Jürgen Matthäus
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195389159
- eISBN:
- 9780199866694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389159.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Historiography
The Conclusion summarizes the book's main discussions. The chapter talks about contemporary knowledge among ordinary “people” about Auschwitz and where that knowledge comes from. The Conclusion ...
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The Conclusion summarizes the book's main discussions. The chapter talks about contemporary knowledge among ordinary “people” about Auschwitz and where that knowledge comes from. The Conclusion finally examines how best to evaluate a Holocaust testimony.Less
The Conclusion summarizes the book's main discussions. The chapter talks about contemporary knowledge among ordinary “people” about Auschwitz and where that knowledge comes from. The Conclusion finally examines how best to evaluate a Holocaust testimony.
Michael Berenbaum
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is ...
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A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.Less
A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.
Rivkah Zim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161808
- eISBN:
- 9781400852093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161808.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter analyzes the work of Primo Levi. Levi's revisions of his experiences in Auschwitz stand alone. He wrote with hindsight because during his thirteen months in Auschwitz he was unable to ...
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This chapter analyzes the work of Primo Levi. Levi's revisions of his experiences in Auschwitz stand alone. He wrote with hindsight because during his thirteen months in Auschwitz he was unable to write: normal life was brutally suspended, and he poured all his physical energies and intellect into the struggle to survive. Traumatic memories are especially persistent and his various forms of memoir, and reaction to his experiences have come to represent the most developed and searing Holocaust testimony that since the later 1940s has evolved in many different forms. Levi's writing epitomizes the ethical incentives of prison writing as testimony for mankind that not only engages new readers but also challenges them, going well beyond testimony as an end in itself.Less
This chapter analyzes the work of Primo Levi. Levi's revisions of his experiences in Auschwitz stand alone. He wrote with hindsight because during his thirteen months in Auschwitz he was unable to write: normal life was brutally suspended, and he poured all his physical energies and intellect into the struggle to survive. Traumatic memories are especially persistent and his various forms of memoir, and reaction to his experiences have come to represent the most developed and searing Holocaust testimony that since the later 1940s has evolved in many different forms. Levi's writing epitomizes the ethical incentives of prison writing as testimony for mankind that not only engages new readers but also challenges them, going well beyond testimony as an end in itself.
Michael L. Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148626
- eISBN:
- 9780199870011
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148622.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Auschwitz is the center of the twentieth century, its dark core, yet, in the postwar years in America few intellectuals dared to come to grips with the horror and the suffering. Jewish theologians ...
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Auschwitz is the center of the twentieth century, its dark core, yet, in the postwar years in America few intellectuals dared to come to grips with the horror and the suffering. Jewish theologians too were slow to respond until, in the turbulent years of the sixties and beyond, a small number of Jewish thinkers came to realize that the survival of Judaism and continued Jewish life require first and foremost confronting Auschwitz; looking into the abyss had become unavoidable. In this book, Michael Morgan tells the story of these theologians, and offers the first comprehensive overview of post‐Holocaust Jewish theology. He gives an account of the encounter with the death camps in the postwar writings of figures such as Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi and describes the role of the Six Day War in 1967 on the development and reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought. In chapters on each of the central thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), he analyzes the way they have struggled with the dialectic of history and identity, and with the threat of radical rupture. Throughout the book, the intellectual developments are set in their historical context and there are chapters on the reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought and its legacy for today. This is a book of philosophical and theological analysis as well as a work of intellectual history and will interest a wide spectrum of readers.Less
Auschwitz is the center of the twentieth century, its dark core, yet, in the postwar years in America few intellectuals dared to come to grips with the horror and the suffering. Jewish theologians too were slow to respond until, in the turbulent years of the sixties and beyond, a small number of Jewish thinkers came to realize that the survival of Judaism and continued Jewish life require first and foremost confronting Auschwitz; looking into the abyss had become unavoidable. In this book, Michael Morgan tells the story of these theologians, and offers the first comprehensive overview of post‐Holocaust Jewish theology. He gives an account of the encounter with the death camps in the postwar writings of figures such as Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi and describes the role of the Six Day War in 1967 on the development and reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought. In chapters on each of the central thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), he analyzes the way they have struggled with the dialectic of history and identity, and with the threat of radical rupture. Throughout the book, the intellectual developments are set in their historical context and there are chapters on the reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought and its legacy for today. This is a book of philosophical and theological analysis as well as a work of intellectual history and will interest a wide spectrum of readers.
