PART TWENTY NINE: THE RIGHTEOUS GENERAL
PART TWENTY NINE: THE RIGHTEOUS GENERAL
OK, I have to apologize but I decided to go off script again (all of you who have been waiting with baited breath to find out what is going on in Yugoslavia are going to have to wait for one more post) but Dan1988 raised some very interesting questions. The big question left unanswered is what happened to the Israeli embassy during this Polish embassy crisis. And I also know that Ivan Silayev’s status in the German embassy still needed to be resolved, and I had two people from OTL that I really wanted to put into the TL. I realized one more embassy update could tie up these loose ends and so I decided to delay the Croatia update once more and to do another embassy update, but change gears a bit. To be perfectly honest, this TL is starting to depress even me. So I decided to do an update that was a bit more uplifting, and to be honest I feel this is one of the better ones yet.
Some new names we will be seeing in this update:
German ambassador Immo Stabreit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immo_Stabreit
Israeli Ambassador Alexander Bovin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bovin
Lev Rokhlin, the highest ranked Jew in the Russian army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Rokhlin
General Viktor Dubynin, in OTL the head of the Russian military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Dubynin
Screenplay of the film “The Righteous General” (2004)
Director:
Sidney Lumet
Starring:
Daniel Craig (General Viktor Dubynin)
Sharon Stone (Anna Dubynin)
Peter O’Toole (Immo Stabreit)
Phillip Seymour Hoffmann (Alexander Bovin)
Kenneth Branagh (General Lev Rokhlin)
Harvey Keitel (Vladimir Zhirinovsky)
Christopher Walken (General Alexander Lebed)
Steve Buscemi (Ivan Silayev)
5. INT. THE DUBYNIN RESIDENCE, NIGHT - We see GENERAL DUBYNIN, tall and handsome but visibly ill, looking out the window of his spacious living room. Outside we hear protesters and the sounds of gunfire, coupled with occasional screams. He is wearing a night robe and looks disturbed at what he is witnessing.
ENTER ANNA DUBYNIN
ANNA
Viktor, come now, you know what the doctor told you. You need your rest.
VIKTOR
I know what that fool said. I don’t see why rest is so important when I’m a dead man anyway.
ANNA
Viktor, we’ve discussed this. You need to keep your spirits up. You can’t start quitting on me.
VIKTOR
I know. I know. I just…I just wish I wasn’t alive to see this.
ANNA (softly)
Did you ever consider that you are alive for a reason? There are not a lot of people left who can do anything about…this.
VIKTOR
I could. I…I should.
ANNA rests her head on her husbands shoulder as they both look sadly out of the window. Suddenly we hear a banging at the door. Both ANNA and VIKTOR jump.
VIKTOR (firmly)
Who is it?
LEV ROKHLIN (OS)
Viktor! It’s me, Lev! For God’s sake, please open the door!
Both ANNA and VIKTOR look at each other nervously.
UIS Presidential Candidate Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC on August 1, 2011.
Addressing the fact that General Viktor Dubynin died while in KGB custody
BBC: Mr. Putin, did you arrange to have General Viktor Dubynin executed while in KGB custody?
Putin: No. Tragically, a soldier was able to smuggle a gun to General Dubynin and he committed suicide.
BBC: Mr. Putin, many feel that this claim simply doesn’t hold weight. If General Lebed was in fact in total control, he certainly would have been able to prevent a soldier from smuggling a firearm to the General, who was under arrest for helping Ivan Silayev flee the country. He was perhaps the highest profile prisoner in UIS history, and if Lebed was in fact in control of the KGB, he certainly would have taken steps to prevent Viktor Dubynin from killing himself. And besides, why would General Lebed even arrest Viktor Dubynin, who was a close personal friend of his and the highest ranked officer in the UIS military.
Putin: These critics miss the obvious point.
BBC: Which is?
