After the Holocaust "This book has an important story to tell: that, contrary to what many historians have come to believe, there was not a 'silence' until the early 1960s about the wartime persecution and mass murder of Europe's Jews .,, In the introduction David Cesarani asserts that now 'the way is open to a root and branch reassessment of Jewish life in the postwar era' ... a bold claim, but one that is confirmed by this fine collection." Professor Richard Bessel, University of York, UK "A path breaking volume, After the Holocaust shows what a complicated, diverse and creative discourse emerged from the Jewish catastrophe, and what a profound challenge was faced by those who struggled to^coimect with the rest of the world. Through this book we can appreciate Jewish grief, anxieties and herculean efforts — sadly forgotten, largely, in our own time." Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto, Canada For the last decade scholars have been questioning the idea that the Holocaust was not significantly talked about in any significant way until well into the 1970s. After the Holocaust; Challenging the Myth of Silence is the first collection of authoritative, original scholarship to expose a serious misreading of the past on which, controversially, the later claims for a 'Holocaust industry' rest. Taking an international approach this bold new book exposes the myth and opens the way for a sweeping reassessment of Jewish life in the postwar era, a life lived in the pervasive, shared awareness that Jews had narrowly survived a catastrophe that had engulfed humanity as a whole but claimed two-thirds of their number. The chapters include evaluations of the work of survivor-historians and memoir writers, studies of David Boder. theatrical productions made by survivors and films, and a discussion of the different types, and meanings, of 'silence' A breakthrough volume in the debate about the 'Myth of Silence', this is a must for all students of Holocaust and genocide. David Cesarani is Research Professor in History at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He has written and edited over a dozen books, including Eichmarm: His Life and Crimes (2004), and Major Parian's Hat: Murder, Scandal, and Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism, 1945—1948 (2009). For his work in establishing a Holocaust Memorial Day in Great Britain he was awarded an OBE in 200.S. Eric J. Stmdquist is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities at John Hopkins University, USA. His publications include Kings Dream (2009), Strangers in the Land: lihuks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America (2005) and 'To Wake the Nations: Race in the Milking of American Literature (I'TO). After the Holocaust Challenging the Myth of Silence Edited by " David Cesarani and Eric J. Sundquist R Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK rust published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Mikon P,nk, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Roulledy is an imprint of the laylor & Tramis Group, an informa /n/i/i/cvt (0 2012 David Cesar.tni ami Brie |. Sundquist The right of the David Cesarani and Erie J. Sundquist to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1l>88. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only tor identification and explanation without intent to infringe. liriti40.53'1814-de22 2011015444 ISBN: 978-0-415-61675-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-41.5-61676-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-80314-1 (ehk) Typeset in Bernbo by Taylor & Francis Books Printed and bound in Creat Britain by CP! Antony Rowe, Chippenham, "Wiltshire Contents List of figures vii Notes on contributors viii Acknowledgments „. xi Introduction I David Cesarani 1 Challenging the 'myth of silence': postwar responses to the destruction of European Jewry 15 David Cesarani 2 Re-imagining the unimaginable: theater, memory, and rehabilitation in the Displaced Persons camps 39 Margarete Myers Feitistein 3 No silence in Yiddish: popular and scholarly writing about the Holocaust in the early postwar years 55 Mark L. Smith 4 Breaking the silence: the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris and the writing of Holocaust history in liberated France 67 Laura Jockusch 5 Dividing the ruins: communal memory in Yiddish and Hebrew 82 David G. Roskies vi Contents 6 "We know very little in America": David Boder and nn-belated testimony 102 Alan Rosen 7 David P. Boder: Holocaust memory in Displaced Persons camps 115 Rachel Deblmger 8 Authoritarianism and the making of post-Holocaust personality studies 127 Michael E. Stauh 9 If God was silent, absent, dead, or nonexistent, what about philosophy and theology? Some aftereffects and aftershocks of the Holocaust 139 John K. Roth 10 Trial by audience: bringing Nazi war criminals to justice in Hollywood films, 1944-59 152 l-Mwrence Baron 11 "This too is partly Hitler's doing": Americanjewish name changing in the wake of the Holocaust, 1939-57 170 Kirs ten Fermaglich 12 The myth of silence: survivors tell a different story 181 Beth B. Cohen 13 Origins and meanings of the myth of silence 192 Hasia R. Diner Silence reconsidered: an afterword 202 Eric J. Snndqnist Index 217 102 115 127 139 152 List of figures 2.1 Soma Boczkowska reciting the poem "Shoes from Majdanek" at the Belsen DP camp 40 2.2 Scene from the Katzet-Teater play "Partisans" at the Belsen DP camp 43 2.3 Cabaret scene from the Katzet-Teater play "Partisans" at the Belsen DP camp 45 170 10.1 Rabbi David Levin, played by Richard Hale, looks in horror at the Jews shot down while boarding a deportation transport 155 10.2 Franz Kindle!. played by Orson Welles, pulls a gun to avoid capture 181 by Inspector Wilson, played by Edward G. Robinson 156 10.3 Major l.awson, played by Ray Miliaria, cross-examines Themis DeLisle, played by Florence Marley 158 192 10.4 The categories of Nazi war crimes posted on the walls 162 10.5 Liberated survivors in a concentration camp barrack 164 202 217 Notes on contributors Lawrence Baron has held the Nasatir Chair of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University since 1988. He is the author or editor of four books, including Projirling the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema (2005) and The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (2011). David Cesarani is Research Professor in History at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He lias written and edited over a dozen books, including Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998), Justice Delayed: How Britain Became a Refuge for Nazi War Criminals (2001), Eichmatm: His Life and Crimes (2004), and Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism, 1945-1948 (2009). For his work in establishing a Holocaust Memorial Day in Great Britain he was awarded an QBE in 2005. Beth B. Cohen is Gold/Weinstein Visiting Professor of Holocaust History at Chapman University, California, USA. Her research interests include survivors in the early postwar years, tire topic of her book, Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (2007), and numerous articles. She is currently studying the experiences of child survivors and how various Jewish organizations interpreted the charge to rescue and rehabilitate those children. Rachel Deblinger, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at UCLA, USA, is currently completing a dissertation, "Constructions of Survival: Framing Holocaust Narratives in Postwar America," that explores early accounts of the Holocaust in the United States and the factors that shaped first expressions of Holocaust memory. Her research has been supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and in 2011—12 she will be a Samuel and Flora Weiss Research Fellow at YIVO. Notes on contributors ix Hasia R. Diner, the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, USA, won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award for We Remember with Reverence and Low: American Jews and the Myth of Silence After the Holocaust 1945-62 (2009). She has also published several books in the field of American Jewish history, American women's history, and the history of immigration and ethnicity. Margarete Myers Feinstein is Research Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, USA. She has written extensively about the legacies of Nazism, Jewish displaced pel sons, and postwar German national identity. Her recent book, Holocaust Stuvit'ors in Postwar Germany, 1945-1957 (2009), tells the story of a community of survivois rebuilding their lives in the aftermath of the Shoah. Kirsten Fcrmaglich is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University, USA. The author of American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957—1965 (2006) and co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (forthcoming in 2013), she is currently working on a book tentatively entitled "A Rosenberg By Any Other Name," which will deal with the history of Jews and name-changing in the twentieth century, Laura Jockusch is the author of Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Postwar Europe, 1943-1953 (forthcoming from Oxford University Press), She is currently Feodor Lynen Minerva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Avraharn Hannan Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurkm University of the Negev. Her current lesearch includes a critical edition of early postwar Jewish Holocaust texts and a study of Jewish conceptions of retributive justice in postwar Germany. Alan Rosen is the author, most recently, of The Wonder of 'Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Bocler (2010) and Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism, and the Problem of English (2008), and the editor of Approaches to Teaching Wiescl's Night (2007). He has taught at universities and colleges in Israel and the United States, and lectures regularly on Holocaust Literature at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies. His current book project is entitled Killing Time, Saving Time: Calendars and the Holocaust, David G. Roskios is the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Professor of Yiddish Literature and Cultuie at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Visiting Professor of Jewish Literatures at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Lie has published extensively on Jewish responses to catastrophe. With Naomi Diamant, he is the co-author of Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide (forthcoming from the University Press of New England), from which his contribution to this volume is excerpted. John K. Roth is the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and x Notes on contributors Human Rights (now the Center for Human Rights Leadership) at Claremont McKenna College, USA. His most recent books include Ethics During and After the Holocaust: In the Shadow o/Birkettau (2007); Anguished Hope: Holocaust Scholars Confront the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2008); and The Oxford Handbook of"Holocaust Studies (2011). Mark L. Smith is a doctoral candidate in Jewish History at UCLA, where his work has been supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His dissertation, "The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust," argues for recognition of a specifically Yiddish orientation in Jewish historiography, focusing on the early postwar period. Related work includes entries in the Encyclopedia Judaica (Isaiah Trunk) and the Encyclopedia of American Women's History (Lucy Dawidowicz), as well as papers at the Berkeley Yiddish Conference and the Association for Jewish Studies. Michael E. Staub teaches English and American Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, USA. His books include Voices of Persuasion: Politics of Representation in 1930s America (1994), Torn at the Roots: The Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America (2002), and Madness Is Civilization: When the Diagnosis Was Social, 1948— 1980 (2011), a history of the influence of psychiatric and anti-psychiatric perspectives on American culture and politics from the 1940s to the 1980s. Eric J. Sundquist is Andrew W. Mellon Professor, of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University, USA, where he teaches in the Department of English. His books include King's Dream (2009); Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America (2005), which received the Weinberg Judaic Studies Institute Book Award; and To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of"American Literature (1992), which received the Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa and the James Russell Lowell Award from the Modern Language Association. mont e.r the mt the m)' Acknowledgments work ition, lust," »phy, incy-.story J the City Ics of 'cilisin haul, The editors wish to acknowledge the support of the Andrew W, Mellon Foundation, iatric whose Distinguished Achievement Award to Eric J. Sundquist (then a faculty member at UCLAj in 2007 made possible a three-year program of teaching and research activities on the Holocaust in American and modern culture, including a ohms conference on the topic of "the myth of silence" that led to this volume. We are ■ooks indebted to UCLA and especially to the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies for its nerica gracious support of this program. We wish also to acknowledge the kind and discerning d To assistance of Eve Setch, Laura Mothersole, Emma Hudson and Jacqueline Dias at i the Routledge. The Publisher would like to thank Yad Vashern and Photofest, Inc. ward INTRODUCTION David Cesarani In the mid-1990s, a comfortable consensus existed amongst historians concerning post-1945 responses to the wartime persecution and mass murder of Europe's Jews. They agreed, more or less, that the liberation of the concentration camps and the trials of Nazi leaders had attracted a flurry of attention in 1945—46, but with the focus on Western Europe and within the narrative of the war. The identity of the Jewish victims was often blurred or ignored. Partly thanks to the skewed focus of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, the massacre of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the death camps remained shrouded in mystery. In any case, soon afterwards the world lost interest in what had happened to them. By the late 1940s, even the Jewish communities of Israel and the Diaspora seemed reluctant to engage with the recent past. Due to the onset of the Cold War, efforts to resolve the economic and political issues stemming from the implementation of genocide were quietly discontinued. The Jewish survivors were shunned and neglected. Little historical research was undertaken.1 Historians broadly concurred that this trend was reversed by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961-62. Then came the 1967 Israel—Arab war, which revived in Jews the memories of threatened extermination and made Jewish youth, in particular, more sympathetic towards what their elders had endured. The public at large was similarly jolted by the television mini-series 'Holocaust', shown around the world in 1978-79. For all its faults, 'Holocaust' marked a watershed in public awareness of the events it portrayed. Survivors of Nazi persecution who had been empowered by the Eichmann trial now found willing audiences for their testimony. Politicians, creative figures and cultural entrepreneurs were all alerted to the potential of what became known universally as 'the Holocaust'.2 Finally, the end of the Cold War enabled the completion of unfinished business in Eastern Europe and created a political and intellectual framework in which the past could be confronted more honestly.3 2 David Cesarani However, in an article in New Left Review, in July 1997, Norman Finkelstein argued that the steadily increasing salience of 'the Holocaust' was actually due to a deliberate campaign by Jewish organizations and that it was instrurnentalized for the benefit of Jews in the USA and Israel. Two years later, in The Holocaust in American Life, Peter Novick proposed a similar explanation although with a different emphasis. Finkelstein published a book length version of his polemic, The Holocaust Industry, in 2000. It became an international best seller. With remarkable speed this revisionism became the new orthodoxy. It was soon de violent to maintain that the public prominence of'the Holocaust' was mainly due to the efforts of Jewish organizations to make people aware of tins history with the intention of building sympathy for the Jews at large and Israel in particular.4 More recently, in 77«' Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age, Daniel Levy and Natan Sz.naider have argued that by the end of the twentieth century, the Nazi crime against the Jews had become a universal symbol of evil. This development was in part a response to the undermining of moral certainty due to postmodernism and the search for some agreed benchmarks of good and bad; but it was also a result of the 'Americanization' of 'the Holocaust', a process of globalization that accentuated its universal features and utility as a yardstick of evil."*1 This thesis (regardless of its merits) and the case made by Finkelstein and Novick (notwithstanding the variations between them), hinge on the. notion that after the war there was a 'silence' about the attempted annihilation of the Jews until it was in the interests of the organized Jewish community in America to break it by 'constructing'.,what we know today as the historical event and cultural subject called 'the Holocaust'. But was there really a 'silence' after the war? Is the 'globalization' of knowledge and awareness of the genocide against Europe's Jews really something new? The purpose of this essay collection is to present evidence that in the wake of the Second World War the Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution and mass murder were not, 'silent' and that, over the ensuing fifteen years, the world was gifted a plenitude of information about, the horrors that had so recently occurred in Europe. In so doing, several contributors pose the question of why, if this material existed, historians got it so wrong? One reason is that many Jewish survivors who lived through that period, and whose personal experiences informed the work of later researchers, tended to maintain that there had been a 'silence'. Yet, as we can now understand, their memory ot those years was affected by the extraordinary salience that the horrendous events they had lived through assumed later on (and perhaps somewhat belatedly), and by their own enhanced status as 'survivors'. In comparison with the recognition heaped upon them in the 1990s and the ubiquity of'the Holocaust' in historiography and public discourse, the 1950s did look in retrospect like an unknowing and uncaring decade.*' This is why it is apposite to use the term 'myth' to describe the phenomena being scrutinised here. Because what started out as a historical construction, an interpretation of the past based on evidence, turned into a set of beliefs almost immune to contrary data. A few concrete examples may illustrate this curious development. It is helpful to begin with Judith Miller's pioneering work ot reportage One, by One, By Introduction 3 Hstein ; One: Pacing the Holocaust, published in New York in 1990. Miller captured not only -> to a « the work of historians up to that point, but also the aggrieved voice of survivors in :>r the several countries. It was a potent combination. 'Immediately after the war,' she leriam wrote, 'the survivors who came to America wanted to forget their experiences and )hasis. build new lives. The communities in which they lived encouraged little else.' She try, in interviewed Abe Foxman and cited his experiences in support of her argument, Diiism Foxman recalled that after arriving in the USA his parents had tried to explain what : pro- they had been through, but gave up in the face of incomprehension. In a gloss on his >ns to comments, which were rather more liuaneed than her own observations, she added: n the - 'People like Foxman's father wrote, but mostly for themselves, in diaries and memoirs, few of which were published." She concluded that: y and > crime Outside their homes, there was little organised support for the victims. Their i part pain was not recognised by organised American Jewry. Survivors were not d the exactly excluded as a group; but they were not included either. Neither the >f the Jewish community — nor gentiles - were interested in their harrowing tales.7 ed its lerits) i As we will see, however, some survivors in the United Slates were vocal and did find itions audiences. Several published memoirs and much about the Nazi persecution of the it the Jews was told in a variety of genres, if not in the historical narrative form that we ;wish would recognise today. Nevertheless, the assumed 'invisibility of the Holocaust' s the seemed to relieve researchers of the need to probe more deeply. Hence a succession illy a of books appeared that seemed to confirm what was fast becoming orthodoxy.8 Tims f the Aaron Hass could assert bluntly on the first page of The Aftermath: Living with the Holocaust that 'For several decades after its conclusion, little was written about the rously of the dead," he writes, 'the Holocaust was read backwards in time. liveryonc who ut part perished was deemed holy and everything they had eteatetl was rendered holy, too,' sought This was a collective enterprise, like the writing ot histotv, and it was conducted t- This mainly in Yiddish, 'for Yiddish was still the nniveis.il Jewish language ami the Yiddish aider's press was to remain for decades the main purveyor of Holocaust memory'. By the close of the 1950s, Jewish readers could pick one of two distinct nanative lespouses: a dinary naturalistic and a liturgical veision. Above all, 'the Holocaust became pan of the J Isaac metanarrative of destruction and rebirth". i Juive Without that architecture, and before the historical nanative gelled, it was very ; Leon hard indeed to make sense of what survivots were saying. In their analysis of the early ibrace audio recordings made by David Boder, Alan Rosen and Rachel I >eblinger shed light tsk ot on the context in which he worked and the impact he had. Rosen stiesses that n and although Boder travelled alone in Emope in 194b, his expedition tesulted from Jrsohn institutional and financial support that made it a collet five effort. And he continued s with to get giant money for the analysts and dissemination ot his teseaich for neatly a eternal decade after wards. Boder had his own peculiar scientific agenda, but he also under- <■ of: a stood that he bad a duty to educate Americans about what had belallen the Jews. 2r this Consequently, he pressed his inteiviewees to explain eveiything. liven though he had Mis of difficulty getting all his interviews published, his mission was hardly foilorn. Rosen Tench shows how a range of social scientists utilised his findings: 'On multiple levels, ib for Boder's interviews found an engaged lay and scholarly American audience.' " that Boiler's achievement was all the more remarkable because he was opeiafing at the onans ffontiets of both technology and knowledge of the immediate past, lie did not have 'n the histories of Nazi policy or settled accounts ot the ghettos and camps to help him t and frame his questions. As Deblinger shows, he frequently interrupted his inteiviewees to ddish: seek clarification about what they weie telling him: it was initially incompiehensible I both because it was unprecedented. Many of these things weie being said for the fust time ° the and he was the fitsf heater. As a testtlt, people told him things and he askeil questions >cades that would later be deemed impolitic or indelicate. His interviews captured details of work sexual abuse, prisoner-on-prisoner violence in the camps, and violent levenge taken ration bv liberated Jews. Because Boiler's interviews were overlooked by later authorities on 'Holocaust historiography' and 'Holocaust literature' many of these topics failed to 8 David Cesarani enter the 'canonical narrative'. The 'rediscovery' of his amazing work reveals material that 'seems both to anticipate later themes and to complicate the historical narrative by recalling themes that have since been filtered out'. Ironically, Boder's published interviews seem to have had more impact on the social sciences in general and on history writing that was not concerned with the Nazi period. Erving Goffman, for example, found inspiration in them for his work on prisons. Then again, as Michael Staub shows, a range ot political scientists and social scientists in the USA registered the impact of the Jewish catastrophe in their work. 'I'his influence was apparent in the debates over The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sandford, which was part of a project funded by the American Jewish Committee to lay bare the roots of prejudice and identify why societies fall prey to dictators. Staub insists that the entire project made no sense without reference to the Nazi takeover in Germany and the subsequent late of the Jews. However, few Americans were ready to swallow the bitter pill served up to them by the researchers - even though several of them had had personal encounters with Nazism. The research laced an avalanche of criticism and was ultimately buried. When the insight ot Adorno and his team came back into fashion in the 1960s it was adopted without any sense of its original historical mooring, as if tins early response to Nazism had never happened as such. 'Hie same process of 'forgetting' seems to have afflicted the realm of theology. Between 1945 and 1952, Karl Jaspers, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Briber all penned searching reflections on the catastrophe, although it took time for their ideas to permeate wider theological circles. This was richly ironic because one subject that preoccupied them was: silence. This was, of course, the silence of God in the face of horrific acts perpetrated by his creation, man, upon other men. There was, however, no blanket 'silence' about this silence either. As early as the 1950s, Franklin Littell was starting out on what would become a trail-blazing career examining the troubled relationship between Christianity and Nazism. Needless to say, such deep investigation and sophisticated reflection took time to complete and to see the light of day, let alone to register an impact in academic circles, the clergy or laity. The same was not true of certain areas of the creative industries that were able to respond flexibly and with alacrity to current affairs. Consequently, as Lawrence Baron shows, a number of films dealing with the Third Reich and Nazi criminality appeared from the early 1940s onwards. Filmmakers depicted Nazi atrocities during the war, sometimes blurring the identity of the victims, but at other times, as in None Shall Escape (1943), referring explicitly to jews. After the war, when Nazis faced justice, Baron argues that the figure of the Nazi criminal fugitive was a popular screen trope. Major figures in Hollywood including OiNon Welles and Sam Fuller tackled the subject. Indeed, the studios brought to a mass audience films of the liberated concentration camps that had previously only been seen fiectingly in newsreels or at the Nuremberg Tribunal. Baron thus challenges the chronology structuring conventional histories of 'film and the Holocaust' which only acknowledge the importance of The Young Lions (1958) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1959), implying that before these productions there was 'silence'.'3 Introduction 9 naterial Two of the best known tilnis that can be seen as a response to the war and the arrative persecution of the Jews were Centleniiiii's Agreement and (aossfne, both teleased in 1947. They do not address 'the Holocaust' as an historical event, even as it was on the understood in the late 1940s, but they do explore anti-semitisni in America. To this ith the extent it is myopic not to see them as 1 espouses to the recent Jewish tragedy. Indeed, s work both feature Jewish Gls, recently leturned from the war. Yet (lentletuan V Agreement, sts and like Arthur Miller's 1945 novel Fonts, is equally inteiested in the varied behaviour n their patterns of Jews confronting piejtidicc. Their reactions cannot be dissociated fiom ality by their knowledge of the catastrophe recently enacted in Fan ope or the plight of sur- idford, vivois, whose stories repeatedly erupted onto the front pages of US newspapers, long ry bare after the war ended, when they clamoured for permission to emigrate fiom Europe 1 insists to British-administered Palestine. >ver in This is the context for the epidemic of" name changing examined by Kiisten ; ready Fcrmaglich. Through a close leading of petitions to alter surnames that sounded several Jewish' or 'foieign' and the debates which this practice attracted, Fcrmaglich is able ilanche to chart one of the most personal, intimate and, as yet, unnoticed impacts of the Nazi s team onslaught against the Jews. Some explained that they wanted to ciicumvent the iriginal handicap that a 'Jewish' name posed or to avoid drawing the unwanted attention of aich. those who disliked Jews. Fcrmaglich argues that lefugees and survivors who leached •ology. , America sought to distance themselves fiom the horrois perpetiated by Germans and iber all other Europeans. Commentators in the Jewish press and Jewish writets, including r ideas Laura Zametkin Hobson, author of GY/ff/ewiwAgreement, ami Bernaid Malamud, ft that discussed this practice in the light of the war years. Fcrmaglich concludes that: 'Far face of fiom repressing the knowledge of the Holocaust, American Jews in the late 1940s vvever, and 1950s used European genocide as a lens through which to inteipret their most Littell fundamental public identities in the United States.' mbled it was, after all, hard to avoid hearing about the fate of Jews on the radio, seeing DPs in newsieels, or reading about them in the newspapers. Jewish Americans in me to many cities weie also likely to encounter pre- 1939 refugees and post-1945 smvivois, ic cir- living embodiments of the catastrophe. Beth Cohen investigates how they reacted -eative and, in particular, the conduct of social workeis tasked with assisting them. She cites affairs. many transplanted Jews who complained that 'nobody wanted to listen' or that Third 'nobody ever asked' about what they had suffered. Consequently, the icfiigees and nakers survivors tended to talk about their experiences between themselves, in their families, e vie- and in old-country immigrant associations called hnnlstnanshaftti. They were not Jews. "silent", she concedes, but it took time for them to find an audience outside these Nazi circles. Social workeis, however, were obligated to engage with the remnant that aiding made it to America; so how did they treat them? Cohen finds that for a variety of t to a reasons social work professionals preferred not to delve too deeply into the bad times. ' only Some may have wanted to avoid causing needless pain or feared amusing guilt in dial- those who had somehow survived. Otheis were simply inciedulous, while in certain •canst' cases they weie believing but had already heard all they wanted to hear. It was a tent at complex situation, full of shades, and not reducible to sweeping generalizations about a postwar 'silence'. 10 David Cesarani For, the harder the historian looks, the more there is to find. In the last chapter, Hasia Diner asks why, if there was no hush, the 'myth' developed in the first place. Her monumental study We Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence After the Holocaust was one source of inspiration for this volume, which in its title pays tribute to her industry and achievement.16 Diner does not seek to summarise the vast quantity of data she excavated from historical writing, communal archives, synagogue magazines, publishers' lists, journals of opinion, liturgies, Sunday school curricula, youth movement programmes, all of which chronicled the destruction of European Jewry, referred to it as a subject for urgent debate, lamented and commemorated it. Instead, she drives the analysis forwards in time and seeks to understand how or why all this was ignored. She notes that Jewish communal activists in the 1960s, so-called 'New Jews', exploited the progressively benign environment in America to adopt a more extrovert and expansive Jewish identity and, concurrently, belittled the comparatively restrained expressions that typified their parents' generation. They claimed that they 'discovered' the history of wartime Jewish suffering and defied the sensibility of the public at large by confronting them with it. Their behaviour and the story they told of their genesis correlated with sociological descriptions of the 'ethnic revival'. It seemed, therefore, to make sense that previously there had been little of either Jewish ethnicity or the knowledge of 'the Holocaust' that increasingly underpinned it. The purveyors of the 'myth of silence' in turn seized on the self-aggrandising comments of 1960s and 1970s Jewish activists and the apparently dispassionate findings of social scientists to prove what they suspected or wanted to find. Yet the entire edifice rested on the hyperbole and false heroics of young Jewish baby-boomers: 'Inherent in the constant iteration and perpetration of the myth of silence is a valorization of what a later generation of American Jews did vis-a-vis the Holocaust and the kind of memorial practices which it constructed.' Of such things are myths made. The focus of Diner's work seems a long way away from the DP camps in postwar Europe, but as well as taking issue with the 'myth of silence' all the chapters are linked by a number of common and overlapping themes. They all demonstrate, perforce, the sheer volume of talking, recording, writing, representation in various media, and publishing that went on from 1945 well into the 1950s. If anything, they show a continuity rather than a tapering off followed by a new wave of activity at the time of the Eichntann trial. But they also reveal a series of tensions and paradoxes that rendered this thread hard to discern from the perspective of the 1990s. Language played a curious, Janus-faced role. As Cesarani, Feinstein, Smith, Jockusch, Roskies, Rosen and Deblinger explain, Yiddish was essential to the conversation conducted amongst Jews. Contrary to the glib argument that much of the early testimony, memoir literature, and historiography was in the wrong language, and was looked down upon by scholars, their contributions demonstrate that language was no barrier to expression and that Yiddish actually helped to disseminate information. Millions of Jews around the world spoke Yiddish as their first language. The existence of the Yiddish-speaking Jewish diaspora facilitated the rapid translation and distribution of key texts. Scholarship in Yiddish flourished. However, the precipitous Introduction 11 chapter, decline ot Yiddish and the contraction of language competency closed off much of st place. this source material, finally creating the illusion that it had novel even existed. Sheer ; and the ignorance and linguistic ineptitude, from the 1970s to the 1990s, was more important % which than prejudice in the 1940s and 1950s. seek to : The use of Yiddish and its decline are related to one of the tensions that ran minimal through the Jewish world after 1945: whether the Jewish disapora could once again Sunday prosper in safety or whether a Jewish state represented the only secure future for the destine- Jewish people. The break up of the DP camps and the dispersion of their inhabitants ited and gave one answer. Had 250,000 Yiddish speaking jews remained in cential Europe on >ceks to the free side of the Iron Curtain, the coutse of scholarship and commemoiation nal acti- might have taken a very different path. But, after 1948, most went to Isiael or the Mivuon- USA, which were increasingly uncongenial environments for the Yiddish Language ity and, atici scholarship in Yiddish. This rupture concretized the ideological divide, but its id their outcome was not fore-ordained. wartime Another, and not unconnected, tension was the struggle to agree on a narrative of lg them the catastrophe. This, in turn, hinged on whether the Jewish late was defined and ed with understood in particular or universal terms. Feinstein, Smith and Roskics show Jewish ce sense intellectuals wiestling to come up with explanations for what had happened (especially lor ledge of Jewish behaviour). Was it an end or a beginning? Zionists, at least, could draw the nyth of lesson that Jewish life could only flourish in a Jewish homeland and depicted the s Jewish liberation of the survivors as a potential rebirth. Of course, tin- Zionist interpretation was /e what piedicated on a certain, particularistic leading of Jewish history. But was the destruction role and of Jewish communities really a result of the exceptional Jewish situation or were Jews ion and simply one victim group amongst many? Even if they were acknowledged as the victims ition of of Nazi racism, it was possible to point out many other targets for inuiderous racial- s which biological policies. This interpretative tension helps to account for the curious silence and non-silence that characterised many countries after liberation hour German postwar occupation. On the one hand everyone knew what had happened to the jews and iters are knew equally well that there had been extensive collaboration and profiteering. For Mistrate, obvious reasons, tew people wanted to talk about this openly and Jews, who weie hardly various in a stiorrg position to do so, felt inhibited about bioaching the subject themselves. But ig, they this did not mean that they were silent. Instead, non-Zionist Jews sought to craft y at the narratives that would articulate the Jewish disaster in bioadly acceptable terms, xes that Joekusch and Staub both illustrate the contonions of Jewish thinkers who sought to represent the specific Jewish tragedy in a universal framework. Over time, it rckusch, became easy to miss the nuances of what they were trying to achieve and to forget ersation what was, in the immediate aftermath ot the war, blazingly obvious. Instead, later irly tes- generations came to lead patriotic accounts or univeisal explanations as 'sell-cflaecmenf md was and a form of'silencing'. We can now see that in the absence of an agreed narrative was no ajld the contest over definitions theie was a vigorous debate that was the opposite of a matron, hush, but it has been necessary to go back to the sources, Yiddish in particular, in le exis- order to recover it. on and Jewish populations in Euiope in the wake of the war wore domogiapbieallv cipitous weakened, whore they still existed at all, economically shattered, and ideologically 12 David Cesarani fractured. Even where they were intact, in the USA, or relatively undamaged, in the UK and pre-1939 USSR, they operated in uncongenral political environments. There is no comparison with the formidable Jewish communal organisations of the late twentieth century and the scholarly institutions that provide narrative continuity and guarantee the reproduction of research. So it is even more astonishing that the early research and creative endeavours had such extensive and long lasting impacts. Yet Roskies, Rosen, Staub and Baron illustrate the many ways in which these early explorations and representations permeated 'high' and 'low' culture trom the late 1940s onwards. While not recognisable as 'the Holocaust', the fate of the Jews was the starting point for academic studies of prejudice and authoritarianism, and inscribed in poetry, novels, and films. Roth explains how German barbarity conducted by Christians and occasionally in the name of Christ caused Christian theologians to reflect on their faith, just as it challenged Jewish thinkers to wrestle with questions of theodicy in Judaism. If the choice of names is considered a manifestation of popular culture, it was, as Femiaglich shows, registered here, too. In their different ways, both Cohen and Diner reveal how the tragedy impinged on the everyday life of Jews in America. Whether they responded in ways that we would now consider inappropriate or with sensitivity and sympathy, communal leaders and social workers could not avoid the aftershocks of the disaster. Ironically, the very success with which Jews overcame the trauma of genocide and the razing of their communities in much of Europe may have fostered the 'myth of silence'. The liquidation of the DP camps, the creation of Israel, and the integration or reintegration of survivors obscured the intensity of the years 1945—48. These processes also broke the threads of continuity, allowing the illusion of silence and inaction to develop amongst later generations. As Diner shows, their 'rediscovery' ot the war years and its bitter after-effects, combined with the vainglorious characterisation of their efforts as 'heroic' in contradistinction to the conduct of their parents, gave birth to the myth that before them little had been said and less done. That myth has now been exposed; the way is open to a root and branch reassessment: of Jewish life in the postwar era, a life lived in the pervasive, shared awareness that Jews had narrowly survived a catastrophe which was one facet of an apocalyptic conflict that had engulfed humanity as a whole but claimed two-thirds of their number. Acknowledgments Much of the research for this article was conducted at the Library of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. 1 would like to acknowledge the generosity of the J B and Maurice C Shapiro Charitable Trust for making it possible for me to spend the academic year 2008-9 at the USHMM Centre fin-Advanced Holocaust Studies where an early version of this study was presented. Notes 1 For a paradigmatic text that summarises the state of research on a range of countries in the mid-1990s, see David S Wyman eel., The. World Reacts to the Holocaust (Daltimoie: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Introduction 13 d. in the mnients. I'the late iiiity and the early Koskies, :ions and s. While loint for vcls, and onally in s it chal-•Iioice of l shows, low the sponded mp.ithy, disaster, .ide and myth of egration . These lice and very' of aracter-parents, at myth ["Jewish ■ws had lict that United wledge .king it it re for -d. itries in tiniore: ' See contributions in Wynian ed., 'Ihr Woild Kdiili lo the Holocaust, on fiance by David Weinberg, pp. 3-44; on Italy by Mcir Michaelis, pp. 514 -53; on the Netherlands by Debotah Dwork and Robert-Jan van Pelt. pp. 45—77; on Britain by David ("esaiani, pp. 599-641; the United States, by David S Wynian, pp. f)')3-74H; on Isiael by 1 )alia Oter, pp. 836-923. The significance of the end of Communism for the history and rnenioiy of the war /ears was identified by Fony Judt in his essay, "The Past Is Another Countiv: Myth md Memory in Postwar Luiope' that tiist appeared in Istväii Deik. Jan T Gioss and Fony Judt eds, 77/c Politics of Retiibution in Luiope: World War II and Its Afteuuath Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univeisity Press, 2000), 293-323. Judt gave gieater salience 0 memory of the jews' tiite in the 'Epilogue' to his niontiniem.il work Postwai: 1 History of Modem liuiope Since L>45 (I ondon: Heineinann, 2005), entitled 'Piom (In-House of the Dead. An Hssay on Modern Fuiopean Memory', 805-31. for variations on his theme and its working out in specific national contexts, see J.in-Wernei Midler, Memoty (Hid Poieei in I'ost-liar liuiope (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeisity Piess, 7002); Klas-Göian Karlson and Ulf Zander eds. The Holocaust on l'osl-l\'ai Battlefelds: < ieuoc ide as Histotiial Culture (Malnio: Sekel, 2006); Richaid Ned febow, Wulf Kansteiner, Claudio "ogu eds, 77ic Polilia of Memoty in Rostwat F.uiope (Durham, NC: Duke Univeisity Press, 2006). 4 Norman Finkelstein, 'Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's "Ciazy" Thesis', /Vir Left lici'ieu; .1.14 (July/August IW7). 39-87. Peter Novick.' 'Lite Holocaust in Ameihan Life (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1904); Norman Finkelstein, 77ic Holocaust liulm/iy: Refections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000). 5 Daniel Levy and Natau Sznaidcr, The Holocaust and Memory in the (ilohal .Ige (Philadelphia: Temple University. Press, 2006) 6 See Henry Greenspan, The Awakening of Memoty: Suieivor Testimony in the Liist Yeats aftet the Holocaust (Washington, DC",: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2000). 7 Judith Miller, One, By One, tiy One; l:acing the Holoratrn (New Yoik: Simon and Schuster. 1991), 220-21. 8 Eulwaid T lineuthal, Riesctuing Memoty: 'lite Sting^e to Cicatc Ameiica's Holocaust Museum (New York: Viking, 1905), 7-8. Cf. the mole nuanced overview in Rochelle Saidel, Never 7ix) Late to Remember: The Politics Behind New \'oih City's Holocaust Museum (New York: Holmes and Meier, I99C), 16-26 and 28 whete the author speaks of a 'latent awareness'. It is pertinent to note that both these books celebiate die creation of institutions dedicated to rescuing and pieserving memory, so the authois had an incentive to stiess, even to exaggeiale, the earliei failure to do so. 9 Aaion Hass. 'Phc Afteimath: Living with the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeisity Press, 1995). 1. 10 Victor felenicwski Seidlcr, Shadotcs of the Shoah: lavish Identity and lieloiighig (t)xfoid: Beig, 2000), I 1-12, retelling to Kitty Hart. Return to Aiischwit: (I ondon: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1981). 11 Kitty Hart, / Am Alive (London: Abelanf Schuman, 1961, reissued by Corgi, I <>(>>,). 12 It is interesting to note that in 1990 Judith Miller had. already used the phiase 'I lolocaust industry' and cited, many voices suggesting that the tiagtc histors of the Jews was being over-used, not least to mute criticism of Jewish behaviour anil to geneiate sympathy I'oi Israel: One, by One, By One, 230-31. See, for example: Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Ptejudite: Ameiiian Jews and the Light for Civil Libnties (New Yoik: Columbia Univeisity Pi ess, 1997); Jetiiey Shandlei. White Ameiica Watches: Televising the Holocaust (New Yoik: Ox to id Univeisity Pi ess, 1999). 4 Saul Friedländer, .\rii;i Cemiany and the lews: 'Lite Yeats of Persecution I'JJJ J'> (I ondon: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005) and idem \'a:i Ceimauy and the Jews I'HH: 'Lhe \~cais of Lxtcrmination (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007), For a full dismssion of Fricdlander's appioach and its piecmsots, see the essays in Paul Beds and Christian Wiese 13 14 David Cesarani cds, Years of Persecution, Years of Extermination: Saul Friedländer and the Future of Holocaust Studies (London: continuum, 2010). 15 Compare, for example, Annette lnsdorf, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1989 2nd edition). 16 Hasia Diner, We. Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth cf Silence After the Holocaust (New York: New York University Press, 2009). / Holocaust I 1 lust (New )ofSik"ce CHALLENGING THE 'MYTH OF SILENCE' ostwar responses to the destruction of European Jewry David Cesarani Jews began documenting Nazi policies of racial persecution and the destruction of their communities in Europe even while these horrors were occurring. This was not simply a passive reaction, chronicling their fate as it was played out. Acting individually and collectively they also made Herculean efforts to disseminate the information or at least to preserve it for a time when it could be used. The work of the Oyneg Shabes group in Warsaw is the most famous example. Tragically, as Samuel Kassow observes, Oyneg Shabes 'had more luck in saving documents than in saving people'.' The Centre de Documentation Juive m France was more fortunate. It was the brainchild of Isaac Schneersohn, an Orthodox Jew of distinguished rabbinic lineage who had fled from German-occupied Paris to Grenoble. In April 1943 he called a meeting of Jewish organizations and convinced them that it was essential to chronicle the depredations of the Vichy Regime and the Germans so as to provide a basis for restitution proceedings and retribution after the war. However, little could be achieved under wartime conditions. In December 1944, Schneersohn resumed operations in liberated Paris. He was assisted by a small team of gifted young men, some with academic (though not necessarily historical) training, including Icon Poliakov and [oseph Billig. Within a short time the centre, renamed the Centre de Documentation Juive Conteniporaine (CDJC) published several groundbreaking collections documenting Vichy and German anti-Jewish measures.2 Schneersohn was a shrewd political operator. He realized the importance of forging links with the French state and put the Centre's resources at the disposal of the French delegation to the Nuremberg Tribunal. This co-operation paid dividends. One of the French prosecutors, Henri Monneray, ensured that the Centre received the documentation assembled to support the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. By 1949 the CDJC had amassed several tons of this material.'' 16 David Cesarani The same sense of history animated the survivors of Polish Jewry. As early as August 1944 Philip Friedman, a historian of pre-war eminence, and several others with historical training set up a Jewish Historical Commission in Lublin. Its immediate aim was to collect eye-witness testimony from Jewish survivors to supply evidence fin-postwar trials and to ensure that the Polish authorities were fully appraised of Jewish suffering and losses under tile German occupation. Like Schneersohn, the Commission realized the importance of cooperating with state authorities m war crimes investigations, both to further the achievement of justice and to legitimate its own activity.4 In February 1945, the Commission became a branch of the officially recognized Central Committee of Polish jews. Friedman was appointed director. The founders were now able to network a number of other committees that had sprung up m newly liberated cities. At its height, the central historical commission presided over 25 branches and employed around 100 staff. Amongst the professionally trained historians working alongside Philip Friedman were Rachel Auerbach and I leisz Wasser, the sole survivors of Oyneg Shabes; Josef Kernusz; Natan Blumental; Artur Eisenbach; Michel Borwicz; Isaiah 'Trunk; Nella Rost; and Josef Wulf. All would go on to make major contributions to historical research. Between 1944 and 1949, the commission distributed numerous questionnaires and conducted about 5,000 interviews. Given that the number of survivors of the camps and ghettos in Poland was 40,000-50.000, this demonstrates a significant willingness to record and talk, but certainly not 'silence'.3 Under Friedman's direction, the central commission made a great effort to recover hidden Jewish archives. With the assistance of the official Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland it also amassed captured German records. Commission members participated in the state investigations at Auschwitz, Chelmno and Treblinka. 'They supplied material to the Polish delegation at Nuremberg and were essential to the subsequent prosecution of Hans Biebow and Rudolf Hoess. At the same time, they churned out publications at a staggering rate. A visitor from America, |acob Pat, recalled that 'They all work in a kind of fever, as if they feared that every day, every hour's delay, might make them late.' If to some in the West the death camps remained shrouded in mystery, it was not for lack of effort by Polish Jewish historians.'' A parallel movement developed amongst Jewish survivors in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps m allied-occupied western Germany. 'The first historical commission there was initiated in October 1945 at Hohne-Belsen, in the British Zone. A month later a commission was established in Munich in the American Zone. They soon spread. At their greatest extent there were 47 historical commissions in both zones, employing well over 60 people. About 40 were based in Munich which became the coordinating centre. As in Poland, the commission activists (who were mainly untrained), prioritized the collection of eye-witness accounts. Over a four-year period the Central Historical Commission collected 2,250 testimonies. It also drew up and distributed statistical surveys and questionnaires. Around cS,00() completed forms were returned to individual branches and collated centrally/ The Munich office even Challenging the 'myth of silence' 17 published a journal, Fun Lctsten Hurbu, dedicated to disseminating testimony and encouraging further submissions. Inaugurated in February 1946, it ran to ten issues, each of many pages, with a print-run of about 1,800. Copies were circulated throughout the Yiddish-speaking world, reaching the USSR, France, Palestine, North and South America.8 The survivois of the Jewish partisan groups formed then own association, with the acronym PAHAH (from Pamiatnm, llayahm, Halutzun I lebiew for partisans, soldiers, pioneers), and used the Jewrsh DP journal barn hoik as a vehicle for publishing testimony and accounts of armed Jewish resistance. The story of Tuvia cognized Bielski appeared there as early as 19-16. PAHAH accumulated no fewer than 700 founders biographies of individual lesisteis and 100 depositions. These reports in Yiddish were ng up in quickly picked up and translated into English by the first historians of Jewish resis- ded over tance. Several appeared in the pioneering anthology, 77k; Root and the Bough, edited / trained by Leo Sehwarz and they supplied much of the material for Marie Syrian's history of id 1 leisz Jewish lesistance. Blessed is the Match, which appeared in 1948.9 al; Amir For other survivois, like Tuvia Friedman in Vienna, and Simon Wiesenthal in I'ould go Linz, the impulse to collect documents and to amass depositions came from the hope 949, the of achieving retribution. Their work may have been eccentric and unprofessional but )0 inter- it resulted irr the capture of significant information that later historians would uti- land was lize.10 In Italy the drive towards historical research began with inquiries into the fate :alk, but of the Jews deported from Italian territory. A few months after Rome was liberated Colonel Massimo Adolfo Vitale established the Comitate) Rieerche Deportati Ebrei recover (CRDE) under the auspices of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. His nieth- i. for the ods were rather erratic but gradually the CRDE accumulated an impressive archive. records. With the assistance of the Italian Ministry of Justice, in March 1947 Vitale traveled to -helm.no Cracow to attend the trial of Rudolf Hoess. While there he obtained an interview ierg and with Hoess and collected important documents from the Polish prosecution team, oess. At On this basis he was able to compile the first account of Auschwitz to be made or from available in Italian, Vitale also arranged for over 190 testimonies to be taken from v feared Italian Jewish survivors (nearly a third of the total)." Vest the Efforts at documentation and the collection of testimony were almost ubiquitous, Polish spanning areas under Soviet influence, countries of the Atlantic alliance, and former neutrals. In Budapest, the National Relief Committee for deportees in Hungary Persons (l)EGOB) established an office which eventually employed around 30 interviewers mission who took depositions from over 3,600 Jewish survivors of forced labour, ghettoisa- month tion and deportation.12 In London, staff at the Central Jewish Information Office 'y soon (later known as the Wiener Library) sporadically collected eye-witness statements, : zones, some to assist war crime's investigations. They also published half a dozen testimonies me the during 1945—46.M There was even a centre in Sweden where Nella Rost set up a small mainly unit to document the rescue efforts of Norwegians, Danes and Swedes, and collected period testimony from Jews evacuated to Sweden from camps in Germany in I 945.1 1 up ant! The transnational character of the catastrophe, the migration of survivor-historians, is were and the knowledge in each centre that similar efforts were underway elsewhere was a e even spur to international cooperation. Within a short time the work of historiography was s early as ral others nmecliate deuce for of Jewish C xmimis-rr crimes • its own 18 David Cesarani globalized. Philip Friedman was possibly the first to realize the potential and importance of establishing cross-border networks. In July 1947, the Yad Vashem Foundation convened a conference in Jerusalem to discuss the progress of research and to establish Jerusalem's claim as the eventual repository for all relevant document collections. Due to the troubled state of Palestine few Europeans or Americans could attend. Nevertheless, Friedman was able to represent the historical commissions in Germany (where he now resided), Natan Blumental attended on behalf of the Polish historians, and the CDJC was represented.15 The early efforts of Yad Vashem to monopolize research did not deter Isaac Schneersohn from pursuing his own vision of making Paris the centre for scholarship and commemoration. At the invitation of the CDJC, between 30 November and 9 December 1947, 32 delegates representing Jewish historical commissions and research centres in 13 countries assembled in Paris for a conference. This gathering represents a crucial moment in the postwar research effort and the formation of an early historiography. For a short while it focused a transnational enterprise of remarkable dimensions. However, apart from unanimity that the record of Jewish resistance should be at the forefront of any joint efforts, the delegates could not find common ground. There was not even agreement on which language to use for their own discussions. Although the conference concluded with a resolution to set up a European coordinating committee, its members never met. Schneersohn was running short of funds and, in any case, the Jewish historical commissions proved to be transitory. Following the establishment of Israel, many of the historians emigrated and arranged for the archives to be sent to Yad Vashem. Others moved to America. Those who stayed in eastern Europe found their work suffocated by forced conformity to the Soviet version of the war.16 In hindsight the Pans conference marked the high point of early efforts to document the wartime catastrophe using the most modern methods of collective historical research, including the mobilization of grass roots activists and the writing of history on an industrial scale by teams of historians. It would be 40 years before a similar undertaking would be attempted. Yet the failure of the 1947 initiative and the disintegration of the historical commissions was not inevitable. Circumstances rather than an imposed or voluntary silence conspired to derail a promising bid to embark on a global historiography.17 Even under the best of conditions, time would have been needed to process the mass of raw material obtained by the commissions and documentation centres. Much of what they collected went into archives in New York, London, Paris, Warsaw and Jerusalem, where it was subject to the whims of archivists, fluctuating budgets, and fashions for historical research. It would necessarily take time before the stories locked away in these files would impinge further on public awareness. For this reason it is important to look at early memoirs, reports, and testimony that were published in Europe and to investigate their wider dissemination. Despite the disruption of communications and disputed borders, authors, witnesses as well as manuscripts criss-crossed war-shattered Europe. With extraordinary speed, accounts by survivors from one country appeared in another, frequently translated Challenging the 'myth of silence' 19 nd impor-1 Found.i-ch and to ment col-uns could nssions in the Polish eter Isaac "holarship mher and d reseaich represents early his-■markable resistance common for their set up a ; running he tran-ated and America. :ed con-to docu-historical f history a similar the dis->s rather embark. >cess the s. Much saw and audgets, ? stories s reason iblished 'itn esses ' speed, instated into a third language. The westward migration of survivors itself aided the dissemination oi information about events in Fasten) huiope. Consequently, the focus ot many of these at counts was overwhelmingly on F astern Europe — ghettos, mass shootings, death camps, and Jewish resistance. 'I welve months after his liberation Philip Friedman had written in Polish and Yiddish on the destruction of the Jews of Lwow and a general account of the extermination of Polish Jewry. Flis history of Auschwitz, This Was Oswieam. the Story of a Murder Camp, was transmitted to England, translated from the Yiddish by the poet and critic Joseph Leftwich. and published as a booklet in 1946 with a foreword by the Polish Ambassador.1K The remnant of the Bund that reconstituted in Warsaw m 1945 was responsible for publishing Marek Edelman's narrative of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Within a year it had been translated into English by Zofia Nalkowska, a well-known Polish author who chaired one of the state commissions investigating German crimes in Poland, and published in New York by the American section of the Bund.19 Bernard Goldstein's account of the Warsaw ghetto revolt made its way from Poland to the USA in under two years and from Yiddish to English in the next two years. Goldstein was a veteran Bundist and a leader of the uprising. After the war he emigrated to America where he published his memoir in Yiddish, Finf Yor in Varshever goto. It was prirrted in just 2000 copies, but elicited such a response that Viking Press commissioned a translation by Leonard Shatzkin. The English edition appeared under the (rather unhelpful) title The Stars Bear Witness and it was widely and well reviewed.20 These combined efforts illustrate both the extent ot the global effort at diffusion and the absence of an immediate postwar 'silence'. After Poland, Paris was the most active centre for publishing memoirs and histories.21 In 1945, Calmann Levy published Ber Baskind's memoir of the Warsaw Ghetto, La Grande Epoupante: Souvenirs d'un rescape du ghetto de Varsovie, Baskind had been captured during the uprising and sent to the Poniatowa labor camp. He later escaped and went underground, but when he heard that the Germans were ottering sanctuary to Jews with the citizenship of certain neutral countries he obtained the necessary papers and was sent to the internment camp at Vittel, in southern France, where he was finally liberated. His memoir is a good example of how the movement of survivors biought. detailed information from East to West. It is not often remarked, but Vittel became a living archive of events in Eastern Europe. The fact that his report was quickly translated and printed by a notable publishing house also indicates that there was a yearning for narratives that were explicitly and unequivocally centred on the tragedy of the Jews.22 In Italy, the first account of the terrible round up in Rome on 16 October 1943 appeared in print just months after the war ended. It was written by a pre-war litterateur Giacorno Debenedetti. He was itr hiding at the time of the razzia but the record lie assembled from subsequent newspaper reports and eye-witnesses was sufficient to depict that day in detail. Nor did Debenedetti fail to mention the 1938 racial laws and the discrimination against Jews under Fascism. The slim volume appeared with a preface by the novelist Alberto Moravia, much of which was dedicated to recalling his own troubles under Fascism and the racial laws.2'5 20 David Cesarani Many anthologies of 'Holocaust literature' and literary studies exclude or ignore a swathe of early survivor narratives because the authors were not Jewish, allegedly 'marginalized' the treatment of Jews in the camps or 'effaced' them altogether. There is no doubt that some memoirs by non-Jewish returnees from the camps did ignore the Jews. One of the earliest and most widely read accounts which rendered the Jewish presence invisible was by Pclagia Lewinska, a member of the Polish underground. Although her narrative begins with her in a prison cell in Cracow with seven Jewish prisoners, she hardly mentions Jews once her narrative reaches Auschwitz. Lewmska's memoir was published in Paris in 1945 and eventually sold over 40,000 copies.24 1 lowever, such examples are less common than reports that acknowledged a Jewish presence but framed it within the perspective of the moment, at a time when the genocide against the Jews was not seen as the central event of the Nazi era or the war. To modern sensibilities this may resemble myopia, but if non-Jewish authors did not devote extensive passages to Jewish suffering this does not mean that they were colluding in its displacement or distorting its singularity. On the contrary, it may have been so obvious to them that it did not have to be underlined or highlighted. Often a brief reference in these texts says more about the plight of the Jews than volumes written subsequently. The brevity of such allusions may indicate the opposite of indifference or ignorance. So much was known, or thought to be known, that more was simply not required. The most famous camp memoir published in France at this time was h'uiiivm coticatirationnaire by David Ronsset, who had been imprisoned in Buchenwald. it was a bestseller and was quickly translated into English, appearing in New York m 1947. Annette Wieviorka, who wrote the landmark history of early camp literature in France, chides Ronsset for suggesting that the difference between Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps was one of 'degree not kind', thus blurring its genocidal function which was specific to the Jews. However, Ronsset was hardly consistent. While he dubbed the prisoner population a 'race' he nevertheless marked the distinctions between groups and differentiated the functions of the camps; 'The camps for Jews and Poles', he wrote, entailed 'extermination and torture on a large scale.' In other books he acknowledged that the Jews faced a different destiny. Indeed, it would otherwise be hard to explain why Isaac- Schneersohn and the CDJC were happy to cooperate with him in the production of a book about Nazi repression.23 The impact made in France by Rousset's memoir was paralleled in Germany by Eugen Kogan's report on Buchenwald. Kogon was arrested in Austria for anti-Nazi activities in March 1938 and incarcerated in Buchenwald from September P)39 until the liberation. He was subsequently invited by the US Army to write a report on the camp. The resulting document was so comprehensive and powerful that the US occupation authorities arranged for it to be published as a book. Appearing as Der SS-Shmt, it quickly sold 135,000 copies and was soon translated into English. For years it was the standard work on the Nazi concentration camps.26 Kogon's book was not about the 'Final Solution'. He admitted that he knew little about Auschwitz or the death camps. But he was acutely aware from his own experience, and what he Challenging the 'myth of silence' 21 or ignore , allegedly ler. There lid ignore rendered he Polish K'ow with es Ausch-sold over eledged a ime when era or the arbors did hey were may have 1. Often a i volumes iposite of that moie L.'univers Id. It was . m 1947. Tature in -Birkenau function While he stinctions for Jews In other it would happy to many by wti-Nazi 939 until it on the : the US lg as Der dish. For look was "hwitz or what he learned from Jewish prisoneis. that thev had been subject to the harshest legimcn everywheie and that the aim of German policy towards the Jews was extermination. His book devotes a chapter to their uniquely tragic situation. Importantly, lie included umnediated testimony by survivois who recalled experiences in '1 reblinka, Auschwitz, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Riga ghetto and other camps. With good leason, Philip Friedman piaised the work for setting 'the framework in which the Jewish fate was the most horrible and tiagic manifestation' and writing about the Jews with 'profound understanding'.2, H'c FFi'/c in Attsclni'il:, the collective memoir by three Polish inmates of Auschwitz, Janus Nel Siedlecki, Kiystyn Olszewski and Fadeusz Boiowski, begins in a patriotic, uinveisalistic spirit. The thiee authors maintain that the experience of one prisoner was the same as that of all the otheis. However, befoie long, the Jewish piescncc in the camp is admitted and a distinction drawn between the treatment of lews and that of non-Jews. The three authors state that during 1942 Auschwitz mutated fiom being a 'Polish camp' into 'an enormous international extermination camp for nianv millions of European Jews'. They observe that 'A sepaiate element of camp life was the tiansports of Jews from the whole of Europe to the gas.''s In 1948 Borowski's contribution was published sepaiately, to gieat acclaim, and twenty yeats later reached audiences in English, but wrenched fiom its original context. 1 he result has been a significant misreading of his famous 'story' 'This Way to the Gas 1 adies and Gentlemen. ...' Boiowski was writing testimony, not fiction. Furthermoie, his lotus on Jews tells strongly against the notion that the fiite of the Jews was loutincly effaced in postwar Poland.