Elihu Katz and Ruth Katz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195326222
- eISBN:
- 9780199944064
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326222.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Jeffrey Alexander is an exception. His theoretical interest in “how culture works” has brought him to the gates of Auschwitz. He brings theory and method to bear on social trauma and its resolution, ...
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Jeffrey Alexander is an exception. His theoretical interest in “how culture works” has brought him to the gates of Auschwitz. He brings theory and method to bear on social trauma and its resolution, daring even to cope with the Holocaust and with the risks of doing so. However, he does not explain the behavior of the perpetrators, or of their compliant victims, or of the bystanders. His aim, rather, is to tell the story of how the concept, Holocaust, arose from the ashes and may yet change the world. This chapter notes that the accounting scheme for studying an event is obvious. People need to know what happened; why it happened, or more forthrightly, how it could have happened; how it came to be known, and remembered; and what were its consequences.Less
Jeffrey Alexander is an exception. His theoretical interest in “how culture works” has brought him to the gates of Auschwitz. He brings theory and method to bear on social trauma and its resolution, daring even to cope with the Holocaust and with the risks of doing so. However, he does not explain the behavior of the perpetrators, or of their compliant victims, or of the bystanders. His aim, rather, is to tell the story of how the concept, Holocaust, arose from the ashes and may yet change the world. This chapter notes that the accounting scheme for studying an event is obvious. People need to know what happened; why it happened, or more forthrightly, how it could have happened; how it came to be known, and remembered; and what were its consequences.
Zoe Vania Waxman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199541546
- eISBN:
- 9780191709739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541546.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter highlights how the conditions of the concentration camps largely militated against the writing of testimony. It looks at the few important exceptions, including the writings of the ...
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This chapter highlights how the conditions of the concentration camps largely militated against the writing of testimony. It looks at the few important exceptions, including the writings of the Sonderkommando (special detachment) prisoners forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz–Birkenau. They consciously resisted the Nazis not only by leaving documentation of their existence, but also by bearing witness to the destruction of the European Jews. The testimonies of survivors reveal how the concentration camps disconnected prisoners from their previous identities. They also show that it was essential to regain a part of the past in order to find some meaning which would allow prisoners to carry on the struggle to survive. For many, it was the desire to bear witness that gave this meaning to their lives, and hence the post-war memoir became a vehicle for the resurrection of identity.Less
This chapter highlights how the conditions of the concentration camps largely militated against the writing of testimony. It looks at the few important exceptions, including the writings of the Sonderkommando (special detachment) prisoners forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz–Birkenau. They consciously resisted the Nazis not only by leaving documentation of their existence, but also by bearing witness to the destruction of the European Jews. The testimonies of survivors reveal how the concentration camps disconnected prisoners from their previous identities. They also show that it was essential to regain a part of the past in order to find some meaning which would allow prisoners to carry on the struggle to survive. For many, it was the desire to bear witness that gave this meaning to their lives, and hence the post-war memoir became a vehicle for the resurrection of identity.
Michael L. Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148626
- eISBN:
- 9780199870011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148622.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This brief introduction discusses the importance of understanding what the American Jewish response – and more importantly, the American Jewish theologians’ response – to the Holocaust has been, and ...
