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This piece seemed to
write itself. It started in the aftermath of rockets falling on Haifa
in 2006.
ROMMEL AND THE MAGIC
CARPET
I
General George Patton in North Africa referred to Rommel’s Infantry
Attacks published in 1937 with soldierly admiration: “Rommel, you
magnificent bastard! I read your book!” I can only think: “Good for you
George. I’m glad you read what that Nazi bastard had to say--and used
it against him.”
I never read Rommel’s book. Why bother...I don't plan to attack anyone.
The days of the toy lead soldiers are long gone and I have no lingering
desire to be a five star armchair general with 20/20 hindsight. But
when I was a young boy, enthralled by shiny military stars and buttons,
I played war, wearing my beloved Eisenhower jacket with the four
exciting gold stars on its epaulets.
Years after I learned to read, I dug into the frontlines of El Alamein
from the safety of a New York public library. Those two Arabic words
for a bloodsoaked killing ground meant everything: for a couple
of weeks in the autumn of 1942, my family’s future and the future of
Palestine and WW II was being decided somewhere out in the howling
wastes of the North African desert. I was too young to understand much
then, but the mental pictures are still there and the feeling--a
feeling of dread and tension and, later, as the war went on, a feeling
of desperation.
My family of three lived in a four story concrete building built into
the slope of Mt. Carmel. This working class apartment building had an
old olive tree in the front and a fig tree in the back that didn’t make
many figs--too much shade cast by another building looming over it. The
most intriguing plant in the garden was a night blooming cereus snaking
up the front wall near the entrance. I saw it bloom once. I was allowed
to stay up past my bedtime for the event. It was a full moon night--was
that good or bad for bombing?--just me and my mother hanging around the
snaky cactus in the moonlight watching the bud, the size of my fist,
opening slowly for the moon. We called it malkat lielah--Queen of the
Night. Its fragrance left me moonstruck: vanilla and cinnamon and some
unknown spice. The pretty perfumed woman who lived upstairs passed by
with her uniformed British escort. She said no perfume could match it.
II
I like the air raids--the scary excitement of near and distant sirens,
quickly followed by raised voices and footsteps rushing down the steps.
Our ground floor apartment is the nearest to the cellar, our bomb
shelter, and we’d always be the first into it and the first to choose a
bench. Everybody in the building joins us, people we didn’t even know.
Somebody brings a couple of dogs. Not allowed. I don’t like dogs with
cold wet noses. Flashlights shine here and there before the warden’s
order--“lights out”--and people telling people to put out cigarettes
and keep quiet, everybody sitting in the dark hush, breathing the
mustiness together. Almost like waiting for a movie to begin.
After a few dark minutes, the two little girls who live in the
apartment next to ours start to giggle, people whisper and sneeze. lots
of sneezing. Easy to catch a cold down there. Everyone’s getting
itchy twitchy and bored. Sometimes we hear explosions and concussions.
When we don’t, people speak up, wondering, “Why are we still sitting
here--it’s over.” The air raid warden warns, “Did you hear the all
clear yet?”
The all clear sounds and the cellar door inches open--why they had to
shut out the daylight I didn’t know--and people blink their eyes and
stretch and complain about wasting time and everybody goes back to
doing what they were doing, including the dogs that aren’t
allowed...until another day and another round of warning sirens.
Meanwhile, Rommel’s Afrika Korps is rampaging across the desert beating
the crumpets out of the British and spoiling afternoon tea and tennis
for officers at the Nile clubs and resorts. Most likely, before you
know it, Rommel will step on the gas and Egypt will fall. The pyramids
will stand at attention and the Sphinx will be saddled by its new
master--Rommel of the Nile: Liberator of Cairo and Lord of Suez. The
Nazi Pharaoh will call the shots in the Near East. And the cradle of
civilization will turn into its tomb--or a mass grave of the kind that
was so popular among German armies dedicated to an Aryan Europe.