-''' In almost eveiy countiy in Fan ope fiom which Jews weie deported, published accounts by survivors appealed within just a few years or even months after liberation oi the end of the war. Until recently, histories of'Holocaust literatuie' and histono-graphical surveys have ignoied most of these, either because they slid not appear m English or because they did not address the fatal peculiarity of the Jewish situation.111 And, indeed, there is a curious lack of self-ieteientiality and evasiveness in these early testimonies. After they returned fiom camps many Jewish sruvivor wiiteis hid their identity or stiessed their patriotism. Otheis wiote from a left-wing standpoint ami tiansmuled theii experiences into a uinveis.il lesson for mankind, demonstiaiing the evils of fascism or capitalism. Yet this should be a cause for undeistanding lather than censute. As the historian Pieter lagiou observes, anti-fascist discouise ofleied a fonnal legal lecogmtion to survivois of the I lolocaust, with both symbolic and material benefits; n offered social support and sociability tluough organizations capable of delivering a powerful sense of mission. Specific leeognition of )ewishness, even through the recognition of a tragically distinctive persecution, was not what many survivors, whose survival had depended on the opposite, asked for at the time.11 A good example is Smoke Orcr hirkeinm \!)y>ny inul lliikeinm\ written by Seweryna Szmaglewska in 1946. Szmaglewska. who was Jewish, was chosen to give evidence at 22 David Cesarani the Nuremberg Tribunal, but did not advertise the fact that she was Jewish. She hid .VI her identity in her memoir, too. However, in the foreword she remarked that about an 5 million people died in Auschwitz of whom 'more than 3 million were Jews'. Of gu course these figures were incorrect, but the magnitude of the disaster that had pr occurred to the Jews was evident. Even if she masked her own Jewishness, Jews are in: present throughout her account. Szmaglewska was one of the first memoirists to record the story of Mala Zimmetbauni (here called Zimmerman). Her recollections ids were quickly translated into English and published in America as Smoke Oi>er mi Birkenau?2 \\ Krystyna Zywulska, like Szmaglewska, concealed her Jewish origins. She was born M Sonia Landau in Lodz and following the German occupation of western Poland fled ' tin to the Soviet zone. She returned to Warsaw in 1941 and entered the ghetto, but M subsequently escaped and lived underground on the 'aryan side". She was caught in • air mid-1943 and held in the Pawiak prison before she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. dc Although she retained her assumed persona in her memoir she frequently referred to lo Jews in Birkenau and never concealed their dreadful situation. When Polish suivivors w! of the Warsaw uprising entered the camp in Summer 1944, she reassured them, 'They only burn Jews. Don't worry.' Zywulska's memoir was translated into English p.u and went through several editions.53 pu By contrast, in the first version of his camp memoir Em Psycholog Erlebt das Kon- ma zentMtioitslagej, published in Vienna in 1946, but now famous as Man's Si-iihh For 'ca Meaning, Victor Frankl hid his Jewish identity. He concealed the fact that he spent I-u two years in Theresienstadt with his wife and parents--because he was a Jew. After we being transported to Auschwitz he was quickly assigned to Kaufering and then Tur- ■ stir kheirn labour camps. He claims that it was in the lesser camps like these 'where most < of the real extermination took place'. For Jews, of course, that was hardly the case." hlu But Frankl was an extreme case of 'effacement' and his motives seem to be personal. wri Other Jews certainly did universalize their experiences, but only because they were the writing within the convention of resistance narratives or anti-fascist ideology which 'I h had no place for racial persecution or the specifics of Jewish suffering. hat Giacomo Debenedetti expressed this viewpoint powerfully in Eight Jews, his 1945 of' essay about the trial of perpetrators responsible for the massacres at the Ardeattne am Caves in March 1944. 'Proper redress', lie wrote, 'would be to set Jews once again get: amid other peoples' lives, in the circle of all human fate, and not to segregate them, even for benevolent reasons.'35 Even so, most memoir writers chose to signal their ' Jew Jewish identity to the attentive reader. Instead of condemning the dejudaisation of inn such texts, it may be more appropriate to respect the reluctance of their authors to he ml identified solely as Jews and to see their writing as lightly coded. to t The testimony by Suzanne Birnbaum, who was arrested in January 1944 and .... tliei deported via Drancy to Auschwitz, offers another example. Birnbaum was denounced p.is- as a Jew and arrested by the French milicr. While she does not address the mass _ nan murder of the Jews, as such, she entitled her memoir Une Francaise Juive Est Revenue. nov In it she describes the transports that arrived from different countries carrying Jews to sue! the gas chambers. Btrnbaum's testimony was amongst the first to recall the story of sun Challenging the 'myth of silence' 23 sli. She hid th.u about -Jews'. Of r tli.it hail .s, Jews are moirists to collections moke Over ' was horn 'oland fled hetto, but caught in -liirkeiuii. eferred to i survivors ed them, o English tLis Koii-Sedhh For he spent .'w. After hen Tur-lere most le case.54 personal, icy weie ;y which his 1945 udeatine ce again te thent, nal their ation of >rs to be HA and lounced be mass levenuc. Jews to story of iVtala /.irmuetbaum, the young Polish Jewish woman who escaped from Birkenau and. when recaptured, committed suicide at the gallows rather than allow the SS guaids to hang her. Her patriotism, indicated in the title of her recollections and piesent throughout the text, and the fact that she does not write as a Jew does nothing to mask their fate.36 Italian Jewish victims also tended to write within the framework of anti-fascist ideology rather than leading with their Jewish identity and usually published with Miiall local piesses that restricted their audience.37 But does this matter? Guiliana ledeschi's narrative, 'Ihere Is a Place on Earth: A Woman in Birkenau, published in Milan in 1946, did not centre on her Jewishness but did include a chapter describing the celebiation of the Jewish New Year in Birkenau.38 In a similar fashion Liana .Vlillu lecalled Hannukah in Birkenau, a festival, she wrote, 'symbolizing resistance and victory'.39 Alba Valech barely mentions why she was doomed as a jew to be deponed to Auschwitz in the Autumn of 1943, but she dedicated her book, A24029, to the members of her family who were seized by fascist militia and to 'all the )ews who suffered martyrdom' dreaming of'the Promised Land'.40 Yet Jewish memoirs have been ignored not only because they were written in a patriotic or anti-fascist spirit or in the wrong language, such as Yiddish or Polish, or published in the wrong place. It is striking just how many memoirs published by mainstream publishers //; English between 1945 and 1950 have not entered the Y.inon*. These narratives deal overwhelmingly with Auschwitz and events in Eastern bin ope. Their exclusion has created a false impression of silence in the Anglo-Saxon world and ignorance about what happened in Eastern Europe. A few examples may suffice to indicate the scale of this neglect. Olga Lengyel was a Jewish doctor deported from Hungary in 1944. After she was liberated she made her way to France where she had a cousin. Her memoir was written between March arid December 1945 and translated into French under the title Souvenirs tie Vau-dela. It appeared in 1946 and was an immediate success. The English version, Five Chimneys, was published a year later, by which time she had emigiated to New York where it was widely reviewed. This is a striking instance of the migration and translation of survivor narratives." Yet: it is not mentioned in any early anthologies of 'Holocaust literature' or any of the early studies of the genre.4-' Nor is Beyond the Last Path, the memoir of Eugene Weinstock, a Hungarian-born Jewish cabinet-maker from Antwerp who was sent to Buchenwald thanks to his involvement in the Belgian resistance. His memoir appeared in English in New York in 1947. After only a few pages he recalled how he obeyed the call for Jews to report: to the authorities. 'Then we made our first tragic error,' he wrote, 'We were aiding them in exterminating us.' In Buchenwald Weinstock encountered Jews who had passed through Auschwitz and he recounts some of what he heard from them. His narrative reads very well, thanks to the involvement of Ira Wallach, the playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Wallach's contribution indicates the widespread interest m such projects and, again, illustrates the global enterprise of bringing the experiences of survivors to diverse audiences soon after the war ended.43 24 David Cesarani The omission from die 'canon' of Renya Kulkielko's account: of Jewish resistance im in Poland, Escape from the Pit, may be explicable on account of its poor structure and of rough style. Kulkielko was born near Kielce into a prosperous family with a Zionist Je\ outlook. Her account, which takes the form of a diary, extends from the outbreak of jni war, through her involvement in the Jewish resistance, to her arrival in Palestine in on March 1944. It was written on Kibbutz Dafha in the summer of 1946, then sent to of America where it was published in New York in 1947 by a small Zionist publishing mi. house. Even so, it earned a foreword by the well-known author Ludwig Lewisohn.44 Ui Studies of 'Holocaust, literature' and historiography have also ignored reports on the plight of the. survivors authored by allied medical personnel, relief workers ami ear the emissaries of Jewish organizations. This is a curious, hybrid genre but it contra- stu- diets many of the assumptions about the etfacement of the Jews and the preoccupa- jmi tion with Western concentration camps. It may seem bizarre that what we think of as bej 'the Holocaust' was initially viewed as a public health catastrophe but that was bow : ] dozens of British doctors and nurses — including 97 medical students from all over or£ Britain who were flown in to assist - confronted it during the relief of Belsen. The J;u-( operation was such an extraordinary challenge that the medical and health profes- in sionals who were part of the effort wanted to share their experience with others of v-\p their calling.45 t|iii This impulse led to a stream of articles in specialist publications that extended ion awareness of the disaster. Between May 1945 and June 1953, ten items touching on err.' Belsen and other concentration camps appeared in The Lancet, the leading journal of wit the medical profession in Britain. In 1946 the British Mmiical Journal, the 'trade paper' oft of British doctors, carried six items, including four substantial reports.""' Articles Api appeared in a dozen other medical publications in the UK between 1945 and 1947, folia usually written by medical students. These items merit close attention because they p^, reveal how medical and relief workers identified the victims of Nazism. For example, Par' an extensive report by Lt Col F M Lipscombe that appeared in The Lancet on n camp. J33, with e I was a She then 'internee le British amongst inmates of'Belsen. The research by Maj J Dawson was based on ten case studies, each of winch opened with a brief biographical comment. Dawson identified eight as Jews, of whom six were Hungarian.4y A study of psychological breakdown amongst inmates of'Belsen, published in the journal of Mental Science in January 1946, was based on 20 brief case histories — 11 of which were identified as Jewish.50 Although much of the early psychological literature to come out of the war concerned perpetrators or undifferentiated victims of the camps, Jewish psychologists and social workers in the United States weie responsible for several that contained historical data and testimony. Kopel Pinson, later to make his mark on historiography, published one of the earliest accounts of life in a DP camp in Jewish Social Studies in 1947. Paul Friedman's study of 'concentration camp psychology' was based on interviews with over 170 inmates of the British-run detention camp on Cyprus. Both researchers set survivor behavior against the background of torment by the Nazis.51 Less technical and far more emotional were the accounts by emissaries of Jewish organizations sent to Poland to investigate the condition of the surviving remnant. Jacob Pat was a Polish-born activist in the Jewish Labour Committee in New York. In 1946 he made a tact-finding trip to Poland and on his return wrote up his experiences in Yiddish as Ash un Faye. lyber di Churhos fun Polin. The volume was quickly translated into English by Leo Steinberg (later to achieve fame as an art historian and critic) appearing as Ashes and Fire in 1947. Although the book moves erratically between wartime events and scenes that Pat witnessed himself, it is stuffed with historical material, narratives and testimony. It is, in effect, an early oral history of the disaster that overwhelmed Polish Jews and the first stage of their recovery.52 In April 1946 Joseph Tenenbaum, a Polish-born official of the World Jewish Congress, followed in Pat's footsteps. His subsequent account was published as In Search of a Lost People - 77;r Old and the New Poland in New York later that year. His narrative, like Pat's, moves awkwaidly between the history of the Jews in Poland, the German occupation, and the current situation. Yet it is possible to find accounts of the death camps and numeious testimonies. It was pioneering and crude, but it was full of crucial historical information and insights into the dire situation of Jews m post-bellum Poland.53 When Polish Jews fled west after the Kielce pogrom they swelled the population ot the Jewish DP camps and added to the clamour for emigration. The campaign waged bv the Jewish DPs and the Zionist movement for migration to the Jewish national home in Palestine ensured that the linkage between the uprooting of Jewish life in Europe and the demand for a Jewish state was constantly being made. Remarkably, 'Holocaust historiography' has scarcely noted the debates about Zionism even though eveiy international commission that investigated the plight of the Jewish DPs or tire question of Palestine ended up linking the two and brought the recent past into the mainstream of public discourse.54 The first of these investigations was mounted by Earl G Harrison at the behest of Piesident Truman following allegations of abuses against Jewish DPs committed by US tioops. Harrison's report made it absolutely plain that the Jews had suffered singularly under Nazi rule: they had survived 'extermination'. As a result, few wanted to 26 David Cesarani return to their homes and most expressed a preference for migration to Palestine. That linkage became the curse of Britain's Palestine policy and ensured that as long as Palestine was in the headlines so was an awareness of what the Jews had suffered during the war.55 The well-known journalist 1 F Stone covered the Harrison mission for the New York paper P.M. In 1946 he was invited to accompany a group of American sailors who had volunteered to crew one of the illegal immigration ships running the British naval blockade of Palestine. His report of this adventure, Underground to Palestine, was the first of its kind and attracted enormous attention.56 Through the story of one boatload of refugees, Stone transmitted the horrors of the war. He recalled meetings with survivors of the ghettos in Sosnowicz, Lodz, Lwow, Kovno, Vilna, and Btalys-tok. He retold what he heard about Majdanek and Auschwitz. He recorded how a group of young survivors on a train journey through central Europe sang songs of the ghettos and camps. Stone even recorded the story of a Jewish officer in the Red Army who boasted of killing 2,500 surrendered Germans in revenge for the Jews.57 in London, while en route to Palestine, Stone- met with Richard Grossman, a recently elected Labour Party MP. Grossman served as a British member on the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine set up in response to President Truman's recommendation that 100,000 Jewish DPs be allowed to emigrate to Palestine.58 His book about his role on the Committee, Palestine Mission, published in 1947, was widely read, not least because he created a huge controversy by coming out against his party's position. Again, it is not "Holocaust literature' but it is laced with reflections on anti-semitism, the war, and offers glimpses into the experiences of Jewish survivors. Following sessions of the committee in Washington and London, Grossman traveled to Vienna where he met DPs face to face. At a camp in Villach, Austria, he interviewed survivors of Auschwitz and heard graphic stories about their experiences. Lie heard more from survivois during sessions in Palestine.59 Bartley Crum, celebrity lawyer, newspaper proprietor, and champion of liberal causes, was one of the American members of the Committee. His account of its work. Behind the Silken Curtain, performed a similar function for Americans. Like Grossman, Crum included several passages based on testimony by Jewish survivois and remarked tellingly that 'We found very few Jewish children left alive in Europe.'60 The UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) in 1947 was the third international commission in as many years tasked with investigating the situation of Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution and the role of Palestine in alleviating then-condition. One of the members was Jorge Garcia-Granados, a Guatemalan diplomat. He subsequently wrote a book about his experiences, The Birth of Israel: The Drama As 1 Saw If, published in New York by Knopf. It is routinely cited by historians of Israel and the Middle East but few have noted that it also sheds light on the Jewish tragedy in Europe.61 Even before UNSCOP visited Europe it was exposed to the experiences of survivors. At Kiryat Anavim, a Jewish settlement in Palestine, they met a 17 year old girl who told them she was born in Poland but came 'from Bergen-Belsen'. To Garcia-Granados: Challenging, the 'myth of silence' 27 Palestine. " as long as id .suffered ■ the New ican sailors the British k'.stine, was >ry of one 1 meetings aid Bialys-led how a >ngs of" the 1 the Red le Jews.57 rossman, a ier on the Jewry and it 100,000 >le on the ist because '\gain, it is i, the wai, ions of the ■re he met Auschwitz i survivois proprietor. Commit-r function timony by lildien left the thiid ituation of uing their diplomat. the Drama stoiians of the Jewish seel lo the itine, they une "horn I hat told everything. I asked no more questions. ... i knew the story of those rhildien. Of hundreds and thousands of other children. 1 knew the story of the gas chambers, of the crematoria, of the patents, of the brother and sisteis of those children. 1 ,uei ('larcia-Granados visited Belsen and went with his colleagues to several 1)1' camps in Germany where he heard witnesses lecite their experiences in Auschwitz.62 Meyer Levin, a writer and journalist who made his name in the 1930s, fust encounteied survivois of Nazi persecution when he was in Europe in Autumn 1944 as a military correspondent. In a Paris synagogue he met a Jew whose tales were inteispersed with place-names which i hail not vet heard, and the world had not yet heard, but assumed they were familiar to me, for what Jews had not lived with them in the forefront" of their consciousness? Diancy, Treblinka, Ravensbriick, Auschwitz.63 Subsequently he reported on the liberation of Olndrutf, Buchenwald, and Belsen. 1 he experience was so shattering that he threw himself into the effort to get Jews out ol Europe and made a film about Jewish immigiation to Palestine that was intended to raise support and money for the Zionist movement. While that may have been its goal, The Illegals (which ptemiered in mid-1947), was one of the fit it cinematic attempts to confront the destruction of Europe's Jews. Levin's 1930 autobiography /" ^ ill morphs into an account of the camps, including snatches of testimony.61 While it has long been acknowledged that there was a connection between awareness of Jewish suffering during the war and sympathy for Zionism, a dyad made Ik'sli by the Jewish DPs, too often the linkage has been treated as a matter of vague and fleeting sentiment generated by a brief burst of publicity following the libeiation of the camps. In fact, the political and diplomatic struggle waged for Palestine between 1945 and 1948 resulted in the sustained dissemination of material about the w,n time experience of the Jews. When it is remembeied that this process was running alongside various Nazi war crimes trials, it should be evident that lather than a spasm of attention followed by silence there was, in fact, a peisistent drum bear about the fate of the Jews.65 Much has been written in criticism of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT). It has been lambasted for failing to delineate Nazi crimes against tire Jews and give pioper weight to the massacres and the death camps in Eastern Europe. The investigators have been chided for barely touching on several murderous agencies of the Thiid Reich, overlooking even Eichmami's office and tailing to probe the complicity of the German Army.''6 There is much force in this criticism, but did the Tribunal blight the writing of history, as Donald Bloxham alleges? Did it obscure the specific fate of the Jews?67 Arguably, a closer examination of Jewish involvement in the IMT and its legacy suggests a very different picture.6" The Polish government's Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes published its findings primarily in Polish, but the 28 David Cesarani fust two volumes ofm.iteii.il used lor the Nuicmberg tiibunal - winch included the contuhuttons of Jewish researchers - were translated into English in 1946. There was no attempt to hide or distort the singular treatment of the Polish Jews or the function of the camps on Polish soil.'''' The Ccnttai |ewish Historical Commission m Poland enjoyed a mutually beneficial, though not necessarily harmonious, relationship with the Polish wai (limes investigators. The Polish government made it possible for seven) Polish ]ev\ish survivors to give evidence at Nmemberg: Seweryna Szmaglcwska on Auihwrtz -Biikenau, Samuel Raj/man on Treblinka, and Israel Eisenbeig on Majdanek/" Leon Pohakov and Joseph Bilhg weie both seconded by the CDJC to work for the fiench delegation in Nuremberg. 4 his work was recognized. The French Judge at the IM 1 , liancois de Menthon and two of the prosecutors, Edgar Faure and 5 lend Monnen, later contnbuted to the Centre's publications. Telford f'aylor wrote a preface foi the volume on Ceimau t rimes in the East. I here could be no clearer refutation of the idea that the 1MT in some way masked the atroi tries against Jews rrr Pol.rrrd and the USSR. ' Other forms of cooperation were less formal, but no less important. In the acknowledgments to his pioneering study Hie hinal Solution, Gerald Reitluiger thanked Major Flwui Jones, one of the British prosecution team, for 'the loan of,in almost complete set of documents, relating to the persecution of die Jews and extracted from the enormous files of the Wilhelmstrasse case' which had not yet been published.'-' One of the earliest collections of Nuremberg documents, A/.i;/ lienthiuy's War Against tin- Jen's, published by the American Jewish Conference m 194/, was compiled by Seymour Krieger who had been a member of Justice Robert J.k kson's staff. His compilation gave prominence to the crimes of the Wehrmacht and the linsatzgruppen, as well as the operation of the death camps. * The 1MT was followed by a spate of books that crystallized the evidence about the genoude against the [ews and made it leadily accessible. Peter Calvocoressi, writing m Biitam rn 1947, and Victor Bernstein, who covered the trial for P.M. newspaper, both devoted chapters to the mass murder of the Jews - in which they implicated the German Army. They also drew attention to Eichmann's role.74 If Nuremberg did not constrain the writing about Nazi crimes against the Jews nor did it necessarily promote a top-down, 'intcntionalisť version of the past. Evidence for this can be found in the articles published in Jewish Social Studies between 1946 and 1950. These contributions were weighted overwhelmingly towards the experience of the victims and explaining Nazism as a grass roots phenomena.73 Yet, towards the end of the decade, conditions for the study of the Nazi era and the persecution of the Jews changed. In late 1947, Isaac Schneersohn complained about 'the forgetfulness, lies, indifference, which endanger more ami more the memory of the martyrs'. He also protested against 'The indifference, lassitude, lost respect for written materials, manifest amongst Jews too. The CDJC and the historical commissions don't get enough support from Jewish organizations.'7'' Three years later, Mark Turkow, editor of the important and woefully neglected Yiddish book series 'Dos Poylishc yidntunf published in Buenos Aires, told the Yiddish poet and writer Chaim Grade: 'People want us to stop printing books about the catastrophe Challenging the 'myth of silence' 29 licluded tlu . There wa? he function i in Poland Miship with ble tor sev-miaglewska senberg on ork for the "h Judge at and Henri >r wrote a no clearer nst Jews in nit no less ion, Gerald m, for 'the )f the Jews ad not yet cuts. Nil si ferenec in ce Robert macht and about the si, writing cwspapcr, icated the rg did not ■arily probe found hese con-ctims and 'i era and mplained note the tude, lost historical i ee yeai s lish book poet and astrophe. 1 hey don't want to read them anymore; that's the sentiment.' ' When I.eon Poliakov completed his pioneering account of'the Pinal Solution' in 19.51, he was told by ' icveial editors that 'the theme was consideted impossible fiom ,t commeicial point of view'. 1 le only succeeded in finding a publisher thanks to help from Raymond Aion. ' //dt Co/ of Hate went on to be widely reviewed and achieved good sales, but Poliakov was dismayed by the lack of interest in the USA.78 So what had happened? Theie is no doubt that the Gold War inhibited scholarship .mil publishing about the Nazi yeais. In 1952, Nehanhah Robinson wiote in the fim-woid to a series of booklets published by the Institute tor Jewish Atfliiis. tellingly entitled 'Lest We Foiget', that the new political approach to the Germans 'of necessity modified also the moial appto.ich lo the Germans. It was morally impossible to treat an ally as the incarnation of evil."'' But something else was at work, too. P.u.ido.xically, the fust wave of memoirists and historians had succeeded too well. Ai ihe same time as proclaiming their inability to convey the unimaginable cruelty and suffering in the ghettos and camps, they had ptoven exactly the opposite, on a id scale. To grasp this we have to bear in mind that the fust publications appealed in 1944, giew in number through 1945, and became a flood in I'>.)(>--17. The lir- eiature accumulated at such a pace that it was almost impossible to keep up with it. Bciausc so much has been overlooked we have the illusion that little was lecoided in those early yeais; but voices from that time tell a different story. Writing in 1952, Samuel Gringausz remarked on 'the innumeiable monographs on the Nazi system of ideologically oiganized inhumanity'.s" Two yeats later, Phillip Friedman echoed him: j llieie were so many books on the Warsaw ghetto alone, 'that it is impossible even to J eimmeiate the more important studies'.M 1 Quantity was not the only daunting aspect of this vast libtaiy. Much of the i memoir literature was raw, angry, graphic and, by its nature, uniesolved. Written a ! few months or yeais after the events in question, these reports were unmodified by J die knowledge of a life lived in the aftermath. The authois had no inkling if their j peisonal losses and horrific experiences would be redeemed in some way or placed in J a larger context that gave them a kind of meaning. Finally, thev weie composed at a 1 nine when hatred of the Nazis and Germany was unrestrained and brutal images ol* i ..... . | war tilled the media. There were lew inhibitions about what could be said: sexual I abuse, depravity, prisoner-on-prisoner violence, cannibalism, gtaphic descriptions of likh, squalor and human degiadation, as well as explicit accounts of levenge are lommon. Reading these memoiis and testimonies it is easy to undeisiand why, by ihe end of the 1940s, the public turned awav. In the inttoduction to his 1952 study (and part memoir). Human Behavior in the eeunation Ciimps, the Dutch Jewish survivor Elie Cohen remarked that Any writer of a book on German concentration camps is under no delusion that nowadays there is a great deal of general inteiest in the subject. Though it is only a veiy few yeais ago, that the suivivors left these camps ... and the world learned of the horrors that had occuned, inteiest in them is very much on the wane. 30 David Cesarani 1 his syndrome was not duo to indifference: it was a reaction to the fust wave of camp literature. In the words of a previous memoir writer, the Jewish-born doctor Eddy tie Wind, who like C lohen was sent from Westerbork to Auschwitz, 'the reader who has thus had to take the author's burdens upon his shoulders very soon felt he had enough'. The flagging interest and impatience was aggravated wherever it was felt that sectional groups were engaging in special pleading on the basis of their wartime suffering.8- Building on these contempoiary obseivation it is mv contention that the chief reason loi the recession of interest in the story of Jewish suffering and struggle that was so evident by the end of the 1940s is that, quite simply, enough was enough. I lowever, this regression should not be equated with 'silence' or lack of awareness. New studies on the 1950s show that consciousness of the Jewish catastrophe which had been so assiduously fostertd in the immediate postwar years had filtered into both popular culture and intellectual life, especially in America. But it did not take the fonit that we would recognize today as 'Holocaust consciousness': indeed, it would be foolhardy to expect otherwise. Best selling autobiographical novels of the Second World War by ordinary seivk men reflected their engagement with the tragedy. Stefan Heym's Crusiiders (1948) and It win Shaw's The Young Lions (1949) both dealt with the liberation of the camps and the uicounter with Jewish suivivors. American Jewish writeis who had not served in Europe preferred to write about their own experiences and reflected the Nazi disaster in their combative attitude towards domestic anti-semitism. Hence, Arthur Milk Laura Zamctkiu Hobson, and Saul Bellow all wrote books about anti-Jewish d elimination. Hobson's was made into a highly successful film, (ieutlentau's Agreenu (1947), which along with (irossfiie (1947) tackled anti-Jewish prejudice in a way ai at a time that only makes sense if the horrific outcome of European anti-semitism seen lurking in the background. These were the creations of 'Holocaust-haunt American Jews" and found their counterpart in historical studies of anti-semitisi social anil psychological research into prejudice funded by the American Jewi (lomnmtee, and the committee's campaign against discrimination.8'1 Lew were as haunted as Meyer 1 evin. whose obsession with Anne Frank became infamous.84 Shock and incomprehension pervades the essays of Isaac Rosenfeld.*" It erupts into the journals of Alfred Kazin, who met survivors in DP camps during visit to Euiope in 1946. In one- memorable passage, Kazin recalled an afternoon spe with Haunah Arendt and her husband, Heinrich Blucher in their Upper West Side apartment: 'Hitler may be dead and gone, but here the shock of him - for Hann even more than Heinrich - is in the air they both breathe.'86 Irving Howe's turn Yiddish in the mid-1950s is explained partly by his acute sense that the Jewish civilizatii of Eastern Europe had been destroyed and would only live for future generations translations of the great storytellers.87 In fact, the 1950s are framed by two popul: izations of that history, both of which enjoyed massive success. John Heise; novel about the Warsaw Ghetto, The Wall, was on the NY Times bestseller list f 23 weeks. Exodus, by Leon Uris, was a bestseller for 80 weeks. In between, was 7 Diary of Anne Frank which was a bestseller for 20 weeks after its publication in 1952. Challenging the 'myth of silence' 51 arst w.tve of born doctor , 'the reader soon felt he revcr it was asis of thenar the chief truggle that eas enough, f awaieness. >phe which ilteied into lid not take ; indeed, it ary seivice-(1948) and camps and )t served in Jazi disaster bur Miller, Jewish dis-x /Igieetuetit a way and semitisni is ist -haunted i-semitisni, :an Jewish (ik became outbid.8;' ft >s during a 10011 spent West Side >r 1 lannah e's turn to civilization erations in ) popular-i Hetsev's lei list for 1, was The in 1952.!/ the International Confeieiue, Um Jon, 11-1.1 Januaiy 2006 (Osnabrück: Seoolo, 2006), 184-94. On the work of the Centtal Historical Commission, its metamorphosis into the |e\visli Historical Institute and decline, see Feliks 'l'yeh, 'The F.metgence of Holocaust Keseaich in Poland: The Jewish Historical Commission and the Jewish Historical Institute (ZIH), 1944-89' in Bankier and Michiiian eds, Holocaust l-listoiiogiapliy in Context. 227 -39. Jacob Pat, Ashes and Fiie (New York: International Univeisities Piess, 1947), 133. 7 For on-the-spot insights into the C'ential Jewish Historical Commission in Munich, see the leport by Moshe Laygenbaum in l.es Juifs en P.mope (1939-1945), 149-51 and Koppel Piuson, 'Jewish life in Libeiated Germany. A Study of the I )Ps', lavish Sotial Studies, 9:2 (1947), 109. Law a Joekusch, 'A Folk Monument to Our Destruction and Hetoism: Jewish Historical Commissions in the Displaced Poisons ("amps of Germany. Austria and Italy', in Avinoani Patt and Michael Berkowif/ eds, "He .-lie line": New .'{ppioadtes to Jewish Displaced Peisons in Postwar Ceimany (Detioit: Wayne State Uiiivoisity Press, 2010), 31-73; Ada Schein, '"Everyone Can Hold a Pen": The Documentation project in the DP Camps in Germany' in Bankier and Michnian eds, Holocaust Historiography in Context, 103 -34; Boa/ Cohen, 'Bound to Remember Bound to Remind. Holocaust Survivois and the Genesis of Holocaust Keseaich', in J-D Steinert and Inge Weber-Newth eds. Beyond Camps and P'oiced Ethnic, (anient International lieseanli on Sitwivois of Natt Persecution, Pimeediiigs of the International Coiifcmitc, Loudon, 29 M Jamtaiy 2003 (Osnabrück: Seoolo, 2006), 290-300. 8 Boa? Cohen, 'Repiesenting the Experiences of Children in the Holocaust: Children's Survivor Testimonies Published in Pun Elsten Huibn, Munich, ['))(> 49', in Patt and Berkowitz eds, We- Are Here, 74-97. 9 Joekusch, '"Collect and Record'", 247-49, 310-11; Orna Kenan, Hiiwceii Memory and Histoty: 'Hie Evolution of Isiaeli Histoiiogiaphy of the Holoeausl, 1943-1961 (New York: Peter fang Publications, 2003), 19-35. loo Schwatz oil.. The Root and the Bough: The ppic of an EnJuiiiig People (New York: Rinehart. 1949); Marie Syikm, Blessed is die Matth: 'I'lie Whole Sloiy of Jewish Resistance in Ptuope (Loudon: Gollmcz, I'MS). 10 See Tttvia Friedman, TiV Hunter, ed. and tians. David C Gross (I ondon: Anthony Gihbs and Phillips, 1961) and Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance (I ondon: Woidenfeld and Nicolson, 19N9). Lor a loiitempoiancous report by Wiesenthal. see I as puis en Pumpe (1939-1945), 37-40. 11 lael Nidatn-Orvieto, 'Lighting Oblivion: The CDEC and its Impact on Italian Hist or logtaphy', in Bankier and Michnian eds. Holocaust Historiography in Context, 293-90; Lilian,! Picdotto Faigion, 'la I ibeiazione dai campi di ooiioenuamento e il lintuocio .iegli ebrei italiani dispeisi' in Michelo Sarfatti ed., // viiotiio alia vita: viiende e dititti Jegli Ebiei in Italia dopo la secouJa gncna inondiale (Florence, Ghmtina, I998), 13--30; Lilian.) Picdotto, // libio delta memoria: gli Hbiei depoitati dall'Italia (1943-45) (Milan: Mnrsia, 2002 edn), 19-20. 12 Rita Horvath, '"A Jewish Historical Commission in Budapest": Lite Place of the National Relief Committee for Deportees in Hungary |DLC.OB| Among the Other Latgc-Se.ile Historioal-tnemorial Projets of She'erit Lfaplethah Atter the Holoiaust (1945-48)', in Bankier and Michnian eds, Holocaust Histoiiogiaphy in Context, 475 -9(>. Report on the activity of the Jewish Oenttal Information Office (Wiener library) by Alfred Wiener, in see Pes Juifs en Europe (1939-1945). 125-28. See Ben Barkow, Allied Wiener and the Making of the Holocaust Lilnary (London: Valleiitine Mitchell, 1997). 111- 21. ! 1 Report of Nella Rost in Pes Juifs en Euiope (1959-1945), 57-58. See also Simone Erpel, 'Documented Traumas. Intel views with Polish Survivois of Rjvenshriiok Women's Concentiatioii Camp, Carried out in Sweden in 1945/46', in )~D Steinott and Inge Weber-Newth eds. Beyond Camps and Poned Uibour. Cunent Intel national Research on Sutvivots of Nazi Peisecution. Pioceedings of the International Conrdencc. London, 29- 31 januaiy 2003 (Osnabrück: Seoolo, 2003), 301-10. 34 David Cesarani 1 's l\ch. "11h- Hnieigcnce of Holocaust Keseaich m Poland', 234; Jot kusch, '"Collect and kccoiď", 35.S 57; Rom Stauber, 77/c Holocaust in Umelí Public Debate In tlie I9i()s, Ideology tin J Memoiy, trans, Elizabeth Yiival (London: Vallentinc Mitchell, 3007). 21 22. 16 A capacious and fiunk record or'the conference is in Les Juifs en Europe (I Vi'/- 1945). Rappoits S'iésentés A La ľicmietc (Ämfeíemv Euiopéenne />* Commissions Histotiqucs !:t Des Cenucs Jc Doinnientation Jnits (Pans: Editions l)u Centre, 1949). See also the summary and analysis by Jockusch,'"'Collect and Record'", (2006) 376-95. 1 / Jockusch, "'Collect and Record'", 414-23. Schein, "'Hveiyone Can Hold a Pen", 132-35: l\ch. ' I he Hmeigcnce ot Holocaust Research in Poland', 236—39. 18 Philip Friedman. Ulis ids (hwiatm: 'Die Stoiy of a Minder Camp (i onclon: United Jewish Appeal, 1946). 19 Marek Eck [man, 'Die Chetto Eights (New York: Aniciican Representation of the C.eneial Jewish Workets Union of Poland, 1946). Zofta Naikowska, the tianslatoi, also wiote a short book ofsenii-factual stones based on her experiences investigating war crimes. Medaliouy appealed in Warsaw m 1946, and ai hieved c ntieal acc laim as well as leaching a w lde audiem e with its fiank descnptions of Jewish sutleiing dunng the occupation: Zofia Naikowska, Medallions, trans. I )iana Kupel (Hvanston, I!.: Noithwestem Umveisity Press, 2000). 20 Bernau! Goldstein. Die Stats Beat il'itness, trails. I eonard Shatzkm (New Yoik: Vikmg Ptess. 1949). It is woith noting that many of these eaily niemoiis not only lacked the woid 'Holocaust', hut went under titles that gave no hint of the content. 21 Annette Wievtorka, Deportation et genocide: eutie la mémoiie et I'ottbli (Paris: Pluiiel. I'J'J'i 22 Bei Baskmd, La Ciainle l:pouvante: souvenhs d'uu icscapc da ghetto de i'aisot'ie, t L Biunef-Beresovski (Pans: Calmann-I evy, 1945). Wieviorka, Depoitaliou et géne 184,291,472. 23 Giacoino I )ehenedettt, 16 Oitobei, 1941. Eight Jews, tians. Estella Gibson (None 1), INI): Umveisity of Notie Danie Press, 2001), 21-62. Ciaconio I)ehenedetti, 16 ot /y-ŕ.i and Otto EJnei were fust published m Rome m 1945. 34 Pelagia I ewinska, I 'mgt mots a Ausihwit: (Pans: Editions Nagel, 1945), 67- 68, 91, 126 75 David Ronsset, L'uniivrs (Oiiceiitiattounaiie (Paris: Editions du Pavois, 1946). The quotations aie from the English version, 1'he Ollici Kingdom, trans. Ramon Guthrie (New Y Reynal and I htcheock. 1947). 29. 58-60, 61,"63-66, 109, i 14. Wieviorka. Dépoil.iU géno,tiie, 85-86. Compare David Ronsset, E' pitie lie lit pas (Paris: Editions Du Cei 1948), 243. ' 1 Ins is a curious book. Ronsset believed Nazism practiced a form of modem sla\ei\. In his aigument, winch is stated ironically and in fragments, the spe oppression of the Jews is taken to illuminate the general system of exploitation enslavement. 7.6 Eugen Kogon, Dei SS-Staal. Das System Dei Deutelten Koir.eutiatiouslagei (Berlin: V< des Dnickhaus ľenipelhof 1947). 5- 18. See also. Publishers' Introduction to the 1 US edition. 'Die 1'lieoiy And Euutice of Hell, trans. Heinz Norden (New York. 13 Stiauss Cuddahy, 1950), 5-12 and Nikolaus Wachsinan, Intiodiiction, The Theoiy -liv Praitiie of Hell (New York: banal, Stiauss, Giioux. 2006), xi-xxi. 77 Kogon,' 'Die Theoiy and Rünthe oj Hell (1950 edn), pp. 174-97. Philip Friedman and Koppel S Pmson, 'Some books on the Jewish Catastrophe", Jewish Sotial Studies, (1950), 88-89. 38 liyhsmy w Oswictiiniu (Munich: Ofuyna Waiszawska na Obcvyznie, 1946); quotes hem lie Weie in Aihthwit:, tuns. Alicia Nitecki (New York: Welcome Publishers, 3000), 14, 15. I o add to the effect, the original edition was bound in cloth taken fioni uniforms ot Auschwitz prisoners. 29 I'adcusz Borowski, This Way to the Cas Ladies and C-entlemen .... tians. Barbara Vedik-i (New Yoik: Viking, 1967). The translator's note about the original location ot stones is misleading. The edition published by Penguin includes an introduction b\ I in Kott but this too fails to mention if 'e Weie In AusJiwit:. 30 Zoe Waxman. ll'titing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Repiescntiition (Oxford: Ox Umveisity Press, ^006), 100-112; cf. Wieviorka, Dcpottatiou etgéiioiide, 264 92. Challenging the 'myth of silence' 35 ""Collect ami In the 1950 2007). 21-27. (l'J.i'J-1945 Cliques Lit Dt the sumniar 'en", 132-35 Jnited Jewisl (the Genera also wrote ; les. Medtilioii) i'ide audience Nalkowska. :»()). 'ork: Viking v lacked the uriel, 1962). isovie, trans. ' et genmitle, iotie I )aine, ti, 16 oltohre 91, 126-39. - quotations New York: Vpotfatiou el Du Centre, of modern he spec ific itation and dm: Verlag .) the 1950 >tk: Fan.ir, Llteoty And •dmai udies. d totes Ironi '000). 5-6, ftom the ia Veddel- an of the on by Jan 1: Oxfonl tl l'ii'icr I .igroti in Jetfrey M 1 "Hetendorf ed., Ij'ssoiis and I.ethics, vol. 6, Ctnicut-. in Ilolotau.-i Reseaith (Kvanston, II : Northwestern University 1'tess, 2664) -182 83. 32 Seweivna Sziuaglewska. Dymy mid Birkenau (W.iisaw: C/ytelnik, 1645). Quotes fiom Smoke Over Birkenau, trans. Jadwiga Rynas (New York: Henry Holt, 1947), vii, 281, .VII 47. On her evidence at Nurembeig, see I.awienee Douglas, 7*/«* Memoiy of liidgnieiif Making Law ami blistoiy in the Dials of the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale UimviMU Press', 2001), 78, 79. .\i Kiystvua Zywnlska, L'i :e:yltini ()swic{im (Warsaw: Spold/ielnia Wydawnicza "Wied/a", 1946). tluotes tiotn Krystyn.i Zywnlska, / Came Baik, nans. Kiystvua Cenkalska (New Yoik: Roy Publisheis, 1951), 22. 53 143, 151, 156-57, 158-56.' .51 Vicior I i.inkel, Ein Psytholog Hilebt das Kon zentiatiouslager (Vienna: Verlag ftir Jugend und Volk. I'>40>) published in English as, Liom Death Camp to E.xisieuli,ilisw. .-1 Psythialiist's Path to a New 'I'hetapy, tuns. Use I.asch (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), I 5, 7. for an .iiliKmn ol Fiankel's nicnioiis see Timothy E Pytell, 'Redeeming the Utiiedeeniablc: Ausiliwn/ and Man's Search for Meaning', Holotaust and Cenoiide Studies, 17:1 (2603), S9 115. 55 IVlvm-Juti, If, Ottoher, 1945: Light Jews, 21-62. 56 Su/.iiine Birnbaum (Luce), Cue L)ait(aise jttive est icvemie (Paris: Editions du I ivie ft.uicais, 19 15), passim and 145. For bibliogiaphical inloriiiation see the reprint ol Unc Dancaise est revenue (Paris: Herauk-Editiotis 1994), 1 1. v Manuela Consoni, 'Tlie Written Memoir: Italy 1945-47* in David Bankier ed., lite fews .lie Coming Baik. 'I'lie Return of the Jews to their Ciouiilties of Oiigiu after W'oild War 'Luv ijetusalem: Yad Vashem/ Deigbabn Books, 2005) 169-80,' 5S Cuilrina Tedeschi, CV mi panto delta teua ... Una donna net lager di Liiikeuau (l-loience: ("linitina, 1988), 130-32; originally published in Milan, 1646. 59 I una Millu, II Junto di Bitkeuau originally published in Milan 1647: see Smoke < hn Bit-, trans. I.ynne Shaion Schwartz (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society ol America, 1991), 68-72. In Al ha Valech Capozzi, AJ40J9 (Siena: Soc. An. Poligiatica, 1646; rpr Institute tor the I lisiory of the Resistance 1995). II .Vlvina Oioldenherg, 'Olga Lengvel (1668-2001)' in Kiamer ed., Holotaust Literatute, 41. or example. Albeit Friedlauder ed.. Cut of the Wlmlnnml: A Reader of I lolotattst Lit-c (New York: Union of Hebrew Congregations, 19d8); Jacob ("l.itstcin. Isiael Knox, Samuel ivbiigoshed eds, Anthology of Holotaust Literatme (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1669). See, living ilalpem, Mcsscngcis ftom the Dead: Ltliiatine of the Holocaust (Philadelphia; Westminster Piess, 1976): Lawrence langer, 'lite I ielontiist and the Liteiary Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale Univeisin Press, 1675); ■Mini Rosenfeld, ,1 Double Dying: Reflections on Holotaust Uieiatiue (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1980). 15 1 .iigcne Weinstock, Beyond the Last Path, Hans. ( 4ai,t Ryan (New Yoik: Boni and ("act; 1647). 4 1 Kenya Kulkielko, Est ape fiom the Pit (New Yoik: Shaion Books. 1647). On Ronya kulktelko and other Polish Jews who leached Palestine during the war, see Diiu Poial, 'I iisi Testimonies on the Holocaust: 1 he Problematic Nature ol Conveying and Absorbing them, and the Reaction in the Yishuv'. in Bankier and Miehmaii eds.. Holocaust Histoiiogitiphy in Context. 437-60, heie esp. 440, 445, 455. 45 See Ben Shephaid, .After Daylneak. 'Lite Chelation of Belsen, l'>45 (1 ondou: Jonathan Cape, 2005). 46 Vie Cimet: 12 May 1646, 0.63, 601-5; 9 June 1645, 750; Its June 1645, lettets page; 8 September 1945,' 513-15; 20 October 1945, letter page; 2 March 1646. 317- 19; 7 August 1946, book u-view; 13 Noveinbei 1946, letter; 7 August 1646, 278-26; 6 June 1953, 1 138 -59. Btitish Medical fomna], 9 June 1945, 814 -16; 6 (line 16-15, 813; 23 June 1945, 883-84; 5 J.umaiy 1646. 4-8; 23 February 1946, 273-75; 21 December I94U. 953-55. 36 David Cesarani 47 "Medical Aspects of Belsen C oncentiation Camp', 'Pile haltet, 8 Sepfenibei 1945, pp. 313- 1 See also the earlier icpoit, 'Belsen ( äincentration Camp', Lhe himet, 12 May 1945. pp. 603- 48 'Medical Observations in Auschwitz Concentration Camp', The linnet, 2 Match I94i pp. M7--FL In 1956 she published an extended memoir that achieved a wide re.ulersli in Germany although it was not translated for 41) yeais: Lucie Adelsberger, Ativhwit A Do,lor\ Stoty, nans. Susan Ray (Boston: Noiiheastern University Pi ess, 1995). 49 'C.ancorum tins', British Dental Journal, 79:6 (21 September 1945). 151-57. 59 'I'svchological Investigation of A Group of Internees At Belsen Camp', Journal of Mem Steine, 92:386 (January 1946), 66-74. Compaie to Herbeit A Bloch, The Personality of Inmates of Concentiation Camps', Ameiuau journal of Soiiology 52:4 (1947), 335-4 which claims that ethnic or othei identity did not matter. See also, J fas, 'l\ychic I )isordeis Among Uninates of Cone entralion Camps and Repatriates', PsyJiiatui (^uaitei 25:4 (1951), 679-90, based in part on the author's own experiences in Westerbork and the Jewish section of Belsen. 51 Koppel I'lnson. Jewish life in Liberated Germany: A Study ot the Jewish DIV. Jeivi Soital Studie*. 9 (1947), 101-26; Paul Friedman, 'Some Aspects of Concentiation Can Psychology'. Amciuan Journal oj l^yilnatiy. 105:8 (1949), 601-5. Cf. M. Nuembeisl 'Psychological Investigation of a Group of Internees At Belsen Camp', Journal of Mem Scietue. 92:386 (1946)', 60-74. 52 Jacob Pal, Ashes ami The, tians I eo Stcmbeig (New York: International Univetsiti Press, 1947), 156-58, 162-22\ 224-40. 53 Joseph 'I cncnh.ium, In Seauh of a hist People - The Old and the New Poland (New Yor Becxhhurst Press, 1646), vu-vii. 26-43, 91-192, 54 One of the few to make the connection is 1 awrence Baron, "1 he Holocaust ami Amencan Public Memoiy, 1945-90', Hohnaust and Genomic Studies, 17:1 (2003), 62-S 55 1 ail (1 Ilainson, 77«' Plight of the Dio the counteiaiguinent by Michael Matrns, 'A Jewish 1 obbv at Nuiembeig: Jacob Robinson and the Institute of Jewish Affaiis, 1945 16', in Regmbogm and Saddling i\K. Die Niiinbuigei I'hkcssc, 63—71. and Mark A lewis, 'I he Woi Id Jewish Congiess and (he institute of Jewish A films, at Nuiembeig: Ideas, Stiategies, and Political Coals, 19 12-46'. Yad t W«™ Studies, 36:1 (2008). 181 -210. (>') Hiideiyn. Clownej Komisji lUdauia Zbiodni Siemhkiih w I'olve, 7 vols (Waisaw, 1946) ii.nisiated as Cential Commission foi Investigation of'Geiman Crimes in Poland, Ceiman Climes in Poland, 2 vols (Waisaw 1946). The leteiences aie to the facsimile edition published in 1982: volume I, on Oswiecim, 27—94: on Tteblinka, 95 108; on ('heluino, 109 24; on Polish Jewry, 125-70. for spet ific quotes, see, 40 and 93 Volume 2, on Belzec, 89-98 esp. 93; on Sobibor, 99- 104, esp. 99; on Waisaw Ghetto, 127 29. a i Aleksiun. 'Organising tor Justice', 186-87. VI la Juifs in limope (1939-15). 32-33. Henri Monneiay ed., Li petsctutioti u Centie, 1947); idem ed., La peiscnitiou ties Juifs dans les pays de I'L'st (Paris: Editions Du Centre, 1949).,. 7.' Geiald Reitlinger, 'fhe final Solution: Die Attempt to Lxtenniuate the Jews <>/ limope l')3')-4> London: Valentine Mitchell, 1953), xi. "3 |Seymour Krieger ed.|, Na;i Ceimaiiy's War Against the fws (New York: Atneiicau Jewish Confeience, 1947). xix, 1/I-1/75. 'eter Calvocoiessi, Nuiembeig: Die fails and the CouseijuctHes (I ondon: M.uimll.iti, 194/), 43-44. 59-60, 89-90, 106-9, 121-23; Victor Bernstein, final Judgment: Die Story of sluiembcig (New York: Bom and Gaer, 1947), 181-209,250. -amuel Gringau/, 'fhe Ghetto as an Experiment of Jewish Social Oiganisation. (T'lnec ears of the Kovno Ghetto)', Jewish Sodal Studies, 11:1 (1949), 3-'0; Hannah Aiendt, 'Social Science Techniques and the Study of the Concentiation camps', Jewish Soiial Studies, 12:1 (1950). 49-64; Solomon Bloom, fowaids (he Ghetto Dutator", Icwtsh Siuial studies, 12:1 (1950), 73-82. '■'6 Schneersohn, Les Juifs en Europe, p. 9. Hdiwarz, 'A Library of Hope', 183. ■ 8 Poliakov, L'auheige des nmsideiis, 178-79. See also, Bensoussan, 'The Jewish Con .'inpoiaiy Documentation Centre (CDJC) and Holocaust Reseaich in fiance, 19 15 /()'. 346-48. " 79 Nehamiah Robinson, forewoid to Anatole Goldstein, fiom Dis,iimination to Annihilation New Yoik: Institute for Jewish Aifaiis, 1952), 7-8. Su Samuel Gringau?, leview of fiiedman, Oshwieihim. Jewish Sodal Studies, I 1:4 (1952), 376-77. 81 Philip Friedman, 'The Jewish Ghettos of the Nazi Eta', Jewish Soiial Studies, 16:1 (195-1), 61-88. See Diner, [Lc Remember With Reeeicme and Lore, 88 123. 82 Elie A C\)hen, Human Beluwiom in the Conteniiation Camps, tuns. M II Bi.uksina (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953), xiii, 4. Cohen was citing H De Wind, Liudstatiou Ausdiwitz, which was published in Anisteidam in 1946. CI. Bensoussan, "fhe Jewish Contenipoiary Documentation Gentle (CDJC) and Holocaust Reseaich in Fiance, 1945-70', in Bankier and Micliman eds. Holocaust Ilistoiiogiaphy in Context, p. 252 and mote geneially, Bieter 1 agiou, 'Return to a Vanished World. Emope.m Societies ami (he 38 David Cesarani Remnants of their Jewish Communities, 1945-47', in David Bankier ed., The Jews ate Coming Back: The Return of the Jews to Their Countries of Origin After WW 11 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem/Berghahn Books, 2005), pp. 1—24. 83 Sulra D.iKoven Ezrahi, By Words Alone, The Holocaust in Literature (Chicago: Chicago Univerity Press, 1980), 176-97. See also, Emily Miller Biidick, 'The Holocaust m the Jewish American literary imagination', in Michael Kramer and Plana Wirth-Nesher eds, Cambridge Companion to American Jewish Literature (Cambridge; Cambridge Umveisity Press, 2003), 215-16. Edward Shapiro, A Time for Ideating: American Jenny since World War It (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 9-20, 29, 36-39; Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice: American jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 11~20", 22-25, 77-89. 84 Meyer Levin, The Obsession (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974). On the tussle over Anne Frank see, Ralph Melnirk. The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellmau, and the Staging of the Diary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1907). 85 Steven Zippetstein, Rosenfeld's Lives: Fame, Oblivion and the Furies of Writing (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 122-26. 86 Alfred Kazin, A Lifetime Burning Every Moment (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 45-46, 87-89, 107, 108. ' 87 Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg eds, A Treasury of Yiddish Stories (New York: Viking, 1954). See Steve Zippersteiii, Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, Histoty, Identity (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 28......32, for reflections on Howe. 88 Ezrahi, By Words Alone, 34-38; Alvin H Rosenfeld, Anne Frank and the Titture of Llolocausi Memory (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004), 3-4. See also, Jordan William Paul, 'Overcoming Apathy: Constructing A Holocaust Consciousness in America, 1950-67', unpublished MA Thesis, Michigan State University, 1996, 12-30, 34-40, 76-77. 89 Alan Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in AmerUa (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 16-19, 85-100, 102-3 and Lawrence Baron, 'The First Wave of American "Holocaust" Films, 1945-59', American History Revieiv forum, 8-9, 24-35. 90 Kirsten Fermaglich, American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust C>n*u>ii!.nm and Liberal America, 1957-1965 (Walrliam, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2006). 18. 91 Norman Colin, The Pursuit of the Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970 edn), 285. 92 Caroline Wiedmer, 77«' Claims if Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Cenuauy and France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 34-44. 93 Jockusch, '"Collect and Record'", 106-45. Of. Weinberg, 'France' in Wynian ed., 7'/ir World Reacts to the Holocamt, 20. 77/r Jews are (Jerusalem: ;<>: Chicago eausr in the Nesher eds, Universirv ■ Woild War irr Svonkin, : Columbia ■ tussle over rein, Lillian , I'W). 'it lug (New %), -15-46. slew Yoik: ory, Identity )we. e l-'iume of •tun, 2004), Holocaust igan Stale ''(•(/ (Seattle: nee Baron, loiy Rcricu' '.onsiioiiniess K)6). 18. 'less, 1970 omeinporary in ed., 'Ilie RE-IMAGINING THE UNIMACINABLl Theater, memory, and rehabilitation in the Displaced Persons camps Margaret? Myers leinstein When the childien tiist arrived at Klostei Indeisdoif, they talked and talked about their experiences in the concentration camps and as sla\e l.tboieis 1 lonoi stones \\eie inteiiiiiiigk'd \yith culinary events, with little show of emotion ft took lime loi them to telax or play. Nearly all of the hist ueative plays piesented b\ the ihildien i i ic 1 in ictl scenes tioin the concentiation camps, ptinctualed with wiv bits of himioui that did not seem funny to the UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation! woikeis 1 Regardless of the sensibilities of Anglo-American social workeis who objected to what they considered to be a morbid obsession with the past, child and adult suivi-vors in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps diamatized their \\ artime experiences. DP plays valorized partisans and resistance fighfeis, allowing non-combatant smvivois to imagine that they had participated in the fight against the Nazis and piovulmg tole models for the struggle against the Biitish mandate in Palestine. ("teating a naname of their past, present, and future, the DPs connected their experiences to the need for a [ewish state in the Land of Israel. Fai lioin remaining silent about then expeiiences, survivors reenacted their most traumatic memories. 4 hese pertomiances leveal the need of survivois to understand their past and to shape then own luttiie. DP theaters Most DP actors were amateurs, with perhaps some experience m school or vouth group productions before the war. Some had perfotmcd secielly in ghetloes and concentration camps. Others had spent the war yeais with no outlet for their cieative utges and now hurried to join drama circles and theatrical troupes. The demogiaphics of the survivors meant that many had limited experience with ptewar theatrical life. Concentration camp survivois tended to be between 15 and 25 veais old, so most were between the ages of 12 and 20 when the war deprived them of the opportunity 40 Margarete Myers Feinstein to attend professional performances or to participate in school plays. In addition, traditional parents had attempted to shelter their children, though not always successfully, from the theater that permitted the mixing of men and women and that tempted young minds to think of frivolous, worldly things. Thus, the initial number of survivors who had the experience, knowledge, and skills to stage productions was small. Later, Polish Jews who had survived the war years in the Soviet Union arrived in the DP camps, bringing older and more culturally knowledgeable individuals who contributed to DP theatrical life. In 1946 and 1947 reports from Jewish DP committees indicated th.it those involved in theater were older than the average survivor. The ages of the eight-member Markt-Oberriorf drama circle averaged 28 years. The youngest member was 21 and the oldest 45. At Leipheim, the average age of the thirteen drama circle members was 30, with the youngest 22 and the oldest 52. The 26 performers at Landsberg (20 actors, one choral director, and five orchestra musicians) had an average age of 32 with the youngest at 17 and the oldest at 50. Most were amateurs with 4 FIGURE 2.1 Sonia Boczkowska reciting the poem "Shoes from Majdanek" at the Belsen DP camp Source: Yad Vashem, courtesy of Hadassah Rosensaft. Re-inirtgininy the unimaginable 41 In addition, i not alwa men and th.n aitial number 'duedons was Jnion arrived lividuals wh i that thos >f die eight member wa drama circl erfonners at rad an aver, nateurs wit! middle school edneations. The professionals and older performeis, such as those in the laudsboig drama ciicle, often had some advanced education." Hie vast majority of Jewish DPs resided in the American and British /ones of occupied Germany. The British zone had a professional troupe soon after libeiation. Director S.uui Feeler gathered together surviving professional Yiddish theater people lioiii aiound Germany to form the Belsen Katzet-Teater. Tiained in Berlin's prewar ■iv.int g.ude theater scene, Feder's staging had an expiessionist, modern sensibility. Despite transportation problems, the troupe performed for thousands of DI's outside Belsen, in I lanover, Brunswick, and Harzburg. In its two-year existence, the Kazet-IV.itcr staged 7 programs, 10 musical revues, 47 theatrical performances, and at the Belsen hospital 22 levues and an evening of classical and Yiddish folk music. The troupe won arclaiin in t lemiany and on a summer 1947 tour in Belgium and Fiance.5 (see image 2.1) I lie American zone received its first professional theater in spring 19-16 with the airival of the Musical Yiddish Cabaret Theater (M1KT). Formed in Poland on Match 5", |u..|(, l,v a group of Yiddish actors and community leadeis to perforin revues and concerts, the ttoupe quickly transformed its mission into leforging the links to Yiddish theater culture with a classical repertoiie. The piecariousuess ot life in post war Poland and the promise of eager Yiddish-speaking audiences in the American zone ot" Germany hi ought the tioupe to Munich later that spring. DP audiences and pi ess liked their revues and their staging of Sholem Aleichem's comedy The J,hkpot. On |tine 12, 1946 a plenary session of the Cential Committee for 1 iberaled jews in the U.S. Zone gtanted MIKT official status and piomised to subsidize the theater. I .iter, hieakaway acfois using the same name forced the theater to change its name to the Mimic h Yiddish Art Theater (Mil). In 1946 the troupe touted DP camps and Jewish communities in Germany, staging 3 premiers and 66 performances, and reaching 5(1,01)0 viewers. Frequently ewer 400 patrons attended a single performance in the Lueer camps, and in 1948 MIT reported total attendance figures of 180,000 during its tiist two years of existence.4 Hungry tor diveision, DPs flocked to the theater. DP tioupes understood that they were waging a battle to leclaim the Jewish heritage, to icvive the Jewish soul, and to imagine the Jewish future. II. Perlmutter, the so called Showman of Auschwitz and later director of Feldafing DP camp's "Ameho" tioupe, was struck by the tremendous responsibility he had to rebuild Jewish cultural lite and to piove Jewish productivity after the Holocaust,'' Kuth Minsky Sender's biolher in-law founded a Yiddish theater in Leipheim DP camp. She recalls his excitement about the audiences' lccepfion of the performances: "We bring them the voices of the past, the good and the evil. We remind them that we, the lemnants of our people, must carry on. ... It is up to us to rise from the ashes and build a new hie."'1 For these former victims of Nazi persecution, survival meant moie than ph-.skal existence; it meant the revival of Jewish cultuial lite. -.' morializing the past ihe Belsen DP performeis frequently portrayed their recent suffering thtough song, dance, and di.iura. The lack of scripts, costumes, scores, and other resources combined with the 42 Margarete Myers Feinstein desne for light c liteit.unment resulted in the staging of revues, reminiscent of ghetto i.ibaicts. Even this light faie often included songs or skits fiom the Holocaust period and songs from wartime exile m the Soviet Union, alongside Hebrew songs and folk songs.' Hie narratives the troupes enacted emphasized the suffering of motheis and clnldien alongside hcioie resistance. Ihe plays honored the martvied dead, and at the same time they presented new < oping stiategtes of armed resistance and Zionist politics. Mush was an integral part of the revues and Yiddish theater. Both melodies and lyncs expressed the experiences, soirows, and yearnings of the performeis and audiences A song frequently featuied rn DP shows was DcH clrutc Kind (1'he Lonely Child) from the Viltia ghetto, about a child separated from her mother who had given her to a ('hristian family for safekeeping. The song concludes with the command foi the daughtei to tell later generations about her parents' suffering. The foundei of an amateur tiotipe in the Fohrenwald DP tamp, Jacob Biber reports of the song's first peifoimance there, "The lengthy applause |followmg this song] showed our need to cry, to demonstrate our collective pain."K The sepaiation of mother and child symbolized universal giief and suffering, and the final veise reminded stuvivois to hear witness on behalf of the dead. Ihe (iist concert of the Katzct-Tcafer in Belsen demonstrated the symbolk importance of song. The excited audience sang along to the opening numbei. S' bieinn (It's Binning). Written by Mordechai Gebirtig in response to a 1936 pogi ihe song calls Jews to action- "Don't stand there brothet/1 >ouse the fire!" Dunm Holocaust, the Jewish resistance in Krakow adopted the song, and it was popular in the ghettos and concentration camps. After the war, the call to action still lesonated \\ tth sm \ ivols since there were pogroms in postwar Poland and the Jewish c ommuuuv in Palestine was waging battle for an independent state. 1 he musical conclusion to the Belsen evening was no less fraught, with meaning I he tioupe had debated what to sing. Traditionally the national an tin m would be pl.iwd at the conclusion. Given that they were in the British zone of occupied Germany (In-British anthem would seem to be the appropriate one, but some membeis aigue favor of the Zionist anthem Ilatikvali and others for the socialist Iiueiiiiitioii/ (Nct'cr vue so that tiaditional le between t with (Jod day of lib-calling the n zone of )1V Zionist so of their i to action, aust.'' One nusic after ' expiessed Re-imagining the unimaginable 43 the suffering of a mother after her child's muider in a concentiation camp, '['he aitist performed in ft out of a swastika (lag, wearing a striped diess lenuniscent of concentiation camp uniforms. The theme of the suffering mothei that spoke so movingly to 1)1' audiences later figuied piominently in Isiaeh Holocaust memorials as a universal symbol of affliction.10 Later Belscn perfoimanees included the play in Aitsdiwit: and Soma Boc/kowska's recital of the poem "Shoes fiom Majdanek." Boc/kowska woie a styh/ed concentration camp uniform and stood hefoie a mountain of shoes foi the peitoi tiunee. 1)1' performers and audiences did not shy away from iepi osculations of their tecent suffering. Instead, they found emotional telease thiough the letelliugs. When looking at the recent past tor subject matter, DP diiectois often focused on tesistance fighters and partisans. For example, Feder wiote and directed a play called Piulisatis (see Figuie 2.2 and 2.3). In one scene, a eabaiet singer seduced German ofliceis and stole their weapons to pass along to lesistanee fighteis. In the 1 eipheun DP camp, a theater group diiector had a similar plot m niuid for a skit," and MT1 would staue a nlav about resistance in a tiansit camn. 'Ihese stoiyhnes weie fantasies lor the inajoiils ol Dps who had noi been able oi willing to participate in armed confhil dining the w.u. vet, tin subject ol tesistance was not uncommon in miivivoi u- iniaginings ol die past at (he same time as survivors sought to reassert their sense ol ageuiv and loutiol o\ei ihen own lives. ll^Hi^^^p —■ I it.BRE 1.1 Scene fiom the Kat/et I eater play "Partisans" at tin Iklseti DP camp Source: Yad Vashem, courtesy of Hadassah Rosensaft. 44 Margarete Myers Feinstein Simply staging the plays required determination and skills learned during the Nazi years. Material shortages posed great difficulties for troupes, and they took pride in their resourcefulness to acquire cosmetics, costumes, and props. For example, the cabaret singer required an elegant dress. Her costume was made from a curtain "organized" from a British officer's room. Feder writes, We "Katzetlers" who, under British administration, were, still locked up for a long time after liberation in the same camps and could not move about freely, we had no other choice but to "organize" like in the Hitler-camps — i.e., to acquire that which one needs through all possible means - whether- legal or illegal.12 Since the survivors remained in a camp and since the British authorities were responsible for keeping closed the gates to Palestine, DPs felt justified in using whatever rneans necessary to get what they needed. The cabaret singer's costume represented a symbolic blow against British power. The resistance to the Nazis portrayed in the play became linked to the struggle against the British in the present. Making the connection to a Jewish homeland When .survivors' expectations that the world would open its anus to them were not met, a majority of F)Ps focused their hopes on immigration to Palestine. UP politic;! and cultuial life soon revolved around Zionist aspirations. Zionism offered an expla nation of the past and hope for the future. In a world of continued anti-Semiti violence, the need for a Jewish homeland seemed clear to many. As historian Avi noam J. P.itt wrote, "Zionism in the DP camps was thus not merely a monolitht Zionism geared solely to the requirements of the Yislmv; it filled the needs of mail' groups, productively, therapeutically, and diplomatically."11 The survivors' determi nation to help create a Jewish state in Palestine stemmed both from political, ideo logical commitment and from psychological, emotional, and pragmatic impulses. DP acrois shared these values. Both the Katzet-Teater and MIKT/MIT openly heir Zionist positions. DP drama circles and theater troupes frequently connected tta experiences of the recent past to the need for a Jewish homeland. They expressed the DPs' Zionist worldview on stage. lake the Belsen performances, plays in Fcklafing and Fohrenwald depicted wartinn suffering but these productions continued the storyline into the post-liberation era emphasizing the survivors' ties to Palestine. Blood and 1-ito was the first play produce* by the Fcldafmg amateur ensemble that would become the acclaimed "Amcho troupe. The action begins m prewar Poland in the home of a bourgeois Jewish family. One of the sons, a member of a kibbutz, urges bis parents to sell their pos sessions and move the family to Palestine. The parents laughingly dismiss their son' advice and he leaves alone. With the arrival of the Nazis, the parents meet their cue m the gas chambei. After the war, the Zionist son, now an officer in the Haganah returns to Poland in an etfbit to find his family. The officer locates his sole surviviiii Re-imagining the unimaginable 45 ring the Na/i took pride m example, tl mi a curtain ked up for about tieel tips - i.e., to ther legal < lonties wei ing whatevc epresented i in the pla- in were no DP polittca •d an e.xpla-anti-Semitic storian Avi-monolithic xls ot many is' determi-itical, icleo-upnlses. DP >penly held inected the :pressed the ed wartime -■ration era, y pioduced "Amcho" .•ois Jewish their pos-their son's t their end • Maganah, stir\'iving i itiiii ' i Cabaret scene fiom the Katztt Teatet play "Partisans" at the Btlsui DP camp. Note the dress made from an "organized" curtain. .Source: Yad Vashem, courtesy of Hadassah Rosensaft. msiei in a DP tamp in Germain and takes her with him to Palestine. This play .illumed the foiestght of piewai Zionists and drew a connection between the suffer-lie Shoali and the need for a home m Palestine. It also held out the corn-foiling dieain that somehow the sin vivots would be reunited with a family member who would lest tie them fiom the DP camps. 