Thank You Very Much; I Am Honored

Background

Mr. Nagler, welcome to Berkeley.

Thank you very much; I am honored.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Vienna, and my parents both come from Vienna. My father was intelligent, realizing or feeling or having a sense of what was going to happen, so he was wise enough to leave Vienna in 1931. So I came to Stockholm in 1931, being two years old.

Looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your character?

I don't know how much my parents shaped my character. I knew for certain, of course they did, but also circumstances, the political situation, and so on. If I try to think backward, what got me involved later in life in human rights and civil rights and so on, I'm sure it has a relation to the fact that from 1938 and on, those years during the war, we always had people staying on the sofa whom my father had helped to get out of Austria, family and friends, in '38 and '39.

Was he a businessman?

He was a businessman, yes.

So the political climate in Europe was such that you became very sensitized to the issues of human rights very early, just by the life you were living.

If you live surrounded by parents, family, friends, who during all these sensitive years had to flee, [who] were scared -- from 1939 up 'til 1944, it was not easy. People realized that things were changing.

Yes.

Where were you educated?

In Stockholm.

And after your education, you went into business? What sort of business did you undertake?

I went into a family business which my father had started. That was an international export/import company in instruments, optical items, and so on.

Human Rights Work

When did you decide to take up human rights as a vocation?

Things just happen in life. A friend who happens to be the chief rabbi in Sweden, who is an American, who has, by the way, revitalized the Jewish life in Sweden fantastically -- and I point out that he is my friend, not my rabbi, because I am not religious, and he would never ask me to come to synagogue or anything like that. But one day he asked me if I could get involved in the situation for the [Russian] Jews, the so-called refuseniks.

And his name?

Morton Narrowe.

I didn't think that was a good idea, because I don't speak Russian, I don't speak Hebrew, I hardly understand Yiddish. So I said, "This is not my thing." But he said, "I think you should go and look."

This would have been what year?

That must have been 1977. And I went.

To the Soviet Union?

To the Soviet Union. And I had the great privilege of meeting these fantastic personalities,

Andrei Sakharov, Jelena Bonner, Meiman, Lerner, etc., who made it very clear to me how serious the situation was. You can compare it in many ways to the situation in general discrimination and in discrimination of the Jews in Germany after 1933.

Describe for us your first meeting with Sakharov. Did you know who he was, and his importance? Was he internationally known at the time?

Yes, he was already. That was why I was asked by friends, that "if you go, you should meet so and so, and maybe he will explain to you the situation," which [the refuseniks] did. They have a fantastic overview of the political/social situation in their country, because they had this network which scientists have.

Now, Sakharov and the others -- let's explicate their argument. He sensitized you to the political condition of people like himself and of the Jews in the Soviet Union. Was he asking your aid in calling this to the world's attention?

First, of all, I think we should make a distinction; there were really two groups. One was the refusenik group. Those were very distinguished, and also less distinguished, but the leading group was this group of scientists, who felt the discrimination, and whose children were not allowed to be educated, etc.

And these were Jews.

These were Jews, yes. And they, the so-called refuseniks, wanted to leave the country. By having declared this, and having asked for exit visas which they were refused, they said, "We have no moral right to ask for changes in the system. We want our rights to leave the country. Let us go. Let us go home." That was their fact.

Then there were the dissident groups. They wanted to fight, and they did fight for human right, civil rights, democracy, a change in the system. Some of these two groups overlapped. But still, in thinking, we should distinguish between the two groups.

Now, after this meeting, what did you then go back to your country and do about it?

We organized ourselves in Sweden and in many other countries, but Sweden was a good base because it's neutral, it's close to the Soviet Union, easy and relatively cheap to travel, and we were, in a way, in a privileged situation in relation to the authorities in the Soviet Union. So we organized ourselves in order to try to, as you say, put it to the attention of the world. We concentrated on three groups: scientists, politicians, and lawyers --prominent people in these three fields. And in order to make [people] aware, we took them along to visit. The scientists played an important role because they kept alive this international network of scientists, which they already originally had. They made sort of "kitchen seminars" in their field, because they needed those intellectual stimulants, because they had all lost their jobs and had been kicked out. So it was a good way for them to know that people [were thinking] of [them], and gave them the intellectual gymnastic.

So the scientists that you brought over ran tutorials.

That was the scientists.

The politicians we brought in order for them to put it on the political agenda back home in Sweden's Parliament, and the Council of Europe, and other international organizations. And the lawyers, in order to do the same thing also in the lawyer community.