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This brief introduction discusses the importance of understanding what the American Jewish response – and more importantly, the American Jewish theologians’ response – to the Holocaust has been, and what it has taught Jews about their approach to the past and the future. The author has approached this by an examination of the writings of five thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), each of whom in the 1960s and 1970s began to treat the Holocaust as a central and determining feature in his Jewish thinking. Each conceived of his theological task as understanding Judaism in terms of an act of coming to grips with Auschwitz, yet each has been influential in different ways, and for different constituencies. A brief summary is given of the writings of each of the five, and of some of the thoughts and conclusions raised. The introduction ends with an outline of the book.Less
This brief introduction discusses the importance of understanding what the American Jewish response – and more importantly, the American Jewish theologians’ response – to the Holocaust has been, and what it has taught Jews about their approach to the past and the future. The author has approached this by an examination of the writings of five thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), each of whom in the 1960s and 1970s began to treat the Holocaust as a central and determining feature in his Jewish thinking. Each conceived of his theological task as understanding Judaism in terms of an act of coming to grips with Auschwitz, yet each has been influential in different ways, and for different constituencies. A brief summary is given of the writings of each of the five, and of some of the thoughts and conclusions raised. The introduction ends with an outline of the book.
Tania Oldenhage
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195150520
- eISBN:
- 9780199834549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515052X.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories ...
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This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories of Nazi genocide return to a German home and haunt its inhabitants. By attending to the poem's first historical setting, West Germany, during the Auschwitz trials in the mid‐1960s, Oldenhage explores the ways in which members of the first and second generation in postwar Germany have been affected by the legacy of the Holocaust. The chapter draws from Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” and on more recent theories on ghosts, haunting, and the uncanny.Less
This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories of Nazi genocide return to a German home and haunt its inhabitants. By attending to the poem's first historical setting, West Germany, during the Auschwitz trials in the mid‐1960s, Oldenhage explores the ways in which members of the first and second generation in postwar Germany have been affected by the legacy of the Holocaust. The chapter draws from Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” and on more recent theories on ghosts, haunting, and the uncanny.
Sean Burke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748618309
- eISBN:
- 9780748652075
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748618309.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Beginning amidst the tombs of the ‘dead’ God, and the crematoria at Auschwitz, this book confronts Nietzsche's legacy through the lens of Plato. The key question is how authors can protect against ...
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Beginning amidst the tombs of the ‘dead’ God, and the crematoria at Auschwitz, this book confronts Nietzsche's legacy through the lens of Plato. The key question is how authors can protect against the possible ‘deviant readings’ of future readers and assess ‘the risk of writing’. The author recommends an ethic of ‘discursive containment’. The ethical question is the question of our times. Within critical theory, it has focused on the act of reading. This study reverses the terms of inquiry to analyse the ethical composition of the act of writing. What responsibility does an author bear for his legacy? Do ‘catastrophic’ misreadings of authors (e.g. Plato, Nietzsche), which played a part in the establishment of totalitarian regimes such as Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, testify to authorial recklessness? These and other questions are the starting point for a theory of authorial ethics.Less
Beginning amidst the tombs of the ‘dead’ God, and the crematoria at Auschwitz, this book confronts Nietzsche's legacy through the lens of Plato. The key question is how authors can protect against the possible ‘deviant readings’ of future readers and assess ‘the risk of writing’. The author recommends an ethic of ‘discursive containment’. The ethical question is the question of our times. Within critical theory, it has focused on the act of reading. This study reverses the terms of inquiry to analyse the ethical composition of the act of writing. What responsibility does an author bear for his legacy? Do ‘catastrophic’ misreadings of authors (e.g. Plato, Nietzsche), which played a part in the establishment of totalitarian regimes such as Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, testify to authorial recklessness? These and other questions are the starting point for a theory of authorial ethics.
Gideon Greif
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300106510
- eISBN:
- 9780300131987
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300106510.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The Sonderkommando of Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted primarily of Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to facilitate the mass extermination. Though never involved in the killing itself, they were ...
