Because the famous actress and activist, Oscar winning, was moved while reading a paragraph from
the most successful book by award-winning Israeli writer Nava Semel at the
closing ceremony of a historic event: The first International Symposium on Sexual Violence during The Holocaust, organized by the foundation created by
Steven Spielberg, USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education - and Remember the Women Institute the past 8th November in LA.
“I wish the
fighting will end soon. For the sake of all innocent people
– both Israelis and
Palestinians”
I am shocked. This is the first time I have ever interviewed someone
while their country is under attack by hundreds of terrorist missiles, and the
rest of the world remains silent because those missiles are only aiming at
killing Jews. Someone whose country is at war.
I never dared to ask how she
was until a missile fell in Tel Aviv, her hometown. And then Nava answered me
with the same strength and warmth from her previous emails (and that moved me
and made me admire her): “We’re fine. Thank you for your concern.”
Even when she told me,
because I asked her, that her son was called to the reserve the following day, she
did not condemn her aggressors: she was only thankful her son wouldn’t be at
the battlefront.
And I don’t know why I
imagined that after writing me those reassuring letters, almost always at
night, Nava would look for a quiet corner, barely place her forehead against
the wall, and turning her back to the war, a couple of tears would roll down
her face, silently, the only silence that the missiles soaring her sky let her:
an inner silence.
And it is night-time here as
I write; the sky is starry, the moon swells and frogs croak asking for rain as
the summer approaches and heat rises. Only a commercial flight soars the sky,
and it is just one during the whole night. It’s the countryside here. It’s
still and peaceful here.
And then I think about Nava’s
sky violated by hundreds of terrorist missiles. I think about Nava’s night
terrorized by the sound of sirens. I think about Nava’s stars desperate because
of the fire. I think about Nava’s moon hidden by fear. And I think about Nava,
who is all the women and men, and everyone’s childhood and youth, locked in an
air-raid shelter, with her eyes wide open, unable to sleep when death comes
falling from the sky, and I cry.
Nava Semel with her mother
Mimi Artzi who survived Auschwitz
"We had to become our parents' protectors against the
dangers of memory."
dangers of memory."
Nava, Jane Fonda was so shocked by your novel that while reading it – journalist Daniel Weizmann tells –: “she looked at the ceiling and with her characteristic, pleading voice she said: “How to tell the story?”
I'm deeply moved and honored. I feel that a circle is finally closed. In
June 1980 Jane Fonda visited Israel
as a guest of the Haifa Theatre. She was invited to launch a theatre
educational program in a poor neighborhood. My husband Noam Semel was the
Director General of the Haifa Theatre at the time. He hosted Ms. Fonda during
her stay in Israel.
One day I was asked to accompany Ms. Fonda on a car ride from Tel Aviv to Haifa. I was young than
and very shy, so at first I refused, but my husband insisted. Along the way Ms.
Fonda began questioning me about the scar of the Holocaust in my family. It was
as if she somehow sensed it. She told me about her friend in LA whose
memories suddenly came back. Suddenly, my heart opened. I was overwhelmed
because I never spoke about my sad childhood and the term "Second
Generation" did not exist yet.
I opened up to Ms. Fonda as I never did
before, and for the first time in my life the words "I'm a daughter of a
Holocaust survivor", came out of my lips. This experience was so deep, 4
years later I wrote the story "One ride with Fonda". published
in 1985 in
my collection "Hat of Glass", the first Israeli book in prose to
address the issue of Second Generation.
I always felt that Jane Fonda found the
mysterious key to my hidden scar and helped me come out of my dark emotional
pit. Now, twenty five years later our paths are crossing again.
Were you there?
I'm so sorry I missed this event. I had just come back from a 10 days
book tour in Italy
a few days earlier, so I was too exhausted and could not travel again.
What
were you doing in Italy?
And the Rat Laughed came out in January 2012, so I was invited to give guest
lecture at a conference in Milan
University. Since I
recently published a new book in Hebrew which takes place in Italy under Nazi occupation, I was also invited to talk about it in Torino. My last stop was the University
of Calabria in Southern
Italy where I participated in a two days conference on teaching
the Holocaust.