So when you came back, was there an infrastructure that you created to do this, or was it just friends?

It wasn't me, we were a whole group ...

A whole group, right.

... who created such an infrastructure, and it was created in many other countries. But I think that Sweden played a rather important role in this.

And also, there was another thing, and that was more on the Jewish side, to bring Jewish books, prayer books, and so on. Those had to be smuggled in.

Now, the organization in Sweden was essentially a collection of committees that existed in these various countries -- or were the committees in, for example, Czechoslovakia, was that run by the dissidents there themselves?

Let's talk first about this, let's say, the Jewish part. That was, of course, only in the West. Committees which supported the refuseniks sent people, they gave the moral, political, also a little legal support, and they bought the books. Some of this was initiated in Israel, but all these committees were independent. The dissident movement, from my point of view, that came in later. Because I had been involved in this support for the refuseniks for a couple of years, I was approached by Aryeh Neier, who is now the president of the Soros organization, but at that time was in charge of Helsinki Watch, which later developed into Human Rights Watch. He went around in Europe asking Europeans to also organize Helsinki groups, fighting for what was in the Helsinki Final Act, which means respect for human rights. And that came later.

That came later. About what year?

'82.

'82. So what were your feelings as this process began to evolve? It must have harkened back to this experience as a young person, watching all of these immigrants fleeing from the Nazis coming through. Tell us a little about your emotions. I mean, this became your full-time vocation, working for these causes.

After '82, it became my full-time job. I was extremely impressed by the morale and personalities, and that they really did not fight for themselves, but they fought for democracy, freedom, the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression, and the freedom to move, etc. From a personal point of view, we had so much to learn from them, and I was impressed and very much taken by it. I thought, they fight and they are sacrificing so much, and they risk so much. And they were exiled, they were discriminated [against], had to go to prison, etc., etc. So the little we could do in giving them the support, we really should do.

It was not hard to find the support. For example, when we approached scientists and politicians and so on, "come join us," it was a very positive response. The only field where there was not a positive response was in the financial and in the business field because those people said, "Well, you know, we do business with them," and so on.

Do you think that this process had an important effect on political leaders, not just the ones that you were taking to these places, but also in the two superpowers? What is your sense of the dynamic by which this process of people-to-people diplomacy affected the political process between the superpowers?

I think that the movement which really was started ... let's go back in 1975; the Helsinki Accords were signed in August. The same year, Sakharov got his Nobel Prize, which he couldn't receive himself, but his wife, Jelena Bonner, [received] it. And in that speech, he asked people, groups, to form independent nongovernmental organizations -- you didn't use that word at that time -- to fight for, as it says in the Helsinki Final Act, "the right to know and the right to act upon." So in 1976 the first Moscow Helsinki group was established, with twelve men and women from different fields. The only thing they had in common was they wanted to fight and they wanted to take that risk. They were all discriminated [against] badly -- imprisoned, exiled, etc. Yuri Orlov was in charge. Jelena Bonner, Scharansky, Meiman, etc. And then in 1979, the first Helsinki group, Helsinki Watch in New York, and a Norwegian group was established, and then gradually other groups in Sweden and Austria, and in Finland, etc., came along. Within those, I could work.

Even later in 1982, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights was founded with these groups. What we could do was to support those groups which were in their repressive countries -- the Moscow group, the Prague group, the Warsaw group, etc. And these Helsinki groups in these countries were the nucleus of the dissident movement. I mean, the nucleus of Charter 77 was the Helsinki Committee, etc.

So this process incubated what became an extraordinary revolutionary process that brought the Iron Curtain down, the Berlin Wall down.

I think so. It is thanks to them and their brave fight that the Iron Curtain came down without bloodshed. I remember when Vaclav Havel was in New York [for the] first time, and he gave an interview to the Times. He said that if those Helsinki committees would not have acted, and if they wouldn't have been supported by the Helsinki groups in the West, the world wouldn't look that way. People like Michnik and Sakharov and Jelena Bonner have all confirmed that. We in the West are not the ones who should talk about that, or should make judgments, but they themselves have said so.

Describe common elements in these people like Sakharov and Havel and so on, as you interacted with them and observed them. What stands out? Their courage? Their spirit? Or what?

