At the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian
peace treaty signing with
Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat and U.S. President
Jimmy Carter: "Shalom,
salaam, forever."

A Matter
Of Principle

Menachem Begin's war
of words in a Soviet prison

Editor's Note: Menachem Begin
was always unyielding in his
beliefs, even during a fierce inter-
rogation at the age of 26
in a Soviet prison. This excerpt
is from White Nights, Mr. Be-
gin's 1957 account of his incar-
ceration in the USSR from
mid-1940 through most of 1941.
At the time he was head of Betar,
the militant Zionist youth move-
ment.

MENACHEM BEGIN

ne evening, I was sum-
moned to the in-
terrogation room. It
transpired that this was
my last meeting with
the interrogator.
"This evening," he said, "we
will conclude the interrogation.
This is where my job with you fin-
ishes. What we still have to do is

0

then go back to your cell. With
this, the interrogation is closed."
"Citizen-Judge," I said, "you
wrote everything down very ex-
actly and I will, of course, sign
it, but I would ask you to make
one change in the wording."
"What change? Again a
change! Why, it's all so straight-
forward!"
"That is true, and the change
is only in the first sentence. In-
stead of priznaius vinovnim vtom
chto bil, instead of 'I admit my
guilt in being'...would you please
ad-
write: priznaio chta
mit that I was...' The rest is per-
fectly all right and I will sign it
readily."
At first the interrogator could
not understand.
"What do you mean? You your-
self admitted that you were the
head of your movement in
Poland . . . And what did I
write? I wrote just what you
said, so why do I need to make
changes and copy it out again?"
"Citizen-Judge, I cannot sign
the statement that am guilty of
having been...' It is clear to me
by now that in your eyes that is
a serious charge, but in my eyes
it is not an accusation at all. On
the contrary, I know that I have
carried out my duty to my peo-
ple; that was my aim in life. Be-
fore the court I shall try to explain
that."
"Tell me," said the interroga-
tor, not angrily, "were you the
head of Betar in Poland, or were
you not?"
"Yes, I was."
"So what do you want of me
now? You were — that means that
to complete the minutes." He pro- you are guilty!"
"No, Citizen-Judge, not guilty.
ceeded to write something and
And that is the whole difference
then read me the short text:
Triznaius vinovnim vtom chto between us. To you, my having
bil. .." — "I admit I am guilty of been a Zionist, a Betar member,
having been the chairman of the is my guilt. To me, that was my
Betar organization in Poland, service to my people...I am sure
and being responsible for the that if I were to sign I would lose
Betar work, and calling upon a lot, even in your eyes... You cer-
, the Jewish Youth to join the tainly understand what an ideal
is, what it means to have a lofty
ranks of the Betar."
"Please sign," said the inter- aim. Wouldn't you be prepared to
rogator politely, "and you can give your life for your ideals?"

"Your questions are stupid. Of
course, if I were required to do so
I would at any moment give my
life for the success of the revolu-
tion, for the Soviet country."
"Well, I am ready, too."
"Ready for what?"
"To give my life for my ideals."
"What ideals have you got? Is
a puppet-show farce an ideal? For
what you call an ideal, it is not
even worth giving a single hair,
never mind your life. And who

AN EXCERPT

needs your life? You are a young
man and an educated one. You
said you wanted to serve your
people. Up to now, it was not your
people that you served, but the
enemies of your people and the
enemies of mankind . . ."
For almost an entire night,
the argument about the two
words in the summary went on.
Finally, the interrogator said:
"You are doing yourself harm.
You make me sick, you are like
an ape, an African ape, and I nev-
er want to see you again. I'll take
out the word vinovnim and write:
priznaius chto bil, and so on..."
I was overjoyed. I no longer
paid any heed to his abuses.
Because of the kinship of the
Polish and Russian languages,
I was able to understand the dif-
ference between priznaio, which
means "admit," "admit to a cer-
tain fact," and priznaius, which
means "confess," "confess guilt."
So I asked the interrogator to
write priznaio, and not priznaius.
He did not even deign to answer
me. He tore up what he had writ-
ten and wrote it out again, as fol-
lows:
"I admit that I was the chair-
man of the Betar in Poland..."
I had not given in!
I signed. I was taken back to
my cell. ❑

From White Nights by
Menachem Begin. Copyright©
1957 by Steimatzky, Ltd.
Excerpted with permission of
Steimatzky, Ltd.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

39