46 Margarete Myers Feinstein Tin* bohrenwald plav Illegal Aliyah explored the connections between the Sluuli and the quest for a new Jewish home in a graphic and melodramatic fashion.14 iirst peiformed on April 5, 1946, it used the Holocaust as a prologue to the main anion, illegal immigration to Palestine. The curtain opens on one part of the stage to show pious Jews at prayer in Jerusalem. The audience's attention is then directed to the other side of the stage wheie a mother and child stand before the crematorium in a concentration camp. A camp guard grabs the child and throws it into the flames of the crematorium. As the guard continues to slaughter inmates, on the other side ol the stage British soldiers enter the Palestine scene and begin beating the praying Jew-,. The Jews in the concentration camp cry, "They kill us here and beat us there! Wheie shall we go?" while the Jews in Palestine scream, "They kill us there and heal us bete! What shall we do?" The ensuing play focuses on bands of illegal immigrants to Palestine who meet and join forces. They are caught by a British border patrol and taken to court where a young Zionist defendant passionately explains why these survivors are determined io enter Palestine. One of the British judges recognizes two eldeily defendants as his parents. The play concludes with the family's reconciliation and the judge's promise to serve the Jewish people. In this drama, the horrors of the Shoah were juxtaposed and even equated with the brutality of the British occupation of Palestine. Here. Jews were seen as paialyzed by their persecution at the time of the Shoah, but in its aftermath, they were filled by Zionist purpose. It was the sutvivors who awakened the judge, and the rest of the world, to the need for Jewish unity and for a homeland in Palestine. The DPs were thus called on to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and to devote themselves to the Zionist cause. The question of aesthetics Within the DP community, debates swirled around the appropriate way to stage wartime experiences. Some DPs agreed with the international aid workers that the best approach was to avoid the subject altogether. Others believed that more tunc needed to pass to allow proper perspective and the development ot new artistic tonus that could better convey the catastrophe. Most DPs accepted the need to portray the recent past but argued about how it should be artistically represented. Old debates about high (European) and low (slitnut) theater resurfaced. On one level the debates over artistic forms appeared to be a discussion about tin appropriateness of Holocaust themed plays. On another level, it was a continuation of prewar debates between high and lowbrow culture. Shnnd. popular theater, remained the bane of the cultural elite's existence with its melodramatic, scene-chewi and mixture of Yiddish dialects. Criticism that the DP theaters lacked repertc artistic sensibility reflected the continuing battle to raise the cultural level of the Jewish masses as well as the reality of the amateur nature of most DP theaters. "Yiddish theater had been plagued by the lack of a uniform language before the war, and tlic demographic jumble in the- DP camps only heightened this. Yiddish dialects lioni across eastern and southeastern Europe were spoken from the stage. Re-imagining the unimaginable 47 .•i-ii the Sho.ili 'ilslliojl.14 I l)s( - mam action, stage to show irected to the natorium in ,i the flames of other side of" playing Jews, there! Where ' and beat us /ho meet and ourt where a etermined io ndants as his Ige's promise e juxtaposed '. Here, Jews Ii, but in its 10 awakened a homeland >caust and to '■>y to stage crs that the more time rtistic forms portray the Jld debates i about the inuation of r, remained ewing stars ertoire and •vel of the •rs. Yiddish ar, and the ilects from In his blistering critique of the prologue to the Fohrenwald production of Illegal Aliyah, the famous actor and director Jonas Turkow objected to the presence of a crematorium on stage: a crematorium, how a Jewish child, torn from its mother, was thrown into the oven ... i could barely remain seated. How dare one offer such a profanity?! Our bloody wounds are still too fresh to allow them, in such a brutal form no less, to be exposed on the stage. Even veteran, talented artists must be careful when touching such painful problems that are so holy and dear to us. If one had simply alluded to the crematorium and not shown it in such a brutally realistic form, the effect would have been stronger. It is simply enough to talk about a crematorium to send a shudder through our limbs.ih That Turkow offered the alternative of alluding to the crematorium offstage suggests that he did not object to the subject matter but rather to the aesthetics of the staging, Attempts to realistically portray the tortures of the Holocaust could only fail, since the staging would be simultaneously too graphic and yet not realistic enough. This disdain for UP theater's excesses did not differ much from the prewar critiques offered by the "Europeanists" in the Yiddish theatrical world. "European" meant a modern, cosmopolitan style emphasizing ensemble work. In the American zone, the Jewish Professional Actors' Union and die Central Committee's officially sponsored MIT Theater both encouraged a more European approach to theater to differentiate themselves fiom the shnnd practiced by many of the amateurs. As cultural activity flourished among the Jewish survivors, professionalization of the theaters further emphasized the divide between popular and elite theater. The Emopean emphasis did not shield MIT from criticism, however. With American military government dignitaries in the audience, MIT premiered Moshe I'imschewski's hh leh (I am Living) in Munich on November 6, 1946. Set in a transit camp, the play depicted Jewish leaders as intellectuals who comply with the Gestapo, while a young man seeks to organize an underground movement. He is captured and killed. Elis devoted fiancee, Miriam, pretends to assist the Gestapo in order to save her imprisoned, scholarly father. Ultimately, Miriam kills the commandant and escapes to the partisans. Meanwhile, a German officer, despairing of the bad news from the front and hoping to win their gratitude, releases Miriam's father and a violinist. The two intellectuals then join the partisans, reuniting with Miriam.16 The emphasis in this play, as in Partisans, is on heroic action and self-sacrifice, not on passive victimhood. These plays enabled the audiences to feel that they too had participated in the victorious battle against the Nazis. The reenactment of the traumatic past with new coping strategies and new endings had therapeutic value for the survivois' recovery, aiding the integration of Holocaust experiences into the survivors' life stories.'7 Through the characters on stage, they, both men and women, became heroes lather than victims. Some DP theater critics viewed Pintschewski's emphasis on resistance as a lack of lespect for Kiddush ha-Shem - the term for traditional Jewry's willingness to accept 48 Margarete Myers Feinstein martyrdom. One critic accused the author of cheap effects and suggested that Pmtschewski, who had written the play in exile in Argentina and then the Soviet Union, did not have the experience necessary to write a successful play. Other critics emphasized that the play lacked perspective that the passage of time would allow.'s The MIT directors had anticipated the reactions of the critics. The program acknowledged that the play's content was tot) shocking for those who had not experienced German captivity and too tame for those who had. In the progiam the artistic director, Israel Segall, recognized that there were those who for artistic reasons opposed treatment of the recent past. In justifying his choice of material, Segall emphasized the didactic function of the theater. The troupe was portraying behaviors from the past that could inspire action in the present. The bright lights of resisters and partisans were to inspire the survivors to heroic action in the postwar era. The stage director, Israel Beker, argued that the survivors had a responsibility to tell about the "gruesome tragedy" and not permit it to be forgotten. In 1947 MIT reorganized to pursue a Jewish yet European artistic mission. In this cause it staged three major productions: first, Shlomo Molcho, about "a national [Jewish] question in search for its solution" in fourteenth century Portugal; second, Der Ojcer, a folk play that with "much music, color and movement made this an entertaining piece, in contrast to the first performance, that carried a serious, monu mental character;" and third, Die Haffrntng, a truly European play about a Dutch fishing village with no specifically Jewish character whatsoever. Satisfied witl: efforts MIT reported: The greatest accomplishments of this theater are: the maintenance of an in esting and valuable repertoire, the well-balanced ensemble work, a skilled endeavor that on the one hand works with the: actors, on the other hand makes the effort to bring the "inner substance" into harmony with modern staging and costumes.20 MIT's emphasis on European aesthetics did not mean that the artists would avoid subject of the Shoah. Principal individuals from MIT would apply this aesthetic to ,i 1948 feature film about the Holocaust.21 Reinterpreting the classics By 1946 improved material conditions enabled theaters to stage Yiddish classics the American zone, the Central Committee established a collection of scripts ih.it were made available to representatives of camp committees for copying. Betotc. troupes had had to rely on the memories of its members in order to reconstruct an old standard. Popular authors included Anski, Goldfaden, Peretz, and Sholom Aleich During the Shoah, amateur theaters in the ghettoes had performed parts of their works, mostly in revue form. The Nazis had discouraged serious theater in fav cabaret, perhaps to promote moral degeneracy among the Jews.22 In the DP canrpv full-scale productions were now possible, as was highbrow theater. These represi At ditto st re The widi..t] perfon pogror The eh the lie illegal i ilr.mi i, sense o time, i identity Sholc link Ins the Kar a Sailen diie'e tor product: On I Aleie hei tiii'l the Shapuo. the ells;., rescue h the perte I he r psy< hole IliSIIl co Anoihei Re-imagining the unimaginable 49 invested tli.it ten the Soviet . Other erit auld allow. The program who had not ' program t irtistie reasons aterial. Segal! 'ing behaviois >t lesisters at aa. The sta: tell about the ission. In tin-, "a national ugal; second, marie this an lions, inonii ■ out a Dutch tied with its of an intei rk, a skilled hand make dern stagini Id avoid tin esthetic to ; i classics. In scripts that ng. Before, (instruct an i Aleichem. its of their in lavor of 1 M' camps, hese plavs lepiesenied a connection of DPs with the theater of their parents, of their childhoods. At the same time, DPs used these classics to interpret their place in Jewish history and lo siieugthen their ethnic identity. Ihe staging of Yiddish classics encouraged the identification of recent sufferings with those of previous generations. For example, the Bambeig drama studio put on a peiloiinance of Sholem Asch's Kiddnsh Ihi-Shem, about seventeenth-century poyonis. A reviewer found the play quite appropriate for the DP stage: When we see the shadow of Asch's masterwork on the camp stage, we are as if elevated and it seems to us as il we are organically bound together with the martyrs of our people from Chmiclnicki's time. That is the long, holy, golden chain, in which we aie bound and put into the context of the geuetafions.M Ihe chain did not stop with the Shoah but continued to a iutuie in Palestine, when ilie next night the same tioupe performed a revue, 'I'el-Avie. In the skit "1 laganah" illegal inimigiants swam to shoie just as described in the newspapeis, and for added ili.nna, an old mother lccognized her son on shore.'4 Yiddish classics helped to make sense of the Holocaust by placing it within the cvcles of Jewish history. At the same time, DPs sought to bieak the cycle of martyidoin by piomotiiig Jewish ethnic identity and demands for a Jewish state. Sholem Aleichem remained a popular playwright, and DP theateis found ways to link Iris works to their own experiences. On the fust anniversaiy of the founding of the Katzet-Teatcr in Belsen. the troupe performed Ihe Jackpot, Aleichem's play about ,i tailor swindled out of his lottery winnings. Connecting the play to the lecent past, iliiector Sami Feder dedicated the performance to those he had directed in a PM<) production in Poland and who had not survived the war. On August 3, PMC) MIKT premieied The Moody Hoax, its version of Sholem Aleichem's novel by the same name. The story was a Yiddish version of The Prime the Ptmpce. a Russian nobleman tiades places with a Jewish classmate, David Sh.ipiio, and learns about the daily discrimination Jews faced in Czarist Russia. When the disguised nobleman is put on trial for blood libel charges, Shapiio returns to e him and to reclaim his Jewish identity. Emphasizing the nationalist implications, the performances concluded with the Zionist anthem, Hahkvah. I lie play won accolades in the DP press for the professional production and for the psxchologic.il depth of the treatment.3 One critic wiote that the play hail a powerful effect, the audience applauded appiovingly and spontaneously (like at a rally) in the middle of a scene and were transported, together with David Shapiro, in the moment when he emphasizes his national dignity and consciousness of belonging to a pel secured people.'*' Another reviewer used the opportunity to piofess Zionist goals: Never has our heart been so heavy, alone and mournful as now when we, the Saving Remnant, stand with eyes open and see the big world that should open SO Margarete Myers Feinstein the floors to the Land of Israel and let us in there so that we should he able lo live our lives culturally and nationally as do all peoples on this earth.27 Sholeni Aleichem's national consciousness made his texts relevant to Holocaust su vivors. When DP theaters performed classic Yiddish works, they emphasized the connections to the persecution the DPs had experienced ami to the importance < Jewish ethnic identity. Re-imagining trauma for psychological health Theater could alleviate the monotony ot life in the camps, transporting the audienct from (iennany to one or more of three places: the world ot their childhood, the Shoah itself, and their future in Palestine. Sender recalled watching her biother-in-law perforin m Levpheini, "The people around me cry and laugh. Shout their anger. Buist into song as they wander with him from yesterday to today, to fomonow."2h The pievvar past offered comforting nostalgia and a moment.uy connection with paients and community. The period of the Holocaust expressed the torment ot loss but also rewrote the immediate past into a story of partisan resistance to Nazi power, giving the former victims a sense of control over theii destiny. The imagined future enacted the Zionist dream of redemption in Palestine. At a time when UNRRA workers and other international observers discourage t survivois from discussing their recent past, these productions acknowledged the stir vivors' expel icnces in the concentration camps, ghettoes, and forests, validating theii preoccupation with then recent past. Through the plays, performers and audience-alike weie able to experiment with new roles and to relearn the rules of soda liuctaetion.2'' It is interesting to note that research on trauma survivors has demon stiatecl that imaginal exposure therapies can play an important role in recovery." Convening, intense emotions into narratives about a traumatic experience can result m improved health and a reduction in the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome." In fact, contraiy to the assumptions of postwar psychologists and educatens, reeuatt-nients and creative expressions of the trauma could facilitate the survivors' recovery by suggesting new endings and new toping strategies. Evidence indicates that some surviving Jews believed in the psychological benrirts of discussing the recent trauma. DP teachers debated the value of recording chilcheii's testimonies. Some asset ted the benefits of "opening a wound and extracting the pus."(~ The emotional release that came through retelling could facilitate healing. Theater troupes throughout the DP camps seemed to embrace a similar perspective-on the role of theater in lehabilitation, allowing survivors to revisit past trauma wink focusing attention on the "bright lights" of the recent past with an emphasis on resistance.2,3 Audience reactions to the graphic portrayal of Holocaust experiences within the relative safety of the DP community suggest that DP theater did function as a form ot therapy. Sender comments on the catharsis that survivors experienced when they stw their lives depicted on stage: Deniec the pel allowei rhenisc Within resistan had be their st empha> the I lo a legit n Mala she poi Jewish neither of the I hi 1 >ug come i; east w.n i oppomi sui\ ivor Coi-rlt Ear iior myth o unwillin only do. it also le the ham and Yos for theii histories, Idith : heroic re iewish v Palestine evidence Re-imagining the unimaginable SI uld be able to irtb.27 lolocaust sur-lphasized the mportanc.e of the audience nldhood, the 'other-iii-law their anger, onion iiw.''"' nection with riiient of loss Nazi power, igined future discoiuaged Iged the sur-lidating their id audiences les of social has denion- leeovery.3" :e can result syudiome.31 .)i's, reenact-)is' recovery .ical benefits ig children's trading the ate healing, perspective auina while mphasis on within the as a form of .*n they saw I watch Mala, dressed in black and sitting on the darkened stage amid rubble. 1 know it is my sister, but on that stage she is every one of us who returned to the ruins of our homes, found nibble or strangers where our families once lived. Her pain-filled voice is the voice of all who survived and found only ashes. ... She cries bitterly. We all cry with her. The score is too big.31 Denied the luxury of expressing, or even of feeling, emotion during the Shoah, me performances permitted survivors to weep and grieve. The emphasis on resistance allowed DPs, the majority of whom had not been resistance fighters, to imagine themselves taking action against their tormentors, alleviating the terror of helplessness. Within the DP community, concentration camp survivors came to see partisans and resistance fighteis as their alter egos who had expressed their will to resist when they had been unable to do so themselves.3'1 DPs were drawn to artistic expressions of their suffering that enabled them to confront and reinterpret their traumatic past. By emphasizing the importance of resistance fighters, DP theater participated in rewriting the Holocaust experience from one of victimization into one of heroic resistance and ;i legitimation of Zionist goals. Mala had survived the war in exile in the Soviet Union, yet through her performances she poitutyed the collective experience of loss. By 1948 a significant number of Jewish DPs were those who had spent the war yean in Soviet exile. They were neither concentration camp survivors nor partisans. They could honor the memory of the martyrs in the concentration camps anil extol the heroes of the resistance. Iliiough the theater they could imagine the fate of their loved ones who had come under German control, the fate they would have shared had they not fled e.istwatd. They could imagine that they would have been partisans had they had the opportunity. DP theater helped integrate these DPs into the memory community of survivors. ■ inclusion 1 ai horn lemaining silent, survivois tecounted and letold then exponentes. The invili of silence developed not fiom their unwillingness to speak hut tiom the unwillingness of otheis to hear."' This myth has had piofound consequences. Not onlv does it obscure the creative efforts of survivors to cope with their trauma, hut il also leads scholais to mislead the past, casting DPs as passive and malleable pawns m the hands of otheis. In lsiael, the "new histonans," such as Tom Segev, Ichth Zertal and Yosef Grodzinsky, have aigued that Zionists manipulated and exploited survivois feu then own political pin poses.,7 The voices of the survivois ate muted m these histories, and DPs remain without agency.3b Idiih Zeital, for example, has aigued that Isiaeli Zionists distinguished between the heioii resistance fighteis of the Waisaw Ghetto Upnsing and the ignoble masses of lewish viitims in oitlei to co-opt the lesistance fighteis as icpiesentatives of Zionist Palestine.39 She also aigues that the triumph of the Zionist hemic nanative m lsiael is evidence of the "coercive, engulfing ideologic pressure exerted over newcomers by 52 Margarete Myers Feinstein the prevailing Isiaeli ehscouisc of the fust years ot statehood.She assumes that since 15 Avi most ot the suivivors had not been active in the lesistance that they must have been Jl,d forced to accept a narrative that privileged the resistance over their own lived '"' expeitetues. In hut, the nanattves cieatedby the survivors themselves m DP theaters, | | -y^ that is, befoie their ,11 rival 111 Palestme/Isiacl, stiongly connected the resistance Miv fighters to the Zionist battle for Palestine. Rather than view the resistance as separate 'n Jon' horn themselves, the 1 )Ps re-imagined lliaihdi'Vs as fighters and paittsans. Before they had anived 111 Israel, many suivivors had identified themselves with the lesistance and i,-, with the Zionist cause. I 7 See. [he assumption that suivivors had remained silent about their wartime ttauma allowed scholars to read their own agendas into that void. Rtdiscovcrrng the suivivots " I-' isl.K words, therefore, is a crucial step in correcting the historical record. Important recent -■• < studies that focus on the internal workings of the DP community have begun recovering 30 Kur: the \urvi\ors' voices and have demonstiated that I )l's had veiy cleailv defined mteiests 'M ' ' ' ' 1 idi and argued vigorously on their own behalf. These works refute the suggestions of DP .... tOMi passivity and victimization. t ilnv A11 examination of DP theater cletnonstiatcs the important role leenaetment of the u-nv I (oloc.iust plaved in survivors' immediate postwar experiences. I'he plavs constituted '■ lvlm ii.ui.uivcs out of the tiaumatic past, helping suivivois to articulate then own expen ences while shaping collective memories. Within the relative safety of the DP camps. spun survivors re-lived their past trauma, not to wallow in it, but to gam some control " 22 Nalu over it and to imagine new endings, new coping mechanisms. The nanatives thc\ constructed led to Zionism, linking the waitnne resistance against the Nazis t< X\!-!< Ml 34 "Pel light Km a [evvtsh state rn Palestine. Bv looking at what the suivivois themselves saul, ■ t- Vl,.j( we can avoid the en01 of putting words into their mouths or of accusing others of 7(> "'1 )ei doing the same. ■ '''auk 28 Send, ■ '-') Sir mi Notes Siurii L'nivi 1 Greta lascher. "I).P. Children's Center, Kloster hrdersdorf'Kiers Dachau," pp. 37 \x. "~ ^, ty,.,,,, United States Holocaust Metnoiial Museum, Gieta I is< hei Papers, RC-19.034*01. nr-mi 2 Various I mochten. YIVC An hive, Mieiolilm, Roll 94, bolelet 1308. 3 Information about the Katzet-Teafer given in this chapter comes primarily from Sum Post-f edei, / ai:eulieuishu um 'Ia^-Bmli fun "Kazet tenia" in Beigeu-Biheu, esp. pp. 9 13. Y.ul ' ■ mu-ii Vashem Archives (YV) O-70/3). 4 ) Bekei, ".Mikt" un, Mil."" Ibae-ang 1,(8), p 3, YV M-l/P-85. 5 11. Perlmutter. Binc-Miiskes Bay Katsetlekh (Pel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1974). p. 26. r- -}j sjinl 6 Ruth Minsk) Sentlei, /<> Lije (NY. Matinillan Publishing, 1988), p 143. 7 "Piogiam von 'Bunten Abend,'" 28 October 1943, Y1VO, Mrtiofilm Roll 1, hoick 8 Jacob Biber, Risen from the Ashes (San Bernardino, CA: I'he Borgo Press, 1990), p. . | 9 Muuel Knox Dohetty. Ionei datetl 18 Septembei 19 15 in Letteis fiom Belsen /V(v ?' ' , |.il,(u An lusthilitiu iVtiiM'S I:\peneiues with the Suivwois <>/ l\at, edited bv Judith Cornel R 1 Miotic Russell (St. 1 eonaids, NSW Australia: Allen e\ Unwm, 2000), p. 121. 10 ludirh 1 vilor Baumel, "Rachel Laments Her Children: Representation ot Women 111 j,.;. . muccj Israeli Holocaust Memorials," in Double jeopardy: Heilder and the Holocaust (Loin!. Vallenline Mitchell, 1998). esp. pp. 214 and 224. 1 1 Sender. To Life. p. 148. 12 Peeler, luirzeichenishn zum Tag-Buch, p. 10, en Re~iniciyininy the unimaginable 53 lies that siiu e 1st have bee r own Jived 1)1' theatei he resistant :e as sepaiate . Before the esistanee and time ti.uun rhe survivoi ortant recent in recoverin ined inteiesi ■stions of f)B tment of th ; constructed own experi .' 1 )P camps ,)ine contro natives the' Nazis to tin nselves said na others o Sift ' pp. 37-38 034*01. y from Sami p. 9-12, Yad 26. 2. l-'older 10. »90), p, 27. Iklsen 1945: Cornell and >. 121. Women in Lit thr Weg (It'll}! IS th1' Road) Isiael Beker played David, the assimilated son of u.idiiional parents. Dining the war and joins the partisans, while Ins parents continue to a concentration camp wheie the father is inuideied. Rather than a lealistic scene of hru t.ility, we surmise the father's fate, as ever thickening smoke slowlv obscures his Ilea- enwaid-turued face. After the war David marries a Ccnnan -Jew ish survivor and icunites with his mother in Germany. At the conclusion, the fonrier partisan labors on a DP agricultural turning farm, pieparing for a life in Palestine. The film answered Isiael xgall's call for a work that would reflect the leceut past and also the present while inning survivois to take control of their fate. "slalima Saudi ow. Vagabond Stais: A Woild Histoty oj Yiddish 'theater (Sviacuse, NY: Syracuse Unrversity Press, 1977), pp. 343-44. "Kidusz Haszeni' Ojsgefntfiin Bamberger diamatiszer studje," Baiiiidbar, A (line PM6, p. 7. Tel-Awiw," Baiiiidbar, 4 June 1946, p. 7. Various newspaper leviews, August/September 1946, YV M-4/P 85. 'Der blutiker szpas' tun Sholern Aleychem," ( hizci Welt, 23 August 1946, YV M-l/P 85. liank, "Der hlutiker szpas," lhi:ei ll'eg, 16 August 19)6, Sender, To Life, p. 143. "•lunrai Davidson, "Lncounter," in Holding on to Humanity — 'the Message of Holoiaust ^tnvivots: The Sliamai Daeidsou I'apeis, ed. Israel W. Charily (New York: New York University Press, 1992), p. 213. ■Jeuioscientist Daniel Schacter tepotts, "Repeated icespeiienctng of a tiatimatu leniory in a safe setting can dampen the initial psychological response to tiauina " Most ffective for the reduction of intrusive memories, flashbacks, and related symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are "imaginal exposure therapies" that repeatedly expose patients to stimuli associated with the tiauina, pioinpting them to recall and icoxpenence ivid images of the experience. Daniel L. Schacter, 7*/ic Seven Sins ol Memoiy: How le Mind Loigets and liciiicmbeis (Boston: Houghton MitHin, 2001), p. 177. "-charter. The Seven Sins of Memory, p. 171. Quoted in Boaz Cohen, "The Children's Voice: Postwar Collection of Testimonies lioni Child Survivors of the Holocaust," Holoiaust and Cuioade Studies 21 (Spring 2007). p. 86. In 1947 sutvivots in I odz, Poland filmed (]utl:eie Kinder in which two actots ask Jewish [liklien in an orphanage to dramatize their wartime experiences. 1 he ditettoi ol the rphanage encourages the actots: "If we don't deal with these memories during the dav, icy will suffer them at night as terrible nightmares. The only wav |to dtspel the night i.nes]. tor childien as well as adults, is lo express their experiences tte.ittvely." An ,nlor 'plies, "That's something we understand. What is the purpose of theatre, if not to rovide a release for tragedy in a creative manner?" Recognizing that tecteating the speneiues of the Holocaust would not be useful without the intioduction of new 54 Margarete Myers Feinstein coping mechanisms, the assistant director of the orphanage points out, "1 believe that the gleitest healing for out einleben is to help them undeistanel bene Jews finally lesisteel and fought!" Mv thanks go to Boa/ Cohen for suggesting that 1 look at this film, 34 Sender, lo Life, pp. 143-44. 35 Zeev W. Mankowitz reaches a similar conclusion in Life between Memory and Hope: The Suivwois of the Hohkaust in Occupied Cennany (Cambridge: Cambrulge University Pi ess, 2002), pp. 211-12. 36 A foiiiKT 1)1' le.ieler teporteel fioin New York that the American Jewish community elul not want to kneiw about the Dl's' stiffeimgs and that the 1)1' film lang ist del ]\'eg had plaveel to empty theateis. Abiah.mi [. I'eck, '"Our Eves Have Seen Eternity'": Meim>ry and Self-Identity Among the She'eritb Hapletah," Modern Judaism 17 (1997): 70. For more on survivors' decisions te> fall silent when they felt Americans were unwilling or unable to listen to them, see [Seth U. Cohen, Case Closed: Holocaust Smvivois m Postwar •\ineiua (New Brunswick. NJ: Kutgeis University Pi ess, 2007), esp. Chapter 8. 37 'loin Segev, The Seventh Million: The Isiaelis and the Holocaust (New Yoik: 1993); Idith Zett.il, hmel's Holocaust and the Pohlas of Nationhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University 1'iess. 2005) and liom Cataaiophe to Potver Holocaust Smvivois and the P.iiieigetue of hmel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Yosef Groelzmsky, In the Shadow oj the Holocaust (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2004). 38 On (he "new histeuy" and its approach to the Dl's, see Yeehiam Weitz, "Dialectical versus Unequivocal: Israeli Historiography's Treatment elf the Yishuv ami Zionist Movement Attitude's toward the Holocaust," m Making Isiael, edited by Benny Morns (Ann Arboi: Umveisity of Michigan Press, 2007). pp. 278-98. esp. pp. 286-87 and 293 Deiek J. I'enslar, Israel in Histoiy: 'lite Jewish State in Compaiahve Perspective (I oneloii Remtlcdge, 2007), pp. 37-38. 39 Zertal. Israel's Holocaust, pp. 25-44, esp, p. 40. 40 Zertal, Israel's Holocaust, p. 4()f. 41 Margatcte Myers Fe mstein. Holocaust Survivors in Poslwar Cennany, lt>45-t'Kc>7 (Camhndge C.mihiidge Umveisity Press, 2010); Hagit I.avsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Snivivors it Hägen-Belsen and the Bntish Zone in Cennany, 1945-1950 (Detroit: Wayne State Universiti 1'tess, 2002); Mankowitz. Life Between Meinoiy and Hope; Avinoam |. Patt, Viiuling Horn and Homeland: Jewish \onth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009). believe ili.u the lally resisted ami film. V ami Hope: 'the Jniveisin 1'rev.. coinimtniu did ist tier M iv h.ul aity'": Mcinoiv :i'W7): 7(1. Ix.r re unwilling or "irois in I'esiu-a, Her K. k: 1:■,. ■dire (Londo 7 (C 'ambridg list Siui'ii'ois late Universii Rutting Home etroif: Wayne NO SILENCE IN YIDDISH !;(;<:, ;ar and scholarly writing about the I !o:::: aust in the early postwar years Mark l.. Smith I he claim that Holocaust survivors were largely silent during the early postwar years neglects the internal culture of the Yiddish-speaking survivor's. Debates regarding the emeigence of Holocaust awareness in the early postwar period have focused primarily on the broad public sphere of American Jewry, not on the survivors' own cultural context. To the extent that such debates have considered the role of survivors, it has been to assess or explain their relative absence from that sphere. for the worldwide community of Yiddish-speaking survivors, there was no "silence" and no "myth of silence." As will be seen, Yiddish-speaking survivors exhibited a striving for self-expression that was realized within their own public spbcie. Their internal dialogue, conducted almost entirely in Yiddish, has been pre--eivcd for examination today in the books and articles they published throughout postwar dispeision. Evidence of their vigorous "non-silence" is now also provided by lecent research in related fields, such as studies of publishing in the Unplaced Persons camps,1 the literature of postwar Poland,2 and the writings of specific populations such as child survivors.'5 1 propose, however, to explore the internal dialogue of the survivors through the perceptions of their own hrstoiians. These historians, whom 1 destnbe as the "Yul dish Historians of the Holocaust," weie perhaps the most piohlit of all sumvois bach of the five historians to be considered heie produced an avenge of one hundred Yiddish works on Holocaust themes, langrng iioin monographs to single-page essays, mail v reprinted across decades and continents. I hen woiks appealed m the leading Yiddish publications of Poland, Isiael, Fiance, Argentina, and the United States, and, on occasion, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa.4 Continuing a prewar tiadition of Yiddish stholaiship that legaided the educated h\ public as both infoimants and utipients of bistoncal wilting, the postwai Yiddish historians created a form of "lay-pioiessional partneiship" \\ ith then fellow sumvois '1 hey assumed the interrelated functions of doc umentrng the populai uige tor self expression, 56 Mark L. Smith giving exposure to the testaments of those who had perished, supporting commemorative efforts by survivors, incorporating the voices of both survivors and victims into their works, and making available the results of their research to tl Yiddish-reading public.5 Each of these historians worked within multiple contexts and may be viewed from more than one perspective. Neglected among these perspectives is that of the Yiddish-speaking world, with which they identified most directly. These historiat published in many languages and have been viewed by recent scholars as participan in, variously, the continuum of Polish-Jewish historiography,'1 the phenomenon of early postwar Holocaust documentation centers,7 and the internal conflicts at Yad Vashem.8 These historians' Yiddish works are simultaneously participants in, and reflectiot upon, the internal conversation of Yiddish-speaking survivors. Both have been neglected in studies of Holocaust representation. Today, the works of the Yiddish historians seive as a point of entry into the decidedly verbal, which is to s.i "non-silent," world of the survivors, and it is my purpose hen- that the former shoul1 illuminate the latter. No silence in Yiddish Among the first to recognize die survivors' urge for self-expression was Philip Friedman, the acknowledged leader of the Yiddish historians of the Holocaust. Ha Emanuel Ringelblum survived, this role would surely have been his, but who Friedman emerged from hiding in his hometown of Lvov in 1944, he was the senk survivor among the prewar Polish-Jewish historians remaining in Europe. In Augn of that year he formed the Jewish Historical Commission in Lublin, the tempoiai capital of postwar Poland. In December, he was invited to direct the Central Jew idi Historical Commission (CJHC), where he served until his departure from Poland i June 1946 in response, to increasing anti-Semitism and Soviet domination. Followin positions in education and research in Munich and Paris, he lived the remainder e his life from 1948 to 1960 in New York, where he lectured in Jewish Histoiv ,tr Columbia University and was regarded as one of the pioneers of Holocaust researcl Roads to Extinction, the well-known posthumous collection of Friedman's Holocaust essays, is diminished by the omission of his seminal Yiddish essays of 1948-50 on th writing of Holocaust historiography. These present, not only the early maturity ot hi* thinking but also the immediacy of his responses to contemporary events. As e.ulv j> 1948, in "From Anti-Historicism to Super-Hisroricism," Friedman describes, "elemental spiritual force," the "mighty folk movement by which the folk-insiinct seeks to eternalize the most severe catastrophe to befall us in 2,000 years."'' He to the "flood" of publications by ordinary people "who never in their lives die.um-J of becoming writers." And the writers whom he counts as "hundreds" in this I'.MX essay become "thousands" in his expanded version of 1950. There, Friedman the creation of more than 10,000 books and articles on "our recent catasttoplu'. which he declares "is already a whole literature."10 No silence in Yiddish 57 sd, supporting !i surviviMs ,un| reseaich io the >e viewvd fiom is that ol" ilu-hese liiston.uis as panic ip.nus lenomenon ol inflicts ai Yad md leflec lions :h have heen >f' the Yiddisli ach is io s.h /onner should ii was Philip 4oeaust. Had s, but wht •'as the senioi >c. In Augusl ie tempoiaiv entral Jewish m Poland i ii. Followin "emainder oi h History a ust reseaich 's Holocaus on the iturity of hi: ■ As early a1 "ribes, as ar folk-instinct ' He refers 'cs dreamed n this 1948 nan reports itastrophe," ii is also in Friedman's early Yiddish works that the uigency of f lolocaust iepiesent.it.ioii, both among historians and the public, is expiessed through turns to biblical allusion that are raie in the writings of secular Yiddish scholais. In one of his tiwl public statements as director of the C|FIC in 1945, he declares that the obligation ol the commission is to tealize in the present day the ongoing Jewish commandment, "Ami scut shall tell your son. ... "" In the 1950 essay cited above, he extends to the mivivois the metaphor of a divine impeiative to speak, saying, "All base become piopheK all have encounteied Clod's burning fire and have hi ought speech to their unite lips."1" I hico other Yiddish historians weie Friedman's principal associates at the CJHC: Yosef Kennish, Nachman lUumental, and Isaiah Trunk.13 Kermish seived as rounding iliiccior of the CJHC aichives; Bltimental succeeded Friedman as director of the (tc'ii.iiiied) Jewish Historical Institute; and Tiunk concentrated on original research. In I9:i.\ Kennish and Blumental weie among the initial scholars at Yad Vashem, where Keunisli founded and diiected the archives, and Blumental was a research associate. "I imik settled in New York and became diiector of the aichives at the Yiddisli Scientific Institute (YIVO), succeeding Friedman in I960 as chair of the Y1VO I listorians' Circle.14 bach of these historians echoes the uigenoy indicated by Friedman. Kennish argues "the gieat cataclysm penetiated deeply into the mood and feeling ol our people," and it "impels us to reeoid, to describe, to icvivify that which so tt.igic.illy disappeared."15 Blumental speaks of returning from his wartime refuge in Russia to Ins town of Boiszczow in Eastern Galicia to find that fewer than 100 of the town's 2.(100 Jews had survived. "Day and night we sat together, listening to tales of the last lliic'c yeais. Eveiyone had an endless story to tell about his peisonal experiences, and no one ever tiled of hearing it." He continues, ''we passed fiom house to house, ring into the fate of former residents,"''' which led to surveys of sunounding towns, and the leader may observe that here commenced Blumental's Holocaust lescarch. Trunk, who avoided self-reference in his writing, places in a footnote to his 1948 study of Jewish labor camps the news that he has ahead)' completed a manuscript on "the history of the destruction of the Jewish community of Kutno," his hometown.1' I he fifth of the Yiddish historians, Mark Dwoizecki, was unique among survivois inverting the mission of postwar writing into a second caieer as a Holocaust historian. He had served as a medical doctor in Vilna before the war, then survived the Vilna Ghetto and seven concentration camps. Within a month of his escape from the Nazis in the spring of 1945, he arrived in Paris and began to publish. In June, he wrote an article entitled, "Remain Silent - or Tell the Whole Truth?" in which he concludes that ever)' detail of the Jewish experience under the Nazis, both uplifting and degiading, must be told.18 By September, he resolves to dedicate bis "second life, the one aftet the camps, the one that is a gift of fate" to lecounting that whole truth.1'' He settled in Israel in 1949, where he lobbied foi Holocaust instruction at Israeli universities, and in 1959, was installed in the world's fust chair of Holocaust studies at Bar-Ilan University. 58 Mark L. Smith Quantitative evidence for the "non-silence" of the Yiddish-speaking survivors and piotc-a- also for the predominance of Yiddish as the survivors' language of internal discourse is epoch found in Friedman's contemporaneous accounts. In rmd-1948, Friedman reviewed - • writers the publishing activities of the DP camps in the American Zone of Germany, where the coi he served as Educational Director for the Joint Distribution Committee, and indicated ihe Ion that Hebrew was the language of instruction for youth in preparation for life in the v. oiks : Land of Israel but that Yiddish was the language of the adult survivors. Specifically, The 68 out of 83 textbooks appeared in Hebrew, while 68 out of 84 newspapers appeared " " rcnewe in Yiddish.20 A decade later, he recounted that the joint Yad Vashem-YIVO. Ins o\\ i Bibliographical Series, which he directed from its formation in 1954 (and to which all (Ihetto of the Yiddish historians contributed), had identified 310 periodicals worldwide as piep.ue richest in Holocaust materials as of January 1955, and that 170 of these were in - cut ion Yiddish and 35 in Hebrew.21 Iviore 1 A specific example of the growth and reception of Holocaust writing in Yiddish is had, be. the Poylishe yidntum series of books published by the Central Union of Polish Jews in Slaugiu Argentina. The series published 175 titles on predominantly Holocaust themes Shmuel between 1946 and 1966,22 including one from each of the Yiddish historians except . from ar Dworzecki. Fhe public celebration of the twenty-fifth volume in Buenos Aires in the sup 1947 was greeted in the official Yiddish press in Poland with the statement that the work.'-' series "has called forth great recognition and very warm appraisals from the whole leader ( world of Yiddish culture."2'5 In its first four years, 100,000 copies of volumes 1—65 mobili/i were reported to have been sold.24 With the publication of volume 75 one year later..... cide in I the publisher reported 200,000 copies in circulation, and a press run of 2,00(1 to admiiari 5,000 per title. He also singled out Mordecai Strigler, Chaim Grade, and Philip Blum Friedman as examples of authors without whose works the publishing house would his post-have no justifiable existence.25 the earn fere nee The continuity of Jewish self-expression 'i'Yi''^ The desire for self-expression among those who experienced the Holocaust did noi as "to <•. begin with the survivors but. with those who lived in the ghettos and camps under .. ■ diseussei Nazi occupation. Friedman notes that for some, "the urge to record for eteniil ~ "return memory was literally as strong as the instinct to save one's life,"26 to which Kernn-.ii singers a added that postwar writing "is no doubt a continuation of that urge to record."' in the The continuity of Jewish expression was at times evoked through the metaphor of the by lews "golden chain" traditionally applied to Yiddish literature. Blumental notes that - messages the "golden chain of Jewish literary creativity was not interrupted in the Lodz • homes.Ml Ghetto, even in the worst living conditions,"28 and Friedman asserts that "to extend recount-, further the golden chain, to extend the chain between our past and our new futuie." o! mimic was one of the great historic tasks of the CJIIC.29 1 ie dc-.ii. Before the extent of literary creativity in the Warsaw Ghetto was revealed through <_ Beihn A recovery of the first portion of the Ringelblum Archive in September 1946, tit-.- . piovidcs CJHC had already retrieved a large number of written materials from the ruins of the risked tin Lodz Ghetto. Bluniental had personally discovered a Yiddish verse cycle of ironic ionics m No silence in Yiddish 59 <; survivois .iiid nal disi ouisc K man reviewed •rmany, where , and indicated lor life in the s. Specifically, ipers appealed 'ashem-YIVO d to which all worldwide as hese were m ; in Yiddish is Jolish Jews in canst themes orians except ;'nos Aires . neut that the n the whole oltimes 1—63 ne year later, of 2,000 to , and Philip louse would aust did not amps under for eternal ich Kermish j record."2' tphor of the notes that i the Lodz "to extend ew future," ed thiough 1946, the ruins of the e ot' ironic niotest in ihe debris of the Chelmno extermination camp.30 He declared that "in no epoch ditl there arise such a great number of works, and such a great number of wiiteis!"'' On behalf of the CJHC, Friedman announced in the spring of 1946 that the commission had assembled "hundreds of songs of the ghettos, of partisan life, of the foiesis. of the camps" and "folk-sayings, folk-stories, fables," as well as sculptural works in all media.32 Ihe attempt by captive Jews to lecord and communicate their struggle was given iciicwcd expression by the Yiddish historians, each of whom responded according to his own experiences and interests. Dworzecki, who had been acquainted in the Vilna Ghetto with Hirsh Glik, the author of the Partisan Hymn (Partizaner lid), thereafter piepaied a nionogiaph on Glik's life and work.33 The essay by Dworzecki in appre-(liition of Yitskhok Katzenelson was inspired by his stay, on his last night in France befoic leaving for Israel, at the same Hotel Providence in Vittel in which Katzenelson had heen interned by the Nazis and had written his well-known "Song of the Slatighteicd Jewish People."34 The recollection by Trunk of the prominent folklorist Shiiiuel Lehman, and of his efforts in the Warsaw Ghetto to collect songs and stories from arriving refugees, was founded on his prewar acquaintance with Lehman and the support that he and other leading Yiddish intellectuals had given to Lehman's vvoik.In a similarly personal manner, Trunk's eulogy of Shmuel Zygelboym, the leader of the Polish Bund (General Jewish Workers' Union), whose inability to mobilize Allied opposition to the Nazi murder of Polish Jews led to his protest suicide in I ondon in 1943, derived fiom Trunk's lifelong allegiance to the Bund and his .idmiiaiion for Zygelboym.30 Bhiinental, who had specialized in Jewish literary history before the war, devoted his postwar Yiddish work primarily to literary expression during the Holocaust. At the early date of 19-20 September 1945, the CJHC held its second academic con-Icicncc in Lodz,37 and Blumental presented his "Introduction to the History of liieiaiv Creativity in Yiddish at the Time of the German Occupation."38 He reported that th<' desite to "eternalize the most frightful act of violence in the world," as well as "to capture the everyday," had inspired Jews of every class and occupation. He disi ussed the literary salons and theaters of the Warsaw Ghetto and, by contrast, the "leiuin to the Middle Ages" seen in reversion to spoken literature among street singeis and news criers.39 In their respective works, Blumental and Dworzecki both remarked on the striving hv lews under Nazi occupation for internal communication. Blumental reported on messages of farewell and revenge in the margins of books and on the walls of homes.40 In "Ghettos and Concentration Camps Seek Contacts," Dworzecki ants the sending of "news" between concentration camps in the form of names ot murdered Jews written on the walls of trains and on shipments of raw lumber. He describes the ghettos as "Jewish islands in a Nazi Ocean" (at the very time of the Berlin Airlift in early 1949, when Berliners saw themselves as "islanders"), and he piovides one of the earliest appreciations of the emissaries, mostly women, who risked their lives to smuggle messages and calls to revolt along a network of secret mutes in Poland.41 60 Mark L. Smith I he Yiddish historians" recognition of the many forms of "non-silence" among the victims soon led to then shaied impeiativc to publish wartime in.iteii.ils. At first, liiedm.m proposed a measured pace for the publishing activity of the CJHC, outlining a two-war plan for collecting and publishing at the September 1945 confluence. However, the consensus of those assembled was that "it is already high time to display the fruits of om droits so far" and to publish as quickly as possible. 1'iicdman later ascnbed this difference to conflicting academic-versus propagandistic uews between the central and regional histoiical commissions,,( but m his final repoit on the work of the CJHC lie concludes, "Seeking our and impairing to om people these cieative works is one of the most important tasks" of the CJHC.'" Under his successor, Blumental, the Jl II emphasized that its obligation was not only to pieseive materials for use by researchers but also to "make them available foi the widest mass readership."15 Of fust mipoit.mce was the Oyiieo Slntbe.s archive, which Rmgelblum had intended to publish as soon as possible aftei the war, and within it, Rmgclblum's own Note*. Yet the publishing of waitime Yiddish documents in Poland was delayed, in the- ear years, by a shoitage of funds and Yiddish type, and under the Soviet domination th became complete in mid- 1919 by the emigration of leading historians and ideological constraints on those who remained. The portions of Rmgelbhmi's Notes that d appear m Waisaw in 195? were criticized by Kermisb and Blumental as tendentioi selections, edited to advance the communist agenda."' As late as 1965, Trttr lamented that "20 yens after the death of our histonan-maityi, the materials fiom tl Rmgelblum Archive he m the cupboards of the Jewish Historical Institute in Wais.n and no redeemer for them has yet been found." 17 I he Yiddish historian most dedicated to "redeeming" the materials of Jewi; self expression was Kermish, who specialized in Jewish documentary Instoiy hefoi and aftei the war. Many of Ins larger woiks are critical editions in Hebrew or Pngli* of mateiials fiom the Rmgelblum Aichive, and his essays are often discussions i Yiddish of those materials. As director of the Yad Vashein archives, Kermisb declait m 1954 on the fiout page of the (Hebrew) News of \',ul Wislwm that it was tl institution's "obligation to publish source-mateilals from the ghetto archives," position that figured in the internal conflict of 1958-60 between the East Fuiopcan immigrants and established Israelis. His ultimate success may be credited to Ins 1 evily and peiseveiance (the latter reflected in the decades-long plot lines of Ins ,oi lcspoudente with Prunk in New York).* An early project that follows the ty liaicitoiy of his woiks is "['he 4 estament of the Waisaw Ghetto," in whio analvzes the answeis of leading intellectuals to an Oyuco Shnbcs questionnaire on III. aftei two and-a-half ye.us m the Warsaw Ghetto. His original Yiddish essay ot Fill was excetpted m English m 1951 and 1957 and serialized m llebiew m 1956 ->"." but the documents themselves did not appear until 1986 with then inclusion English-language anthology of the Warsaw Ghetto, /'<> Live with. Honor, 7i> Die II iw Honor! All of the Yiddish historians participated in advocating or assisting the publication of wartime Jewish writings, and their imperative to publish was based on No silence in Yiddish 61 ce among erials. At f >f the CJFIC, ptember ll)j--, is already high i' as possible propagandist ii-it in his final 'airing to Dm the CfHC." was not onlv rilablc for the had intended 's own Not, 1, in the eailv ■miration that id ideological htes that did > tendentious %5, Trim ials from the t in Warsaw, Is of Jewish story befoic v or fmglisi iscussions ij ish detl.ued it was tin ircluves," a >t European .o his long-of his cor-the typical which he aire on life ;ay of 1951 l<>56--57,t" ision in his '<» Die With wblication d on two perceived obligations. The first, as seen, was to the demand inherent: in the victims' writings tor public exposure. The second was the obligation to the survivors that they be included in the process of historical assessment. The lay-professional partnership As early as 1935, the founding father of Eastern European Jewish historiography, Simon Dubnov, had recognized a distinction in the choice of audience between the scholarly publications of YIVO and the Hebrew University, both founded in 1925. At the conference in Vilna celebrating the tenth anniversary of YIVO, he praised the YIVO scholais for including an educated lay audience among their intended readers, while also praising the University scholars for their more academically oriented work.'"'" At the same conference, Friedman spoke of the need to "popularize Jewish history" through publishing "historical books for the people.'"'1 Friedman's last prewar publication was a review of the collected works of Saul Cinsburg (arguably the first Yiddish historian), in which he notes with approval that "most of the articles combine reseatch based on primary sources with a popular form and a remarkable literary style."'"2 After the war, he praises Leo Sehwarz, in whose "cabinet" he had served in Munich, for presenting his account of the DP camps, The Redeemers (1953), as a "people's book capable of penetrating the masses."53 By their choice of publishing venue, all of the Yiddish historians demonstrated their concurrence with Friedman's emphasis on popular scholarship. Each published one or more books in Yiddish for an educated lay audience. They contributed hundreds of articles to the leading Zionist, socialist, Bundist, communist, literary, and general Yiddish journals in the United States and Israel from 1945 to 1988 (usually, but not always, in accoidance with their political allegiances).34 The Yiddish academic journals in which they appeared, the Bleter far geshikhte of the JH1 in Warsaw and the 171'O Meter in New York, also had a largely non-academic circulation.55 The Yiddish historians' relationship with their survivor public may be described as a "lay-professional partnership" that developed from their recognition of the survivors' and victims' striving to communicate. They encouraged, promoted, and then diew upon, the smvivors' works of self-expression. The historians addressed these works at three levels of survivor authorship — the lay historian, the personal author, and the memorial society. At each level, they found the opportunity to discuss their own particular areas of interest in Holocaust history. The "lay historians" were the small number of authors who drew on materials from multiple sources to write general accounts of Jewish life under the Nazis in a ven town or ghetto, not limited to peisonal experience, Support was expressed by Friedman for tlnee such works in 1948 in the form of laudatory forewords to books : Joseph Gar and Benjamin Oienstein on Kovne and Czenstochow, respectively, and in his review of Dwoizecki's book on the Vilna Ghetto. Friedman, whose chief nitetest in Holocaust studies was historiography itself, discussed each author's stance and method, and praised Dworzecki's as the outstanding work on Vilna and of its enre (the Hebrew translation of 1950 earned Dworzecki the first Israel Prize m 62 Mark L. Smith social science).3(1 When Dworzeckr later transitioned from "lay historian" to aca Nor demic, he in turn encouraged such works by others. An example is his foreword to intemk Toni Soloinon-Ma'aravi's 1968 history of the Holocaust in Romania, in which historii Dworzecki's interest: in passive resistance engendered praise for her depictions ot CJ! K '. solidarity and mutual aid.'''7 memot Works by survivors at the petsonal level of authoiship - memoiis, poetry, iiitioii, are ni\ and drama.....also carried contributions bv Yiildish histonans. Blumental and Kernnsh such m each provided approving foiewoids to M. Balbcrvszskr's atiount of thi Vilna Ghetto, views c in which Blumental describes the author's personality, and Kennish focuses on die —- - solicitiu value of quotations from ghetto documents that, were later destroyed.58 Most prohlu The was Blumental, who contributed not fewer than ten forewords to works by l.i\ account authors, commencing with the first Yiddish book printed in postwar Poland, t 1945,39 and continuing until at least 1982. In each foreword, he gives further devcl- dictions oprnent to rhe author's treatment of a topic that coincides with his own particular Shloino interests, such as the dilemma of choosing whether to flee or stay during the German 7 ' fheless, invasion; the differing experiences of West and East European Jews in occupied there at Poland; the dangers of life on the "Aryan side"; and the inner life and language of t :h ira Warsaw Ghetto. menial"-' The largest, and perhaps least known, contribution by the Yiddish historians to the of Jcwis public sphere of the Yiddish-speaking survivors was their work on behalf of i lie that onl yi:kot books, the memorial volumes published by representatives of destroyed com- by Priet munitres. 1 heir contribution included both recognition and p.uticipation. Each ofih' ring Yiddish htstotians published discussions of the yrifan-book phenomenon, which wis Jewish e described by Keinnsh as a "tar-reaching folk movement,"''0 by Friedman as a "new I he i distinct genie,""' and by Blumental as a "new literary foim "'' Blumental suggests histonar that "if each survivor - except the small number who 'want to forget' — had had the j_ nun w.r means to do so, he would have published a book" of his own experiences, hut ' in 1945. lacking the means "he joins as a 'partner' in a yizkor book." By the end of the 195' l of t Friedman counts 270 such books, with 160 in Yiddish,6'' and Blumental finds 200 m com mm. Yiddish and 90 in Hebrew,64 declaring that he has read them all.6-' .incil: In their reviews of yizkor books, the Yiddish historians regard most highly the I odz fro books with greater concern for historical development, but their own participation in - accounts yizkor books has received little attention. Kugelmass and Boyarin, for example, note National only that some books "contain substantial essays by Jewish academic historians.""" vano is true that a great number of yizkor books have been thought by historians, includ the Yiddish historians, to provide no more than raw materials for future research niosi but this is due only to the shortage of surviving historians. As Friedman notes, m last maji assessing the tasks of survivor-historians (paraphrasing R. Tarfon), "The day is short, ~~" Ph.D. if, the work is great, and the workers ... few."67 Nevertheless, each of the Yiddi Jmev historians did, in fact, contribute articles to yizkor books, including a Holocaust 1 tory of his own ancestral town or region. There are at least 35 books to which tl contributed, several with pieces by more than one Yiddish historian."8 The respi mag accorded the historians' contributions is evident from their frequent placement at the ■ of the w start of a book or division. -. works.'8 No silence in Yiddish 63 tonaii to at a lis forewonl to mia, in which " depictions of poetry, fiction, il and Keriuish Vilna Ghetto, focuses on the s Most piolific works by ia\ '•ir Poland, in further devel->wn particular g the German • in occupied nguage of the torians to the behalf of the alloyed com-i. Each of the i, which was m as a "new 'utal suggests had had the -•riences, but >f the I95iis, finds 200 in t highly the tieipation in ample, note 'orians. is, includiui leseaicheis in notes, in lay is short he Yiddish locaust his -which they file respect nent at the It Not only did the Yiddish historians include their fellow survivors among their intended audience, they also actively sought the participation of survivors in their historical research. When Friedman returned to Lodz in 1945 as director of the QPIC. he posted the notice: "Dr. Philip Friedman has returned. Persons who possess nicinoiis; documents, photographs, or other materials about the Jewish destruction, are invited to come/' followed by his address and hours/'y In addition to receiving; such materials, he and his colleagues at the CJHC also conducted thousands of interviews of survivors. Their research methods continued the prewar YIVO tradition of soliciting documents, memoirs, and answers to questionnaires from the Jewish public. I he Yiddish historians were aware of the difficulties of relying on survivor accounts, however, and they often acknowledged the issues of inaccuracy or exaggeration. Friedman specified that it was the historian's obligation to analyze contradictions in eyewitness accounts and, in one instance, praised the literary historian Shlonio Bikl for doing so as editor of the Kolomey yizkor book of 19 57.70 Nevertheless, as early as 1948, Friedman declares, "Apart from official sources (archives) there are — and these are the very most important — living sources, quivering reality with traces of the 'historical process' on their bodies and in their hearts."71 In Bin-mental's foreword to the Sarny yizkor book, he notes that, because of the destruction of Jewish documents, the book brings forth "a great quantity of facts and information that only those who were there know and remember."72 A negative example is given h\ fuedman in the Vitebsk yizkor book, in which he discusses the rare problem of writing the Holocaust history of a city for which there was not a single surviving Jewish eyewitness (and only one non-Jewish witness).'-1 The reciprocal aspect of the "lay-professional partnership" is the use by Yiddish historians of survivoi accounts in their own woiks As dnectoi of the ( JHG. I ued man was a inembei of the official Polish investigating commission to \ isit Auschwitz m 1945. One of the earliest uses of eyewitness tcstimom was I liedman's lntoipoia lion of testimony gatheted duung this visit into his monogiaphs on Auschwitz li) contrast, an eailv use of published accounts is Hunk's 19 p) essa\ on the Jewish Councils, in which he cites information on C zeustoc how hoiu Oienstem and on Lodz fiom Isiael fabaksbl.it '5 The mi leasing availability and usefulness of published .mounts is seen m Trunk's research notes for Ins 1972 hideurat (which received the National Book Award). The notes indicate his methodical compilation of materials cm various Jewish Councils fiom a nuuibei of memoiis and yizkoi books '' Dworzecki's fust niajoi woik, his 1948 Vs naye lebti, 14 December 1947. p. 4. 24 American Jorish Yeaibook 1951, p. 721. 25 A. Mitelbeig, "Bikher-monnnient," Oyfti slivch January 1952, p. 15. 26 I uedinan, "Unzer khurbn-literatur," p. 87. 2/ Kennish, 'Pa'aruhat, p. 5. 2;< liluinental, foieword to Sh. Shayevitsh, Leklhlekha, Lodz: CJHC, 1946, p. 12. Iniiliiian, "Unzer histotishe oyfgabe," p. 6. 3c liluinental, "Vegn a liteiarisher shafung beys der daytsher okupatsye," Kiem, February I'* IS. pp. 45—49. 51 liluinental, "Yidishe liteutur unter der daytsher okupatsye," Dos naye lehn, 14 September P' 15. p. 5. 52 liiediiian, "Di yidishe hislorishe komisye in poyln." Aynikayl, June 1946, p. 11, ai IHvoizecki, Hirshke glik; der mekhabet fun pattiianer-hiinn. Pans: Unzer kiem, 1966. 51 IK'ioizecki, "Dort vti s'iz geshribn gevotn 'dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk,'" llumntc literarislie bietet; September 1955, pp. 3, 12, 16. 55 I milk, "Shinttel lehnian, z'l," Lehns-fiagn 10, Februaiy 1952. p, 6. 3d I mnk, Ceshnilm tut geslieycirislm, Buenos Aires: Tsentral-taiband, 1962, pp. 51—55. a-' I lie lust. August 12, 1945. was devoted primarily to the work of the regional conitnis- -teiLs. \. Shedletsky, "Tsveyte vtsnshaftlekhe baratung," Dos naye hint, 13 October 1945, p. 5. iluniental, "Di yidishe liteiatur unter der daytshisher okupatsye," Yidishe kidtur 8:1, January 1946. p. 10. It) liluinental, "Oyfshriftn oyf vent, ksovim tin bikher," Irbns-fragn 145/146, January/ February 1964, pp. 10, 7. ' 11 Dwoizecki, "Getos tin kontsentratsyo-.lagem zukhn kontaktu," Kiem, April 1949, p. 899. 12 Shedletsky, "Tsveyte," p. 5. 15 Friedman, "The Euiopean Jewish Reseaich on the Recent Jewish Catastrophe in 1939—45," Proieedings of die Aiiieiican Atcidetity for Jeivish Reseanli 18, 1948-49, p. 197. 66 Mark L Smith I 'US 44 Friedman, "Di yidishe historishe komisye," p. 21. 45 Prospekt fun oysgabn fun der isciUraler yidisher historisher komisye in poyln, Warsaw-Lodz Krakow^ 1947, p. 7.' 46 Kermish, "In Varshever Geto," V/l/O bleter XXXVII, 1953, pp. 282-96; lilumem.il. "Di yerushe fun emanuel ringelblum," Di goldenc keyt 15, 1953, pp. 235-42. 47 Trunk, "Emanuel ringelblum - der historiker 1900-1944," Di tsukunft, April 196! 161. 48 YIVO archive, RG483, F29. 49 Kermish, "Di tsavoe fun varshever geto," Di goldene keyt 9, 1951, pp. 134-62. 50 Sh. Dubnov, "Der itstiker tsushrand fun der yidisher historiografye" m N. Maisel (eil. 'Isum hundertsin geboymtog fun shimen dubnov. New York: YKUF, 1961, pp. 73-75. 51 Friedman, "Di oyfgabes fun undzer historisher visnshaft un vi azoy zey tsu reahzini YIVO bleter XIIL3--4, 1938, p. 310. 52 Friedman, review of Ginsburg's Historishe verk, Jewish Social Studies m: I, 1941, p. 95. 53 Friedman, "Di sheyris hap/eyre mi yisker-Iiferatur," Di tsnkunji, April 1956. p. 168. 54 All wore anti- or non-communist. 55 i'he Aryvi/rt/nT hro-si/u/ftu piiblislicd eKchisively Argentine Jewish Jiiscorv. 56 Friedman, review of Yemsholayitn d'lite in kamf tin itnkuin, Kiem, June I94H, 406-7. 57 Dwomcld, foreword to Torn" Solomon-Ma'aravi, Teg fun tsorn, Tel-Avn: Hamenoi 1968, p. 9. 58 15lument.il and Kermish. forewords to M. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun a) : I el-Ilamenora, 1967, pp. 12-19. 59 Bluniental, foreword to Mend) Man, Di shtilkeyt mont, Lodz: Borokhov laiiag. pp. 3-4. 60 Kermish, Ta'amhat, p. 5. 61 Friedman, "Khurbn hosht," Kultur un dertsiung, October 1958, p. 19. 62 Blumental. "A nayer literarisher min — yisker-bikher," Lebnsjragn 99, human I960, p. ; 63 Friedman, "A fertl-yorhundert," p. 361. 64 Bluuicnt.il, "A nayer literarisher min," p. 7. 65 Blumental, "Pro domo sua," Lebusjragn I 10, December 1960, p. 7. 66 J, Kugelmass and J. Boyarin, From a Unified Garden, Bloornington: Indiana Gunei-iri Press, 'l998, p. 4(1 67 Friedman, "Fun antihistoritsizm, "p. 52 (ellipsis his). 68 Articles by deceased historians were also often included, including Balaban, S Ringelblum. 69 R. Oyerbukh, "D"r fdip fridman z"l (dermonung un gezcgemmg)," Digoldet, (i960), 178. 70 Friedman, "Kolomey - di boyptslitot fun pokutye un ire vidn," Di tsukunft. Sc 1958, p. 355. 71 Friedman, "Di forshung fun unzer khurbn," Kiem, January 1948, p. 49. 72 Blumental, preface to Sefer yizkor le-kchilat Homy, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1901, 73 Friedman, "Umkum fun vkebsker yidn," Vitebsk amol, New York, 1956, pp. 60. 74 Friedman, This Was Osunecim, London: United Jewish Relief Appeal, 1946; Osh Buenos Aires: Tsenfral-farbaud, 1950. 75 Trunk, "Sotsy.de antagomzmen m geto un di ml fun di yudenratn," Yidishe slmfti 1949, p. 6. 76 YIVO archive, RG483, F54. 77 Dworzecki, Vayse nekht nn< shvartse teg, Tel-Aviv: Y.L. Perets, 1970. 78 The largest number are quoted from Yiddish texts. 79 Bluniental, Voter un vertlekli fun der khurbn-tkufe, Tel-Aviv: Y.L. Perets, 1981, p. 7. 80 Blumental, "Verier un vertlekli tim der khurbn-tkufe," Yidishe shpntkh, January-M,n 1956, pp. 25.....26. lit di oninb •c Re .'minor ■anti 1|I1S§ iln Warsaw-Lo; Oshventsim e shiiftn, Juni 1, p. 7. mary-March BREAKING THE S1LFNCE !!!':■■ centre de Documentation Juive '.w -. ^mporaine in Paris and the writing (;' :)locaust history in liberated France I ma(i jockusch In October 1944, Jean-Paxil Same penned a sociological and historical analysis o( Lionel) anti-Semitism. Published in excupts on the pages of / es Temps Modeiues m 19-15 and in its entnely m the following veai, Reflexions sin hi question /i/rcc1 displeased both (ewish and non-Jewish leadeis alike: the non-)e\\s for being tiken to task foi then anti-Jewish sentiments, the Jews foi Sartie's ignoiance of then lustoiv and culfuie.' I he essay reflected Saitre's dismay that just weeks aftei the hbeiation non Jewish lienchnien not only continued their piewar animosities towaicls then Jewish com ots but responded with silence to the tiagic cataclysm that the Jews had sufteied dun tig the war. Today those Jews whom the Germans did not deport or murder are coming back to their homes. [...] Now all France rejoices and fraternizes in the streets; social conflict seems temporarily forgotten; the newspapers devote whole columns to stories of prisoners of war and deportees. Do we say anything about Jews? Do we give a thought to those who died in the gas chambers at Lublin? Not a word. Not a line in the newspapers. I ins was all the moie discomforting tor Sartie, because Jews had made a fundamental .ribution to Fiance's hbeiation since "[m|any weie among the fust membeis of the Resistance" oi "had sons or cousins m Lecleic's army" Same summauzed common justifications for the silence ovei the Jewish fate, such as the wish not to stn up anti-Semitism or to destioy the national unity urgently noc ded after a devastating wai. Well-meaning journalists will tell yoir "In the inleiest of'the Jews themselves, it would not do to talk too much about them just now " Foi yeais Fionch society has lived without them; it is just as well not to emphasize too vigoiously the tact that they have reappeared. 