Which story shocked both Jane Fonda and the audience the most?
Perhaps because And
the Rat Laughed is a unique book. Unlike other Holocaust-related
books that focus on the historical horrific events, this novel deals with the
act of remembering them. It resembles a relay race in which the characters
transfer memory from one another. The
novel got acclaim for its use of unconventional and original literary devices
and became a ground breaker for exploring the act of memory itself. I
wish I could listen to Jane Fonda's beautiful voice. Her special way in posing
the question on behalf of my protagonist: "How to tell this story?"
Does the story change
while we recall it? How will our next recipient recall it in their own
individual way? Is Art the only way
to transfer emotional memory?
I'm troubled by these
questions, seeking answers in my books. And the Rat Laughed deals with
the influence of the most horrific chapter of human history on man’s
relationship with God, on the understanding of human nature, on the need to
forget in order to survive, and on the need to remember, nonetheless.
The
character of your novel is a 5 year-old girl, victim of Nazis and of rape by a
catholic man. Is that a true story?
No. It is pure fiction. Although I always assumed that similar cases did
happen during those dark days.
The book begins on the last day of 1999, when a survivor grandmother in Tel Aviv shares her tragic life story as a
hidden child in a pit, with only a rat for company with her granddaughter. This
rat taught her how to laugh and kept her sanity. The day after – 2000
already – the granddaughter tells the legend of “Girl and Rat” to her teacher
and in 2009 those who heard it through her classmates establish an internet
website with poems. From now on this memory is spread all over the world and becomes
a famous myth. In 2099 the future anthropologist Y-Mee Prana tries to uncover its mysterious roots. In her
research, she reveals the first man who created this myth in the past. Father
Stanislaw, a Catholic priest, saved
that little Jewish girl (who later became the grandmother in Tel Aviv).
In his personal journal he documented everything, to make sure the world would
never forget. The chain of "remembearers",
therefore, moves from the present to the future and back to the past.
The novel is written in five genres: story, legend, poems, science fiction and diary, creating a cycle of 150 years.
When
and how was the story born?
This novel is the strangest and most profound experience in my entire
life. It took 2 years to actually write it, yet 10 years before the seeds were
already planted. While living in NY in 1989, I attended the first gathering of
hidden children. At first, they were the image of success and the SHOAH
couldn't be attached to them. Later, I detected a frozen child inside,
struggling with his memory and torn between a vicious dilemma. On one hand, he
yearns so much to remember, wanting to hold a thread of his lost identity. On
the other, he's too afraid to recall the most heart breaking moment of his
life: the separation from his parents.
When leaving the conference, walking on Park Avenue
on a beautiful fall afternoon, I heard a voice whispering in my head:
"someone must give voice to these "mute" children". I never
thought this someone would be me. For ten years I collected testimonies
of hidden children. They were very short, laconic, as if not only memory was
suppressed but their entire being is coded into short, formal sentences.
The last trigger for writing was my meeting with a survivor who shared
his memoire. During the conversation in a café in Tel Aviv on a winter night in
1998, the door opened and closed constantly and I've noticed his body jumped.
His face became that of a boy. He than told me how he is still waiting for his
mama to come and take him back, as she promised so many years ago.
The door banging started the book. I heard the grandma's voice in my
head.
What
happened in Israel
when the novel was published?
I feel blessed because the novel was enthusiastically
received by both the Israeli public and the critics. It even became a
best-seller. Later, it was adapted for the stage. I wrote the libretto-play
version for an opera, composed by Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff. It was performed by the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and the Israeli Chamber Orchestra from 2005-2009. The opera represented Israel at the
Theatre Festivals in Warsaw Poland,
Sibiu in Romania and Bucharest National Theatre. In 2009
a new production in Hebrew, opened in Toronto Canada
by "Opera York".
Can we expect a
movie based on your book?
The film rights were bought by an Israeli film producer and I had just
finished writing the screen version. Making movies in Israel is a
long process because of the need of raising the necessary funds. Yet, I'm
hopeful.
