Interview
with David Gil (AHC 3470)
Interviewed
by Christian Lerch
Leo
Baeck Institute
Interviewed on February 28, 2005,
in New York City
CL: This is an Austrian Heritage Collection Interview with Mr. David Gil on February 28 2005 at the Marriott Hotel in New York City.
DG: I was born in 1924 in Vienna, which was shortly after World War I. We lived with my grandparents because there was the housing shortage and my parents just got married in 1922. We weren’t able to get alternative housing. They also worked together with the grandparents; they had the dry good store. And lived a fairly comfortable life, I think, I’m not able to judge that, I was a kid. I went to good schools, I went to the elite-gymnasium in Vienna, Akademisches Gymnasium. And when Hitler came in March 1938 I was dropped from the school, all Jewish children, we were sent to a special segregated school. I was at that time 14 years old, so I was in the first year of Gymnasium. The business of my family was expropriated, aryanized, and my father was arrested in July, two months after...
CL: Was he picked up on the street?
DG: No, they came to the home. We don’t know why, but we suspect that the person who wanted the business must have, you know...
CL: ...reported him.
DG: Yes. So he was arrested, then my mother took over the running affairs. And she registered my brother and me for Youth-Aliyah. Now I was too young for going to Palestine. My brother was going to Palestine straight, he was older. And I was sent to Sweden.
CL: Youth-Aliyah is...
DG: Youth emigration.
CL: Zionistic?
DG: Yes. Henrietta Szold was the founder and leader. She is from the United States. The system was agreed with the British, that they could bring young people into Kibbutz and various work situations. So I was sent first to Sweden and there I worked for a year in agriculture. I lived in a home with other children from central Europe. Each was attached to a farm. I took care of 40 cows during the morning. In the afternoon, we had Hebrew classes, history of Zionism, and everything that matters. I was there for a year and then in March 1940 I was able to go to Palestine. Was just a few weeks before Holland and Belgium and France were occupied. We flew from Sweden to Holland, Amsterdam, and from there by train to Marseilles. From there we sailed by boat to Palestine. My mother said she would need to get my father out. Then she was able to get transit on an illegal transport to Palestine. That was in 1941. They were caught by the British in the Mediterranean. They were to be deported to a British colony in Africa. They were put on a boat, the Patria, which the Jewish underground blew up. I guess 200 people died in that event, they were 2000 people on that boat to be deported.
CL: The Jewish underground blew up a boat with Jewish people on it?
DG: Yes. In order to prevent the deportation. Their calculus was: we will save some, some will die. My parents swam to shore, were arrested and were put into a British internment camp in Atlit. My mother died in that camp shortly after they arrived. She had typhus. My father stayed there for several years, I believe. And then he got out. Now, meanwhile I ... I mean, we never got together as a family. My brother was in Kibbutz Yagur in a carpenter school. And I was Kwuzat Skillev [?] which is in the south, near Rawod [?, incomprehensible]. I was there for over a year. And then I got into conflict with the underground, you know, I was immediately adopted into the underground. I didn’t believe in that project of establishing an Israeli state. I belonged to a movement around Martin Buber, the philosopher. They advocated a bi-national commonwealth, Jews and Arabs together. So I refused to serve in the Haganah and went to live with another pacifist in a farm in Nahalal. So I was there for a year and then I got on my own and continued to work as an agricultural laborer in various farms in the area. And then I got a job in a home for delinquent children. That got me into social service work. Eventually, after two years in that home, I became a probation officer, under the British still. When Israel was created in 1948, I continued working for the Israeli government. Then I as again forced into the army, and I refused to fight. I was for a short time in an army jail. Then the commander talked to me and suggested that I do welfare work for soldiers’ families. Which I did, and after the war back as a probation officer. I also went to the school of social work in Jerusalem. Then I got a scholarship to come and study at the University of Pennsylvania in the United Nations Program. I went back after school to Israel, because I didn’t have a bachelor’s. I did the masters work, and they told me if I got the bachelor’s within 5 years I would get my masters. So I went back to Hebrew university and got the bachelor’s there in sociology and education. After two years I went back to the States and went back to the University of Pennsylvania for my doctorate. After a year I got a position at Brandeis and that’s where I’ve been the last 41 years. That’s the whole story. Very quickly.
CL: But I want to have more details, please. Were you politically active when you were in Palestine?