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The Sonderkommando of Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted primarily of Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to facilitate the mass extermination. Though never involved in the killing itself, they were compelled to be “members of staff” of the Nazi death-factory. This book, translated into English from its original Hebrew, consists of interviews with the very few surviving men who witnessed at first hand the unparalleled horror of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Some of these men had never spoken of their experiences before. Over a period of years, the author interviewed intensively all Sonderkommando survivors living in Israel. They describe not only the details of the German-Nazi killing program but also the moral and human challenges they faced. The book provides direct testimony about the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem,” but it is also a unique document on the boundless cruelty and deceit practiced by the Germans. It documents the helplessness and powerlessness of the 1.5 million people, 90 percent of them Jews, who were brutally murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.Less
The Sonderkommando of Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted primarily of Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to facilitate the mass extermination. Though never involved in the killing itself, they were compelled to be “members of staff” of the Nazi death-factory. This book, translated into English from its original Hebrew, consists of interviews with the very few surviving men who witnessed at first hand the unparalleled horror of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Some of these men had never spoken of their experiences before. Over a period of years, the author interviewed intensively all Sonderkommando survivors living in Israel. They describe not only the details of the German-Nazi killing program but also the moral and human challenges they faced. The book provides direct testimony about the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem,” but it is also a unique document on the boundless cruelty and deceit practiced by the Germans. It documents the helplessness and powerlessness of the 1.5 million people, 90 percent of them Jews, who were brutally murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Jürgen Matthäus (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195389159
- eISBN:
- 9780199866694
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389159.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Historiography
Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. ...
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Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. Born in Bratislava in 1918, she came to Auschwitz in spring 1942 in the second transport of Jewish women from Slovakia, and was one of the few early arrivals who survived Auschwitz and its evacuation. Against the background of Zippi's early post-war and later memories, this book raises key questions on the meaning and usages of survivor testimony. What do we know and how much can we understand, sixty years after the end of the Nazi era, about the workings of a Nazi death camp and the life of its inmates? How willing are scholars, students and the public to listen to and learn from the fascinating, yet often unwieldy, confusing, and discomforting experiences of a Holocaust survivor? How can those experiences be communicated to teach and educate without undue simplification and glossing over of problematic aspects inherent in both, the life stories and their current rendering? Written by expert Holocaust scholars, this book presents a new, multi-faceted approach toward Zippi's unique story combined with the analysis of key aspects of Holocaust memory, its forms and functions.Less
Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. Born in Bratislava in 1918, she came to Auschwitz in spring 1942 in the second transport of Jewish women from Slovakia, and was one of the few early arrivals who survived Auschwitz and its evacuation. Against the background of Zippi's early post-war and later memories, this book raises key questions on the meaning and usages of survivor testimony. What do we know and how much can we understand, sixty years after the end of the Nazi era, about the workings of a Nazi death camp and the life of its inmates? How willing are scholars, students and the public to listen to and learn from the fascinating, yet often unwieldy, confusing, and discomforting experiences of a Holocaust survivor? How can those experiences be communicated to teach and educate without undue simplification and glossing over of problematic aspects inherent in both, the life stories and their current rendering? Written by expert Holocaust scholars, this book presents a new, multi-faceted approach toward Zippi's unique story combined with the analysis of key aspects of Holocaust memory, its forms and functions.
Ezra Mendelsohn
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112030
- eISBN:
- 9780199854608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112030.003.0021
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter explores David R. Blumenthal's protest theology in Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest. Blumenthal poses a question in this book which veritably hurls at Jewish theology: Must ...
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This chapter explores David R. Blumenthal's protest theology in Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest. Blumenthal poses a question in this book which veritably hurls at Jewish theology: Must the concept of an abusing God remain unthinkable after Auschwitz? Or does Auschwitz, shocking without precedent, require a “theology of protest” that is itself shocking without precedent? Blumenthal's protest theology climaxes in Yom Kippur prayer, for in it—an unprecedented step!—he demands forgiveness from God even as he seeks forgiveness by Him.Less
This chapter explores David R. Blumenthal's protest theology in Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest. Blumenthal poses a question in this book which veritably hurls at Jewish theology: Must the concept of an abusing God remain unthinkable after Auschwitz? Or does Auschwitz, shocking without precedent, require a “theology of protest” that is itself shocking without precedent? Blumenthal's protest theology climaxes in Yom Kippur prayer, for in it—an unprecedented step!—he demands forgiveness from God even as he seeks forgiveness by Him.
