What the Nazis Did to Us!
By Bill Meulemans
One of the most interesting times of my life was spent in Israel on a Fulbright scholarship. I was in Jerusalem most of the time, but I had free rein to travel around and talk to members of the Israeli government, cultural leaders, and university faculty members. I didn’t realize at the time, but some of my experiences in Israel would follow me home and play out in an emotional, religious meeting in Medford, Oregon.
It had been many years since the Holocaust, yet I found the shadow of the tragedy still haunted the Jewish people in Israel. The topic was never far away from those who had lived it. It has been said of the Holocaust that, “Not all the victims were Jews, but all the Jews were victims.” The horrific experience of the Holocaust made an impact on Jews all over the world. They identified with the victims as they still do today.
When I was in Israel, I attended many lunch-time lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where a crowd would gather to hear and discuss a topic during the lunch period. The speaker on this particular day did not give his name, but he was apparently a well-known member of the academic community in Jerusalem. He was a sociologist who began his presentation by pulling up his sleeve and showing the numbers tattooed on his arm. He was a Holocaust survivor who had immigrated to Israel from Poland. The professor went on to say that he had spent his entire academic life on the subject of how the Israelis were treating the Palestinians.
His opening point was that violent experiences in life shape individual behavior, stressing the fact that upward of 30 percent of children who are beaten severely by their parents grow up to be child-beaters when they become parents. He went into statistical and anecdotal evidence backing up his claim, noting how the memories of being beaten cause many to repeat that practice when they are placed in positions of authority. His examples included severe cases of “violent cycles” when abused people vented their violence on others. The professor’s main argument was that the practice of using brutal force against people can actually become part of a culture.
Then he made the statement that angered nearly everyone in the room. He said in a very loud voice: “What the Nazis did to us, we are doing to the Palestinians.” The reaction was immediate: one plastic lunch box was thrown, several cups and plates and a half-eaten orange landed near the speaker. From that point on, the presentation was a free-for-all with shouts of denunciation in several different languages. I tried to approach the speaker, but he left the room quickly as people appeared ready to attack him. I listened to the comments from others milling around. They were all negative. I remembered an older woman saying over and over, “How could he say that?” Others questioned whether he really had been in the death camps. I didn’t hear or see anyone who supported his assertions about the treatment of Palestinians. I wondered at the time if anyone there agreed with him, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone in that room. The event never left my mind, I can remember it like it was yesterday.
Months later, I returned to Oregon where I was interviewed by a reporter from The Medford Mail Tribune. The journalist was looking for an interesting insight into the current conflict in Israel. I recounted the story about the Israeli sociologist. The newspaper reporter handled it very carefully with quotation marks around the charge about the Nazis influence. I had no idea that the story would be considered controversial.
But three days later I was visited in my home by two very nervous rabbis. I had never met either one of them, but I welcomed them into my home. After a few minutes they began the conversation by saying that they knew many people who said they had known me for more than twenty years, but didn’t realize I was “anti-Semitic.”
The charge shocked me. I couldn’t imagine that repeating the story from the professor at the Hebrew University in Israel would make me anti-Semitic. I called attention to the quotation marks, but the rabbis were undeterred. They said just repeating such a story was proof that “I was anti-Semitic.” At this point, I became angry and asked for a chance to come to the synagogue to explain the situation. The older rabbi said it was “out of the question,” that I was not Jewish and therefore could not address the congregation. I insisted, saying I had a right to defend myself from those who thought I harbored prejudice against the Jewish people.
I raised my voice, asking – then I demanded – that I had a right to tell my side of the story. Finally, the younger rabbi acknowledged that maybe there would be an interest in hearing about the incident from my point of view. After much debate, the older rabbi agreed to invite me to speak at the synagogue.
On the next Friday evening, my wife and I went before a congregation of about 80 people in Medford. The men were on one side of the room and the women were all on the other side. I didn’t detect any positive response from the men as I recounted my story. I noticed that they all sat there with their arms folded across their chests. On the women’s side, there were attentive looks that gave me the impression that they were there to listen, not to condemn.
Here I was, a Gentile standing alone, speaking to a group of Jews about Israel and a very unpopular analysis set out by a Jewish sociologist who had survived the Holocaust. It was a completely unexpected situation whereby a group of American Jews were engaged in a debate on how the Israeli state treated Palestinians thousands of miles away in the Middle East.