DG: Yes, well, I was active in a movement on the left that advocated the bi-national solution.
CL: Let’s step back to Vienna. The time between 1933 and 1938, before the Nazis rose to power in Austria, the so-called Anschluss. Can you remember things of the Austro-fascist system under Dollfuss and Schuschnigg?
DG: Well, I remember the killing of Dollfuss. I remember the civil war between the socialists and the Heimwehr. But I guess I was too young to really understand what was going on. I once was with the boy scouts. But I have very little memory of this time.
CL: Was the Nazis getting to power in Germany in 1933 a topic on your family table, inside of your family, or with your friends?
DG: Not much.
CL: Were you threatened by this event?
DG: Well, maybe my parents felt threatened. I led a normal life as a young boy. I studied, I was a good student, and both my parents worked in the business. After school, we had somebody who came in to the house who supervised our homework and continue our education. But there was not much political awareness.
CL: The district you were living in Vienna...
DG: Third. Landstrasser Hauptstrasse.
CL: It was a workers’ district?
DG: It goes from the first district, the center, out to...
CL: Simmering.
DG: Simmering, ja. You know Vienna?
CL: Yeah, I’m from Vienna.
DG: So you know it better.
CL: I lived there for 7 years. I’m not originally from Vienna.
DG: I wasn’t politically active, and the family wasn’t very Jewish. We knew we were Jews, but it didn’t mean very much. I had Bar Mitzvah and that involved some education for this. But we went to the synagogue three times a year, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. And I know, even on Yom Kippur my father left the synagogue to open the store at 4 o’clock in the afternoon…Referred to this as “3-Tage Juden”. My grandfather was religious; I remember that he was praying. But I don’t think we had a kosher household. But it was a comfortable middle-class existence. I remember going to the opera with my father, I was very into Wagner, and I saw all the Wagner-operas in Vienna. I studied violin, I studied piano, studied French, Latin, and Greek. All the good things.
CL: Were you aware of any anti-Semitism in Austria before 1938?
DG: Not that I...I don’t remember any special...I know there was anti-Semitism. I was in school, but there was ... nobody attacked me or challenged me or bullied me because I was Jewish. And I think the Austrian schools, religion was a subject, it was taught in the school. And so the Jewish kids went into one room, and the catholic in another. So we knew who was Jewish. But the classes, with the Jewish teachers were kind of fun. Because I guess the kids knew he isn’t going to hurt you. So you can act up a little. Sort of not very disciplined class.
CL: Did your family encounter any anti-Semitism? Or your older brother?
DG: Not that I am aware of.
CL: How much older is your brother?
DG: Just one year, 13 months older. We are kind of together.
CL: Can you remember March 13, 1938?
DG: I remember the evening before that, when we were sitting listening to Schuschnigg’s speech. We knew now things are going to be bad. That was clear. I went on the following day to Ringstrasse, to the Imperial Hotel, where Hitler spoke, on the balcony.
CL: On Heldenplatz?
DG: No, that was Hotel Imperial.
CL: Were there crowds?
DG: Huge crowd.
CL: And from one day to the other, did something change?
DG: Yes, I was kicked out of school.
CL: Besides this.
DG: That’s a major change because your social life as a kid is in the school. Suddenly there were new children whom I didn’t know, nobody knew nobody. But we developed relations. And I think as part of the preparation for immigration I went into a course for electricians. I had a license as an electrician’s helper. All these kinds of things we ... [incomprehensible]. And, you know, at that time people did not expect to be killed. That wasn’t ... part of the program was: get the people out, get the Jews out. Many were hurt and attacked and in the streets, it was very bad. And then was November 9 or 10. The Kristallnacht. We were aware of the fact of the Kristallnacht because my father was already in the concentration camp. Many people were arrested, and that was...
CL: Did your father ... you were in contact afterwards ... did your father his months – I think it was a couple of months in Buchenwald?
DG: Very little. You know, I never lived together with him. I visited with him, but there weren’t many things we used to do together anymore. And I was into socialism, which certainly wasn’t his orientation.
CL: He was more conservative?
DG: Like a businessman, be apolitical, do your business.
CL: Market, market, market.
DG: Ja.
CL: Did you see your mother after immigration?
DG: I saw her once in the camp, I was visiting. I couldn’t touch her, there were those fences. On the one side were the visitors; on the other side were the inmates of the camp. I was screaming and talking, it was very painful.
CL: Your family fell apart.