68 Laura Jockusch While Sartre held non-Jews responsible for the absence of public discourse on the distinct Jewish victiinhood, he believed however that some Jews approved and hence vanished from the public arena, reckoning "'[t]he less we are noticed, the better.'" He argued that they had arrived at this "resigned wisdom, at this policy of self-effacement," after years of exposure "in their own country" to their gentile compatriots' "hostility, ugly looks always watching, indifference always ready to turn into bitterness". Consequently, Sartre noted, Jews "made a clandestine return, and their joy at being liberated is not part of the nation's joy."3 The problematic nature of the essay's analysis of French anti-Semitism and its suggested solutions notwithstanding, Sartre's post-liberation observations on the "strange silence" with which the French public encountered recent Jewish surfenn;', correspond with the findings of historical research that was undertaken decades la Historians of postwar France have demonstrated that up until the 1970s and 198ns the nation's non-Jewish citizens maintained a celebratory self-perception, according to which Vichy had been a temporary aberration of France's republican traditic forcibly imposed by German invaders and revoked through the population's collect.u engagement with the Resistance in an act of national self-liberation. Obscuring the inconvenient truth of Vichy's shared responsibility for the Holocaust in France, tin* vision of the past left little to no room for the voices of the Jewish victims.4 In tun:, historians of the French Jewish community emphasized that in the early postwar ye.n* jews eagerly merged with their non-Jewish environment, be it in feai of anti-Semit or as a continuation of prewar patterns of secularization ami acculturation. While some segments of the community strengthened their ethnic and religious Jew identities, the majority maintained a low public profile as Jews and kept their stones of racial persecution to their own circles.3 Recent research has stressed that Jews had not hi silent about their pasts to begin with, rather that in searching for "normalization" am! the return of rights, jobs, apartments, and property, they adjusted to their non-Jew compatriots' silence and unwillingness to listen to stories of distinct Jewish victimhood.1. This essay seeks to shed further light on how French Jews dealt with their past in the first postwar decade. Using new source material, it explores the history of llie Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris, a Jewish documentation center founded by Holocaust survivors to bring the Holocaust—or rather k catticlysme or der khurlm to use the language of the day—to public consciousness, commemorate its victims and reintegrate Jews into their French surroundings.'' Preparing the ground: the Jewish Documentation Center from clandestine to public institution The project to capture the Jewish tragedy in France by collecting documentary evide began sixteen months before the liberation. In late April 19-13, under the impression of the German defeat: at Stalingrad and in anticipation of the war's end, the. Russian-bom Jewish entrepreneur Isaac, Schneersohn gathered 40 representatives of various official and underground Jewish organizations representing both French-born and imuiigi.iiit Jews in his apartment in Grenoble, then under Italian occupation. The group include, i.ibbi ot France: Weill, n oi the created Noithcr org.mi/.i Zionist founded Genual) African postwar and lay The gic lejdslat io opinion to lighti Soui hei i by their most oft actual ri< and his 1 CV.mv ,/( Most and writ the CDJ research Jacques * liillig. an come to receis eri cultui il a in the in the child uiidorp,oi vei iiacula years had undenini; With .1 11 affiliated Piene 1>, concentra onymizati Breaking the silence 69 -' on the distinct hence vanished >'■"' He aigued •"'it," after years 'ty, ugly looks Consequently, ibeiated is not nitism and its dons on the wish suffering decades later. (Is and 1980s >n, accoiding an tt.ulitions, 'u's collective 'bscuring the fiance, this us.4 In turn, 'ostwar years titi-Semitisni don. While .iou.s Jewish eir stories of lad not been ration" ennans had an, and mas owever, thi war showed it found tin umption o torical erro; Prance to it: this pioces: v to public riting sensed that knowledge ts share of hey would attributed ts. "Fiance in was tied ;arded as a meeting in o need for .'iously did -"c ot these "work of o justice," Yet despite this belief in the ultimate benefit of the documentation work, internal debates among the coworkers suggest their apptebensions: how could they tell a stoiy istinet Jewish suffering, yet acclaim a civic equality that did not discriminate according to icligious or ethnic bonds; how could they criticize Fiance without ndizing their fragile reintegration into Fiench society? Ihe CDJC activists deployed a tour-pronged strategy to meet these challenges. 1 irst, the Ci)|C activists generally lesrncted their criticism ot Fiance to internal debates and took moderate and leconciliatoiy positions in public. They focused on die deeds of the Germans and on a minority of Fiench collaborationists without collectively accusing the French; indeed they emphasized that large segments of the population had helped the Jews to survive the occupation.'"' For example, in February l°-k\ when CD|C activists met to discuss how to write about French anti-Semitism, they agieed that anti-Semitism had been a central component of Fiance's past and picsent. Some advocated lelentless conuontation with France's anti-Semitic traditions in older to demonstrate that historically-looted Fiench anti-Semitism had enabled the German occupiers to cany out their anti Jewish polities.'1' Others warned, however, that such direct confiontation might numne the pic-vailing anti-Semitic climate ruber than combating it.17 Against this latter position, one of the <'1)|C affiliates ub|ccted: "It is not only the right but also the duty of the Jews to expose what mm leuish Frene-hmen said or wrote against us, in order to show what level of moral decadence those who follow the enemy can ieach."n' 'Flic C'l )JC activists ultimately :d that they would openly criticize anti-Semitism; yet rather than exposing its historical roots, they emphasized the German influence on French public- opinion during the occupation. After all, Sehneeisohn leminded his colleagues: "We do not want to accuse the French people |...| our mission is to settle a scoie with Vichv and the Germans."19 cond, the CDJC based its inquiries into the recent past on its collections ot solid doc umentaiy evidence, including materials left behind in Fiance by the Gestapo, the SS, general staff of the German Militaiv command and the German foreign office m Pans, as well as lecoids of the Commissariat General aux Questions Juivcs and holdings of various Fiench Jewish oiganizations.'" The Center thus viewed it as a sign of oliic al recognition by the Fiench government when its de!eg.tiit>n at the Interna tiou.il Military Tribunal in Nuremberg utilized its archives during the trial against their war criminals of the Nazi legime tiom November I'M.t to October I'Mo. In leiurn, the C] )JC coworkers I.eon Poliakov and Joseph Billig gained access to the tnhunal's own aichives and were- able to acquitc moie than three tons of copied documents for the ("enter."" To make these sources accessible to the wider public in Fiance, beginning in March FM5 die CDJC launchetl a compiehensive publication piogiam of annotated documents" and oaiefully it-searched studies covering anti Jewish legislation under the Vichy legime and the Thiicl Reich,"' internment and deportation.>4 piopag.tncla and Fiench public opinion on the Jews.-^ the 1 espouses of fiench Jews to the persecution, and Nazi ideology moie generally. v> With the generous support of American Jewish organizations, most notably the American Jewish Joint Distiibution Committee (AJDC), the CDJC published twenty works in the fust five ye.us after the 72 Laura (ockusch war, along with the monthly Bulletin tin Centte tie Dotiinieiifation Juine Contentponiine, which began to appear in April 1945 and a year later continued as Ix Monde Jttij. Since the CDJC's intended audience was primarily non-Jews, in particular France's political and intellectual curies, the publications weie exclusively in French."'7 The Center's third strategy tocused on the contributions Jews had made to the liberation of Fiance. In a society which celebiated the Resistance and honoied victims of" political persecution while largely excluding those who had been persecuted because of" their Jewish origin, addressing the participation of both French-born and foieign Jews in fighting the Ceimaiis provided a niche for integrating the Jews into the public discourse on the recent war."'x Moreover it countered the widespiead image of passive Jewish victimhood and showed that Jews' contribution to liberating France fiom Vieln and the Germans niented their inclusion into postwar society. By piesenting a positive and unified picture of the Jewish community under the occupation, a picture that emphasized communal soliclinty but ignored internal conflicts that divided the Jewish population m the face of persecution, the CDJC's works presented a multifac eted image of the aimed and unarmed, collective and individual resistance of Jews."' At the same time, in its public self-representation, the Center propagated its woik of documenting the Holocaust as a contribution to the Resistance, describing its Gicnoble activists as "nmquis dotiitnenliiites."M' A fouirb stiategy to bring the Jewish cataclysm into public consciousness was linking the documentation center with a public memorial site. In fall 1950, Isaac Schneersobn developed the idea of a nieniori.il, consisting of a crypt housing ashes from the extermination camps and a memorial book with the names of the victims. Initially, Schneersohn's idea met with skepticism from some coworkers who feared that the use of ashes and their transport from Poland to France conflicted with the traditions of Judaism and would be seen as disrespecting the dead. Othets demanded that a central memorial be located in Israel, not France. The argument that French Jews needed a centralized and representative memorial site in their country, bolstered by the potential that a memorial in the heart of Pans might have for integrating the survivors into their surrounding society, ultimately won the Center activists for Schneersohn's project.31 A prominent location tor the memorialization of the Jewish cataclysm was assured when the municipality of Paris made available a site in the fourth anondissement near the Hotel de Ville. The lonibeon tin Mattyr Jnif Ineonmt, as the memorial was officially named in 1951, would serve as a Jewish equivalent to the Air de Tiiontplie and translate the European tradition of the grave of the unknown soldier into a Jewish context.32 In order to avoid the impression that the menion.il was "sectarian," the CDJC emphasized that the public commemoration of the distinct Jewish suffering also served the transmission of universal lessons. In the context of growing Cold War antagonisms, the CDJC stressed that commemoration of the Holocaust played a crucial role in the fight for "western values" and against anti-Semitism, racism, dictatorship, and totalitarianism.33 The CDJC activists also stressed that France, not Israel or eastern Europe, was the obvious location for the memorial because to them this country, more than others, represented humanitarian and democratic ideals.34 Not least, it had to be located in Paris because the CDJC activists cleei ned the' '.Era had trim Despit its doors with the against C memoria the ""first also that democrat tragedy a of the gr the ! lolo .olning docsime Flie pher France. S aftermath included l.ublin in the Jewisl I "15-47/ ihe\ woi countries, a govern] the rcceni as well a wartime c Kermis/.— Pohakov I lolocaust individual untrained imperative urge1 to de the- survie .uvidont, 1 atrocities ; way of n iecoieling millions o Breaking the silence 73 orm ejmj. anc to the 'ictiins icuu-d m ainl as into spread 'rating •ty. L; patioi ts that ■soured astancs wgated ieribtn: linking eeisoln. am the nitially "hat the .iditions i that a ch Jews eied by ting the sdsts for e Jewish e in the tornm, as it to the iiknown nemorial o distinct mtext of n of die inst ante o stressed memorial Jt'ian and C activisls deemed that city "the spiritual capital of the civilization of the free world,"3'' where the''Emancipation of the Jews had been announced ami where once again (..,[ light had triumphed over the shadows of Baibarianrstn,"36 Despite its initial rejection by the French Jewish community, the memorial opened its doors in October 1956, thanks to donations from across Europe and the U.S. and with the help of the French government and the Conference on Material Claims against Germany.37 As indicated by its name-Tom/>f the Jewish the Central Feigenbaum, Borwicz and nais m I'.urs; nimission in 'partment in " Center for he Chief of Nuiembeig; ina, Gieece, cy and the traux, a city embassies — d given his 'id that the ie exchange • Some also Hustiate the ie dead in a "gates based ion goal of ere divided entitled to rench hosts claimed leadership, arguing that their country represented democratic values and human rights and was the political center of a Europe freed from Nazism, flic: Polish delegates, by contrast, made their claim for leadership on the basis of the numerical Miength and cultuial significance of the prewar Jewish community and the fact that I'ohdi )ewry had suffered much higher numbers of victims than had other Jewish communities in Europe. While the French acknowledged that Jews in some countries had been hit harder than others, the conference's overall agenda remained focused on fiance. Almost half of the delegates represented French Jewish institutions, and their wartime experiences received disproportionate coverage.41 This discrepancy caused a rift between the delegates, with the Polish guests feeling particularly under-represented. Conllicts also revolved around the methodology and language of Holocaust documentation. Whether researchers should rely more on victim or perpetrator sources u-iuained a matter of debate, although there was a general consensus that Nazi sources weie unreliable because they did not adequately reflect, indeed they purposefully distorted, the experience of the victims. Some demanded that Yiddish—-as the language formerly spoken by most of the victims—rather than Hebrew, French, or English, be the primary language of research on the catastrophe.42 Another deep divide among delegates was the question whether the ultimate goal of Holocaust documentation should be historical scholarship or political struggle. Most delegates were not interested in historiograph)' per_.se. For them, the purpose of documentation was to fulfill the picsent and future political needs of the survivors, namely, to fight for justice and lciitution, and against anti-Semitism.43 A number of delegates, however, strictly opposed the mixing of scholarship and politics, arguing that any political use of the material could only discredit the documentation efforts of survivors.44 Another divisive issue was the overall ideological positioning of delegates on the future of the Jews, namely whether it should be in the Diaspora or in Israel. The licnc.li delegates expressed their deep sympathy for the Jewish state in the making, but they did not question that their future was in France: the most suitable place to document, research, and commemorate the catastrophe. Not only was Fiance the reutei of the "lice world," but it also embodied a new world order' of tolerance, deinocucy, and anti-totalitarianism. Thus the French hosts proposed the building of a World Documentation Center in Paris, analogous to Yad Vasbem in Jerusalem but with a special focus on the Diaspora.4n Many non-French delegates subscribed to the idea of concentrating the documentary evidence in a centralized European institution, but they were divided whether it should be located in Paris or elsewhere in Europe.""' Some of the eastern European delegates who were optimistic regarding the future of their communities under the new communist regimes suggested the creation of a cential memorial and research institution in Poland, where most of the victims of the Holocaust had been murdered.47 Yet others warned that current manifestations of anti-Semitism in Poland would jeopardize such a project and its holdings. These opponents included delegates from the Jewish DP camps in Germany and Austria, most of whom were Polish Jews who had left Poland because they bad concluded that theie was no future for Jews in that country. For them, a sovereign Jewish state would be the most appropriate place for a central Jewish memorial and research 76 Laura Jockusch institute; hence materials should be transferred from Europe to Yad Vashem.,fi Othei sell confide delegates advised that multiple copies of the documentation should be stoied in different major publi places, preferably in Jerusalem, New York, and Paris, to protect the material froir ome rea destruction.49 h should n Despite these disagreements, the conference established a Paris-based European immediate • Coordination Committee to coordinate the documentation work.1" Due to a chronic history of tl lack of funds and growing Cold War antagonisms that rendered cooperation between about their the documentation centers in east and west increasingly difficult, the Committee ultimately proved ineffective. With the dissolution of the Jewish historical commissi ■:- in the DP camps, the closing of the Jewish Historical Institute behind the "lion Notes Curtain," and the further migration of many activists, the CDJC, along with the j p.MI p,u Wiener Library in Loudon, emerged as a central Jewish Holocaust research institution Mk luel in western Europe, becoming the Diasporic counterweight to Yad Vashem. ■' ' 'im s-" Conclusion own !>111 Seniitisni fioni tin-Ibid . - I The history ol the CI >J(', demonstrates that some survivors in postwar laance made ,t ' l' conscious effott to resist the silence with which their non-lewish compjiiiots ,'"!', 1 of Woild encountered the Jewish tragedy: jews trying to rebuild their lives in hbeiated Fiance j ,q-nm t., should not acquiesce in that silence. The CDJC's documentation work steniiui'il Julian [u : from a genuine wish to reintegrate into a nation where they felt they belonged, liy l'o-m\ir: . uncovering the crimes and injustices committed against the Jews, they sought to ' bring the 1 lolocausf into public consciousness and to show that Jews in France--both 'I'linn-uu- French and foreign-born--had deep connections with France and French cultuie. Wri '\,n had made a significant contribution to the liberation of France, and deserved to i anihiidy, be fullv recognized and accepted as equal citizens. Or, to echo Sartre's words, the ,'.!','"''\ . . .... I ay n I, < CDJC activists sought to prove that their joy of being liberated was indeed also tin ,,-„,/ ,„,, nation's joy. ~> l.sthei In 1 he Vichy years had not destroyed the activist's commitment to France's republi ideals, or they had remained what Pierre Birnbaum called "tons de la Republiqt even after the war. It is not accidental that Jews of immigrant backgrounds spi headed the initiative. Not only did they come fioni a cultural milieu of 1011111111111! Ociin.inv activisin and self-help which might have led them to establish the document 111 center as grassroots effort to serve rebuilding of the Jewish community after the w.n. ,,, ,' , 0 J ,bl Ikeles ; More so, Jews of immigrant backgrounds—who had been particularly vulneia \jhl during the war and made up two-thirds of the Jews deported from France—kn Cm particularly well that civic equality and rule of law were precious goods that neei -lKX! to be cherished and fought for since they were not to be taken for granted. Throitiji . documenting the wrongs they suffered they sought to strengthen the republii | France which they had known before the war and which they had never ceased W: see as the true, the actual Frame in spite of their traumatic experiences. C leitainly, in the immediate wake of the war, the CDJC did not elicit the large attention anil following which it had actually hoped to attract from both Jc.'o to 1 fnhm and non-Jews. It would take decades until the French Jewish community grew nn v / Princei Jean l:u i|i Nomiah/a ■ Breaking tlie silence 77 '.ishem.48 Ortu., wed in different e material from ■used European 'ne to a chronic •lation between he Committee al commissions lind the "iron ilong with the arch institution sliein. Fiance made a h compatriots letated Fiance 'ork stemmed belonged. By ley sought to France—both end) culture, 1 deserved to ''s words, the deed also the e's lepublican -•publiciue,"51 ounds spear->l communal icumentation liter the war. y vulnerable ance—knew that needed cd. Through * republican er ceased to ie large-scale both Jews giew inoie ■ self-confident and rendeied writing and commemoiating the Holocaust in France a smafor public communal endeavor. This occurred in a non-Jewish environment that had .become ready to question crude nanatives of collective resistance and self-liberation. It should not be underestimated in the light of later activities that survivors in the immediate wake of the war laid the groundwork for writing and commemorating the history of the Holocaust in France and that French Jews had never been utterly silent wtbout their past. Notes 1 Jean-Paul Same. Ami-Semite ami Jam An IL\ploi;>'the Pliology of I hie, preface by Michael Walzer (New York: Schocken Books 1995). 2 Thus Same asserted that Diaspora Jews had no histoiy, culruie or achievements ol then own but were condemned to passivity and suffering. To Same the pioblem ol aim Semitism would ultimately be solved if Jews vanished as a collective in a socten libeialed tiom the existence of classes and leligious or racial groups. 73 Ibid., 71-72. :■.•■:• 4 See tor example Eric Conan and Henry kousso, V'ithy: An liver-Present Past (Hanover and London: Univeisity Piess of New England, 1998); Richard J. Gostau, " 1 he I egae \ eif World War [I in Fiance: Mapping the Discouises of Meinon," in Ritluid Ned I ebow et al., eels., Ihe Rolilus of Mtutoiy in Postwar Europe (Durham, I otidon '(KHu, 77 KM, Julian Jackson, Pumie: "Fhe Daik Yeais 1940-1944 (New York 2001). (>-><). lon\ )udt. Postwar: A Histoiy of Eniope sinte 1945 (New York: Penguin Press. 'OOSi, HI i 20, md / idem, "The Past: is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe." in Istvan Deik, et al., eels., 7'/ir Politic of Reliibiitiou in liurope: Woiltl Iii» // anil Its \fleimatU (Princeton: Princeton University Piess, 2000), 293—323: Pieter I .igiou. Hie ligaiy of Na;i Outipaiion: Paliioiic and National Rnoveiy in Western liwope, I'Hi I9(,i (C ainbuclgc Cambridge University Press, 2000); Rence Po/iianski, "Vichy et les |uits Des maiges ele rilistoue an coeiir de son c'erituie," in Joan-Pienc Azema and Fi ine,ois Hed.uul.i, eels , Vichy et It's Prancais (Paris: bayard, 1992), 57-08; Henry Rousso, 'Phe Vichy Syndrome: History md Memory in l:iatitc sime /'/'/-/(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvaiel Univeisitv Piess, 1991) S Esther Benbassa, 77ie fetes of Haute: A History from Antiquity to tin /'icsu/r (Punceton Princeion University Press, 1999), 182—83: Anne Grynbeig. "Apies la touimente," in Jean Jacques Pecker and Annette Wievioika, eels., h;< Jaifs de ii.tiut tit la Reioltttiou t'tlit(aise A uos joins (I omai: Editions Liana Levi, 1998), 249-80; lelo de Haan, 'Paths of Normalization alter the Persecution of the Jews: The Netherlands, Fiance, and West Germany in the 19.S0.s," in Rieliaiil Messel and Diik Sc hum.um, eels, /1/< l/ro I hath Appioaihes to a Cidluial and Sotial Histoiy of liwope Düring the 1940s ,/»,/ /VTCK (t ambiidge Cambridge Univeisity Piess, 2003), 03-92; Paula Hyman, 77«' feu s oj Moduli I mihi (Beikeley and I os Angeles: Univeisity of California Piess. 1998), 18s 91, Mauel Mandel. In the Aflennalh of Cenotide: , iuiieiiiaus ami Jews in 'I'weiitietli-Centuiy I lame (I )uihani, NC Duke University Press, 2003). 102-77; David Weinberg. "Between America and Israel: file Quest for a Distinct Emopean Jewish Identity in the Poslwai 1 ta," ltwt4i Cultiiu mil Histoiy 5, I (Summer 7002): 91-120: idem, "Fiance," in Da\ id Wsman, ed , //i< I c>i/c/ Responds to the Holocaust (Baltiinoie and I oneloii: Johns Hopkins Um\c-isit\ Piess, 1996), 3 44; and idem, '"Fhe Reconstruction of the Fleuch Jewish Commumts Altei Woild War II," in Isiael Gutman and Avital Saf eels., Sheaitt liaphla 1944 I'HS Rehabilitation and Simple (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990): 108-80; Annette Wievioika, Depoittitioti et genocide: otitic la niemoiie et I'oiibli (Paris: Plou, 1992), isp iOI 08 (i Reuee Poznanski, "Fiench Appieliensions,Jewish Expectations: Fiom a Social Imagmais to a Political Piaetice," in David Bankier, ed., Ihe Jews Aie Comiiit; Hoik Hit Riiinit oj lite Jews lo their Countries ofOrigin after It'll'// (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 'OOS), l's S/, md 78 Laura (ockusch her 1'iopagaudes et Pcishutioie: hi Réststamc et le "probléme juif' 19-10-1944 (Paris: L'a\ 200«). 551-4(2. / I'or valuable pievious research on the CDJC after 1945, none ot which made extei use of the GDJC's administrative archives, which until recently were not open to the puhlu, see Geoiges Bensouss.in, "1 he Jewish Gontempoiarv Documentation Cenící (Cl)JC') and Hohxaust Research in fiance, 1945-70," in David Bankier and Dan Micbwan. eds.. Holocaust Historiography m Context: Emergence, (challenges. Polemics ami Achievements (Jerusalem: Yad Vasheni, 2008), 245-54; Jacques ITedj, "Le (Jentre documentation Julve Contemporaine (CDJC)," in Annette Wieviorka et ak, eds.. ,S e memoini delta depoilatione: modelli di ictcua e di comnmnica~ione m Italia ed m I •anee. (floienee: I a (inuitina, 1906), 151-64: Annette Wieviorka, "l)u Centre de do, unientatioii jmve eontentporaiiie au Memorial tic la Shoah," Le Monde Juif, Revue d tone de la Shoah 1K1/2 (2004), 11-36; idem. Deportation etgcnotide, 412-31; idem. II am: au,\ oiigtnes da Memorial de la Shoah (Pans: CDJC, 3006). 8 There is virtually no documentation on the Cl)[C's pre-Liberation activity, exci pt lei ,i nunihei of undated documents in the waitime aichives of the Consistoiie Ceutial; Renée l'oznaski, "La creation du centre de Documentation Jmve Contemporaine en flame (Av ill 19-13)" in \"ingtieme Sieile 63 (July-St ptember 1999), 51-63, and liei "Hakamat ha nierkaz le-ti'ud yahadut zmanenu be-tsariat. Mitos u-nietsivut," m lsi.nl Cutinati, ed . Me-geui;ali le tsiyune deiebli Instoiiyim: Aihlnyoniin yehudiyim n ha-tmllinma vcdia-sbo'ah ((erusalein: Yad Vasheni, 1997), 161-80. For an early missim statement ot the group see: Archives of the Alliance Israelite Umverselle, Paris, Aulmo du Cousistoiic Juif pendant la guerre (heieafter ACQ, niurofilin íeel 1, folder 4, quelques mots en ce que nous voulotis" |I943|. 9 See ACC. "Ordre du (our" and the outline of nine research areas to he studied Lv tlv group, no date, reel 1, folder 4, French. 10 /-ranee's prewar Jewish population numbered 300,000-330.00(1, of whom 190,000- ?u p. 1—2; "Procěs-verbal de la Reunion de la Commission de la Presse," May 3 p. 3; Jacques Ratner, "Les travaux de la Commission des Camps. Contre la Con: du Silence," Bulletin du Centre cle Documentation Juive Contemporaine 3 (June 1945 16 AC! >|<; 1." Ibid.," 2 18 ibi.f. 1 19 ACDJC 30 On the Grandi-in Pian 21 See CL iianzijsi Ueuspol'n I'GOtllll; •le Xuic some ol / mine e ( 'eniie. \uremln 22 These ii hiblioiiu'; la llitoi 1916): I du ( .en I 25 l-.ii exa 1940 V J uejlies F.ditions (Pans. H '24 1 or exai (Pairs. I-! 'ditiouv >5 Ja,i|ues I du Cent .'6 Joseph I! I u.St 1) i\ Ills nupc Haven o, Univci-.ii a bte.ik I Memom - 27 I he onf weie 1 6< hem!, Jei Kite I Flu- 28 On the c ot (leuoi Past and 'V U I >|i 1945,' ,., N.neinbi Pi esse." jew irii : e t I))(. . o. luhiuiou a i'M7i. (as (Pans Kd HHlllllilif Bieakincj tlie silence 79 (Paris: Fay aid. : lii ACDJC, "Ptoces-vcibal do la Reunion de la Commission de Pnsse," Ecbni.uy 26, 1915,p 5 I 17 Ibid., 2-3. nade extensive \ IK Ibid., 4, it open to the - 19 AODfG. "Pioces-vetbal de la Reunion de la Se Commission," Man h 22, FH5, 5 nation Center ; 2U On the Center's post hbetation acquisitions, see Icon Pohakov, Mcnioiws (Pans Jacques kier and Dan (handier Editetu, 1999), 186f and Isaac Schneeisohn. "Dei ytdishei dokumentalsve tsentei • , Pohnus and in biankievkh," V/I'O bleter 30, 2 (Wintei 19+7): 249-57, heie AS It Le Centre de > 21 See Claudia Moisel, "Resistance und Reptessalien. Die Knegsveibiet lierpio/esse in del ak, eds.. Stenia '■ lianzosischeii Zone und m Fi.mkieich," m Noibett Fiei, ed . "Fnntsiiationale I i waugen- ' ed in F'lauaa » heilspolitik. Dei Vmgang nut deutsihcu Kingsveihiecliein in Fmopa uadi dun Y.weiteu U'eltkneg ■ntte de doc ; tGottrngen: Wallstem Verlag 2006), 2+7-82, lieie 2Y), and Annette Wievioik.i, Ijc Panes if, Revue d'h, Nmeinbeig (Caen: Editions du Memorial de Caen, 2005), 1 14 I he CDJC published idem, II y a 50 \ some of the mateiials as somce editions: Henii Monneiay, ed , / 2) oi : Editions du French Jews undei the Italian Occupation (Pans. Editions du Centte, 195 1) and idem, Di gele ."ions: From a \ late \ I'he Yellow liadge| (Pans: Editions du Centie, 1952) France During ' 28 On the cult of the Resistance see Jackson, Fiance, 570-613, and Pietei 1 agiou, "Victims '01), 462-73. ! ol Genocide and National Memoiy: Belgium, Fiance and the Netheil.inds 1915 65," m iris (heieaftei ! Past and Piesent 154/1 (Felmuiy 1997). 181-222, heie 19+ 205 February 22. ' 29 ACDJC, "Pioces-veibal de la Reunion de la Commission de Piesse," Apiil 26, italogued and 1945, pp. 3—5; "Pickes-veibal de la Reunion de la Commission de la lectme," ren lath, fo November 16, 1945, p. 3; "Pioces veibal de la Reunion de la Commission de li Piesse," June 7, 1945, pp. 1-4. In 1917 the CDJC published thiee maioi wotks on Jewish lesistance, in the sense of both unaimed lesistance oi self-help and aimed combat nil 26, 1945. , CDJC, ed., Aclivite des oigauisaiions fuwes in Inline sous I'ociupatiou, David Knout, (\ni lay 31, 1945. tnbutiou a I'lastoiie de la usistaiae Juive en Fiance, 1940-1944 (Pans Editions du Centie, Compilation , 1947), Jacc|ues Lazatus, /w/.s an combat: tctnotguagc sm Vdeuvue d'un mount meat de lesistciihe 1945), 2. (Pans: Editions du Centie, 1947) 80 Laura lockusch .id Andre Spin-, "Message," Le Monde Juif, No. 63-64 (Maich-Apul 1953). 25: see also d.Humt Si hneeisohn. "1 )or yidishei dokumentatsye-tsenfet." 350; "L.e Centre de Dooumeiitatii irch Conteinpoiame a Quatte Ans," m 1a' Monde Jul/, No. 9-10 (May-June 1947), 30. and in olair Henn Hen/, "S es debuts dti Centre de I >ocunientation Juive Conteuiporaine." in Di\ l.'-> (201 ounces d'e\htcihc dn Centie de Documentation Juive Coiileiiiporaiuc, Fans 1953. 1—2, 24. /-mi/i P, A ACDJC, "Ptotes vubal de la Reunion dti Comite I)ireeteur," November 8, 1930, 2-' -11 Ve CO A memorial site with ashes from the death camps was not Schneersohn's idea. Already in emopeen October 1947. with the help of the Fiench foieign niinishy and the Consistoire Centi.ii. Centre, Jewish Communist groups had anangtd the distnbution of twenty tuns with ashes from 13 ACDJC Auschwitz Bukenati among Jewish communities and associations of depoitees. Nevei 1/1-75. (heless. Dentil Jews lacked a cential inenioii.il site to commetnoiate their death Without 4 > A( 'DJC an oHiu.il memoiial, since September 1944 various Jewish groups had returned to the I'-'-f/,. ir Dunty tiansit camp to commemorate the victims, hi February 1949 the first Jewish -1-1 ACDJC memorial was established in the synagogue in Rue de la Vic tone in Fans. See Wievioik.i. Jml< en j Dipoitatiou ct genomic, 391 111. Similar ideas for memoiials using ashes were afo l:> 5ecl.es discussed in the first postwar decade m New York and in Falestme/lsrael; see Hasi.i -Id AC DJC Dmei, Me Rciueinhei ivuli lievereme and Love: Amcinuu Jews and the Myth of Silent e after tin 1 ■'<"> -77. llolotaust, l'J-h ■ IV<>2 (New Yoik: New Yoik University Press, 2009), 24-14. -1/ At :DJC 33 ACDJC, "Note on the Ptoject to eiect the Tomb of" tin Unknown Jewish Maitvr" IS Ibid., p. 11951/19.3?|. 2. 19 17.To 33 Ibid., and ACDJC, undated nienioiandum on memoiial project. 19 See I ,s j 34 ACDJC, Isaac Schneeisohn to Nachuin Goldniann, September 9, 1953. '~<" See the 35 ACDJC, "Note pour niomoiie," Febiuaiy 31, 1952. 11 Piciie I: 30 ACDJC. Isaac Schncetsohn to Robert Sc human, May 15, 1931. (New Y 37 On the polemics against the memorial fiom withm the Jewish community, see Abiah Kudv, Lines vegii shekel (Paris: lmprimene Moderne de la Presse, 1956). The criti Jewish pi ess i ejected the nienioilal mainly for Halakhic and financial reasons. Some voices demanded that money laised tot the memorial instead be used to support ihe 1 tenth Jewish community or Israel. See Annette Wieviorka, "Un lieu de memoire < d'histone: le memoiial dti Maityr juif inconnu," m Panics 2 (1985), 80-98, heie 83 f. O the histoiv of the CDJC after 1956, see Simon Peiego, Ilistonc, iiistitc, nieuioiic: le C.ei de Documentation Juive C.ontenipotaine et le Memorial du Martyi juif inconnu 1956-I'n,'i (MA thesis, hcole Doctoiale de Sciences Po, 2007). 38 Foi an overview see Philip Friedman, "Ihe European Jewish Research on the Reci Jewish Catastiophe m 1939-45," Pioicedtugs of the Ameiuan Academy foi Jewish Reseaicfi, 3S (1949): 179-211. V> On these initiatives see: Natalia Aleksitin, "4 he ('ential Jewish 1 hsfoiical Comm. Poland, 19 14 17," Roliu 20 (2008), 74-97; Laura Jockusch, "A Folk Monument to O Destitution and lleioism: Jewish Histouc.il Commissions in the Displaced Person- Camps ot (kimany, Austria and Italy," in Avtnoam Palt and Michael Beikowit: "IIV .he Heie": \hw Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons m Postwai Cermany (Deit-.m Wayne Slate Umveisity Press, 2010), 31-73; idem, Collect and Reord! Jewish LI Documentation in Postwai L.uiopc, IV-JI-IVji (Oxford University Press, foithcoiniii; 2011); idem, "khitibii-L'oishwig: Jewish Historical Commissions in Europe 1945—49." n; Simon Duhiiow Institute Yeaibook 6 (2007), 441-73; Ada Schein, '"Eveivone can hold > pen," Fhe Doc uniemation Pioject in the DP ('amps m Geitnany," and Feliks '"Ihe laiieigenee of Holocaust Reseaich m Poland: The Jewish Histoucal Conn and the Jewish Histoucal Institute (Z111), 1944-89," both published ill Banki Mu lini.m, eds , Holocaust Histoiiogiaphy in Context, HH-34 and 227-44. •10 Fwo olhei Jewish Holocaust confetences had alieady taken place in 1947. Tl conlerente was held m January by the Y1VO Institute m New Yoik. Fhe July confi hosted in Jeiusileni by Yad Vashem and the Hehiew Umveisity, was seen as conipenii to the Pans event, since some ot its oig.mi/eis, above all the historian Ben Zion Dirulnm. viewed it as an attempt to establish the hegemony of Yad Vashem over the Eu Bte.iking the silent e 81 3). 23; Oocumeni.ii inn 1947), 'ii. ,„J oi.iine," in Di\ ■3, 1-2, 1 i. :r 8. 19.Sn. .' i. idea. Aheadv in sistoire (lential. villi ash lortees. Never dead. Wiiliout etuined io ihe he fust Jew idi See Wic ilies wcic also racl; see I I.im.i Silence apt t die 1-44. •wash Maiivi." , see Abraham ). The eritk.il leasons. Some o support tl e inemoire heie 83 f. On noiic: le Crin 111 l9S(r-l9( documentation initiatives and establish Palestine'Isiael as the icntei of lloloiaust K'se.iuli and i ointnemotation. On the Jerusalem confeience. see Boa/ Cohen, "I la-\o'ida h.i-oiainit le-hekei ha-sho'ah ve-ha-gvuia shel tekufatenu, jeiushalvmt 1917," m ( athulia 12a ('.H07): 99-108 On the beginnings of Yad Vashein see Rom Staubei, The Ilohhaiist in Isiach Rubin Debute in the I9t(h (I ondon and Poiiland, OR Valentine Mitchell, »007) See CDJC, ed„ Les Jmfs en Eutope (1919- 19 H), Rappotts pineiilts it la piemiete loiijiieme eniopmme ties toiiiimssious histoiiques et ties tetities de doiiimuitalion mils (Pans Editions du Ccniie, 1949), 22--24 and the list of paiticipauts and conleiencc piogiam, 247 ->3 ■\CDIC, piotocol, Decembei 8, 19-17, nioining session, pp 3 I and Lis Imp ui liuiope, ACDJC, protocol, Oecenibei 7, 1917, inclining session, p 9. piotocol, Decciubci 8, 1917. morning session, pp. 7, 9—10. ACD1C, piotocol Oeiembei /, 1947, p 12; piotocol Oecemhei 8, 19)/, p 7, and Lis luils in Europe, 78-79. See Lisjmls en Europe, 88. AC OJC, piotocol, Oecenibei 7, 1947, moining session, p 9, / <•% jiufs in Emope. V.! 31, I7(» 77. ACDJC, protocol, December 8, 1947, morning session, p. 8. Ibid., p. 3, and Yad Vashein Aiclmes, AM 1, Eeigenbaum's speech of Deeembei 8. 1947, folder 128. frame 0642. s e Esjwjs in Lmope, 82 and AO )JC, piotoc ol, Dec embei 8, 1947. nioining session, p 0 See the lesolutions of the confeience in Lis puts ui Emope, I8S 89 PieTie Biinbaum, /niW/ Destinies Citizenship. State ,ind Community in Moduli haute 4ew York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 4. in the Rece di Reseat eh, 1 .'oinmission i anient to Oui laced Persons •rkowitz, eeb miiiy (1 )etioi 'wish Holocau fbrthcomin 1945-49," i w can hold Eeliks Tyd Commissjo Bankier and 47. The (in ly confeience s competitioi on Oinaburij he Europeai DIVIDING SHE RUINS Communal memory in Yiddish and Hebrew David G. Roskies Cast in bronze and set in Swedish granite, the monumental Warsaw Ghetto Menion.il of Nathan Rapoport was erected on the ghetto ruins in 1948.1 There were two sides to the memorial. The ceremonial side feeing the empty plaza is where wreaths weie to be laid in front of larger-than-life iconic figures redolent of "Liberty Leading the People'' and of Polish insurrections past and present. The muscular figure with one hand bandaged and the other clutching a Molotov cocktail, asybefirred the stand-in lor Mordecai Anielewicz, once the most feared and respected person in the ghetto, was flanked on the left by a woman with one breast bared, by a youthful, slightly effeminate fighter on the right reminiscent of Michelangelo's David, and a bearded Herculean figure below—altogether a defiantly secular, vital, vibrant anti heroic tableau. No matter that the "real" Anielewicz had been described as slight, pale and unprepossessing,2 or that Rachel Auerbach who represented Jewish womanhood taken part in the uprising. (Proud of this rendering, Auerbach used it at the beginning of her ghetto memoir in lieu of a photograph.3) The bronze statues stood for ihe heroes, each of whom would be remembered by name and political affiliation. The side panel, a has relief etched in stone, paid homage to the nameless martyrs. 'They represented the parochial side of the past, the recurrent specter of Jewish l-'xilo. as first depicted in the Arch of Titus and as recently reimagined by Samuel Hirsz Clutching their children, their few belongings and a Torah scroll, they were bearded man with the legendary wander staff in his hand, only instead of a hue and desolate backdrop, they were guarded by German soldiers, their helmets and 1 protruding from behind the procession. The dark side of the past was patriarchal, pious, and passive. Rapoport's Warsaw Ghetto Memorial gave public shape to Holocaust me the postwar era: The dead were divided between the named heroes and the i martyrs; the heroes were rooted in time and place, while the martyrs were most recent incarnation of an eternal past. Rapoport then exported the same mis: o; lomantic it seen as the alone to •■.( and lor a d at the enn.i Rapopor manageable measure, he and lsiael. I 1 oi survive against gom divisions evi I eyb Ro then- w ay to .1 Yiddish i\ lengihv reel sum lotiin.il and a friend « August I'J-Your Ploori stiauge.' I h liquid.irion o while in Im assuini d Pol relationships everywhere pagan blood hunted, the f the mew ing i partition cou it was divide! the next, ivni effort and self broken up in was the heart then ability i confessional d and so emoiio indeed, die p loi it allowed pio\iiieti a vir ieaily count a: The diary f hi tiie New Y Dividing the ruins 83 ew letto Meinoii.il .vere two sides Teaths were to ig the People" 'ith one hand e stand-in foi ie ghetto, tlifiil, slight !v ind a bearded icroie table, e and unpi lood had not he beginning stood for the a Hon. eless niattyis. wish Exile, as Hirszenberj vere led by a if a bare and ind bayone > patriaichai. memory in :he nameless /ere but th :ame mix oi loiiiantic realism to the nascent State of Israel, where the uprising of the doomed was set'ii as the prelude to the war of national liberation, allowing for a statue ofAnielewicz alone to go up at the entrance to Yad Mordechai, the kibbutz built in his memory, and for a desexuahzed reproduction of the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial to be installed .it die entrance to Yad Vashem. Rapoport successfully negotiated the treacherous postwar terrain by means of manageable eclecticism. Drawing on familiar Western and Jewish iconography in equal measure, he fashioned a public consensus in two such vastly different settings as Poland and biael. He also had the advantage of having spent the war in the free Soviet zone, lor sumvors of the Jew-Zone, with a Holocaust-specific story to tell, the odds against going public were much greater, as they encountered linguistic and ideological divisions even within the same postwar community. 1 cvb Ivochman was one among thousands of survivors and refugees who made their way to Paris and while en route to permanent homes elsewhere turned Paris into 3 Yiddish Mecca and a hub of Holocaust memory. Rochman arrived there after a It'ii'.ttln recuperation in Switzerland with a story to tell, transcribed from the diary-(tiiii -journal that be had kept while in hiding with his wife, his sister- and brother-in-law i friend, from 17 February 1942 until their liberation by the Red Army on August 1944. First serialized in the Yiddish press, Un in dayn hint zohtu lehn (And In Your .Blood Shall You Live) portrayed a world both familiar to its readers and utterly mange.1 The setting was Minsk Mazowiecki, 35 kilometers from Warsaw: the final liquidation of its ghetto on Black Friday, 21 August 1942, and the struggle to survive while in hiding among Polish villagers, each Jew armed with Aryan papers and assumed Polish identities, but essentially living by their wits and on the strength of leiauonships with members of the Polish underclass and underworld. Yiddish readers t'vervwhere still remembered these peasants, with their passions, superstitions and pagan blood lust. No one, however, could lemeniber a time when the Jews weie the hunted, the peasants the hunters, and even children took pait m the Jew - hunt; when the mewing of a cat, an unstifled cough, or a diunken btawl on the other side of the paitition could give you away; and no one had yet divided time in precisely the way it was divided here: Survival Time in the vanous hideouts, one mote piiimtive than the next, rendered slowly, the durational time of the diaiy, measured with painstaking c Hon: and self-awareness, simultaneous with but opposed to the T line of the Slaughtei, hioken up into four long episodes and iccoided out of sequence, since Black Fnday was the heart of darkness, which those in biding tiled to keep buried, lest it overwhelm their ability to persevere. Rochnian's chiomcle, in short, was the fust authentic confessional diaiy to appear after the war, a genie so new that it didn't have a name, and so emotionally wrenching that readers and curies would desctibe it as "ncneltstie Indeed, the partition in Aunty's and Felek's cottage was a peitect novehstit device, for it allowed the narrator to be a royv tt-eyuo miY/i, a magical Unseen Seci, and piovided a voyeuristic lens through which to view the chamber of honois. "We don't ic.illy count as people," the chronicler explained, "we're just pait of the wall"'. The diaiy format made this work peifectly suited to be seiiahzed, simultaneously, in the New York daily Der tog and the Buenos Aires daily Yidhhe tsiiytung, for Yiddish 84 David g. Roskies was stiil the univeisal |ewish language and the Yiddish press was to remain tor dec -.ides the mam putveyor of Holocaust memory. The title, a quotation from F.z 10:6-7, was meant to he understood both metonynhcally and mythically, for just .is the Polish soil was steeped in Jewish blood, the Hebrew words "Bcdamayikh I bcdamayikl) Ihiyyi!" (In your blood shall you live!) were the climactic formula of the Jewish circumcision ceremony, proclaiming the blood-bond between the Cod of Israel and those who entered into His covenant. The Scriptural referenc turn, was of a piece with the traditional values shared by those in hiding, which included a Invent hope of someday returning to Zion. And finally, because Rochman's personal saga was enmeshed in the destruction of his entire community, the Paris branch of friends of Minsk Mazowiecki underwrote the book publication and paid for a modernist cover design bv the Bialystok-born artist, Bencjon Heiin (born Rabinowicz). Rochman, then, succeeded in producing a Holocaust classic by making fact read like-fiction and by filtering the unassimilable horrois through a Jewish folk sensibility--Rochman being both the last of his generation born in the silted and the fiisi to negotiate the Polish landscape with utter fearlessness. The revelatory powt i m Rochman's wanime diary was widely acknowledged, by readers as diverse conservative critic S. Niger and the radical nonconformist, Isaac Bashevis Sin In 195)0 Rochman immigrated to Istael, where he continued to maintain .11; international profile through his columns in the New York Yiddish daily Fen his Yiddish broadcasts on Kol Yisrael. Then one day in I960, armed with a translation of his celebrated work and in the company of his translator, Roclinuii appeared in the Tel Aviv offices of a young independent publisher named (as happens only in a newel) Nathan Rapoport. Like his namesake, this R believed thai he could harness the memory of the Holocaust to negotiate bet' the New Jew and the Old, so he published a cheap paperback edition, advertisements in the Israeli press, offered discounts to distributors and did a mailing of flyeis complete with blurbs and favorable reviews. The result? Most i 3,000 copies were leturned unsold, Rapoport sustained a considerable loss, and off I lolocaust literature tor the remainder of his career.'' If statues could speak, the heroic side of the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial speak to us in Polish-accented Israeli Hebrew and the tragic side would ' Yiddish-- authentic. Old World Yiddish. Each language, as it were, claimed opposite sides of the menioiy bank: Resistance on one side. Martyrdom on the oil postwar landscape, our tale of two Nathan Rapoports teaches us, was fraut multiple roadblocks, making it almost impossible to cross from one side to die Nathan Rapoport the Sculptor had to dispense with the martyrs if he i export his art to Israel, and despite his outlay of capital, Nathan Rapopi Publisher could not make a chronicle of mere survival marketable to an schooled in tales of Jewish resistance. Barely a decade before, Rochmai fellow survivor-refugees were taunted in the streets of Israel by children "Sabon! Sabou!"—based on the belief that the Germans had turned the fat Jewish dead into soap; and although the Eichmann Trial coincided with the pnli-lii ation. u.iiiative. Wi to the I ibeia I he ric h am OlelilMiy tli|| in a diil'eieiii 'put: Its n.iin counted. Wh wamme \\ i ir follow Cel iu I I;.it reinven Buenos Aues season. Its am raising missioi "lis! liiikorcij of the gheuo e human bones, testament, wr kakovei.''1" /> SMild.ud uso ( Kohtz cast a ( absent (Jori oi independent v. aiisoluio ihchot A iheologualb language c olle. apparently m.ie Ye,sl R..Lom that wanted ic heioism at ones Kal/oiK'Ison, S tonus of lesista lOlllll'.lllllU | hi- sun.iuu eomm origin il Yiddish nuclei the celno Speaks to (Joel.! W.iisiw ghetto Jacob ( Titslem. ot cmii inoiuinif geucutions." I Instiiii.eii Mic Iu 1 Dividing the ruins 85 > remain for dee ion fioni Ivekicl hcally, tin- just as iedatuayikli iniyyi, actio formula of "'wen ihe Cod ral refcicncc. in i hiding, whuli finally, heeause tire community, ook puhhcaiion Bencjou Bcnii "g fact lead like Jk-scnsihihtv i"d the hist 10 'ory power of' divcise as the vis Singer, > maintain an ly Forward and nth a i icbicw or, Rochmau H'd (as usually 1'is Rapopon bate between iition, placed ei slid a mass '- Most of ihe ss, and syvoic lorial would nld speak in neel opposiic ' other. Th 'ratight with o the other - wished te ipoport the in audience tan and his >e'i yelling fat of the lie Hebiew publication, Rochman's diaiy tailed to whet the reader's appetite for a new kind of n.matiee. Works of authentic wartime experience could cioss over fiom the Jew-Zone to the I iberated Zone only if published in their original languages in limited editions. The iich and uniijue body of wartime writing that had survived by dint of extraordinary collective and clandestine effort, and sometimes just by chance, was rooted in .1 thlleretit time, place, anti circumstance, which often lequired decrypting. Simply put: Its natural audience had perished, or was too scattered to stand up and be counted. While the postwar ruins were divided between Hast and West. 1 eft and Right, v.ariime writing - the bedrock of Holocaust memory, the sotuce for everything that followed —languished in obscurity. What followed, fheretbie, had to be leinvented. ili.u leinvention began with a stoty "written especially for Di yidishe tsaytnug" of Buenos Aires and published on 25 September 1946 in honor of the High Holiday season. Its author was Zvi Kolitz, who happened to be in town as part of his fund-i.using mission on behalf of the Revisionist Zionist movement. The story was calleil ")e.d liakoivis ivndnng tsu got" (Yosl Rakover's Appeal to God), "hi one of the ruins o! [he ghetto of Waisaw," a piefatoty note explained, "among piles of charied rubble and himi.ua bones, there was found, concealed and stuffed in a small bottle, the following lesiauient, written during the Warsaw Ghi'tto's last bonis bv a Jew named Yosl Rakover."'" Apart fiom the hackneyed device of a found document anil the by-now standard use of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as the pivotal event ol the Holocaust, Koliu cast a Gerer Hasid in the title role; this, to proclaim his faith in a seemingly absent God on the High Holidays. Rakover. implausibly, was also portrayed as an independent ghetto fighter; this, to espouse the need tor aimed resistance and the absolute dichotomy between the merciful God of lsiael and the merciless God of l.ove. A theologically expurgated version of the story appealed a year later in an Hnglish-l.uiguage collection of Kolitz's Stories and Parables of the \eais of Death, the changes .ipp.uently made by the translator without Kolitz's knowledge." Yosl Rakover was a fraudulent figure, a figment of the postwar Jewish imagination that wanted to have it all: a fighter who was also a religious martyr; a model of heioism at once physical and spiritual. The efforts of waitime wiiteis like I lubeiband. Kat/enelson, Shayevitsh, and Sutzkever to distinguish between religious and secular forms of resistance and to define heioism downwards were irrelevant to a postwar lomuiunity hungry to harness the past to further its agenda for the future, liven the sumvor community was taken in when, in 1954, an anonymous typescript of the iriginal Yiddish stoty arrived in the Tel Aviv office of the literary quarterly / )igoltlene keyt, Hitler the editorship of Abraham Sutzkever. "Vies/ Kahorcr redl tsti got" ("Yosl Rakover Speaks to God," as it was renamed) was published as an authentic document fiom the vVarsaw ghetto, but with stylistic improvements, as pei Stitzkever's usual practice, lacob Glatstein, among many otheis, hailed the newly discovered testament as "a parr if our monumental Holocaust literatim1 \khiiihn-liteuitnr], which will remain for all the >eneiations." This caught the eye of the poet, former ghetto fighter, and Holocaust listorian Michel Borwicz (born Maksymilian Boruchowicz). I )isappointed that Sutzkever 86 David G. Roskies provided him with so poor an explanation of the manusi upt's provenance, Borwic decided to expose the story's manifold historical inaccuracies and obvious hteiar gildings. In the face of public protest, Borwicz proclaimed it a take, and published hi findings in a Paris-based literary journal.12 The public protested because, as Borwicz understood, the need to believe \va simply too great. The Yiddish-reading public had responded viscerally to a "sacrec testament" that fully met its expectations and slaked its spiritual thirst. Since, by th< time the issue went to press, the truth of Kolitz's authoislnp had already come tc light, Borwicz appended an afterword in which he expressed the hope that the public would soon develop a hermeneutics of reading that would distinguish between the literature of the Holocaust and the literature on the Holocaust. "Our monumental Holocaust literature" refused to honor such distinctions, least oi all when it came to texts that purported to be true but defied historical analysis; that could be excerpted, edited, anthologized, translated, performed, and retranslated. In the major centers of postwar Jewry, Holocaust-specific anthologies became a leaden first exposure to the subject. Thus, in 1948, Shmuel Niger, the preeminent Yiddish literary critic of his day, published Kidesh hashem, subtitled A totleittou of oftentimes abbreviated reports, letters, chronicles, testaments, insciiptions, leerend';, poems, stories, dramatic scenes, essays, which describe acts of self-saiiijiic in out oum days and days o)'yore.13 That year, the forme: Vilna partisan Shmerke Kaczergmskt published the definitive edition of Songs of the Ghettos and Concentration ('amps: defin virtue of size, H. Leivick's imprimatur, and inspirational chapter headings.14 Onl\ t handful of these songs were deemed performable at memorial gatherings; just enoiijih to establish the genre of Holocaust song as lyrical, communal, sanitized, and vagudv.. historical.1* The signature song at such gatherings was "Es brent!" (Fire!) by Monlcai Gebirtig (1877-1942), a stirring hymn written in response to a prewar pogtoin m Poland that was universally understood to have prophesied the Holocaust.16 To sanctify the memory of the dead, the Holocaust was read backwards m Everyone who perished was deemed holy and everything they had created \ dered holy, too. No effort, therefore, was spared to collect their sacred ren New York, Machmadim Art Editions published Kdoysiuni (Martyis): Poetry i 'Tortured to Death (1947) on blue-gray stock in a numbered edition with each si from the work of a Polish-Yiddish poet set to music by the modern compoiti I b nee b Kon and illustrated with paintings by Isaac Lichtenstein. In Pans, H. Fc-. anthologized the artistic legacy of Undzcre farpaynikte. kinstlcr (Our Martyred PainteM. a numbered folio-size volume' that commemorated eighty-four east European lew who had hoped to become world-class artists in the art capital of the world an perished instead as Jews. Introduced by an homage to the martyred artists by Mat Chagall in his own handwriting, this magnificent volume concluded with jtist tl:; names of several hundred Jewish artists murdered in other parts of the Jew-Zone.' Ir the Orthodox sector, regrouped and incubating in Brooklyn, NY, Lakewood, N|. Jerusalem, and B'nai B'rak, the anthological project was led by the imk-tatigihl-Moshe Prager, a Hebrew-Yiddish journalist and the great grandson of the .fitsi (nt,. Rebbe. No sooner had Prager escaped from occupied Warsaw and made his \\a a HI Palestine thai of tactual ev the ruins \X. Gennanv. es vei\ day. Pr. Uiweii by lit '•.ok e of iAk rebels horn subject as em severed bi.iuc No sllipi is< among t In- in; the hje mrd 4 Header of 14 whose ttagic was possible t< the- lost cultur Kolitz secluc \ ot wartime wi • made it into tl ^"thsn .mo F . rewritten most onimittcos, o i'IICi ' i > im, ,, .jř documeiir.n y e - sumvois a : produce a ehlfe ■ collective voice* . die City ■>( I o, antst Aitur Szy "I ■>:•■■ . \e t /' kerchiefed u ife , .and ex-Cove-rife í America, whose .;- Zone - just lure . \ tsu nekome (I he ' [of Polish Jewish . about the mass d .Army would not . j Eventually io n ■""g iH t there \ ■■■I it iii Mil Dividing the ruins 87 lance, lionv ii 7 ibvious htei.uv d published his to believe vv.i.s ly to a "sacied . Since, bv the ready come to that the public Ii between the ictions, least of tl analysis: ili.u •ettanslaied. In ame a leader's rinent Yiddish lion of selected. Is, pomis, slum lays and aho in tiski published definitive livings.14 Onlv a ;s; just enough I, and v agucly ) by fVioidccai ar pogiom lit list.10 vards in time, ated was ion ■ d remains. In 'ocliy of El'lose each selec tion ;rtl composer is, H. 1 eusti-r 'red Pamteis), uropean Jews le world and tists by Mate with just the cv-Zone.17 In kevvood, N|. indefitigab he tiist Geicr le his wav tci Palestine than he began documenting the slaughter, producing four 1 Icbrew collections of (actual evidence between 1941-45.lli After the war, lie too began sifting thiough the mins. With the support of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against CrcTinanv, established in 1951 to underwrite just such projects and active until this \eiv dav, Piager published a 640-page Anthology of Yiddish Poems, Stoiies and Essays Whiten by Religions Attthots, Victims of Nazi Peiseintion.1'' To distinguish the authentic voice of icligious Jewry from the neo-Romantic ventriloquists and the study house it'bels lioni the likes of Peretz and Asch, Glatstein and (hade—Piager defined his -ithject as eintine-dikhttntg, the poetry of true faith"", in the hope of rehabilitating a M'vcied bianch of east European Jewry. No surprise, then, that the Jewish anthologieal imagination included Yosl Rakover jiiidiig the nuutyis. He appeared in Ani ina'amin, a Hebrew compilation of Testimonies tit the Life and Death of Belieueis at the Time of the Holocaust and in Of// oj lite Whtilwitnl: A Rcadet of Holocaust Litciatute, where a postscript identified Rakover as a leal person whose itagic fate was known to the author.21 Thiough the ait ol anthologizing, it was possible to erase the terrible divide between the living and the dead, to sacialize the lost culture of European Jewry, and to harmonize the martyis with the tighteis. Kolitz seduced his readers into believing that they weie privy to an authentic piece of Wartime writing "rescued from the ruins." In point of fact, little of that corpus made it into the postwar canon of "our monumental Holocaust liteiatttre," for what Yiddish and Hebrew leaders regaicled as Holocaust-specific getucs were written or lewntten mostly after the war, with their concerns in mind. While the Black Book Committees, one in the United States and the other in the Soviet Union, collected diicit eyewitness testimonies from every place on the Holocaust compass to form the documentary evidence of a crime against humanity defined in 1943 as "genocide," the suivivois and founer lesidents of the martyied communities turned invv.ud to piodttce a different kind of testimonial: a comprehensive yizkor book in their own collective voice. The tiist to do so was the United Emeigency Relief Committee for the (aty of Lodz, whose Lodzer Yiskor Book appeared in December 1943 and took tinec- yeais to assemble. It opened with a split-scieen illustiation by the Lodz-born ailist Artur Szyk of a German bayonet thrust thiough the Lodz municipal coat ol aims above the grieving heads of three Polish Jews: an elderly bended man, his keiihiefed wife and their veiy young son. Then came greetings to Ihesielent Roosevelt .nlit ex-Governor Heibert H. Lehman on behalf ot the former tesidents of Lodz in America, whose immediate goal was to bring relief to their coieligionists in the Jew-Zone — just how great their suffering they gleaned fioni a single somce, /)<>.< hint tuft koine (The Blood Cries Out for Revenge), a collection of eyewitness accounts of Polish-Jewish refugees published in Moscow in 1941. Were they to have known about the mass deportations fiom the ghetto, the last section of the yizkor book tilled with souvenir ads and ending with photographs of Lodzer otlspiing serving in the US At my would not have achieved the desiied balance of remembrance, celebiation, and fund raising. Eventually to number well over a thousand, the bulk of these memoiial books appeared long after there was anyone left to íescue, or any desiie to exact letribution.22 Each 88 David G. Resides routinely opened with .111 off-scale niemoiv map of the town, drafted in Yiddish 01 iu Ilehiew to 1 .implement an idealized, harmonized image of the Jewish life thai \\.v> icpon. deslroved, and cie\otcd its last, lengthy and terrifying section ft) a description ol the noeliv slaugjiier. 1 hose volumes produced in lsiael sometimes included photographs ol the (]u. native-bom ofispnng 111 U)F uniform. Ihe stated purpose of the yizkor book was 10- master leave a lasting memoiial for future generations. The real puipose was to close the die If chapter on the riagie past and to move on to other concerns, now that the survivois ui.uim; had sticiessfully rebuilt their homes elsewhere. The Book of Lamentations, leceiit should scholaislnp has argued, was not written in the immediate aftermath of the Temple's from V destinotion but 111 the midst ot its rebuilding.2' ,,1 vide Ihe most prominent of Holoeaust-spetlfic genres 111 the first decades after the w.u |(lr mt, were memoiial volumes compiled by those with a living link to the dead. Then st/e and ieadin< claim to compreht nsiveness testified to the staying power of the survivor communi But that lOinmumty was now dispersed and divided. As the Jewish deportation Ann1 (ommumty in Fans banded together to commemorate the martyred painters, the holv. L suivivmg membets of the Yiddish secular school movement in New York pooled i<> j|u. , then menioiies to produce the Irtei Ynkor Book, an alphabetical lexicon of mimlcicd Eurone: men and women who had dedicated their lives to raising a proud new generation of from in Polish Jews. ' In lsiael, the heron self-image of the emerging state was giea ,,,, enhanced by the visible and vocal presence ol suivivois who had been active in t Jewish aimed resistance.JS The means ofmeniori.il production, however, were viiui.ilK t,, ,,,, p controlled by the kibbutz movements and the political parties of the left. What t u. published and bv whom was determined by the political affiliation of the fightt ,]0 both living and dead.-'* llnee massive memoiial projects resulted from the in ]sn political alignment: Sefei milliamot hnger'aot (1954), which showcased the niembeis . ,| the Zionist under ground wdio had died as ghetto fighters, .SV/ci Hashomei Hai^/u m ,r (1959). which commemorated the Holocaust as an episode in the history of this pi .1,1] Soviet Zionist youth movement, and the two-volume Sefei hapn the Zionist: youth movements in particular, and one ot the Warsaw Ghetto, color u\! „,N or Dividing the luins 89 d in Yiddish or sh life ili.u was scription of the tographs of the or book was lo as to t lost- tlie at the sinvivoi-, nations, leeem if the 1 cmplc's .'s after the w.u . Their size ami or coiiiniiiniiv. sh depoitation d paintcis, the / York pooled 'ii of niiudeied ' genei at ion of te was gieatly n active in die , were viilually left. What got >f the iightcis. ioni the new ic nienihois of iltomer ILil^i'ir ry oft his pio ■ iiim Iniyciiiiilini itith who had Each of these riod of nation I lie religious house called iidltot h he Tyr„ r nam Sc/cr iinili-.niiol all treated as Jew-Zone npass." ' I w o •wish Uiuiei to distinguish .' and ihose of ), color- cooed llight the battles fought in January and April, l')4.V 4'hiougb testimony, diary, ige, last letters, battle bulletins, calls-to-arm, memoir, doeument.uy fiction. , anil song fiom across the eastern Jew-Zone, written by both the living and f the dead, tire editors Yitshak Zuckerman and Moshe Basok constructed a heroic | mister narrative in loose chronological and tight geogiaphieal order. While among 'liters, obvious priority was given to the Zionist underground, the loster of { iii.niMS drew from across the social and geneiational spectrum. Janus/ Koic/ak rubbed i -Jioiildeis with Reb Mendl ot Powianec; fifteen-year-old Yitskhok Rttdasbevsky f 'ioni Vilna with seventy-year-old Hillel Zeitlin from Waisaw. So too the rich selection : of Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish and German poetry and piose, much of it translated heie e first time. Whosoever studied its dense pages—hardly the stufl ot ieisuie g-—came away with the conviction that in the war against the Jews, the Jews i had emerged victorious. | Among jews, a sefer was designed for study, for permanence, and was consideied Like the editors and publishers, the intended audience of these memorial tomes poets and partisans, the teaeheis and ghetto fighteis. the Parisian artists and east j 1 iiiopeau communities, wete first-geneiation icbels from tiaditional Judaism, separated :he dead by only one degree. During the immediate postwar period, all private j memory was communal, for reasons both piaotieal and existential. Without political I or institutional hacking, no Holocaust testimony or text got published, and in older j in go public. Holocaust memory had to obey the habits of the Jewish heart. That J hem was now divided between Right and Left, sacred and pioiane. So the medium | ol 1 lolocaust memory was key to its message; not only who sponsoted its publication j Inii also when* it appealed: whether as a memorial volume created tor all eternity or | in the daily pi ess; whether enshrined as an emblem of the seveied past or enmeshed j in die messy, contentious business of clearing a new lite. Thiough diverse media and j to ,i different degtee in both Jewish languages simultaneously, the two competing .des of Rapoport's memorial weie gradually naturalized into the postwar Jewish i l.iiidscape. » In Poland, as throughout the Communist Bloc, Holocaust memoiy became a pawn j of the Cold War. After the Communists seized power, their loyal seivanf. Bit Mark, i was appointed director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Waisaw, the memory j hank of Polish Jewry and the repository of the two surviving parts of the (>yneg j Sli.ihes Aichive. Mark dutifully placed the Party imprimatur on everything he published: 5 iioin the stoiy of the ghetto uprising, leviscd to put the Communist undeiground in I cli.iige, to the fiction and leportorial piose written in the ghetto."'' Printed on cheap ] paper with identical covers, the literary legacy of the Oyneg Shabes Archive con-; t.uned no negative mention ot the Soviet Union.in All the more teason to defend i ihe authenticity of Yehoshue Peile's cluoiiide ot the Cheat Deportation by ruining Vile into a hero of the Cold War.31 When surveying and evaluating The Jewish \ IMi'dly in Pelisli LilCMtiuc, Mark lankcd the over thirty wiiteis and poets by order of their 1 political conectness. Tadeusz Boiowski, whose naruialist style "distorted reality ... J and essentially leads to fatalism" he dismissed in thiee pages.*' Only in the privacy ; ol a Paris hotel loom in PLS6, on the occasion of the official opening ot the Centre 90 David G. Roskies de Documentation Juive, did Mark confess his sins before two members of the Israeli Mori delegation, and in exchange for their forgiveness arranged to have millions ot boy," it historical documents microfilmed and secretly sent to Israel.33 widenin Because of his familial and ideological links to the kibbutz movement, the poet All his and playwright Yitshak Katzenelson became the commanding voice of the martyis. from m When the surviving members of the Zionist youth movement Dror established a new Majriant kibbutz, in Western Galilee and pledged to turn Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta'ot into ",i and in living memorial to the ghetto revolt," they named the archive that opened in Apnl fictional 1950 after the man who had been both their mascot and moral compass.3'1 Highesi ~- • cycle of priority was given to publishing Katzenelson's monumental Song of the Murdered Jem- horror, < People in both Yiddish and Hebrew. But when it came to the Vittel Dimy, the editor psycholi eliminated the names of the poet's ideological foes who were still living." Sacied historica memory required that one protect both the living and the dead. That notwithsrandin Thus Katzenelson's long day's journey into the ghetto night made maximal demands ot the that emr. reader and would never have appeared were it not for its institutional sponsor. ". memoirs Abraham Sutzkever was one of the few survivors who negotiated between East Rochitia and West without compromising his integrity. Even before he was airlifted to sateu make tin by the Red Army, in March 1944, Sutzkever was recast to fit the heroic Soviet mold way of ci of a partisan-poet.36 There, in Soviet Russia, his memoir of the Vilna ghetto wis and voki published in 1946, and it was from there that his first two volumes of wartime verse. . quotation Di jesttuig (The Fortress, 1945) and Uder fun geto (Poems from the Ghetto, 19461. }■ German were sent to the United States, where they were published by YKUF, the publishing arm " wi ltten of the International Workers' Order. The first Jew to give testimony at Nurembeig, Striglei on 27 February 1946, Sutzkever testified in Russian, one of four official languages. just outsii with the blessings of the Soviet prosecutor, a testimony that would be preserved m tor Majd; vol. 8 of the official protocols of the International Military Tribunal and highlights x- escape, tr thereof (many decades later) on YouTube.3' His heart and mind focused all the while :' clearly, is on the destruction of Jerusalem of Lithuania, over the course of three yeais (1945-17; weapon, and in three cities (Moscow, Lodz, Paris) the poet composed Ceheyinshrot (Secies ilealh pen City), an epic about ten symbolic survivors living beneath the ruins of the Vilna to read tl ghetto, which he managed to have published within months of securing passage to Rabbinic his new home in Palestine.