Putin: He wasn’t arrested for rescuing the Jews and Germans. He was arrested for going off-script. Lebed was angry at him, but he didn’t plan on turning General Dubynin into a martyr. Lebed had him arrested to punish him and to maintain the illusion of Zhirinovsky’s control of the KGB. He didn’t realize General Dubynin was dying of cancer at the time, and he didn’t expect General Dubynin to commit suicide while in custody. He assumed he would be able to have him pardoned in a few months and then give him a private sector job like General Ivanenko. But he couldn’t ignore what General Dubynin did. Viktor Dubynin nearly exposed the charade: that the military could do whatever it wanted and didn’t have to fear Zhirinovsky. If the world saw that the military could disregard Zhirinovsky in regards to the Jews without any ramifications, then they would know who was really in control.
Lumet, O’Toole win Oscars as The Righteous General captures five Academy Awards!
Entertainment Weekly
February 29, 2005
The Righteous General actress Sharon Stone with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, now living in Malibu, at the 77th Annual Academy Award Ceremony in Hollywood (Getty Images)
(HOLLYWOOD) Last night, at the 77th Annual Academy award ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, two long time Hollywood legends finally captured Oscars for their roles in the Warner brothers film
The Righteous General. In an emotional moment, Sidney Lumet, who prior to last night was widely seen as one of the greatest directors never to win an Oscar, finally added the coveted trophy to his impressive resume after winning best director. Lumet, who prior to the
The Righteous General was perhaps best known as the director of
Serpico and
12 Angry Men, was heavily favored to win the Academy Award, but still admitted that he was “deeply moved” during his acceptance speech.
The Righteous General went on to capture five Oscars at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, winning best picture, best actress (for Sharon Stone), best supporting actor (for Peter O’Toole), and best adapted screenplay. The Oscar for O’Toole was also his first. The film was based on the infamous 1992 Moscow Airlift, when Russian General Viktor Dubynin disobeyed orders from then Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky and proceeded to rescue all of the civilians from the German and Israeli embassies. Dubynin, who at the time of the Moscow Airlift was terminally ill with cancer, died under suspicious circumstances after being arrested by the KGB, the only high ranking officer of the Russian military to be killed during the 1992 crisis.
Israelis march in Jerusalem for Righteous General
By Steve Foreman
Haaretz
August 23, 2003
JERUSALEM – For the tenth year in a row thousands of Israeli citizens, commemorating the date of General Viktor Dubynin’s death, marched through the streets of Jerusalem in a show of support for the admission of Russian General Viktor Dubynin as one of “the Righteous among the Nations.” General Dubynin became famous when he personally rescued over 300 Israelis and nearly one thousand Russians of Jewish descent who had sought refuge in the Israeli embassy during the infamous Polish embassy crisis in the summer of 1992. Disregarding orders from Russian president Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Dubynin personally commanded a unit of Russian troops who escorted the Israelis to the Moscow Airport where they were able to escape before troops loyal to Vladimir Zhirinovsky were able to recapture the airport and seize Dubynin.
“Every year I come here with my son,” commented Yakov Gringlaz, who came up from Eilat, “and after I die he will come here with his son. Because if it had not been for General Dubynin, I would have died in Moscow and none of us would be here. We owe him everything and my family will never stop fighting for him until he is recognized for his sacrifice.”
“The Righteous among the Nations” is an honorific awarded to gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, has rejected numerous requests to award General Dubynin recognition due to the fact that his actions were not connected with the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem released a press release this morning indicating that “although Yad Vashem, and in fact all Israelis, will be forever grateful for the sacrifice of General Dubynin, his actions did not occur during the Holocaust. Therefore he cannot be recognized as one of the Righteous among the Nations. However, this should not be interpreted as a sign that we are belittling the tremendous sacrifice of General Dubynin or the appreciation all Israelis have for the brave acts of General Dubynin.”
General Dubynin was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship by the Knesset in 1998. Recently more politicians have come out in support for recognition of General Dubynin by Yad Vashem.
“We live in a world where Jews still face persecution and live under constant threat,” commented Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, “by disregarding General Dubynin’s tremendous accomplishment, we deny the simple fact that we have a long way to go before Jews are truly safe from another Holocaust from occurring.”
General Viktor Dubynin
Excerpts from the book: “Lev Rokhlin: A Soviet Jew”
By Sampson Weiss.
Published by University of California Press, © 2001.