At the time Montgomery and Rommel are busy collecting artillery,
trucks, and tanks for a showdown, I’m collecting Egyptian stamps, among
others, getting to know the faces on each stamp, each face surrounded
by little teeth. If the stamps are to have any value, the teeth have to
be perfect. King Farouk is perfect; he’s young with a red fez and puffy
cheeks. He became king of Egypt in 1937, the year I was born. A
memorable year--we have something in common.
The Egyptians look forward to a grand reception for their Nazi
liberators from English rule. Welcome banners stretch out across the
streets and balconies of Cairo. Shopkeepers stock up with Nazi flags.
Allied Headquarters is burning its vital documents, causing a steady
flow of smoke and ashes to darken the Cairo sky and rain over the city.
The Brits mockingly call this Egyptian darkness “Ash Wednesday.” Among
those dependent on British rule, the plague of panic strikes quickly,
triggered by word of mouth that the Royal Navy has withdrawn its fleet
from Alexandria and dispersed it to Port Said, Beirut, and Haifa.
Egyptian policemen and troops vanish. British supply dumps are promptly
looted for food and emptied of anything portable. Railroad stations are
mobbed. Roads out of Alexandria and Cairo are clogged with refugees
trying to flee to Luxor and further south to the Sudan. Others head for
points East, including British Mandated Palestine, where the British
could still organize an orderly retreat.
The Reich is now busy stamping medals for the Egyptian campaign and
printing occupation currency. Mussolini himself is ready and waiting to
ride his white charger at the head of the Axis victory parade.
The Egyptians can’t wait to celebrate.
Aren’t they Semitic, Hamitic? Doesn’t Nazi racism apply to them as “non
Aryans”? But it’s not hard to understand their enthusiasm. The age old
Arab dictum--the enemy of my enemy is my friend--seems good enough at
the moment to sway the crowds. Rommel is their man, their hero.
If the Nazis break through, they could easily hook up with the
Wehrmacht coming down from Southern Russia and win the Near East
petroleum lottery. What a bonanza! They’d be swimming in oil. Next,
they’d go on to India, meet up with the Japanese in Burma, and the
British would be lucky to escape a second Dunkirk in a hasty retreat to
Australia. And how could they do that if Japan controlled the seas? The
Allies would be forced to think the unthinkable and sue for terms.
III
My mother worked in the offices of the Iraq Petroleum Company at the
Haifa Bay oil refinery. The grounds of the IPC refinery supplied me
with matchboxes full of ladybugs, thanks to an Arab gardener. And from
its offices I would get a steady supply of cancelled stamps from around
the world. It was also a major depot for supplying the British
Mediterranean fleet, which made the refinery and storage tanks a major
target. First the Vichy French threat from Syria after the fall of
France, then the Italian long range planes coming in with their bombs
from Bari, Italy. One bomb knocked me flat. No one knew when the
bombers would appear. Mostly in the morning. But I recall one showing
up at night and getting caught in the cross beams of searchlights and
all hell breaking loose as it tried to evade ack ack fire from the
anti-aircraft batteries around the refinery and the top of Mt. Carmel.
Though an American citizen, my mother was paid native scale and treated
like a native. “Pity she’s a Jewess” her imported office mates must
have thought. To the British, with their rigid class and status
consciousness and not so deft colonialism, she wasn’t quite on a par
with the English staff, even though they relied on her English language
skills. But for her, far worse than bureaucratic discrimination at work
was never knowing if she’d make it back home alive.
IV
In those intense Mediterranean days I was fascinated by carpets. I
liked to help beat on a carpet if I had the chance. Some of our
neighbors had carpets and they’d beat them on Thursday or Friday before
the Sabbath. I can still hear the rhythm of carpet beating on the
balconies of the town. I couldn’t help wondering which of the multihued
and reddish rugs might be magic. Magic carpets were known to exist from
Cairo to Baghdad and beyond--I’d had it on faith from a neighbor lady
with a beautiful Persian carpet. One only had to know the secret words
to make a Persian carpet rise up and fly. Maybe the Shah of Iran knew
the words. I also collected stamps with his moustached portrait. Shah
Pahlavi looked fierce, as though he ate a cactus for breakfast.