Marion A. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195130928
- eISBN:
- 9780199854486
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130928.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The chapter opens with a description of life in Jewish labor camps and the experiences of Jews who were forced to work for at least ten hours daily, regardless of age or gender. These people worked ...
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The chapter opens with a description of life in Jewish labor camps and the experiences of Jews who were forced to work for at least ten hours daily, regardless of age or gender. These people worked under constant fear of deportation to the infamous concentration camps which were initiated in the fourth quarter of December 1941. The author cites friendship among fellow Jewish laborers and stories of people possessed of strong wills as mitigating factors for the growing despair among the Jewish population in Germany. However, many still opted for the route of suicide as a final means of defiance. The final section describes the deportations implemented by the Nazis and the propaganda they waged to disguise the activities at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. These deceptions, documented in personal correspondences and memoirs, failed to prevent the truth from leaking out, even to the German populace.Less
The chapter opens with a description of life in Jewish labor camps and the experiences of Jews who were forced to work for at least ten hours daily, regardless of age or gender. These people worked under constant fear of deportation to the infamous concentration camps which were initiated in the fourth quarter of December 1941. The author cites friendship among fellow Jewish laborers and stories of people possessed of strong wills as mitigating factors for the growing despair among the Jewish population in Germany. However, many still opted for the route of suicide as a final means of defiance. The final section describes the deportations implemented by the Nazis and the propaganda they waged to disguise the activities at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. These deceptions, documented in personal correspondences and memoirs, failed to prevent the truth from leaking out, even to the German populace.
Judith Chazin-Bennahum
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195399332
- eISBN:
- 9780199897025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195399332.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Through a series of sixty-two letters dating from 1924 to 1942 from René Blum to Josette France, this chapter narrates the story of their love affair. It describes how Josette, an actress, became ...
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Through a series of sixty-two letters dating from 1924 to 1942 from René Blum to Josette France, this chapter narrates the story of their love affair. It describes how Josette, an actress, became involved with Blum and soon was the focus of his emotional life. Their relationship grew and flourished until she became pregnant and would not, or could not, marry Blum. The chapter cites their age difference, twenty-two years, as possibly contributing to their problems, as René’s tone with and advice to Josette seem very paternalistic. Always helping her with her career and with financial support, he also wanted to be the model parent to their son. The chapter shows how Blum’s constant traveling and business worries also detracted from the attention Josette believed she needed. It recounts the many difficult-to-treat illnesses that their little boy Claude-René, or Minochou, suffered. One of the letters Blum wrote was his last will and testament; it indicated that most everything he possessed should go eventually to his son, with allowances for Josette and her mother, Madame Marsoulam, who essentially cared for the boy. His last letter, written in the camp at Compiègne just before he was transported to Auschwitz, went to Josette: it thanked her for a gift ham, and asked her to contact certain individuals who might be able to provide financial assistance for their son and maybe one day help him to see Claude-René again.Less
Through a series of sixty-two letters dating from 1924 to 1942 from René Blum to Josette France, this chapter narrates the story of their love affair. It describes how Josette, an actress, became involved with Blum and soon was the focus of his emotional life. Their relationship grew and flourished until she became pregnant and would not, or could not, marry Blum. The chapter cites their age difference, twenty-two years, as possibly contributing to their problems, as René’s tone with and advice to Josette seem very paternalistic. Always helping her with her career and with financial support, he also wanted to be the model parent to their son. The chapter shows how Blum’s constant traveling and business worries also detracted from the attention Josette believed she needed. It recounts the many difficult-to-treat illnesses that their little boy Claude-René, or Minochou, suffered. One of the letters Blum wrote was his last will and testament; it indicated that most everything he possessed should go eventually to his son, with allowances for Josette and her mother, Madame Marsoulam, who essentially cared for the boy. His last letter, written in the camp at Compiègne just before he was transported to Auschwitz, went to Josette: it thanked her for a gift ham, and asked her to contact certain individuals who might be able to provide financial assistance for their son and maybe one day help him to see Claude-René again.