You’re
a daughter of survivors. How do you feel when writing of the horrors the Nazis
inflicted upon people like your parents?
My mother, Mimi Artzi, who survived Auschwitz, didn’t talk about her horrific past. Even on
Holocaust Memorial Day she used to turn off the radio and television and
barricade herself behind walls of silence. The only story to leak was
about Clarissa, her Kapo in her last concentration camp in Germany, who
had saved her from certain death. Mom called her "my angel".
Years later, Clarissa inspired my book Hat
of Glass which was the first attempt in contemporary Israeli prose to
publicly discuss the issue of the second generation to Holocaust survivors. She
also inspired the character of Father Stanislaw the Catholic priest who saves a
Jewish girl in And the Rat Laughed, written 2 decades later.
The ‘pact of silence’ between surviving
parents and their children - “you don’t ask and we won’t tell”- was not
exclusively confined to my family. The survivors' private Holocaust had been
concealed in the deepest recesses of their souls, so that only the tip of the
iceberg continued to surface, through their nightmares or via the mundane
routine of Israeli life; a potato peel, a barking dog, a torn garment, a bare
foot, a school trip, a railway track, each and every marginal detail or random
event could unlock a spike of memory from behind the fragile defensive wall and
crush the house.
An entire generation of native born Israeli
kids got the same unspoken message. "You don't ask and I won't tell".
We had to become our parents' protectors against the dangers of memory. It was
our task to shield the survivors from suffering the trauma of remembrance. I
was part of it until I became a writer and the texts taught me differently.
Writing forced me to look straight into the very edge of the black pit.
“Perhaps all the stories have already been
told? say the sceptics." In my latest novel "Screwedon Backwards") Kinneret-Zmora- Bitan, Israel, 2012) again I wrote a Holocaust story. The novel focuses on an Italian Jewish musician who is rescued by his Christian
lover in a small village in Piedmont under
Nazi occupation. The text in the novel responds to all those skeptics: “Memory
must be monitored to its furthest edges so that it doesn’t ever fade
away".
Why
was your childhood sad?
There was always a shadow lingering above. Mine was a typical childhood
in a family of survivors. The parents were devoted to their children, making a
good and protected life for us, but there was no laughter. No Joi de Vivre as
the French term. I always felt there are ghosts in the house and was a very
fearful child.
Nava Semel with Prof. Rochelle Seidel, Dr. Sonia
Hedgepeth and Gloria Steinham,
in Brooklyn Museum, New York 2011. The official launch of the research book
"Sexual Abuse of Women during the Holocaust"
in Brooklyn Museum, New York 2011. The official launch of the research book
"Sexual Abuse of Women during the Holocaust"
When will we be able to read your books in Spanish?
One book of mine was
published in Spain
"Clases de Vuelo". I always hope others will be translated too, especially "And the Rat
Laughed".
When
and why did you start writing?
I began writing before I even knew how to read and write. I told myself
stories all the time. Stories were my safe haven when I felt lonely and fearful. When I was in the dark, hardly able to understand
the circumstances of my childhood. I could
always find shelter among my imaginary characters. They succeeded in making me
happy when life did not.
Are
you writing now?
I had just finished a Television drama about new immigrants who arrive to
Israel
in 1949 when the young state was just established and must face a new harsh
reality. The drama was already filmed and will air in the spring of 2013 on Israel's TV
public channel.
A new play of mine is running now on the stage. "Gong Girl" is
a musical show for children and the entire family about an Israeli girl who
discovers an old Chinese folk Tale. It got fantastic reviews, so I'm happy. I'm
also busy writing a new fantasy novel for Young Adults.
Do
you believe in God?
I believe a superior power does exist, beyond our comprehension. Every
person can find his own way to connect to this great unknown power.
Do you think the
world is a better place now than back in 1940?
Unfortunately, not. People are still murdering other people. Hate and
genocide are still poisoning our world. These are malignant sicknesses in many
societies. Innocent people are being killed all over the world every day. I'm
not at all sure the lesson of the Holocaust was learnt.
