall of 1940 the dark night of the Holocaust was spreading across France with terrifying speed. Foreign-born Jews were in the most immediate peril. Scores of thousands would be turned over to the Germans, with most being sent to Auschwitz.
About a month ago, in his Park Avenue office, Mr. Rohatyn took a call from a stranger with information that would bring the saga of his family's escape into much sharper focus. The man said he had photocopies of the visas that were used to get the family out of France. He wondered if Mr. Rohatyn would be interested in seeing them.
"Of course I was interested," said Mr. Rohatyn. "So this fellow showed up, a very nice man, and he had a photostat of these papers, these documents, with my picture, my mother's picture, my stepfather's picture ...
"I had never known how we obtained the visas. They got us out of France about six months before the Germans started sending all the foreign Jews off to Auschwitz. I was never able to figure it out. And everyone - my mother, my stepfather - everyone who was involved in this process is dead."
The "very nice man" who seemed to have appeared out of the blue was Joao Crisostomo, a vice president of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He was putting together a program to honor the heroic efforts of two diplomats - Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas, the wartime Brazilian ambassador to France, and Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux.
We'd all like to think we'd have done the right thing, but in reality so few did. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 11, 2005 11:44 PM
It's too easy to talk about "the right thing" from a position of safety. When the lives of one's family, friends and associates are at stake ... in addition to one's own life ... the righteous path is not as clear. Throw in a heavy dose of ambient antisemitism, and it's murky indeed.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 12, 2005 1:09 AMAbsolutely true.
One would hope, should one ever be tested, to be able to do that right thing, whatever, whenever, that right thing might be. But often (unless you're an exceptional individual), you can never know exactly until the moment of decision.
Which makes all those people who risked their lives (and often the lives of their dear ones) so heroic.
On the other hand, so many of them deny they were doing anything really out of the ordinary.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at April 12, 2005 2:52 AMJust pray you never have to find out.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at April 12, 2005 4:22 AMThere, but for the grace of god ...
Posted by: jd watson at April 12, 2005 5:18 AMPoles did the right thing. Many paid with their lives after WWII when Cyrankiewicz, Rokossowskii, Minc, Berman, Brus and others Stalin puppets murdered 30,000 or so members of the Home Army which had fought the Nazis (and had helped the Warsaw Ghetto).
Posted by: David at April 12, 2005 5:52 AMThis is the reason why these stories need to be told, so that others now and in the future may know what the right thing is, and use these examples to steel themselves to take the same path.
Posted by: Mikey at April 12, 2005 8:25 AMReminds me of Travis McGee's friend Meyer, and his (moral) law, where the right thing to do was the most difficult thing to do.
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 12, 2005 10:50 AMOn a lighter note, the article says:
It was de Souza Dantas who provided the visas that saved young Felix Rohatyn and his relatives. Their flight to freedom took them from Marseilles (where they received their papers) to Algeria, Casablanca, Lisbon, Brazil and ultimately the United States.
That could not help but remind me of this:
With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Lisbon directly; and so a torturous, round-about refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles, across the Mediterranean to Oran [in Algeria], then by train or auto or foot across the rim of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here the fortunate ones through money or influence or luck might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca, and wait and wait and wait.
Posted by: David Cohen at April 12, 2005 12:55 PMThe most important sentence in this item is this: "Scores of thousands would be turned over to the Germans, with most being sent to Auschwitz." Note: "turned over" to the Germans. By whom? One guess.
Christians?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 13, 2005 2:59 PMNope,Frenchmen.
Posted by: oj at April 13, 2005 3:16 PM