THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
delectable fruit, "We would
eat ;reaches that would Just
melt in your mouth," recidls
Richard, "And one day they
even brought me a birthday
cake to cebbrate my wife',
birthday, Everything was so
bizarre, Imagine one minute
a young man mile. at you,
the next he idiom a gun at
your head, Imagine being
captive in a prison where
they're torturing people, and
having a birthday cake,"
Richard adds, "I think
much of our pod treatment
was due to Zeffi, our jailer, He
was genuinely a fine human
being trying to do the beet
for uti under the circumstan-
cot He wasn't a regular Hap
bollah anyway, He wee a Ca
legs student in computer
engineel"
An WI t into the Shiite
ability to ng their terror to
the U,S, was gained by Zoin'e
knowledge of American
geography, "He could tell
you which highway ran
through which American city
and how to get there, plus the
main tourist attraction. here
and there, He had a wealth of
information about American
clan, He knew things we
didn't know," recalls Richard,
CONWEINS CONDUCT
Four day. into their ideal, the
Americans held by Hezbollah
were playing card, when
another American suddenly
entered their room, "We were
freaked," recline Herzberg,
"We were bearded and
smelly, N. guy was clean-
shaven, he had on clean
clothes, We thought he was
the Red Cross, because he
was obviously in so much bet,
tor condition than we were,"
This was Allyn Cowell, ad
hoc "spokesman" for the
hostages, who arrived at the
bunker accompanied by pram
officials fr9m the Amid
ShVite militte, H erzberg
molls thst for den the lour
with him shared two rev
y mattresses and no
Now., just an hour
• Thwart, visit, how,
ova, two Wm
telex
four'
ado
010 ware •
bro t in,it9
w Cowen, t y
y wantod make a
•
41
/On on the guy, '
Ned us
iwo
hand. of the hijackers
becoming their prop
tool, For example, hostage
Peter Hill, who was kept with
the main group hektby
_
Amal,
bitterly attacked Caws!' for
betraying the sentiments of
the Americans by his conduct
before the western media,
This include, carrying a
Koran and_prayer Wade,
declaring that the hootape
were All In sympathy with the
cause of the Enna, and by
presenting an attitude of
mass thankfulness to their
Amal captors, "Conwell wee
just taken in," according to
Hifi,
Herzberg addo, "Ryer'',
body had their own point of
view, and their own exper-
ience, His (Conwell'sj was 180
degrees different from mine,
We were isolated keptwith-
out information, He was used
Richard
understood he was
being called
because he was
Jewish, He
expected he would
now be Shot, As he
walked down the
back stairs and into
the still blackened
morning air of
Beirut, he
confronted the
reality of death
itself,
as the spokesmen,given all
the information, wined and
dined, I heard he said a lot of
positive things about the
Arab people and their eitua-
tion, I juet can't as being
thankfullor the experience of
being jscked, having a boy
morellos* killed, and then
having the whole thing
ter n el into a political
o
Chilen Herzberg, from
w
t if? point as • host'
ap
early
first
nwell •
SO
vier
haz to Wove, " prey
can't pos
behove in the
Witt
a terrorist
with his captor, as lint
evidenced in a Stockholm
bank robbery, Or perhaps he
was just taken in by what one
prominentt iprycldstrist called
"one-sided learning," But
Conwell himself asserts; that
neither condition applies, He
simply sympathizes with the
grievances of Amal against
Israel, and draw, a sharp
distinction between the two
terrorists who hijacked and
brutalized Americans, and
the Amal militia in general,
whom he regards a. the
passengers' saviors,
Whether Conwell was con-
Motley or unwittingly ex,
picked by the Shilite ter
rorist., he did become the
cherished nexus to the out-
side world, Hostages quickly
learned that byappealing to
him, they could get cow
plaint, rectified, learn new.,
and send mange. via the
Red Cross, For Herzberg,
that meant *precious mop
tunity to inform Sue Ellen
that he was alive and not
being tortured,
THE VILLA
After nine day. in the
bunker, the four Americans
were moved to a location they
dubbed "the villa," They
were moved in a 20 minute
highspeed drive to what air
pared to be a private dwel-
ling, perhaps a multifamily
block, A portion of the second
floor was their., Zein, their
jailer moved with them oc'
cupying the only room with a
window,
It was here that, filled with
media report. about which
fatten; were involved, they
decided to discover which
Onto pow, held them, Tey
h
stowed their jailer Zinn t he
Newsweek article which
referred to the "extremist
Hezbollah," Zein read it and
looked up, "Why do they gall
us 'extremist,' After that,
Zeln admitted that *abolish
was holding them, or mor e
precisely
t
he intellectual
elite" of jiabollah, gas
bollah is the Party of Ood,
which owes its ills at>ce to
And takes its orde rs
Jon, The two hi)
rim )
gotiate with an enemy — the
United States, Hence they
had to use a go-between like
Berri,"
The lowest of the emotional
peaks and valleys came dur-
ing the last several days of
captivity, "It wasn't only our
fear that negotiations would
fall through, We began read-
ing press accounts of a dinner
party in the Summerland
Hotel some days back, that
the other hostages attended,
but we didn't," explains
Herzberg, "We took that as
a very bad sign,"
Equally distressing was an
unexpected visit by a young
threatening Arab who en-
tered the villa with a pistol,
Menacingly, he asked the
four, "Do you know me?"
