The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (58 page)

To protect Michel, I continued to answer Rivenburg’s questions by email and provide documents. I gave him the names of people to interview who would confirm aspects of Michel’s life - Dr Ted Kraus, his CIC commanding officer in Germany; Professor Herbert Morris, of the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had first-hand knowledge of his language skills; Serge Klarsfeld, a French lawyer and acknowledged expert on the experience of French Jews during the Second World War; Pierre Truche, a senior French judge who had prosecuted Klaus Barbie. I provided copies of CIC identity documents, Army documents, and much more.

Ted Kraus, one of Michel’s post-war CIC commanders, was duly interviewed by phone. ‘During my phone conversation I disclosed several key events beyond dispute. Thomas’ persistence and vigilance resulted in our capture of SS Major Knittel, a priority war criminal... We visited the Grenoble area where during our stay he introduced me to a number of his former
maquisards
, who were delighted to be reunited with him.’ He also told Rivenburg that he had spoken to Michel in 1945 about his Dachau experiences, and saw the photographs - and had even asked for a set to be printed from his negatives. ‘Shortly before I was transferred to another CIC unit in Schwabisch Hall, I secretly tape-recorded several meetings at a Nazi-decorated locale in which Michel, posing as SS Dr Frundsberg, interviewed and infiltrated a post-war SS terrorist organisation. I later learned that leaders of this group were arrested and tried before a US military court.’ Kraus was disconcerted, however, by the persistently negative tone of the questioning. ‘I sensed where he was headed.’ Not a word of the interview would appear in the subsequent article.
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Professor Morris, of UCLA, was also interviewed by Rivenburg over the phone. ‘It became clear to me, based upon his questions and statements, that the forthcoming article would be sceptical in character and that it would in all likelihood call into question the truthfulness of a number of Michel Thomas’s claims about his World War II experiences. Because I had become concerned about the negative tone which Mr Rivenburg had adopted during the interview I expressed strong reservations about the motives of the
Times
in what appeared to me an attempt at an expose. Specifically, I told Mr Rivenburg that I believed it was undisputed that Thomas had lost his parents in the Holocaust, that he had been in the French underground and interned in concentration camps, that he had served with US forces in Germany. Mr Thomas had lived an extraordinary life, simply granting these undisputed facts. Given this, I did not understand why he and The Times would want their readers to question Mr Thomas’s truthfulness and character.’ Professor Morris concluded the conversation by saying that what the
Los Angeles Times
and the reporter were about to do was ‘tragic’.

‘Rivenburg called back within ten minutes or so of our initial lengthy conversation to further justify what the
Times
intended to do. I reiterated my puzzlement that the paper would have an investment in searching out possible false recollections of certain events when I believed so much was remarkable and undisputed.’ Morris also confirmed - ‘without qualification’ - the effectiveness of Michel’s language programme from personal experience in taking a Spanish course.
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I continued email contact with the reporter, growing increasingly exasperated by the petty, nagging quality of his questions, but answered them at length. ‘You insist that everything you have done - from searching for court cases against him, to suggesting Michel is a liar, to questioning his ex-wife - is standard practice for the
LA Times
. You seem unconcerned about the distress your clumsy method of interrogation has created in a man who feels the integrity of his entire life is being challenged. Does this man really deserve this sort of third degree?

‘If it were up to me, I would tell you to give it your best shot. Maybe you can earn your spurs as an investigative journalist and they’ll take you off the Silly Story beat. I at least hope you are bold enough to call Michel a liar in print, as you have persistently insinuated through your questions to everyone. Do not hide behind innuendo - that will not pass as fair, thorough and balanced in this context.’
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Rivenburg replied that he was just being thorough in his job, and gave assurances that even though he was asking hard questions the final piece would be balanced and impartial. I continued to answer questions at great length, and faxed documents to Rivenburg. These included the top copy of the bill introduced to Congress by Californian Senator Helen Gehagan Douglas supporting citizenship based on Michel’s war record.
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Among the others was a translation of a meeting with the French prosecutor, Pierre Truche, in Paris after the Barbie trial, two ordres de mission, one from Securité Militaire FranÇaise (French CIC), another from the Alpine Division. I also sent various CIC documents - authority to operate civilian vehicle, orders, and letters of commendation from Michel’s commanding officers.
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‘And now, surely, we all have spent enough time helping you with your story,’ I wrote. But no, it went on and on. As soon as one avenue of enquiry had been answered, another one was taken up. Rivenburg seemed intensely interested by the exact nature of Michel’s military service, dismissing all documentation shown to him as insufficient evidence. I wrote another email: ‘I do not understand why you are so focused on the ‘technical’ nature of Michel Thomas’s service in the US Army. Surely, the point is that he VOLUNTEERED and FOUGHT with the US Army for NINE MONTHS, during a period of intense combat in France and Germany. He then spent a further TWO YEARS AND THREE MONTHS with CIC, during which time he did much useful work, including the capture of the US Army’s most wanted war criminal.

‘The CIC card reproduced in the book is an official document issued by CIC identifying Michel Thomas in order that he may go about his work. He did, of course, wear the uniform of a US Army CIC special agent at all times. You may insist that a private from the typing pool in some Kansas Army base, who never saw combat or even went overseas, is somehow a more “fully fledged” soldier than somebody serving with GIs in battle. Few American veterans would agree with you...

‘You can save yourself this fruitless exercise in Jesuitical semantics by saying that Michel FOUGHT with the US Army and SERVED with CIC. As you know, he finds the idea that he was one of thousands of paid retainers highly offensive.’
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None of my many queries regarding motive were answered either by Rivenburg, or his editor, Bret Israel, who was copied on every email. A period of silence followed, and I assumed the paper was finally convinced of Michel’s integrity. Perhaps some decent senior editor had reviewed the evidence, and heeded my complaints, but this proved to be wishful thinking, and when the article finally appeared the piece confirmed my worst fears.

