Dan Pagis

MOTHER – My mother died when I was four. When I was in America, a relative gave me a photograph of her. She is standing, gazing at the street, I suppose, from the room in my grandparents' house in Radautz where I was born, or so I was told. I remember this room very well because I grew up there from the ages of four to seven.... The mention of my mother is very involved and strange. I'm not quite sure what I remember of her directly or what I was told about her. And sometimes I even might hear her voice, but I don't know.

FATHER – (His father emigrated to Palestine when he was four years old.) My father lives in Tel Aviv and is still active. He works as a chemist. I got to know my father when I was 16.

GRANDPARENTS – They were actually like my parents, not only for the seven years that I grew up in their house in Radautz, but even afterwards for two-three years until my grandfather died in the camp where we were deported. My feeling for them is very tender. My grandfather was a merchant. He was in sugar mainly, and so he was very busy and traveled a lot and so on, but still I spent a lot of time with him in his office. He had help there, and I was always interested in them and the sugar of various kinds. Grandmother was just like a mother to me, so with her I spent most of the time. She took care of my education.... At the age of six, I was a very enthusiastic reader. The last room in our apartment was a library, not only of my grandparents but of my various aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters of my mother – and books of my mother too. I had very few friends. I was mostly interested in these books. This went on until I was 11. Approximately at my eleventh birthday I was deported. Everything stopped right there.

SON AND DAUGHTER, TWINS – I'm lucky to have such lovely children, twins that are 16 years old, and I think that the relations are really excellent. I don't know if my expressions gave hint to it, but I am really lucky. This is really the best thing that ever happened to me, the children and the marriage.

SELF PAST – People feel disillusioned about their past, their possible memories or even their achievements.... You ask if I see it (life) as a continuum. I see it as a continuum, as a continuous burning out of the present to complete destruction, even to oblivion. It is confused but I try to put it into some of my poems. I like to think of myself as being rather detached, dealing with general aspects, even when writing about my childhood, but I am not. (He discovered this upon reading his work while working with a translator.) I thought I was less involved than I actually am, my memories and so on. Also this feeling that everything has vanished except some of the terror which still persists.

SELF HOLOCAUST – It took 25 years to actually get to this subject or rather it got to me after I tried to evade it. I was not in a death camp. It was a camp in the Ukraine under German occupation, managed mainly by Roumanian troops but with German commanders, and very often with German units. As far as external facts, it was not the most terrible thing directly. Many people lived through more terrible things. But still the impact was very, very great. Not immediately though. It grew with the years because probably some of the energy I put into the attempt to evade this faded somehow. I grew weaker as it were, so it caught up to me.

SELF FUTURE – I am full of regrets concerning everything. (The question was, can you now live and die without regrets?) My feelings are the opposite of the famous French saying, "je regrette rien." I regret everything, even the future, not only the present and the past. I thought of writing some non-personal, non-lyrical prose, straight stories about other people – imaginary or real – but not the usual lyrical stuff in prose that poets write. And I haven't got around to it because I'm so busy. So I'm now about the near future, and I already regret it.

Walter Robert Gebhard

FATHER – He died in an accident when I was four years of age so, as I said before, this is only a flash. I can recall sitting in a car with a tremendously large steering wheel in front of me and he was sitting next to me trying to explain what this thing was.

DAUGHTER – What about my daughter? Of course, I am proud of her. In the first place, she is a very attractive teenager. Secondly, I'd be more proud if she'd be a little better at school. And I would be more proud still if she'd tidy up her surroundings a little more. She is at the beginning of the teenage period. She is 14.

SELF PAST – Turbulent. Very much so. I wouldn't want to miss one day. It wasn't all very positive. There are things I'd do differently today but, altogether and generally speaking, I would not want to miss one day of my youth. This may sound surprising to you but this includes the days during the war when I was a prisoner, because I learned new things, different things which I'd probably not have learned.

SELF WAR – In the first place, I think it was quite unnecessary to start a war, wherever that start began. Secondly, do you mind if I tell you what a Texan said to me repeatedly when I was a prisoner of war in Texas7 He said to me that, as the U.S. is in the war, we Texans might as well join it. And that was apparently my situation. From my point of view, there had to be a war. We were called to the weapons and we thought we might as well go.

ABOUT WAR AND GERMANY – Talking about the war, I should also mention that we lived during those days through different types of war. For instance, I was in Russia, and that was one type of war. Before, I was in Norway, and that was altogether different. I was also in Africa. That again was different, quite different. The fighting in Russia was done primarily, from whatever side you look at it, to survive. The question was to kill or be killed. You had no alternative and you, of course, killed whether you liked it or not. The war in Africa was different. I was in a different position there. I was with army headquarters and, of course, we went out to the front lines also. But what we did have ... as the enemy was a fair, fair opponent. I didn't even consider it to be an enemy. They were soldiers like we were. They were just standing on the other side. Well, fighting was hard, naturally. I met Rommel in Tunis. It was the last phase of the African campaign. I was captured near Tunis and I did have a choice. Maybe I'll mention that to you as an American. I did have a choice to be captured either with the French, English or Americans. Well, I chose the Americans because we felt the treatment as prisoners would naturally be better there. Well, I should actually repeat what has been said by German authorities after the war. This execution festival of Jews was absolutely unnecessary. Whatever they did in order to be liked or disliked is no reason for eliminating a group of people as a group. That was unnecessary, and is incredible to understand today whoever conducted this

SELF PRESENT – I am not quite satisfied with the results that I have achieved. Under no circumstances. But that is where it is.

SELF FUTURE – What future? I'm 65. I'd like to go into the mountains and spend a lot of time there climbing up as long as I can. You should know that I was an Alpine guide during the war. I was still going regularly to the mountains.

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