CHAPTER II
Although Colonel Rokhlin had moved rapidly up the ranks of the Soviet military, the emergence of Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky worried him. He recognized the changing tone of his fellow officers, who suddenly attempted to distance themselves from the highest ranked Jewish officer in the UDR military. Evidence indicates that a casually written note on his file, which Rokhlin by chance had seen, convinced him as early as January of 1992 to defect to Israel.
“He was supposed to be promoted to General in command of the UDR 8th Guard Corps,” commented a close friend who worked closely with Rokhlin, “he had been expecting that ever since Gorbachev took power. But when he was turned down for the position, and promotion, a chance oversight terrified him and convinced him that he was in danger.”
After being told by General’s Dubynin and Lebed that he didn’t get the promotion, Rokhlin happened to look over at his file and catch the phrase “possible Zionist” written in pencil. The phrase terrified him, and with the increasingly anti-Zionist rhetoric coming out of the Duma, he knew that the accusation not only could end his career, but his life. It was at this time that he decided to prepare for a possible defection to Israel. However, the Prussiagate scandal, which initially appeared to end the Zhirinovsky Presidency, caused him to delay his defection.
“He thought Zhirinovsky was finished,” added a Corporal who served with Rokhlin, “we all did.”
However, after protest against economic reform spiraled into a revolution and revealed a much stronger fascist movement within the country, Rokhlin decided to flee the country and seek refuge at the Israeli embassy. Unfortunately his arrival coincided with the seizure of the Polish embassy and the firefight at the U.S. Embassy, rendering entry into the Israeli embassy impossible.
“There were Zhirinovsky supporters everywhere outside the Israeli embassy, “recalled a Russian Jew who had sought refuge in the embassy, “all around us were fascist chanting ‘Heil Zhirinovsky’ as they threw Molotov cocktails at the building. Once they surrounded it they began chanting ‘Jews, Jews, come out and play! We have some trains! We have some ovens!’ It was the most terrible thing I ever experienced in my life.”
It was this scene that greeted the Colonel and his family when they arrived at the Israeli embassy. His shock, however, was short lived when one of the protesters recognized him.
“A private who served under him pointed him out,” one witness recounted, “once they realized that not only was he a Jew, but he was going to defect, they turned on him.”
Desperate, Rokhlin ran to the home of the only friend who he believed might be willing to help him: General Viktor Dubynin.
"A Moment of Courage"
Foreign Affairs (5/12/11)
by Immo Stabreit and William Hason
For the first time, the former German ambassador to the UDR tells the gripping tale of his escape from Moscow, and the moment that changed the German nation forever.
Former German ambassador to the UIS Immo Stabriet (on left)
Immo Stabreit put his coffee down and stood up to shake the young man’s hand. Even at his advance age he refuses to remain sitting when they come and thank him. He doesn’t want them to think that he doesn’t appreciate their gesture.
“Usually at least once a week,” he told Foreign Affairs after the young man left, “sometimes more, sometimes less. But never longer than three weeks. The longest time was seventeen days, but after that movie came out it was almost daily.”
For nearly twenty years Germans have stopped the former ambassador to the UDR to thank him for his role in the Moscow Airlift, some with tears in their eyes.
“The first week I was back, in 1992, an elderly man grabbed me and screamed ‘I fought on the Eastern front!’ I didn’t know if he was angry with me, I didn’t know what to expect. But then he hugged me and broke down in tears. I just held that old man in my arms in the middle of St. Jakobs-Platz in Munich.”
People sometimes tend to stereotype Germans: that they tend to be detached and standoffish. But Immo Stabreit saw another side of the German people while he held that old man in his arms.
“At first people started walking around us, but somebody whispered ‘that’s Immo Stabreit’ and then everything changed. A woman came and hugged us as well and started softly crying too. Within minutes over a dozen of us were sitting there in the middle of the street crying together.”
Perhaps nothing gives the German nation more pride today than the actions of Immo Stabreit and the embassy staff of the UDR embassy during the infamous Polish embassy crisis in August of 1992. It was a brave and heroic act. But it was more than that. Many people were grateful for what the Germans did in Moscow during those dark days of August 1992. But for the Germans it was more: it was something they needed.