DG: Yes. Fell apart and I guess that the last time I touched her was in the railroad when I went to Sweden. She took me to the Nordbahnhof, or whatever.
CL: Do you know, was it hard to obtain all the papers for your emigration?
DG: I think it was – again, money speaks in such situations – I’m sure there were lots of kids who didn’t get out. And you had to pay for Youth-Aliyah and the family still had that money. So, we both got out, my brother and I. And then the whole family got out with nothing. Everything was turned over to the Germans.
CL: And you escaped to Sweden without any money, I guess, you were poor family with no property in Vienna...
DG: Everything’s gone.
CL: Did you try to get retaliation?
DG: Yes, well, you know, my father got his Austrian citizenship back, and he got some compensation. And I got some compensation, and I still get social security from Vienna every month, about 500 Euros or something, doesn’t hurt. [laughs]You know, this is for when I worked as an electrician’s helper. The pension was calculated as if I had continued to work until 65.
CL: As an electrician’s helper.
DG: Probably would have become a master electrician by then.
CL: Not as a professor.
DG: So anyways, I still get it every month.
CL: Did you ever visit Vienna again?
DG: Oh yeah, I was there twice. Once I was with my brother there. Must be 10 years ago, I don’t remember. ... Listen, I’m very uncomfortable, but it is 5 past 11, and the way these elevators work I’m afraid we better quit. We can do something by telephone.
(End of Side A)
Interviewed on March 10, 2005,
On the telephone
CL: How long have you stayed in Sweden after...
DG: In Sweden? I left Sweden in March 1940.
CL: And until then you lived in the same place?
DG: In the same place…In the children’s home.
CL: In the children’s home. You were 15 at this age, is this right?
DG: Yes, it was 1939, I’m born 1924. So I was going on 15 when I came and I was 15 when I left.
CL: Were there other chances to go somewhere else or did your parents decide you should go to Sweden?
DG: I don’t know what my mother arranged, but I think she wanted me to go to Palestine because my brother was supposed to go there with Youth-Aliyah. I guess Youth-Aliyah arranged for that interim stay in Sweden because I was too young at that time to go straight to Palestine. You had to be 15 on the British Mandatory registration.
CL: And he was older and he was already there?
DG: My brother was a year older and he got there the same year I got to Sweden he got to Palestine.
CL: So you left Vienna 1939.
DG: Yes. In 1939.
CL: Maybe you have...do you have some recollections of November 9, 1938?
DG: Reichskristallnacht?
CL: Yes.
DG: Well, actively not much because we were not directly affected. My father was already imprisoned. So they didn’t come to look for him. We only learned the following day what would have happened: destruction and victimization of people and property. But we were not directly affected.
CL: Your father was previously arrested?
DG: My father was arrested in July 1938. About three months after Vienna was occupied.
CL: And he was arrested and sent to where?
DG: First, I think, in a police jail in Vienna, and then he was sent to Buchenwald.
CL: But he was released?
DG: He was released from Buchenwald in 1940 I believe, or 1941. When my mother was able to book passage to Palestine on an illegal transport. Everybody could get out of the camp if they had some place to go. The problem was that most people didn’t have any place to go.
CL: But you were already in Sweden?
DG: I was already in Sweden.
CL: So you didn’t know how they obtained the papers to Palestine.
DG: That I don’t know, but probably it was a matter of being able to pay. You’re with an advantage with money.
CL: What was the occupation of your father before you had to flee?
DG: My father had a business together with his father and his mother and my mother; they all worked in that business. What kind of business was it? I guess they were selling clothes and materials. What they called, I think, dry goods.
CL: Ah, dry goods, yeah. They had a shop or a store.
DG: That’s right. They had a very big store in Vienna.
CL: In which district?
DG: The third district. We lived in the third district and the store was about five minutes from where we lived. Same district, it was on the main street of the third district, Landstrasser Hauptstrasse, 99 – 101. I still remember.
CL: How are your recollections about this year you spent in Austria, when the National Socialists were in power?
DG: Well, that was a year of considerable change because, I guess, we were not prepared for what happened. I had to adjust, and I was transferred to a segregated Jewish high school, my father was arrested shortly after Vienna was occupied. My grandfather died the same summer and I guess I was involved in ... I mentioned that I studied being an electrician helper in preparation for emigration. I was in a trade, and I was involved in a Jewish Youth movement... [incomprehensible], you know, dealt with Zionist indoctrination.