There’s tension in the air. The radio is on every evening for the
latest news. And now there’s the ominous sound of approaching thunder:
ROMMEL ROMMEL ROMMEL ROMMEL.
My always cool and stoic mother comes home from work one day, and she’s
upset. I’ve never seen her so upset.
“What’s wrong, Mary?”
“It looks bad,” she tells my Abba. “It’s obvious they’re leaving.
They’re starting to load up the lorries. Files, documents, all the
important records....”
“Where are they taking them?”
“To Baghdad, then on to India. I don’t know what’s to become of us.
Seems they don’t give a damn. Only English citizens will be
evacuated.”
“They can’t leave you just like that! If you’re needed here, they need
you there. Somebody has to straighten out the company files. Those
bastards. They’ve got to help us out!”
“What if they don’t!”
“You’ve got your American passport. What’s the American embassy doing?
There must be some way to get to Baghdad. Anything with wheels will do.
Talk to them, Mary, do something. Any papers will do. Anything.
Something in writing. Get friendly with one of the drivers. Charm one
of the bosses.”
“Listen to you! I’m not Queen Esther and this isn’t Purim.”
“Maybe we can bribe someone and get on a lorrie, any lorrie.”
“And what do we do in Baghdad?”
“We’ll figure out something. I’d better withdraw our savings before
they freeze the funds. Talk to the people at work. Talk to the drivers.”
“I will, I will.”
We don’t go to Baghdad, even though Mother got an offer, or maybe a
proposition. Her boss offered to take her. I can imagine the
conversation:
“With my child?”
“Yes.”
“And what about my husband?”
“He’ll have to fend for himself, Mary. Dreadfully sorry, but you know
we only have so much room, and he’s not American is he? We have to draw
the line somewhere. Nothing personal, simply a matter of protocol.
Think about it, Mary.”
Between Field Marshal Rommel and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem and ally of Hitler, the Promised Land is a death trap and
everyone knows it. The only hope is to flee on a carpet to Baghdad. My
family doesn’t have a Persian carpet. We don’t have any carpets. None
at all.
At the start of the battle there’s a blackout on information. More
lorries are packed and sent off across the Syrian desert to Baghdad.
Later the battle would be called El Alamein after a village not far
from Alexandria. El Alamein, meaning “two worlds,” a fitting name for
worlds in collision--and very possibly a new world order: the Hiterian
world, the Nazi world. In the first round--June and July, summer of
‘42--Rommel drove the British back to the El Alamein line, just seventy
miles west of Alexandria. The second confrontation in the Fall of ‘42
was the Allies last stand in North Africa.
The battle, actually a series of battles, lasted for approximately
eleven days, October 23rd to November 3rd. But in Mary’s diary not a
clue, just “sunny day” or “first rain” or “D has an ear ache.” She was
terribly stoic. Couldn’t even confess her anxieties to a diary.
Troops from all over the British Empire as well as European units were
gathered for this do or die mother of showdowns: kilted Scots and
swarthy Sikhs, Aussies, New Zealanders, Irish, Welsh, Gurkas, Greeks,
Sudanese, South Africans, Canadians, Poles, Czechs, Free French, even
Egyptians--a virtual United Nations. America too was involved, managing
to deliver 330 new Sherman tanks to add to Montgomery’s array of armor.
How we all loved the Aussies with their jaunty hats--brim turned up on
one side, the Scots with their bagpipes, and the Sikhs with their
turbans!
Still, there was an aura of mythological prowess around Rommel.
Hadn’t he faced difficult odds before and defeated the British
decisively in the Battle of Gazala? Dash and daring helped him beat an
army more than twice the size of his own. No telling what might happen
next.... Churchill himself acknowledged Rommel’s genius.