Judith Chazin-Bennahum
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195399332
- eISBN:
- 9780199897025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195399332.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter documents the sad, miserable conclusion to Blum’s life, documented by his personal journal, letters, homages, and books. It begins with Blum’s assertion that he had to return to France ...
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This chapter documents the sad, miserable conclusion to Blum’s life, documented by his personal journal, letters, homages, and books. It begins with Blum’s assertion that he had to return to France from America where he followed the performances of the Ballets Russes, so that he could rejoin his brother and son and family who were all at risk with the Vichy regime. The text details his daily travails in avoiding arrest during the Occupation, with Parisian police reports testifying to his wearing of the Jewish star. It cites Georges Wellers’s De Drancy à Auschwitz, in which he recounts the story of Blum’s arrest at the École Militaire on December 12, 1942, and subsequent struggles to maintain his dignity at the camps in Compiègne, where he became very ill, and later Drancy. The chapter depicts Blum’s heroism as he tried to distract his fellow prisoners with lectures about literature, as well as tales of his ballet companies, and describes how Blum gave up an opportunity to save himself in order to protect Jean-Jacques Bernard, the son of Tristan Bernard. Bernard later wrote the Camp of Slow Death to reveal the horrors of the camps and the bravery of some, notably René Blum. The chapter poignantly portrays the children’s ward at Drancy, which Blum visited, and ends with Blum’s last train ride to Auschwitz, where he was tortured and murdered.Less
This chapter documents the sad, miserable conclusion to Blum’s life, documented by his personal journal, letters, homages, and books. It begins with Blum’s assertion that he had to return to France from America where he followed the performances of the Ballets Russes, so that he could rejoin his brother and son and family who were all at risk with the Vichy regime. The text details his daily travails in avoiding arrest during the Occupation, with Parisian police reports testifying to his wearing of the Jewish star. It cites Georges Wellers’s De Drancy à Auschwitz, in which he recounts the story of Blum’s arrest at the École Militaire on December 12, 1942, and subsequent struggles to maintain his dignity at the camps in Compiègne, where he became very ill, and later Drancy. The chapter depicts Blum’s heroism as he tried to distract his fellow prisoners with lectures about literature, as well as tales of his ballet companies, and describes how Blum gave up an opportunity to save himself in order to protect Jean-Jacques Bernard, the son of Tristan Bernard. Bernard later wrote the Camp of Slow Death to reveal the horrors of the camps and the bravery of some, notably René Blum. The chapter poignantly portrays the children’s ward at Drancy, which Blum visited, and ends with Blum’s last train ride to Auschwitz, where he was tortured and murdered.
Jean-Luc Nancy
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263387
- eISBN:
- 9780823266333
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263387.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter describes how one should deal with Fukushima. To philosophize about the disaster of Fukushima is like writing a poem about the Auschwitz concentration camp. There are differences between ...
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This chapter describes how one should deal with Fukushima. To philosophize about the disaster of Fukushima is like writing a poem about the Auschwitz concentration camp. There are differences between these two which go beyond philosophy and poetry. The differences should not be taken lightly. Both Auschwitz and Hiroshima occurred during the Second World War and, instead of having ended the war, both became a scheme for people to develop technological rationality and to annihilate entire populations. Auschwitz and Hiroshima have transformed society and affected civilization in a way that should be seen as extreme when compared to other forms of violence. This excess is not only because of the massive scale when and where it occurred but more in that there is a change in nature. It was not only human lives that were targeted but organisms beyond human life with all its forms, generations, relationships, and representations.Less
This chapter describes how one should deal with Fukushima. To philosophize about the disaster of Fukushima is like writing a poem about the Auschwitz concentration camp. There are differences between these two which go beyond philosophy and poetry. The differences should not be taken lightly. Both Auschwitz and Hiroshima occurred during the Second World War and, instead of having ended the war, both became a scheme for people to develop technological rationality and to annihilate entire populations. Auschwitz and Hiroshima have transformed society and affected civilization in a way that should be seen as extreme when compared to other forms of violence. This excess is not only because of the massive scale when and where it occurred but more in that there is a change in nature. It was not only human lives that were targeted but organisms beyond human life with all its forms, generations, relationships, and representations.