CL: Were your parents religious parents?
DG: No.
CL: Were you brought up in a religious way or...
DG: Completely secular. They called people like them “Dreitage-Juden”, “Three-day-Jews”; which means they went to synagogue On Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur. They kept the business open on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They closed the business, but they opened it early in the afternoon.
CL: And they were Zionists, were your parents Zionists?
DG: No, they were not Zionists.
CL: Were your parents political in a way?
DG: I think they probably voted social democrat, social democratic party in Vienna for the elections, but they were not active. They were very busy in their work. But I think they also believed that as merchants they should be neutral. Appear to be neutral. Whatever their thinking may have been.
CL: So the decision to send first your brother and later you to Palestine was not of political...
DG: No, it wasn’t, it was of opportunity. The Zionists were very strong in the Jewish community administration. And we had no opportunity; we had no relatives in any country overseas, and in Europe. That was pushed by the Jewish community. And ... [incomprehensible] was available.
CL: Can you describe ... can you perhaps remember when you came from Sweden, how you went from Sweden to Palestine.
DG: Actually I was the first kid in that group that got the permit to enter Palestine. This was shortly before Holland and Belgium and France were invaded by the Germans. We flew from Sweden to Amsterdam, Holland. And from there by train to Paris and Marseilles. And from Marseilles we went by boat to Haifa.
CL: But by this time it was already war.
DG: The war started in September 1939. The Germans invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939. They had already invaded Czechoslovakia before that, but that was not yet considered war. World War II started in September, 1939. The invasion of Poland and the immediate declaration of war by England and France who I guess had an agreement to protect Poland.
CL: But the war didn’t affect your trip to travel...
DG: Not yet. Because there was this Maginot line. The Germans confronted the French and the English. And only in March, I think, a little later than I moved, they circumvented the line of France and entered Holland and Belgium, and then entered France through Holland. But that didn’t affect my trip to Palestine. It was shortly thereafter.
CL: And in Haifa, did you meet immediately your brother?
DG: Oh no, my brother was in a Kibbutz, Yagur, which is close to Haifa. He was in a school, a carpenter school. I went from Haifa to Kwuzat Skillevm, which is a small kibbutz in the south, close to Rawod.
CL: So you met him later?
DG: We were not together, we were never together again.
CL: You were never together again?
DG: No. I mean, we met.
CL: But you didn’t live together.
DG: We didn’t live together. And also when the parents arrived in Palestine, they had hoped that we would live together. But that never worked out because they were caught by the British navy and were put on a ship to be deported to Mauritius, a British colony. And the Jewish underground blew up that ship, the Patria in the harbor of Haifa. Some 200 people died in that event, my parents swam t the shore and were arrested and put into Atlit internal camp.
CL: Your mother didn’t survive this camp?
DG: My mother became sick with typhus and died of this. I’ve been able to see her once. Visiting at the internment camp, separated by barbed wire. Sort of communicating through voice [?]. But that was the last time I saw her.
CL: There was no possibility of getting your parents out of the camp?
DG: No, there wasn’t a possibility because the British did not issue permits, I mean, they issued a limited number. And gradually they assigned the permits to people in the camp. But that took – I guess my father must have been there for 2 years, I’m not sure.
CL: Was this also a work camp or just an internment camp?
DG: It as primarily internment, I’m not aware whether there was education, training or productive engagement. The camp exists now as a museum.
CL: Let’s go over to your personal situation. You were 16 when you came to Palestine, or 15, 16.
DG: I became 16 on the voyage. I traveled in March, and March 16 was my birthday.
CL: How was your personal situation when you arrived in Palestine, Haifa?
DG: I was taken to that Kibbutz Kwuzat Skillev, and that was a Youth-Aliyah group, they were 20 of us. And I was number 13, which meant that I was living with 3 young women because we had 5 rooms, four to a room. And I guess there were 3 rooms for boys and 2 rooms for girls, but there were 7 girls, and I was number 8. So I lived with 3 women.
CL: And you worked there at the kibbutz?
DG: Worked there half a day and half a day we were studying. And we were inducted into the underground. And that’s where I got into trouble because I refused to get training with weapons. By then I already developed a war-resistance-position. I joined the international war-resisters-league. And so when I was recruited into that underground training I refused. And that created problems because the people were afraid that I would give away the secrets. It is understandable in the underground, always suspicious and en garde. I learned eventually that I was supposed to be executed, but was saved by one of the counselorss of the youth group who promised that he would watch me.