* By the time Jewish Palestine became the State of Israel, ~ the Nazi Sutzkever convinced the Histadrut Labor Federation to underwrite the publication ' compresse of Di goldene keyt, the gold standard of Yiddish literature and a main purveyor "■■ail Get Holocaust memory, which it continued to support from 1949—95. A very different kind of writing flourished in the rough-and-tumble world of rictui Yiddish press. With Nazi killers on the loose, honor courts settling the score \v \lso serial suspected Jewish collaborators, and the scandal of reparations—German blood money-- tr " inrensifyin erupting in Israel and spilling over onto the Yiddish-speaking street, the Holocaust own geog remained front page news. Featured in the Yiddish press were the waitings of talent ind t young Holocaust survivors in serialized form. The postwar art of repottorial tic S w provided just the right mix of history and emotion, Jewish idiom and journalese, tl was communal and the personal. Written in sound-bites, each segment was just le; a- Fzetnil enough to fit into one's favorite (ideologically compatible) daily newspaper. I he puhli Dividing the ruins 91 rs of the Israeli ve millions of nent, the poet :>f the martyrs, ablished a new geta'ot into "a oened in April 'isO' Highest Murdcwd Jewish try, the editors ving.3-"1 Sacred itwithstanding, emands of the sponsor, between East ifted to safety c Soviet mold ia ghetto was vartime verse, Ihetto, 1946), )ublishing arm t Nuremberg, rial languages, ■ preserved in rid highlights I all the while us i 19 ii 17) ■nshtot iSeciei of the Vilna tig passage to itate ot' 1st .tel. e publication purveyor of world of the e score with tod money— ie Holocaust js of talented torial fiction urnalese, the 'as just long 5er. . Mordecai Strigler emerged from the war looking "like a slum-bred thirteen -year -old boy," in the woids of war correspondent Meyer Levin: "He had an intellectual face, widening upward from a delicate chin to a broad forehead; he wore glasses."39 All his copious wartime notes and manuscripts were lost, and reconstructing them from memory was neither feasible nor desirable. In order for his experiences in Majdanek, in Factory O, the infamous munitions factory at Skarzysko-Kamienna, and in Buchenwald to reach a wider audience, Strigler decided to adopt a thin fictional cloak, and he defended this decision in a tedious, three-part introduction to his cycle of documentaiy novels.40 Fiction, he argued, would mitigate some of the honor, while a literaiy approach to his real-life protagonists would help deepen their psychological profile. To ensure that the reader not mistake this as mere "literature," historical documentation preceded and punctuated the story. Thus the concept of khutlm-liteivtur was born; true tales of the ghettos and camps that employed modes of enhanced authenticity, such as confessions, autobiographies, memoirs, and diaries, lest, as Strigler worried, they be read as "mere" fiction." Rochman, Strigler, and their cohort each adopted fictional and journalistic techniques to make their story not only moie icadabk, but also mote iclevant. 1 he most ellective way ot engaging the leader was thiough bieaks in the mutative, Hashes of introspection and voice-over commentaiies addiessed to the leader chtectly, punctuated by Btblual quotations and Rabbinic phiases that togethei turned the unassimilable iciotd of German atrocity, Christian bettayal and Jewish cowairiicc into a species of lustoiy "written with anger and with bias."4 ' Strigler's MttjtLmvk opens with the imminent liquidation of his labor camp, located just outside his native town of Zamosc. All the inmates, male: and female, are headed for Majdanek, to certain death. The narrator, acting on some ill-conceived plan of escape, tries to leave the barracks to take a leak but is stopped at gunpoint. "The rifle, clearly, is in no mood to argue," he writes, personifying the SS guard through his weapon. "So he throws one word at me, that carries with it the warning of all four death penalties meted out by the Beit Din: ZurikkV In the two seconds that it takes to read this sentence, the reader is expected to see the disjuncture between ancient Rabbinic justice, which carried out the death sentence with fear and trembling, and the Nazi penal system, which targeted an entire people for annihilation. All this, compressed into the juxtaposition of the liturgical phrase, tirba mises bestiin, and the brutal German command, Zurikkl Get back!43 The Yiddish press was—and remains—a school for scandal, so there were no strictures on what aspects of the Holocaust could be described in its columns. Also serialized was the work of an eyewitness chronicler who was intent upon intensifying, not mitigating, the horror, by situating the Holocaust within its own geography, repiesenting real personal experience through the veil of hallucina- i) and nightmare, and rendering the historical transtemporal. Enter: Ka-Tzetnik 5633 who, when asked his name by his Red Army liberators replied: "My name was burned along with all those others in the Auschwitz crematorium." Ka-Tzetnik defined himself solely in terms of his experience of absolute extremity, fhe public would learn only decades later of one Yekhiel Fajner-Dinur, an 92 David G. Roskies Expressionist poet of middling talent, who had emerged from the ranks of Polish j Orthodoxy.'14 With literary ambitions even greater than Strigler's, Ka-Tzetnik set out to \v 'The Chronicles of a Jewish Family in the Twentieth Century. The first three volume Salarnandra (1946; trans, as Sunrise over Hell, 1977), House of Dolls (1955), and Thy ;.. Called Him Piepel (1961)—concerned the fate of that family in the Holoca Although Ka-Tzetnik invented very little, "Kongressia" being a (thin) fictional el< for Lodz, "Metropoli" for Sosnowice in Upper East Silesia, and Monyek Man Moshe Menu, head of the Sosnowicz. Judenrat; and although the most horrific epi«>4.\ i. could be historically corroborated, the poetics of horror rendered reality into nightman' and history into myth.43 The authorial self was a cipher. The ghetto and Digerweie ,i closed system. The branding of Jews, both male, and especially female, marked a new . and demonic covenant, a permanent defilement that could never be eradicated. 1 lie world was split between good and evil: Jews vs. Germans, Vevke the Saint vs. Monwk the Devil, Fella the Survivor vs. Daniella the Victim, and so on. When Daniella thnv. herself on the electrified barbed wire at the conclusion of House of Dolls, questions ot causality were suspended. Since no human initiative made any difference, her fate w,i\ preordained. The train that had whisked her off on her last summer vacatioi figured the train that would transport her to Auschwitz. If there existed a nieiomim for Auschwitz, it was pure womanhood defiled. Fella the Feldhure would birth again. Ka-Tzctnik's Holocaust trilogy was preoccupied with sexual abuse and sac chisni. He evinced an almost insane obsession with depravity.4*' The Nazi guards their underlings indulged every possible perversion and sexual fantasy. All three ■ protagonists, as Promiueuteu, camp functionaries, existed outside the pale ot humaniti Harry Preleshnik, Ka-Tzetnik's fictional stand-in, began his camp career as a m< of the paramedical staff in the camp infirmary, but was later inducted inl Sonderkommando. Daniella, his sister, was sterilized (without an anaesthetic) being inducted into the Joy Division, and Moid, their kid brother, servec homosexual sex-servant of the Block Aelteste. It was the press, above all, that helped normalize the Holocaust, mainstre; within Jewish communal memory. Judenrate, ghettos, Aktions, and the Unisch crematoria, selections, kapos, and the Sonderkommando; Buchenwald, Si Treblinka, and Majdanek: within a decade these Holocaust-specific ten become standard in the Yiddish lexicon. In Yiddish, the war-specific lexicon terminology of mass destruction never became a thing of the past. In Yiddish moreover, there appeared a popular library whose focus was the civilization of Jewry, its achievements, its destruction, and its living heritage. Published in Aires and free of political patronage, Dos poylishe yidntum was an ambitious a edited series of reprints and original works, a kind of portable library of Poli in exile. Appearing at the rate of almost ten books a year, these black-bound \oli each with an illustrated jacket and book review section, were distributed in tweu countries, even reaching Holocaust survivors in Poland and the DP camps."'7 the most prominent titles were Strigler's multivolume Farloshene shtcrn (Extii Lights), con 19 IS), I Lor/. I he vonngc 1 iebrevv jou the world v The House o, Because I ditFcrem mc encotinrored Motion: tho\ io\en.'inul r w is sponsorc i on IJve wo ued.'!:; ' 1 iebrow iv.ni wrought nar culture wool I ^ocumcni pioriuced Indie war and who became "angler. Wic-i bionologv c n dowi ixniiidaiics < cuofuUv 1110(1 Who spoke >ed mm bet ween |94f eastward into memory, loya Viln.i, not on asieticisni. II other in his fit the lion's shar 1 lore, in i h ■iw n fiom thi would seem fi bom the seen toi I lersh, wli he !elb Cluii law in the tad 4 ■f auks of t out to unto tee volumes — '55), and liny I'e IlnloiauM. fictional i loik ek Mat 10/ for urific episodes nto nig i Lueier won- a narked a new adicated. 'J be >t vs. Monyek >aniella ilnew , questions of ', her.1.111- was vacation p,e a mctonyrnv would never id saiiomaso zi guards and i three ol his of huinanits. as a menihei ted info the hetie) heroic served as ., 'streaming . '■M hl.lgpl.l!/; Id, Sobiboi. terms had con and the ddish alone, un of Polish 1 in Buenos is and well. Joiish Jew iv ad volumes, twenty--two s.47 Among stinguished Dividing the ruins 93 Limits), lotnprising Majdanek (1947), in di fabriku fun toy t (In the Death Factories, 19481. I Lak C (Factoiy C; 2 vols., 1950), and Goyroles (Destinies, 2 vols., 1952). Hie \oungest author to be included in the Argentinean series was a rookie Yiddish-Hcl'iew lournalist named Eliezer Wiesel. Wiesel's ... Un di velt hotgeslimgn ( ... And the «oild was silent, 1956) appeared as volume 1.17, two down from Ka-Tz.etnik*s Ik //(•(/<<• of Dolls. Until Wiesel, Hungarian Jewry had not yet been heard from. liet.uise the medium was the testimonial message, the same work could assume a ilitlciein meaning if it appeared in more than one medium. Readers who first ciKotintored Rochman's chronicle in the Yiddish press responded as to a work of liction: they couldn't wait for the next installment. Once enshrined in a book with a covenant.]) title and striking cover, which memorialized the names of the dead and was sponsored by the home-town society of Minsk Mazowieeki, hi Your Blood Shall You l.ur would double as a yizkor book until such time as a proper yizkor book appealed w When stripped of both communal functions, however, and published in llehiew translation as a free-standing work of Holocaust literature, Rochman's finely wrought nanative tailed to engage a new reader. His most lasting impact on Israeli culture would come through his protege, Aharon Appelfeld.49 Documentary fiction of the Holocaust, a species ot the new journalism, was piodttced by survivors who had either just begun their literary careers on the eve of var and whose wartime experience changed their writing forever, or by those became writets by virtue of their wartime experience. Ka-Tzetnik. Rochnian, - er, Wiesel and their cohort introduced Yiddisli readers to the landscape and chionology of the Holocaust, differentiated by place and fateful setting, sometimes broken down hour-by-hour. Together, they established the precise and allowable boundaries of khurbn-literatur, grounded in the survivor's lived experience, but oiRiully mediated tor a non-survivor audience. Who spoke for the Holocaust were not only authentic eyewitnesses, those with utioocd numbers on their ami. The chair of the Yiddish Writer's Union in Paris een 1946 and 1948 was Chaini Grade, a different kind of survivor, who had fled eastward into the Soviet Union, abandoning his mother and wife. The crucible of memory, loyalty, and guilt for Giade the poet, essayist, and novelist would henceforth be Vilna, not only its secular- Yiddish culture, but also its great Toiab sages and radical .isteticism. These two sides of his peisonal past weie brilliantly pitted against each other in his fust work of autobiographical fiction, "My Quaricl with I lersh Rasseyner," the hon's share of which takes place in postwar Paris,"'" Here, m the ciadle of the Enlightenment, someone like (maim Vilner, who broke .iv, av from the strictures of Jewish law to embrace the religion of secular humanism, would seem to enjoy a strategic advantage over Fleish Rass,eyner, who < tit himself off liorn the secular world and its seductions. Yet Grade keeps the sides evenly matched, for i lersh, while an inmate in Auschwitz, dabbled in Western philosophy. 'The war, he tells Chaini, presented him with such inefutable pi oof of the need for Jewish law in the face of barbarism, that he is astounded by Chaim's unrepentant humanism. mm 94 David G. Roskies In the end, each side refuses to despair, the one of God, the other of humankind, and when Vilner embraces his old adversary, he thereby signals that this internal Jewish dialogue will continue as before—answerable to the past but not crushed by : Another vicarious survivor was Isaac Bashevis Singer. Like Grade, who used P.-as a city of refuge for his Yiddish-speaking refugees, Singer's circle of misfits ended up in Hertz Dovid Makover's smoke-filled living room on New York's Upper West Side; and later, his "Last Demon" found shelter in an attic in the Judeu- and Devil- iciii shtetl of Tishevitz. Even "The Cafeteria" would do, for close Yiddish encounters ol the third kind.1*' Inspired by Rochrnan's chronicle of Polish-Jewish relations in extremis, Singer wrote The Slave (1960), a tale of Polish captivity in the time of Chmiclnicki, which Yiddish readers understood to be a prelude to the time of Hitlei Singer's great contemporary, S. Y. Agnon (ne Czaczkes), went a parallel route. Let us assume that when he wrote "The Lady and the Peddler," a Gothic tale about Jewish self-betrayal in the European Diaspora, the tale of a hapless Jew named Joseph who is almost devoured by a vampire named Helen, Agnon did not know the full extent of the catastrophe. But by 1944 he knew for certain that the Jewish community of his native Buczacz bad been annihilated, the shock of winch produced "Hasimari" (The Sign), a semi-mystical tale in which the narrator is consecrated to become the memorial and liturgical crucible of his martyred community When Agnon returned to this story some two decades later and expanded it tenlold. he began a massive, unfinished project of retelling tales in praise of Buezac/. 'Ir undo'oh (fhe City in Its Fullness) became what is perhaps the first personal vizkoi book.53 Thirty poets were included in Zaickennan's and Basok's compendium-seter of Ihe Wars oj the Ghettos, eight of them appearing m a separate liturgical coda. Missing v.,is the commanding voice of the Holocaust in postwar Hebrew poetry, rhat of Un /\i Greenbetg. Giec nberg had been ostracized for two decades both by the Hebrew literary establishment and the left-wing kibbutz movement for his Revisionist vie \ matter that in 1945, when he broke his vow of silence, Greenberg was immcdiateh acclaimed as "the Jeremiah of our generation," his poems were mainstreamed influential daily Ha'aret:, and a nation-in-the-making hung on to his every won!.1' 1 he left-wing kibbutz movement refused to forgive ami forger, and in any could hearken instead unto Katzenelson, a jeremiah from within its own ranks Greenberg was anathema tor fundamental reasons as well. In Rehovot hanakii. Streets of the River (1951), the first and only book of Holocaust poetry designed to be a seter, all the secular props were discarded. The poet-prophet abjured the term Slio.ih. which implied a natural disaster unrelated to its root cause —Christian Jew-hatred—ami he lefused the easy consolation of coupling shoiili with gevurah, the maityrs with the fighters. 1 he destruction of a people was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions, roijiiiinig a new poetic language—"No Other Instances!" he proclaimed-—a new accountiiif with God, a last encounter with the dead, and a final reckoning with the goyini " Gieenberg endowed the murder of Europe's Jews with cosmic and, ultimately, redemptive significance. It was a Book of Dirges and I}ower, which is to say, a po once bardic, encompassing the sweep of Jewish time and space, and lyric, addre to the poet one of the universe ri\ after enterii sky: / Not precisely th ir inurck ounters lers to c solation mi; code for tl kingdom" i unbridgeabl the left-win Inasmuch stood in op] with the- res] poems, whit was called . in the name. Majdanek d i oiituities: "' Ami just as die in Lubli collection o ioipses. / Y/ guevoiisly w did ii I eel ills v the ea responses to hook, sefer, new nietana anihological One side of 1 lestored bun physical plain the\ returnee isakovers n other approa hotly. Rochi dei.ul. Fhe r siting tliroui had swallow Polish bankr Dividing tlie ruins 95 of Lmm.mkiini. hat this iiiiL-in.il ot crushed hv ,t who used Paris misfits i-ndeil up k's Upper Wľm - and I )l-\-j| .lcm h encounii-is ot' ewish i elation*. m the lime ot ' time ot I litlet. i parallel lome. a Gothic tailless Jew n,uned, >n did not yet ertain that t hillock ot" which aerator is eon-'d conmnimtv. ded if tenfold, -' of Biu/aiv. icisonal yi/kor n-sefer ot" 77ic i. Missing u .is lat of I 'ehlew incurs st view ; imuii-iliaii-ly earned in the ■very won).'' n any e\eni. i ranks 'oi'or luiiitiliiľ. 'signed to Interní Sho.ib. -batreil and yix with linns, K\|lliiii|g ' account in;; -" Soyin , ultiinalelv, , a poet i v at e, addiessed io the poet's murdeied family.r,f' Speaking throughout in the ftist-peisoti singular, "as one ot lite many beheaded of father anil mother" ("I'll Say to God"), the poet saw a iiniveisc riven in two. "A lying poet can poeticize," he said to God in F.uiope, "that .ilier entering Your heaven / Your useless shepheid staff will shine, a lainbow in the \ot I—who sees within the vision the divided body of the (sacriticial| bird." At pieeisely the moment when Sutzkever and Celan, still within the Jew-Zone, engaged their murdered mothers in lyric dialogue, Gieenberg began imagining hallucinatory encounters with his mother; so childish, regressive, and law, that thev forced I lebiew ti'iilers to confront their own loss and guilt and utter helplessness.5'' Whatever consolation might yet be won from witnessing "the gieat palace of power," Greenbeig's code for the miracle of Jewish political sovereignty, "the ciown-of the-univeisal kingdom" in "the returning time ot gieatness" was piedicatetl on lacing an abyss, an unbridgeable divide, which would forever separate Jew from Gentile, little woiulcr the left wing kibbutzim wanted no part of it. Inasmuch as Greenbeig's poetry of peisonal bereavement and national consolation stood in opposition to the heroic self-image of a voting nation state, it was of a piece iviili the response to the Holocaust in Yiddishland. Glatstein's tit st postwar collcition of ais, which launched his career as a theologian, not merely a poet ot the 1 lolocaust, was called Iltiihttiit Jews (1946). "We accepted the 'Totali on Sinai," says the poet in the name of the surviving People Israel, "And in Lublin," in the shadow of the M.ijdanek death camp, "we gave it back." Quoting Scriptuie back at God, the poet inues: "The deatl don't piaise God [Ps. I 15:17)— /'The Lotah was given lor Life. / And just as we stootl together / At the giving of the Toiah, / So indeed did we all die m Lublin."'8 "O God of Mercy," says Kadia Molodowski in her first postwar collection ot veise, "Choose— /another people. / We are tiled of ilcath. tired of iiiipses, / We have no moie piayets."y' Only when the Jewish hotly politic, still grievously wounded, faced off against a ilinrinished, intimate, Yiddish-speaking God, did it feel itself empowered. By the early 1950s, readers of Yiddish anil Hebrew bail two very ditfetent liteiary lespoTises to the Holocaust to choose fiom. Enshrined as sacred moinorv in yi/kor hook, sefer, arrd liturgical volumes of secular verse, the Holocaust became part of a new metanaitative of destruction and rebirth. Through the alchemy of the Jewish antliological imagination, passive nuutyis weie melded together with armed resisteis. One side of Rapoport's monument meiged into the other, Piose writers and poets alike lestored human agency by transposing the brute struggle tor survival onto a metaphysical plane. Instead of dwelling on the chronology arrd terminology of mass murder, thev returned to a conceptual vocabulaty encoded in the ancient texts. Kolitz. in Yosl ICikover's name, spoke of hester-panim. God's momentary, mysterious lapse. 'The oilier approach—newsworthy, law, and scandalous— focused on the assault to the hodv. Rochman, Strigler and Ka-'Tzetnik were unsparing in their attention to bodily detail. The men who made it through the fust selection in Buchenwald weie seen sifting through their own shit to locate the diamonds and piecious metals they had swallowed the day before. Oh, how the narrator lamented the loss of his Polish banknotes, which were biodegiadable and theiefore could not have been 96 David G. Roskies salvaged.60 In a fairly straightfbiward, chronological manner, these writers inducted the reader into a new order of reality, centered on btute survival, a world of chouek-« choice. At one pole of response were the liturgists, secular humanists who, in the such a catastrophe, become guardians of the sacred flame. Occupying the other were young men raised in traditional homes who for the same reason turned to natiiialisin. becoming radical realists. "I hose two sides of F.veiyjew could no sooner be lecoimleii than the two sides of eveiysoul, living (as we all do) in the aftermath. If Holocaust memory could be brought home, only then could it speak to a name-born generation with no direct link to the murdered millions. In Israel, the. the main stage for national identity formation. Original Hebrew productions on contemporary themes were as closely watched as the establishment of eai agricultural settlement and municipality. So who would speak on stage for the destruction of European Jewry? In Eeah Goldberg's hitly of the Castle staged at the Cameri Theater in 1955, those who spoke for the war were: (implausibly) geous German aristociat, two emissaries from Palestine, and a Jewish girl iesciii-il from captivity.6' Drawing on Goldberg's Symbolist poetics of indirection, the pl.i\ was as much about the eclipse- of the old Europe as about survivois and struggling to respond to the eclipse of European Jewiy. Since no one on si "really" speaking Hebrew, no one spoke with an accent. A more popular choice by far was that of Hannah Szcncs, a-young Jewish-Hi girl who immigrated to a kibbutz and soon after joined the British army, para into the Jew-Zone with thirty-one others in order to tiy and save as many Hu Jews as possible.62 Inspired by a recent Hebrew production of George Shaw's St. Joan, Aharon Megged created the first Israeli drama about the capture, mil and execution of this Palestinian Jewish m.myr-and-resistance-fighter.63 iV timing could not have been better, for his play was staged by the prestigious I Theater when the trial, conviction, exoneration and assassination of Hungarian Jew named Rczso or Israel Rasztner were still very fresh in tl mind. Indeed, Megged's brother Matti had given the Israeli public a choice female Palestinian paratrooper who died heroically, or your typical Diaspora Inn who saved 1,684 Jews by entering into a pact with Adolph Eichmann, the 1) public resoundingly chose Szenes, with but one dissenting voiie, that of Natan Alterman, who rejected the false dichotomy between resistance and negi the fighters and collaborators.61 The scandal of Jewish passivity was gieatly mitigated once the focus of Hi memory shifted to women and children. Especially children. Plow did one let alone understand, the murder of 1.5 million Jewish children? Their anm through deprivation, disease, deportation, and mass death threatened tl equilibrium of the adult world they left behind. By focusing instead on the of rescue. The fate of the Kinderlrauspon, to begin with, was a tale of ii rehabilitation under the most humane of wartime conditions. The few who wo. leuiiitcri w it! without an ; normal lite I would have i inside the jc dihYieni cha Yiddish docu. Auetb.Kh/" j had much to taught how tt She way c their own wain Yiddish ai: these chilcjien f >ris and Biny in word and d or i.u i tone, t to dud sonic s.idimi ol the analogize, so collecting a tin * >emunv. 1 or consciousness directues-, wnl "an ant icnt s.i willioul elabor t 'lulclren) appe l.liiid mr'ii Hiltt appealed as par I vil Deciees o lii-l and llu do; a measure oi re Who i, a (lei dialed stoi\, he simplicity Yuri i 1 lie 1 e.id Soli i ieui yk Orlow (aiu.iMu-.illv clal traiixlotiueil her become the mos capacious mind Dividing the ruins 97 iters iniliu ted 1 of ehoiceless in the fit e of' to other weie to natm .ilisiii, be reconciled c to a native ■ I, theatei was iriuotions (.in of each new stage lor tin-staged at the bly) a com.i girl recited ion, the plav and rose net-, on stage was ill-Hungarian , parachuting iv Hungaii.in >rge Beinard capture, mal ''3 Meggcd's :>us Habtmah of another n the puhlic aice: either a a bureaucial, e Devil. 1 lie of the poet I negotiation. af 1 folocau-t one mourn, annihilation 1 the nioial the nari.ii iv e if individual v who R'uiiHed with their patents after the war and the many who learned to speak English without an accent could pass as unexceptional citizens and resume an outvvatdly iioiiu.il lite. To enter public memory, however, their private success and silent struggle would have to wait until the 1990s. The fate of those tiaumatized. brutalized childien inside the Jew-Zone who had somehow beaten the odds piesented an altogether ilitloienr challenge. They were Und-.eie kinder (Our Children), the name of a Yiddish d.ocudrama filmed on location in Poland with a scieenplay written by Rachel Aueib.u h.(>s Hete the adults, led by the famous comedians 1 )/igan and Shumacher, had much to learn from the children, before they, the child suivivois, could be taught how to laugh. I he way children performed authentic ghetto songs and the way thev nanated their own wartime experience would change the course of Holocaust memory, fust in Yiddish and Hebrew, and later, in other languages. Meeting lace-to-face with these children and being the fust to collect their eyewitness testimonies, both Noah (ins and Binyanrin Tenenbaum (later: Tene) were struck by a qualitative diffctetice in word and deed. Oris marveled at their seeming indifteieiice to death, their matter -ot tact tone, their "moral equilibrium and stoic calm." While adults weie at a loss to find some analogy to the monomaniaeal evil of Nazism and the untiammelcri sadism of the German Master Race, childien were emancipated from the need to analogize, so they could describe the atrocities with primitive diiectness.''6 After tollecting a thousand child testimonies throughout Poland and in seventeen 1 )P camps in (leunany, Tenenbaum concluded that they were free of the self-blame and self-cuiisciousness that bedeviled the construction of adult lives. The simplicity and diicitness with which childien recalled their wattiine experience lemiuded him of "an ancient saga or pages of the Hebrew Bible," when- events wete lecounted without elaboiation or pathos."7 Gris's Kinder-marliiologye (The Martviology of the t htldren) appealed as volume 10 of The libiary of Polish Jevviy, while Tencnbautn's lih.id me'ir uslniiiyim mimishpaha (One Prom Each City and Two fioni Each Family) appealed as part of a series published by the left-wing Sifriat Poalim devoted to "The 1 \ii Decrees of 1939-45." Arranged spatially, both anthologies placed the ghettos lust and the death camps last. Communal sponsorship and anthological design bespoke asuie of continuity. The actual content set a new standaid for solidarity, heroism, and truth. When, a decade later, the fust of these icscucd childien produced his own unme-dialed stoiy, he further challenged the communal master nariative under the guise of simplicity. Yurik and his kid brother Kazik, the two protagonists of Ihyalei ojetel t'l lie Lead Soldieis, 1058), a semi-autobiographical novel by Uri Orlev (tie Jetzy Ilenryk Orlowski), weie just plain childien, who peed in their pants, scteamed in ihen sleep, and had no idea what a Jew was.6X The only heroics to speak of weie the tauiastically elaborate exploits they themselves invented. 1 ike Anne Frank, who tiaiisfbrmed her Secret Annex into a site for high adventure, fantasy for these children was a means of both escaping from icality and transmuting- it. Orlev, who went on to become the most celebiateri [staeli ehildien's writer, boldly entered the zany, iticvetent, capacious mind of his child protagonists, who were capable of turning everything 98 David G. Roskies they saw, heard, ami suffered into a source of play. They had to, because the icalin. I I 'shmeiki they entered delicti the imagination. ( "K.O IS i 3 (iil.i I l.nn *** Illinois I'll i(> Mt>idet .11 One generation begat another, in a short stoiy ironically titled "Yad J'ashem" (Ihe (.'i/jiimji/ii Name), Megged senit>r depicted an intergeneratit)iial conflict over the namint a newborn child after someone who perished in the Holocaust.(>y The native-born ' \'" ',,,Ul'' 1 . . Chagall (P parents refused to burden their son with any relic of the Diaspora. Neither side ol ji. j ■ j the ghetto monument was of any use to them. So of all that was rescued. 19 Yloshc l'i, recorded, anthologized, translated, and published in Yiddish and Hebrew; of .ill kiimeue in the poets who eulogized and sui vivor-witnesses who fictionalized; from the win communal memory bank created in the first fifteen years after the liberation. I figures were chiefly responsible for bringing the Holocaust home to the in \m ma'am generation: Yosl Rakover, the legendary martyr ~figbter~anri-challenger-of-God, anil iVhutwiud. Ka-Tzetnik, whose sadomasochistic Nazi women in tight pants and riding boob. ' ' 1 , ''u'"'' ' . ^ - ' I u k lsii!.;el not to speak of the virginal Jewish maidens forced into prostitution, provided .i /Wo// j whole generation of adolescent readers with forbidden reading material.'1' It was (Bloomingi the okl division ot the sacred and profane played out against a rarefied .nul goneiation jllliill Seal, dward ).. f Rebuild i'estanient 5 :lark, 2008 reconfiguretl 1 lolocaust landscape. Notes jeuiy. I'J.-'.7,»'/ii- (.'ii/ Piagei. -\u 1 James L. Young, 7/ir Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials 0id Meaning (New ll.iw liann S. I (T Yale University Press. 1993). 155-84. ' sJ"v v,»!s 2 Emanuel Ringtibluin, Ksovim fun gi-to, ed. A. Eisenbach et al. anil Yosef Kenn 111 P" (Tel Aviv: Y. I.. Perots, 0)85), vol. II: Notitsn tin ophandluugen, 141. (oho 3 Rachel Aueibach. Behutsot X'arshah: l'W- I94J (Tel Aviv:'Am Oved, 1954). istoii,,;.,.,, 4 David (3 Roskies. -IgaitKl the .ipoealypse: Responses to C.atastrophe in Modem Jewish Co:;, mob. " i J (Cambridge. MA: Haivard University Press, 1084), 276-80. ' "I.. - 1 5 I eyb Rochman, ( '// in dayn hint zolstu lehn: togbukh IV4.1-IV44 (Paris: Frayntl fun Mn '/>' nnlhair Mazowieck. I9-|<)); the quotation is from I'he Pit and the Trap: A Chronicle of Smi'v. "'"he bast Hans. Moshe Kohn and Sheila Friedling (New York: Holocaust Libiary, 1983). ^ Kalseneb.on () Jan Schwarz, "Blootl Ties: Leib Rochman's War Diary," in Memorial Boohs ol I .w -hutlo lei liuiopeau ferny: lissays on tlie History and Meanings of Yii-ker }'olumes, ed. B ' Horowitz (lefferson, NC: McFarlaiul Press, 201 l),'l63-7<>. '■ D,, 7 Rochman, Un in dayn bhit zolstu, p. 15. 1 8 Schwarz, "Blood Ties." "■' longest 9 Anat I ivneh. "'Ihe (ay of the Despeiate and the Foititude of the Remaining will Si ''I'- «hi lice": Commemorative literature. Documentation and the Study ol the Holoe.uis iiipition < Dapim: Studies on the Shoah 24 (2010): 177-78. ' nk\ edm, 10 /.vi Kolitz, "Yossel Rakover's Appeal to God" (a new translation with alteiwoul ' woith t Jeffrey V. Mallow and Frans Jo/ef van Beeck), Cross Currents (Fall 1994): M>2-~, 1 "mage, tv I I Ibid., 373 -74; Zvl Kolitz, Tiger Beneath the Skin: Stories and Parables of the Years 'e 1 tians. Shuuiel Katz (New York: Creative Age Press, 1947). <.'<''<>, 12 Michal Borwtez, "1 )er apokrif ti.n. 'Yosl Rakover redt tsu got'," Ahnanakh (Pan tnu 193-203. 1 Yl.uk, " 13 Kidesli hasltem: a -.ainlung geklihene, oft gekirtste baiikhm, brio, khrouikes, tsavoes, 5> n legendes, lidei, dertseyhtugen, dramatishe stseues, eseyeu, vos moln oys mesires-iiefesli i k, j h'» oykh in fiierdike tsaytn. ed. S. Niger (New York: CYCO Farlag, 1948).' Dividing the ruins 99 use the le.ihtv I 'tislictii" i I he re naming of e native born either side of was lescued, ebrcw; of all ■m the whole beration. two to the ne\i -ot-God, and riding boots, i, provided a rial.7" h was raieiied and (New I Liven, 'osef iseiinidi >4). Jewish ( iuinue ml fun YiniT life of Sltti'Wui. 983). nets- of l:,ki,-ih id. Roseni,li\ ning will Sní. e Holoi afterwoid bv S62 -77. i oils (>/"; )(i//li, (Pans) ( ws, (>}'/. 'osli ill ii Sliineike Kaozeiginski. ed.. Lider fun di getos tin lagan, ed. IL feiviek (New York: CYCO Bicher Fariag, 1948). (lilt 1 lain, Singing for Stnvivtil: Songs of the Lodz Chetto, 1940- 45 (Uibana: Uuiveisity of Illinois Press, 1992), 4. Moidecai Gebirtig, "fire!" (1936) in The Uteratuie of Distinction: Jewish Responses to Cat cnophe, ed. David G. Roskies (I'hila.: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 371- 73. Kdoysliim, melodies by Henech Kon ami paintings by Isaac 1 ichiensten (New York: M.iilimadhu Art Editions, 1947); Undieie faipaynikte kinstler, with a tbrewoiri by M.uc (li.igall (Paris: H. Fenster, 1951). I i\ueh, "The Cay of the Desperate," 180. Moshe Piager. Autologyc fun icligyete Uder tin deitseyhiugeu: shafiuigai fun shiayber, umge-kiiinciii in di yom fun yidishu khuihn in Eyiope (New York: Reseatch Institute of Religious 1954); Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Cennam, llistoiy of the Claim- Conference: A Chronology (New York, 2001). 1'i.igei. Antologyefun ieligye:e Uder tin dtitseylungcii, p. 15. l/ii niii'ainiii, ed. Moidecai Eliav (Jerusalem: Mosad Haiav Kook, 1905); Cut of the W'luilwind: A Reader of Holocaust Litcnitme, ed. Albert 14. Friedlander (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1968). |.uk Ktigelniass and Jonathan Boyarin, eds., l;iom a Ruined Calden: 'I'he Memotial Hooks- of I'olish Jewry, with bibliogiaphy and geogiaphical index by Zach.uy M. Baker, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). The earliest yizkor books sveie written a •iteration earlier, in response to the Ukiainian pogioms. See David G. Roskies. 'lite lavish Seanh for a Usable Past (Bloomington: Indiana University Piess, 1999), 57-6-I. Ldward L. Grcenstein, "The Book of Lamentations: Response to Destruction or Ritual of Rebuilding?" in. Religious Responses to Political Ciisjs, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old 1 estainent Studies 444, ed. Henning Grat Reventlow and Yair I lottman (New Yoik: T & | Clark. 2008), 52-71. Ch.iim S. Kazdan, ed., L-icr-yi:kci-bukh: di timgekiiincuc hici fun Tsisho shiilu in Poyln 4ew York: Komitét tsti faieybikn dem ondeiik fun di umgekuinene teter fun di Tsisho luln in Poyln, 1954). ISojz Cohen, "Holocaust Heioics: Ghetto Fighteis and Partisans in Israeli Society and I listoriography," Journal of Political and Mililaiy Sotiology 31 (2003): 197-213. ivneh, "The Cay of the Desperate," 177-222. ibid., 211. s-fir milhaiiiot hageta'ot: beu hahoiuot, baniahanot baye'aiot, ed, Yitsh.ik /aickeiman ami ' loshe Basok (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Bet hageta'ot 'al shem Yilshak \atsenelson, 1954). Yehudo Feld|wurm|, In di t say tu fun Hoiiien dem tsveytu, ed. L. Olieki (Warsaw: Yidish bnkh, 1954); 7m'/s//» lebu tin toyt, ed. feyb Olieki (Warsaw: Yidish btildi. 1955); Zelnian Skalow, Der haknkiayls (di hak on kiaylsK cd. I. Olieki (Waisaw: Yidish bukh, 195-1)--all tider the geneial editoiship of Ber Mark. file longest of'Peietz Opoczyuski's Repothigts fioni the Waisaw Chetto is "House No. 21" 941), which tucks the push-and-pull between staying in Wais.iw under German ."cupation or seeking one's fortunes acioss the new German-Soviet bolder. Gone liom Mark's edition is the tiade in wristwalches that the boys iiotn Wolynska Street discover e "worth their weight in gold on the Other Side." By eliminating the last half of the 'portage, Mark spaied his leaders the cruelty of the Russian border guaids who began ) behave no differently fioni the Germans. Cf. Peietz Opoczynski, Repoitazhn fun itshevcrgoto, ed. Ber Mark (Waisaw: Yidish bukh, 1954). 9-24 and Opoczynski, "House -lo. 21" nans. Roberr Wolf in Roskies, ed., Liteialme of Destitution, 413-16, -119-24. lier Mark, "Yudeuratishe 'ahves-yisroef (an entfer afn bilbl fun 11. feyvik)," Meter far ■shikhte 5, no. 3 (19.52): 63-1 15. lier Mails. Di yidishe tiagctlye in der poylisher literami (Waisaw: Yidish bukh, 1950), 138-41. 100 David C. Roskies 33 Khone Shinenik, "A briv in lvdaktsye," Di goldene keyt 140 (1995), 214-16. 34 Boaz Collen, "Holocaust Heroics." 35 Cf. the censored version of Yitzhak Katzeneslon, Vittel Diary, trans. Myer Cohen (Isi Ghetto Fighters' House, 1964) with Ktavhn aliaroirim: begeto Varum uvemahane Vité, vol. 5 of Ktavini, ed. Menahem Dorrnan (Israel: Beit Lohamei Hageta'ot and Hakibhtii/ Harneuchad, 1988). F.vcn in the latter, however, the names of Shloynre Mendefon. Artur Ziegelbojrn and other Bundist leaders excoriated by Katzenelson are not identi in the biographical appendix. 36 Hannah Pollin, "Geheyimhtot and the Construction of Avrom Sutzkever's Public Perso (Senior thesis, Columbia College, 2004). 37 Abraham Sutzkever, "Mayn eydes-zogn farn nirnbergei' tribunal: togbukh-notii (1966), in Baym leyenen penimer: dertseylungcn, dermonungen, escyeu 0erusalem: 1993), l61-(>-l: YouTube, Nuremberg Day 69 Sutzkever, http://www.yoirtube.com/watchiv i.MDj 70cXthw*ďeature--rola tod 38 Abraham Sutzkever, Cchcynishlol: poetne (Tel Aviv: Ahdut, 1948); excerpted in Ahrali.iin Sutzkever, Selected Poetry and Prose, trans. Barbara and Benjamin Harshav (Berke University of California Press, 1991), 185-97. 39 Meyer Levin, In Search: An Autobiography (New York: Horizon Press, 1950), 241. 40 Mordecai Strigler, In di fabriku fun toyt (Buenos Aires: Tsentral-farband fun poylishe 5 in Argentine, 1948), 7-67. 41 James E. Young, "Holocaust Documentary Fiction: The Novelist as Eyewitness." 111 Writing and the Holocaust, cd. Berel Lang (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988), ih. 15 42 Jan Schwarz, "A Library of Hope and Destruction: The Yiddish Book Series Ot>> Poyiuik Yidntum, 1946-66," Polin: 20 (2007):185; quoting Y. Shatzky, "Problemen fun historiografýe" (1955), Shatski-hukh: opshatsungat vegn Yankee Sliatski, ed. E. I itscliiu/ (New York and Buenos Aires: YÍVO, 1958), 248. 43 Mordecai Strigler, Maydanek, with a preface by H. Leivick (Buenos Aires: Tsenir.il kit--band fun poylishe yidn in Argentine, 1947), 20-21. 44 Dan Miron, "Bein seier le'ef'cr," rn Hasifriya ha'iveret: proz'a me'ureivt l980-2i)0x (Td Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth and Chemed Books, 2005). 147-83; Yehicl Szemtuch. .s,i/.i-tuandra: mitos vehistoria bekitvei Ka. Pzetnik, ed. Carrie Friedman-Cohen (Jerusalem' Magnes Press, 2009). 45 Szemtuch, Salamandra. Id Mnon, "Ik 111 setu k'etcr", Omer Bartov, "Kitsch and Sadism 111 K r~ I zetnik's Othei PI met Isi it*li Youth Imagining the J lolotaust," pwish ,Si)u 1/ Selm nz, "A I ibi iiv of Hope ami Destitution," 173-74 18 Stylo inmsL iiituouyilsk, ed Iphiaini Shedlet/ky (Jemsalein- Minsk Mazowiecki Sou.iii'-in Istael ami Abroad, 1977) 19 Aharon Appelfeld, íiitioduction to Roihman, lite Pit atid the hap, 7-9. 50 ( h.mn Gt nie, "Ms Quaitel with Heidi R isse>nei" (1957), ti ins Milton Hiiiiinclf.iil) id ll// Ksat Bashous Singe 1, Shadows on the Hudson (1957), ti,111s Joseph Sherman (Ne I 111,11 Stiatis and (.notix, 1998), "The last Demon," tians Martha (dicklich ami Civti 1 leinles, " 1 he ( ateterta," nans by the aufbot and Dotothea Sttaus, in flu (Holice -of haa, Bushcvis Suu>a (New Yotk lati.u Sttaus and Giioux, 198 3), 179 87, 28 5 3 Shmuel Yoset Agnon, ' I he I ady and the Peddlei" (1943), trans Roheit Alter ii Ihbiew Puaatmť. ed Robert Alter (New York Behiman House, 1971), 201-12: "liv Sign" (I9(f 1907). tuns Aithui Git en in Roskies, 'Hit Littiatme of Deanian'n. S8S 601, 7i undo'ah (Jemsilein Schocken, 1973) SI Dan Mnou. I he Piophttu Mode tu Modau Hebiew Pottiy (Milfotd, CI: Tol 2010), 230-37. *wĚS •WĚĚ ■I ■I 55 Uli (Jieen oj Dsiiiul 56 Alm L. \'. Umveisiu 57 Miti)!i. ('/' 58 J.ieoii CI Ü lieio-.au! ■5. t ; I ■ ■ ■ ■I ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Dividing the ruins 101 5i iin (ireenberg, " To God in Europe," (1051), trans. Robert Friend in Roskies, The Literature Dominion, 571-77; Miron, 77ic Prophetic Mode, 237-46. 56 Alan 1 . Mintz, Hurhan: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York: Columbia 4ty Piess, 1984), 181. v Mnoii. 77/e Piophetic Mode, 246. iS Jacob (Jlatstcin, Shtralndike yidu (New York: Faring Matones, 1946); I Keep Recalling: 1'he Holocaust Poems of facoh Glatstein, trans. Barnett Zunioff with an intro. by Emanuel y Goldsmith (Floboken: Ktav, 1993), 92. 5'J KjiIi.i Molodowski, "Cod of Mercy" (1945), trans. Irving Howe in 7'/ie Penguin Hook of .Wim Yiddish Verse, Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse and Khone Shmeruk, eds. (New Yoik: Penguin Books, 1988), 330-33. (ill Srnglcr, Maydanek, 42-44. fil lull Goldberg. "Lady of the Castle" (1955), in Israeli Holocaust Drama, ed. Michael Taub (Suae use: Syucuse University Press), 21-78. (,' likliih Tydor Baumel, Giborim lemofet: tsanhane hayishttv bemdhemet ha'olam hasheuiyah ■iron hakolektivi hayisre'eli (Sdeli-Uoker: Ben Gurion Institute for Israel Studies and i lie I egacy of Ben Gurion and Ben Gurion University Press, 2004). Cd I.'.in 1 aor, "How Are We Expected to Remember the Holocaust? Szenesz versus Kasztner." in On Mrnioiy: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. Doron Mendels (Oxford and Hern: Peter Lang, 2007), 195-213; Aharon Megged, "Hanna Senesh" (1958) m Taub, Unicli Holocaust Dnmia, 79-126. (>\ Nataii Alteiman, 1954. "Your hazikarou vehamordim," in Ilalur hasvi'i - vol. 2; as cited in La or, etc. 65 I'mhcie kinder, dir. Natan Gross, prod. Shaul Goskind (Poland, 1948); J. Hoberman, Image of Light: Yiddish Vilm between Two Worlds (New York: Museum of Modern Art and Schocken Books, 1991), 330-31. (ifI Kinder-maitiiologye: handlingfun dokumentn, ed. Noyekh Gris (Buenos Aires: Tseiitial-fjrband a poylisbe yuln in Argentine, 1947; vol. 16 of Dos poylislie yidntum), 57-62. 6" Fluid me'ir iisliuayini inimishpaha, ed. Binyamiri Teneiibaum (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1948), vi. 68 Uri Oilev, 7 lie L'ad Soldiers, trans. Hillel Halkin (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co, 180). ()') Ahaion Megged, "The Name" (1950), trans. Minna Givton in Lacing the Holocaust: Selected Israeli Fiction, ed. Gila Kamras-Rauch and Joseph Michnian-Melkinan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 21-36. 7o H.irtov, "Kitsch and Sadism in Ka-Tzetnik's Other Planet." Dos hoyvr fun di lyalkes (The blouse of Dolls) was the first Yiddish novel I read on my own, tar from my mother's Mchful eve. 6 ii WE KNOW VERY LITTLE IN AMERICA' David Boder and un-belated testimony Alan Rosen Silence in relation to the Holocaust has many faces. "If my family is famous," i the primordial victim in a poem of Dan Pagis, "not a little of the credit me. My brother invented rnurder/my parents invented grief, I" - apparei hapless victim - "invented silence."1 Another prominent survivor, Elie Wiesel, of his ten-year vow of silence following the war's end." This kind of deliber;. silence is not likely that which constitutes the questionable historical assumption under review in this volume. But the integrity of this form of silence may nevertheless on the myth of silence that we are investigating, and I'll plan to return to J" it at: the end of my essay. The myth of silence surrounding postwar smvivor testimony is certainly established. Most assume that because survivors were reluctant to speak, or i and acquaintances were not interested in listening, little survivor testimony was 1 a public venue until the time of the Eiehmann trial.' According to this view, t made headway in the 1970-90$, spurred onwards with the advent of videorei the medium used by Yale University's Fortunoff Video Archive for Holoi Testimonies, Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Fount and other such projects. Survivor testimony was thus understood to have em belatedly, deferred until survivors had fashioned new lives, until interest Holocaust had accelerated, until the deniahsrs bat! reached new heights of i sophistication, and until it was deemed that popularization of the Ffolocaiist. \vjc immeasurably distorting the truth. But by no means all Holocaust survivor testimony was voiced belatedly. 1944-49, Holocaust survivor testimony gathered in Europe by individuals air tutions numbered in the thousands: some 7000 interviews in Poland, 3500 in II 2500 in Germany and numbers more in Austria, France, Italy and C/echosltv Chicago-based psychologist David Boder contributed to this trove of testimony bv interviewing over 100 DPs in Europe in the summer of 1946. Fie was one of lew, however the education ibis pedagogy revising, the m Boder hims United Slates in FS86, Bode joined the fat Institute ol ■ e '9-16 Bodei recorded them 1 he intervie of Holocaust si spoken word ( sessions ami rel expedition. Ci Instiiute ol Me d 1 )i\ ision copies c.i11 be f orial Must 1 oi more tb, transt i ibing, di< ollet ted. f: of winch were i sistecn \illume: Div)/,i,v,/ People two other majc ' M\,!s ii ituial. By 1 States fo institution-, and n vvntieii in Englis I his America! 19 D coih civcd •is possible, he tt .tiul powerfully o planning, he corrf "We know very little in America" 103 IERI ions," pies can be found today; the other is the Archives of the United States Holocaust leinorial Museum. The original wire recorder spools have disappeared. For more than a decade following the Emopean expedition, Boder was tireless in .inscribing, disseminating, publicizing, analyzing and lecturing on the material he id collected. Eighty of the interviews weie eventually transcribed into English, most "which were included in a self-published manuscript of over 3100 pages comprising sixteen volumes. The volumes all appeared under the title Topiuil Autobiographies of 'isphucil People; they formed Boiler's own libiary of catastiophe. Boder published two other major contributions based on the inteiviews: one. a 10-1') book entitled / Dii/ Not Interview the Dead; the other, a lengthy 1(>54 article, "The Impact of Catastrophe."7 Another long article analyzing a single interview remains in manuscript.8 By the time of his death in December', 1961, almost exactlv fifteen years after turning fiom the DP "shelter houses" of postwar Europe, Boder had accomplished much, if not all, of what be set out to do with the intetview ptoject. Foreign-born and bred, conveisant in a number of European tongues (including Yiddish), Boder nevertheless identified himself as an American and hence as an outsider to the experience endured by the majority of his interviewees. In some respects, tins was natmal. By the time he set out to interview the DPs, he had been living in the United States for nearly twenty years. Í le was employed and funded solely by US institutions and most of his piofessional contributions articles, lectures, reseaich — were written in English and directed toward an American audience. This American identity is important to note because when Boder in the spring of 1945 conceived the interview pioject and set about trying to realize it as soon as possible, he turned to hundreds of Americans, some of whom were well known :« and powerfully connected. Over the comse of the fouiteen months of preparation and planning, he conferred with dozens of prominent figures who were eagerly supportive. 104 Alan Rosen He did not work in isolation but was rather in dialogue with members of American Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Indeed, this support reflects American interest in the Holocaust at this time and came as a consequence of Boder's indu in making known the psychological dimensions of its aftermath. There was interest but less knowledge of what had actually happened. In fait. Boder fashioned the interviews as a tool to teach Americans the basics. "We know very little in America about the concentration camps" was the phrase he used the interview agenda. In narrating wartime experience, the interviewees' task assume nothing. Terms, sites, procedures had to be spelled out. And this was the iav in each and every interview. In one of the earliest interviews, Polia Bisenh.ius described the grueling routine in Bergen-Belsen: polia: We slept on the ground, and it was ... all day we were sitting on the ground. on the same straw, and afterwards at night we slept on the same place. It w.n very dirty there. Many died from the dirt that was there. boder: What did the Germans say? Why were you held there? polia: They told us nothing about why they held us there. They did not tell we knew that they held us because they wanted to annihilate us, but they did not succeed. Boder didn't let up: boder: All right. Did they annihilate there other people? >■»- polia: /two words not clear/ When the people were weak, and were becoming weaku from day to day because they were not given any food, so they annihilated them. There was ... well a chamber where they gassed /gas-killed/ tin afterwards they burned ... well that all is known what the Germans have . boder: How come you say it is well known? In America they know very little. polia: Oh, they know in America. The periodicals have written a lot. Don't they boder: Oh yes, some people know, some people don't.9 What was basic information for those who were on the scene was not for at lo.i-r "some people" in America. It was for these people that Bisenhaus was tell story. Throughout the interviews, Boder regularly reminded the narrator, in i Jocob Minski, of the nature of this American audience and why that mattered: minski: For two years we could relatively ... That is, we wore the Jew-stat "tagged"; we had to buy in designated stores ... boder: Yes. minski: And it is self-understood that we had no right to go to theaters and /public/ places ... boder: Don't make that so "self-understood"; we in America don't know tl were not permitted to go to theaters, to movies ... ?10 I In-- bin.id p Mendel 1 lersl Hon! k: All ri I in ^^|fet? TeL lhe Amei For Botler to uoi Mil prising, and ai mal inti estiin.iliiii.'. wh couldn't be pa: aci ounl of a i about funeral i iiooi;u: Did yi ICIIAKNAIlltOD bow U: .. to rCHANN'AilROD fhev hail objects; th How k: Nu i'CIIAltXAüHOI), nniii-.it: You si friends ... ■ UN.MIItOD; it: Now c 'S America cou assumptions. Bo America, then, Boder's mind dis to ie.iin from rh 1 or all of its ii the lnltodm lory the recoided ini under \\a\ . it so aiidieiKo in que context ol the spu nous. I hat schoiai s w ho wo ^menc.in ignora the luriiculais' of 'We know very little in America" 105 nembeis oi rhe eHects Ameiican Boder's indiisu\ >pened. hi km. ics. "We know ' he used so set ees' task w as to hs was tin- case 'oiia liisi'iihaus :>n the giound. e place, h was [his hmad pedagogical task comes through emphatically in Boder's prompting of Mi.'iitlel I lerskovitz: bodmc All right. Good. Now, would you tell me with the best details, what happened in the few days before the Germans came, and when they came, and all that? Tell me everything the way you remember it. We want later to tell it to the American children. lor Boder to envision the ohildten of Amenta as a netessais p.ut o( the audience is not sinprising, since it paiallels his attention to clnldien and vouth as both potential ,incl actual interviewees in fun ope Boder had bis eye constantly li\ed on Amenta, estimating who might be the preferred audience and what piece of information couldn't be passed up. After soliciting from Roma Tcharnabroda a graphic and tenable .leioinit of a women camp prisoner being hanged, he asks, with apparent naivete, .ibtuit Itinera! rites: not tell us but , but thev did fining \\ eaker y annihilated .1/ them, and is have done, cry littl "t they know - t for al least is telling, her in this case tteiecl: -star - v s and other v that. You lioni'r: Did you not have there a clergyman, a rabbi? icuarnabroda: Where? noDi'ft: ... to give the woman die last rites? iciiarnabroda: Oh Clod, the SS does not recognize, did not recognize any clergy. They had torn down from the Polish women all the medallions, and all such objects; they said, "Here one needs no God any more." lioui-.a: Nu ... 'jci i arnabroda: God won't help you anyway. lioni-R.: You see I do know it, to be sure; but 1 am asking it for my American riends ... icuarnabroda: /laughing/ Yes, they know very little about this /laughter/ Honra: Now continue." If America couldn't help but legaiel what happened in the tamps with misplaced prions, Boder worked togethei with his narrators to piovule a sobeiing collective. America, then, was the mam taiget. lint this was because Anion a - app.uentlv m Boder's mind distant and ignoiant ícgaidmg the victim's hanow mg expeucne e - needed to learn from the bottom up. for all of its importance in giving a context, audience, and purpose to the interviews, the introductory phrase "we know veiy little m Anient a" - is not to be heaul on he recorded interviews or lead m the tianscnpts. Stated betott the tecoiding was mder way, it served as something the nanator needed to heai but the hstenei the lutlience in question — did not. Foi latei icseaicheis who hope to lcconstmcl the •ontext of the interviews, the exclusion of tins mtioductoiy matena! feels con-pieuous. That it was left out shows how much Bodei, though having m mind cholars who would eventually use the íecoiclings, focused Ins etfbits on oveuonung American ignorance. The audience needed to heat the stoiv, not to be instituted m lie particulars of the interview process. 106 Alan Rosen America knew little in spite (or because) of the wide circulation of new: depicting the liberation of the camps with the attendant grim scenes of corpses and starved survivors.1' Graphic though these newsreels were, these "images of witness" were thought by some, including Boder, to have inherent limitations in convex nig knowledge of what took place. "The present writer," Boder set forth in his 19b memorandum, "could not help observing the enormous discrepancy betweer abundance of visual material collected on subjects of the war and the nieagerness ot first-hand auditory material available on the same subject."13 Boiler's effort to rectif discrepancy was what led to his recorded interviews, a kind of imageless testin that sought to augment — and, perhaps, to challenge — the camera's work. To his mind, there had been little in-depth testimony, little in the way story told by those who had gone through the experience. He wanted to produce what in the social science vocabulary of his day was called a "human document" Because of the problems presented by multiple languages and because of his logical interest in traumatized language, recording the interviews offered the possible option. Boder saw himself offering a service that others working on behalf of the could not. His authority on the matter came from the top: "It seems to inc." ISoilo wrote in June. 1945, "to be the express desire of the Commander of the General Eisenhower, that the proper organizations should be as completely informed thrc sonal contact and their own specific methods of the human factors invoh the European tragedy and especially the tragedy of displaced persons. A of motion picture producers have been flown to Europe only a tew days .1150. -i 1 think at least one psychologist should be entitled to facilities and coopi for a survey with psychological methods and corresponding tools.'' The inadequacy of film newsreels to do justice to the victims affected others s Renowned Buchenwald survivor Jorge Semprun's account of watching in 1945 newsreels ot the liberation of concentration camps reads as if it came < from Boder's notebook: Even though [the newsreel images| showed the naked obscenity, the deterioration, the grim destruction of death, the images, in fact, wer Not merely because they were filmed without live sound recording was standard practice at the time. They were silent above all been said nothing precise about the reality they showed, because they only confused scraps of meaning. ... What was really needed was conn on the images, to decipher them, to situate them not only 111 a histoni text but: within a continuity of emotions. And in order to remain a possible to the actual experience, this commentary would have had to 1 by the survivors themselves: the ghosts who had returned from 1 absence, the l.azaruses of that long death.15 Spurred by t dealing with had to treat ti has carriec "commentary chose was to a For both S< narrative and death" had to I or both, it fe to silence folk directed back trust to the inert in (or bel public's lack viyor's refusal 1 a continuity of testimony they Focusing on r of displai general public mto the hands States. The afo table image oft • camps was editc of life and roeo against an encm boder used tl view; the 1)P'S, devils who that the work) t harsh terms in cii .. the DPs with th to refer to mig American histoiy the essentia,! role ■States. Bodei's ic Giving a pom: and conccnti.iiioi science.'' Some 1 'early 1960s mclud •if Home mill in ; i'.C;. Ariler. 7/;<■/<• .Am "We know very little in America" 107 i of ricwsreels .if corpses ami ,es of witness" in convevnm h in his pip, between ihe meager ncss of t to rectify this less testimony .rk. the way of a ■d to produce l document." if his psvcho ■ ered the best If of the I IPs ) me," Boder ,)f the Armv. through pei s involved in oris. A group i'w davs ago. I coopeiation hts siitiil.uIv. n December, ame diiei tlv the ph\ sical were silent, rding, wh.icli .localise ihev ey deli comniciitais storical con n as close as to be spoken n that loim Spuncd by the silent newsieel images, Sempiun's epiphany leads to a strategy for Jciling with 1 lis Buchenwald ex])erience: "One woultl," Sempiun surmises, "have li.ul to neat the documentary material, in shoir, like the material ol fiction." a strategy lie has carried out in his memoiis.1" Boder was similarly imptessed by the lack of ■■((iiiiinentary," the lack of a meaningful story told by stnvivois. But the strategy lie those was to assemble a collection of'couiinentaiy spoken by the suivivors themselves." for both Semprun and Boder, the visual implied silence; it produced images Licking luriarivc and in need of deciphering. The images showing the "grim destruction ot death" bail to be situated, in Semprun's anesting phrase, in a "continuity of emotions." for both, it fell to the survivor to narrate and decipher. Strikingly, the often-íefeired 10 silence following liberation, fiequently attributed to survivois themselves, is beie diluted back to the images. In this formulation, the technology itself is at fault. In contrast to the usual formulation, the survivois come to lelease the meaning that lies men in (or behind) the silent images. In this case, the silence is to be found neither m a public's lack of interest or aveision to dealing with the Holocaust, not in the stir vivor's refusal or inability to testify. Silence - the lack ot cominentaiy, the absence ol a continuity of emotions - neutralized the very images of witness, short-circuiting the ony they were meant to convey. locusing on peisonal wartime stories, Boder also hoped to levise Anienta's distorted view of displaced peispns. The fact that the DPs had been imprisoned often led a «enei.il public to think the woist of them, taking them for criminals.' This played into ihe hands of conservative forces pitted against DP immigration to the United x . The aforementioned newsieels, moreover-, indiiectly leinforeed the tinpala lable image of the survivor. Befoie being leleased, the raw newsreel footage fiom the camps was edited to underscore death and destruction and to eliminate the DPs" signs elTite and íecovery - a strategy app.uently taken in order to justify the all-out war against an enemy that would commit such atrocities.u> Boder used the material from the interviews as a platform to íediess tins distorted the DP's, writes Boder, "are not riffraff, not the scum of the earth, not the poor devils who suffer because they don't know their rights, not idlers who declaim that the world owes them a living. They aie uprooted people."'" Boder echoes the liaish terms in circulation at the time m outer to counter them. In doing so, he dignifies the DPs with the title, "uprooted people," nomenclature then increasingly in vogue to lefer to migrants of all kinds. In this vein, Oseai 1 fandlin, noted scholar of American history, published a few years later his bestseller, The I'piooted, a tribute to isential role played by immigrants in forging the special ethos of the United States. Boder's renaming performed a similar act ot rehabilitation.'" Giving a portrait of catastrophe by means of the "human document," Boiler's book, í Did Not Interview ///c Dead, book was widely cited in the literal us c on displaced poisons nel concentration camps as well as in studies ot psychology, sociology, and political cienee.-1 Some of the authois and publications who diew on it during the 1950s and arly 1960s include Cornelius Krahn, Meunonhe Life (1951); Sodal Change: Latvian Sodety t Home and in Migtatiou (1952); David Reisnian. Individualism Re(0ii55); H.G. Adler, Theresieustadt (1955); Joseph Tennenbauin, Rate and Heidi: 'Lite Stoty of an 108 Alan Rosen Epoch (1956): Social Problems (1957); Yad Yashem Bulletin (1957); Martha Wolfenstcm Disaster: A. Psychological Essay (1957); Boohs for College Students' Reading (J958); I )onahi Ray Cressy and Johati Galtung, 11 ic Prison (1961); and Seymour Maitin I ipset. ed. Culture and Social Character (t%1). Boder's DP interviews thus had ongoing relevant for any number of disciplines and kinds of readers, from the scholar to the student. A decade or so after publication it was still being read by some important rea ■ • including pioneering American sociologist Erving Goldman. Goffman's 196! book. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation oj Mental Patients- ami Other Inmates, deals the Holocaust only as it pertains to Golfman's broader inquiiy into "the social tion of mental patients and other inmates.""2 Asylums- nonetheless draws on example-from concentration camps to document its case. References to this literature appivu throughout the book, yet Goftman limits his pool of sources to three books on concentiation camps. Eugen Kogon, 'The Theory and Practice of Hell, Elie Cohen. Ihunaii Behavioi m the Comentiation Ciamp, and Boder, / Did Not Inteiview the l\d Bodei is heie in distinguished company. The books by Kogon and Col. ■ legaided as classics, both of them being systematic studies of concentration i penned by social scientists who were also prisoners.25 It is thus no surprise Goffman should single them out. Inclusion of I Did Not Interview the Dead with tlnv two suggests that, in 196)1, Boder's interview collection, a different kind of book bom the otheis. was held m high regard for what it too could convey through Mr-tuns" voices And Cofthian's volume, saturated with references to the Holocaust eve:, while focusing on a general sot lopsychological phenomenon, shows how his mandate was to filtei the Holocaust not out but in. •* < 7ne of the most powei fnl pi ofessional validations of Boder's work came by way of the ongoing suppoit of the National Institute of Mental Health. The NIMH had it? unguis m biankhn Roosevelt's New Deal policies, where it was deemed that the United States government, along with the sponsorship of other aggressive social piogiams, should plav an active tole in promoting the health of United States cifi/em One avenue tow aid this goal was establishing a series of research and tr.iinin tutions 7| In 11>37, the fust such center, the National Cancer Institute, was establishes.! In 'human's postwai administration several other institutes would follow: the N.inoni I lean Institute, the National Institute for Dental Sciences, the National Institute for Neuiologual Diseases and Blindness, and the National Institute of Mental Health.,ill of which subsisted under the umbiella of the National Institutes of Health. The National Institute of Mental Health was itself formally established by law n-19-16 but began to be funded only in 1948. Boder got in on the ground floor, hi\i'h-. applied for support in 1948 and having corresponded with the administration <>l the' program while it was still under the Mental Hygiene Division.-1 Boder's funding varied only slightly over the years, with a drop in the second and third years and a _ modest increase in the latter stages: 1949-50 $9400 1.950-51 $6912 1951-52 $6000 '52-55 $777i 1955 -54 $777i 195-1 -55 $!()<)( 19-1.5 -56 $106' That Boder .toited the v luiiding came MMI1 did nc tow.ud that wi Boder's funt with, he recef Boder's colleaj. ose from pre Moreover, evt stantially more Boder's actual prestigious nan that given to f To be sure, tiaiiscriptions ( Boder blamed extraordinary \; his requests.3" simply wasn't amount respect Noteworthy taking st. in this group i> iinong ot interview techi and president < turned down ii put together tl lot at all insliliitioii's on would ir c ollected a we ac cessible. On multiple iiidience. Whil l to get uiK-xeu c]iulity important reach "We know very little in America" 109 ha Wolieii-icin. (1%H); Donald rtin I. ipse!, ed., ;oing relevance > the student. >ortant teadeis. i's 1%1 |)(H,1,. iites, deals w n|, he social miu.i vs on examples teiature appeal nee hooks on Elie Cohen. > view the I )inil. id Cohen ate itiation camps ) surprise thai >evork would make a difference in American life. It was understood that Boder had collected a wealth of primary sources that needed to be preserved and rendered .tc'cessible. On multiple levels, Boder's interviews found an engaged lay and scholarly American mclience. While it is true that his book was not a best seller and that it was not easy or him to get it published, its fortunes were due less to its subject matter than to its uieven quality of presentation. That said, it was read, cited, and drawn on by many inportant readeis. 110 Alan Rosen The myth of silence is not only challenged by reviewing Boder's contributioi the response to them. It has also played a role in distorting the reception of his Because it lias been presumed that there was little American response to the Hol< before the 1960s, the context of Boder's DP interviews has disappeared. Rath his 130 or so interviews being seen as representing a small sample within a huge crop of DP interviews, Boder's have been deemed the only ones of their kind. And i.ilhrr than being correctly viewed as emerging from an intersection of various streams oi Amerieari social science research in the 1940s, they are seen to have conk' out of the blue. The myth has similarly eclipsed the career of the Boder interviews during' the 1950s. Having influenced a wide range: of writing and research in this penoci, s~ the interviews are treated as something lost and then discovered, on the order < buried-and-then-unearthed Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes archives and other time writings. '4n 1998," notes one summary of the project, "a sixteen-volume typescripts from these recordings were discovered."32 "Although his work proi the only recorded oral histories of survivors from that time," reads a second. U< efforts attracted little interest and were nearly lost before the Galvin Library Illinois Institute of Technology] rediscovered his work after more than 50 ■ This account doubles the "discovery" motif when it explains the recent "When a story about the recordings was found in an old university newsleuei. the |IIT| library ... embarked on a grand restoration project in 1998 ... "33 In order to dramatize the alleged discovery, Boder's contemporary acluex are muted, minimizing the dissemination of the interviews*both during h and in its aftermath: Despite the groundbreaking nature of his work, Dr. David P. Boder was unsuccessful in his efforts to publish the displaced persons (DPs) ii Before his death in 1961 though, he did submit a set of seventy in transcripts to a select number of libraries and historical foundations ac U.S. (including Illinois Institute of Technology), though few volum today.34 Historian Donald Niewyk, who may be the source of the above conjecture, speaks in his abridged edition of the interview transcriptions of Boder depi "mimeographed and microcard copies in a handful of large research hbrari Boder posted the transcripts to some 45 libraries worldwide;30 and, contra tl cessibility implied in both accounts, the volumes of Topical Autobiographic* found today in at least 23 libraries in America alone, with a number of otht in research centers worldwide.37 The myth of silence organizes the facts to suit its purposes. And, in this fashions an idiom of loss/discovery to reinforce it. Indeed, the rhetoric of "disc of what was lost shadows postwar responses to the Holocaust, with the unear a portion of the Oyneg Shabes archives in Warsaw in 1946 and 1950 establisl litmus test of authenticity.38 Some authors have deliberately used the manuscript oi b complicated hist' because there is I have elscw hen Bui thai s ml, took place near time material. S oi the peipeliatc Boder's transcii) iecentlv. mainly try ti! negotiate miei historians 1 investigate Bodi of dis'. ovet v. ma decades latei. Although exa is apparently not 1940s number, . small proportion weie not intend mission, foi ex.r ti'stimom m the ward Indeed, in tn various str.itc hehiiid them.'1 ; publu expiessuM forward in lebuii silent c was not a Admittedly, tl Anienca. But the that the spectei played a iole as v ■ :> distorted myth, speak, following it also t o;OlV;, i Dan Pagis, The (B'-ikelev: Unt > flu- Wiesel. (New \ oik: V 3 On the reluct,i) Ü.Wv; llah\aust Ni I rails ictior ■■■■I MHMÜ I intributions and on of liis woik. :> the Holocaust .