Good old Monty. What if he lost? I can hear my mother muttering in her
adopted English accent, “Oh, for pity sakes alive, this Montgomery,
what in heaven’s name can he do? He better be better than the
incompetents he’s replacing!” What if he were forced to retreat? Would
he use some ringing rhetoric like Churchill or promise to return like
MacArthur or simply say to one and all as he retreated through
Palestine: “Cheerio and good luck. Of course, you Palestinians (meaning
Jews and the Jewish community in those days) are free to defend
yourselves as you see fit, but we must evacuate our positions. There’s
no holding Jerusalem--we can only hope and pray for your salvation.
Awfully sorry we can’t give you any weapons. We simply cannnot spare
them.” Monty was no lover of Zion, like General Allenby, who liberated
Palestine from the Ottoman Turks in 1917, or Captain Orde Wingate who
gave military training to Jewish fighters in Galilee in the
mid-Thirties.
How lucky for everyone that after days of ferocious combat Rommel
finally ran out of gas, literally, and that the resupply didn’t arrive
until it was too late and his retreating forces dumped and burned the
gas in the desert. The overwhelming logistics--men, arms,
equipment--were on Monty’s side. He was cautious to a fault. Some claim
he moved too slowly, in the manner of a WWI general, letting Rommel
retreat with the remnant of Panzer Army Afrika to fight another day. He
certainly was no risk taker like Rommel, but when he moved he moved en
masse. Alamein was a strategic success, and along with Stalingrad--the
bloodiest battle in history--a pivotal turning point for the Allies.
From then on the Axis powers were on the defensive.
King George, whose handsome face was on many of my stamps--stamps with
perfect teeth, never smiled. But he must have smiled after El
Alamein, somewhere in his bomb shelter in England.
V
Half a century later, I wake up to trivia on the radio one morning--and
discover that it’s happy anniversary El Alamein! It seems like a fable,
or a desert mirage. Rommel rides again. The name itself still conjures
up a rolling though faded thunder. He wasn’t our friend like King
George or mysterious Uncle Joe with the thick black mustache. Rommel
was our nightmare. He had over 100,000 men and 500 tanks. And his
panzer tanks were as fast as desert foxes.
But what if...? If his Italian Korps would have held the center line,
if gasoline for his tanks had arrived a day earlier...he might have won
the battle of Egypt, and if Rommel had routed the British a second
time, it’s obvious that my parents and I would’ve been toast on the
Carmel.
Field Marshal Erwin “The Desert Fox” Rommel, the priest of Ba’al,
would’ve sacrificed children and driven adults to concentration camps
and slaughter. Panzer tanks would’ve rolled up to Haifa and Mt. Carmel.
The prophet Elijah himself couldn’t have saved the day. Only one
flaming chariot against all those tanks? Hopeless. The Carmel of Elijah
would have been the Nazi’s Aryan altar. And the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem would have given his enthusiastic Islamic blessing to the
bloodbath.
The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, never had his face on any
postage stamps. According to German archives in Berlin, he met several
times with Adolf Eichmann to prepare for the genocide of half a million
Jewish inhabitants of British Mandated Palestine. That half million,
including my immediate family, would add ten per cent to the sum total
of the Holocaust. What a coup for the Nazis to raise their swastika
flags over a judenrein Jerusalem!
Haj Amin al-Husseini, Hitler’s “honorary Aryan”--thanks to a red beard
and blue eyes inherited from his Circassian mother, was slated to
become the titular head of a Muslim fascist state and most likely would
have had a portrait stamp issued in his honor. A stamp I’d be unable to
collect.
The actual overseer of the prospective liquidation process was to be SS
Obersturmbannführer Walther Rauff. The designated mass murderer
had previous expertise in using mobile gas chamber vans in Russia and
was posted to Athens in the summer of ‘42. Since the killing centers of
Europe were too far away, Rauff was ready to deploy his “Einzatsgruppe
Egypt” to Palestine, hot on the heels of Rommel’s stunning victory over
Montgomery’s Desert Rats. Smashing the 8th Army and hurling it back for
a second time would leave the road to Jerusalem wide open.