“I suppose it was somewhat cathartic for many Germans,” Immo Stabreit said as he sipped his coffee, “but after fifty years we really are a different nation. What happened at the embassy really wasn’t that amazing to me. I think any German would have done what I did.”
It’s a funny analogy. Americans have a very similar phrase they throw around quite frequently. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’ But before 1992 the phrase was almost unheard of in Germany. Because deep down it brought out too many dark memories. Deep down they knew, anyone wouldn’t, and often didn’t.
The crisis at the German embassy exploded when, on August 1st, the newly appointed ambassador learned that a Russian mob seized the Polish embassy and had been repelled in an attempt to seize the U.S. embassy.
“I knew I was being put in a tough situation when I accepted the assignment,” Stabreit said, “but I didn’t expect it to be so much worse than what I left in South Africa. I knew after they seized the Poles that we were next. In the eyes of the Russians not only were we responsible for Prussiagate and NATO expansion, but we had Ivan Silayev.”
Stabreit knew that a raid was almost certainly imminent, but he refused to close the embassy. After a number of refugees at the French embassy were executed en masse, he didn’t want the blood of over one thousand Russians who came to him in desperation on his hands.
“I knew if I closed the embassy that this would just be another building in Moscow,” he said, “then there would be nothing to prevent the Russians from coming in and killing them all.”
Still, Stabreit knew his options were limited. Unless the Germans sent helicopters, there was no way to escape without some assistance from the outside. It was in this, his darkest hour, that he received the call from UIS General Viktor Dubynin.
“At first I was very curt with him,” Stabreit said, “as Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the UIS that he was the second or third most powerful man in the country. I blamed him directly for what was happening.”
Stabreit remained leery of the General as they spoke through a translator over the phone. Within two minutes the German diplomat hung up on the General, convinced he was setting up a trap for the Germans.
“He asked me what he could do to help,” Stabreit said, “Initially I told him to go to hell. I said I knew he had the power to restore order around the embassy. But he swore it was out of his control. I nearly hung up on him right then and there when he said something that stunned me. He said he was sending 25 buses and two tanks as well as three hundred troops to escort us all to the airport. I was speechless.”
Stabreit was unsure of if he could trust the General, unsure if the busses would really take them to the airport or as reported by the Russian government “crash outside of Moscow” like the busses carrying some of the Russians who sought refuge in the French embassy. But he also knew he had no other option.
“How soon can you be here?” he asked skeptically.
“I have the units ready and at my disposal,” the General replied, “I just need to get dressed and I will be right over.”
More than anything, that simple phrase gave Stabreit hope.
“I knew he wouldn’t be coming personally to escort us if we were being led to the slaughter.”
Within the hour, Stabreit saw the column of busses and tanks approach the embassy. Initially they were cheered on by the protesters, who believed that they were there to storm the embassy and seize Ivan Silayev. However, as the troops began beating protesters to disperse them, the mood quickly deteriorated.
General Dubynin stepped out of one of the busses as he approached the front gate of the embassy. Even he was surprised at the display of German efficiency.
“Within fifteen minutes 987 Russian asylum seekers and 239 Germans who were at the embassy were loaded onto the busses,” Stabreit said with a smile, “and if it hadn’t been for Ivan Silayev, we would have pulled it off in ten.”
Initially the General refused to load the former Russian Prime Minister, himself angry at the effects of Silayev’s disastrous economic policies. But after a firm insistence from Ambassador Stabreit, the General reluctantly relented.
“I told him that the German government gave him amnesty,” Stabreit said, “and therefore as far as the German government was concerned he was now a German national.”
After Silayev was loaded onto the final bus with the German ambassador and the General, a young aid ran into the bus with terrible news.”
“The other team retreated,” he said as his voice broke, “the Israelis are still under siege.”
Stabreit would later discover that the young boy was a Jewish soldier whose parents and young sister were in the Israeli embassy. He turned to the General who looked visibly shaken by the revelation.
“What about Colonel Rokhlin?” he asked softly, “Rokhlin wouldn’t have ordered a retreat.”