That evening in Medford, my knowledge of Jewish history was sketchy at best, but I do remember saying that the Jewish people (because of their history) should be more sensitive than anyone about using violence against others. I tried to be objective and provide some understanding of why there was so much emotion on the subject. I could tell by the body language of the men in the room that I was not succeeding.
Several men in the back interrupted me with loud voices, making very negative statements about “Palestinian terrorism,” and why it was necessary for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to use strong-arm tactics. That brought an equally strong response from several women in the front row on the other side of the room, charging that the IDF was betraying Jewish values. There were tears in the eyes of some women as they pleaded for a less aggressive approach against the Palestinians.
A highly-spirited, unregulated debate ensued between several angry men in the back yelling at the women in the front. After a few minutes, no one seemed to pay much attention to me. Unknowingly, I had activated tempers on both sides of the controversy. After about ten minutes of a free-for-all, one of the rabbis thanked me for coming to the synagogue. Folks on both sides were shouting at each other as I left the synagogue.
I realized once again that Jews all over the world have a personal interest in Israel and what happened during the Holocaust. One cannot visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, without coming away with images of utter cruelty and mass genocide that was visited on the defenseless European Jewish community. There are displays of the artifacts left behind by the children – their drawings, letters, diaries, and toys. Words cannot describe the account of how six million people were murdered because of their ethnic, religious heritage.
Perhaps the one unifying factor of the Jewish people today is that they all feel the heartbreaking history of the Nazi gas chambers as helpless victims were led to their deaths. “NEVER AGAIN” says it all. The echoes of that pledge are still being heard loud and clear, but the discrimination against the Jews continues. Anti-Semitic behavior is actually increasing around the world. There is a real fear among Jews every time an anti-Semitic event occurs.
The memory of the Holocaust illustrates that Israeli Jews have a split personality that represents both the powerless and the powerful. First there is the tragic account of how six million Jews were herded into railroad cars, sent to the death camps, and massacred without mercy. On the other hand, Israeli Jews today have one of the best-trained, best-equipped armed forces in the world. It is as though every Israeli military move in the Middle East is making certain that they will never again be led to their deaths as a powerless people.
Nearly everyone in Israel serves in the military and there are guns everywhere. In a sense, each Israeli is repeating the phrase “Never Again” as they go about their daily routine with an assault rifle slung over their shoulder. They don’t seem to be boisterous about their weapons; it is more a matter of a resolute, personal necessity to survive in a nation surrounded by unfriendly neighbors.
Yes, all Jews were “victims.” And that status is always in their minds.
But the situation in Israel today sets out a principle that should be noted: repression may bring forth obedience in the short run, but it builds a legacy of resentment that may last forever. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) certainly is one of the most effective fighting-force in the world, but it has not built the peace and security that the Israeli Jews seek. The developing situation in Gaza is a case in point.
In the long run, repression justifies more terrorism.
Paradise Lost in Wasco County
By Bill Meulemans
The largest utopian community in recent American history was established in 1981 near the small town of Antelope in eastern Oregon. Before the new folks arrived, there were only 46 law-abiding people living in their village. Their secluded way of life changed dramatically as thousands of outsiders set up a commune just down the road.
The new settlement was started by a devoted group of religious followers of an Indian mystic and spiritual leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajnessh. The group bought the 64,000-acre Big Muddy River Ranch in northeast Oregon for $5.75 million, and in a few years, it was transformed into a city of more than 7,000 people with a growing infrastructure complete with its own police and fire departments, several restaurants, a crematorium, two hotels, a sewage treatment plant, a public transportation system, a 4,200-foot airstrip, and a post office with its own zip code, 92741. No one expected a new paradise would spring up in Wasco County, Oregon.
The word spread to groups of visionary people all over the United States, Europe and Asia as they flocked to Rajneeshpuram to become a part of an exhilarating future. Some were certain it was the wave of the future, setting a standard that would be copied around the world. There was to be a place in northwestern America where complete freedom existed – where the “forbidden practices” of the old world were set aside in favor of a “brave new world.” Sexual practices were to be relaxed and individuals could live up to their full potential in a loving atmosphere. Everyone would live in a communal society where all would share equally.
