Remembering this most righteous of Gentiles

THE PASTOR spoke the words, Yad Vashem. And without warning, the tears flowed from the eyes of a supposedly hardened newspaperman.
Suddenly, this former Middle East bureau chief for a major news-gathering organization was transported to the streets of Jerusalem. And then traversing the walk along the Avenue and Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations and re-living the agony of millions, who have wept on entering the Holocaust memorial.
When I whispered Yad Vashem, it was in reverence.
Of course, anyone who has ever visited this place will recognize the utter despair of suffering and the ugliness of mankind on the most innocent.
And then, in another surreal moment, I was climbing up into the attic of my "place" and finding a treasure trove of photographs of a Jewish family, somewhere in Europe, before the Nazis scarred their lives forever.
It was then I remembered a young woman coming to my apartment and weeping as she sorted through those crumpled photographs of relatives, who had survived the concentration camps.
However, a "return" to Jerusalem was not all despair; for I began to remember an interview with the late Gustav Scheller, who has often been likened to Oskar Schindler, who was venerated in Steven Spielberg's celebrated movie, "Schlinder's List."
While Schindler rescued 1,200 Polish Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, Scheller, through his organization, the Ebenezer Emergency Fund, had brought more than 60,000 Jews out of abject poverty and misery in the former Soviet Union to Israel by ship.
As I started to re-read the story I had written, tears again flowed; not for any phrasing I might have conjured up, but for life of this most righteous of Gentiles.
Sitting in his comfortable Jerusalem apartment with Elsa, his wise and very supportive wife, Scheller, then a 70-year-old and dying of cancer, spoke in a strong voice when he declared: "I do not compromise, I am not soft on these issues. I speak with clarity and conviction of heart."
The "issues" continue to be a virulent strain of anti-Semitism that still is sweeping the former Soviet Union. He believed one million had left the Land of the North. However, there were an estimated two million remaining in his expert opinion.
At the time of the 1999 interview, Scheller had just completed his 88th sailing from Odessa to Haifa aboard the ship, Dmitri Shostakovich, while trying to cope with lung cancer that had spread throughout his body. His doctors told him that he had less than a year to live. Already he had his left arm amputated.
However, he told me that he intended to be on the 100th sailing from Odessa to Haifa later that year.
Although disappointed that cancer had spread, Scheller told his doctors, "I like you, but I must tell you I have a better doctor, the Great Physician, and if it's His will He is well able to heal me."
Even after the devastating news, Scheller's mission remained the same of rescuing "the old and the young, the sick and the healthy, the lame and the blind."
He then reiterated, "I'm just an ordinary man that serves an extraordinary God."
Scheller, a Swiss-born Briton, then told me of the two fundamental reasons for his mission:
The first was the economic collapse of the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. "And who are they blaming?" he asked. "Even in the Russian parliament (Duma) they quite openly say it's the Jews that are responsible for this crash.
"Secondly, anti-Semitism is rapidly growing. In certain cities, the Communists are meeting with the nationalists and openly declaring they want to eliminate (kill) the Jews when the time is right.
"However, the Lord is allowing these pressures to convince the Jews that their homeland is not Russia, not the Ukraine, but Eretz Yisrael."
He continued by saying, "The tragedy is that mankind, including the Jews, has learned nothing from history because history repeats itself.
"I personally believe there will be bloodshed in Russia and mainly the Jews will suffer. Now is the time (for them) to go home, there's no doubt about it."
While the Jewish Agency has transported thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union by air, Scheller's volunteers have "fished" for Jews throughout the far reaches of Siberia with the aim to bring them to Odessa and from there transport them by ship from Odessa to Haifa.
"I have 'fishers' that go out in villages and settlements that often don't have a name and where people live by barter. Wherever we go we find Jews."
Operating on $20,000 a day and with an annual budget of about $7 million, the strictly volunteer organization relies mainly on Gentile donors in Europe and the U.S. that adhere to Isaiah 49:22: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up My banner to the people; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders."
His Operation Exodus began while Scheller, a devout Christian, and others were praying in an Israeli hotel as Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles were falling outside in 1991. And the "mission" continued through 1999 with the completion of some 100 sailings and more than 60,000 Jews being rescued.
And then Gustav Scheller, this most righteous of Gentiles, died on Feb. 18, 2000.
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