As we speak,
missiles fall over Israel,
Hamas’ terrorist missiles. Are you scared?
I feel protected by the "Iron Dome" - a genius Israeli
invention. I wish the fighting will end soon. For the sake of all innocent
people – both Israelis and Palestinians.
Aren’t you tired of the world being so unfair with Israel and the
Jewish people?
The double standard is both frustrating and infuriating. Sometimes
anti-Israeli covers for the old demon of anti-Semitism.
Nava, If you could have
a wish, just one wish, what would it be?
I pray that I won't lose anyone or anything of
what I have right now. Just let me keep what I have and I'll be grateful
forever.
Tel Aviv-City Bell
November 14-20,
2012
Photos courtesy Nava Semel
A
RIDE WITH FONDA by Nava Semel
The day I turned twenty-six, I found myself by sheer coincidence in the back of a black limousine in Tel Aviv sitting next to Jane Fonda.
Fonda was talking.
Not about Sinatra or Bogart or Dietrich or Gable; not about her own
successes, even though they hovered about her like an aura. Fonda was talking about someone named Rukhama
Sasson, but since it was hard for her to pronounce the guttural “kh,” the
woman’s name came out “Ruhama.” As she
spoke, her public face seemed to crack along tiny fault-lines.
Well, said Fonda, Rukhama Sasson was a woman of sixty or so
– Fonda had known her from back home.
Rukhama was liberated from Dachau
when she was twenty. A year later she
married, and she and her husband immigrated to Israel together. For the next forty years, her life seemed to
glide by – she raised her four children, set her house in order, her children
had children. The past seemed to have
been forgotten. A happy ending. A picture-perfect story.
Rukhama's husband made a lot of money, Fonda went on, and
the Sassons were sent to America
as emissaries of the state they had helped to build. With their sons and daughters and three
grandchildren staying behind, Rukhama was finally free of the demands of
everyday life. She was an affluent woman
of leisure ready to discover the ends of the earth. But it was precisely then that the images she
had sealed-off so long ago began to
bubble to the surface. The nightmares
started.
She really had not remembered. She had seen none of the films. On certain days of the year back in Israel she had
refused to turn on the television or radio.
When her children used to ask why, she would respond, “I wiped it
out.”
But living in a foreign country now, her nights had become
such torment that she sought out a healer to restore her sleep.
“She was too terrified to close her
eyes," said Fonda. I felt an
inescapable undercurrent seeping into her voice.
"How could
such heavy old memories come up after so many years?” she asked.
I turned to
her, a meticulously put-together, elegant woman entirely strange to me, and
finally opened my mouth. “Rukhama Sasson
could be my mother,” I said softly.
“My mother
turned off the television and radio on certain days of the year in Israel too…but
her pain never went away, never disappeared.
Her pain had floated into her amniotic fluid. We, her children, drank it in her milk. To this day I can still hear her lamenting,
‘Maybe I never should have brought you into the world. Maybe I sinned giving birth to you.’”
But as I spoke
now, I felt as if I were hugging my mother, as if now, finally, I was old
enough to hug her. Mama, I heard myself
silently saying, I inherited the scent of death from you, maybe in your milk,
maybe in your blood, maybe in a dream, maybe in your screams in the middle of
the night all through the 1950's. Like
fibers that hang suspended in the air, pulling and twisting…
"My mother never talks of her
childhood," I went on. "It’s
as if her life before the war belonged to someone else, as if it is split in
half by an unbreachable chasm."
Fonda listened like a taut
string.
"Israel is full
of Rukhama Sassons who beg for forgiveness because the stain of blood and the
smell of ashes from their own tormented past have clung to their sons and their
daughters.”
Fonda shut the
window of the black limousine and stared outside. She was silent and so was I. And then, suddenly, I recalled that Fonda's
mother had slashed her own wrists.
Fonda pinched
her dry hands together. With the stain of blood and smell of ashes hovering in
the air, we did not look at one another again.
