Ruth Kluger, the Mossad's '10th Man' Subject of Memoir, 'The Last Escape'
FRANK PAUL
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ent of it, the Mossad le Aliya
Bet—the Institute of the Il-
legal Immigration — was a
network of 10 spread
throughout Euhrope. Ruth
Kluger was the only woman
in the minyan.
The name of the game was
saving lives. To do so, the
Mossad bargained and beg-
ged—and paid heavily—for
decrepit vessels that would
carry their human cargo to
Ruth Kluger will ad-
dress the Detroit Council
of Pioneer Women at an
open house noon Thursday
at the Labor Zionist Insti-
tute.
the only haven in a hate-fil-
led world: Palestine. And
few could bargain better than
Ruth Kluger, the beautiful
young woman who left a ki-
butz to return to her native
Romania to fulfill a mission
for her people.
Compounding the prob-
lems of acquiring funds,
ships, transit visas and even
ports from which the ships
could sail, was the oppres-
sive White Paper, by which
the British would not permit
refugees to land in Palestine.
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for her "illegals," she went
The tide turned, however, Europe—to win the war?
with the stirring words of
These were life-and-death straight to the top: General
Berl Katznelson: "Which questions that the most hard- Dwight D. Eisenhower. And,
immigation in the world is headed Hagana and Jewish Avriel adds, the commander
more lawful, if this aliya is Agency leaders had to face. of the Supreme Allied Head-
not lawful? And which laws So did Ruth Kluger, the Mos- quarters gave her what she
in the world are lawful, if sad's "10th man." Yet, she asked.
saving a Jewish life is not was a woman, too, and her
In Paris. where she ran
lawful?"
story is as much a personal, the postwar European Mos-
But if it was difficult in- tragic memoir, as it is the sad headquarters, Ruth Klug-
itially to persuade the Zion- story of a people's survival. er became known as Lady
ist leadership of the right-
Ehud Avriel, who headed Israel. It was no small tri-
ness of illegal immigration, the Mossad's Vienna opera- bute: the nation of Israel
it was well-nigh impossible tion and went on to become had not yet been born or
to persuade those most di-
an ambassador and director named. —C.D
rectly involved: the threat- general of the prime minis-
ened Europeon Jews them- ter's office under David Ben-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
selves.
Gurion, wrote of Ruth Klug- 42—Friday, Sept. 14, 1973
Returning to her home er that her chief contribution
town of Czcrnowitz in 1939, was that "she always saw
Ruth easily raised funds for the Mossad—and helped us
payment on a ship. "But I to see it—as a great model
had not succeeded in impres- human endeavor."
sing a single person with the
At the end of the war, said
heed to flee from Europe.
Avriel,
she was sent to
Even those who had been
among the wandering home- Europe as the first repres-
of Pal-
less hordes in the last war sentative of the Jews
estine.
She
also
was
the
first
had now lost all sense of
reality or imagination." Even Jew from Palestine to enter
"What right had we—:he those Ruth Kluger held most the concentration camps after
MAX SCHRUT
they were liberated by the
handful of us in the Mossad dear.
Allies,
he
said.
for quality photographs
—to assume with such cer-
In a year it would be too
When Ruth needed help
tainty that we could predict late.
and fast service
the future? Perhaps nothing
call me at
Even then, having barely
worse than the Kristallnacht escaped death at the hands
RARE
JUDAICA
would ever occur. This was of the Iron Guard, Ruth con-
BLAIR-KEITH
the real risk; these horrend- tinued her rescue operation ANTIQUE JEWISH ART
STUDIO
ous sea voyages. And if war out of Istanbul. By that time,
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came, the risks of the trip there was a price on her
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be mined."
As all escape routes were
Nor was there universal cut off, the work of the Mos-
agreement among the world sad became impossible. The
Zionist leadership that il- organization itself split over
legal immigration should tactics: to save a few hun-
take place. In August 1939, dred lives, or to expend the
at the 21st Zionist Congress, effort in helping the British
many of the most respected —their implacable foe in
Palestine, but their ally in
leaders opposed it.
And so, if Ruth accomp-
lished the impossible—and
she often did, by appealing
to church and government.
leaders, to bankers and busi-
nessmen, even to the king of
Romania himself — she still
had to leave the outcome of
each rescue effort, ultimate-
ly, to fate.
