Shaul Ladany, 78, our interviewee of the month, qualifies as a linguist on account of his knowledge of 8 or 9 languages (in 3 alphabets - Cyrillic, Latin and Hebrew). But readers may find equal interest in a life-story filled with adventures and achievements (both scholastic and sporting). For this reason, in the following interview we have taken the liberty of departing from our usual focus on linguistic issues in order to present the unusual biography of an exceptional man.
Your intrepid blogger, Jonathan G., travelled to Beer-Sheva [1] in southern
Israel to meet Professor Ladany. The interview took place at the Ben Gurion University, where Shaul Ladany is professor emeritus of Industrial Engineering and Management. It was conducted in Hebrew, transcribed into English, and translated into French for www.Le-mot-juste-en-anglais.com
LMJ: After the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1942, your maternal grandparents escaped the massacre by the Hungarian gendarmes of the Jewish population of their home town of Novi Sad (today in Serbia) but they were taken to the Concentration Camp at Auschwitz in 1944, where they were killed in the gas chambers. Your own first encounter with the German war machine was in 1941, when at the age of 5, your house in Belgrade was bombed by the Luftwaffe, and you and your parents managed to survive by hiding in the underground washing room.
What languages did you acquire while you were growing up in Europe?
SL: My mother tongue was Serbo-Croat and later I learned to write the Serbian variation in Cyrillic lettering and the Croat variety in Latin letters. I learned Russian at school. I learned German from my nanny and spoke to my parents in Hungarian. Later I was to come in contact with Yiddish speakers, and knowing German, it was not difficult to pick up Yiddish.
LMJ: When the Nazis overtook Yugoslavia, your parents fled to Hungary and sent you to a Hungarian monastery for your own safety, but shortly after your 8th birthday, you were taken with your parents to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, from which few people returned. You actually entered the gas chamber, but you were reprieved at the last moment. You and your parents were extremely fortunate to be included in the 1,684 Jews released as part of the controversial "Blood for Goods"
deal negotiated by Rudolf Kastner [2] and Adolf Eichman [3]. Your parents returned with you to Yugoslavia, to try to retrieve their property. The Communists were by then in power. In
1948 General Tito allowed you and your family to leave for Israel on condition that they forfeited all their property in favour of the State. How did you get to Israel? What were your first impressions of the country, which had gained independence only a few months earlier?
SL : I was nearly 13 years old. We left Yugoslavia on a cargo ship, with 3000 immigrants, and the journey took 2 weeks instead of 2 days. The ship nearly overturned at one point. We reached Israel, which was still recovering from the attack launched against it by the Arab armies of neighboring states the day after it had declared independence in May 1948. Due to the absorption of large numbers of immigrants, housing was scarce and the apartment we received, with no water or electricity, was very different from the luxurious residence to which my family had been accustomed in Belgrade before the War. My task in the initial period was to roam around the town with two buckets, looking for sources of water to fill up the buckets and then bringing them home. But I began school studies, and learned Hebrew, which became my new mother tongue, as well as English and French. My parents started different careers from scratch.
LMJ: On completion of your schooling, you studied at two leading institutions of higher studies, gaining one degree in Mechanical Engineering and another in Business Administration. You then went to Columbia University in New York for your doctoral studies in Business Administration. You were invited to lecture at many universities throughout the world. You have many inventions to your credit, eight of which you have registered as patents. You have written dozens of scientific books, including the "English-Hebrew Dictionary of Statistical Terminology", which was published by the Israel Institute of Productivity, as well as many more scientific articles. When did sport become an important part of your life?
SL: I had been an amateur marathon runner, but during my doctoral years at Columbia I turned to competitive walking [4] and began to train for the 1968 Olympic Games, and after I received my doctorate I trained intensively for six months. I represented Israel in the1968 and 1972 games.
LMJ: The 1972 Olympic Games had been dubbed as "Heiteren Spiele", or "the Happy Games". But as we know, they ended in tragedy, when terrorists belonging to "Black September" forced entry into the Olympic Village and penetrated the apartments of some members of the Israeli team, killing two outright and taking nine others hostage. The German government agreed to supply the terrorists with a helicopter so as to allow them and their hostages to be flown to Cairo, but the terrorists machine-gunned some of the athletes and exploded the helicopter. In all, 11 members of your team were killed. How did you escape the attack?
SL: Our team was lodged in a building with apartment units side-by-side in the Olympic Village, and five team-mates and I occupied a unit sandwiched between the two adjacent apartments that were attacked. I heard screams from one of the adjacent units and I ran to inform the team manager. The rest is history. The Games were stopped for 24 hours. The surviving members of the Israeli delegation were ordered to return home, contrary to my advice. [5]
LMJ: You have told us how you survived the bombing of your house at the age of 5, the death camp at the age of 8, the terrorist attack at the Munich Games - and you could have added the emergency landing of your plane when one engine ceased operating on a flight to Denmark. What other frightening experiences have you had?