*d. Rather than lin a huge crop ind. And rather ions so cams of e conic out of •ws dining the iir this period, re order of' the ind other wai-i-volume set of vork produceil cond, "Bodei's fibraiy |at the lan SO years." cent attention: newsletter, the achievements ng his lifetime ,ler was largely 's) interviews, •nty interview ons across the rlumes remain true, strangely depositing his >raries."is Yet nlra the inac --upltics can be others locateil n this case, it >f "discovers'" unearthing of tablishing the 1 the found J "We know very little in America" 111 ! liuiiiisoupt or book topos to give their' fictional stories a patina of authenticity.Vl 1 he i complicated liistoiy of Boder's materials c an easily be made to fit tins paiadigm, partially | because there is a degiee ot discovery associated with the wire moldings - a saga W~ I have elsewhere chronicled.10 5 lint that said, the stoiy has been slanted for seveial masons, bust. Boiler's interviews 4 took plan: neat enough to the war so that they themselves take on the ama oi war I time material. Second, historiogiaphy has by and laige drawn on the documentation i of the peipetiatois, consigning tioves of victim testimony to the periphery. And think f'~ Boiler's nanseriptions were monumental m size, cluinsv in organization and. until 1 leci'iiih, mainly available only in translation. Historians weie seemmglv reluctant to in to negotiate the cumbeisome materials. Indeed, in recent yeais a number of pie ] liner historians have chosen to use the abridged version of the mteiviews rather than j investigate Boiler's originals.*1 All in all, the myth of silence undeigitds the lhetoric J- of discovery, making it seem that there was little interest in such primary sources until • decides later. J Although exaggerated, the topic of postwar silence has at least one dimension that ; is appaiently not a myth. Even though the testimonies of displaced poisons in the late " l'MOs number, as 1 mentioned, well over ten thousand, this inimbei was itself but a I- small proportion of the DPs, roughly 2-3 per cent.*-' Most seemingly did not testify, ; were not interviewed. According to the piotocols of the German Historical Coin-= mission, for example, who were in chatge of conduc ting interviews and obtaining, i testimony in the American zone in Germany, most DPs weie leluctant to step tor j ward. Indeed, in older to gairr a laiger contingent, the Commission was compelled to |-- try various strategies to convince the DPs to set outside their desire to put the past behind them.'*' Silence was, then, the norm in this community, at least in terms ot : public expression; if was the gateway to foigetting a toituous past, the means to go foiward in rebuilding lives. Not all followed this path. But tor the majority that did, silence was not a myth, but a way to live, i. - ?.. Admittedly, this European-based testimonial silence does not bear directly on America. But the leluctance to bear witness among many European DPs does suggest it the specter of postwar silence, however oveiextended and underreseatched, played a role as well. The silence we are investigating thus has at least two faces, one j distorted myth, the other a necessary strategy of coping. Perhaps then it is bettei to speak, following the haunting strains of Pagis' primordial victim, ot the invention of deuce, but also of its uses and abuses. Notes 1 Dan Pagis, The Selected Poetiy of Dim Pagis, trans. Stephen Mitchell, intro. Robert Alter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19%). 1 Elie Wiesel, "An Interview Unlike Any Other," A lew Today, turns. Maiion Wiesel (New York: Vintage, 1979), 18-19. 3 On the leluctance to speak and the lefusal to listen, see William llchnrekh, .'\gaiiisi All Odds: Holocaust Smvivots and the Suuessjul Lives 'I'liey Made in Ameina (New liiunswiik, NJ: Transaction, 1996), 38; Tony Rusher summarizes (and endorses) this view by stating 112 Alan Rosen that the suivivois spoke litrle in "the postwar world that was hugely nidirleient or hosnp to then memoiies." "Holocaust Testimony, bullies, and the Problem of"Repiesent.it I Win* I'oday 37 (?006). 276. On the path bieaking n.ittiie of" the L-'ichmann tn. survivor testimony, see Shoshana Felnian. "Theaters of Justice: Arendt in Jerusalem F.n hni.inn Fual. and die Redefinition of Legal Meaning in the Wake of the Holocaust " Ctilnal Iiitjtmy 21 (2(101); on the evolution of survivoi testimony after the t Annette Wievioik.i, 77k- F.ta of tin- Witness (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP. 20(17); loi a simil.n but mote complex view of the evolution of survivoi testimony in lsiael, see Anita Shapiu ""I he 1 lolocaust: Private Memories, Public Memory,"_/''i(Wi Sonal Stadia 4 (1998): 1" ''s -I l-oi Poland, see / loloiaust Sutvwoi Testimonies (catalogue, Jewish Tlistonal Institute Anilines, Ue-e,, (Wansaw: 1998-2002); for Hungary, Rita Florvath, '"A Jewish Historieal Couim Budapest*: Ihe Place of ihe National Relief Committer for Deportees m 1 limyu;. |l )b( !OB| among the Other laige Scale Histoiieal-Memoiial Projects of She'eiit I Ij\ After the Holocaust (1945-48)," Holocaust Historiograph}' in Context, eds. David Bankier and Dan Miihin.ni (|enisalem: Yad Vashem, 2008), -175-96: and for Germany. Ada Seliem. ""Everyone Can Hold a Pen': 1 he Documentation Project in the DP ("amps in Gcinuiiv." 1 lohuaust Hisiouogiaphy in Context, eds. David Bankier and Dan Michman (|eiusilem Yad Vashem, 2008), 103-34; and, more generally, on the collection of victim testiiuoiv. in e.nly postw ar Fan ope, Phillip Friedman, " Pan opean Jewish Research on the Holoc .nisi." in Hood* to l-'xluuttou: I'.stays on the Holotatist, ed Ada June Friedman (New York and I'lirh delplna, 1980) 500-524 (Friedman's essay originally appeared in 1949 in the Proee 44-l')4H, eds. Yisiael Gutman and Avit tisalem. Yad Vashem. 1990) 388-98; I aura Jot ktiseh, "'Collet t and Record., 1915- I'l.S.i diss., New Yolk Univeisity, 2007: I aura Joikuseh "Khmhau Foisihung: Jewish ! listen*:' GoimiiisMoiis in Europe. 1943- 19," Simon Dttbnow Institute t'eaibook 6 (2007): 441 "3. 5 I addicss the puzzling mdeteiimnate number of interviews m Alan Rosen, 77k' IFcWi> <" 77tcir Voices: the 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder (NY: Oxford, 2010), in appendix II, "Ihe Disputed Number of Boiler Interviews," 239- JO. 6 'Ihe historical commission based in Munich recoided smvivors singing soil;'-, hut i; apparently did not record them recounting their wartime experiences. 7 David Bodei, / Did Not Inteiview the Dead (Uibana: University of Illinois Pn I Xivid Bodei. ''Ihe Impact of" Catastrophe: 1. Assessment and Evaluation," jounuC Psychology 38 (1954): 3-50. 8 "I he I ale ol Anna Kovitzka: A Fogico-Systematic Analysis or an Essay m Expcumint'1 Reading.'" Ihe essay can be found at several locations, including the David Uo.ld Museum tile. An hives of the History of American Psychology/MHi; and the DjiiJ P. Boder Papers, Special Collections, Charles Young Research Library. UCLA Box (>. 9 "Polia Bisenbaiis," J'op'nal Autohiogiaphies, vol. 5, chap. 19 (Chicago and Lo- Angek-1950 57), "David Boder Ink-mews Polia Bisenhaus." lottos of the Tiolot V. Calvin Library, Illinois Institute of T echnology, 2009, October 19, 2010, Available a; Imp:,'''vou es.ut edu/iiiteivievv ?doi = hiscnh,uisPc's display - biseiihausP_en ID Jacob Mmski, T'opual. lutohwgiaphics, vol. 8, c hap. 31; "I Xivid P. Boder Intel vie v\, |ua|-Mmski." linns e/ the Holoaiust, Octobei 20, 2010, lrttji://voKes.nt.ecln/iiiieiview.: doc-mmskiJi\ display - mmski|_en 11 Roma Li bainabioda, T'opual Autohiogiaphies, vol. 5. chap. 18; "David P. Boder Int.' views Roma 'I c liarn.ihiod.i." I 'ones of the Holoiaust. October 20. 2010, htl| edu/niteiview?doc—ti:harnabrodaR& display — tcharnahrodaR__en 12 ()n newsieel images and the predominant role of the "image as witness" in lin- Unites! States in the months following the wai's end, see Jeffrey Shandler. 117»'e . hiji-i.: U'attlies. Telertsing the Holoiaust (New Yoik: Oxfoid University Press, 1999]. pp 5---. on the pbotograpihic image-, see Ruble Zehzcr, Remembering to Forget: Hohiau'l Maam Fluough the Camua's Dye (Chicago: Univeisity of Chicago J'less. 1998). 13 Bodei also nuoipoiates these words m his "Addenda" to T'opual Autohiogn WĚm wBm ■Sill 14 -l.c-ln-r lo I; 15 Jorge- Senil iß c.. ,„./ r 17 Michael Bi A.i: inu and pariicularlv 18 Shaiidler, p 19 Davul Bock 20 Maniice Hi jthis mannet Made the Al in iisuij... the 21 l-roin ihe P projcci. See Koreati War PoNkv. Clas Kint Wolrf. Ihe Imeraetü luicra.iion (1 Jehud.i Rein ,S,Mci)' ,i- T'ex is a \iyhmian Ciime: ( ,>/>;",-, 32 Emu» (;0ffn (New York, 2) faigen Kogo Sysiein Behina Human Behani Psv c bology ai litsimtte ef Mt V- l'ickn-n anc 3a See Boder's c I lygu-ne Divi; Z'i Bodei s summ / leaitli Ucsearcl 2/ See Donald 1 (Cha "Uiu ovt ring the I et.es oflli For the conto Gr.mi- Progr.u and Schneider geiierously pre Rice ciaboratei ?9 1 Ii- ,,-soe l.jtion most iit die b c-veniui! move i tiiougli tl sicleic-d ,i majoi Bodei'- atfiliatu 39 I ettei li„m Bc ■II L April 2 WĚĚĚĚĚIBĚ „Am "We know very little in America" 113 Icicni 01 hoaile -cpicscnialnni." Iim.inn trial (61 1 IciiiMlem. the 'lie I loloiansl." •' 1 Ik- inal. for .1 ".nnil.ii c A1111.1 Mi.ipn.i, I'■"«); .)() 38. ' liJiins, Unotd < oiiniiission in c- in I iungiiv 'em I laplcl.u, I '-ivid B.uikici '>. Ad.i Scliein. s 111 ( .1 mi.iiiv ." i-'ii ijciiisalciir .'tiin li-Minionv I loloi aust." in oil, and PinLi-e f'l^i'i/iii^ <>/ ins Initiated 1>\ Aval il Sal'fler . .'':■■ pr.vV v idi I lisioi kai ■rill / 5. 'I hf 11 Ollde: „; id. 'Old), ,„ Pi ess. 194')); n. iouiual 0! Fspciunoiu.il David Hodc. id lllc I >:i\id :i A Hon (,. 1 os Angeles: docaust, Paul Available rviews Jacob u/intorvieu ': ioder fillers'/voices.lit. the Unit 'Ink Amnn,,i ), pp. 5-2 ansl Memo m-s, 5161. ■ 2-1 leitei 10 Dae) Wolrle, June 19, 1945.UCLA/Box 1. Jingo Senipmii, Lilemnue or Life (New York: Viking, 1997), 2o«)-20l. If Cmiid Voyage (The Long Voyage) and (juel '"'an ditnanthe\ (What a Beautiful Sunday). Mkli.iel Lierkowitz details this ciuel peiception in 77/c Ciime of My I rip Vxisleme: and the Myth of Jewish Criminality (Berkeley: Univeisity of California Press, 2007). p.ntii ul.uly in the chapter, "Lingering Stereotypes and Jewish Displaced Persons." Sli.indler, pp. 16—17. David Boder, I Did Not Interview the Dead, p. xviii. Alanine Hindu's 1929 volume. Humanity Upiooted, is one of the fust to use the temi in tins mariner. Oscar Handlin, I'he Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Creat Migrations Phut Made the American People (Boston, Little, Brown, 1951). Scvet.il autliois pieceded Boder in iisin^ the term to refer to World War II displaced persons. 110111 lire 1960s onward, books and journals have continued to cite Boder's interview pio]eci. See Albert Biderman, Manli to Calumny: I'he Story of American POll's 111 the Kenan War (1965); Stephen Spitzer and Norman Denzin. 77ie Menial Patient (1968); I'olsky. Claster, aird Goldberg, Social System Peispeitives in Residential Institutions (1970); Kmt Wolff, Trying Sociology (1974); fiarl Rubiiigton and Martin Weinberg, eds.. Deviance: 'Ilie Iiueracliouisl Peispective (1978); Jerome Manis and IJernaid Melt/er, oils.. Symbolic ,„■,,„...an (1978); Reeve Bienner, 'Hie Paith and Doubt of Holoiausi Smvivois (1980); h'huda Reinharz, 'LiteJewish Response to Cam,111 Cultme (1985); Ricliaid llaivey Biown, Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality (1987); Steven Weine, When History 1 Nightman- (1999); Ewa Geller, Waisdiauer Jiddidi (Niemeyer. 2001); and Phillip Bean. Crime: Critical Concepts in Sociology (2003). firing (iolfinan. Asylums: Essays 011 the Serial Situation of Mental Patients and Othct Inmates "xew York, Anchor,. 1961). l.iigen Kogon, 'I'he 'I'beoiy and Piaitia- of Hell: 'I'he Cctniau Comentratioii ('amps and the - stem Behind 'litem, tians. Heinz Norden (New York: Lanar, Struts, 1950); Hie Cohen. Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp, nans. M.H. liraaksma (New York. Norton, 1953). s e Wade Piekien, "Science, Piactke and Policy: An Introduction to the History of Psychology and the National Institute of Mental Health," m Psychology ami the National Institute of Mental Health: A Histoiital Analysis of Science, Pnicthc and Policy, ed. Wade B. Pickren and Stanley F. Schneider (Washington, DC: Amencan Psychological Association, 2004). See Boder's correspondence with Lawrence Kolb, Research Projects Diiector, Menial Hygiene Division, U.S. Public Health Sei vice. June 8. 16, and 21, 1948. Al 1AP/MI 1. Boder's summary of funding is eorroboiated by NIMH's listing of its grants. See Menial Health Reseauli Chant Amends, Pinal Yeais I94H-196J, (Washington, 1964). See Donald Niewyk, "Introduction," Fresh Wounds: Karly Nanatives ot Holocaust Survival (Chapel Hill: Univeisity of North Caiolina Piess, 1998): Carl M.uziali, "Uncovering Lost Voices: 1946 David Boder Tapes Revived," February 1. 2003; and the Voices ot the Holocaust website http://voices.iit.edu. For the context of the discussion thai follows, see Charles Rice, "The NIMH Research Grants Program and the Golden Age of American Academic Psychology," in Pickren and Schneider (eds.) Psychology and the National Institute ol Mental Health. Wade Pickren geneiously provided me with a longer unpublished vcision ol Rice's paper. Piotessor Rice elaboialed on the issues discussed therein in a telephone interview, August, 2005. Flis association with ILL likely did not hurt his chances but neither did it help them; most of the NIMH's giants flowed to lesearcheis at the major universities. Boder's eventual move to Los Angeles and affiliation with UCLA piobably helped his cause, even though the psychology department at UCLA in the eaily 1950s was not yet con ■ sideied a major lese.uch center. 1 .1111 indebted to Wade Piekien tor 11 is assessment of Boder's affiliations. L.ettei from Boder to Philip Sapir, Chief Research Giants and fellowship liianch, NIMH, April 26, 1956; "Addenda." Topical Autobiographies, 3160. • §1 114 Alan Rosen 31 Chalk's Rue, "Kaily NIMH Funding of American Psychology," American Psychoid;". Association Conference Paper, 2003. 32 Kaien Kring, "David Boder Recorded Karhest Holocaust Smvivois Testimonies f 2009, SkokieNct. October 13, 2010, htlp:/'/www.skokienet.org/node/3761. 33 Carl Marziah, "Uncovering Lost Voices: 1946 David Boder Tapes Revived," Februaiy 1. 2003. 31 "Pioject History," Voiio of the Holocaust. 2009, Paul V. Calvin Library, Illinois Institute" of Technology, October IK, 2010 http://voices.nt.inlu/voices_project. 35 Niewyk. "Introduction," Fresh Wounds, 5. 36 David P. Moder Papers, Archives ol the History ot Aineiican Psychology. A inn lists fiom the mid-1950s show the institutions and individuals that weie sent o the ninneogiaphed and microcard transcriptions. These included the British Museum, the University ot Malaya, and the National Library ot Hebrew University. 37 See Fopual Autobiographies, on WorldOaf, which lists 19 libiaries, but doesn't incliul topics in the holding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Library of Congtess, and Harvard Univetstty. 38 See Samuel Kassow, Who Wilt Write Out Histoiy? litnantiel Ringelhlum, the Warsaw i ih«/ the (>yucg Studies Auhivc (Bloomington: Univeisity of Indiana Press, 2007), 1-2, 215- Pi 39 See lor example John Hersey's 'File Wall and Anne Michael's, Fugitive Pieces', and mv discussion of the two in Sounds of Defiance: 'Ihe Holocaust. Multiliugualisiii and the hMtm of Unghsh (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 184-85. 40 Flic Wonder of 'their i'oices, 165-70. 41 See for example Christopher Biowning, Oollected Memories: Holocaust History and Po-fiia Testimony (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 62-63 and note Despite cuing Boder's interview and transcript in tandem with Niewyk's edited veisiwii. Browning clearly uses the hitter's rendition - a strategy that leads to a misreading ol'som, ol the testimony in question. See also Saul Priedlander, The Years of F.xterininalioii. \.iu Oeiinany and the Jews, 1959-1945 (New York: Harper Peiennial, 2007), 145, w luie his invocation of a few Boder interviews cites only Niewyk's abridged edition. 42 On DP numbers and postwar predicament, see Eugene Kuliseher, Uinope on Wai and Population Changes, 1917-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press. ]'l!(\.. Jacques Veriiant, 'File Refugee in the Post-War World (New Haven: Yale Univeisity IV«. 1953); Malcolm Proudfbot. European Refugees, 1959-1952: A Study in Foned l\ Movements (Evanston: Northwestern Univeisity Press, 1957); Michael R, Manns. Ih Unwanted: buropean Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford Uimcisi", Piess, 1985); Mark Wyman, DP: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Phil.idelpliij.md London: Balch Institute Press and Associated UP. 1989); Anna Holian, "IScrwcvn National Socialism and Soviet Communism: The Politics of Self-Repiesentltion anion,! Displaced Poisons m Munich, 1945-51," unpublished dissertation, 2005; Tony JuJ'. Postwai (New York: Penguin, 2006). Hssenti.il studies of Jewish DPs, focusing DP camps m Germany, include She'eiit Hapletah. 1944-1948, eds. Yisrael Gutiiun .in.i A vital Sal; Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwai Cewcin. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Ze'ev Mankowitz, Life beh and I lope: 'Fhe Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: C.iiiihnclgc University Press, 2002); Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings; Ruth Gay, Safe Anions the damans, l.ibeiated Jews After Woild Wai //(New Haven: Yale University Press, 20(1.':: Atim Giossman, Jews, Gentians, and Allies: Close Encounteis in Oicupicd Germany (I'liikctoi.' Princeton University Press, 2007); Avinoam Patt and Michael Berkowitz, e< lleie"- New Appioatlies to Jewish Displaied Persons in Postwar Geimauy (Detioil: \V.i\.v Slate University Press, 2010). 43 lockusch, '"Collect and Record'"; Jockusch, "Khurban Forschung": Lam a Joisiriii. personal communication, summer, 2009. mm ■ DAVID Holocau AV-r/iW De In l'i|,,. |...|tvia Displaced Pers memories and the 1 lolocuist. 109 inteiviews concentration c Russia. Eight c were tianslated Boder couránu privateK distrib Autobiographies c tier's colic Holocaust. The eagerness of sur that there was ; America. Yet, F about du- pcrsei work aliows us This essay wil in Displaced Pei memory in sue siimvoi nairativ iiminahty of DP eonmiumc aling ' as an example of testimonies that c lleie. du- paper .TÍC.1i) Psyt holo;;\ CStllllOllil'-, |suj." 576 I. vet). ' I elu ii.iiy i. , Willi >1\ Institute gy. A minihci of re H'i.1 copies of Biiu-.li MiiM-um. iry >esti'i nieliitlf ilio eum. ihe Siiihni e 11 iii-,iir (dieuo. )7). 1 .', |(). s i'lí'1 -. .Uki lli\ •1 ail'1 lile Piobhui DAVID P. BODER Holocaust memory in Displaced Persons camps lladwl Deblinger "sloty and /V-drai d notes ilieicon. s edued \cimoii. aeadinji, of some 'enuiuaiwii: Na:i LIL when- Ins on. >pe on tli,- More: ity Press. PMřťi; Jniveisitv Pics'-. Potud Population k. iM.inus, //„ tortI UniwisHv 'Inl.iilelphi.i .nul Hati. "Between ítit.iiioii aiutnm )5; I ony jínil, isin;: in.iinlv on el ( hum.in .uiii \ntieai ( i tni,my hen fini .\Unioiy ge: ( 'ainbiidgc 4moug iln- (;,(--ís, .'002): Alma i/)}' (Piiiueioii: etk. "II i->ettoít: Waw 'M tura Joi l.nst h. In 1946, Latvian-bom psychologist David P. Boder tiaveled liom Chicago, Illinois, to Displaced Persons camps in Fiance, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany it) reeoid the memories and experiences of those who lived through what later became known as ilie Holocaust. Armed with a wire recoider and 200 spools of wire, Boiler recorded ID'.1 iuteiviews in over seven languages with Displaced Peisons including Jewish com filtration camp survivors, Baltic workers, and Mennonites escaping from Soviet Russia. Eight of the interviews, six of Jewish victims and two of other witnesses, v.eie translated, transcribed, and published in 1949 as / Did Not Interview the Dead.1 lioiier continued to translate the inteiviews and, between 1950 and 1957, lie privately distributed copies of 70 transcripts in a five-series collet lion entitled Topical Autobiographies of Displaced People Reiorded \ "eibatini in Displaced Peisons Gimps.- ISotler's collection is only one challenge to the idea that silence followed the Holocaust. The hours of eyewitness accounts he collected confirm the ability and ess of survivois to speak about their experiences, and his published work proves ili.it there was at least some market tor books to be published about the subject in America. Yet, Boiler's collection does more than just prove that people weit- talking about the persecution of Jews in Nazi Europe in the immediate postwar period; his wink allows us to examine how survivois talked about the Holocaust in this period. I his essay will lely on Boder's collection to illustiate the diveisify of early testimony l Displaced Peisons (DP) camps and examine the limitations of recoiding Plolocaust lemory in such spaces, recognizing how the constraints of postwar life framed irvivor narratives and marked the narratives Boder collected. I will fust explore the uriiialify of DP space and the challenges that both Boiler and the survivois faced in niimunicating with one another. I will then focus on bow Boder's collection serves i an example of the open and candid recollection ot the Holocaust preserved in early •stirnonies that confirm the varied behavior and experiences of victims under Nazism, leie, the paper will address how early 1 lolocaust testimony cuts against the gi.iin of 116 Rachel Deblinger later raboos and complicates our understanding of the sut vivor experience. Finally, I consider how the PI' camps fostered early collective memory and how these accounts anticipated what later became central motifs in more recent Holocaust culture. In many ways, recording Holocaust memory in DP spaces was the most obvious place to do so in postwar Europe, as they were home to most DPs and the ina|oiu\ of Jewish 1 foloeaust survivors. Victims from different concentration camps, camps, and non-c.unp experiences jointly formed communities and worked together to organize DP lite. In the summer of 1946, Boder visited over fifteen such camps and homes in three months. Most of these spaces, even those outside organized camps, had been patt of the war effort. Camps like Bergen-Belsen and Laiidsbctii were established in former concentration camps, while others were organized in spaces that had formerly held the German Army or Nazi Youth. Thus, the suivivois of the Holocaust were- rebuilding their lives in spaces that were no longer p.u; ot the- war but still remnants of the German war effort. As evident in the testimonies, such spatial realities prolonged the feeling of victimization for many survive >is anil complicated the emotional recovety survivors faced in the postwar period. Boiler's interview with Anna Kaletzka demonstrates the emotional contradictions of the survivors, who were trapped between the past and future.3 Kaletzka, a Jewish sui vivor from Poland who spoke of her time in Auschwitz, the separation fioni hoi husband, and the death of her daughter, alternately wept and laughed duiiug ihe interview. Towards the end. her emotion and despair intensified. Kaletzka said. After work, to come alone to my room — today is a holiday. Where mine, who used to celebrate the holidays with me? Thank God! Th Jews staying with me on this holiday. There was never a holiday in Ai But my own people are no more. I am alone.4 Kaletzka conflated her sadness and loss with the relief of being able to celehi holiday. The duality of her emotional state reveals the lasting impact of the w in the DP period and how the DP experience became part of the- early rceon the Holocaust. Kaletzka's inieiview also shows the contradiction of DP spaces •- they w only .i space of continued struggle but also of renewed Jewish life and cc practice. I'he interview ends as above in / Did Not Ititerniew the Dead, but ii Autobiographies there is one additional paragraph. Boder wrote, Now 1 don't find a little episode which she told me, apparently title stopped the machine. It is not on the wire, but here it is, wiutei memory: 'Last night /and that means on the first evening of Rosh Haslion like at home, prepared the holiday meal, and as was customary at hoi invited a soldier to share it with us. But this time it was not a poor from home, who had to be fed, but an American Jewish soldier, who, ing the Invitation, brought us an armful of gifts, all kinds of American looil.ui-' . delicacies.'1 I Ills COlltinil I he interact. Posh ! | isha belw con niDi Aineiicm sol act reminded homo ol ihe they won- in reveals one h had abaiulone As Kalotek. po.Mw.ar space hniin.iliry in n siiii tenuous. "Iwentv inor -•till await fina and a deep lo their futiiics, v led the w; bitterness tow; "One feels thai a numbei of t illiisions."" Boc i'WOs and 90s e lirunological d Nor was chei oiten asked his wai began. Fulsome living j,) | the intci views 1 suppose thai a si Nazis. In Cut, n utside organized n and ■•re organized in his, the sun 0 longer pan ot" the testimonies. iy survivors and eriod. il contradictions tletzka, a Jewish nation ii0!11 |KT Jied during the etzka said, ■ Where aie all iod! There aic 1 in Auschwitz. o celebrate the f the war \eais y record abonr they weie not nd communal but in Topi,.,I ly add' I had written from lashona/* v at hoi r soldier, away who, accept-can rood and llih lonciiiued stoiy undeiscores Boder's collection as a documentation of DP life. I ho imetaction of a group of young DP women and an American soldier sharing lUish 1 lashanah dinner is specific to the DP experience and reveals the tension between moving forward and thinking back. There is obvious joy in sharing with the .W'lti.iti soldier and in celebrating the holiday at all. But, Anna explained that this .hi u'liiinded her of home - twice the home of Anna's past and once the present home of the American soldier. While the women here are trying to make the space thi'v weie in as home-like as possible, they had no home at that time. This story icusils one historian's assessment that the refugees were "a unique community that ii.ul abandoned its past and was yet to find its future."6 As Kaletzka expressed, DP life was defined by the same in-between-ness as their - piistv.ar spaces. Boder's collection must be read with this physical and psychological limin.ilitv in mind. While survivors weie leluuldmg then h\es, any sense ol relict was still tenuous. In 1947, Leo Srole, the Welfne Diiettor ot landsheig tamp, wiote, " 1 wentv months later, [the DP| is still captive and still m jcopairiv .. l'be \ictnns still await final rescue."7 Srole explained that despite a tierce determination to live cleep longing to return to normalcy, the DPs weie tiapped, still waiting tot their futures, which would begin elsewheie. 4 his frustration, which Botler pieseived, it mied the way survivors spoke about the Holocaust and was often exptessed as bitterness toward liberation. Such bitterness was voiced enough that Boiler noted, ''Onefeels that by not having taken the immediate impiessions rn 1945 we have lost ,i number of enthusiastic stories full of hopes which by 194f> hive pioved empty illusions."8 Boder's note beie is telling. In Holocaust testimony collections fiotn the DSOs and 90s there is a sharp break between w amine and postwai This kind ol chronological delineation was not present m 1946. Nor was theie a clear sense of when the survivoi's stoiy should stall or stop. Bodot ottt'ii asked his interviewees to begin by talking about wbeio they were when the war began. For interviewees from Poland, their stoiy staited m 19.39 oi earlier. For sonic living in Prance, their stoiy began in 1940. Lacking chronological consistency, the Interviews highlight the diffeiences between survivor expeiiences but also pie suppose that a smvivor "story" began with the duect mteiruption of then lives by the N'a/is. In fact, many survivors had to go bat k befoie the war to make thou ii.uiatives dear. The stones jump through time to explain a point oi cLtufv family stun tine oi otlrei relationships and to include what the inteiviewee oonsideted most lmpoitant. in particular, the nairatives lack resolution. Survivois weie often unable to ttin-their nanatives because their struggle for tieedom continued and then attempt lo assimilate their experience into a stoiy was not complete. Most did not know vhere or when they would be able to euugiate. Israel had not yet been ucited as a täte, British immigration restrictions domed ]ews refuge m Palestine, and the US etained strict immigiation quotas. Additionally, in the eatlv postwar ponori, those who survived weie still learning about what happened to their families and friends. Lists were circulated by American Jewish organizations and the DP administrations in n effcirt to leunite survivois and DPs sought any information thev could find about heir relatives. 118 Rachel Deblinger Boder's interview with Henja Frydman articulates how survivors were only just learning the details of their own family stories. Frydman spoke at length about her brother, who had been detained in Drancy. At one point, she explained that her family received a letter stating that the brother had been deported. question: Where was he deported? Do you know? miss frydman: We didn't know where he was deported. question: Was it found out later? miss frydman: Afterwards, when I was deported to Auschwitz, 1 asked around everywhere among the men. Possibly someone knew, but nobody had seen him. /Her speech here is still interrupted by repeated blowing of her nose./ Why he wasn't seen 1 know; because my brother had died of typhus, right at the beginning. question: Who informed you about that? miss frydman: One of our acquaintances who has now returned. He had seen hmi in the lager Auschwitz, in 1942, that my brother fell, that he got sick with typhus, and died immediately afterwards.'' Many of Boder's interviewees were still running into such acquaintances and fining together the elements of their own narratives. The particularities of DP life also contributed to the truncated narratives. Boder hail trouble finding quiet, private spaces in which to conduct the interviews, and the recordings were marred by interruptions like airplane noises, dogs barking, and oilier DPs.10 Additionally, technical problems disrupted the narratives; each wire ].<-trJ about twenty-seven minutes and then had to be changed, the microphone sometime* needed to be adjusted, and the electricity was inconsistent in postwar Europe mi power shortages would often shut down the wire recorder. Such interruptions (unstrained the flow of conversation, and most interviews failed to construct a fluul narrative. Most often, however, the narratives were interrupted by Boder's own questions lie regularly interrupted bis interviewees to clarify terminology, time line, important elements of the survivor's account. While part of his need to iuteiiupi might have been due to a lack of available knowledge at that time, it was more just confusion, hi an unpublished interpretive essay Boder wrote in response to Anna Kaletzka's interview, he said, ■ all! ■ I have a feeling that every time I interrupted the story to clarify a point, I lost a no less important item which would have been told spontancotr Nevertheless, it had to be done from time to time, if for no other reason ■ i» to assure the interviewee of my interest in his narrative.11 As he explained, the interruptions did more than clarify confusion, and the reveal tension between his methodological intention to act as a trained psycholot and the reality of recording Holocaust memory in 1946.12 Ele was occ.i shocked and repeated clarifying questions, regularly delaying the progression i survivor's a inconiprelu immediate historical m Boder's i lost track of narrative, th and record i his confusio deported to Hisenberg an hsenbero: 1 Alton-] A of a fact work foi at once comrade that Nag my banc know? b liquidate Mo-iEtt: What with the i iscnufrc;: i one blow iiodbr: Yes? MS1:ni»|:u<;: ( ) that place hoder: Yes. ' --iherg: 11 I his exchange but his interna how the Naga "K luded more N'agan. The rc Holocaust surv hi 1998, D( e collection I-.isenberg's inn confusion. Niev uuncheoti."16 ] the 1 lolocaust . Memory in Displaced Persons camps 119 survivor's account. In this way, Boder's interruptions and confusion point to the incomprehensibility of Holocaust testimony — one that was especially acute in the mnnediate aftermath of the war when basic terms were not yet clear and a lack of historical understanding prevalent. Boiler's interview with Kalnian Eisenberg included many moments when Boder io>t tuck of the narrative and interrupted.13 While the interruptions derail the fluid ii.ii utive, they also lead to discussions about the specifics of Eisenberg's experience an J iccord in detail what might have been missed if the interviewer had not voiced his confusion. Near the middle of the interview, Eisenberg explained that he was deponed to a work camp. Boder became confused by the term "Nagan" used by hsenberg and asked for clarification. HSLX'iiERG: I go once to a "chief" whose name was ... eh ... what was his name? Altoff. A chief Von /?/ Altoff. His name was Altoff. He was a "leader" of the ... of a factory, a German. He took us, eight boys, to him ... to work for him, to work for him. We would work very diligently. He would stand and watch. All at once he comes over, gives us a Nagan in the hand and says, "Beat your >mrade!" I take /it/ and beat him. He says, "that is not how one beats," takes that Nagan out of my hand, and gives me such a hard blow that 1 could not lift nty hand any more. He says to me, "That is how one beats. Now will you know? Now beat your comrade." In such a ... in such a way they tried to liquidate us in the quickest manner. And afterwards he took ... and said ... hodi.u.: What is a "Nagan"? /Nagan is the make of a revolver. He may confuse it with the term Nagaika, a short, heavy horse whip used by the cossacks/. risr.MtERG: That is a rubber, a special ... a special rubber ... a thick one that with one blow ... lioui it; Yes? msi.nherg: One blow with it, then there shows ... there is immediately a mark on that place, a black mark. There is immediately a black welt on that place. vodlk: Yes. risr.NiiBRG: That is a terrible thing which the Germans used a lot against the Jews.'1 I his exchange over the meaning of the woul "Nagan" highlights Bodei's lonfusion, but his interruption also slowed down the n.uiative and invited Eisenbeig to explain how the Nagan was used and what the consequences weie. As a icsult, the niteiview included more detail about the physiiahty of the beating and the p.utiiulais of the Nagan. The recorded confusion thus pieseives the initial difficulties of interviewing Holocaust survivors before any historical narrative had been established. In 1998, Donald Niewyk edited 34 of Boder's interviews and published them in the collection Fresh Wounds: Early Nairaliues of Floloiaust .S'miwt//.'' He included kisenberg's interview among those published, but his edited veision skipped ovei this lonlusion. Niewyk simply added a parenthetical explanation that a Nagan is a "nibbei truncheon."16 He may have assumed that his reader was familiar with the narrative of the 1 lolocaust and accepted that the camp prisoners weie forced to beat each other 120 Rachel Deblinger with some kind of tool. To Niewyk, the detail of the beating was not the esse part of the story or a moment that required additional meditation. However, Boiler'-original transcript allows the reader to be confused, just as he was when confronted by terms he didn't know and the jarring reality of the camps. Returning to the oiigiiul reirnbues the account with the power to provoke readers into thinking about the conditions under which these prisoners were beaten and required to beat their conu.uK This interview exemplifies the challenge outsiders faced in understanding the universe of the Nazi concentration camps. Boder's expectations were confounded and the recordings reveal how he tried to make sense of the stories he heard. I iter in the interview, Eisenberg told Boder about his arrival at the Starachowice i.iiiip: upon arrival, an SS man gave an order to execute ten people. Eisenberg stalled tu explain that ten people were selected at random when Boder interrupted: boder: blow were the ten people selected? EISENBERG: He passed through. Whoever he pleased, whoever caught ... whoever struck his fancy. He made a sign with the revolver in his hand. And he had to step out in spite of knowing that he is going to a certain death. boder: Did he pick older people, younger people /words not clear/? EISENBERG: Whoever ... whoever caught his eye. Whoever was standing ne Whoever struck bis fancy he took. There was no difference whether xoiing or old. The burned offering could have been any one, whoever stood there.' Boder assumed that there was a logical reasoning for the order and for the sclcition. Eisenberg tried to explain that there was no logic in the decisions, that if were made randomly, based on the whim of the SS. 'lire gap between understanding and that of the DP is repeated again and again when Boder asked hi interviewees, "Why were you beaten?" In one particular example, Jürgen B.e responded, "Why? Most people didn't know why.""' Even after weeks of I to these eyewitness accounts, Boder could not overcome the need to make -what happened.19 The various types of interruptions point to the challenge of recording Hi memory in DP camps and in postwar Europe. In particular, the eonfusii pervades Boder's collection is a stark reminder that those who initially soi document survivor memory of the events later known as the Holocaust wei working without a clear understanding ofwhat was to be documented and hi to undertake that project. Survivors, too, were experimenting with how communicate what they had lived through, struggling to find narrative struct their own stories. Boder's collection, then, serves as a case study for early Holocaust menu reveals the result of recording Holocaust memory in a transitional peiiod. h the events of the Holocaust and the moment when Holocaust memoiv bei tin.-cemented into a well-known narrative. Although survivors had begun to sh.r experiences with one another, there was not yet a larger historical mule interpretation that defined the scope and progression of events undei the I Ima Reu h that 1 spei ill*.- nana that any one niininii/ed. ' sh.ued \iorics ini hides com Many histx like levenge Yet. Naomi ven numeious ret n.il riepiavity a larger Instoi As Eiscnbe: violence betv told Boiler, "' is wny w e sav silk l. and the She pointed sj own kind. It ' that "bandits 1 initi.illv villain Jews weie aire Yet. Boder reasons other I icsult ol hung explained, "Th he says, "Ther V W iih tw ikls. "Yes in the house." loaves of loaf Stones of testimony i oik mos esral shame so i hat : collection iriigl be interested it Ppsteni Kozkn intense beat of '" I here lav a li dunk." Boder . And she lepliei lot the essential nvever. Boiler's lien confionud i to the original king about the their com iai lev lerstandiug the re cont'ounded le beaul. i .uet hovvnc camp; berg started to ted: t ... whocvei vnd he had to ing ne,ii him. her young or .1 then the seiei ttou. that dei isions veen Boiler's 'der asked his "it Basstieuud s ot listening lake sense ot' ig Holocaust infusion thai ly sought to t were olteii nd how best row best to structme tor iiemoiv and )d, between ory became ) share then rstamhug or ■ the I'luiil ■ 4- ■ Memory in Displaced Persons camps 121 Rci'h that led to the "Final Solution." In that period, no institutions prioritized specilic nanative modes or organized individual storytelling. In 1946, it was not clear that any one part of a survivor's wartime experience should be either highlighted or minimized. Without such constraints, the survivors interviewed by Boder openly sliaied stories that later became shameful or controversial. Specifically, Boiler's collection includes conversations about violence between Jews, personal depravity, and revenge. Many historians, including Christopher Browning, have argued that sensitive topics like revenge and rape were not present in survivor testimony until very recently.>(> Yet. Naomi Seidman and Henry Greenspan argue that anger and the impulse for tewiige weie piesent at fust and later minimized.21 Boiler's collection includes numerous lefeieuces to Jewish violence and revenge, as well as expressions of personal depravity that have been underplayed as Holocaust testimonies became central to a laiger historical narrative meant for wide audiences. As Eisenberg's "Nagan" stoiy above depicts, the demands of the Nazis often forced i.lolence between )ews. Henja Frydnian expressed this behavior more clearly. .She told Under, "They made Jews responsible for management of the work ... And that is why we saw Jews beating Jews ... A Jew would beat a Jew because Germans were and the German would beat the Jew who did not want to beat another Jew."22 She pointed specifically to the fevvs who worked in the crematoria and burned their own kind. It was these Jews, she believed, that led to her hearing in postwar France that "bandits have come out of the lagers,"23 Her interview suggests that Jews were initially villanized for such work and speaks to the reality of the DP period in which lews vvete already being blamed for complacency in their own destruction. Yet, Boder's collection includes many stories of violence between Jews and for leasons other than Nazi orders. Israel Unikowski explained that violence was often a u'siilt of hunger and greed. He told Boder about his time in the Lodz ghetto and explained, "Thine were cases of murder where people killed one another." In particular, he says, "Thete was a case when a young girl was killed. She was seen leaving /the store?/ with two loaves of bread." Boder clarifies by asking if a Jew did it. Unikowski lesponds, "Yes. Then a Jew followed her and with an iron /bar/ he killed them both in the house."2'' The muideier killed not only the young Jewish girl who took the two loaves of bread but also her mother, the intended recipient of the second lout. Stories ot violence in these contexts have not been widely discussed in recent testimony collections. Taboos established in later yeais also seived to liltei out moments of petsonal shame so that stories of physical dcptavity weie minimized Some details of Boriei's collection might have provoked concerns of decency and audience — would people he mteiested in hearing stories of petsonal shame? Bodei's interview with Nethama hpsttiu-Kozlovvski provides a salient example. She detailed the latk of watei and intense heat of the railroad car journey to Auschwitz. On the nam, she explained, "'I here lay a little girl of four years. She was calling to me, 'Give me a little bit of water. Save me.' Ami I could do nothing Motheis weie giving the cluldien untie to ilinik." Boder seemed unwilling to believe this. He asked hei if it was icallv true. And she leplied, "/Screaming/ I saw it. 1 did it myself, but 1 could not dunk it 122 Rachel Deblinger 1 could not stand it any more. The lips were burned from thirst."25 She continued to describe the scene in even more detail: Epstein: So 1 saw that the mother is doing it, and the child said, "Mama, but r bitter, I cannot drink it." boder: Yes? Epstein: So she said, "Drink, drink." And the child did not want to drink it because it was bitter. And I myself imitated it, but I was not able to drink it, and I did not drink it.26 Although the terrible thirst in the rail cars continued to be a common theme in Holocaust survivor narratives, the details recorded here predate a taboo that might have made testimonies more palatable for large audiences. The question of vengeance in the postwar period has been one of the more well discussed taboos. Naomi Seidman has demonstrated that the French translation of] Wiesel's Night removed the anger and impulse for revenge that were in the original Yiddish version.27 She detailed the transformation of Wiesel's memoir and asserted that Wiesel recognized that in order to be respected and widely read, he had to hide his anger. The legacy thereafter was of a passive and forgiving survivor. Boder's interviews support Seidman's findings that survivors were angry in the postwar period and felt or sought vengeance. Actual stories of revenge were still rare, but the interviews confirm intense anger and emotion. One example of a revenge stoiy comes when Unikowski mentions briefly that he and other inmates at Buehenwald chased after SS guards when they abandoned the camp, captured them, and beat them. Benjamin Piskorz, however, was more explicit. He explained to Boder that a" the end of the war, while lie was in the Czech countryside, "There I took a hit of * revenge on the Germans." Boder pushed him further and Piskorz explained: PISKORZ: For instance, 1 struck down people. I, too, tortured.29 boder: Killed dead? piskorz: Yes, killed dead. I, too, tortured a few people. And 1 also did tl things with the German children as the SS men did in Majdanek with the Po-the Jewish children. boder: For instance? piskorz: For instance, they took small ... small children by the little legs and hi head against the wall so long until the head cracked and /the child/ wa> I Ji boder: Did you do the same thing? piskorz: I did the same to the German children, because the hate in me was so 30 great ... This is not to say that these stories represent widespread Jewish violence or revenge. In fact, these types of stories are rare, even in Boder's collection. Yet, the violence Piskorz expressed here speaks to the impulse for revenge and the open expiessum « violence in the early postwar period. ■ Niewyk ii I le acknowl stances are r, easier res talk the war."31 ' revenge, one-prevent these witnesses we their experiei The taboo history and o these themes of Holocaust of these nan-.it Indeed, wl here is that B ind suggests ; times Boder I: non-interview recordings inc piayer tunes, ; ind resistance er's collect shared with D survivor identi Even anion: of the powerfi Although these entral plat tl at Ansel P-iuicularly the like Schitulkr's Auschwitz, Bo owski exp pitsoners on the older people to postwar nienioi world, By recording was determined " the histo ecu b. these intei challenge Holo. >ry. Rathe Memory in Displaced Persons camps 123 ie continued to .'1.1111.1. but it Irink it because lk it, and I did moil theme in >oo that might the moie well nslation of Hie in the original ■ir and asset ted he bad to hide "vivor. Bodoi's postwar period but the inlet-»e story conies enwald (based icat them. oder that after I took a bit of lained: • did the same he Po- ... with gs and heat the d/ was killed. in me was so ce or levenge. :., the violence i expression of ■ Niewvk included both Unikowski and Piskorz among the witnesses in his collection. He acknowledged the uniqueness of their revenge narratives and that these cireum-st.mces aie raiely mentioned in subsequent meinoiis. As he writes, "It was, perhaps, easier to talk about them with a sympathetic American in the immediate aftermath of 1 This comment suggests that there was already a taboo against discussing revenge, one which Boder allowed his witnesses to overcome, in fact, the taboos that pievent these types of stories from being discussed later were not yet in place. So the witnesses were not overcoming any shame to tell Boder these stories but relating theii experiences as they perceived them. I he taboos and shame that accompanied a later acceptable initiative of Holocaust hisioiy and of the Jewish role within that story weie not fixed in 1946. As a result, these themes challenge some aspects of what has become a standard and fixed narrative of I loloi.iust history and the conception of Jewish victimization. The unfiltered content of these narratives preserve the complexity of the actions taken by Jews during the war. Indeed, what makes the complexity of individual memory all the moie important is that Boder's collection also tecorded early expressions of communal meinoiy uggests at least one way in which a suivivor identity was fust defined. Sotne-• Boder brought his wire teeorder to sendees or events held in the camps. These lion interview segments of his lecordings weie never published, but the original rccoidmgs include small groups of children singing traditional songs, Mermonite piayer tunes, and Greek Orthodox Hymns. Boder also lecorded concenttation camp .mil icsistance group songs. By preserving these expressions of communal memory, Boiler's collection suggests how unique experiences like icsistance and lager life weie shared with DPs who had come back tiom Soviet Russia or out of hiding and how a mu vivor identity based on survival of concentration camps was fiist favoted. F.ven among the transcripted interviews, the collection gives early voice to many of the powerful images later canonized in Holocaust nanatives and tepiesentattotis. Although these accounts bleak with some later established taboos, they also reaffirm the centtal place of many Holocaust tropes. Many of Boiler's interviewees iccall their ■iniv.il at Auschwitz or their perpetual fear of selections. These experiences, perhaps particularly the ramp at Auschwitz, have become iconic images. Yet, before reletences like Sdiindler's List or Elie Wiesel's Night popularized the moment of arrival at Aimhwitz, Boder's collection recorded how suivivois articulated these memories. Unikowski explained that when he got off the train at Birkenau thete were Jewish piisoners on the ramp insdaicting all the young people to say they weie older and .ill the older people to say they were younger.32 The inclusion of these popular teferences in postwar memory illuminates the roots of such iconic images in the immediate postwar Will 111. By recoiding eyewitness testimony befoie a canonical nariative of the Holocaust was determined, these interviews serve both to anticipate later themes and to eom-pluate the historical narrative by recalling themes that have since been filtered out. As stuh. these interviews, while unique in structme, tone and candor, do not altogether challenge Holocaust historiography or undermine the centtal images of Holocaust memory. Rather, they reinvigorate tiaditional tiopes and confirm the varied and ■I 124 Rachel Deblinger complex behavior and experience of victims under Nazi Rule. Although scholar- an' beginning to recognize that the immediate postwar period was a time ol iiiien-e niemoiy creation, these testimonies have not received the attention of later tesiiinonv collections and demand renewed study both for what they tell about the Holocau-t and for how they portray UP life. Examination ot the relationship between the DP space and the memory cicaioi there reveals that the impermanence of the space was reflected in the emotional state ant! vaiied expression of Holocaust survivors. Boiler's collection captured an iniincdi.iic response of witnesses and now stands as a key source for understanding how stimuli-began to express their own experiences while also developing a communal incinuiy and early survivor identity. Reading these early accounts in their paiticular historici! context brings a more exacting eye to the development of Holocaust memoiv .mil reinserts the uncertainty of DP life into early narratives about the Holocaust. Notes 1 David P. Boder, / Did Not Interview the Dead (Urbana: University of Illinois Pies- 2 David P. Boder, '1'opical Autobiographies of Displaced People Recorded I'erbatun hi Dvyk-l Persons Camps with a Psychological and Anthropological Analysis (Chicago: D.I', lio-.lci. 1950-57). 3 Kaletzka's inteiview was published twice by Boder: first in / Did Not Interview tin IX-iJ ■< "I Am Alone" under the name Anna Kovitzka, then in 'Topical Autohiograp real name Anna Kaletzka. He also wrote an interpretive essay in response to hei liiuimv entitled, "Tale of Anna Kovitzka: A l.ogico-Systematic Analysis or an Hssi\ in l.spen mental Reading." The essay was never published, but Boder continued icfine the essay throughout the 1950s. Numerous copes of the essay exisi. I will i|ii-i!i from a bound copy dated November 15, 1956. David P. Boder's Papers, P'3H )7 'DPI; Papers). UCI A YRL Special Collections, Box 6, Polder: Kovitzka Interprelaiioi 4 Boder. / Did Not Inteiview the Dead, 25. * 'I lie "/" indicate Boder's notes in / Did Not Interview the Dead and Topical A. 5 DPI! Papers. Box 3, Folder: The Tale of Anna Kovitzka, Manuscript, "I he bile-" Anna Kovitzka," 3 I. 6 Zeev W. Mankowit/, Life Between Memory and Hope: 'Lite Survivois of tt Octiipied Ceimauy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 3. 7 I.eo Srole, "Why the DPs Can't W,úl/Commentary 3 (1947): 13-24, 13. <-> DPB Papeis, Box 15. Woiking Notebook (97-68), in response to the George Kaldore, l> Boder, 1'opiial Autobiographies, Flenja Fiydman (First Series, 1950, Volume 585. 10 In his interview with Nachaina Epstein Kozlowska, Boder included a note .iIhh.i i!ío following interruption: " fhe interviewer apparently pleads with people who. m spur..: | his many requests, continue to eavesdrop under windows and behind the doo ashamed ot yourselves? Don't you really understand ... "" Boder, Topical A .* Nechama Epstein-Ko/lowska (Fouith Series. 1956, Volume 14, Chapter 5 1,1 26)1. 1 I DPB Papers. Box 6, Polder: Kovitzka Interpretation, "Tale of Anna Kovit/ka." I 1 13. Boder explained in / Did Not Inteiview the Dead that he tried to apply the r psychological interview methodologies by sitting behind the inteiviewet them view to his responses. His tone and language reflects his formal i was often less professional than intended. 13 Boder, 'topical Autobiogiaphies, Kalnian Eisenberg (Series 4, 1956, Volunr r>2). F.isenbeig's interview was somewhat problematic. The tone of his inte a l.u k ofspi of sonnrwh, wall the ret kill!'.ll.l;;c (25 '-1 Boder. Topi, 1-' Donald L. I ^^^gjíaymity; o R N|.-w\k. Pre ! ; Boder, '1'opii ihioiiiijkUit ] siou. Lhmbi in Ijoillv of 1 the I lolnc.au.-iiodei trinski teuu "iioloca «oid "holoc ume. ii Ix-ea cemented as theme of nia e.iilu-si p.istw liiikeil [o ihe • \us,hwil. I h !'s Uodei. / Did : the ■ no |iiit> I.UllOllS p.lSS.lL',1 heie." Puinn 1" In llolotaiisi I fBB^I^^^S.'.be'rw now and then Aineiic.i to ! o the nei esslti o Uiineise nt i| 1 .iniyi's .u;;iin VĚjm^^^é,., even expei t.uioiis I t I. Yale 1 i,u\ -'' In Rcmctub. liir obviously knm denied 1-v oiht 'kal " ( |1Msil (New Yink W '1 \aonu S.-uIim.i New Si-iies. .i Meiiiiuv Sui\i Monm and Oi V.\i W UshlllUl o -- Hodei, topical Ch.iptei I v 62: '5 Hodei, topical ctem.itoiies. w'h Modci. 'topical t.hiptei ifš! I8( Hodei, topical .' Wě§BĚĚ^$4:) 26C Memory in Displaced Persons camps 125 ugh m holars arc time of intense 1 later testimony t the I luioc.iust nemoiv iie.itcd otional state .mcl 1 an imuiccliate st; how sur\ivois niunal mommy icular hisicr,K al st memorv and locaust. lois Pk-ss. i') I'ij. 'tttim in I)hj>l.ht;i ;o: HP. liodei. •wiew [lw Dead js itphii. uiuloi hoi to her interview lissay in Ixpeti led to nhi and ast. f \\ il! quote 1938 ;s/ iDI'IJ pietafiou. ' Aittol , I he I ale of llw H interview with ; 4. Ch.ipiei 15; note about the »vho, in spite of or. 'Ate sou not Autob 54) 2631." itzka," 14. most .h!\.iih i d 'e and i aieanor. ie 14. t.'hapur erview sii:v',esis .i l.iil, of spontaneity and liodei noted, "The style ot the interview appeals espci iatlv full nl" somewhat aitilicial pathos" (2534). Boder also notes later that due to problems with the lecoider the niteiview was delayed a day, giving hisenbeig time to piepaie set language (2544). lioder. Topical Autobiogiaphies, Kisenbeig, 2540-41. Donald L. Niewyk, Flesh IVoumh: Uaily Nanatives of Holouiust Stnvival (<'hapel Hill: 1,'niveisity of" North Carolina Press, 1998). Niewvk. Fresh Wounds, 88. liodei. Topical Autobiographies, bisenbetg, 2546-17. hisenbeig, who speaks in Yiddish ihioughotit his interview with lioder, used "die khurbn" to indicate the victims m his stoiv. hhtitbn is fiteialiy tianslated as "catastrophe," but Yiddish speakers, including the ni,i]oinv of Holocaust survivois, used and continue to use. the term Khmhn to indicate the I lolocaust as an event. Hete, Eisenbeig employs the teim to indicate specitu vktinis. Boder tianslated the woid as "burned offering," peihaps linking the idea to that of the leini "holocaust" which is uaied back to the Bible to mean "burnt offering," Although the wind "holocaust" was used to refer to the tieatinent of Jews in Nazi Europe at that nine, n became the signifying teim in America later in the postwar period and was icinenied as the defining title in the 1970s and 80s. The tianslatioi) suggests that the theme of lnartynlom was piesent in discussing the Jewish victims of Nazism lioin the liest postwar period on. for a discussion ot the etymology of "Holocaust" as it is ked to the idea of a buint offering and martyidoni, see Gioigto Agambeti, Remnants of \miltwit:: The liitness and the Auhire (New York: Zone Books, 2(M>J) 28 31. Boder, / Did Not Imeiview the Dead, Jitigen Gastfieund, 37. (Boder gave Jin gen Bassftetmd the namejiiigen Gastffeund in the hook.) Phis exchange seems to anticipate I'tiino Levi's famous passage in Suij'ieal in , htsiliwit: when a prison gu.ud tells 1 evi, "4 heie is no wh) lieie." I'rimo Levi, Suivival in Ausibwit: (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1996) p. 29. Holocaust Testimonies: Ruins of Memoiy, I awience hanger identified a gap in inoi.il univeises between the inteiviewer and intciviev.ee. He aigued that the distante between w and then was not only the tempoial distance o( 40 ye.us and the spatial distance of America to Europe, but the inoi.il distance from our world, in which we aie "turned m the necessity of moial choice to pieserve the integrity of civilized heluvtoi" to the moial iveise of the Holocaust that upended logical expectations. In Boder's collection, 1 anger's aigument of a moial gap is not dependent on any tempoial or spatial distance fiom the events. Boder still approached the smvivois with ditfetent assumptions and -citations. Lawience Langer, Holotaust Testimonies: 'Flic Ruins of Memoiy (New Haven, CI": Yale Univeisity Press, ~I99I), p. 33. In Remembering Suwival, Browning wiote, "Events of upe and levenge killing -obviously known to all Staiachowice suivivots bur openly hinted at only by some and denied by othets began to become public memoiy some f'ortv-five veais after the ait." Clmstopher Browning, Remembering Suivivid: Inside a \'a:i Slave-Diboi Camp {New York: WAV. Norton ix'company, 2009) 1 I. Naomi Seidman, "F.lie Wiesel and the Scandal of Jewish Rage,"" lavish Sonal Studies, . w Series, 3:1 (Autumn 1996): I -19, 8; I leiny Gieenspan, "lhe Awakening of .Ykmory: Smvivoi Testimony in the first Yeais after the Holocaust, and I oclay," Monna and Cttcs Weinmann fectme Series, 17 May 2090, 19 Available at: lutp:/' www.ushinm.oig/iesearili/center/publii ations/occasional/2001 - 2/papei.pdf. Boder, 'topical Autobiographies, Henja fiyduian (fiist Series, 19.3(1, Volume 4, Chapter 13) 623. Boder, Topical Autobiographies, Fiydman 623. Eiydinan said, "lews woiked in the crematories, which means that Jews have been burning their own kindled." Boder, Topical Autobiogiapliies, Israel Unikowski (Fourth Series, Frtd, Volume 10, Chapter 38) 1805. Boder, Topital ,'iutobiogiaphies, Nechama Bpstein-Kozlowski (Series -I. |9;->6, Volume 14, Chapter 54) 2608. 126 Rachel Deblinger id Boiler, 'fopkiil Autobiogiaphies, Epstein 2609. Benjamin Piskorz also notes that he askee friend to urinate in his mouth as a way to alleviate the terrible thirst. He said, "And ako during the ride 1 was terribly thirsty. So there was an acquaintance, a comrade of nunc whom 1 begged, from the terrible thitsr, /that/ he should for me eveir ... nu ... I clou'l know how to say it, because ... urine ... he made urine into my mouth ... This w.wi't the first ease, because all the people drank this way." Boder, Topical Autobioer,ipliie~. Benjamin I'iskor/ (Series 4, 1956, Volume 12, Chapter 48) 2270-71. 27 Naomi Seidman, "Elie Wiesel and the Siandal of Jewish Rage," Jnmsh Social Stmlic: New Series, 3:1 (Autumn 1996): 1-19. 28 Boder, Topical Autobiographies, Unikowski 1836. Unikowski says that they did not kill the guards because the German Communist prisoneis who had taken control of the i.iinp forbade them from killing. 29 Piskorz fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was then tortured by the Ceuiuii-following the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Boder, Topical Autobiographies, Piskorz 2267 (>S. 30 Boder, Topical Autobiogiaphies, Piskorz 2292-93. Piskorz's interview has a different structure than most of the others. Towards the end of his trip, Boder tried to record i>nl\ shorter interviews with witnesses in what he called "special episodes" (2256). Instead ul recording a whole interview, Boder focused his questions to the Warsaw Ghetto resist ime activities and other out of the ordinary experiences. 31 Niewyk, fresh Wounds, 19. 32 Boder. 'topical Autobiographies, Unikowski 1827. AUThh MAKIf \h 4SC Mil had E l It can no Ion Second Work I he events \vl there was silei decade, as scln a prominent | 1997, Stuart ? relations agent and Ami I )efa of (he I 93(|s ai was arguably t I loloc.mst on , rlthough Holocaii' in respoi the writi establish! In 3ti(i.'.. I als< magnitude of t stirvi\ ois. c onn; ol Europe .in Je lessons for tire /* and ih.it the r AUTHORITARIANISM AND THE MAKING OF POST-HOLOCAUST PERSONALITY STUDIES Kiiduicl E. Staub I It (in no longer be consicieieil noteworthy to aigue that in the aftermath of the Second World War theie was no special silence in the United Stales suiiounding /ents which came eventually to be known as the Holocaust. The myth that theie was silence has been undermined by Jewish studies scholaiship tor more than a (fa.ule, as scholars have documented how the Holocaust almost immediately earned .1 pioniinent place in American (and American Jewish) discussions and debates. In 1997. Stuart Svonkin observed how Jewish professionals active in the infergioup iclations agencies (like the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, and Anti-Defamation League) "were profoundly influenced by the cataclysmic events of the 1930s and 1940s," and that "the Holocaust, as it eventually came to be known, was arguably the touchstone of their identities as Jews."1 In 1999, in a studv of the Holocaust on American television, Jeffrey Sbandler wiote that although genetally chaiacterized as a period of American Jewish silence on the Holocaust, the immediate postwar yeais saw a considetable amount of activity in response to this as-yet-unnanied subject: pioneering historical scholarship, the writing of the fust of hundreds of personal and communal mcmoits, the establishment of the earliest memorials." hi 2002, I also pioposed that "far iiom being silent, either out of horror at the lagnitude of the Nazi crimes or out of lespectful sensitivity towaid the tiauma of jrvivors, commentators of all political persuasions made analogies to the mass murder f European Jewry," and that while "theie was never any agreement on what the :ssoirs ft>r the American context weie," nonetheless "all agreed that theie were lessons, lid that the Nazi genocide was a logical leference point ftom which to thaw 128 Michael E, Staub conclusions about the situation in the U.S. as well."* And in 2003, Lawrence Bat concluded that although "the term 'Holocaust' did not become common in Americ parlance until the 1960s, a sense of what it. denoted had become widespread in i fifteen years after World War ll."4 In other words, we might benefit from asking 1 whether the Holocaust was remembered and memorialized in the first fifteen yens after 1945, but why and through what precise historical processes these many dive acts of memory came subsequently to be suppressed and "forgotten" for so manv decades afterwards. In a book on postwar American Jewish history, I explored how the purported lessons of the Holocaust for the American Jewish political scene had traveled ahe.ulv by the early 1960s through a series of at least tlnee contested ami negotiated stage, with respect to Jewish attitudes toward African American civil rights activism 1 argued that it was only against the background of these earlier debates over black-Jewish relations that: we might appreciate what was at stake in the conflicted - and conflicting — fashions in which the Holocaust came subsequently also to be invoked in arguments over American Jews' appropriate stances on the war in Vietnam o>- the state of Israel. And I also argued that when commentators from the 1070s onvaid began to repeat the quickly conventional view that Holocaust consciousness in the U.S. only flourished in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, they w solely serving to erase the presence of various earlier and more progressive w.ivs to interpret the possible lessons of the Holocaust with respect to racial justice were choosing to neglect as well early tmtrprogressivc versions of the Holocaust's supposed lessons and the specific context of discomfort with bkek civil rights activism within which these versions were first articulated. This question, then, of how a plethora of historical acts of remembranc erased and forgotten in new narratives about the evolution of memory poli motivates the inquiry of the present essay. If we can agree — as the scholais uicd above appear to, and as Hasia Diner more recently reiterated - that when Jew-postwar moment contemplated the Holocaust, they "differed among thems to how best to narrate the catastrophe and what lessons should be derived from it." then we also need to ask by what mechanisms, and in the context of what idc conflicts, certain memories or lessons gained the aura of legitimacy - while otlici memories and lessons slipped into historical oblivion.5 This is not to propose i lessons and memories which were erased from the subsequent retrospective nanaine, were superior to the memories and lessons which came to dominate later dis. and debates, nor vice versa. Rather it is to suggest that processes of remenihianie and forgetting are rather complexly intertwined with ideological processes, that interrelationships between politics and memories need careful reconstruction aid analysis. This essay examines the emergence of authoritarianism as a concept employ intense regularity in postwar "personality studies" — a subfield sitting at the mieiMX-tion of social psychological and sociological investigation and psychoanalytic i as well as in psychoanalytic reflections on the presumed personality structures t perpetrators and the bystanders of Nazi genocide. 1 am especially interested attempt to c this psychoa . animated b\ opprobrium concept qua itarianism co with other , authoritarian quite dissimi to dominate Arciidi's con special cmpl explored and indieaiois of proposed tha b.rnst Sinune (:eiiiiany hat coininonsenst as a model, to soon to be dis displacement would also cc I'h.u there we and social ps) Jevvrv was la: exponented b comparable pre It was hardly imeiested in p Attention foci development a vulnerable esp. development o (particularly wi By the itme Uruiiswik, I >an published 7fce , the lelaiioiishij-chologu.r dove had been in wi several ve.us. A Authoritarian personalities 129 aw icurc li.uoi) >n in AnieiuMii lespiead in the rom asking not st fifteen veais .' many divejsc-for so in.inv the purported aveled alre.uh gotiated stages ghts a. rivisni. es over hl.uk nflieted .ind to be invoked ietnam or die 1970s onwa.d nisness in l ho hey weie not -ssive w ays to justice. Thcs e 1 loloi .mst's ights aci!\ ism iibianc< y politics also scholars c itcd ■n Jews in the themselves as ved from it,'' at ideological while pose thai the ive nan.tines er discussions emembi aiu e i ocesse; struction and iployed w itli the intet.sec- lytic tesearch ctmes of the ested in ihe .ilti'inpt to draw lessons from the German case for the American context, and I see this psu hoanalytically inclined body of scholarship as strongly saturated by — indeed animated by — what we would now call Holocaust consciousness. A stark term of oppiohi Him, "authoritarianism" was represented as a scientific and social scientific concept quantifiable through medical knowledge and with statistical data. Author-Hiri.iiiisin could be measured and charted, and its embeddedness in and enmeshmerit with other anti-democratic tendencies analyzed. In effect, the aspiration to analyze autliorir.il lanism was to make reason out of unreason. Significantly, moreover, and quite dissimilar from the model for understanding perpetrator mentality which came to dominate popular discourse in the early 1960s in conjunction with Hannah Aiench's coinage of the term "banality of" evil," the authoiitananism model placed special emphasis on hatred and piejuihce Intiigmnglv, scholats m this school esploied and promoted the idea that anttsemitism and l.Kism might be thought of as indieiiois of mental illness; at other tunes (oi sometimes at the same time) thev pioposed that antisemitism or lacisni was a "social disease." As emigie psychoanalyst lanst Snnmel wrote already in 1946, the hatied of Jews which swept thtough Nazi liitiuany had been a "mass psychopalhology."'' Such a position became popuku coiumonsense in the half-decade following the end of Woilel W.u II Yet its usefulness js a model for thinking through the relations between psychology and politics came soon to be displaced -- and judged untenable — only a few short ye.us later, and with the displacement this particular form of more immediate postwar I lolocausl const iousncss would also come to be forgotten. How did this happen? there were political lessons for the American situation to be diawn by psychiatrists - | .ind social psychologists in the immediate wake of the mass minder of htuopean »3 lewry was largely taken as self-evident. The psychic dilemmas and temptations experienced by citizens during the Third Reich were not specific to Nazi Germany; :onipaiable pioblems might easily develop also for individuals living in the United States. It was hardly surprising, then, that medical doctors and social scientists who weie nteiested in politics sought to extrapolate from an examination of the Nazi eneinv. \ttention focused on the possible lclationships between individual psychological levelopment and adherence to political ideologies. If the psyche of the individual was ailneiable especially while young, and it there existed a decisive link between the levelopment of personality and the evolution of ideological values, then enviionnient ■ {particularly within families) requiied closest scrutiny. .