Many of the rickety ships,
with their ailing passengers,
never completed their peri-
lous voyages. Others did,
only to be seized by the
British. Some refugees would
go to any lengths to avoid
that eventuality. Passengers
on the Patria blew up the
ship rather than be sent to
Mauritius, an island in the
Indian Ocean.
How many early misgivings
beset the Mossad! "We are
mad, I thought. To subject
human beings to days, per-
haps weeks of this. To or-
ganize a ship . . . which could
well turn into a death trap.
Elie
.
Collector
Once Again Available
* * *
* *
Guard Atrocities Recounted
Ruth Kluger, who led in ,
the rescue of Jews from her
headquarters in Bucharest,
devotes several pages in
her memoir, "The Last Es-
cape," to a description of
the Romanian Iron Guard and
its murderous p o g r o m s
against the Jews.
It brings to mind the de-
nials by Bishop Valerian
Trifa, head of the Romanian
Orthodox Episcopate of
America, of charges that he
was involved in war crimes
while a leader of the Iron
Guard's youth movement in
January 1941. Bishop Val-
erian, of Grass Lake, Mich.,
is the object of 'an effort to
have him extradited to face
trial in Romania.
Although Ruth Kluger was
no longer in Bucharest when
the January 1941 pogrom
\took place, she recounted
other instances in which the
Iron Guard took Jewish lives
in a bestial manner.
She recalled hiding, ter-
rified, in her apartment,
while Guardists massed in
Bucharest to mark the an-
niversary of the murder of
their leader, Codreanu, two
years before.
She opened the door to the
knock of a haver, Alexander,
and then:
"He entered. He stared
at me; stared through me
as though I did not exist.
" `What is it?' " I whis-
pered.
"He sat down. His face
was 'haggard. He took out a
cigarette, tried to light it.
He could not. His hands were
shaking.
" 'What's wrong?' I cried
out. I knelt down beside him.
`What's happened?'
" 'I was there in the apart-
ment when they came. When
they came for him. His wife
was there and I was there
and they came. They ham-
mered at the door and then
they knocked down the door
and they came in with guns.
They all wore green shirts.
They were drunk and laugh-
ing and cursing. They took
him away.'
" 'Who?' I screamed th e
word.
"He looked at me. 'Orek-
hovsky. I have just see _ n him.
Orekhovsky.'
" 'Where? Where did you
see him?'
"'In the slaughterhouse.'
"Alexander's eyes, first
glazed, now turned into wells
of terror. 'The kosher slaugh-
terhouse. The police brought
me there to identify the body.
And the head. There were
many of them. Hanging nak-
d. Jews. Men. Circumcised.
They had cut off the heads.
The bodies were hung on iron
hooks along the wall. Meat-
hooks. The bodies were
stamped in Yiddish. Kosher
meat. The bodies—I couldn't
identify his body. I never
saw him without any clothes.
Then they showed me a
basket of bloody heads. I
saw his head staring up at
me. The eyes were open
The open eyes staring at me.
"Yes," I told them. "That's
Mordechai Orekhovsky. That
is my friend Morechai Orek-
hovsky. He is a good man.
He spends his life helping
other people. That is what
he does. That is Mordecha
Orekhovsky, head of the P,91
estine office in Bucharest.
Yes, I identify him. My
friend Orekhovsky." ' "
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EsTit(rs
9 MILE
TE L EG RA PH RO A D
Just when you think that
all the stories have been told,
that all the heroes have been
identified, another story and
another hero comes along
to add to the sum total of
miracles that helped create
the state of Israel.
The latest is "The Last Es-
cape" (Doubleday) by Ruth
Kluger and Peggy Mann. Miss
Mann we know of: she au-
thored the biography "Gol-
da." Ruth Kluger - s name was
unknown to us, as was her
role in launching the secret
rescue movement of Jews
from Europe to Palestine im-
mediately preceding and in
the first years of the war.
Her Israeli name, Ruth
Aliav, was suggested later
by David Ben-Gurion in tri-
bute to her work; the letters
in Aliav are those of Aliya
Bet—the illegal immigration.
It was a rescue mission
without parallel. Brainchild
of the Hagana, but independ-
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