mimicking an American Ex-
press commercial, The men
acted as though they didn't
recognize him, But he per-
sided, "You know me,' At
that he smiled and pulled the
familiar chrome-plated pearl
handled 9 mm pistol from his
belt, held it hies and sneered,
"You know mel" It WAS the
hijacker who executed Robert
Stethem, "Hs was telling us
that we'd never forget him,"
proclaims Herzberg, "And
he's right, I'll never forget
him,"
SURRENDER TO GOD
The only emotional relief
from the anguish came in the
closely knit camaraderie of
the four hostages, "We
along gnat, talked about just
everytNng, and they helped
me immensely,". recollects
Herzberg, "I thinkthey law
I was Jewish, even though I
never admitted
Although Herzberg cow
aided)* Jewloh identity, in,
Oniony, it grew In s way he
nova exped, "I developed
s personal relationship with
all
God, I would talk to
the time, and I learned the
power of prayer, I figured
whatever wasgoing to hop
Po no Ong Irc happen, and
was out of my contra Fi*on,
tiohy, I surrendered moat to
OW, and that's the oni%
thing that pulled me throu
I
it, I osliedit an'
jot sit
MIS
haw,
Pod
FridaYAill ili 1985 63
his ordeal, "the Holocaust
went through my mind, in
fact it went through all of our
minds, Picked off the plane
for being Jewish — what else
can you think of except the
extermination of Jews,"
Fellow hostage Robert Trout-
mann, a practicing Catholic,
was also struck by agonizing
images of Jew. in concentra-
tion camps,
Ironically, Sue Ellen feared
that when Richard was
singled out for being Jewish,
the ordeal might turn him
against his own tradition,
"But it didn't turn out that
way, His strength actually
came from Clod," says Sue
Ellen,
Richard had to summon all
of that strength toward the
end, When the news was first
announced that the hostage.
would be transferred to
Syria, the four Hezbollah cap-
tives were elated, "When we
heard the new. on BBC redid,
we were hugging and shaking
hand.," recollects Herzberg,
"That was at 4 in the after-
noon on the last Friday, We
woke early the next morning,
showered, and made ready to
leave, At 9 a,m„ the radio
maid it was official, Then the
news at 11 was that the
hostages are assembled and
ready to depart for Dame•
cue, But by noon, the BBC
said the hostage caravan is in
Syrian territory, We thought
we had been left behind,"
By four in the afternoon, an
updated BBC report indi-
cated the hostages had never
really left Beirut, that a nag
had developed over President
Reagan'. threatening public
remarks uttered on the eve of
the release, "We took off our
clothes and folded them
neatly ," remembers Richard,
"and just lay there and
sulked," When Richard fell
asleep that night, and awoke
the next morning, he was in
his most &puffed state yet,
But at the nadir, he turned
to Ood and again found
. "I suddenly got into
this unbelievably good mood,
actually the beet mood I'd
been in mina I arrived in
Beirut, I decided the whole
thing was simply put of my
control and I won t going to
tot it bother me Anymore,'
Herzberg's voice wee
* ebul.
lient of ait/urn
b
the
•
n •
feelinig,
elinic, but
he
y broke down,
and in choked voice wain.
OA "J wasn't 0. big to pray
any more that 00
0 would be
the day we Wye, I wasn't
to worry about m_y
y ,, At thatsoint in
r unting, JUrzberi
ontlray,amaimuy
,
Jo top on,
NOT A WORD
fphily oat day,
_ AWNS,
NMI
4fN
MN
WaelMessl en,Pme