“Once the soldiers realized what they were being ordered to do they threw Rokhlin and six other Jewish soldiers out of the bus and left them there with the mob.”
I saw the General slump in his chair with the news. I knew he was devastated.
What would happen next would go down in history. The Moscow Airlift, the event that German Chancellor Helmut Kohl would go on to call “Germany’s proudest moment” would start when Ambassador Stabreit would say what every German on that bus felt in their hearts.
“We can’t leave them!” Stabreit said as he jumped up, “we need to go get them.”
“Sir,” a young Captain said to the General, “we simply don’t have room for another one thousand people. We only have 25 buses.”
“We will make it work!” I shot back, “I don’t know how, but we must get them on these busses!"
The General looked at the German ambassador for several seconds before his shoulders rose and he stood up.
“Private Adler,” he said to the young soldier, “tell Captain Poponov we are going to the Israeli embassy.”
“I saw the young boy smile as he saluted General Dubynin,” Stabreit added, “before he ran out of the bus he turned me and looked into my eyes. To this day, I never have seen a person look at me with such gratitude.”
The ride from the German embassy to the Israeli embassy was eerily calm, a sharp contrast to what would follow. Nobody spoke as they got closer and closer to the embassy, but Stabreit knew as soon as they were in the vicinity.
“We started hearing chants in the distance,” Stabreit recalled, “I didn’t understand all of what was being said. Just one word: Jews.”
The scene outside the Israeli embassy resembled a war zone. Stabreit saw over a thousand fascists chanting and taunting those people inside the embassy complex. Over one hundred protesters had broken off from the others and were engaged in a firefight with a small number of soldiers who had taken refuge behind an overturned car.
“When General Dubynin saw that Colonel Rokhlin was still alive his mood lifted immediately,” Statbreit said, “he ordered his troops to open fire at those demonstrators who had the Jewish troops pinned down.”
However, as soon as Colonel Rokhlin was safe, problems quickly emerged. As the busses reached the front gate of the Israeli embassy they were met by Israeli ambassador Alexander Bovin. Although Bovin was aware of the attempted rescue, many of the Israelis were skeptical of getting on the busses.
“As soon as we pulled up and opened our doors an elderly man fell to the ground,” Stabreit said solemnly, “Bovin tried to comfort him, but he saw how crowded the busses were. He kept screaming ‘Oh God, oh God! Please, not again! Please God, not again.'”
Stabreit could see the horrible tattoo on the old man’s arm; he knew what the man was thinking. Bovin began to lose the crowd with Israelis backing away from the busses, many crying and some even screaming.
“I didn’t know what to do, but I knew we didn’t have much time,” Stabreit added, “I suppose what I said next was pretty silly in hind sight.”
Jumping out of the bus the German ambassador ran up to the restive crowd and said the first thing that came to his mind, something that he thought would calm the frayed nerves.
“I screamed ‘it’s OK, we are Germans!’” Stabreit said with a chuckle, “and as soon as it came out of my mouth I regretted it. But the crazy thing is it actually did calm the crowd. Alexander Bovin would go on to tell me that there is something about the Jewish psyche. They just know that they could be rounded up at anytime, but to round up a bunch of Germans and send them to a death camp? That is just crazy talk. Nobody could do that!”
The busses, already badly overcrowded, became inhumane as over a thousand more people were crammed into those twenty five school busses. Small women and children were held up against the roof and people screamed and tried to push even harder against each other to fit one more person inside.
“I honestly didn’t think I would survive the bus ride,” Stabreit would recall, “my whole body was in pain: every inch of my body was being compressed. And the air was so thick none of us could breath. We weren’t getting enough oxygen. I honestly thought it was over for us all.”
Word of the rescue began to spread throughout the city as protesters began to try and intercept the transport as it headed out to the Sheremetyevo International Airport north west of the city center.
“At first they just flashed fascist salutes as we drove by. Then they started throwing bottles at us,” Stabreit said, “then Molotov cocktails. Then the first gunshot happened.”
The bullet ripped through the window just inches from Stabreit’s face. Immediately the German felt the horrible feeling of blood dripping on his back.
“One of the women was holding up her baby, trying to hold him up above the crowd. The bullet tore into her left arm just above her elbow. She almost died from her injuries.”
