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embassy res ponded to these insistentl y recurre nt ques ti ons, but I
ass ume tha t a typical react ion was roughl y as fo ll ows : "I don't know
if it is a good or bad thing. We have neither the poss iblity nor the
ri ght
to
te ll our citi zens to whom they mayor may not ta lk. We are
no t a tota lita ri a n country. Did they see the Ambassador Z? W e don't
know . Should we know? Why? A re we a poli ce sta te?" This in turn
would elicit a condesce nding smile on the visitor' face, or a rema rk :
"Well , the NKVD knows ." "Yes, but we a re not the NKVD ." The
mil e lingered. "Well , you should not be so wa ry of the NKVD . T he
NKVD is in some ways a very wi se instituti on , it just ought to be
used fo r proper purposes ." T he phrase fe ll sile nt , unfini shed , but the
though t which it brought to the fo re persisted . And I recalled the
predi cti on made once by Broniewski a nd Al ter : people who come
out of Russ ia will neve r be enthusias ts of the kolkhoz sys tem , wor–
shippers of Fi ve -Year Pla ns o r propagandi sts fo r M agnitogorsk, but
how they will view the NKVD is not qui te clear. The Sov iet eco–
nomic sys tem will no t have the ir admira ti on , but whether they will
not be incl ined to take back home some as pects of the Sov iet power
sys tem , tha t is quite a nother ma tte r.
In the meantime Alter a nd Erlich did talk with ma ny for–
e igners. In thi s res pec t they were like ma ny other Poles wh o came
out o f the camps. Foreigners mad e a point of seeking them out. This
was ha rdl y surpri sing. A fo reigner in Ru ss ia sees ve ry little. For the
first time there was occasion to ta lk to men who came out of the
Butyrki or Lubi a nka prisons, me n who faced death sen tences. They
were a la rge a nd colorful group . There we re splendid-looking gen–
era ls like Anders with his la rge-scale milita ry calcul at ions a nd pla ns,
there were brilliant conve rsationa lists, politicia ns, write rs, J esuits.
But in tellectuall y, Alter a nd Erlich rose above eve ryone in thi s con–
clave. T hese spokesmen of the ghettos were the leas t parochi a l, the
most European fi gures in the group . Even if they did no t speak as
good a n English as some others, the te no r of their English was twen–
tieth ce ntury ra ther tha n eighteen th ce ntury. For Quentin
Rey nolds, for Philip J o rda n , fo r the bes t j ourna lists se nt by the
la rgest conce rns a nd the mos t responsible newspape rs, they were
bo th the leas t exo tic a nd the mos t cred ible witnesses .
The sniping of the zealots went on unaba ted. "Wha t a re they
saying to thi s Englishma n about Lvov or Vi Ina?" "Well , probabl y
the same they were saying back in Pola nd ." "Well , a fi ne thing. Don't
you know tha t the Bund was pre tty nearl y a Bolshevik pa rty?" "Is
tha t why their leade rs were promptl y arres ted ?" "Oh , we know
