An Uncommon Friendship

Interview with Fritz Tubach

Could you briefly describe these double memoirs?

Why did you write this book?

Tubach: The Holocaust assaulted everything that makes up the sanctity and uniqueness of an individual human being. Our memoirs are an attempt to oppose and defy this deadly leveling of individual human beings. The chapter that deals with the Holocaust ("The Maelstrom: To Auschwitz and Beyond") is preceded by a chapter on our childhoods in which we carefully portray the texture of rural life in two European villages, one in Hungary where Bernie lived, and one in Germany where I grew up. In the case of Bernie' s Orthodox family, we try to create portraits of people for whom no physical memorabilia exist. The only documented proof of Bernie' s existence before the age of thirteen is his name as it appears in the Nazi lists of inmates to enter the Mauthausen concentration camp to which he was transferred in September, 1944. We did not end our memoirs with the close of WWII, because our subsequent lives as Americans are essential to who we are today. America provided us with a playing field to develop our individual talents, live our personal lives freely and to pursue careers of our choosing. In writing the book we did not let Hitler's timetable for the destruction of the Jews decide when our stories should begin or end.

Was the writing of these memoirs difficult for you?

Tubach: It wasn' t easy, although Bernie and I had no personal problems with each other, none at all. After all, we were friends. But we each had problems with ourselves. By the time we finished the manuscript, Bernie opened himself up more and more to the emotions that lay hidden behind his accounts--the suffering, the horror of it all. It was hard for him at times to "stab into his memory bank" as he called it, to confront what emerged for him out of his past. In some cases we were more than two years into our work together before these fragmentary recalls from his past emerged. Consequently, certain episodes have a particular glow and intensity. As for myself, I was surprised, unpleasantly at times, at things I had repressed from my youth. Encouraged by Bernie, I confronted them. It was particularly hard to deal with my father, a counter-intelligence officer in the German General Staff on Guernsey and an active member of the Nazi party since 1933. As time went on I became more and more aware of how the Nazis tried to mold young minds such as mine. In the book I also pay homage to my stepmother, a convinced anti-Nazi, who had the courage to confront the local Nazi authorities and prevent my admission to the Adolf Hitler School. The process of making ourselves whole was an important part of the process of writing, and the process has not ended, even now. It probably never will for our generation that lived through these horrid times.

What, in your opinion, did Germans know about the Holocaust at the time?

Tubach: The enormity of the Holocaust sometimes persuades people to accept simple, comprehensive answers, without "ifs" and "buts". On the one extreme there is Daniel Goldhagen, who believes that virtually all Germans shared the mentality of willing executioners of the Jews, and on the other are those who claim that only a handful of people, led by the Nazi top echelon, were guilty. I think that neither extreme is tenable. In our book, I speak for myself and for others I knew in my youth.

What is your opinion of contemporary Germany in relation to its Nazi past?

Tubach: I am aware that many people will never forgive Germany its past sins, and I can understand that point of view. But I think this view becomes less acceptable the more time passes. Since the end of WWII, more than two generations of Germans have lived in a civil society. Democracy has taken root. Americanization as well, for better or worse. A younger generation is in charge. Germany has changed much more than, say, France, in the last half century. Problems of racial and ethnic conflict remain, to be sure--especially in the new eastern provinces--that are not dissimilar to hate crimes in other European countries or America, although they receive more media attention. Following these incidents, large public protests often occur in Germany, more so than America or other countries. I think that the majority of Germans are particularly sensitive to the excesses of the extreme right. When Bernie and I visited Germany together in 1997, he noticed that far more had been done in Germany to commemorate the Jews than had been done in his native Hungary.

How did you and Bernie meet and become friends in the first place?

Tubach: It was a chance coincidence of the type that happens only rarely in a lifetime. Our wives had attended high school together in Los Angeles but had lost sight of each other for twenty years when they ran into each other one day in a local pharmacy. When they realized they had both married European men about 15 years older whose first wives had died of cancer leaving orphaned children, they decided we should all get together. We hadn' t known it, but we were living at that time within five blocks of each other in the same neighborhood. Our common interests as well as the openness and vitality of the Bay Area made our friendship quite natural. But it was over ten years before Bernie and I started talking to each other about our pasts.

What is the relevance of your book today?

Tubach: With ethnic, religious and nationalistic determinism on the rise all over the world, our story is proof that our shared common humanity might have a chance. Solutions will require improved economic conditions, of course, but just as important are one-to-one encounters--Israelis with Palestinians, Irish Catholics with Protestants, Bosnian Muslims with Serbian Orthodox Christians, Pakistanis with Indians, American blacks with whites, and so on--that prevent people from reducing complex problems to "us vs. them." Once you know an individual from a different group well, at least you can no longer reduce him/her and his/her family to something one-dimensional.

Interview with Bernat Rosner

How do you feel about Germans and Germany?

Are you angry about what the Nazis did to Jews in general and your family in particular?

Rosner: I am not angry, but as far as the individuals responsible for the horrors of Auschwitz and the Holocaust are concerned, I most certainly believe that they should have been made to suffer at least a fraction of the hurt and anguish that they inflicted on their victims. I have always been a great believer in getting on with my life and being angry is not an effective way of accomplishing this. I suppose one way to summarize my attitude is to quote the old American homily, "Don' t get mad--get even." That is exactly what the Israelis did when they grabbed Eichmann and brought him to trial.