SL: One experience that comes to mind occurred when I was in charge of an artillery battery in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Shells were falling from all directions and after my soldiers had sought shelter in their bunker, I myself ran for cover at such speed that I think I must have broken the world record for the 100 meter run.
In the recent Operation Protective Edge, I had to go down with colleagues and students to the University shelter when rockets from Gaza were falling on Beer-Sheva. Going into a shelter was bad enough but during a previous rocket attack, while driving in my car from my home to the University, I was forced to jump out of my car at the entrance to Beer-Sheva and protect myself against a wall as the rockets exploded around me.
LMJ: You have won over 700 sporting awards, including that of World Champion in the 100 kilometers event at the Lugano Games of 1972. Your world record for the 50-miles walk has remained unbroken for over 30 years. What was your most difficult walking experience?
SL: The hardest walk was a non-competitive, four-day, 300-kilometer walk from Paris to Tubize, near Brussels. There is very little time for sleeping, which makes it more strenuous than any competitive 100 kilometer competition. I participated in that event 10 times and stopped participating only at the age of 74.
LMJ: How much walking are you doing these days?
SL: I do a minimum of 15 kilometers a day. This weekend I will participate in a walk of 22 kilometers on very difficult, rocky ground. I also still take part in half-marathons.
LMJ: Do you find that walking sharpens your brain?
SL: Definitely. When we are exercising we have more blood, and hence more oxygen, flowing to the brain. My eureka moments always come when I'm walking. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has said it already. I have come up with mathematical models while I'm walking.
LMJ: Were any of your cups or plaques awarded for sporting achievements other than walking?
SL: Yes, there is an annual event in which participants swim from one side of the Sea of Galilee [6] to the other. I have participated every year for 54 years, (wearing shoes, to traverse the stones at the beginning and end of the swim.) When I complete the swim, I walk back to my car, which I have parked near the starting point.
LMJ: I would like to end this interview with a linguistic question. If we regard Serbo-Crout as one single language, and add Russian, Hungarian, German, Yiddish, English, French and Hebrew, that makes 8 languages. What was the 9th language that you learned?
SL: When I was studying for my doctorate at Columbia University, I chose to do a course called "the language of mathematics". If you are willing to regard mathematics as a language, then I have acquired a respectable command of 9 languages.
LMJ: Galileo, the great Italian physician, philosopher and astronomer, said: " La Matematica è l'alfabeto in cui Dio ha scritto l' Universo " (Mathematics is the alphabet in which God wrote the Universe). So by that standard you may be regarded as having a command of a ninth language, too. We hope that you will continue to have a fascinating, but less dangerous life. To use a Biblical blessing : May you live to be 120.
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[1] Beer-sheva (in Hebrew , בְּאֶר שֶׁבַע , « wells of oath » or « seven wells », in Arabic بِئْرْ اَلْسَبْعْ Biʼr as-Sabʻ. Based on archeological discoveries, the site of a nearby hill a few miles north-east of the modern city was occupied by humans since the fourth century B.C. The site was destroyed and reconstructed several times in the course of the centuries. (Wikipedia)
[2] Rudolf (Rezső) Kastner (Kasztner), 1906-1957, was an attorney, journalist and the leader of the Aid and Rescue Committee during the occupation of Hungary by the Nazis in the Second World War. He was also charged with negotiating with the SS leaders for authorization for 1,684 Jews to leave Hungary for Switzerland, in exchange for money, gold and diamonds, on what came to be called “the Kastner train”. Kastner knew 8 languages including Aramaic.
[3] Otto Adolf Eichmann 1906 – 1962) was a German Nazi SS Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged by SS-Obergruppennführer Reinard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportatiuon of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.
Kastner and Eichman both died in Israel, within 4 years of each other. Kastner was assassinated and Eichman was executed (the first and last person to be sentenced to death by an Israeli court).
[4] The basic rule of competitive walking is that the competitor must have one foot touching the ground at all times. If the competitor appears to the judges to be running, he may be disqualified.
[5] Before the terrorist attack, the Jewish American swimmer, Mark Spitz, won 7 gold medals. After the attack, he took the first plane back to the U.S.A.
[6] Tubize (Tubeke in Flemish) is a commune of Brabant in the arrondisement of Nivelles (Belgium).
[7] The Kinnereth or Lake of Tiberius (also called the Lake Gennesaret or the Sea of Galilee) is 20 km long and 10 km broad, and more than 200 m below sea level. The name place derives from the Roman Emperor Tiberius who ruled the Roman province of Judea. It is the place where Jesus walked on water, according to Matthew 14:22-36.
Additional reading:
King of the Road: From Bergen-Belsen to the Olympic Games :
the Autobiography of an Israeli Scientist and a World-record-holding Race Walker
By Shaul Ladany
Geffen Publishing, 2008
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