All of it. All of it. I mean, they went into this with open eyes. They knew that they were and they continued to be discriminated against, but they never gave up. A small little aspect I want to mention, because they were heroes, and we considered them heroes, they were heroes, and they were treated like heroes by us. Those who paid also, which nobody talks about, who paid a very high price, were their wives and their children. Because sometimes they were also interested in this political and human rights fight, sometimes they were not. But regardless of that, they were badly discriminated [against]. And sometimes they had to bear a terrible burden because the men went to prison, they came out again, they went to prison again. The wives had to carry on with no money, taking care of the children, etc. So I would really like to mention them.

What does observing all of this teach you about democracy and freedom? Was it a case where you actually learned to appreciate those values in ways that you hadn't before, living in Sweden?

Absolutely. I mean, some of them -- Sakharov himself, for example -- lived a privileged life. He could have continued and said, "Phoo ... " But that is why I admire them and we all admire them. As I told you, when I came there, I was not convinced that this was going to be my thing. But they were really so impressive, and they made it clear that the fight that they were fighting needed support, and it was an important fight.

Who were your colleagues on the Western side, for example, on the Helsinki Committee? What were their backgrounds? Were they businessmen and intellectuals, students? Who were they?

I think I was the only businessman in this crowd. I was surrounded, I would say, most of them were lawyers, professors of law and so on, political science, scientists and so on. Some who had been in politics and were in politics. I would say mostly that category of people.

Lessons Learned

Looking back now at this process, what lessons did you personally learn about the struggle for human rights and human freedom? Is there something that emerges by doing this that isn't apparent to somebody who reads historical accounts of this process?

I think that a few individuals can change the situation, and even change the world. People like Yuri Orlov and Sakharov and Vaclav Havel and so on, have shown this personally, and Michnik and many others. They need the support, and we can give them that support. It's important for all of us. I mean, I was very new at that time. I came to Prague and I met Havel in one of his periods when he was out of prison, and I made a stupid comment. I said, "What can we do to help you?" And he said he would appreciate if I would reformulate the question. He tried gently to tell me that we are all in the same boat. If your rights are violated one place, sooner or later it carries over. [So] I did not talk about helping them, I talked about doing things together, where they did the great and important and dangerous job, and we were the support group.

That's an important note that should motivate human rights workers: it is a universal struggle, as opposed to just saving particular individuals in particular places.

The world consists of individuals. So it's for all of us.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, how do you think the human rights agenda changes? Is this particular vehicle that you've described, of committees and so on, still the most appropriate vehicle for dealing with the problems involved in places beyond the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe?

I think so. Because when the UN Universal Declaration was signed, it had (and I'm sure many people are going to think differently), but it had relatively little effect, because soon afterwards came the Cold War, and, therefore, human rights were pushed aside and realpolitik was always dominating.

The Soviets in the early seventies wanted the world to recognize borders, because there was never a peace treaty after the Second World War. You're talking about history now, so let's talk about history. There was a peace agreement, so the Soviets initiated what later became the Helsinki Accords. The borders were there, and they wanted them recognized, and the West said, "Well, we have to recognize them, but we want something in return." So what do we want in return? Somebody said, "Let's try to get respect for human rights in the same accords." So the politicians and diplomats were very, very negative to this. They said, "Why should we give something recognizing the borders, if what we get means nothing?" Because they will not respect human rights. But the Helsinki Accords have a security aspect, as well as culture, as well as human rights in the different baskets. And this document, in my opinion, became a basis for the fight of Sakharov and Havel and all these people.

So it really gave an important role, to put human rights on the agenda. At that time, when I started this human rights business, human rights was not on the agenda. It played a very insignificant role in international politics. It was a disturbing element, because when you negotiate in order to have peace, these people who were trying to talk about freedom of religion and freedom of speech disturbed the negotiations.

Today it's different, today everybody has human rights on the agenda. It is recognized, and it is a little less realpolitik in favor of human rights. Do you agree?

Oh, I definitely agree. I definitely agree. And I think it's a remarkable change in consciousness and a remarkable achievement. Do you think that as it evolves in the future, it will always depend on citizens' groups, as opposed to relying entirely on governmental institutions or inter-governmental institutions?

I think that politics is too important to put in the hands of the politicians, so I certainly think that we should all get involved. That is democracy. As I said, I am happy to see that human rights is now on the agenda. I mean, even corporations, which wouldn't dream of putting that on [in the past] do today.