More than two-thirds of those who came to Rajneeshpuram were college graduates, many had advanced degrees. There was no shortage of people who spoke foreign languages. Some were PhDs, teachers, physicians, and attorneys along with thousands who were just looking for a wonderful new way of life. Surprisingly, many left their careers and came ready to build a community that featured state-of-the-art irrigation in a semi-desert climate. Organic food was plentiful as they tended vegetable gardens and planted trees around the ranch. Nearly everyone was dressed in simple clothing, colored light red and several shades of orange. Rank-and-file members felt equal as they built a society where everyone could feel secure.
But the first person I met from Rajneeshpuram didn’t seem to be the product of a paradise on earth. She was a woman in her mid-30s named Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) who was the spokesperson for the movement. Sheela was an Indian-born, Swiss woman who was the power behind the throne. She was one of the most polarizing persons I have ever met. When she came to southern Oregon to recruit followers on campus, she went out of her way to use very abusive language. When challenged, she said Oregon officials who didn’t like Rajneeshpuram “could go fuck themselves.” She went on to say that she “didn’t give a shit” what the college students thought of her. It was difficult to understand the movement without remembering her leadership style. She was a lightning rod that clouded the entire movement and ultimately contributed to its downfall.
My wife and I visited Rajneeshpruram in its heyday and found it was many things to many people. First, it was a paradise for most of the residents, who seemed perfectly adjusted to practicing free love and following the teachings of their leader, “the Bhagwan” (the blessed one). Every day he drove one of his 94 Rolls-Royce cars through the compound as the residents cheered him. Bhagwan taught his followers to live in the moment, to share their earthly possessions and their bodies. He believed that individual freedom was achieved through free sexual expression. Nearly everyone I met had a smile on their face.
I talked to many people there, but I especially remember a woman from Switzerland who told me she had arranged to marry a US citizen at the ranch so she could become a legal American resident. According to her, she signed over her sizable fortune to the ranch. She met her “spouse to-be” briefly before the arranged marriage that was to grant her residential status in the United States. Another person I remember well was a retired high school teacher from Los Angeles who signed over his entire retirement income to the ranch in return for a “lifetime membership” in the commune. Each of them talked about the “joy” of being free of the repression of everyday life. Both were completely happy with their decisions and were certain that they would be happy for the rest of their days.
There were many television sets at Rajneeshpruram, but there was only one channel. It played lectures from Bhagwan 24 hours a day. He was never out of sight or out of mind. Even on television, Bhagwan had a mystical quality. His eyes were unusually penetrating and he almost never blinked. It was unnerving for me to watch him for an extended period. There was a hypnotic quality in his presentation even though he seldom said anything he hadn’t said many times before.
I was struck by the devotion everyone showed to Bhagwan. There was a full measure of affection in the air that followed him everywhere. At first, I thought the smiles and personal delight were just a façade, but later I could see that their love was genuine. Every afternoon his followers lined the street waiting for him to drive by in his Rolls Royce. The only thing I could compare it to was the atmosphere in a spontaneous church situation where people were seized by the holy spirit that caused them to dance and shake. There was an unbridled joy that seemed to be catching. I don’t remember ever seeing this many people, this happy, greeting an old man who was driving through the streets in one of his luxury cars. It was an entirely new experience for me. I had never been surrounded by that much adoration.
If you had an ounce of idealism in you, it would have been easy to join in and throw caution to the wind. It was “heaven on earth” and easy to join. The 7,000 followers had everything they wanted and they were certain that they were permanently “sheltered” from the rest of society. Even though the movement was just a few years old, there was a feeling in the air that it would last forever. The fact that the whole undertaking was international added to its authenticity. It was real, and it was located right here in the middle of Wasco County, Oregon.
Even the left-wing most progressive folks from Portland had to “loosen-up” a bit when they moved into this new scene. It was the kind of thing a person had read about, but never experienced. All of this unbridled love and a real live Bhagwan as a spiritual leader to follow.
There were nightly meditation sessions in a large canvas-covered building that housed 4,000 people. The half-hour sessions featured complete silence which gave me a mind-altering experience. Thousands of folks sat on the floor for 30-minutes without making a sound. I was afraid I was going to sneeze. During the meditation session, it was easy to forget that eastern Oregon was a very conservative region where there were more guns than people. But for the time being, the commune was an other-worldly paradise where everyone seemed happy.