Headlined Larger Than Life
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, it dominated the front page of the Southern California Living Sunday section and covered an entire inside page. From the opening paragraph onwards, the thrust of the entire four-thousand-word piece was to sow doubt about Michel’s credibility. ‘“Everything is fully documented,” Thomas says, “Don’t take my word for it. Ask me how I can prove it.” Easier said than done. Many of his claims are impossible to prove - or disprove.’

In fact, abundant documentary proof had been provided to support all of the major events of Michel’s life. The reporter employed the technique of interviewing and emailing various experts who had never met Michel and knew nothing of his life, and inviting then-scepticism by suggesting the
Los Angeles Times
had serious reason to doubt certain incidents. An example of the method, used with almost everybody interviewed, is the published response of an Army archivist when told that Michel claimed to be at the liberation of Dachau. ‘“Who wasn’t?” says Army archivist Mary Haynes, noting the proliferation of Dachau liberator claims in recent years.’ It seems no mention was made to the archivist - or to the reader - of twenty-eight photographs taken at Dachau, the negatives of which remain in Michel’s possession, or the signed reports from crematorium workers, or the subsequent arrest of Emil Mahl, Hangman of Dachau. This was all fully documented from verifiable, independent sources, but ignored.

Questions were raised, and left unanswered. These focused on a number of specifics which seemed to have been well researched by the reporter. Had Michel been captured and released by Klaus Barbie on a raid on the Jewish refugee centre in Lyon in 1943? Had he really been at the liberation of Dachau? Was Michel really a CIC agent, or merely a civilian employed as an interpreter or investigator who had exaggerated his importance? Had he discovered the Nazi Party Master File at the end of the war? Was his language teaching method effective, or merely an over-hyped, over-priced rehash of old techniques? His personal honesty was also undermined by suggesting that he could never have won money by playing boule in the Monte Carlo casino because the machine mentioned never existed.

The article sent Michel into a profound and uncharacteristic depression. He had received a body blow and it showed. ‘This is everything to me... he has denied my whole life.’

The feature had not only been deeply wounding and personally offensive, but had also done Michel irreparable harm in Los Angeles, a town where he had spent a third of his life and enjoyed a considerable reputation. Worse, it had done him damage among those whose opinion he valued most - fellow Holocaust survivors and combat veterans from the Second World War, and the Jewish community in general. An invitation to speak at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in Battery Park City, New York, mysteriously failed to materialise. Other institutions seemed to turn their backs, while old friends subtly changed their attitude towards him.

The Wiesenthal Centre, in Los Angeles, which had always been friendly, turned icy. Numerous calls to various people at the centre from Michel, myself and researchers were not returned. A librarian at the Centre, who had read the article, indicated she believed Michel to be a fraud. One statement attributed to Michel understandably offended everyone. ‘Other Holocaust victims could have escaped death too, if only they hadn’t given up.’

This is a misinterpretation of a view, described in detail in this book and discussed at length with Rivenburg, in which Michel maintains that the stifling of hope of those interned in concentration camps was an indication of the ‘total collapse of human morality’ and ‘an unpardonable sin’. To write that he believes camp inmates who succumbed to despair were somehow responsible for their fate, and to apportion blame to the victims rather than their murderers, is the opposite of what he believes, and enraged him. It is also a remark, of course, guaranteed to alienate any Jewish reader. ‘I would hate anyone who made such a comment,’ Michel said. And the reporter’s casual statement, ‘His own family, he believes, died at Auschwitz’ disgusted Michel. ‘I do not believe they died there - I know they were slaughtered in Auschwitz.’

After the publication of the piece I was challenged, as the author of Thomas’s biography, with words like, ‘But didn’t the
Los Angeles Times
expose him as a fraud?’ I found myself defending the veracity of the book as far away as London. I was told of a dinner party where one of the guests was a visitor from the Los Angeles Wiesenthal Centre. When Michel’s name came up in conversation, the guest declared him a phoney: ‘His dates don’t add up.’ This was clearly a reference to a statement in the article suggesting Michel did not find the cache of Nazi Party membership cards.

When I later tried to find out the name of the guest I was met with stubborn evasion. I asked repeatedly to be put in contact, carefully explaining that my intention was not to embarrass or confront the person, but to elicit testimony of defamation from someone who clearly believed the article. Eventually, the unspoken truth was put into words: ‘People don’t want to get involved.’ Michel was being abandoned by his own.

A number of letters hostile to the article were printed in the paper a week after its publication, albeit tucked away between advertisements in the Southern California Living section. Rift Fournier wrote: ‘Joseph Welch said it best during the televised US Army-McCarthy hearings on June 9, 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” That story must rank among the major newspaper cheap shots of the new millennium... The article proved nothing except that with lawyers on hand the writer was able to question the heroism and extraordinary accomplishments of a unique man. The writer also made it clear he has little knowledge about or respect for human memory - that fragile neuro-psychological-spiritual filing system.

‘Is Thomas guilty of living with an enormous amount of bravado? Of course, he is, but that doesn’t mean he’s a fraud. It simply means Thomas is a unique man not some version of a spin doctor manufactured for faux journalists who prefer their men and their heroes in the vanilla mode of a Ken doll.’ One letter described the article as a ‘Mean-spirited, tabloid-toned diatribe...’ Another declared that the ‘Tedious, toothless attack was a disgrace.’

Ted Kraus, Michel’s CIC commander, wrote questioning why all of the vital information he had provided had been ignored. ‘Yes, Mr Rivenburg, some people just happen to be more unique than others and “larger than life”. You could have better served your newspaper and readers by probing and challenging questions of why this is so.’
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