If people who are interested in working in nongovernmental organizations wanted to draw from your experience, what advice would you give them? As you said, that term didn't even exist when you got involved in doing this. But looking now not so much at the problem, but the dynamic of citizens' groups trying to make a difference, trying to change the situation of people elsewhere, what was most important in the dynamic of, for example, the committee that you were involved in?

You are asking what people in general can do?

What can they do, but how can they do it well? What makes an operation like the one that you were involved in work? Is it just the idealism?

I don't the like term idealism, because I would rather say that what I was fighting for was very egoistic, to make the world better for me and for my children. What was dangerous for them is dangerous for me. Of course, it plays a role that I'm Jewish, because if something goes wrong anywhere, the Jews will probably be the first line to pay the price. So I don't like the word idealist. I think that from a very pragmatic point of view, we should all try to get involved. I can only quote Amos Oz, the Israeli writer, when he wrote about the "teaspoon attitude," that we all have a teaspoon. We should take water and put it on the fire. It looks [like] that has no effect, but if there are many teaspoons it might have an effect.

Do you find the situation of human rights right now, in today's world, after 9/11, do you think that this evolution of universal sense of human rights will continue, or do you think that events like 9/11 will set that quest back?

I don't know about 9/11, but the first part of your question, whether this universal human rights idea will continue to grow, there I'm not so optimistic, or rather I have a few warning signals. In 1948, when the Declaration was signed, it said that human rights are universal. We're going to take that up at the seminar. Today you hear more and more voices [saying] that human rights should be culturally related, which means that collective rights should have a more important role in relation to individual rights. I think that is a very dangerous change. They claim, those who say so -- China, Cuba, etc. -- that human rights, which at that time [1948] was agreed upon, is a Western imperialistic, colonial value system imposed on the rest of the world. So I am very scared when I hear this culturally related human rights attitude.

Do you think that that is just a bump in the road, or that there is a real possibility that that will become the view of larger numbers of people beyond the Chinese and Cubans?

Well, I hope not. I would hate to try to look into the future. I can only say that we should all try to maintain the fight that human rights are universal, and no religion, no tradition, no culture should violate that.

What do you think the interplay should be between the state and this quest for individual human rights? I guess the reason I raise 9/11 is that that event and the concern about international terrorism raise issues, discussed in last night's seminar, of the requirements of national security, the requirements of stability, in the face of this threat. Could it affect what we're willing to say are appropriate human rights?

I think this could be a serious threat. There is a danger that human rights will be pushed aside in favor of controlling and fighting terrorism. We see all sorts of signs already today. I don't think that this will be, in the long run, a serious threat. If students are watching this tape, and they want to be part of the human rights struggle, do you have any advice for them about how they should prepare for the future?

I think they should travel, they should see how things function in not only in their own country. If they go to anyplace in the world for a holiday or for studies or whatever, they should really try to go behind the scenes and see how is the human rights situation. And when they see that, and when they try to digest that, that will make them act, I'm sure.

Did your work give you a unique sense of what human courage is, as you witness people like Sakharov and Havel?

Yes.

Is there any insight that you might pass on to us with regard to that? I mean, what is it that makes for courageous stands like that? What is going on there that makes it such an important value, and why it resonates so well in certain people?

I have asked myself that question many, many times, and I just came to the conclusion that I do not trust myself, I do not know how I would have reacted if I would have taken risks, and really been fighting for an idea, and putting myself under fire. Sometimes, when you look backwards, you see people, when you look at them and see what they did before and so on, you are extremely astonished of what they did, and when you see others and you're very disappointed. I think that is very, very hard to see, and I don't know that anyone knows himself or herself that well. I don't think that anyone can say, "I would have done, so-and-so."

One final question. As you look back on this work and this involvement in human rights, how does it relate back to this childhood experience that you talked about, of seeing the world of your father and your relatives fall apart in the face of the Nazi threat?

What do you mean by fall apart?

I mean, the world in Vienna that they had to leave to come to Sweden, and the people, who were coming through Sweden that you described. They had been forced out of where they had been, so, in a way, their world had fallen apart. It strikes me that that experiences must have affected you in the work you were willing to do many years later.

I think so. I think that is the key to this change I took in starting a new career in human rights instead of business. I feel myself very privileged that I've been in the position where I could work and see from near these people who did so much. It has been very satisfying for me, and I have learned a lot. I think I am a little wiser having worked with them and seen them act and react. And it has been great.

Mr. Nagler, on that note, thank you for taking the time to be with us today, and to share these quite extraordinary experiences.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.