There was a whole new sense of trust among these folks. I did not see locks on any doors or on the hundreds of bicycles that were parked everywhere. Outside of the meditation session there appeared to be thousands of shoes on the ground in no particular order. It appeared to be in another era where everyone was expected to trust and love each other. The community was a huge concentration of left-wing folks who seemed completely unconcerned with the outside world. As I said before, everyone was smiling.
But there was another world that was just outside the perimeter of the compound that nearly everyone seemed to ignore. When we entered the ranch, we noticed guard towers manned by men with semi-automatic weapons and high-powered rifles. Police inside the commune were armed with automatic weapons. Strangely, I felt like my wife and I were the only ones who noticed how many guns there were around in the compound.
One of the conditions I agreed to in visiting Rajneeshpuram was to surrender my car and its keys with the promise that they would be returned when we were ready to leave. My wife and I were also required to register with a clerk and state our addresses and occupations. My wife was an insurance agent and she abbreviated her occupation as “INS Agent.” Later we were certain that this was misinterpreted by the clerk to mean Immigration and Naturalization Service because we were immediately given very special treatment. We were assigned to a room at the far end of the Zen Hotel with a visible microphone hanging from the ceiling. We were sure our conversations were listened to by the staff. With a bit of humor in our voices as we kept saying in loud voices, “It sure is nice here. I really do like the Bhagwan, don’t you?” Later we found out that many rooms in the hotel were bugged. But we did feel special that day.
As visitors, we were charged $120 a day which included our bugged room, three meals and free rein to roam around the commune. We were given a map of the entire city, complete with the Walt Whitman Grove and the Alan Watts Canyon. It was a truly international atmosphere with people from all over the world. Everyone made eye contact easily with a ready smile. Many seemed to feel right at home whether working in the fields or sitting in one of the restaurants. The food and conversations were excellent. I was full of questions and everyone I talked to was very friendly and eager to tell me why they came to Rajneeshpuram. It was an interesting place to meet and talk to a wide variety of people from all over the world.
It was easy to see why people wanted to stay here in this warm, non-threatening environment, but there was another side that was completely unreal, a place that was so out-of-step with the rest of the world that it could not last. I’m not sure if other people felt it or not, but I sensed the clock was ticking, that this grand experiment couldn’t last.
In reality, Rajneeshpuram was based on a glaring contradiction. It was a place of complete freedom with all the trappings of an armed camp. All of the “security” was said to be for the protection of the residents, to keep out other nearby Oregonians who were not happy with the attempt to take over the local county. No one I met inside the commune, talked about the people who lived in Antelope or others in neighboring towns.
From the start, the Rajneeshees did not get along with their eastern Oregon neighbors. There were a lot of local folks who felt threatened by the influx of all these “new Oregonians” dressed in red and orange. News reporters were having a great time interviewing local folks in Antelope who didn’t hide their anger about the behavior of the members of the commune who were being featured on network news. The whole country was tuned in to find out what would happen next.
I’m not certain who advised Rajneesh leaders, but they decided to enter local politics in a manner that would not end well. There was a televised account of communal leaders registering enough voters to win an election so they could take political control of Wasco County. To this end, Rajneesh leaders bussed in approximately 4,000 homeless people from around the country and registered them to vote. Next leaders at the Ranch came up with a scheme to decrease the voter turnout of longtime Wasco County residents on Election Day by lacing 10 salad bars in nearby towns with a salsa that contained salmonella. They did a dry run of their plan and more than 700 local residents were infected in local communities. There were no fatalities, but 45 people were hospitalized.
At this point, it was becoming clear that the ideal life on the Ranch was going on inside a bubble. The question was: how long would the bubble last?
In addition to the salmonella poisoning, several other allegations surfaced. Arson was suspected when the Wasco County Planning Department Office was set on fire, destroying files involving the Rajneeshees. It was also revealed that several Rajneeshees had a “hit list” to “take out” several Oregonians who were not cooperative. According to insiders I interviewed, there were plans to assassinate Charles Turner, the United States Attorney for Oregon, and Dave Frohnmayer, the Oregon Attorney General. When faced by Oregon officials, Ma Anand Sheela became more aggressive in her statements to the press. Perhaps her biggest mistake was to increase the armed force to defend the commune. Public opinion across Oregon quickly reflected a negative view on what was going on in Rajneeshpuram.