J. Hillis Miller
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226527215
- eISBN:
- 9780226527239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226527239.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter investigates another of Kafka’s works, The Castle. The founding hypothesis in this chapter revolves around the notion that “community” depends on the assumption that each member of a ...
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This chapter investigates another of Kafka’s works, The Castle. The founding hypothesis in this chapter revolves around the notion that “community” depends on the assumption that each member of a community has access, in some form or another, to the thoughts and feelings of his or her neighbor. This, in a way, recounts Heidegger’s idea of Mitsein or “being with” (intersubjectivity). In The Castle there is a certain lack of this aspect. The characters have no connection or access to the minds of other characters. The narrative voice is also limited in its accessing of the protagonist’s mind. In a way, it forms an incomplete novel that simply denies interpretation. The Castle seems to work as a premonition of Auschwitz in terms of the breakdown of community togetherness, including the belief in the Mitsein. The goal of the chapter, then, is to determine whether The Castle can be viewed as a foreshadowing of Auschwitz.Less
This chapter investigates another of Kafka’s works, The Castle. The founding hypothesis in this chapter revolves around the notion that “community” depends on the assumption that each member of a community has access, in some form or another, to the thoughts and feelings of his or her neighbor. This, in a way, recounts Heidegger’s idea of Mitsein or “being with” (intersubjectivity). In The Castle there is a certain lack of this aspect. The characters have no connection or access to the minds of other characters. The narrative voice is also limited in its accessing of the protagonist’s mind. In a way, it forms an incomplete novel that simply denies interpretation. The Castle seems to work as a premonition of Auschwitz in terms of the breakdown of community togetherness, including the belief in the Mitsein. The goal of the chapter, then, is to determine whether The Castle can be viewed as a foreshadowing of Auschwitz.
Stanislao G. Pugliese (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233588
- eISBN:
- 9780823241811
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233588.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
More than twenty years ago, the Italian chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi fell to his death from the stairwell of his apartment building in Turin. Within hours, a debate exploded as ...
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More than twenty years ago, the Italian chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi fell to his death from the stairwell of his apartment building in Turin. Within hours, a debate exploded as to whether his death was an accident or a suicide and, if the latter, how this might force us to reinterpret his legacy as a writer and survivor. Many weighed in with thoughtful and sometimes provocative commentary, but the debate over his death has sometimes overshadowed the larger significance of his place as a thinker after Auschwitz. This volume contains chapters that deal directly with Levi and his work; others tangentially use Levi's writings or ideas to explore larger issues in Holocaust studies, philosophy, theology, and the problem of representation. They are included here in the spirit that Levi described himself: proud of being impureand a centaur, cognizant that asymmetry is the fundamental structure of organic life. “I became a Jew in Auschwitz,” Levi once wrote, comparing the concentration camp to a university of life. Yet he could also paradoxically admit, in an interview late in life: “There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.” Rather than seek to untangle these contradictions, Levi embraced them. This volume seeks to embrace them as well.Less
More than twenty years ago, the Italian chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi fell to his death from the stairwell of his apartment building in Turin. Within hours, a debate exploded as to whether his death was an accident or a suicide and, if the latter, how this might force us to reinterpret his legacy as a writer and survivor. Many weighed in with thoughtful and sometimes provocative commentary, but the debate over his death has sometimes overshadowed the larger significance of his place as a thinker after Auschwitz. This volume contains chapters that deal directly with Levi and his work; others tangentially use Levi's writings or ideas to explore larger issues in Holocaust studies, philosophy, theology, and the problem of representation. They are included here in the spirit that Levi described himself: proud of being impureand a centaur, cognizant that asymmetry is the fundamental structure of organic life. “I became a Jew in Auschwitz,” Levi once wrote, comparing the concentration camp to a university of life. Yet he could also paradoxically admit, in an interview late in life: “There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.” Rather than seek to untangle these contradictions, Levi embraced them. This volume seeks to embrace them as well.