CL: That was training for the underground for the fight against the British?
DG: Against the British, against Palestine, against anybody who is an obstacle to the Zionist project of establishing the Jewish state.
CL: For how long did you stay in this kibbutz and surrounding of Jewish underground?
DG: A year and a half, probably. Usually the Youth-aliyah time was two years. But because of my political conflict I was transferred to the farm in Nahalal. The owner of that farm was a war resister, so I was philosophically close to him. That’s why I was placed there by the Youth-Aliyah. He was a strict vegetarian and opposed to any use of force. His name was Nason Hopshi [?]. Hopshi means Frieden [peace]. The name he had adopted.
CL: In Palestine?
DG: Yes. He was one of the early settlers in Palestine; I think he was from the first or second Russian immigration. And he was one of the founders of Hahalal which is a Moshav.
CL: What was your next station in Palestine?
DG: I stayed about 6 months with Nason, and then I became an agricultural laborer by the pay. It was a job, I took it. And survived in this way. Then I got a job in a bookbindery and printing job in Jerusalem. And next I got a job in a home for delinquent children in 1943 I got this position.
CL: Can you describe the life in Palestine at that time a little bit? How it was to live in Jerusalem, while the war was out there...
DG: I belonged to a political minority, not only pacifist but also opposed to the establishment of the state. That was a movement around the philosopher Martin Buber, at the Hebrew University. The president of the university, Magnus [?], they had initiated this movement. That advocated a bi-national state for Jews and Arabs together instead of separate states. I was involved in that, and actually through the help of one of the professors at the university who was active in that movement I got the position in the home for delinquent children. ... [Incomprehensible] my social service career.
CL: But you didn’t go to university in Jerusalem?
DG: Not yet. Much later. I went to the University of Jerusalem after I finished the University of Philadelphia. I went to graduate school, then to undergraduate school. It is a little crazy. I’ve never finished formal high school. I have taken a high school equivalency exam ... [incomprehensible]. I prepared for this on my own. Then I was able to get a scholarship from the United Nations to study in Philadelphia.
CL: Can you tell me more about the life in Israel, when you came from Austria, you didn’t speak the language, I guess?
DG: By then I...I learned Hebrew fast. I mean, we studied Hebrew in Sweden and we studied Hebrew in the Kibbutz. By 1942 I worked in the printing office where you have to know the language. Printing at that time was not so much done by machines, you had to put the text together, take letters, and build the text, and it got into a printing machine. So I had to know the language fairly well to be able to do this.
CL: Was it difficult for you to be there alone, by yourself?
DG: Actually I wouldn’t say I was all by myself, I was supporting myself, but I had contacts with likeminded people. The printer in Jerusalem, where I held the position, he was actually a religious person, but he was also a vegetarian. So he was sympathetic and he had two daughters with whom I was friendly because they also worked in the print-shop and the bindery. So I had some social connection. Not much.
CL: And after...
DG: And then in 1943 I got the position in the home for delinquent children. I associated with other counselors and teachers. I was a teacher also for first grade students. The place still exists.
CL: Is it near Jerusalem?
DG: No, no. It’s half way between Tel Aviv and Haifa, it’s in Telmont [?].
CL: How long did you work there?
DG: I worked there for two years, and then I got a position as a probation officer in Tel Aviv.
CL: What is a probation officer?
DG: It’s connected to the juvenile court and supervises children that are put on probation. Delinquent children.
CL: So you were working with juvenile criminals?
DG: Children who had been put on probation by the juvenile court.
CL: What kind of cases were they involved in? Were they criminal cases or political cases?
DG: Not political. Those were little kids who were stealing and doing all sorts of things they were not supposed to do. And so, they were arrested by the police and came before the court. The probation officer had to prepare the report on the child to visit the family, talk with the parents, talk with the children and then make recommendations to the court how to dispose of the case. And in most situations the children were put under the supervision of a probation officer. And that was my job then.
CL: For two years, so until 1945?
DG: No, I got the job in 1945; I was in the home from 1943 to 1945. And in 1945 I got the job and I had to get a special authorization by the director of social service because I was too young. You had to be 25 years old to be appointed as a probation officer. And I was in 1945 was just 21. And so I was to see the director, and he turned out to be a Quaker, from England, and he was very sympathetic with my story. So I got the special authorization to become a probation officer being only 21 years old.