} By the time sociologist Theodor W. Adorno and social psychologists HIse lienkel-■; liiunswik, Daniel ). Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanfoid, a research team based in Berkeley, -sSj' published The Authoritarian Personality (1950), a project dedicated to the unraveling of •? the relationship between personality and political values, the idea that ptisonal psv-ilogieal development and political values and identities wete deeply intertwined i.id been in wide circulation within psychiatric and psychoanalytic ciicles aheady tor everal years. A main trend in psychoanalytic- and social psychological studies of both 130 Michael E. Staub antiblack racism and antisermtism was to argue that racism functioned as a compensator, or defense mechanism, an unconscious means to manage deep feelings of humiliation which weie too awful and difficult consciously to contemplate. For instance, it li.ui been thcoitzed since the 1930s that when routinely frustrated, human be responded with acts of aggression — e\en though this aggression was often displj onto a scapegoat, especially against individuals or groups deemed lesser or worthlc Quite a few psychoanalytic stitdus of antistmitism and the personality of the a Semite m Nazi Germany emeiged even betoie the full extent of the horrors perpetn during the I lolooaust had been revealed; these included Wilhelm Reich's Flic Md-s Psychology of Fascism, Otto FenichtTs "The Psycho-analysis of Anti-Semitism," l-.nk H. F.rikson's "Hitler's Imagery and Gentian Youth," and Abraham H. Maslow's "Ihe Authoritarian Character Structure."8 Additionally, social psychologist Erich Froinni had proposed in 1911 that social conditions which squelched individual self-expres1 otteied rub soil for the nurtuiance of an "authoritaiian character" which displ.i. ' "the simultaneous presence of sadistic and masochistic ilnves.'"' Such persons sough. ■ stmeiider themselves to a master (not least so as to avoid responsibility for their o aggiessive actions) even as they sought also to dominate others and to inflict pain uj them. And psychoanalyst Ernst Stmmel had contributed the insight that also "relatively normal, well adapted person" "legiessed" at moments of social panic or nisi,1 Did persons who harbored resentments and hostilities towards minorities share j specific character structuie that might be labeled "authoritarian"? Was it possible to extrapolate from an individual case study to the population as a whole? What wis the link between the individual who possessed an "authoritarian" personality and the ability of states to cany out policies whose aim was to scapegoat so-called undesirable-groups? And did the presence of authoritarian personalities within a society not only make fascism possible, but also ensure that fascistic policies could be carnal b\ popular consent? Integrating an innovative- array of social psychological methods, the Berkeley researchers sought to make sense of these questions through the collet nor of a mass of empirical and statistical evidence. They interviewed more thin two thousand subjects and took their life histories. They de-vised elaborate questionnaires. They showed their subjects dramatic images and asked them to mwiit stories about these pictures. (This technique first introduced in the mid-19.)Us w known as the Thematic Apperception Test.)" And they developed several scales to quantify their findings. There was the "A-S scale" (for "antisenutism") "Li scale" (for "ethnocentrism"); there was the "PEC scale" (for "pcrhticei-econeiiitic,^ conservatism") and — most famously - the "F scale" ("f for "fascist"), each of which was intended to measure an individual's tendency towards prejudiced and undemocratic values as a corollary of personality factors. The result was the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on how political attitudes related to personality tiaits And what the Berkeley researchers finally argued was that there did in tact exist "the potentially fascist individual, one whose structure is such as to render him pan susceptible to anti-democratic propaganda."12 Several points bear emphasis. For one thing, there can be no question - that tf» project in its nearly one thousand pages was haunted throughout by the mass imirekt- ■111 ■ ■ ot European | opening, page i idea thai sikric "just ' antisemii the mechanize a slum span o civ ili/.inon personality trail llie same nine mom, FlF Aul cotrelations be - While the book the subjects wt aillisenutisim it to .uithoiu\ .rigi authois ideirtifii impulses. Finally, and c book was withe emotional mi sought especially cause, ihe autho portray the pre] (even while the fascist nail-), hid einlief not lcsr sexually frustrate Italian patents di adulthood in pni men hv ,n tmg 11 against scapegoat stiungK agaiii e oiheis - the- pc damaged. At the . unbiased individi Hie , iuilnuiianan widely ci ilicjued tile f ic-Id of social aission about ih< 'Hiding u gintiiyii being made e-xpli Authoritarian personalities 131 a i ouipciiMtoiy '• ol huuiiliaiion instance, it had human beings -often displaced ' or woithlcss.' ty of the ami--"ors perpetrated •k'h's 7//c iliiiusin." l.nL vlaslow's "' I he Eiich lionmi self expression huh displayed sons sought to for their own lict 11,111 j upon that also the mil in ci Ms.'" Jriiies sh.ne a it possible to e? What was lality and the d undesiiable t society not be can led by methods, the he collection inoie than borate (|ues-tn to invent d-1 9. UK was eta! scales to i") and (he o-econoinic ch of which id undemo ast conipic-'tiality nails. ~"t exist " particul.ulv >n that this lass minder MĚm yl' I-.uropean Jewry. Published a half-decade after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the opening page of the book's foreword asserted — in an interesting endorsement of the idea that silence reigned, but also clarifying that specifically the Judeocide and not "just" authemitism motivated their inquiry — that "today the world scarcely remembers the mei h.inized persecution and extermination of millions of human beings only ,i short span of ye.us away rrr what was orn e legatded as the utadel ol Western civilization."13 For anotbei thing, and although it left uncleai whethei pathological personality traits were innate or pioduied bv eailv parent-child interaction, while at rhe same lime it ceitamly did also attend to the impact of the w idei social einnon ment. The Aitthoi Italian Peiumahty definitely took the view that there weie strong couclalious between cbaiactei stiuctuie and ideologual attitudes Addrtronallv, while the book was framed principally as an inquiry into the nature of prejudice, and the sub|ects were tested to measure the extent of their etbnocentiism, i.icisnr and antisi'initism, it also had much to say about the combination of ambivalent submission to authority figures and cruelty and aggression towards those inoie vulnerable that the .iiithois identified as characteristic of anti-democratic and even inupiently last istu impulses. 1 tn.illv, and despite the reams of seemingly objective scientific data inatshaleri, the hook was without a doubt intended as a political - and even deeply evoc ative and eiiiorion.il - intervention into discussions about what Amei uans should value. It sought especially to position prejudice as antithetical to democracy, hi pursuit of this curse, the authors unfortunately — although tellingly — did nor hesitate strategrcally to poniav the prejudiced person as both latently homosexual and mentally disturbed (even while the study had also tested for homophobia as an indicator of potentially fascist 11 aits). Indeed, the authors of The Atithoritiiriiin Personality did not or peihaps could not — resist casting the bigot in the most unflattering terms. 1 he bigot was a scxnalk frustrated and pathetic wimp. Unloved as a child, lie suffered as Ins authoi li.iuan parents doled out their affections in tiny spoonfuls. This led him to glow to adulthood in pitiful search of tenderness, while masking his eiotu attiaction to other men by acting macho. Fie hated himself for being weak, and he turned that hatied against scapegoats. For the authors of The Authoritarian Peivuiahty and rn this way siiongly again echoing the arguments advanced by Fiomni and Sin unci, among others - the person who bated was psychologically deficient and emotionally damaged. At the same time, and by contrast, the Berkeley leseaicheis gave the unbiased individual a clean bill of mental health. |ll '/ilie Awhoritaiian Peisonahty quickly emerged as one of the most significant and widely-critiqued texts published m the postwar era.11 It was both a landni.uk text in the held of social psychology and a major contribution to an emerging postwai discussion about the fortitude and lesihence ol American democracy Yet far bom finding it gratifying and useful that so many unpleasant aspects of human natrne were being matle explicable, critics quickly savaged The Authoritarian Personality on both 132 Michael E. Staub methodological and substantive grounds. The reasons for the almost instant uinbiagc taken were several. First, The Authoritarian Personality pointed an accusatory finger at American soi iel\ as a whole, deeming the phenomenon of vulnerability to anti-democratic attitudes to be far more pervasive than had been previously assumed. Already a 194C> stud1, by social psychologists Gordon W. Allport and Bernard M. Kramer had ventured the view that "it would seem a safe estimate that at least, four-fifths of the American population lead mental lives in which feelings of group hostility play an appreciable role."15 Here now was a blockbuster book that, while reducing- the estimate of the proportion of Americans afflicted, raised the stakes by redirecting the oouvoistiioii away from the rather mundane phenomenon of "feelings of group hostility" to the far more dramatic tendency to "authoritarianism." A feature piece in the Niir Times Magazine in 195(1 promoting the conclusions of 7Tie Authoritarian Pi flatly asserted "it can be said that about 10 per cent of the population of the United States probably consists of 'authoritarian men and women' while as main ,i< another 20 per cent have within them the seeds that can grow into authoritarianism.""' Having just defeated German antl Italian fascism, Americans w eager to learn that it could happen here — that the U.S. also possessed the potei fascism. Second, The Authoritarian Personality insulted those with traditionally cons values, expressly tarring conservatism as both an incipient form of authoriunatiwn and fascism and a sign of mental disorder. The book also suggested that manv i servatives were "phony" or "pseudo" in their patriotism, waving the Hag while the democratic institutions they claimed to honor. Authoritarian individual appeared well-adjusted, but that was only because they externalized their set resentments onto others (rather than being able to reflect self-critically). b then, while prior studies (not incidentally produced in the- wake of thi Depression) had emphasized the tendencies toward piejudice especially ami lower-class and economically vulnerable, 'The Authoritarian Personality cast aspersion* on mainstream, also prosperous Americans. In addition, a number of scholars found serious flaws with personality stud methodological enterprise. In 1950, sociologist Nathan Glazer expressed it both at what he took to be the tautological quality of the Berkeley team's a] and at its political implications. "When the researcher, on the basis of a si agreement or disagreement with a series of statements composed by the ics himself, proceeds to determine the nature of the subject's thought-proces -. rhetorically inquired, "is he not moving in a circle?" (Glazer was espei i.illy about Adorno et al.'s "rather simple and simple-minded assumptions about what <-. progressive or liberal," and "their assumption that opposition to intemiainage uii only be a sign of prejudice.")1' In 1954, in an anthology dedicated to assessing Hi,' strengths and (above all) weaknesses of The Authoritarian Personality, one contiibu made the telling critique- that Adorno and his associates had neglected utterly to i "Leftist authoritarianism."18 Other contributors decried the Berkeley team's disio^mi for social conditions ami overemphasis on individual character.19 By the later I' mm SUIS tjBBE peispective t pioivss ol be I "tally, an natuie the ei postwar \ears with ace urate leading social conviction th Fight Prcjudie issue of ( '.•mm, best/1 Aiid ii rlanfietl her o typically tenia Same weak pel place was also to lecdttcate it senses a elange balance."-'riy the etarb revise-el (and le place as a beao ' ■ and remained , redress.-'1 It wa circles thai a troi which weu- po . Social preigre achievable. For in chile! e limea Young C.hihhen ( Goodman lejec natures. Also nc Y.inou auel her projeet tested o chilling tlm any edtie-aie-cl u> rede in the indic.it-ivi • (1952). then am how to I.use- ell tlierefbie. that t Project we-ie enti case as a means integrated social A new model of■ human nature Authoritarian personalities 133 nsunl umbiage nei u .111 so( ictv xi.ino attitudes / a I'Mf. study ' ll.nl ventured f tlie Aineiiean an a.ppieciahle iie estimate ol le con\ eisation osl ilit\ " to the the Vciť Yoik man Pa-onnliiy trillion ol r In-lili* .r- many as into aulhon-eans weie not ic poleníial for y i onsen-,itive ithorilariauisni lat m.inv eon g while lialine, liviriiials oficu their seething illy). Notably. ot' the ( beat ly among the casi aspeisions ty studies .is a •sseil u illation nil's appio.it h of a subjeei's the lese.uelier ■esses." (ilazer pec lallv luillv iboui wh.u is nil,image ean i assessing i he intributor also "thy so exploio lin s ciisi cgaid later l9.-(k. a piispeilive that piejudiceri attitudes could be linked to mental illness was in the piooss ol being actively repudiated.20 linalh. and related, was how essentially pessimistic and despairing about human inline die entire social psychological field of" personality studies in the immediate postwai \eais had been. Well-publicized and coordinated attempts to combat bigotry \nili an urate information about minority gioups had initially been piesented by leading social psychologists as the best weapon against intoleiance, but after I945, the com tenon that such attempts really might work dimmed consideiably. "Can We hs-lil Pic|udice Scientifically?" inquired two leading social psychologists in an early issue ol I'.onmiaitary magazine from 1940; their answer here was already ambivalent at !vst.'! And in 1947, Marie Jahoda, who had co-authoied the (Ynnncntaiy essay, d.inlied her own negative position when she documented how bigoted individuals upkally lemained unmoved by "anti-prejudice piopaganda." As Jahoda wiote, the Mine weak personality structure that caused a person to become prejudiced in the fust ilso a peisonality strurtuie which, "as a defense mechanism," evaded efforts it) jecducate it — a defense mechanism which came into play "whenevei an individual mmiscs a danger to his ego stiucture — that is, whenever his self-confidence hangs in lance."22 1>\ the early 1950s, however, new Cold War ideological parameteis leqiured a K'viscd (and less gloomy) theoiy of white lacism. As America claimed its postwar place as a beacon for democracy m the world, the dirty linen that had been slavery and lemained as lacial segregation above all required both political and intellectual • ;,23 It was not palatable by the mid-1950s to atgtie within social psychological nicies that a good number of American citizens could easily succumb to political values s'.liich were potentially fascistic. Social progtess and individual ietonu weie presented by the early 1950s as eminently able. For instance, a significant contribution to the emphatically upbeat diiection in child clinical studies was sociologist Mary Ellen Goodman's Ratv Awawnc (ihililicn 1952), their ambitious aim was nothing less than to offer patents a guidebook for ow to raise children who could "learn to live democratically."21 (It was fitting, leiefbre, that the findings tiom Radke-Yanow's Philadelphia Early Childhood Pioject weie enteied as evidence for the plaintiffs in the lhown v. Boaid ot Education ase as a means of diamatizing how children might unlearn piejudiced attitudes in itegrated social environments.)-3 A new model was quickly emetging, one which offered a far moie optimistic lead f human natme. Thus it was iciterated that a reduction in the social distance 134 Michael E. Staub between groups th.it feared or hated one another could likely reduce a perpetuation of stereotypes held by members of both groups."'' It was also argued that the tlegiee of social alienation or anomie tended to define a person's political values — but thai the anomie could be reduced.27 And it was argued that prejudiced feelings were result ol weak egos, but that weak egos could be effectively bolstered. The argument that persons laised racist were immune to later social forces w out of fashion in the com so of the 1950s, anil was rapidly replaced with an argument th it racists were really quite capable of attitude improvements — given adjustments in their social circumstances. Clinical studies of children's racial attitudes conducted u; the early 1050s began overwhelmingly to reject the analysis that children predisposed innately to particular political attitudes, favoring instead a far more open-ended and hopeful interpretation that democratic (and non-authoritarian) viln.-, could be schooled effectively into the ignorant and the veiy young. In shoit, anil even though these studies with children were not about Jewishness or antiseinitiMii. it is piecisely my argument that it was the combination of Cold War imperatives ,mJ liberal optimistic antiracist efforts that helps to explain the displacement of a distinctly post-1 lolocaust conceptual framework for personality studies. IV It would not be until the war in Vietnam that the concept of authoritarianism wouKl appeal lelevant all ovei again. Revelations in the late 1960s that American soldieis in Vietnam had committed atroiities effectively brought the psychological insights con-lennng an "authoiitanau" personality out of exile. It again became acceptable tugently so to use social psychology to understand how events like the My I .a massacre m 1068 m which "ordinary" American men had engaged in the rape, lomnc and mass killing of unanned South Vietnamese citizens - could possibly have taken place. B\ the late 1960s lesearch into the psychological loots of violence and recaptured a place of central importance both m the academy and in the imagination. Prominent among these efforts was psychiatrist Joel Kovel Riui\m: A Psytlwlustoiy (1970), which took 'Plw. {iitlioiihiiian Personality's desohle nic-My-about human natuie and refashioned it for the antiwar movement. Kovel wrote: When the Mai me officer described the American obliteration ot a i uy in Vietnam by explaining that "we had to destroy the city in order to was he not expressing in the succinct form given by such an extrei the pure, nuclear fantasy underlying Western history - to save and include- and extrude? And what of the prime means of our warfare: he Is this not also the external, societally mobilized, endlessly rationah/cc ment of an immemorial infantile, anal-sadistic fantasy: the eftrcicni. distant (no pilot sees his victim) operation of a machine ...~'y And in the following year, psychologist Nevitt Sanford published papeis symposium on "the legitimization of evil" oiganized in specific response to I ai massacre. Mil..ram's c. were both n Never Happ comments ol labeled anti-\ ol modern to occasion to i wined-in "Hi both highly r i 'u the on reeling the th initially in the i iolocausi. O jutliiu itai iani.s cnliiclv new niekl.ish whic decades n> to] •ifo a backlasl ills assoe kites — am hois of the tern aids the vi and lO'iiis ,|,U| 'hiilioiii.ni,iii P nation on a di Mropluc mess o a short hand rr worki'd so assic ■ io hatch rle .lik 1 pe me ick nfalh pan it iilar ion I were ] izism the aigiusli and rage flaw e'cl, if could turn again and proce I hese influential mud the c Nazi pe-ipeti.itor 111 Authoritarian personalities 135 a perpetuation that the dcgico lues hut thai .'lings weie the ial forces ueni i aigiiincnl thai adjustments in ; conducted in child)en weie ar mote open-4t.iri.iii) values In short, and intisemitism, it npeiativos and of a distinctly nanism would .'an soldiets in insights coii-ptahle - even : the Mv i .u 8 'ape, ton in e taken place."' i and cruelty n the public novel's While iolate message el wrote. I ji 111.ISS.K te Roheit Jay I ifton contributed a paper on "existential evil," and Stanley Milgiani's experiments on obedience to authority and The Authoritarian Personality weie both lepeatedly cited. Foi instance, one contribution - pointedly entitled "It Never Happened and Besides They Deserved It" — noted derisively that the public comments of President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew (who had Libeled anti-war activists "parasites" and "goats") letlected "a text book manifestation of modern totalitarianism" as outlined in the Berkeley study.30 And Sanfoul used the oi'i.ision to reheatse and lefine aiguments he anil his associates had originally presented in 77ic Authoritarian Personality - aiguments Sanfoul presented as lemaining both highly relevant and extremely productive.31 On the one hand, then, antiwar and ami-militarist activists weie effectively tesur-uiting the theory of the potentially lascistic personality which hail been developed initially in the 1940s and early 1950s in diiect response to the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. On the other hand, however, and in yet a further twist, the concept of .uitlioritarianism was about to become a bad object all over again tins time for an entiiely new geneiation of psychologists, psychiatrists and social theorists. It was a sh which began within a moderate bland of hbeialism - but which in the ilci.iiles to follow would slide quite demonstratively to the extreme right. It was j|so a backlash which appeared to lesetve a special place in hell for Adorno and ociates — blaming them in essence for a whole raft of unconscionable sins. The authors of the Berkeley study weie elitist; they were guilty of a supieme condescension low aids the very same Americans they claimed better to understand. By the 1980s .mil 1990s and into the twenty-first century, the increasingly vitriolic case against 'Ike Authoritarian Peisomility argued that Adorno and his colleagues had launched the nation on a downward ethical and spiritual spital - one epitomized by the cata-stiophic mess of the 1960s.3' In short, attacks on The Autlioiitaiian Peisouality became ,i short-hand method to turn against the 1960s, as if Adorno and his colleagues bad worked so assiduously on prejudice and personality studies in the late 1940s only in onler to hatch an execiable Frankenstein monster twenty yeais later. This proved a iluiahle and persistent means of right-wing ideological line of attack - one which (not incidentally) elided the text's obsession with the nature of human cruelty. of a city m r to save it." me situation, and destiir e: bombing? alized enact nit, rational. peis fiom a to the Mv ' c: lusion lor a particular postwar generation of social psychologists and psychoanalysts — many of whom were Jewish, and a good number of whom had also been forced into exile bv Nazism — the concept of authoritarianism came to serve as a means to express both anguish and l.ige at the genocidal anil autiseimtit policies of 1 litlei's Oct many 1 hens was a flawed, if intensely felt, mission to expiess then sonow that a iivthzed nation could turn against the vulnerable in its midst - t.ugeting these poisons lot exteimi nation and proceeding to carry out these aims with the willing assent of the populace. These influential intellectuals searched foi meaning m this madness and, in this seauh, thev found the concept of autborit.uiamsm especially useful - as a wa\ to pottias the N.i/i perpetrator and the Nazi bystander in the most unflatteiing psycholognal tenns 136 Michael E. Staub tliev could muster and as a cautionary tale which warned that American citizens wcic also hardly immune to the social diseases of hatred and prejudice which had \o powerfully taken hold in Germany. That such lessons did not sit well with mam Americans cannot in retrospect be particularly surprising. Yet the recognition that these lessons were themselves a form of Holocaust remembrance - ami that they deserve to be included in any accounting ot how Americans (and American Jews: sought almost immediately to come to feints with the trauma of the mass muidci ot European Jewry — remains crucial to restore to the historical record. Notes I Smart Svonkin. Jeivs Against Piejudice: American jews and the Fight for Civil Libert York: Columbia University Press. 1997). 17. 1 Jeffrey Shandler, While Amerita Hatches: 'Lelevising the FIolo Ernst Smnnel. "Anti-Semitism and Mass Psychopathology," in Anti-Semiti Disease, ed. Ernst Simmel (New York: International Univeisities Press, 1946), 3 7 The classic text is John Dollard, Leonard W. Doob. Neal E. Miller, O. H. Mimi.t. " Robert R. Sears, I-'lustration and Agares>iou (New Haven, CT: Yale Universil' 1939). Also see the highly influential study. Caste and Ck-s iira Southern 'Loivn ;l' which psychologist John Dollard noted that economically insecure Southern wh placed their aggression onto African Americans, while African Americans, u express their own frustration towards whites directly, often turned against one coin black-on-black criminality and cruelty. John Dollard, Caste and Clas> in a 'Point (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 267. 8 Wilhelm Reich. The Mass Psychology oj F'ascism (German orig. 1933; English trjn York: Ot gone Institute Press, 1946): Otto Eenichel, "due Psycho-analysis Semitism," Ameiuan Inuigo I (March 1940): 24-39; Erik H. Erikson, "Hitler's I and German Youth," Psychiatry 5 (November 1942): 475-93; and Abraham El. "flic Authoritarian Character Structure," journal of Social Psychology 18 (No 1943): 401-1 I. 9 Erich Eromm, lisuipc from Freedom (New York: Avon, 1969). 246. The book published in 1941. In 1951. Adorno would elaborate on Fromm's conception argued that the "sadomasochistic character" of fascists might be compared to the of bicyclists: "Above they bow, they kick below." T. W. Adomo "Freudian Th the Pattern of fascist Propaganda," in Psychoanalysis and the Social Silences vol. 3, Roheini (New York: International Universities Press, 1951), 291. 10 Emst Simmel, "Anti-Semitism and Mass Psychopathology," 39, 43. Simmel ioi as well that "the process of civilization itself produces anti-Semitism .is a p.ithi symptom formation, which in turn tends to destroy the soil from which it Ibid.. 34. I I See Christiana D. Morgan and Henry A. Murray, "A Method for Investigating I'he 'I hematic Apperception Test," .Archives of Neurological Psychiatry 34 (1955c M 12 T.W. Adorno. Else Frenkel-Brunswik, D.miel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt s Authoritarian I'eisouality (New York: Harper ix Row, 1950), I. 13 Adorno et. al, v. H INi ■ I ! See ospe, i.il Kel.iiiim; to i'-ose ui ■ of Attuikles' Also -,ee fohi t Ol isc! \ .ij ]s|i 3 )9 -/., I.i Goidnn \V. PsyJiaiovy ' ' 16 Sumiel íl. F ■April 33. 19 I 7 Nathan ( 4 t/i Rice I laue,i, IX I -Iv. itd A. SI i" " lite . \min Eleo Hess. IVi-pci tive." 19 i ii-iheu i ! i odolojuY.il ( a 20 >cc also Arno Stud-, o! Soci. "Sooiological 1939); l80-8f Ann -Hetamat .M See Sanniel 1 (ioiitiw ulary 2 23 Eunice ( áxrp. kcsponil to / Also sec Herl ('ampatmts E; >5 Sec- .\!.,:-. L. (P'iinceiciii, N 31 i ideu í i. Tri i omio (.hildn G. hagei. "Cl Psychology 29 See Richird 1 \weii,,i\ Stnic, .'6 f his was an i See l-inoiy S, 11 íl"25j: 21( H. C. lleath, revised i hrotil, lion." \),iolog ..............ts" i ^^^||s" ,..(or 3 lOiilluts See (New Yoik: f S.-c 1 o Srolc icxio S I .lugner, St lÉPl!!^* the A Bdw Authoritarian personalities 137 II i lll/ciis Ui'ir which Ii.kI so ell \\ nli 11 i.i i iv ciu-nition tli.tr ami ili.u ilu-v niciii.ui Jews) lass numier of ' /.//'. nics ;Ncu Yoil,: (Kťoul r Aim i i, a ŕNew -6ti." / iefitami Myili ii/ .SV/i/,'!,-■00-);. i(>6. útísm: . I SňiJ 4<>; >. H. ívlouiei. riveisiiv ľii-ss, íbu-v; (4 957) m ;ni wiiites t ti-.-uis. unable io one anoihei : iľi sh u.uis. New lysis oľ A n n itlei's lin.ieeiv n 1 I. Misiou, 8 (November aool, včas l'nst tion wlieu hc-to liie .letions n í lieois nid »/. ■ti 1 .c/,! icl (oiu ludet! 1 p.lllll)lo!;K.ll t has fiow n." ling I .ini.isies. 55). 389 '(!(,. Sa S.i- espeeially Rieli.iiil Christie .mil Peggy Cook, "A Guide to Published l.itei.ituie Itel uing to the Authoritarian Peisonality I'hiiHigh 1956." journal of I'sythology 45 (Apnl 1958;: 171—99; and the chapter on " Hie Authoritarian Pctsonaliu ami the t ligani/ation of Altitudes" in Roger Blown, Sod ill I'sythology (New Yoik: Piee Press, 1965). 477 546. Also siv John T. Jost, Jack Claser, Arie W. Kruglamlski, and Prank ). Sulloway, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," Psyiliologinil Bulletin 129 (May 7003): 359 /5. (ioidon \V. Allport and Bernaid M. Kiamer, "Some Roots of Piejudice," journal of Py.iiology 22 (|uly 1946): 9. S.initiol H. Floweiman, "Porn ait of the Authoritarian Man," .Wir Volk Times Magazine {April '3, 1950): 9. Nathan Glazer, "The Authoritarian Peisonalily in Pioiiie: Repott on a M.i|or Study of Kate Hatred." Commeiitaiy 4 (June 1950): 576-77. I.tlw.ml A. Shils, " Authoritarianism: 'Right' and 'Left,'" in Studies in the Stope ami Method Authoiitaiiaii Peisonality " eds., Richard Christie and Mane fthoda {(llencoe. 11: liee Piess, 1954), 59. Also see Paul Kecskemeli, "Piejutlice m the Oatastiophic I'eispcuive," Continental)* 11 (March 1951): 286-92. I leihen H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley. '"The Authoritarian Peisonality" - A Methodological Critique," in Studies in the Stope and Method of "'Tie Authoiitaiiaii Pi tonality," tut also Arnold M. Rose, "Inteigroup Relations vs. Prejudite: Peltinenf I'hoorv loi the Study of Social Change," Sotial Pioblems 4 (October 1956): 173-76: Melvin M. Tumiu. "Sociological Aspects of Desegiegation," Amciitan journal of (hlliopsyihiatiy 29 (Jamiai) 1959): 180 -85; and Barl Raab anil Seymour M. 1 ipset, Picjudite and Satiety (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1959). See Samuel H. Hlowernian ami Marie J.ihoda, "('an We Tight I'te|iichcc S< lentititally?" Coniineutaiy 2. (December 1946): 583-87. I unice Cooper and Marie Jahoda, " 1'he Hvasion of Piopaganda: 1 low Piejudiied People Respond to Anti-Piejudite Piopaganda," journal of Psychology 23 (J.iimaty 1947): 15 25. Abo see Herbert PL Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, "Some Reasons Why Inlbi ination Campaigns Kill." Public Opinion Quaitetly I I (fall 1947): 413-23. Sie Maiy L. Dud/dak, Cold War Civil Rights: Rate and the linage oj Ameiiiaii Demount)' 1'iinceton, NJ: Piiuoetou University Pi ess, 2002). Helen G. Tiager ami Marian Radke Yanow, They Irani What They live- Picjudite iu Young Chilthcn (New York: LLuper, 1952), \i. Also Marian J. Radke and Helen G. 1'tager, "Childien's Peueptions of the Social Roles of Negioes and Whites," journal of P-ythology 29 (Jaimaiy 1950): 3-3 V See Richaid Kluger, Simple Justitc: 'Flic Histoiy of Biown v, Boanl ol Fdutation and Hlatk eriia's Snuggle foi Ftpiality (New York: Random House. 1977), especially 318-19, 1 his was an older concept intiodueed by sonologist Iiniory S. Bog.udus in the 1920s. See Emory S. Bog.udus. "Social Distance and Its Origins," journal oj Applied Sotiology 1925): 216-26; and Emory S. Bogaidus, Itmnigiatiou ami Rate Attitudes (Boston: I). C. Heath, 1928). The bogaidus "sotial distance" scale continued to be testet! ami isetl tlnough the 1930s. See Michael Banton, "Social Distance: A New Appieeia-tion," Sotiologital Review 8 (December 1960): 169-83. Also see the 19-16 "change experiments" of social psychologist Kurt 1 ewin which exploied how "basic skill naming gioups" (or T groups) might leduce individuals' lacial piejudites and lesolve social conflicts. See Kurt fewin. Resolving Sotial Con/litls: Sclctted Papcis on Cioup Dynamits (New York: Harper, 1948). See I eo Siole, "Social lutegiation and Certain Coiollaries: An hxploi.ilon Study." -ImciiViiii Sotiologital Review 21 (December 1956): 709-16; and Leo Siole, Thomas S. 1 angner, Stanley T. Michael, Maivin K. Oplei, and Thomas A. C. Ronnie, Mental Health in the Mctiopolis: 'Flic Midtowu Manhattan Study (New York- McGi.uv-Hill, 1962). Also see Hdw.nd 1. McDill and Jeanne (Tue Ridley, "Status, Anomia, Political 138 Michael E. Staub Alienation, and Political Participation," American Journal of Sociology 68 (September 19o2i: 205-13. 28 See Joanna Burke, An Intimate History of Killing: Paee-To-Face Killing in I'wenlieth-Caiiuif Warfare (New York; Basic Books, 2000), especially 159-203. 29 Joel Kovel, White Racism: A Psychohistory (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 164-(>5 Kovel directly invokes the theories concerning "authoritarian prejudice" on 56-58. 30 Edward M. Opton, Jr., "It Never Happened and Besides They Deserved It," Sanction Evil: Sources of Social Destructivertess, eds. N evict Sanford and Craig Comstoek (San Francivo Jossey-Bass Inc., 1971), 57-58. 31 Nevitt Sanford, "Authoritarianism and Social Destructiveness," in Sanctions for I Sources of Social Destiudiveness, 136-54. 32 See for instance the hostile discussions of The Authoritarian Personality m: Brigitte Bcijiei and Peter E. Berger, 77k: War Over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground (Ginkn City, NY: Anchor Press, 1983), 173; Allan Bloom, The Closing of the Am.u-.in Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987), 225; Christopher Lasch, 7'/ir line Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics (New York; W. W. Norton & Co., 1991), 453-Cbatles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character (New Yeik: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 53-58; Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How l)yn% Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York MacMilkin, 2002), 82; and Jonah Goldberg, Liberal fascism: The Seaet I limy the. /American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (New York: Doubleday, 20( 227-28. For the wider context of the backlash, see Michael E. Staub, Madness is Civilization: When the Diagnosis urns Social, 1948-1980 (Chicago: University of Chicago 1'iov. 2011), especially the chapter "A Fashionable kind of Slander." 9 r VjU OR Hi PHILC Some a of the f lohn K. I 9 ¥ is ifllllf r? «5 jjjj & mm mm ■gl jj jjj mm mm if If 111 1111111 Wgm ■ mm Keligion wa W li.it happe lews and th similarities a the Held of Llolooaust tl mass destine minder other ol w bother ii in history. IV collides witl tradition of Breaking : Stooped in s the Yiddish Gno ol: its n 19 14. Amid poweiltil ye lorth, Wlese lacked the explain that tcinber 106>). etiueth- (.1 nnuv 970), 164 -65. >n 56-58. ," Haiti 'San Iiamino: lions lot l-.ei'r IF GOD WAS SILENT, ABSENT, DEAD, , OR NONEXISTENT, WHAT ABOUT 1 PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY? Srigitte Boi:;er oumi (>. Some aftereffects and aftershocks of the Holocaust the „Aimiit.ui The Tiue an.i z9l), 455 55: " * (New Yo now />■■ John K. Roll) (New Yo/k: i - a*< Histoty ol' ileday, jous). r//«w is Cioili- biei"o I'iess * ... You will sooner or later be confronted by the enigma of God's action in history. Elie Wiesel, One Carnation After' Religion was not a sufficient condition for the Holocaust, but it was a necessary erne. What happened at Auschwitz is inconceivable without beliefs about God first held by Jews and then by Christians. Holocaust ami genocide scholars have explored the similarities and differences between the Holocaust and other genocides. Although the field of comparative genocide does not often make the point, one aspect of the Holocaust that is qualitatively different from all other programs of extermination and mass destitution in the modern period can be stated as follows: No example of mass •der other than the Holocaust has raised so directly or so insistently the question of whether it was an expression of Heilsgeschichte, that is, God's providential involvement history. More than any other disaster in modern times, the Holocaust resonates and collides with the religio-mythic traditions of biblical religion, the dominant religious tiadition of western civilization. Breaking silence Steeped in silence, which it also broke, Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, abridged from the Yiddish version (1956), appeared in French (1958) and then in English (1960). One of its lecollections focuses on the observance of Rosh Hashanah at Auschwitz in 1944. Amidst the congregation's sighs and tears, Wiesel heard the leader's voice, powerful yet broken: "All the earth and the Universe are God's!"" As the words came foith, Wiesel lecalls that they seemed to choke in the speaker's throat, "as though he lacked the stiength to uncover the meaning beneath the text."3 Night does not explain that meaning, silently leaving readers to wonder about it. 140 )ohn K. Roth Almost thirty years later, another Holocaust survtvoi, the philosopher Sarah Kofman, wrestled with silence when she spoke about smothered words, knoticd words that "stick in your throat and cause you to suffocate, to lose your breath"; t "asphyxiate you, taking away the possibility of even beginning."' Expressing the dilemma she felt as a survivor trying to communicate with others, Kofman went on to ask, "How is it possible to speak, when you feel ... a strange double bind: an infinite claim to speak, a duty to speak infinitely, imposing itself'with irrepressible force, and .it the same time, an almost physical impossibility to speak, a thoktng feeling"?15 Wiesel and Kofman help to show thai sileitie-— the word and rea fraught with meanings. They can include a lack of interest, even indiffeience about events and ideas. Silence may reflect lgnoiance, humility, or shame; il may b< response to awesome beauty or immense destruction. It may signify, with special intensity and emotion, that even when one speaks, it is still possible to be speeihk-x for one may not know what to say 01 cannot find words that are appropiuti. meaningful, and credible in relation to what is present, remembered, or ' be faced. It is one thing to remember that the I loloeaust happened, to memorialize that disaster, to find ways to incorporate memory and inemorialization into ichgioiis ritual, and to do so with reverence and love.'' It may be something else, howe\ei, tu .. deal with the philosophical and religious questions that continue to jar consciousness and conscience as those actions take place. Whatever silence(s)—mythical 01 otherwise—may have surrounded the Holocaust timing and after that disaster, q about God, justice, evil, and meaning icverbeiated in that chasm and continu so.7 Theologians and philosophers have a long history of attempts to respond to versions of those dilemmas, but what resjionses did they make—and when did thev make them—as awareness of the Shoah grew? In what ways did their eneotmt-rr*-'-with the Holocaust make theologians and philosophers grapple not with muhs or silence but with metaphysical and moral silent es that still leave their traditions si and even reduced to silence when the Shoah penetrates them deeply? A Holocaust theology and philosophy attempt to salvage fragments of nicuim the Holocaust's devastation, the credibility of those effoits depends on icckoiiiiit: with silences that remain even when they are broken. Forty years after World War II, the Jewish philosopher and theologian Fackenheini made an exaggerated but still valid point when he asserted "philosophers have all but ignored the Holocaust."8 Fackenheim prominent them, notable exceptions to that judgment can be found in the relatively e.irlv postwar years.9 Nevertheless, the Holocaust has never attracted as ninth philosopln specifically ethical inquiry as might be expected after an event of such devastating proportions. Perhaps philosophy's reluctance to break silence about the PIoloi.nK i< an expression of humility, a profound puzzlement about what to say, but a stronger "aw can be made that much of philosophy m the second half of the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first has simply not attended to history as much as it might haft-done. In the meantime, while the impact of the Holocaust on religious thought arv practice—within Jewish and Christian traditions in particular—was felt to a gieifei 111 extent, and ear h ive penetrate Especially , v\ ere devastate as circumstano places of refugt who produced Gcishon Green postwar decade or not. were "t n the angui catastrophe engi key parts of jso: particularly pok of the major isst (!) How is tht understood in t! and, if so, what die destruction Messiah? (3) Is s< tit within traditi people in the pas As omnipotent? God are appropr justification of G - - During and ; followed—--ichgious thought and texts, versit in.iV make one ft tehgiotis tradifioi much harm has b convictions may bcx.iuse any atten n live unless they bound to produe religious commit i life, for i Jewish identific.it] and anthropi believes th cannot und that matter, if God was silent 141 osoplur Sji.iIi voids, knoued r Imviil)"": thee Expi easing ihe fin.iu weiH on tilth, .in infinite e loiee. and at tig nd i call! v is Hei enee about ; ii may he a , w nil special be speechless, í appropiiarr. .'el, 01 \ ei 10 iiiori.ili/c !hat into ichgiom , how e\ er. to consi lousiiess icai or other-ter, qiiesiious jniuiue to. do 0 lespoud lo 'hen did the\ ir cncountoi". 'itli uivths of ions shatieied 'ly: As pes-!. leaning honi >n i c( komuu jlogian I'.nnl asseiled (hat ineui among y e.u K- post ssophk al and 1 iie\astatine. H< doe .nisi i, stronger case cent tu v ind : might ha\e thought and to a "ieater extent, and earlier too, it lemains to be seen how deeply the Holocaust's toverberations haw penetrated and to what lasting effect. [■'specially among Oithodox |ews, whose eastern Ktiiopcan communities weie devastated by the Shoah, a great deal of theological leflection took plate, as eiitunistances permitted, in German-occupied aieas, ghettos, and lamps or m pi-iics oťieťuge to which they had escaped while the 1 lolotaust taged. Many of those who produced ttiese wartime Rapoiisa did not survive the Holocaust. Aitotding to (Icishon Greenberg, a leading scholar on this Rtsponsd liteiatuie, during the firs I two postwai decades, the wartime theological reflections, whethet their authois survived or not. were "overlooked by the historians, even denied."1" In the anguished wartime reflections ot those who wiestled with God and the latastiophe engulfing them, one finds versions of the themes and tpiandaties that icinain Lev pans of'post-Holocaust religious thought, except that the w.utime Rcspoiiut ,ue particularly poignant because thev were made in the midst of the destitution. Some of the major issues, which can be put in five question-clusters, include the following: (J) I low is the tiaditional covenant between God and the Jewish people to be tmdeistood in the light of that people's decimation? Will there he a saving, lemnant, mil. il so. what is its destiny? (2) How, if at all, is God involved in the devastation? Is the destruction part of a redemptive plan? Does it signify the hnth pangs of the Messiah? (3) Is something new and tinptecedented taking place, oi does the destruction iit within traditional interpretations of the tribulations that have befallen the Jewish people in the past? (4) How should ('oil be identified in such crushing em umstances'' *\s omnipotent? Hidden? Suffering? Beyond undeistanding? (S) What iespouses to God are appropriate? Rejection? Protest? Faithful waiting? Repentance? IMartyidom? Insinuation ot God's ways—theodicy? Silence? During and after the Holocaust—whether in the fust two decades oi those that followed—versions of these issues have remained eenti.il in post-I loloi aust K'hgious thought. As those erfotts explore events and the meanings beneath woids and texts, versions of Kofman's "double bind" ate detectable. The Holocaust ni.iv make one feel a duty to speak, an obligation to state how the Shoah lelates to ichgious traditions, but such work can produce a choking feeling, a sense that too much harm has been done for a good recovery to be made, a suspicion that lehgious convictions may be overwhelmed by the challenges they face Ihe bind ts double because any attempts to overcome these difficulties remain hopelessly optimistic and naive unless they giapple with the despair that encounters with the Holocaust ,ue bound to produce. To be touched by that despair, however, seaiceh encourages 'hgiotis commitment and belief Hasia Diner's stu d v of postwai American lewish life, for example, shows that the Holocaust produced a lestugenee ot •wish identification in the United Stales, but she aptly cites Albert Goidon, ibbi and anthropologist, wdiose 1959 study concluded that while the subuiban Jew believes that there must be a Clod who created this woilel, he cannot understand [God's] continuing association with the Jews oi, foi that matter, with mankind. Fie has seen so much tntseiy and w rete hedness. 142 John K. Roth The fate that recently overtook six million Jews in Europe has shaken wlui little faith was left in him." Fifty years later, the relevance of that judgment and its challenges still holds. Whatever the silence(s) produced by the Holocaust, they were not absolute. In the English-speaking world, important Jewish thinkers such as Martin linker. Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Chaini Grade early on raised agonizing questions concerning how traditional beliefs about God could be sustained in a world shadowed by the Holocaust. On the Christian side, the work done before, during, and after the Holocaust by the British scholar James Parkes forcefully documented the Christian roots of antisemitisrn and persistently made important contributions to postwar Christian-Jewish relations.12 In the Anglo-American context, however, the most widely discussed and long-term influential theological writings by imlividn.il thinkers who focused explicitly and persistently on the Holocaust did not appear primarily in the late 1940s, the 1950s, or even the early "1960s. A longer gestation period seems to have been required, as writers struggled to figure out what most needed to be said and then sought the words to break difficult silences. The results were more challenging than comforting, a point that can be illustrated by attention to four significant thinkers—three Jews and one Christian—who have done much to sustain attention on issues that deserve to remain prominent in post-Holocaust religious thought. The Cod of history In the summer of 1961, a young rabbi named Richard I . Rubenstein planned to begin a research trip to West Germany on Sunday, August 13. That same d.iv. the East Germans created a major Cold War crisis by hastily building a wall betw and West Berlin. Postponing his trip for two days, Rubenstein arrived in Bonn, the West German capital, and accepted an invitation from his hosts, the Bundespiessjim (Press and Information Office) of the Federal Republic to fly to Berlin to see the unfolding crisis. In an atmosphere charged with fear that nuclear war migh Rubenstein took the opportunity to interview Fleinrich Griiber, a pre German Christian leader who had resisted the Nazis, rescued Jews, and imprisonment in Sachsenhausen.12, Earlier in 1961, Griiber had been the onlv to testify for the prosecution at the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann. a perpetrator of the Holocaust. With American tanks rumbling through the streets of Dahlem, the Wes suburb where Griiber lived, Rubenstein interviewed him in the late afternoon of August 17. When their conversation turned to the Holocaust, this meeting botanic.! turning point in Rubenstein's personal and intellectual life. Griiber affirmed a faith in the God-who-acts-in-history. More than that, he held that the Je\ God's chosen people; therefore, he believed, nothing could happen to the from God's will. When Rubenstein asked Griiber whether God hail i for Hitler to attempt the destruction of the European Jews, Griiber's response v..ts yes howevei I lolocaust wa Rubenstein piovidentially belief meant Although Chi consistency of vine eel that Ik eventual result lituliud Theolog of A fur Aiiscln was published Jitdai-m. \fter Ausclui of Auschwitz f debate because Auschwitz, Ru hist en \ and wlr no longer cred In the late I ol young Ami Paul v.m Bttrei popular media featured the ti Although the sj Rubenstein's— i.iisvd issues tot: of these ilnnkei their perspectiv feeling that talk meant in the p; better than the past and intens expenences that the' onoeHiiagen Rubenstein put the 1900s. After, '■■ '■ ■ '■: '■ CO In 1968. Entil I isity. whic ytiiiihiiioih .rnrf brief and often 1 If Cod was silent 143 is shaken what holds lot absolute. In Mai tin Bubei. lizing questions n a world di.i-)i;e. duung, and loeunienied the ;ont!ibiitions to t, however, the p by individual did not appear onger gestation out what WlH es. I he results ,av attention to e done much osc / /o/ocaiisr n planned to lame dav, the betu een Fast in Monn, the ndespiessamt n to see the might erupt, i pioinincu! and suffered auly (ierman 11, a leading West Merlin ifieinoon ot ng became a led a biblical e Jew s weie them apart id intended espouse was wm ■ mm yes—however difficult it might be to understand the reason, he told Rubenstein, the Holocaust was pait of God's plan. Rubenstein was impressed that Griiber took so seriously the belief that God acts providentially in history, a central tenet of Judaism and Christianity. To Griiber, that belief meant specifically that God was ultimately responsible for the Holocaust. Although Griiber's testimony struck him as abhorrent, Rubenstein appreciated the consistency of Griiber's theology, and the American Jewish thinker came away convinced that he must peisistently confront the issue of God and the Holocaust. The eventual result was Ruhcmteia's fust and immensely important book, After Auschwitz: I neology at/,/ Contemporary Judaism, which appeared in 1966. A second edition <■* Alter Auschwitz, so extensively enlarged and revised as to be virtually a new book, wjs published m J 992 with a different subtitle: History, neology, and Contemporary ■PPllfc-''. Aim Auschwitz was among the first books to probe systematically the significance of Auschwitz for post-Holocaust, religious life. Rubenstein s analysis sparked ongoing debate because it challenged a belief that many people have long held dear. After Auschwitz. Rubenstein contended, belief in a redeeming God—one who is active in history and who will bring a fulfilling end to the upheavals in the human condition—is no longer credible. In the late 1960s, the stir caused by After Ausdiwtt: linked Rubenstein to a gtoup of young American Piotestant tlnukeis—Thomas Alnzer, William Hamilton, and Paul van Buren among them—who weie dubbed "death of God" theologians Unpopular media picked up the stoiy. Time magazine's i ovei stoiy on April 8, 1066. leatured the topic, and the movement ignited public discussion foi some tune.11 Although the spotlight eventually moved on, these thinkers' coiitubutions - especially Rubenstein's—did not fade. Their outlooks posed questions and their testimonies i.iised issues too fundamental to disappear. Yet neithei the labeling noi the clustering of these thinkers was entiiely apt. None was atheistic m any simple sense. Noi weie their peispectives, methods, and moods identical. What they loosely shaied was the leeling that talk about God did not—indeed could not—mean what it app.uentlv had meant in the past. In that lespeet, the teim "ladical theology" described their woik heller than the more sensationahstic phrase "death of God." Clearing bleaks with the past and intensifying discontinuities within traditions, they ventured to talk about experiences that were widedy shared even though most people lacked the winds or the encouragement to say so in public. Unlike his Piotestant biotheis, howevei, Rubenstein put the Holocaust at the center of his contributions to radical theology in the 1960s. After Auschwitz piovoked Holocaust-i elated searches that continue to this day. The 614th commandment In 1068, Emil Fackenheim delivered the Charles F. Deems Lectin es at New York University, which were published two years later as Cod's Piesetuc hi History: Jewish Affumatious and Philosophical Reflections.15 About one bundled pages in length, this ' 'ef and often reprinted book contains one of the most powerful of the idatively 144 ]ohn K. Roth early religious responses to the Holocaust. According to Fackenheuu—he fled his native Germany in I'M') after imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camp at Sachseiihausen. taught for many yens at the University of Toronto, and then immigrated to Isr where he died in 2003—the Holocaust was the most radically disorienting "epoch making event" in all of Jewish history."' In contrast to Rubenstein, Fackenheuu argued that the Jewish people must respond to this shattering challenge with a Urination of God's presence in history. Fackenheim acknowledged that it is im to alliini God's saving presence at Auschwitz, hut he did insist that while no "redeeming Voice" was heard at Auschwitz, a "commanding Voice" was heard and it enunciated a "61-lth commandment" to supplement the 613 commandments of ti.i-ditional Judaism. I he new commandment was said to be that "the authentic Jew o! today is forbidden to band Hitler yet another, posthumous victory." Fackenheuu spelled out the 614th commandment, which he: first articulated in 1967, as follow We aie, tnst. commanded to sin vise as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish. We are commanded, second, to remember m oui vety guts and bones the in of the Holocaust, lest then memory perish We aie forbidden, thirdly, 10 or de-span of God, however much we may have to contend with Him < belief m I Inn, lest Judaism perish. We aie forbidden, finally, to despair world as the place which is to become the kingdom of God, lest we lie ip make it a meaningless place m which God is dead or irrelevant ant! everything h peiiinrted. Io abandon any of these imperative's, in response to Hitler's victory at Auschwitz, would be to hand linn yet other, posthumous victories.' Few, if any, post-Holocaust religious statements by a Jewish thinker have become better known.18 For some time, Fackenheim's 614th commandment struck a ■ chord in Jews of every social level and religious commitment. Much, but by n-' means all, of Fackenheim's writing was on a philosophic and theological level 1 the competence of the ordinary layperson. Not so this passage, which ■» responsible for the fact that Fackenheim's interpietation of the Holocaust ■ became for a time the most influential within the Jewish community. A peo| has endured catastrophic defeat is likely to see the survival of their community and it' traditions as a supreme imperative. By referring to a divine command, Fackenheim potent expression to this aspiration. Instead of questioning whether the tra Jewish understanding of God could be maintained after Auschwitz, he implied that those who questioned God's presence to Israel, even in the death camps, were accomplices of the worst destroyer the jews have ever known. The passion and the psychological power of this positron are undeniable. Nevertheless, Fackenheim's position could have unfoitunate const-queue. N only were those Jews "who denied or despaired" of the scriptural God seemiti in the role of accomplices of I liilei. a serious and controversial allegation inci addition, Fackenheim went so far as to suggest that those who did not bear civ "commanding Voice" at Auschwitz, were wilfully rejecting God: "In my view," hi wrote, "nothing less will do than to say that a commanding Voice speaks from Auschwitz, an one s ears is a the possibility .m\ w.iv p rest-1 urthennore, even fen ihe t insep.liable- fro io be taken a< I ackenheiin w would haw: be nol appear to 1 as indeed Facki hi his 1082 become to the c "my Siist tespo ■ I in ri adit i a ci i x me í commandment, ickenheim* mantling V . no such c religious surviv. receive such ,;u appeared pc-rhar .1 jealous ( lod w uanrimcur Fori laps i he not io dens or c I leie I ickeuhei i le told his rea peipetiated a fie Jud.iMii'r ( uveii likelv thai he co dine io realize- t Holocaust into ; presence at Ause A way out (>f th most religious Je\ ringu ige of'Jewi: tire imageiv of if •md e\istenii illy perhaps besi to s muted into the la touched so many If God was silent 145 te. tied ins native Sachsciihiusoij, gated lo Isi.iel, ieniing "epoch n, F.uKenheini ge wnli ,i .(•,,["_ it is impossible that while no as heaid ,ind n dmeiiis of n,i them u Jew of 1 .U'kenheirii 7, as follows; dis[ ll)illisU'l. c onvcmional cl) hisioiv in chtirch- statc aany in 19.59 UlciiMfied hv fvisor fíji- ihe Jrtcll would i H.idition. James |>,uj^ ulpabililv íor i iionetheless ■omplicitv in e of Raci in ■widi pcoplc f idcniifyini» ístiíutcd i hele <- .linstian vs had couly piofbiind ed the New diristiaiíity. ts not b.iscd lity towaid ' made liim painfully aware that most German churches had embraced Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Ik' icroguized the complicity of German churches in the Holocaust, as well as the Kick-spread indifference of the churches outside Germany when it came to the plight of lews under the swastika. Yet, he understood that some Christians and churches in (ictiiiaiiy had resisted Nazism and, at least to some extent, assisted Jews. Thus, even Ivtbie Littell published The Crucifixion of the Jews, his pioneering work resulted in the oilier entry that looms largest among Iris works, the 1974 volume The German CJiurch iniuggh and the Holocaust (co-edited with his friend Hubert G. Locke). Important in its own right—among other things it contains a memorable exchange between Richard Rubenstein and Elie Wiesel-—this volume signaled the pivotal role that Littell played as an organizer and leader in both Holocaust studies and Christian-Jewish relations. The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust emerged from a conference that Littell and Locke convened at Wayne State University in 1970. lociiscd on Christians in Nazi Germany, their support for and resistance against llitlei's legime, and that conflict's implications for the future of Christianity and its lationship to Jews and Judaism, the meeting was the first in a series of conferences at would become the Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. This interfaith, interdisciplinary, and international gathering of scholars, lucatois, cletgy, and community leaders remains the lorrgest continuously running ttiative of its kind. The conference's work, including many publications, has sig-firantly influenced and advanced the field of Holocaust and genocide studies, and mds as a tribute to Littell's influence and his persistent thrusting of a "harpoon that e fish can't escape." No more theodicy Influential contributions to post-Holocaust religious thought were also made relatively early by the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. By the 1960s and 1970s, he- was developing an important post-Holocaust ethical perspective, which drew tensively if not always explicitly on his Jewish heritage by arguing that previous ntal theoiy had failed to concentrate on something as obvious and profound as the human face. C21o.se attention to the face of the other person, Levinas affirmed, could pioduce a it-orientation not only of ethics but also of human life itself, for our epest seeing of the other person's face drives home how closely human beings are connected and how much the existence of the other person confers responsibility .upon us.~'' Levinas drd not write explicitly about the Holocaust very often, but traces of that catastiophe do appear, and the overt emphases of his thought make plain that the Shoah is a powerful point of reference between the hues, in the silence—the void even—that shadows his philosophy. On some occasions, however, the Holocaust conies to the foie in Levinas's writing. One example is found in his brief but highly significant essay called "Useless Suffering," which did not appear early but in 1982. In that article, Levinas explicitly states a conviction that permeated his thought early and late. "The Holocaust of the Jewish people under the reign of Hitler," said Levinas, 148 lohn K. Roth "scorns to mo the paradigm of gratuitous human suffering, in which evil appears in it-diabolical horror."~ • As a I Tench prisoner of war, Levinas did toned labor under the Nazis, and almost all of bis 1 itlnianian family perished in the Holocaust. It made a profound impact upon him. C"ailing the twentieth century one of "unutterable suffering," he emphasi that sutiering of the kind that the Nazis and their collaborators inflicted on F mope's Jews was and is "for nothing." To try to justify if religiously, ethically, politically a-the Nazis ritd when they made the practice of useless violence, as Primo identified it, essential to the German "superiority" that they envisioned—was what Levinas called "the source of all immorality." When Levinas said that the useless suffering inflicted during the Holocaust was "tor nothing," he did not overlook Nazi "logic" and what it meant. To the confi.n\. he took National Socialism to be about arrogant destruction, its grandiose rheloue about a thousand-year Reich notwithstanding. The chief element in National Sotialism's arrogance was that regime's resolve to deface the human face with remorseless determination. The Nazis did this not in some abstract way, but by listless suflering visited upon Jewish women, children, and men that made its aniisoiiiuu prerogatives dominant until overwhelming force stopped them from doing moie of their worst. I evinas thought that the twentieth centuiy was one of "unutterable suffering' The evil in that suffering, and Levinas believed that "all evil relates back to sultciing." was not confined to "persistent or obstinate" bodily pain but included "help abandonment and solitude." air abjection intensified when "a-moan, a cry, a ; a sigh" brought no relief but were swallowed up by silence. Levinas distin between "suffering in the other" and what he called "suffering in me." the lalici's tisolessness could have meaning insofar as it was "a suffering for the s (inexorable though it may be) of someone else." As for the tisolessness of the > of the other, Levinas thought that striving to relieve it and to resist the forces tint created it should be "raised to the level of supreme ethical principle—-the onl is impossible to question- -shaping the hopes and commanding the practical di of vast human groups." No sooner did I evinas write those words than he issued a caution about them. In no way should they be construed as a justification for suffering, as a mitigation or suffering's uselessness because such suffering could become the means to the g> the virtue of relieving it. Observing that its temptations should not be undciosi Levinas rejected all forms of theodicy, the attempt to make suffering "conipielu to find "in a suffering that is essentially gratuitous and absurd, and apparently a a meaning and an order." Noting that "Nietzsche's saying about the death o had taken on "the meaning of a quasi-empirical fact" in the Sboab and the [ in Emil Fackenheim's allusion to the commanding voice at Auschwitz, naiucl; entails "revelation from the very God who nevertheless was silent at Ami Levinas still affirmed that Fackenheim saw something of seminal importance n for jews but for humanity itself Levinas put his point in the form of an extended question: Must ti theodic even in inspired surfen ii; has me; 1 evinas could depends on hi :- • fusion Attempts to n history, analys the more-inip crisis an hlein.itic—- all c relatively early if" it is still tal finitely surpris the questions tl Fhc Holoca short lerm aftt and alter the S lei ins encompa Inevitably, the that w ill conti and hi caking o relationship to Jljjflfes'. ! 1 he Wiesel. Flo ^P||J;W;iesel, , earli he - Books i<>82) -i Snah Kofina «ilSBlÄ*sity Pr 1 Ibid . pp 38-'• liupoiiaiii ret dare \>1 inn il.inh A F"Jm I he es hey the If God w.is silent 149 il appeals in its as, and almost d nnpai i upon le emphasized d on Janope's politicals as s l'iinui i cvi ;cl was \\ hat eausi was "lor i COIIIl.llV, llO lioso lheioiu in National an Lue with ', hut b\ limits aniisi'initu-oing imiio of' lc siillei ins; " to sutlering." "helplessness, y, a gioau or distinguished I he Liner's the suilcriiig the suticring e ioiees that e Oiilv one it eal disc tpline :>ui them. In nitiguion ol' he good and Jen stiin.ited. jreliensihle," itly arbitiais. Ith ol Cod" the pai.iriox unci)' ih,it it Atischs ice not onlv in ext< Vlust not humanity now, in a faith more difficult than before, in a faith without "heodiiy, continue to live out Sacred History; a history that now demands .wen mine from the resources of the / in each one of us, and tiom its suffering inspiied by the suffering of the other, tiom its compassion which is a non-useless aiffering (or love), which is no longer suffering "tor nothing," and immediately aas meaning? levinas could not answer this question, at least not simply, because the lesponse to it depends on how humanity bleaks the silence that follows his asking. «' o - lusion Attempts to maintain traditional undeistandings of covenant and God's pteseuee in hisiors, analyses denying the credibility of piovidenti.il divinirv, seaiches that affirm die morc-important-than-ever status of ethics and religion in times when tiarihions e in crisis and in contexts of atrocity and suffering that make evciv theodicy problematic—all of these perspectives and more emerged during the 1 lolocaust and in its Litively early afteishocks. If it took time tor some of these developments to unfold, it is still taking time for them to find expression, that outcome should not be itirely surprising. What would be lamentable is lailure to keep asking and piusuing e questions that the Holocaust raises —-sometimes in woid(s), sometimes in silence(s). The Holocaust's place in history was not fixed at the time of its happening or in its ort-tenn aftermath. The philosophical and icligious quandaries evoked during id after the Shoah have no easy closure, if they allow closure at all. No defining rms encompass them all. Nor does a iespouse made at one time suffice for all times, evitably, the Holocaust's place, its presence, is still in the making, with afteishocks at will continue to lequire the lecoguition and teeoiisideianon, the contesting id bieaking of silence, particularly with tegard to God's death, leality, power, and lationship to history. Notes Hie Wiesel. One Oeneuiliou After, Hans, Lily Lalelinan and the authoi (New Yoik: Random House, 1970), p. 2LS." ! Hie Wiesel, Night, turns. Marion Wiesel (New York: Hill anil Wang, 2000). p. 67. > Ibid. An earlier tianslation of Night nuaiues this quotation by referring to "the meaning beneath the words." See fdie Wiesel. Night, trans. Stella Rodwas (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), p. 64, 1 Saiah Kofman, Smotheieil It im/s, nans. Madeleine Dobie (iwanslon, II: Northwestern Lhiiveisity Press, 1998), p. 39. Kofman's book originally appealed in Liench in 1987. i Ibid., pp. 38-39. ) Important tetlections on and examples of lituigical responses to the I lolocaust can be found in Maicia Sachs l.ittell and Shaion Weissman Gutman, eds., liniigies. on the llolotttttsl: . lit lute/faith . \nlhology, new and tevised od. (Vallev folge, PA: brinks Pi ess International, 1996). The examples of Holocaust litmgies in ibis volume come from dvic and icligious settings. They include texts, ritual acts, and music dorn the time of the I lolocaust itself and fioin the early postwar seats, but the editors also make the following obseivaiion: ISO John K, Roth 17 "hi the c.iily 1970s, Yon) HaShoah vv.is observed by only a few dozen congregation America. During the administration of President Jimmy Cartel, observation of the D.i\-of Remembrance grew rapidly and marked a permanent day on the calendar. Be American president since that time has supported this endeavor" (p. 1). See. (sir example, Dan Cohn-Sherbok. ed., ITolouiust Theology: A Reader (New Y< New Yoik University 1'iess, 2002) and Steven I. Katz, Shlomo Biderman, anil Gersl Creenheig, eds.. Wüstling with God: Jewish T'heologiial Responses during and after Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Hmil Packenheim. "I he Holocaust and Philosophy," 77«' journal of Philosophy, 82 (19! 505, See, for example. Albert Camus, 77k* Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbeit (New York: Moil 1 ibr.iiy, PMS): Karl Jaspets, The Question of German Guilt, trans. E. B. Ashton (tx Yoik: I )i,il Press, PMS); Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New Y lfarcomt, 1951) and l-icltmauu hi Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Lvil (New Yoik: Viking Press. 