Risa Sodi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233588
- eISBN:
- 9780823241811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233588.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter focuses on three extraliterary facets of Primo Levi: his public associations with Auschwitz and Holocaust commemoration, his leadership role in the Jewish community of Turin, and his ...
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This chapter focuses on three extraliterary facets of Primo Levi: his public associations with Auschwitz and Holocaust commemoration, his leadership role in the Jewish community of Turin, and his contribution to the intellectual debates over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many of Levi's nonliterary pronouncements appeared in low-circulation publications, on Italian radio and television, in unexpected venues or about subjects—like the crisis in the Middle East—with which Levi is not usually associated. This chapter recalls a facet of Levi that is little known abroad, namely his ties to organized religion in Turin, and one that was well known in Italy but perhaps obfuscated by the passage of time: his long and public involvement, as a progressive thinker, an intellectual, and a Jew, with the political direction and future of the State of Israel and, by extension with Jewry in Israel and beyond.Less
This chapter focuses on three extraliterary facets of Primo Levi: his public associations with Auschwitz and Holocaust commemoration, his leadership role in the Jewish community of Turin, and his contribution to the intellectual debates over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many of Levi's nonliterary pronouncements appeared in low-circulation publications, on Italian radio and television, in unexpected venues or about subjects—like the crisis in the Middle East—with which Levi is not usually associated. This chapter recalls a facet of Levi that is little known abroad, namely his ties to organized religion in Turin, and one that was well known in Italy but perhaps obfuscated by the passage of time: his long and public involvement, as a progressive thinker, an intellectual, and a Jew, with the political direction and future of the State of Israel and, by extension with Jewry in Israel and beyond.
Massimo Giuliani
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233588
- eISBN:
- 9780823241811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233588.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Primo Levi's science-fiction stories are a kind of modern midrashim. In the Jewish tradition, this term refers to an exercise of pedagogical hermeneutics that creates imaginary stories and dialogues ...
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Primo Levi's science-fiction stories are a kind of modern midrashim. In the Jewish tradition, this term refers to an exercise of pedagogical hermeneutics that creates imaginary stories and dialogues about biblical figures and that intentionally forces the original texts or interprets the silence of the tales with the goal of deducing a moral teaching, a psychological detail. It is suggested here that in Levi's science-bio-fictional stories there is more spirit of Kafka than Levi himself is ready to admit; and there is a deep link between the “testimony” of Auschwitz, written by Levi, and his parabolic stories of imagination, that work on extreme technological hypotheses. Beyond the limits of Hercules' pillars, once the ethical prohibitions are transgressed, there is only a tragic destiny, a mass suicide, a self-destruction—in Kafka's words, a death sentence that is carried out like a banal bureaucratic task.Less
Primo Levi's science-fiction stories are a kind of modern midrashim. In the Jewish tradition, this term refers to an exercise of pedagogical hermeneutics that creates imaginary stories and dialogues about biblical figures and that intentionally forces the original texts or interprets the silence of the tales with the goal of deducing a moral teaching, a psychological detail. It is suggested here that in Levi's science-bio-fictional stories there is more spirit of Kafka than Levi himself is ready to admit; and there is a deep link between the “testimony” of Auschwitz, written by Levi, and his parabolic stories of imagination, that work on extreme technological hypotheses. Beyond the limits of Hercules' pillars, once the ethical prohibitions are transgressed, there is only a tragic destiny, a mass suicide, a self-destruction—in Kafka's words, a death sentence that is carried out like a banal bureaucratic task.