CL: When did you decide to ... I think the next station was ... London?
DG: No, no. The next station was the creation of Israel in 1948.
CL: But you were not fighting in the independence war.
DG: I had to enter the army like every young man, and when we were to be sworn in, I refused to be sworn in and was arrested. And probably a week or more in an army lock-up. And then the commander talked to me and he was a sensible person. And understood my position. He said that rather than being in a fighting unit, I should do social service for army families. And so I did this for a year or so and then I was discharged. And then I went back to work as a probation officer for the department of social services of the Israeli government.
CL: And when did you decide to go back to university and start to study?
DG: Well, Israel was admitted to the United Nations I think late in 1948. And therefore became entitled to United Nations scholarships for Israelis. And I applied for a scholarship to study. But I was doing it without having studied it. And they told me that I first had to study social work in Israel, so I went to the Jerusalem school of social work, which was affiliated with the Hebrew university. After I got my social work certificate from the school, I got a scholarship to go to the University of Pennsylvania. There I studied for two years and then I had an obligation to return to Israel. I was then working as the ... [incomprehensible] director of the probation service. And after two years I immigrated to the United States in 1957. I studied at the University of Pennsylvania from 1953 to 1955. When I was done with that they told me I couldn’t get my degree until I had an undergraduate degree. And I went back to Israel and studied in Jerusalem while working for the government. And I got my bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University in sociology and education.
End of Tape 1, Side B
DG: We immigrated to the States, we settled in Philadelphia and I had a position as a social worker with the Jewish Family Service. And I worked in the doctoral program in the University of Pennsylvania which I completed in 1963. I also worked with an association for Jewish Children in Philadelphia. Also I had gotten married still in Israel, and we had twins, they were born in 1957. We immigrated to the States, and already had the children. And I worked in Philadelphia in two social agencies. Was involved politically with friends in the socialist movement. After graduating in 1963 I took a position in Boston as research director with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I did this for a year, and in 1964 I joined the faculty of Brandeis and have been there ever since.
CL: Do you have any notion why you are personally so involved with social topics, social work, why you were aware of social problems?
DG: There are two reasons: while I was in Sweden, I by chance read an autobiography of Gandhi. This made a strong impression on me. And I became an active pacifist, admiring the marvel of Gandhi and ever since then I had – in the Kibbutz in Israel – experienced the reality of socialism, living in a socialist setting. It was not only the contradiction by being committed to non-violence, but I learned about the possibilities cooperatively, collectively, rather than individualistically: everybody taken care of him- or herself. Out of these experiences, I became very critical of the capitalist culture of the United States and also through my work. Where I worked as a social worker, I realized that social work is not solving the problems of people, because it’s not dealing with the causes. It deals with the symptoms and helps people to do the best they can within the existing social reality. But if you wanted to eliminate poverty and discrimination and exclusion and all the things that are almost standard in the culture here, I realized that the whole system has to change. Towards one that is not competitive, but cooperative. And that’s committed to the development of every human being all over the world. That would give us a rich world. All my studies and my writings and my teachings are along this political philosophy.
CL: Was this a question for you to immigrate to the US even though it is the country of capitalism and free market?
DG: When I was a student from 1953 to 1955 I learned the realities of the United States. I learned that despite all the destructiveness of the capitalist culture the United States still protect the right to free thinking and acting. And probably more so than in small Israel. Israel is a very small country. And the pressure of political conformities is much stronger than in the United States. In that sense, while the United States is perhaps the core nation of evil in the world, we define the “axis of evil”, but Washington perhaps is the center of domination and exploitation on a global scale. But you can say so.
CL: And you can act against it.
DG: And you can act against it, and for a while I was co-chair of the socialist party. There is a small socialist party in this country. You may not know of it...
CL: I heard about it but I didn’t know...
DG: There is a socialist party and there are several socialist groups. And I belong to all of them.
CL: But it’s not a strong political power. It is active, but it’s not on the political mainstream?
DG: No, it’s not in the mainstream obviously. You could say that the US is a one-party country. Republicans and Democrats stay for the same economic, political system and culture. There are marginal differences between them, but they all support a system that exists on exploitation. Of people in this country and people all over the world.
CL: Going back a bit again, was it ever for you a question of moving back to Austria ... or somewhere in Europe?
