T H E HUMAN IT IES AND CULTUR E H EROES
733
In fac t, I believed the very opposite and saw th em as exceedingly stupid .
Th ey di d no t share o ur phil osoph y: Acti o n Now o r Ali ya, the mysti cal
Heb rew term fo r it, meaning two things in one. Settling in the land of
Israe l is linked to the experi ence of rejuve nati o n , a kind o f renaissance.
O urs was in every respec t an un-J ewi sh philosophy, not the old "eat first
and talk later" sc hoo l, but "act now , talk later, and forge t abo ut ea ting
altoge th er. " T he fle shpo ts o f Egypt are no t transpo rtable. so you 'd
better forget them!
Despite all th e good will and sympath y fo r o ur ca use th ere was
amo ng a gentile , wo rld publi c, th e British gove rnment also had Arab
interests to co nsider. And bes ides, wo rds like assassinati on and sa botage
could not be taken li ghtl y or igno red . Palestin e remain ed more o r less
closed to mass immi grati o n. In 1937, o ne yea r before the Anschluss, we
did know what was coming. Do n 't beli eve th ose who tell you we were
shortsighted , provin cial fogheads, naive o r igno rant. N ot even children
we re naive, fa r from it. Eve ryo ne wa nted to ge t out , to li ve. But to live
had become a pri vilege of th ose who kn ow how to ge t ho ld o f the
ri ght papers. Ultimately, thi s depended on the internal politi cs of internal
C hristi an affa irs, in whi ch some Jews may have had a vo ice but in whi ch
none had any fin al say.
Euro pea n-Chri sti an ethi cs we re o nce mo re being put to the test.
Wh en wa r broke out , Eu rope showed its enlightened face, for instance
when th e Ru ss ian Communi sts deli ve red Ge rman Communists to th e
Ges tapo until June 22, 1941, the day before the Ge rmans in vaded . Let's
no t just menti o n the J ews. It became a test o f ethi cs, o f prin ciples, of
va lu es that left most o f Europe in ruins and a starving populati on , mil–
li o ns sick in body and soul, and fifty milli o n dead at th e end o f a wa r
whi ch , had it lasted a mere few months lo nge r and left not a single soul
ali ve in the penal coloni es, wo uld have become what Kafk a had fo reseen
twenty yea rs ea rli er. This was th e other appeal o f th e Zio ni sts: " Do n 't
let them kill yo u! Do n' t foll ow their o rders. If th ey eve r ca tch you, try
to escape. And do n 't let th em ca tch you to begin with ."
A few yea rs later, by this time in Amsterdam, I could test my courage
afte r I had los t all my fea rs. The insane co urage it too k fo r o ur no n–
J ewish fri ends in th e underground to supply us with fo rged identi ty pa–
pers was inspirati o n enough to try to survive.
I had been w riting sin ce my schoo ldays in Vi enna, and of course I
continued in H o ll and . In fac t, I couldn ' t stop w riting - poems, sketches
fo r the stage, essays o r sto ri es, anything that came to mind . Writing and
fi ghtin g we re the same to me. Compared to learning to fi ght the fea r of
the gentil e neighbo r who could se ll you or just give you away for free,
to showing yourself unafraid and feeling unafraid, learning how to write
seemed like child 's play. It was n't. The harder it was, th e mo re I loved