Rauff’s mobile death squads and the Mufti’s recruits would be free to
implement a slaughter that would make the massacres carried out by the
11th century Crusaders look like child’s play.
They say the Carmel might have been the last Masada, another site for
future tourists to visit or ignore. There are still signs of siege
preparations on the mountain. Torn up railroad tracks, barricades and
fortifications-- remnants of just another potentially apocalyptic last
stand. A momentous moment in secular Holy Land time impossible to
deduce or reconstruct from an almost blank maternal diary, a little
black book with indications of health, weather, visits to friends, and
the appearence of the first wildflowers--cyclamen and anemones--after
the rains. There's even one dessicated anemone of 1942 stuck between
the pages, but nothing, absolutely nothing about Rommel and El Alamein.
EPILOGUE
Field Marshal Rommel saw the handwriting on many ruined walls and
advocated a negotiated surrender before Germany was destroyed and
overrun by the Allies. A furious Hitler rejected Rommel’s realism as
defeatism. At one time Hitler’s favorite general, Rommel was forced to
commit suicide for his alleged involvement in the Hitler assassination
plot. At Rommel’s funeral Hitler sent the biggest wreath.
Haj Amin al-Husseini, Jerusalem born Muslim cleric and jihadist, mixed
Islam with Nazism to become the godfather of Muslim extremism. From
1941 to the war’s end he was in Berlin on the Nazi’s payroll as
Hitler’s protégé. Himmler gave him the title SS
Gruppenführer (Major General). Upon his urging, Adolf Eichmann
stopped ransom negotiations to save 5000 Jewish children and sent them
to Auschwitz instead. Responsible for the mass killing of Serbs, Jews,
and Gypsies, Haj Amin al-Husseini was indicted by Yugoslavia as a
genocidal war criminal but was never held to account by the Allies. He
found asylum in the Cairo of King Farouk. His nephew, born in Egypt,
was Yasser Arafat.
SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Walther Rauff escaped
to Ecuador--and from there to Chile--with the aid of the Vatican’s
notorious Nazi sympathizer, Bishop Alois Hudel, who helped many high
ranking Nazis, including the commander of Treblinka, evade capture.
Later, Rauff had a protector in Chilean dictator Pinochet and was never
extradited.
The author celebrated his 8th birthday in Marseille, December,1945, en
route from Alexandria, Egypt, to New York on the Gripsholm, the first
civilian ship to cross the Atlantic after the war. He no longer
collects stamps.
And to continue the tale with a haibun, a Japanese form of storytelling
that mixes prose and poetry:
NIGHT IN ALEXANDRIA
Last night I fell asleep with a heavy book on my chest. Flashback to
Alexandria, Egypt. Dingy Hotel LeRoi. Right after World War II and in
transit to the New World. American mother eager to see her family and
introduce her child to relatives after nine years of separation and
after repeated Axis bombing of her work place.
“Oh, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” was the song in the air and also
“Three Blind Mice,” and we were a family of three and New York might as
well be Tipperary--someplace special, even fabulous with the world’s
tallest building, which I’m promised I’ll see, and eggs the size of a
fist ( I don’t care for eggs), but the size is impressive and to top it
off I’m promised a set of electric trains. With smoke. I’m crazy for
trains.
My parents had gone out for the evening. It was late November, Autumn
in Egypt. They’d left me with a book revealing the sacred secrets of
the Pharaohs and the pyramids. I was almost eight years old. Very
impressionable and overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of Alexandria.
I was engrossed by the book but so bone tired I fell asleep with it
over my face.
Groggy, I regain consciousness. My eyes open to an oppressive
weight--and darkness. I freeze in a flash panic. Trapped in a
tomb!
I hear voices... deliverance! My parents are back. The light goes on.
My mother says with a smile in her voice, “Look how he fell asleep!”
She lifts the book off my nose and laughs. “There you are!”
The room is lit by a garish bare bulb. Oh, the light, the wonderful
light! But my heart's pounding and my arms seem to weigh a ton. I’ve
slept under a pyramid.
half a century
after falling asleep
waking up in Egypt
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