Found in Translation

CHAPTER 2
Waging War and Keeping the Peace in Translation
War is what happens when language fails.
—Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist and activist
High-Stakes Interpreting at Nuremberg
I knew there was something different about us, even as early as five years old. I had no
grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. The other children would say, “Oh, you’re German.
You’re a Nazi.” I felt a deep sorrow, a great loss. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. It
trickles down to the next generation, this profound grief and anger over the enslavement and
murder.
1
It was true—at least in part. There was something that made little Nettie and her
sisters stand out from the rest of the children in her Chicago neighborhood.
She was German, and her family did have a connection to the Nazis—just not
the one that kids teased her about in the school yard. Nettie’s father, Peter Less,
was instrumental in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice (in the legal sense,
at least). As an interpreter for the Nuremberg trials, the international war
tribunals organized by the Americans, British, and French, he interpreted for
all twenty-four of the captured leaders of Nazi Germany.
But what is remarkable about Peter is not just that he enabled this pivotal
moment in human history to actually happen. What is nearly incomprehensible
is that the men whose voices he embodied—day after day for ten months—
were responsible for the death of his mother. And his father. And his
grandmother. And his only sister. Peter ’s entire family was killed at Auschwitz.
He gave their murderers a voice in court, standing mere feet away from them
as he did so.
How did he do it? “You have to leave your feelings at home and become a
machine,” Peter explains. “Otherwise you cannot function; you cannot do what
you’re hired to do.”
2
Peter ’s ability to control his emotions enabled him to
play a critical role in the unfolding of world history. He interpreted at the trials

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of Hermann Göring and Rudolph Hess, among others. When asked how he
could stand to be in the presence of these men, Peter explained, “It wasn’t easy.
You were sitting in the same room with the people who probably killed your
parents, but you could not let your feelings interfere with your job. You swore
to interpret as faithfully as possible, to put the speaker ’s idea into the listener ’s
head. So we did.” Less was only twenty-five years old at the time.
3
But the emotional damage hit deeply. Many interpreters were so distraught
that they were unable to continue interpreting. While others had to step down
from their posts entirely, Peter remarkably approached his task with an
undeterred view of the Nazi war criminals as human beings: “These were still
people. In fact, they were extremely intelligent. It would be a dangerous
mistake to make them sound as if they were not.” Often Peter doubted whether
they really needed him to interpret at all. “They understood English, but it was
an advantage for them to wait for the translation, to give them time to think and
answer.”
However, Peter explains that the work was easier for him because of one
major factor—as a native of Germany, he understood the culture. “I had a big
advantage, because I knew Germans. I knew the way Germans think, the
psyche, which is more than just the language. I knew how their mind works.”
But Less also had to know how the equipment worked. This was no small
task. The method of interpreting that was to be used—simultaneous
interpreting—required interpreters to listen and speak simultaneously. For this
purpose, there was a new technology being used at Nuremberg.
4
Luckily, Less
had attended the École d’Interprètes, a Rockefeller-funded department at the
University of Geneva that pioneered the new technology and simultaneous
interpreting techniques. Less’s class graduated shortly after the end of World
War II. One day, some American military officers arrived at the school and
tested a dozen people. They hired three, including Less. The next morning, he
flew to Nuremberg.
Nowadays, it is well known that interpreters who interpret such harrowing
material are likely to experience vicarious trauma. Interpreters who work at
international war crimes tribunals are more likely to receive psychological
support. No such aid was provided to the interpreters who served at
Nuremberg. Psychology was not yet widespread, with Freud just having died in
1939.
In spite of the gruesome content that Less found himself interpreting, he
speaks calmly and humbly about his experience at Nuremberg. He even smiles
when recollecting a misunderstanding that he jokingly says “nearly led to
World War III.” The incident seems innocent enough. Less merely interpreted

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the words, “What did Russia do?” However, Less knew he had made a serious
mistake when a Russian officer immediately jumped up and started to wave his
hands in the air. The sentence that had actually been spoken at the trial? “What
did Rascher do?”
The sentence had referred to the German General Rascher instead of Russia.
Less had simply misheard the sentence. It’s pretty easy to understand how that
could happen for someone listening and speaking in two languages at the same
time, under such tremendous pressure, pioneering a groundbreaking
technology (one that is still used today) and working in his first real
assignment after graduation. It was also his last. With the work he did at
Nuremberg, he interpreted enough for a lifetime—indeed, for several—
including the loved ones whose lives were lost at the hands of those for whom
he interpreted.