The Russian soldiers opened fire and dispersed the crowd, but there was little question that the word was out: General Dubynin had gone rogue.
As we approached an intersection I saw several cars on fire blocking our way,” Stabreit said, “for a few seconds we were stuck. Suddenly I noticed that next to the burning cars was a young girl, no more than twelve or thirteen. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, so much so that her face was beat red. I don’t know how long she was there, but she kept yelling the same thing over and over: “Kill the Jews! Kill the Jews!” I almost felt like she had gotten caught in a time warp from 1941, except for the fact that she was wearing a Guns and Roses T-Shirt.”
The survivors of the Moscow airlift have many unique stories about that day, but one thing that every single person agrees on is that the fifty-three minute bus ride to Sheremetyevo International Airport was the longest fifty-three minutes of their lives. By the time the image of the airport could be seen in the horizon screams of joy filled the busses. As soon as the busses pulled up to the Sheremetyevo-2 terminal German efficiency again took over.
“Within twenty minutes everyone was out of the busses and heading towards the gates.” Stabreit recalled.
However, hopes that the worst were behind them proved incorrect when the refugees were greeted with a horrible sight once they reached the gates.
“Aeroflot, as far as the eye could see,” Stabreit said, “all we saw were Russian planes.”
Unbeknownst to Stabreit and General Dubynin, after the Russian extremist threatened to shoot down any helicopter that attempted to leave an embassy, all of the airlines ordered their planes to leave Moscow. The sight devastated the refugees, who knew than Aeroflot was simply not an option for leaving the country.
“General Dubynin’s orders could only be overturned by three people,” Stabreit added, “UIS President Anatoly Lukyanov, Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Marshal of the UIS Alexander Lebed. As a result, he rounded up everyone in the terminal and forbade anyone from touching a phone. He knew that if an Aeroflot flight took off they could easily be recalled with one radio transmission from Moscow.”
After rounding up all airport employees, the General then proceeded to close the tower and force those air traffic controllers to wait in the lobby.
“He couldn’t take any chance of them being contacted by Zhirinovsky over the radio,” added Stabreit, “so we had no way to help any airplanes land if they did want to come back.”
Suddenly a woman screamed “over there!” as she looked out of the window of Gate 22. In the distance were three brown dots, a sharp contrast to the white Aeroflot planes, rolling towards them.
“Germans are a funny people,” Stabreit said with a chuckle, “for fifty years we were told ‘we were just following orders’. As a result we usually are quick to disregard orders when it offends our conscious.”
Three Lufthansa 747 airplanes pulled around the corner as word that the refugees had made it to the airport reached the cockpit. The three Captains of the remaining 747s, Captain Krechmann, Captain Shultz, and Captain Weber, all refused orders from Berlin to return home. The three planes waited on the runway as every international plane departed the rapidly deteriorating Russian capital.
Suddenly Stabreit felt someone pulling my arm. It was Petra Hoffman, his interpreter.
“Immo, there is no way we can fit over two thousand people on three airplanes,” the woman said nervously, “the plane will never get off the ground if there are that many people on board.”
Stabreit knew she was right. He knew that they would have to be a selection process.
“I told her that I was going to give my seat up to Alexander Bovin,” Stabreit recalled, “I said I knew that Alexander was in more danger than I was. All of the Jews were.”
What followed would become one of the most powerful moments of the crisis. Suddenly, all two hundred and thirty nine Germans stood up, and said that they too would give up their seats to their Israeli counterparts. Moments later dozens of Russian refugees started standing up as well, agreeing to surrender their seats as well.
“I really think that all of the Russians would have stood up,” Stabreit said, “had Ivan Silayev kept his mouth shut.”
“There won’t be any more planes!” the former Prime Minister said as he stood up, “I don’t know if you noticed, but they were shooting at us on the way here! Even if they wanted to land they wouldn’t be able to considering there isn’t an operational tower at this airport.”
The crowd turned to the air traffic controllers sitting in the corner and recognized that he was correct.
“I turned to General Dubynin and asked him if it were possible to land without air traffic controllers,” Stabreit said.
