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Friday, November 29, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
Solzhenitsyn Cleared Of Anti-Semitism
Continued from Page 2
Russia for action to release Wallenberg
and to correct a great injustice. If the re-
sponse to this latest editorial appeal were
positive it would be guilt-admitting. The
refusal to give a positive response to a
human need is a continuing evidence that
the Kremlin doesn't plead guilt so easily.
Q. "What can you say about the
fate of Raoul Wallenberg? Did you
hear about him when you were in
the camps?
A. "No, I heard nothing of him
when I was a prisoner, or for many
years after that. This just shows
how vast is the Gulag Archipelago,
and how many hidden places it
contains. There are many such
secret places, where prisoners are
isolated forever, where no word
ever trickles out, so that no one will
know about these people.
"I happened to meet another
Scandinavian who called himself
Erik Arvid Andersen. When I tried
to find out something about him
here in Sweden, and to learn who
his relatives are, I came across the
Wallenberg story.
"Yesterday I saw Wallenberg's
mother. It was heartbreaking to
see this old lady, who has been
waiting for her son for 29 years.
Please weigh and consider the full
meaning of what I am saying — 29
years! Wallenberg was arrested at
almost the same time as I was. I
served my entire sentence, both
imprisonment and exile, was set
free for a number of years, as you
know from my published writings
. . . But this man has been in prison
for 29 years and is still there today!
Nor is he the only one like that in
the Soviet Union. Many who were
sentenced to 25 years at the end of
the war are still in confinement.
Some have been imprisoned since
1947 or since 1939, and their sen-
tences are even extended.
"A whole epoch has passed
since that time. People whose ar-
rest somewhere in Africa was writ-
ten about by leaders of national
movements have long since been
freed, have become presidents of
their countries, have been running
their governments for decades,
have left office or been overthrown
. .. Generation after generation
has been written up in the press:
so-and-so is in prison, so-and-so is
being tormented . . . They have all
long since been liberated, but our
people are still in prison.
"Wallenberg's mother has in-
formation on who was in prison
with her son, and when. I do not for
a minute doubt the authenticity of
her data. In the Gulag Ar-
chipelago, if a man said he was in
prison with someone else, that is
the truth. Fourteen witnesses are
listed here, and it is evident that he
has been kept in secret confine-
ment, but occasionally someone or
other saw him briefly and this is
how the information seeped out.
"But here is the difference: if a
man is arrested in the West or in
the Third World, it is open knowl-
edge in what prison he is held and
how he is being treated. We can
even see him photographed behind
the bars, this is often permitted.
But Wallenberg is in a Soviet
prison, so all we have is this kind of
indirect testimony from people,
some of whom conceal their iden-
tity either because they are still in
Eastern Europe or because they
have relatives there . . . And so,
since they are all so well hidden in
Russia, since prisoners are so well
concealed and kept incom-
municado, no one tries to free
them; I have heard that your Prime
Minister (Olof Palme) considers
that there is too little information
to justify spoiling relations with
the Soviet Union on account of
Wallenberg.
"Here in Sweden I have been
told of other cases — the disap-
pearance of Swedish sailors and
fishermen in the Baltic Sea during
the immediate postwar period.
They vanished silently, without a
trace, apparently into the Soviet
Union, and no one tries to defend
them or get them out.
"Western governments as
much as say: lock them up tight
and keep them out of sight; we will
liberate anyone who is not se-
curely held, but if you have a good
grip on their throats, go ahead and
throttle them, we're not going to
free them.
"Now- here is an amazing story.
Wallenberg's mother is currently
in corresponsdence with a certain
Yefim Moshinsky, the former KGB
captain who arrested Wallenberg.
Now in Israel, he tells of what a
nice man Wallenberg was, the man
he was ordered to arrest. Ordered
to arrest a Swedish diplomat! Well,
all right. The State Security cap-
tain summoned him amicably from
the Embassy, drove off with him in
his car, then arrested him. Wallen-
berg was then sent from one Soviet
prison to the next.
Moshe Dayan
Anwar Sadat
Two Daughters
Reveal Parental
Personalities
Perhaps it is becoming a trend: daugh-
ters writing about their fathers; therefore
leading up to sons writing about fathers,
children reminiscing about parents.
Some years ago, the son of David Lloyd
George wrote a devastating piece about the
famous British Prime Minister. There was
nothing complimentary about that one.
Now already several weeks off the
press and the subject of much debate and
quotation, My Father, His Daughter (Far-
rar Straus Giroux) continues as the sensa-
tion about one of the most famous of Is-
rael's leaders and war heroes. In it, as has
already been given sensational emphasis,
the daughter of Moshe Dayan, Yael Dayan,
wrote about her relationship with the
famous father, about her mother Ruth, the
general's divorced first wife, and the step-
mother, Rahel.
Yael is the realist who writes with
frankness. There is no hiding the failure of
father to as much as befriend her two
brothers. On her own, she writes as a de-
voted daughter who gained her father's af-
fections. She doesn't hide a resentment
against Rahel. She exposes a father who
disinherited children and grandchildren.
It is an intimate story and will remain a
chapter in Israel's history in the era of the
Dayans.
Now comes another daughter-father
tale with serious aspects of contemporary
historical influence. Interestingly, the
very title lends compatibility with the
Dayan book. My Father and I by Camelia
Sadat (Macmillan) relates so much to the
courage of the assassinated Egyptian
President Anwar el-Sadat who made peace
with Israel when it was under leadership of
Yael Dayan
Menachem Begin that the daughter's story
is uniquely vital to the history of Israel in
the current era.
Camelia was born after her father had
divorced her mother and remarried.
There also was a turbulent relation-
ship between Camelia and Anwar and she
intended to write her father to make sense
of such a relationship when the news
reached her of the assassination while she
was watching television in her Boston
apartment. She had come to Boston four
months earlier to pursue graduate studies
at Boston University. She was accom-
panied by her 17-year-old daughter.
My Father and I is a frank revelation
of her views about her father, comments on
the events that developed under his lead-
ership and his association with American
leaders. She tells about the strictness of the
Moslem patriarchy and her personal rejec-
tion of it. She writes devotedly about her
native country Egypt. In the process she
writes about the customs and culture of
Egypt and the social and political changes
that took place in the late 1970s, her father
having directed the improvements.
Camelia rejected the traditional Mos-
lem veil and it was one of the many acts
that showed her independence from the
oppressive measures she would not adhere
to.
The personal story of Anwar Sadat has
Camelia Sadat
major importance in Camelia's book, in
which there is much evidence of a
daughter-father love.
There were the unhappy experiences
— Camelia's marriage at 12 to man 17
years her senior who abused her but had
her father's approval, and her divorce ten
years later with her father's consent after
her suicide attempt failed. She remarried
and divorced again.
A good attitude developed and
Camelia describes how her father
cherished gifts she brought from abroad,
treating the craving for them like a child.
Camelia traces the background of the
peace moves which earned the Nobel Peace
Prize for her father jointly with Menachem
Begin. She tells about the message to her
father by Romanian President Nicolae
Ceausescu that Israel's Begin was ready
for an accord.
That's how it all began and the de-
velopments are impressively reported. It
relates the arrival of Sadat in Israel when
"he joked with Moshe Dayan, Abba Eban
and General Ariel Sharon." The Camp
David Accord is noted, the meetings with
Begin are recorded, along with President
Jimmy Carter's affections for her father. It
"touched me greatly," Camelia recalls. She
points out that Carter treated Begin cor-
dially but "Begin, who tried to anpear
animated, just looked stiff to me, and Car-