DG: I was in Vienna several times. And I was in Berlin. Actually I was invited to Berlin to a conference, one of the studies I did in this country was a study about abuse. A nationwide study. I published a book on that and articles, and they were translated in Germany. They were people who were interested in those issues, so they invited me to their conference in Berlin. Then I was invited to a conference in Hamburg, where I gave a paper: “Have we really overcome Hitler?” And my argument was that Hitler won World War II. The United States and the Western powers won the battles, but the spirit of domination and racism of Hitler actually won the war. It continued.
CL: It survived.
DG: Yes, it survived. The system and now the United States has taken the place of Great Britain in being an imperial power and dominating the international institutions: the United Nations, and the World Bank, and the Monetary Fund, all these things. The ideas of Hitler have not been terminated. They shape still the global reality and the terrible wars in Korea and in Vietnam and the wars in Africa and now the war with Iraq. The way the United States treats prisoners and all the efforts against terrorism doesn’t deal with the sources of terrorism, it deals with the symptoms. And terrorism is not the ... [incomprehensible] phenomenon; it is the result of global inequalities and injustice.
CL: Can you maybe explain a little bit more what you mean when you say Hitler’s ideas have survived.
DG: Hitler’s idea of supremacy of his race and his nation. And this idea still survives in many places, certainly the United States acted as if it was a supreme country. This morning you can read in the Times that when the World Court told us we could not execute 50 Mexicans condemned to death without giving them opportunity to meet the representative of their nation. The United States quit that protocol that obligated us to act that way. The court had decided we should retry these people. You can see it in the Times today.
CL: I will look it up.
DG: But that’s simply the rule of the dominant country that doesn’t accept international positions. Objections to the World Criminal Court. We do everything as we want. We have quit the Kyoto agreement on global warming. And we act ... [incomprehensible].
CL: Do you think it’s just the policy of the supremacy policy of the United States...
DG: There are many countries similar.
CL: Is this an aspect of specially this administration, or were former administrations...
DG: If you read the history of the United States: the early immigrants exterminated the native people. If there ever was a successful genocide it’s the genocide of the native people in the United States. So from the beginning we have acted as if we were supreme, we have brought in slaves when we couldn’t enslave the native people. So that’s not a particular practice of the current government. That current government is doing extreme along these lines. But it’s part of the total European occupation of North America, and also South America, Central America. The Spaniards, it’s the same thing…The English, the French, and everybody.
CL: So you think that European countries developed a sort of supremacy of...
DG: Well, Europe, in every country you have a counter movement. And sometimes they even get elected. I think Spain right now has a socialist prime minister. Also Portugal, I’m not sure. France had a socialist president.
CL: Germany.
DG: So in European countries there is a strong labor movement, and socialist groups. So Europe is more restraint in practicing capitalism. Capitalism in Scandinavia is not as evil as it is in the United States.
CL: I would love to talk to you about this further because I’m really interested in this, too. And I would like to...
DG: Why don’t you come to visit Heller School, and you can also read my books or I can send you papers.
CL: I would like to. I have a master in political science in Vienna and it’s...
DG: Yeah. Even Vienna seems to be better than the United States. Their capitalism is more restrained.
CL: Vienna has also a strong socialist tradition.
DG: I remember the civil war against the socialists in Vienna.
CL: Can you remember the Dollfuss regime, the Austrofascist system?
DG: Dollfuss was a homegrown fascist, more or less. And so was Schuschnigg who followed him.
CL: Can you remember the time?
DG: Sure, I remember going to school in Vienna, all was ... celebrated ... the Heimwehr. It was kind of a local Nazi system.
CL: It was a fascistic system like in Italy.
DG: Yeah. It was something in between Italy and Germany. But it was its own. At least it wasn’t as oppressive for Jews. It was anti-Semitic, but not officially. And there was strong anti-Semitism in Vienna since Lueger, the mayor under Kaiser Franz Joseph. But it was never official policy until Hitler came. Hitler learned his anti-Semitism in Vienna. Hitler grew up in Austria, Braunau, and he was a poor art student in Vienna. Actually he worked for a Jew.
CL: He was working with a Jewish painter and I think he was a really untalented painter.
DG: But I will be glad to send you some things I’ve written.
That would be great. But one more question: you said you went back to Austria. How was your feeling?