The government reaction was immediate after the guns came out and the poisoning episode was discovered. Within days, federal and state officials descended on Rajneeshpruram. The Oregon Attorney General charged that Rajneeshpuram was a religious community that violated the principle of separation of church and state. Enforcers of Oregon environmental laws charged that the Rajneeshees had converted rural lands to urban use without going through the correct procedures. Immigration and naturalization officials charged that federal laws had been violated by so-called “marriages of convenience.” Arrests and deportation orders followed quickly.
It was not long before the Bhagwan and several leaders fled in two Lear Jets. They were arrested when the planes landed in North Carolina. Back at the Ranch there was confusion and uncertainty. People began leaving as the authorities moved in, but it was a long road back to where they had come from. Folks hitch-hiked out of Rajneeshpuram in all directions.
All the “paraphernalia of paradise” was put up for sale. It wasn’t long before there was an auction on all the earth-moving and farm equipment left behind. The Bhagwan’s 94 Rolls Royces were put up for sale and purchased by a dealer in Texas. During the dark, dreary days of an Oregon winter, the paradise was dissolving before our eyes. It was a very unceremonious ending for an international community where everyone was expected to be completely free, where everyone smiled.
Negative media coverage of Rajneeshpuram was a key factor. At the beginning there were non-critical television pictures of hundreds of people all dressed in red and orange throwing up their arms gleefully as Bhagwan drove by in one of his Rolls Royce cars. The implication was that these folks were child-like people who were possibly brain-washed. But next came the grainy films of sexual orgies implying that the whole operation was a kinky nightmare. After that were the pictures of expensive farm equipment, luxury cars, and new buildings suggesting there was an unlimited supply of wealth and economic power. As relations with other Oregonians deteriorated, there was more talk about the number of guns in the commune. Toward the end, there were TV pictures of Rajneeshees on the firing range practicing their marksmanship for a probable invasion of state and federal military forces. One newspaper report concluded that there was more fire power at Rajneeshpuram than with all the police forces in Oregon combined.
The media account of the commune started with an almost unbelievable example of the naiveite of the chanting people all dressed alike, and it progressed steadily downward to include sexually immoral activities, illegal practices, and finally a threatening political situation that had to be rooted out. Much of the blame for the disastrous public relations went to Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) who seemed to enjoy the role of being a power-mad woman who thought she was above the law. One unconfirmed report I heard was that she got so angry that she wanted to have a Rajneeshpuram airplane to drop a home-made bomb on the Wasco County Courthouse.
As time went on, she was exposed and blamed by Bhagwan as the reason why local, state, and federal officials were closing in on the commune. It was a crushing end for the thousands of people that lived there, and it all happened so fast. No one expected Rajneeshpuram would rise and fall so quickly. The people I met thought the commune would last “forever.” That was just a few months before everything collapsed.
The life-long plans for the communal residents were cut short as state and federal agents moved in and took control. Many tears were shed by the mostly young people in red and orange clothes as they left the Ranch. Soon after, there were lots of used, colored clothes in local secondhand clothing stores.
The folks that left Rajneeshpuram had a lot of questions that related to what had happened: Was the commune destined to fail before it started? Could a “perfect world” be built where there was complete equality? If everyone was living in harmony, why were there so many guns around? Why couldn’t the leaders of the Rajneesh Movement live in harmony with their Oregon neighbors? Who decided they could openly violate federal and state laws? Why didn’t someone persuade Ma Anand Sheela that you can never win a political fight in the United States by threatening to use lethal force against state and federal governmental officials?
In retrospect, the whole idea was very amateurish. A group of students from my upper division political science classes could have come up with a better plan. First of all, they should have hired a political consultant who knew the law. Anyone who was aware of Oregon zoning laws would have concluded that you couldn’t violate all those laws with the expectation that everything would turn out well. The vision of a paradise on earth may have been attractive to many, but the leadership did not have the political abilities to make it come true.
On the human level, Rajneeshpuram was a disaster. It raised the expectations of thousands who were left behind to contemplate “what could have been.” There was an overwhelming feeling of a heartbreaking let-down for the folks who expected to find heaven on earth.
It hasn’t happened yet, but some keep on trying.