“Sure,” he replied gruffly, “if visibility is good enough.”
“Well, how is visibility right now?”
“It’s August in Moscow. The sun is going down. Half the city is on fire and there is smoke everywhere. Visibility is shit.”
“I felt my knees buckle as I looked over to all of my fellow Germans who just moments ago agreed to give up their seats,” Stabreit recalled as his eyes watered, “They all heard what the General said, and then in unison they all walked over the general seating area and sat down. One man opened up his jacket and pulled out a badly crumpled newspaper and began reading it, as if he knew he would have a long wait for his flight. They were not budging.”
By the time Lufthansa flights 223, 16, and 809 took off from the Moscow Airport there were no Jews left on the ground. But the mood quickly darkened when the planes were out of sight. The unmistakable sight of RPG fire from the ground proved that the likely hood of further rescue was all but zero. It would be nothing short of suicide to try and land.
“How long would it take another plane to get here,” Stabreit asked the General nervously.
“Depends on where they are at. The Israeli embassy notified their government that there was going to be a rescue attempt. They would be the ones who would come…if anyone comes.”
The news panicked the already frightened former prime minister.
“They won’t come anymore!” Silayev screamed hysterically, “there are no Jews here anymore! Now we are all dead!”
“I feel bad for saying this, but at that moment I had really wished that the prime minister had picked the Italian embassy,” Stabreit said with a chuckle, “I understand the stress was terrible for him. He was in more danger than any of us; there was no question that he would be killed if he were captured. But at that moment he was really wearing on our nerves.”
The General walked over to the deposed Prime Minister and proceeded to slap him across his face so hard that he knocked him over.
“You may have left your Russian pride in the German embassy, but try and at least pretend you didn’t leave your testicles there too!”
There is a lot of debate over how long the remaining refugees waited at Sheremetyevo-2 terminal before they were rescued. Some survivors claim over three hours, others claim less. But Immo Stabreit swears otherwise.
“It was twenty-two minutes thirty six seconds before we saw that plane,” Stabreit said with a chuckle, “trust me, I was counting.”
Six El Al airplanes, given orders to depart Moscow, elected to circle the city for over five hours before they received the call from Tel Aviv that there would be a rescue attempt.
“I know this sounds odd,” Stabreit said, “but when I saw that tiny blue and white dot in the horizon I honestly thought, for just a few seconds, that it was an angel. It really looked like an angel coming down from heaven.”
“They won’t land!” screamed Silayev, “once they realize nobody is answering them at the tower they will leave!”
“Somebody shoot him,” General Dubynin said as he waived dismissively towards Silayev, “and put me out of my fucking misery.”
Stabreit saw several soldiers immediately grab their rifles as he jumped to his feet.
“No!” Stabreit yelled. You can’t! He sought asylum!”
The General looked irritated as he waved off the soldiers and turned to the incoming planes.
“Will they land?” Stabreit asked the General.
“How the fuck should I know,” he responded gruffly, “if they keep descending then they are going to try and rescue you. If you see them ascend then they are obviously abandoning the rescue attempt.”
The Germans all watched with bated breath as the first El Al airplane approached. As it got closer tracers from small arms fire could be seen crossing in front of the incoming path of the large jumbo jet.
“You know they say Israeli pilots have ice water in their veins,” Stabreit said, “and I know that for a fact. Because I saw those men nearly blind as they flew through the smoke and fog, with no tower, while being shot at, and not a single one of those planes ever even slowed its decent. They just rode through that war zone and landed.”
After the last refugee was loaded onto El Al Flight 333 Stabreit turned to the General who had just saved over two thousand lives.
“You know you can come with us,” Stabreit said as he put his hand on the General’s shoulder.
The General refused the offer bluntly.
“I can understand why Lev is leaving, and I don’t question why he needs to go,” the General replied firmly, “but my place is here…in my country. I’m not a coward like Ivan Silayev. I will live and die in Russia.”
“I watched as he stood firm and saluted me,” Stabreit said sadly, “Never before have I seen such courage. You know, they tell me that what I did was a moment of great courage, but what General Dubynin did, that was the culmination of a lifetime of great courage.”