DG: Very uncomfortable. A mix. I enjoyed visiting all the places, my school, my gymnasium, business of my parents, the house in which we have lived. But I wasn’t able to communicate with people about my experience.
CL: Do you still speak German.
DG: Oh, ja. I speak German and I’ve German friends. Not Austrian. I brought several German professors to my school as visiting professors. One is a socialist who is just ... the latest book has been translated into German and being published by the socialist bureau in Germany.
CL: When you were visiting Vienna, was it just personally uncomfortable for you or did you sense some sort of anti-Semitic atmosphere?
DG: I can’t say that I sensed anti-Semitic atmosphere because I hardly talked to anybody. I walked around, I looked around, I visited Alt Aussee, were we used to go as a family in the summer. I visited all those places, but I didn’t talk much to people. I felt inhibited. In Germany I had no problem. I visited Berlin several times and I visited Hamburg, I visited Kassel, everywhere we have friends, with whom we are in touch. But in Vienna, it’s kind of strange. And I don’t blame Vienna for it; it’s something of my inner problems with that past.
CL: Would you take your kids to...I don’t know, do you have children?
DG: Yes, but they are old men. They are 48 years old.
CL: Are they interested in your past, in your family history?
DG: Oh, yes. They still knew my father. He came to visit. He lived in Israel, but he came to visit here and the children knew him. They are interested. CL: And they are – one is a journalist, he is now the editor for Health and Science for the Boston Globe, and the other is a scientist, works with a pharmaceutical company in Northern California in Irvine. They know all my philosophy, my politics. They are not as involved politically as I have been because I think they are too busy surviving. They have to work hard.
CL: Is it difficult to talk about your past, your immigration, and your parents?
DG: Never talked much about it. I mean, my separation from the family was very traumatic and painful. And the fact that we never got together as a family, leaves this whole part of my life incomplete.
CL: So it’s not the fact that there is anti-Semitism in Austria and in Germany, it was more that your family was torn apart?
DG: It was my whole experience, family situation, losing my mother when she was a relatively young woman after she saved the family. I mean, she saved my brother, me, my father, but she lost her life and never achieved what she wanted. She wanted to be together with her children. I dealt with these things by kind of not dealing with them.
CL: Maybe writing is a good way of dealing with it.
DG: My writing has essentially dealt with how you prevent things like that. I remember that at the beginning I mentioned that I read Gandhi's biography, but even before then, when I got to Sweden, the question that occupied my mind was: how do you prevent a thing like it happened to me? Because it’s equally bad if it happens to a German child. That’s no advantage. My whole scholarly work essentially has been an attempt to deal with these questions. How do you create a world in which things like what happened to me will not happen to anyone? And that led to my political position, rejection the capitalist culture and dynamics and searching for a nonviolent socialism. Trouble is that socialism has gotten a bad name from Russia and China. Because they really didn’t practice socialism in the sense of human equality. They practiced ... I mean the working rights of people in the factories in Russia and in China are perhaps even worse than the working rights of people in this country. Because here there are unions. And the unions in the Soviet Union and in China were kind of government controlled and were not really protecting the interests of the working people. We haven’t seen real socialism, except perhaps in collective settlements in Palestine and in other countries. There are such cooperative settlements even in the United States. There is a federation of egalitarian communities in this country who practice socialism.
CL: Why do you think that there was never a strong socialist movement, organized socialist movement like in parties in this country?
DG: Actually there was. The immigrants in the late 19th century brought socialist policy with them. And there was a strong socialist party, Eugene Debs, was one of the founders. Got millions of votes, and he was candidate for president. Now the socialist party still runs candidates, but they get a few thousands votes and not a few millions. And why we don’t have a movement, a strong movement, that’s partly due to the repression by the attorney general after World War I. Debs was in jail, and many people were deported. And there was a real systematical attempt to destroy socialist and communist movements in the McCarthy period. It scared people and people of their livelihoods. So this country is not practicing what it preaches, freedom of political positions. Even in the university, there are obstacles with a left position. Not systematically, but I know we have not hired several people whom I have recruited because we considered them not right. Nobody said it’s because of their politics, but it turns out that way. Universities can always find good reasons why somebody is not good enough scholarly.
CL: Ok Mr. Gil, I think we are through, thanks a lot.
DG: You are very welcome. And if you give me your email I will send you some things.
CL: That would be great.
End of Tape 2, Side A
Transcript by Clemens Kaupa
Edited by Philipp Haydn