How was the slaughter of the Jews of Hungary allowed to happen?

Rosner: Outside help to prevent it was not available or forthcoming, for reasons for which there are no clear answers even today. As far as what the Jews of Hungary could have done for themselves, when you consider that much of the Jewish population consisted of families with the usual mix of elderly parents, grandparents, little children, etc., who were born and rooted in their communities leading peaceful lives, their means of resisting or escaping from the onslaught of well-armed vicious thugs were quite limited. Also there was no place to which they could practically escape or that would accept them. Finally, like most people, they did not want to face up to the stark reality of what was waiting for them.

Why did you want your story told in a third person narrative form?

Rosner: Different survivors have different ways of coping with their pasts. My friend Simcha, for example, who was my buddy during most of the time that we were in the camps--you could not possibly have survived without a buddy system--simply will not talk about his experiences, not even to his wife and children. My way has been to pretend that it all happened to someone other than me. The format of the book is in large part due to the concept that the "Bernie" of the story is not the same person as I am, that all the horror of those earlier years happened to someone else.

Did the Holocaust change your relationship to your religion?

Rosner: During my time in the concentration camps I retained my deep faith, although obviously I could not practice it. The change in my religious attitude came shortly after the war. During this time I was in an orphanage in Italy, which was run by Palestinian Jews who served in the British Army, and who after the war made it their mission to gather the survivors of the Holocaust and bring them to the country that later became the State of Israel. These individuals were idealistic, dedicated and highly motivated, but their Jewishness was secular and socialistic rather than religious. Rightly or wrongly, they felt, and I was persuaded, that the deeply religious Orthodox life was associated with persecution and victimhood, whereas the Jew that was needed to build a new country required a secular, vigorous, and assertive people, who were the very opposite of the stereotyped timid and bookish Jews of the old Eastern European ghettoes.

You were just a little over twelve years old when you ended up in Auschwitz. How do you think you were able to survive?

Rosner: There are several reasons. In fact, my youth was actually a plus. Kids a few years older than me were in the middle of the rapid physical growth of adolescence, and the lack of adequate nutrition and the other deprivations quickly caused them to succumb to tuberculosis and other diseases. Most of them died quickly. I simply stopped growing and my body required less food to survive. But maybe more importantly, I was apparently born with a very sharply honed instinct for survival. I don' t mean anything heroic; it is rather more of an uncanny ability to adapt and to roll with the punches. Several years ago when I visited a tide pool on the California coast, I noticed a tiny shelled creature safely burrowed into the crevice of the rock when a huge wave came crashing in over it. I instinctively said to myself, "That guy clinging to the rock is me."

But anybody who reads the book will find a number of instances where my survival was simply due to chance and fate. Probably the most dramatic illustration of this was the day of our arrival in Auschwitz. When we were unloaded from the cattle-car, my father, who had been designated in charge of our car, was immediately ordered to report to the authorities. So he left us, and I never saw him again. My mother, younger brother and I were still together when the guards announced that males and females should separate because we would be taking showers. My mother, becoming frightened and nervous, wanted us to stay together, but I indignantly told her that I would not take a shower with a bunch of women. She then said to me, "Whatever you do, don' t get separated from your brother." Those parting words were the last she ever spoke to me. So my brother and I were lined up with the other males on the platform in front of two SS officers. They were the ones who directed the people standing in line to go to the right or the left, depending on their physical condition, age, height, and so on. My brother, who was ten, was in front of me in the line, and the selecting officer, without hesitation sent him to the left. Heeding my mother' s admonition, I automatically followed my brother to the left. At first the German did nothing. But apparently out of irritation at my making my own decision, when I was about three steps past him, he reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shoved me to the right. If I had been permitted to follow my brother, I would have been in the gas chamber with the rest of my family within the hour.

What caused you to tell your story at this late date? Why do it now?

Rosner: I did not tell my story earlier mainly because until I retired in 1993 as General Counsel of the Safeway Corporation, I had a rather busy time of it. During the early years of my life in America, I was busy learning the language, adapting to the culture and getting an education. I also served a two-year stint in the Army during the Korean War. When I got out of law school, I started a busy 35-year career that involved virtually every aspect of American corporate life, from takeovers and leveraged buyouts to complex litigation, to being the chief legal officer of a Fortune 500 corporation. During the middle of my career I lost my wife to cancer and had to raise three teen-age boys single-handedly. The reason for finally getting around to telling my story is due mainly to a feeling of obligation, primarily to my children, that they and my friends should know both my personal story and the tumultuous events that served as the backdrop to that story.

Do you believe that the world has learned from the Holocaust?

Rosner: Obviously, not enough. All you have to do is read the newspaper or watch the news on TV to know that unspeakable crimes and atrocities motivated by ethnic and racial hatred are still being committed. But I also have some hope for the future of mankind. In our own country, I believe that in the last thirty-some years we have made major strides toward a more tolerant and just society. I believe the same is true in most of the civilized countries of Western Europe. I also believe that, at least in these countries, the experience of the Holocaust has played a role in sensitizing the majority of the people to the evils of racism and ethnic hatred.