©Nava
Semel
Tel Aviv
1985
Text published with
the permission of Nava Semel
Nava Semel: award-winning
Israeli and international author and playwright, was born in Jaffa-Tel Aviv and has an MA in Art
History from the Tel
Aviv University.
She won the Israeli Prime Minister's Award for
Literature in 1996 and the Women
Writers of the Mediterranean Award in France 1994. She was awarded "Women of the Year in Literature of the City
of Tel Aviv" in 2007.
She is a member of the Board of Directors of Massuah
- the Institute for Holocaust Studies and The Foundation for the
Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel. She was a member of the
Board of Governors of Yad Vashem for many years.
Nava Semel has written
seventeen books of fiction, plays, scripts and opera libretti.
Her acclaimed novel And the Rat Laughed was published in
Israel
in 2001 to rave reviews and great success. Published in Germany 2007, Australia
2008, USA 2009 and Italy 2012. An Opera-Play composed by Ella Milch-Sheriff and
produced by the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and the Israeli Chamber Orchestra
premiered in 2005. The opera ran for five years. Nava Semel and Ella
Milch-Sheriff won the "Rosenblum Award" of the City of
Tel Aviv. The
North American production of the opera opened in 2009 in Toronto, Canada.
A movie version is currently in the making.
Hat
of Glass, the first Israeli book in prose to focus on the Second Generation -
children of Holocaust survivors (published 1985; new edition 1998; translated
into German, Italian and Romanian)
Becoming
Gershona, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in the USA
(1990); published by Viking Penguin; translated into Italian, German, Romanian,
Dutch. Adapted for Israeli television.
Flying
Lessons published by Simon & Schuster (1995); adapted for the Israeli
television; translated into German, Czech, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Serbian and
Albanian. An Opera version opened in 2009 (composer: Ella Milch-Sheriff).
Nava Semel's 2005 novel IsraIsland had received rave reviews and is being
adapted to the stage.
Her book Beginner's Love
(2006) was published in Italy 2007, Czech Republic 2008, Germany 2010 and
Slovakia 2011. The film rights were bought under the auspices of the Jerusalem
Film Fund.
Her biographical fiction Australian
Wedding came out in Israel 2009 to rave reviews and became a
best-seller.
Her latest children's book The
Backpack Fairy came out in 2011.
Her latest novel Screwed on Backwards (2011), the
story of a Jewish musician saved by his Christian lover in Italy under
Nazi occupation, received rave reviews.
In addition, she wrote the
novel Night Games (1994) and
her one-woman play The
Child behind the Eyes, first produced in
1986, ran on the Israeli stage for 11 years.
It has also been produced as a
radio play by the BBC London, Radio France,
Radio Belgium, Radio Spain, Radio Ireland,
six radio stations in Germany,
Radio Austria, and Radio Romania. It won
the "Best Radio Drama" award in Austria 1996, and has been produced
on a CD. On the stage it was performed in Rome (1990), New York (1991), Los
Angeles (1996), Prague (1997), Sibiu Theatre Festival (2004), Resita Theatre in
Romania (2005), State Theatre of Ankara, Turkey (2005), Lodz Theatre - Poland
(2006), Bucharest Theatre (2007). A new production in Israel in Arabic
opened in 2006. The play is currently running in Amsterdam,
Holland (2012).
Semel's children's book Who Stole the Show?
published in 1997, won the Illustrated Book of the Year Award (1998), and
was cited at the "Ze'ev Award" (1999). Italy 2003. An English-Romanian
bi-lingual edition, was published in Romania 2008. A television series,
based on the book was produced in 1999 on Israeli Second Channel.
Other works of fiction
include also Paper Bride (1996; Romania 2000, Germany 2003, Finalist of
the YA
German Book award 2005, Australia 2012); Night Poems (2000) and The
Courage to be Afraid (2005) - two collections of poetry for young
readers on darkness and fears.
Her latest Theatre work Gong
Girl (musical play for children) is currently running on the stage of
the Beit Lessin Theatre and the Mediatheque Youth Theatre.
Ms. Semel has
worked as a journalist, art critic, TV, radio and music producer. She is married with three children. She lives
in Tel Aviv, Israel.