1963): Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mm Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Rcliyen (New York: larrar, Slums & Young, 1951); Martin Buher, Uclipse of God: Studies it Relation between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Harper, 1952) and On Judaism (Neu Yoik: Schocket) Books, 19(>7); Theodor Adorno, Prisms, trans. Samuel and ^ Weber (I omlon: Neville Speaiman, 1907) and Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Aslnon (New York: Se.ibury Piess, 1973); Emmanuel levinas. Totality and Infinity: An l.< I anil L. F New Jen 2" 1 ackenhei ■'I lorfurthe . i Jewish I '008). 27 Prominen id Alice Elisabeth I Soelle. Pai 25 Bauer's ii odot_j>dfX 21 I laiiklm F ,;s 1 -vr eviden Levinas, D University mington, I ('ohen (Pii 26 See Emma I duquesne Michael B. 2 ' "I fseless Si 1982): 13-•he-()rlier vei-sity Pies paragraph a ■ If God was silent 151 Xllooegllioils ,n ion of tin: l)a\s calendar, Ivor, 'er (New Yoik-i), and Gersfiou tg dud (flier im >/>//}', 87 11 9;. York: Modem Ashtou (New ii (New YoiL 'it (New York. ophy o/ Religion I; Siiiütcs in iii, IJ >. :*1 and Miicm E. U. Asliicin )': An Essay oh enlieiin, G<'i/'.> rk: New York ions by a Sw •ss. 1980) /(/ the Myth oj . 2iiiI'I), p. .,_)■/. 1 he Holocaust ,17.1 (LXKl.V,; <. See Ricliaid disiii, 2nd ed. e also Rii hard rihner, I' •email ami she I Press, 1990) ohn K. Rotlr, : Westniinst One of the most noteworthy competitors for that distinction would be Irving Greenberg's "working principle," namely, that "no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children." See Greenberg, "Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity, and Modernity alter the Holocaust," in Eva Fleischner, ed., Auschwitz: Beginning of a New lira? Reflections on the Holocaust New York: Ktav, 1977), p. 23. liniil L. Fackenheim, 1'lie Jewish Retain into Ilisloiy: Reflations in the Age of Auschwitz and I Ncic Jeiiisalem (New Yoik: Schocken, 1978), p. 31. Italics added. Fackenheim, To Mend the World, p. 10, For further commeiitaiy on Fackenheim\s thought, see David Pattetson, Emil L. Fackenheim: 1 Jewish Philosopher's Response to the Holocaust (Syiacuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, !008), Prominent among them would be: Robert McAfee Brown, Harry James Caigas, A. Roy nd Alice Eckardt. Darrel) Fasching, Eva Fleiscbner, David Gushee, Stephen Hayn es, Elisabeth Maxwell, Jobami Baptist Metz, John 'F. Pawlikowski, Caiol Rittner, Dorothee Söelle, Paul M. van Buren, and Clark Williamson. Bauer's interview with Littell is available online at: bttp://wwwl.yadvashein.org/ >dot_.pdf/Microsoft%20WoKl%20-%203725.pdf. Franklin H. Littel], I'he ( Attiiji.sion of the fetes (New Yoik: Harpet and Row, 197i), p 5 For evidence of Levinas's engagement with Judaism and Jewish ttaditton, see Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, trans. Sean Hand (Balttmoie Johns I lopkms University Press, 1990); Nine Talmudic Readings, trans. Annette Atoiiownz (Bloo niiigton, IN: Irrdiarra University Pi ess, 1990); and JVrir Talimidu Rtadmg\. nans Ricliaid Cohen (Pittsburgh, PA: Diiquestic Univeisity Press, 1999). See Emmanuel Levinas, Elims and Infinity, trans. Richard A. ( oh on (Pittsbuigh, PA Duqucsne Univeisity Piess, 1985) and Eitue Nous: On I'lnnLing-of-tlu Ottta. nans Michael B. Smith and Barbaia Maishav (New York: Columbia Univetsitv Piess, 1998) Useless Suffering" was published originally in the Oioiuale di Metatf.ua 4 (jaiiuan Apnl 982): 13—26. It is more readily found in Emmanuel Levinas, p.tttre Nous: On Fkinking-f-the-Olher, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New Yoik ('olumbia Um eisity Press, 1998), pp. 91—101. The quoted passage is on p. 97 Hie quotations in this paiagiaph are fiom Levinas, "Useless Suffering," in F.ntie Nous. pp. 94, 97, and 99. / Fhilosophit 'id the Woihi. >p. 9-2 4 is .said to I >. 1 he text of in the Posi ! into IP no; >eken Book 1997 edition Victories fen iting thai die ' tmeleistood. m added thai not to spit 10 TRIAL BY AUDIENCE Bringing Nazi war criminals to justice in Hollywood films, 1944 59 Lawrence Baron Until recently, most studies of'Holocaust cinema dated the entry of the Holocui-t into American feature films either to Edward Dinytryk's 'flic Young Lions (|95ach as the by Polish s, ensk ting bread Jews (ate 'crates the important lews onto Wilhelm o telocate ■al. Ihcie e Grimm iples, the ty!" The )g it will Mated. Is to exist? take our By our nient in ine-gun of the •neath a by the .'aths to /c. the Producer Samuel Bishoff conceived of None Shall Escape upon hearing President Roosevelt announce on October 5th of 1942 that "the United Nations had decided : Nazi ringleaders and their brutal henchmen must be named and apprehended and ;1 in accoi dance with the judicial processes of criminal law." The incidents portrayed lie film tliew from The Black Book of Poland, compiled by the Polish government-in- csile in 1941 and published in the United States in 1942. Though ptimaiilv doc-enting the travail of the Poles under German rule, it also devoted 37 pages to the sedition of the Jews.11 Yet the movie evinced an awareness of the mass deputations •Vilisli Jews during 1942 and 1943 as is apparent in the aforementioned scene.1' Hie emigre director Andre de Toth, a Hungarian filmmaker assigned to cover the ision of Poland, vividly recalled how both Poles and Jews were oppicsscd by then (iennan conquerors. Pie made None Shall Escape to reveal their mutual plight and stiate how the civilized world pledged to deal with the perpetrators.1-1 Most reviewers applauded the rabbi's militant speech; though one condemned it as haracteristic of a pious Jew,14 a view that may have stereotyped Jews as passive ims or perceptively detected an extraneous source. Lester Cole, the left wing enwriter, had borrowed some of the rabbi's fiery rhetoric from hues onginally tittered by a communist leader during the Spanish Civil War.'3 Only the censoislup FIGURE 10.1 Rabbi David Levin, played by Richard Hale, looks in horror at the lews shot down while boarding a deportation transport (None Shall Escape). Source: Reproduced with permission from Photofest, Inc. 156 Lawrence Baron board of Ohio ordered that derogatory dialogue spoken by the indoctrinated Wiih. saying Jews are not people, be cut from the version of the film shown in the stats None Shall Escape was both a commercial and critical success for the "povetty row" studio Columbia Pictures. The movie imparted mixed messages about the tragedy befalling Polish Jewry. The advertising campaign lured audiences into the theatre by intimating that the film was primarily about forced prostitution with the taglt "Thank heaven your daughter wasn't there." Below this, however, ads mentioned that the movie was about the trial of war criminals or quoted the Moscow Declaration issued by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in Novembei of 1943: "They will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot bv the peoples whom they outraged."17 The Communist Daily Worker praised None Shall Esc ■ as "the most passionate, the most militant indictment of anti-Semitism in t lnstoiv of I lolh wood."18 I he film earned an Oscar nomination for best origi scieenplay Onl\ recently, however, have Holocaust film scholars like Anne Insrioif iccogni7cd None Shall Evape as "not only revelatory in its inclusion of the genocide of the Jews, but prescient m its postwar trial of an SS leader."1'' Since it predated the liberation ot the concentration and death camps, None Shiill Escape lacked the atrocitv footage and photogiaphs which would become the u oiiii linages of Nazi iniquities to Ameni.ms through their dissemination m conlempoian new si eels, newspapets, magazines, and the Nuieiubi i g I i i.ik. "' At die f usi liiicrnal 1011,1! Mihtaty I 1 ibunal. Allied prosecuiois found the Ihnri Reich guilty ofengagi FIGURE 10.2 Franz Kindler, played by Orson Welles, pulls a gun to avoid capture by Inspector Wilson, played by Edward G. Robinson (The Strangci). Source: Reproduced with permission from Photofest, Inc. Trial by audience 157 : filiated WilK. in the stale." 'pmeilv iou " it the uagcri\ be the.-iue In ] the lagline: ds mentioned iv I )eclaiatu>n Fhey will be ' the peoples ' Shiiil l\uitic itisin in ihe best original like Annette 'usion of ihe s, Nom-Sltitfil ie tin- i; onii uiiempoi.irv biteinalioual ■'gaums: m a ■ ::;: 73r<^: -Jk j .(i|)liiio by i.mipaign to exterminate the Jews throughout occupied Europe, but they subsumed this charge under the categories of war crimes and crimes against humanity.-'1 While the trial was still in session, Oison Welles' 'The Stranger (1(>46) premieied.-'" It holds the distinction of being the fust commercial movie to include atiocity looi.ige from the newsreels and film enteietl as evidence at Nuienibcig. Welles modeled his sinister SS villain Fian/ Kindler after Martin Bormann, the highest tanking Na/i to elude captuie by the Allies. As played by Welles, Kindlcr p.iiiiys his fluent English and foiged credentials into an appointment as a German histoty professor at a New England college under the alias of Charles Rankin. Edward G. Robinson plays Detective Wilson of the Allied War Crimes Commission who tracks down Kindler, which hearkens hack to his tole as the FBI agent who exposes a Nazi espionage ring in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1(M*>).M Wilson tails an escaped SS camp commandant named Komad Meinike to the town of Harpei when1 Kindler lesides. At a dinner party hosted by Kindler, Wilson listens to his host pontificate about the innate authoritarianism of the Germans and their lack of a liilosopher who championed freedom. When Kindler's sou-in-l.uv cites Karl Marx ti refute this geneiahzation, Kindler scoffs at the notion that a Jew like Marx could be consideied a German. Following the discovery of Meinike's body in the woods -ear Kindler's home, Wilson scieens atrocity footage of naked corpses, a Luge gas hamber, and lime pits, for Rankin's wife, appealing to her conscience to contain that Meinike bad contacted her husband. He reveals that Rankin is leally Kindler, the ■Mazi mastermind wdio "conceived of the theory of genocide, the mass depopulation if conqueied countries, so that regardless of who won the war, Germany would meige the strongest nation in Western Fan ope, biologically speaking."-'1 In retrospect, the glaring inaccmacies of the Tlte Stranget's chaiacterization of Jazi genocide, the gassing process (which Wilson mistakenly believes killed mote uickly because the victims weie forced to take hot showets fiisl to open up their oies), and the failure to specify that Jews weie targeted for extermination stand out. Fhe latter flaw typifies the nanation in postwar documentaries like ;Viic; Cona-ntration Camps and Night and Tog (1055), which delibetately obsciued the victimization of the Jews to accentuate the multinational scope of German crimes.''1 Despite Wilson's rrors in describing the gassing process his overly broad definition of genocide, Rankin's anti-Semitic slip and the inclusion of concentration camp footage indicate n incipient aw.ueness of what the Thud Reich's iati.il policies entailed.''' Most -vieweis noted that Kindler was implicated in Nazi atiocities and mass muulciv'' i few commented on the anti-Semitic remark Kindler made.-'1. Hill Kiohn regauls The Sttanger's tieatment of the Shoah as "part of a danse tuneable of u-pu'ssion and revelation that went on throughout this period and didn't end when tin-war ended."~} Once the Allied nations instituted the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, seventy-five peicent of Americans polled appioveri of it. While certain that the defendants were guilty, Americans believed the IMF would guaianlee the defendants a fair trial.3" These contradictory attitudes were apparent in the sci ond American film about war crimes trials. Eewis Allen's Sealed I'eidiet (1048).31 ISS Lawrence Baron FIGURE 103 Major Lawson, played by Ray Milland, cross-examines Themis DeLisie, played by Florence Marley (Sealed Verdict). Source: Reproduced with permission from Photofest, Inc. The opening credits and scenes of Sciilal I 'nilict attest to its authenticity. The audience learns that all of the exterior scenes, including the first shots of the nibble and courthouse in Nuremberg, were photographed in Europe. Presumably within the couit. the audience witnesses Justice Robert Jackson's opening statement at the b Trials: 'File- prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long altei their bodies return te> ehist. They are- the living symbols of racial haticdv o! terrorism, and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. We hum never forget that the record em which we judge these defendants teniae, is tin-record on which history will judge us tomorrow.32 The camera pulls back to reveal that this is a newsreel film being sciecncel to United States Army lawyers who will prosecute lower ranking Nazis in the months. The officer beading the team assumes his subordinates and the audience .tie familiar with the (dotage and the American commitment to international lav.. "I suppose you've all seen this film a dozen or so times. 1 have myself, but I don t knew where- you'll find a better smnmaiy of our mission than in Justice Jackson's addles-' Ray Millanel, in the role of Major Robert Lawson, fulfills this mission In the case against General Otto Steigmann, who is charged with ordering the c\e-eutions < I hough no Bohemia.33 retaliation fe much cover IItiihmnui Al. em Lidice w 1 awson's sin ti iai implicat the gas than I ike- bis real obeyed stipe by hanging. I he only I le-tie-h resist; his innocence having had a father, Lawso of e\ ideiiee: , from Hitler f When Law locales her re ■ on.-.-ntration killoi. but Me Petsemalizing to local ind ther iree dau because she h good soldier e Still- believi imtnicts her t message, Fran lecijvcr.tho "s> from Hitler. S ensues,: Overlie w ho erupts in meddle German expre v. ill cstennina 'li> prove he belie-ves her bee home-, Fran St son will be co ľrial by audience 159 utions of" hostages in the town of Lcemach when he was its military governor. Ihough not spelled out in the film, the scieenplay indicates that 1 eemaoh was in Bohemia.3-1 The incident is modeled on the Nazi massacre of Czechs at 1 idice as ict.iliation tor the assassination of Rcinhairi Heydrieh in 1942. 1 idice had teceived much coverage in the American press and already had ltispited two feature films, I Lineman Also Die (1943) and Hitler's Madman (1943).34 Indeed, a documentary film on I.idice was shown by the Fiench prosecution team at the Nurembeig 'Trials.13 law son's summation, however, implies that the evidence he bail inttoduced in the Hid implicated Steigmann in other t rimes: "You have learned of the prison camps, >as chambers, the ciematoty ovens, the mass giaves heaped high with coipscs." like his real counterparts, Steigmann claims that he was only a good soldier who oheved superior orders. The judges rind Steigmann guilty and sentence him to death urging. The only witiress who spoke in Steigmann's behalf is Themis, the daughter of a liench resistance leader whose life had been spared by Steigmann. Still believing in Ins innocence, she pleads with Lawson to reopen the case. Though he suspects her of having had air affair with Steigmann and collaborating with the Germans to save her lather, I awson has pangs of conscience since he had failed to produce two key pieces ot evidence: a Night and Fog decree signed bv Steigmann anil a commendation letter lioui Flitler for the Leernach executions. Vvhen Lawson learns Steigmann's mother might possess the missing documents, he locates her residing at the home of Meycrsolm, a I febrew teacher who survived a concentiation camp. Lawson wonders how he could harbor the mother ot a Nazi killer, but Meyeisohn feels "only pity for those who persecuted me and my people." Personalizing the collective fate of his leligious brethren, Meycrsolm lecalls his vain quest to locate his family after being liberated: "Day after day I seatohed, learning here and there what had happened. My poor Rachel, dead of starvation in Bclseu; the three daugbteis killed at Buchenwald." He ottered shelter to Fiau Steigmann because she had been a friend of his wife. Mrs. Steigmann defends her son as just a good soldier descended fiom a Junker family. Still believing in Steigmann's innocence, Themis visits him in prison wheie he instructs her to tell his mother to dispose of" his "souvenirs." After teceiving this message, Fran Steigman surmises that Themis has been dispatched bv I awson to recover the "sottveniis," namely the Night and Fog deciee and commendation letter fiom Hitler. She oiders Themis to leave the house immediately, and an aigument ensues. Overhearing the ruckus, Meycrsolm enters the loom, infuriating Fiau Steigmann who erupts in an anti-Semitic tirade, beginning in Fnglish. but ending in Gentian: "You meddle too much, you and all your filthy kind, tilths' (then slipping; into German expressing what she bad been suppressing), dirty, dirty pigs. Next time we will exterminate you." To prove her anti-Nazi loyalties, Themis informs Lawson of the incident. 1 le now believes her because he has fallen in love with her. By the time he arrives at Meyeixohn's home, Fiau Steigmann has bur tit the incriminating documents, predicting that her son will be considered an "immortal" like Goring when Germany arises fiom the 160 Lawrence Baron ashes. Feigning he has salvaged the two memoianda, Lawson confronts Steigmann in his cell. The latter defiantly admits his guilt, I killed as 1 had to kill, without fear, without remorse. I was a German of the elite Germany, ot the Hitler Germans. I will die as T have killed your own airmen, ten ol them. 1 had shot escaped English prisoners, Russians, Pole . Frenchmen, on my orders. And we will rise again. Then, like his mother, he shifts into Gorman as he abandons his obedient soldier guise: "Throughout the world we will exterminate the sub-humans."3" Siutlcd \'erdiet has diawn criticism tor its convoluted plot, portrayal of the rabbi as too forgiving, and unfaithful adaptation of the novel on which it is based.3' Whatever its deficiencies, however, it inextricably linked Nazi reprisals against enemy civilians with racist rationalizations for the eradication of "inferior" groups like the Jews and played on American antipathy towards Geimany by having Steigmann confer to executing Allied POWs, thereby evoking the hitter memory of the Malmedy Mass.ute of I9-I5.is The movie premiered several months after the Soviet Union had blockaded West Berlin and during the American, British, and French airlift to the city.3" I )espire spot ulation that Hollywood avoided the subject of the Holocaust to appease West German public opinion, the I'CA's review of the script never censured it lot-broaching the topic of German war crimes."' Paramount vouched for the authentieitv of the trial scenes by hiring Gordon Dean, Robert Jackson's press secretary, consultant. The studio's publicity campaign hyped the issue yof fraternization collaborationist and Gorman women-a subplot concerns an American soldier killed by the German woman who is pregnant with his baby-but also mentioned the "dramatic war crimes trials," "the mass murderer of Leemach," and the older legitimating "the murder without trial of countless Europeans."41 In the 1950s, ex-Nazis who evaded capture or trial remained menacing cinematic foes hatching plots to foment a Fourth Reich, inventing weapons of mass destruction, rationalizing evil with Nietzschean amorality, or trying to clone Aryan supeimen and liquidate "inferior" ethnic and racial groups. Moreover, Nazi Germany inaiulested the same totalitarian attributes which the West now combated in the Soviet Union.'' Thrillers about clandestine postwar Nazi activities discredited their villains In reminding audiences of the shameful record of the Third Reich. The vilification ol the Nazi past and valorization of the democratic present could coexist in the Holhwood films about Germany which were produced in the 1950s.43 Andrew Marlon's lite Dct'il Makes lltrec (1952) draws on a true story of a gold smuggling operation conducted by former Nazis. Adhering to the aforementioned conventions for establishing historical verisimilitude, the movie opens with wittteii and spoken statements attesting to its historical authenticity. The first is a notice of appreciation tor the cooperation of the "Office of the High Commissioner of Germany, the US Army Military Police Corps, and the Munich City Police" in filming the picture on location in Austria and Germany. The second is a nion delivered by an actor who plays the officer in charge of the investigation tli.it is di.unattzed buildings ju " í I lis is the I louse, Adi devastation sti notion of the film's pi fries. Crimin The Devil .i living in tl plunging Ge country to T 19-1 / in scan All of them Willie. He ti line of work performed Iv and civilian s First can Quite vv f'he hon (lien cai sJext cai Selling tl Still we ; Indoors, I o earn extra rep iv his deb family vv ho re owner of the contraband m suspect she rn; ligation I )ivisic duel minims fund a morgan of it was gold came lioni the tings and dent wait for a mor Fhe nightch enry pac kages she rents liorn Trial by audience 161 maun in . iliamatized in the film. As he situates the plothne in Munich, footage of bombed out uktmgs juxtaposed with new bousing projects in Munich flashes ,utoss the sueen: fins is the same city where m a ceitain private house, later known as the Blown n ol th House, Adolf Hitler organized the Nazi Party thirty yens ago." He coutiasts the >ur owi devastation wiought by the Allied poweis in defeating Germany with the iccon- >les. and -miction of the country they aie now mounting. Then he authenticates the sotuce erf -film's plot as "a composite of case histories taken from the Munic li Hcadquartcts' tiles. Criminal Investigation Division, Corps of Military Police, United States Army."1'1 ei guise The Devi] Makes I'liiee sympathizes with the plight of 01 dináry Germans eking out a living in the nibble of Munich but undeiscoies that the ideologues ies|»oiisil>le for uibbi ,ls , plunging Germany into World War Two 1 emain actively intent on icstoiing the /hatesci country to Nazi rule. Lieutenant Eliot, played by Gene Kelly, returns to Munich in civilians 1947 in seaich of the family that hid him after his plane was downed during the war. ews and All of" them perished during the bombardment of Munich except for their daughter nless ni ' " Willie. He tracks her down to a bar whete she solicits dunks and sex. She excuses her Vl.issacie ■ line of work as the only alternative to deprivation and starvation. The lyrics to a song, ot kaderi ' performed by an entertainer in the club icinforce the dual theme of Nazi culjiabilily Despite 'and civilian suffering: sc West 1 it for ;. First came the man with the little mustache, leniiciiv Quite without blinking an eye. '>• as a ' The house will be standing for 1,000 years, m with . Then came the bombs from the sky. •r killed ' Next came Marshall with promise of cash, ntioiied ' Selling the sky full with pie. e older .* Still we are sitting with holes in the roof, .'.- Indoors, we can't even say why? nematli ruction. To earn extra money, Willie unwittingly abets a grouj) of diehard Nazis. Wanting, to ion .uici , ; tepay his debt to her parents, Elliot otters to take her to visit close friends of hei niiestccl - tanuly who reside in Salzburg. To drive both of them theie, she tents a car fiom the hnou "ř: ' owner of the nightclub where she works. Border guards check the car and discover mis bv : contraband medical and cameia equipment, but do not an est her because they i of the " suspect she may be involved in a moie sinister smuggling ring. The Ciiimnal hives lywood tigation Division of the U.S. Army recruits Elliot to mfiltiate the opeiation. The C1D chief informs him that surviving war criminals had stockpiled gold in Get many to a gold ;' fund a reorganization of the Nazi Paity when the nation eventually iccoverv "Some itiouccl .. of it was gold melted down from chinch vessels and objects of art, but most of it written "■ came from the hands and mouths of victims of Nazi concentiation camps, wedding notice . rings and dental work." Now they weie sjiiriting it out of Germany to Austna to iner of ■ ■• wait for a more propitious time.'15 ice in . The nightclub owner beats Willie into submission when she refuses to continue to lologne ■ carry packages fiom him to Germany. What Willie does not leahze is that the cats that is ' she tents from him to cross the bottler aie plated with gold camouflaged with a liesh f r 162 Lawrence Baron coat of paint. Though there is no mention of Jews in the film, the ghosts of Hitler and his minions haunt the movement financed with the tainted lool. The disciples of the would-be Fiihrer assemble for a motorcycle race held in Berchtesgaden. When Elliot witnesses his dramatic arrival in a Mercedes convertible, he exclaims, "It's all there but the Heils!" The final chase sequence climaxes at the Eagle's Nest which signs designate as Hitler's house. MPs and Elliot capture the neo-Nazi leader, and Elliot kisses his lover Willie who was wounded in the shootout. The brave American and decent German triumph over the Neo-Nazi "devil." Samuel Fuller's Verboten! (1959) centers on the relationship between a wounded American GI named David and the German woman Flelga who nursed him bask to health at the end of the war.46 Throughout the movie, Fuller inteisperses on-location shots of postwar Germany with interior staged shots. David eventually marries 1 lelga and takes a job with an occupation relief agency. Unbeknownst to either of them, Helga's brother Franz belongs to the Nazi Werewolves who assassinate American officials and disrupt the distribution of food and medicine. Ashamed of her brothefs bigotry and subversive activities, Flelga forces him to attend the Nuremberg hiak The camera alternates between them sitting in the spectators' box and documeiuan footage of the trial with narration based on Robert Jackson's opening statement. I be. creates the impression that the characters from the film actually are at the proceeding'-. A reii-iiunute excerpt of atrocity footage from Nasi Concentration Camps forms the core of the scene. The narrator, who is Fuller, describes bow the Third Reich FlGURi' 10.4 The categories of Nazi war crimes posted on the walls (Verboten!). Source: Reproduced with permission from Photofest, Inc. '<■ pet scented ( :ens of i "Perhaps th used as a sc " I his was j enumeratioi passiges fror cell When iVIoitified b\ houses i I idler, a < dm lug Worl tile compou Allied troop; participate in the liberation a fossil, neve ge porp. w ere iguorai I I an/, as a pr< in mi special i turned the fi ion Cam anil leenactiiii lied One (198 I he film at ot I iolocaust protagonist C Na/i genocide degenerates ff. ition of obeys orders.5 the "Nazi heav slouh beeotiK Dniynyk indli ot the (ihn. Ir inmate rebelhc . guards have ret suspu ions of b fleeing into a 1 olhei main chai about the camp and s.H rifices hi vaults rather th Trial by audience 163 etscctifed Christian clergy, euthanized the physically and psychologically disabled, killed tizens of many European countries, and puiged its political enemies. He dechucs, Perhaps the greatest crime the Nazis committed was against" the Jews whom thev used as a scapegoat to make Hitler Cod and Meiu Ktimpf the bible." and com hides. Tins was genocide, the piemeditated inuulet ot entire peoples." As he hears the cmimeiation of Nazi crimes, Franz experiences superimposed flashbacks of lelevant passages from the indoctrination speeches he heaid at the meetings of his Weiewoll '11. When he maintains he did not know, Helga responds, "You've got to look." Mortified by what he has seen, Fiaii7 disavows Nazism and assists 1 )avid in locating fe houses used by the Werewolves to smuggle war criminals out ol Germany. Fuller, a combat veteran who served with the First infantiy Division in Europe during World War Two, had been assigned to film the burial ot corpses sttewn acioss ic compound of Falkenau, a satellite camp of Flossenbiirg, when it was libetated. Allied troops conscripted local townspeople to can v the bodies to mass giaves and ,.irticipate in their interment. In bis autobiography Fuller disclosed the lifelong impact the liberation of Falkenau and burial of its victims had on him likening it to "a leaf in a fossil, never to fade away."*' f he policy of fencing local Germans to confront the carnage perpchated by their government was intended to disc i edit claims that they were ignoiant of Nazi crimes.1" Fuller tephcates this ptoceduie in I 'eihoteu! with Fianz as a pioxv for all German civilians. Fuller obtained the atiocitv and tiial footage from special effects technician Ray Kellogg who bad belonged to the team that had filmed the fust Nuremberg Trial and selected the atrocity footage for N' Images of the l 'inmagiuablc (Blooiiiington, II Indiana University l'tess. 1988). 90-133; |udith E. Doneson, The Holocaust iu Americ Film (Philadelphia. PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1987), 59-107; Trudy Ciold, "An Overview of Hollywood Cinema's Treatment ot the Holocaust," in Holocaust and t Moving Image: Rcptcsciitutious iu Vilm and Television Since (London, UK: WallHow Press, 3005), eds. Toby Haggith and Joanna Newman, 194; Annette lnsdotf, Indelii Shadows: Vilm and the Holocaust (New York: Random House, 1985), I--21; Alan Mini Popular Culture and the Shaping oj Holocaust Memoiy iu . Xmer'ua (Seattle, WA: University Washington Press. 2001), 3-21! 2 I Ins consensus informs the interviews and viewpoint ot Imaginary Witness, directed 1 Daniel Anker (USA: Anker Productions Inc. 2004). 4 he documentary's emphasis on the ilelibetate dissociation of the Jewish movie moguls from the Holocaust draws heavily t Neal Gabler's inteiviews in the film anil fiom his hook. ,4» Umpire of'Fhcii Otvn: Hotel lews invented Hollywood (New York: (.Town Publishers, 1988). 3 Peter Noviek, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston, MA: Houghton Miflfin Contp.m 1999). 47-123. ■1 Lawrence Baron, i lie L'irst Wave of American 'Holocaust' Lilins. 1945-59," Americ Historical Review, Vol.115, no.l (February 20I0). 90-1 14. 5 Stuart 1 iebnian, "I listoiiogiaphy/Holocaust Cinema," in Cinema and the Shoah: An z Confioitls the Tragedy of the Twentieth Century, ed. Jean-Michel Frodou (Albany. NY: Sta University of* New York Press. 3010), 207. 0 1 awieiuc B.uon, "Picturing Ptejudice in Hollywood's First Films about Anti-Semitism Studies in lavish Civilization, Vol.17 (2000), 17--37; Steven Alan Carr, "Hollywood, tl Holocaust, and World War II," Studies in Jewish Civilization, Vol.17 (2006), 39-5 Felicia Herman, "Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews, 1933—II," American lavish Histot Vol. 89. no. I (Marth 2001), 61-89; Bill Kaolin! "Hollywood and the Shoah, 1933-45 in Cinema and the Shoah, ed. Jean-Michel L'rodon. 149-60; K.R'.M. Short, "Hollywood Fights Anti Seniiiisin 1940-45," in Pilin and Radio Propaganda in Woild War II. ed K. R M. Short (1 ontlon, UK: Croom Helm, 1983), 149-55. 7 4 bonus Doherty, Ltollytvood's Censor: loseph I. Breeu and the Production Code Atltiiiih-.ii.uich (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 152-71, 199-224. 8 Thomas Doherty. Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia Univeisity Press, 1993), 36-59, 122-33; 9 Steven Casev, Citations Ciusnde: Franklin I). Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, War Agtiust Na;i Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 56-72; Miehieh Hoeuieke Moore, Know Vom lincmy: 'Flic American Debate on Nazism, !933-l<)ls (New York: Cambridge Univeisity Press, 2010), 131-52, 193-97. 10 None Shall Fscape. directed bv Andre dc Toth (US: Columbia Pictures, 1944). The fir.-.i proposal (or this film is found in "fetter from Burt Kelly to Jeff Sherlock, 14 Apnl. 1943. None Shalt Fscape." Special Collections, Margaret Derrick I ibraiy. Aradeim ot Morion Picture Arts and Sciences (bereifter MFII.-AMPAS). The film was ong.in.illv entitled 1'he Day IIV// Come and then I.ebensraum. 1 1 "The Screen Anticipates Nazis at the Bar," New Yoik Herald Tribune, 10 October, 77ie Black Book of Poland (New York: CP. Putnam's Sons, 1942), 217-53. 12 Bernard F. Dick. The Star-Spangled Banner: 'Flic American World War 11 Film (Lexington. KY: Unrversity of Kentucky Press, 1985). 207-8. 13 Andre de loth cited in Roheit Joseph, "file First Post-War Trials Are Staged in Hollywood." Stiu TramisiO Chronicle, 23 January. 1943," in Scrapbook #1, Mamisirip; Collection #-U-304, Joseph Elian Collection, MHL-AMPAS. 14 I he positive reviews appear in Scrapbook #1 ol the Joseph Than Collection as ik negative one written by WHM, "First Movie About War Guilt Trials Is Disappointing." 'Pidings, 14 April, 1944, Pidings Scrapbook #1, Manuscript Collection #U-304, Josepli Than Collection, MHL-AMPAS. 15 Lester ( Pi ess, 1 acccntu,! Htm ben 16 "Coufid MHL-A 17 See the i in Serapl 18 David PI 19 Annette Carnbnd Cinema , and Davi If: Soutl T.scape, tt tents/O.V in 7hi/it, 30 Donairi 1 (New Yt Judgment: Univeisif Holocaust Holocaust: /.eliizer, Univen.it) 21 Michael IN 22 llu-Straiis 23 Confession 1946); St. Politicizati 16 Octob. 24 Palmer R. (Winter I« 25 Struk. Pho Memory i Night and ?6 Baron. Pro in Cinema 27 Bosley Gr nytinies.co (accessed 1 www.time, (accessed I. (3 June, 19 28 Jack D. Gi, 1946. Gian fiee." 29 Krohn, "H, W Bosdi, /,„/, Trials ((;h,i| 31 .S'e,i/c "Confidential NSE," 8 bebruaty, 19(1, None Shall Fsiape, Special Collections", MHL-AMPAS. 17 See the full-page advertisements as well as clippings of the bos-office liguies anil icviews in Scraphook #1, Manusciipt Collection #U-30+, Joseph Than Collection, Ml II AMPAS. 18 David Piatt, "A New Powerful Anti-Nazi Lilm," Daily Wotkti, 8 Apiil, 1944. 19 Annette Insdoif, Indelible Shadow*: Libit ami the Holoiattsl, 3nl Edition (New Yoik: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 252—54; Krohn, "Hollywood and the Shoah." in Cinema and the .Shoah, ed. Jean-Michel Frodon, 164—68; Caiohne Joan (Kav) S. Picart: and David A. blank, Frames of Li'tl: the Holocaust as Horror tu American Film (Carbondale, II: Southern Illinois Univeisity Piess, 2(1(16), 25; Syivie Plein-, "A Ptopos of Xone Shall Fstape, nans. Hillaiv Radnei and Ahstau Lo\. http://aHliive.sensesotcniema.com/cou tents/().V26/none_slull. est.ipc.html (accessed 16 October. 2910). OugmalK published in 'I'rajic, no.35 (Autumn 2000). 2(1 Donald Bloxhani, Lite War Climes Dials and the Foimation of Ilototamt Histoiy and Ahmoiy (New York: Oxfonl Univeisity Piess, 2001); 57-88; lawtence Douglas, Lite Mcntoiy oj judgment- Making Fate ami Histoiy tu the Dials oj tin Holocaust (New Haven. CT: Yale University Piess. 2001), I 1-37; Jetliey Shandler, While Amenta Wählte*. DievCuo the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press), 5—22; Jamna Struk, Photographing the Holoctiust: Interpretation of the Lenience (London, UK: LB. fauns and (,o, 2004); Barbie Zelit/ei, Renicnibtiiug to Folget: Holocaust Mentoiy thouglt the Canuta's Lye (Chicago: Univeisity of Chicago Piess, 1998). 49-140. Michael Mantis, " Lhe Holocaust at Nuieinheig," > (1998), 5 II. lite Siiangci. diiected by Olson Welles (USA: Inteitiational Purines, 19461. Cotilessious of a Na:i Spy, duected by Anatole Lttvak (USA: Waiuer Biotbeis Pictures, 1946); Steven Ross, "Coiijcssions oj a Na;i Spy: Wamel Bios., Ann-Ease ism, and the Pohticization of Hollywood," htt|>://w ww deal center, eng/pdf/ WW Ross, pdt (ac cessed 16 October. 2010). Palmer R. Barton. "The Politics of Ciena* in Welles' lhe Stranger," Film Cnlicisin 9, no. 2 (Winter 1984-85), 2-14. Sunk. Fhotogiaphing the Holocaust, 150 58; hwout van del Knaap, "lhe Constiuetion of Memoiy in Nil// et Biotiillaid," in Cihoeeiing the Ilolotuusl: lhe International Raepttott of Night and Log, ed. Hwout van der Knapp (London, 2006), 17—19. Baton, Fio/ating the Holocaust, 27-28; Huben Damisch, "A Cinema No I ongei Silent," m Cinema and the Shoah. ed. Lrodon, 45 Boslev Ciowthei, '"Flic Snaugei," Xiw Yoik 'Finns (II July, 194(>). http:»'''movies. nytiines.coiii/iiiovit7u-\ic\\?ios--9An6I-^ )L. (accessed 13 September. 2008); "lhe New Pittuies," 'Lime (17 June. P'4<)). hltp:// wvvw.tune.com/time/magazme/artitTe/(),9 171,793120,00.htmlrpromoid-googlep (accessed 13 September, 2008); ""Movie of the Week: Die Stranger," L.tje Vol. 20: no. 22 (3 June, 1946), 78. 78 Jack 1). Giant, "Welles, Young, and Robinson Scene Llits," Hollywood Repoilei, 31 Maw 1946. Giant writes "This is the clue that trips, a fellow who might oiheiwise have gone free." 29 Kiohn, "Hollywood and the Shoah." m Cinema and the Shoah. eel. Lioclon, 149 .-->(!. 30 Bosch, Judgment on Nttiembetg: Aniuicaii .Attitudes towanl the Maioi Centum Wai-Cinne 'Dials (Chapel Hill, NC: Univeisity of North C.uolnij Pies-), 90-1 12 31 .S'c,[/<•(/ X'udiit, diieiled by lewis Allen (United States: Paiamotmt Pictuies, |9-|8) 32 Jonathan Latimer, "Sealed Veidut: Release Dialogue Sciipi," (10 M.uch. 1948) Special "Collections, MHL-AMPAS. 33 Ibid., 4. 31 22 23 168 I awrence Baron .54 Hangman .-!/«> /)('<•, directed by Fritz lang (Unitotl States: Arnold Productions, 194. Hitlei's Madmen, diieeted by Douglas Sirk (United States: Producers Releasii Cotpoiation. P>4.\); Fdna St. Vincent Mil.iy, The Murder of l.idiie (New York, NT. Harper and Brotbeis, 942). Also see Casey, (dilutions Crusade, 64-05, 70-71. 55 Helen 1 ennon, "A Witness to Atrocity: Film as Evidence in International War Crim f'ribunals," in Holocaust and the Moving image, 07. 30 I atimer, "Sealed Verdict." Reel 4A-5A, MHI -AMPAS. 37 Bosley Crowther, "Sealed I'erdict," New York Times (3 November, 1948), bttp://movii nytitiies.coui/nHnie/review?res=9P:()5Fld)9153DF()3AB(:4B53DFB7678383t')59EDE (accessed 9 September, 2008). Herbert C. I. lift, "The Screen and the Holocaust," Celluloid Power: Soiial Pihu Ctiticistn from "The Birth of the Nation" to "Judgment at Nuret berg.'" ed. David Piatt (Metuehen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. 1992), 378; Lester 1). Friedman. Hollywood's Image of the Jew {New York: Frederick Ungar, 1982), 121. 38 James J. Weingaitner, Crossroads of Death: The Story of the Malmedy Massaire and Tn (Berkeley, CA: Univeisity of California Press. 1979); James J. Weingaitner, .-1 Mvi//i Crusade: ll'illis M. liverette and the Malmedy Massotiv (New York: New York Univeisity Pre 2000); James J. Weingartner, "Americans, Germans, and War ("rimes: Converging NaiT.itiv ironi the '('root! War'."* The Journal of Ameruau History Vol.9-1, no.4 (March 2008), I 164-8 39 "Release Dates," Sealed Verdict, Internet Movie Database. http://www.initlh.com/titU It0040764/ (accessed 7 September, 2008). The movie premiered in November of PMS. The. blockade and airlift began in June ofthat year. 40 "Sealed Verdict." Production ('ode Administration File. Special Collections, Ml II-AMPAS. Breen objected to the script primarily on the grounds that it implied an illicii sexual relationship between Lawson and 1 hemis and that Themis might he a prostiuite. 41 "Sealed i'erdid, Paramount Press Sheets-Releases Season 194X-l'>4'>" Croup A-8. Spec i.il Collect ioi is. M Fl L-AM PAS. 42 1 Iannah Arendt, The < )iii;i»< of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcouit, Biace, antl Comp.im. 19.51); Abbott ('lc.isou, 'Potalitaiiauism: 'lite Inner History of the Cold Dar (New Yoik. Oxford University Press, 1995). 43 Lawrence Baron, "Flolocausi Iconogiaphy in American Feature Films about Neo-Nazis," I'-ilm and Histoiy Vol. 32, no. 2. (2002), 38-40; Tony B.irta, "Film Nazis: The (neat Escape," in Saeeuiug the Past: Dim and the Representation of History, ed. Ton) IS.iua (Westport, CT: Praeger. 1998), 127-48; David Eldridge, Hollywood's Histoiy Pilno '-York, NY: LB. Latins, 2006). 189-94; Lester Friedman, "Darkness Visible: Image, til' Nazis in Anient an Film," in Pad: Infamy, Darkness, Pvil, and Slime on the Silver - ed. Murray Pomeranče (Albany, NY: 2004), 255-70; Pic.ut and Frank, Frames el lni. 22—28. 4-1 'The Devil Makes 'Tlnee, directed by Andrew Martou (US, 1952). See script by Jeny I).i\k 77«' Devil Makes 'Three, Special Collections, MHI -AMPAS. 45 Fol a history o( Nazi confiscation, looting, and salvaging of gold extracted fror centr.ition and death camp inmates, see Götz Aly. Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Rn,e ami the Nati Helfne State (New York: Hemy Holt and Company, 2.008); Art Smith, Jr.. I litlei and the Story of Nazi War Loot (New York: Berg, 1989). •16 I "eihotetil, directed by Samuel Fuller (LJS, 1959); Christina von Flodenberg, "Of ('crinan Fräuleins. Nazi Werewolves, antl Iraq Insurgents: The American Fascination with Hitler's last Foray," Central Puropean Ilistoiy Vol. 41, no. 1 (2008): 71-86. For mine on Fuller's filmmaking career, see Lisa Domhrowski, 77«' l-'ilms of Samuel Puller: If Yon l)h. I'll Kill You (Wesleyan, (T: Wesleyan University Press, 2008); Lee Seiver, Sam Mhr. A Dim is a Battlegnnmd (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1904). -17 Samuel Fullei, .1 77;m/ tune: My 'Tale if Writing, Righting, and Filmmaking (New Yoik: Alfred Knopf, 2.002), 109-21, 213-18. Puller's footage was subsequently edited into lbe documentary Palkenatt: 'The Impossible, Directed by Emil Weiss (France: Miohklan Winkl Productions, 1988). Palkenau can be viewed at: http://invizuals.com/iiost/4869732.5ns' sainuel-fiiller-falkerali -the--impossible - full -movie-docuiuen (accessed June 27, 201 I). 48 M.usha Camp," 49 Fuller. , 50 77«' Big Product! antl phoi Helen I , T 'rihunal city: f-Iol Holocaust Universit 51 Avisar, s (Bloomin and the f 52 Irwin Sh. 53 Edward 1 54 Edward , Mflf-AA 55 Beverly ( Represent Barclay ai \merica Si ">(> 1 )mytryk. i7 Shaw, 77« haw, 77« 59 Avisar. Set I eo Chan J. David S '■I Judith E. !• / 'H(P- 196 63 Gloria A. d Aesthc-. Thorn; ''5 Matthew . (Cambridg Trial by audience 169 , JyM.V;. .|K M.iislu Oigeion, "Liberating images? Samuel fuller's Film of Falkenau Concoiiliation creasing - •• Camp," Film Quarterly Vol. 00, no. 2 (Winter 2006), 38-18. *. N1: - 49 Fuller, A Third Face, 354-74. 50 The Big lied One, dneeted by Samuel Fuller (USA: 1 oiac 1'iodiutioiis and lonmai Crimes . ^inductions, 1080); bullet, A 'Fliird Bate 475-83. For an analvsis of bow viewing films and photogiaplis of Nazi atrocities tiansfoims the spectator into a vicarious witness, see Helen 1 ennon, "A Witness to Atiocity: Film as Evidence in (nteination.il War Ciiines movie,. ' * Tribunals." in Holocaust and the Moving ImagcbS-lci; Caml Zemel, "Emblems of Atro- I i'! city: Holocaust Fiberatiou Photographs," in linage and Remembrance: Representation and the ust," in ■ Holocaust, eds. Shelley Flornstein and Florence Jacobowitz (Bloomington. IN: Indiana Nincm -,, University Press, 2003), 201-19. edinaii, . 51 Avisar, Siicening the Holocaust, 111-16; Patncia Frens, 'I'be Jew in American Cinema (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Umveisity Piess, 198L), 221—23: Deboiah I ipstade "AmerK.i •d 73 and the Meuioiy,"AWci/i /ii' Hk 53 Edwjul Dmytryk, IPs'a Hell of a Life, Hut Not a Bad Living (New York, 1978), 719 30. iriath 54 Hdw.ud Anb.ilt, "The Young Lions: Fust Drift," 25 April, 1957, Cote Collet tion, 104-82. MFIL-AMPAS: 170-74. n'title.' 55 Beverly Ciawfoid and James Mattel, "Repiesentations of Germans and What Germans I !9!8. Repiesent: Ameiiean Film Images and Public Perceptions in the Postwai Eia," in David I.. Barclay and Elisabeth Glaser-Schmidt, eds., 'Liaieatlamic Images ami Puccpttom: (ieimany and Ml IF cliiioiui Since 1776 (Cambridge, UK: Caiubiklge Univeisity Piess, 1997). 295 97. n illicit -' 56 Dmytryk, It's a Hell of a Life, 237-38. >Muute. 57 Shaw, The Young lions, (>6()-71; Anhalt, '"fhe Young Lions: Fiist I )iaft." I7i' 71. Speual 58 Shaw. The Young Lions, 674-77. 59 Avisar, Screening the Holocaust, I 14—16. inpaiiy. 60 1 eo Chartiey, "4 he Violence of a Perfect Moment," m I "iolence and , \niencan Cinema, ed. York: J. David Slocum (New York: Routledgo, 2000). 49. 61 Judith E. Smith, Visions of Belonging: Family Stories, Popular Culture and Postwar Democracy, Nazis." 19411-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). : Cie.it . 62 Gloria A. Kindem, "Hollywood's Conversion to Color 'Ilie Tcchologiial. Economic, ' Baita ;md Aesthetic Factors," in Hollywood: Critical Concepts in Media and Cuhmal Studies, Vol. 3, -' e»nv ^ ed. Thomas Schat/ (New Yoik: Routledge, 2004), 51-65. ages of 63 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Roots 'Loo: White Filmic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America Saeeii, ■ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). (.)/"/:V(7. Davis. a. con-e Wai, ur Lee ierman i with ore on »h Die, Fuller: York: ito the World ^2598/ 1). 11 "THIS TOO IS PARTLY HITLER'S American Jewish name changing in the wake of the Holocaust, 1939-57 Kirsten Fermaglich In 1952, J. Alvin Rugelmass wrote an article for (Minnwiittiiy magazine entitled "Name-Changing—and What It Gets You." Basing his research on conversation1! with city court clerks, Kugelmass wrote that name change petitions had increased by 100 percent since World War II, and that 80 percent of those petitions were from Jews. Kugelmass argued that this upsurge in name changing was "parilv 1 filler's doing": while European Jews had been murdered by the millions, the American lew "was sharply reminded of his identity and bore it with pride and militant defiance" Yet as soon as the war was over, he suggested, Jews* return to postwar comloil was accompanied by an abandonment of Jewish pride and identity. Kugelmass interviewed 25 men who had changed their names, and found that most of them weie unhappy: "all twenty-five would like their old, comfortable names back." In retrospect, Kugelmass seems to have been mistaken in much of his description of name changing, at least in New York City. Name changing m New York at tuallv rose to some of its greatest heights during World War 11. Moreover, in New York's City Court, Jews were closer to 50 percent of name changers, not 80 percent. Kugeltnass's piece is still significant, however, for its portrait of name olungeis ,i-unhappy, pathetic people who separated themselves from the Jewish community, ignoring the lessons of genocide. His article reflects the degree to which name changing was in fact a phenomenon in the years after World War I!; the piece also reflects the dominant way in which Jewish writers interpreted name changing m the years after the Holocaust. "file numbers of New Yorkers officially changing their names skyrocketed during the years of World War 11, and they remained at high levels throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout the 1930s, there were roughly 250 petitions in the New York City City Court eacdi year. In 1940, official name-change petitions in ("in Court more than doubled to 664, and they climbed throughout the war, ic.ic liing a peak in 1946 at 1,127—four times the average of the previous decade, and the laige-t number of centurv." A large t ••Holocaust e proportion been dispro fiom the ľ Court name had been q petitions ex| still equaled when the Jc percent. Tal Court lived of M.mbatta • No other these years. I lirst half of t divorce, rem in disproport names, those soi i.tl and wc inner group example, the Italian, and C one half of tl pose. The nu 1950s, but p outnumbered numbers of n Jewish names York c: I listorians 1 giug in the U ■iIK- mentionc' lave not United States nate, for the w into both the American Jew: I'he high n War If arc- stri i hangers. Thei I or one thing, "This too is partly Hitler's doing" 171 number or"name changing petitions in one year m City Court tor the entne twentieth century." A laige percentage of the name-change petitions during and after the eta of the Holocaust were submitted by petitionets with identihably Jewish names far out of proportion to the Jewish population of New Yoik City.1 To be sine, Jews had always been disproportionately lepresented in New York City's name-changing petitions •-fiotn the 1900s through the 1930s, jews submitted loughly 03 petcent of the City Court name-change petitions. But the numbeis of petitions oveiall during these yeais bad been quite small. Between 1939 and 1957, as the numbeis of name-change petitions exploded, the percentage of Jewish petitionets declined somewhat, but thev still equaled loughly 50 percent of the total pool of official name ihangets, at a time when the Jewish population in New York City was loughly between 35 and 30 percent. Faking account of the fact that most name-change petitioneis at the City Court lived in Manhattan, the disparity was even greater, since the [ewish population of Manhattan was roughly between 15 and 30 pen cut dining this eia.' No other ethnic groups came close to Jews' numbers in name changing during these years. Many individuals who petitioned the court to change their names in the entitled first half of the twentieth century did so because of changes to their families such as 'rsations divorce, remarriage, or abandonment. Jews were among these petitioneis, though not 'ased by?.: in disproportionate numbeis. But among those who sought to eliminate their ethnic '"e from names, those who claimed that their names wete an embartassment or a hindiance m Hitlers social and work environments, Jews weie disproportionately tepiesented. Indeed, no can Jew other group came close to Jewish numbeis m these sorts of petitions, in 1943, (or fiance." example, the total number of petitions submitted by people with Slavic, (lerman, "ort was Italian, and Cheek names seeking to de-cthmcize their names equaled altogether about s inter- one half of the petitions submitted by people with Jewish names for the same pur- "» weie pose. The numbers of petitions and the peicentage of Jewish names declined in the 1950s, but petition numbeis remained higher than befote the wai. and Jews still cription outnumbeied other ethnic groups every year. Ir was not until the 1900s that the actually numbeis of name-change petitions declined substantially, and that the percentage of York's Jewish names in name change petitions came closer to their actual proportion in the XTccnt. ? New York City population. igers as Historians have not examined these petitions or the phenomenon of" name chan- tnunity, , 8'ng in the United States in any detail. Scholars of nice and ethnicity have occasion 1 name ally mentioned name changing as a signal of assimilation into American ctilfuie, but .'ce also they have not examined the significance of name changing in taeial identity in the * in the 1 United States during and after World War 11.' This gap m the liteiattue is unfortu- nate, for the widesptead phenomenon of name changing offeis us a valuable window during into both the laciahzation of Jews in the United States during the Holocaust and H1t the American Jews' understandings of the Na/i genocide in the yeais after the war. in the The high numbeis of name changers in New York City during and aftet World in City War II are striking, as was the large percentage of Jewish names among those name chiug a j: changeis. fheie are a number of ways that these riiamatic statistics can be explained. ' largest For one thing, the bmeaucracy introduced during the war enoomageri Americans of 172 Kirsten Fermaglich all ethnic persuasions to change their names officially and legally. Before World War 11, most immigrant and second-generation Americans had changed their names casually and unofficially in large numbers, and those changes were generally accepted and unnoticed. But new concerns with security during World War II led many employers— particularly federal employers—to demand birth certificates from job applicants. In this environment, unofficial name changes from previous eras became suspect, and Americans rushed to make official their changed cognomens in order to get the military placement or the defense industry job they wanted. Jews' position in the middle class also helps explain why they would be the ethnic group most likely to change their names officially. It was primarily members o! the middle class who believed they needed to change their names legally. The United States has historically had flexible name-changing laws: a person generally need not change his name officially in order to take on a new name. It is only if an Ameucan is worried that his name might be scrutinized that he has changed that name officially In the first half of the twentieth century, it was middle class Americans, much more frequently than working class Americans, who believed that their names might he scrutinized. Working class Americans would be more likely to find a job based on word of mouth, family connections, or an examination of their bodies. Middle J.iss Americans, however, printed their names on application forms, business cards, and storefront signs, so as to impress potential customers, employers and school admissions officers. As the immigrant grouji most successful in attaining middle class status in the first half of the twentieth century, Jews were understandably heavily represented in name-change petitions. There was, however, another, more poignant reason for Jewish overrepresentaiion in New York City Court petitions. Fears of antisemitism, experiences with dis crimination, and even veiled references to the Holocaust recurred in New Yorker/ name-change petitions in the middle of the twentieth century. To be sure, almost no Jewish jxTitionets volunteered that they were changing their names because ot antisemitism. But during World War II, they did note that they had bad trouble finding jobs, that they feared entering the military bearing their current names, and thai tlie\ wanted to abandon "foreign" names. After World War II, Jews made less mention of' discrimination, but they continued to petition for name changes in large numbers and to cite their "foreign" surnames as the reasons for the changes. Significantly, Jewish names were called "foreign" names even when they were easy to pronounce and spell in English. For example, the 1942 petition of Louis A. Friedman. Jr. and David Donn Friedman to change their last name to Freeman states that the petitioner desires to Americanize the name of Friedman, particularly in ' the conditions now existing and further in view of the fact that petitionei expects to make application for a commission in the United States Army, and therefore does not want a surname of foreign origin and sound.0 Milton Lefkowitz's 1942 petition to change his name to Martin Milton Lewis insisted tli.u the name Lefkowitz was "Hungarian in origin," and that, as a native-born American. the petitioi backgroum nationalism bur it seem fence that h played a rol Louis am context of similar allusi example. So I desii going situath I feel i t )ther potitii or "impedinii petitioners tl and probably antisemitism. that Jewish t and its inline The handl changes after ridicule of |e culture. Ignaz < iennan and to Rhodes, Americanized oi their perset change his nai because he w. die German i German origii roughly tour wake of the I ecause they f memories of tl those inemorii The large n City Court it the ways that / particularly tin This too is partly Hitler's doing" 173 Id War II, is i asuaih 'pted and ployers— icants. In pect, and i get the he ethnic its of the e United need nor nerioan is officially, teh more might be based on ddle class aids, and Imissions us in the ;enteri in sentation vith dis-Yoikeis' Imost no of anti-' finding "hat they •ntion of hers and e easy to iedinan, tat the vie v t'titioner tl IV, ; sted that nerican. the petitioner wanted to bear a name "more in accord with his cultural and social background and in conformity with his heritage of democratic thought,"' Clearly the nationalism of the war shaped these petitioners' desire to call their names "foreign," but it seems likely that other forces were at work as well: Lefkowitz's peculiar insis fence that his obviously Jewish name was Hungarian suggests that fears of antisemitism played a role in his petition. bonis and David Donn Ericdmans' allusion to "the conditions now existing" in the context of this era of world antisemitism was striking, and other petitioners made similar allusions. In his 1942 petition to change his name to Saul Robert Gilford, for example, Solomon Goldfarb stated: 1 desire that any offspring of my marriage shall not labor under the handicap of going through life with the name such as Goldfarb. This is an unfortunate situation in the world we live in. but if is a situation not of my making, and I feel that we must face reality.H Other petitioners both during and after the war spoke of their names as "handicaps" or "impediments," and spoke of their desire to spare their children the embarrassment the petitioners themselves had experienced.'' Some of this language was legal boilerplate, and ptobably few of these petitioneis changed their names because they feared violent antisemitism. Nonetheless, many of these petitioners were responding to the ways that Jewish names had been isolated and ridiculed during the era of the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath. The handful of survivors of the Holocaust who submitted petitions for name changes after migrating to New York City similarly responded to the isolation and ridicule of Jewish names, while their petitions also reflected anger against: German culture. Ignaz and Una Rothstein, for example, believed their surname was "typically German and therefore objectionable to them," and sought to change their name to Rhodes, believing it in their "best interests ... that their names be more Americanized."1" A few immigrants were open in their desire to escape all memories of their peisecution as (lei man jews. Ronald I'hilip Steinberg, for example, sought to change his name to Stanton after facing persecution and being forced to flee Germany because he wanted "to remove as much as possible all associations with or thoughts of the German regime from his mind and also to give up the surname which is of German origin and association."11 One contemporary observer in 1958 estimated that roughly four percent of Central European immigrants to the United States in the wake of the Holocaust changed their names. They frequently did so, he said cither because they feared antisemitism in the United States or because they bore scarring memories of the antisemitism they had experienced in Europe and hoped to expunge those memories by effacing their German names.12 The large numbers of Jewish name-change petitions submitted to the New York City Court in the middle of, and in the aftermath of, the Holocaust suggest the ways that American as well as European Jews were racialized during these years— particularly through the linguistic marks of Jewish names. Ironicallv, those same 174 Kirslen Permagjich petitions oiler sii.-nilie.int evidence of Jews' efforts to escape or negate those racial labels and to acquire a different status. Historians such as Gaiy Gerstle, Deborah Das Moore, and ITic Goldstein haw all suggested that the years of World War II were watershed in American Jews' acceptance as white Americans, in part because Jev were integrated Hilly into white military troops.13 Name-change petitions, howeve offer a more complicated portrait. Because Jews were not readily welcomed as while Americans during the war—indeed, they faced antisemitism, even when serving in whii troops- - Jewish soldiers and their families felt they needed to abandon crucial marke ■ of Jewishness in order to become members of the white American mainstream.14 Given the fact that large numbers of people changed their names during an ■ alter the war, it is not surprising that the larger American Jewish community w. alieited by name changing, since either they or someone they knew hail prohabK changed their names. Not surprisingly, the widespread nature of name changing inspired intense public discussion and debate timing and after the war. A number of commentators, particularly during the war, perceived the growing nnmheis of name changes with equanimity and even with some support. Perhaps the most extensive exploration of name changing during the war was Louis Adainio popular book, II7/,if'.< Vow Name? (1942). Atlamic's approach was pragmatic anil sympathetic. As a Slovenian immigrant who had himself altered his name lioin Adamic, Adamic described the agonizing pressures immigrants and their children fell to change their names, as well as the alienation they frequently felt in the wake of having made those changes. While he wrote eloquently of ethnic Americans' tin moil as they changed their names and criticized native-born Americans who felt that their English names were the only ones that reflected American culture, Adamic uliiiuateh supported name-changing that was "organic," that came about "with very little inner conflict," and that "|grew| or emerge[ri] naturally out of an undistotted interrelation among, all the pertinent circumstances."1"' Other writers during the war offered similar pragmatic solutions. In a 1943 etlitoual in Aujlhm, a journal for German Jews in exile, emigre Manfred George appioveil generally of the idea of name changing, ami suggested that it might be particulaily acceptable for Jews. Of course, theie is no reason to change strictly Jewish names, for, like Italian names, these are generally known and respected. L5ut there can be no objection if Jews starting a new life try to drop names which airogant anti-Semitic officials in Europe at one time pinned on their forefathers."' Nonetheless, George warned his readers to change their names sensibly, without attracting ridicule by selecting names like Lincoln: "A person who decides to change his name should be guided by three principles: moderation, tact ami imobtnisiveni-ss."1' During the war. then, writeis like George ami Atlamic noted that name changing bad become an ordinary part of American ethnic life, and although they might resiiel the chauvinist conditions that made individuals feel they needed to change their names, they einbiaced a pragmatic approach to name changing rather than decrying the pbenon of the Uui harsher ant perspective; There w before ami Adamic re| newspapers mount to t their ranks, a Jewish fai in order to toi advance American f Albert Einst Reich rejec Einstein (m low arris nar and Nazi ty After Wo votaf. More .macks from and novels. Nazism antl of" Nazi cam I iterature that revealei pathetic shai Name chant their inset in they even ft 19-K, Laura changed bellow and an herself and t A 1949 New Waller Blun IJiatlfonL Ai liletnne fricn nothing to b for your fat daughter was these pieces, social climbii "This too is partly Hitler's doing" 175 those racial hoiali Dash ir ii were a ■ cause jews however, id as white ne, in white aal markers ream.1 1 luring and luniiN was d probably ' changing e growing 'erhaps the > Atiamic's .matic and ame from ulriien fell e wake of is' turmoil lh.it ilu'ir ulfimately little inner ten-elation 3 editorial approved arttctilarlv ike Italian objection nitic oiii- , without hange lus .'eness.' changing. dit regiet nge their decryi the phenomenon or attacking its practitioners. Indeed, George contrasted the freedom of the United States—a place where Jews could change their names—with the tar handier autisemitism that Jews had faced in Europe. All the same, these pragmatic perspectives did not openly address the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. There iiw, however, some bitter and angry arguments against name changing before and during the war, and they sometimes did refer to the Nazi regime. Louis '-.tl.nnic leported that after 1938, foreign-language and second-generation ethnic newspapers began publishing editorials describing name changing as being "tantamount to treason in the estimation of one's countrymen."18 Jewish journals joined their ranks. In September 1939, the Jewish Opinion published an angry editorial about a Jewish family named Einstein who had petitioned to change their name to Easton • t order to help their children advance in the military. Calling the family's "passion tor advancement at the cost of self respect" a "disease," the editors contrasted American freedom with Nazi oppression: "Incidentally, it may be observed that Albert Einstein had to change his country but his name remains unchanged. Hitler's Reich lejeoted him. But our country will celebrate the day ... which gives Albert Einstein (not Arthur Easton) to isic:] American citizenship."1'' The Opinion's, anger ■ iwaids name changers in 1939, as well as its contrast between American freedom and Nazi tyianny, would be echoed and amplified in the years after World War II. After World War II, the debate over name changing became far sharper and more vocal. Mote ciicumspect voices supporting name changing faded, and instead, angry attacks from name changers' critics dominated the pages of magazines, short: stories, ul novels. These attacks frequently featured both oblique and direct references to Nazism and to the Holocaust, suggesting that the impact of the war and the revelations of Nazi camps changed the ways that American Jews perceived name changing. Literature after the war, for example, explicitly portrayed name changing as an act that revealed some American Jews' shame over Jewishness, and they contrasted this pathetic shame with the devastation faced by European jews during World War 11. 'Maine ehangeis weie portrayed as striving fools who had allowed their vanity and their insecurity to cloud their attachments to the Jewish people-—so much so that they even forgot the bonds that linked them to murdered European Jews. In the H6 Lama Z. Hobson novel, Gentleman's Agreement, the Jewish secretary who has changed her name fiom Estelle Walovsky to Elaine Wales is portrayed as a self-hating Jew and an anfiseniite—one who uses the word "kike" openly to refer both to herself and to the "objectionable" Jews she worries will tar her own reputation.20 A 1949 Mil' Yotker short story by Joseph Wecbsler centered on the pathetic figure of Walter Blum, an Austrian Jewish refugee who had changed his name to Waiter lhadfoid. Austrian friends mocked him for betraying his family—"Dr. Redlich, a lifetime friend of Walter's dead parents, had said that Blum was an old Jewish name, nothing to be ashamed of. It was good enough for your grandfather in Poland, and for your father, when he moved to Vienna"—while Bradford's Americanized daughter was ashamed of her father and his friends' inability to assimilate/1 In both of these pieces, the murder of European Jews is the subtext of American Jews' insecure social climbing. 176 Kirsten Fermaglich In Ins 1958 short story, "The Lady of the Lake," Bernard Malamud was even more overt in Ins scorn tor American Jewish name changing, and its consequences for Jewish identity and Holocaust memory. His eenti.il chatacter, New Yorker Henry I evin. begins calling himself Henry R. fieeman on a trip to Europe.22 Upon meeting a beautiful Italian woman, Isabella, who asks if he is a Jew, Freeman tells her he is not: "he did not look Jewish, could pass as not—had."23 As he fills deeper in love with Isabella, he takes elaborate steps to insist upon his name as Freeman, so she does not uncover his identity as a ]ew. By the end, she reveals herself to be a Jew, a sur-vivot of Binhenwald: "I can't marry you," she tells him, exposing tattoos on her breast, "We are Jews. My past is meaningful to me. I treasure what I suffered tor."2'' Malaniud's piece quite explic ltly linked Levin's name changing with his forgetting of the Jewish past, and his particular lack of connection to the memories of the Holocaust. Non-fiction after the war similarly revealed simmering anger among Jews over the subject of name changing—including one equally angiy defense from a Jew who had changed his name, fhe recent destruction of millions of Jews in Europe became an image in the debate a.s both sides laid claim to American freedom and the memoiv of Nazi violence. A I 948 article in the Atlantic, "I ("hanged My Name," by an author who ironically insisted on remaining anonymous, set off a spirited public com eisation over name changing in America. "Anonymous" began by describing his name change: after the war, he and his brother had decided that a name change would afford them an easier, better life. The two paid $60 and became proud owners ol a new name—and then were set upon by angry friends who called them cowards and desettetv The author insisted to his friends that he had broken no ties by changing his name—he identified himself as a universalist, as someone who had just 'joined the human race." In response to his friends' question—"But don't you bleed ... tor the Jews trying to get to Palestine?"—he responded, "I am appalled by all of nun's inhumanity to man, everywhere." Perhaps most fascinating was Anonvmous's response to his friends' charge that he was a liar: 1 think we should be only too pleased to misinform those gentlemen who like to know how to put their finger on jews. Lies are too good tor them, these lovers of an orderly world where each sect and breed comes plainly labeled m.l Jews good naturedly make their living at pawnbroking, clothes manufac ttiitn;:. or junk dealing. .Such gentlemen may not always be deceived, bul il cnon;;h names are changed, they will certainly be confused. Therefore to hvpoiiitic.il universities, polluted employment agencies, churchgoers ignorant of (diristi.niip. canting business leaders, haters of people they haven't met, it seems a good idea to say, I won't make your dirty work easier, like a sheep considerate!} minting up the plank into the slaughterhouse. Try and find ine.2:> Anoininous' essav lllnstiales the vanous wa}s m whit h menioiies of the 1 lolneatist wcte put into the sen ice of debates o\ei name changing. On the one hand, Anomnioin describes the wavs that many Ameitcan Jews, like the author's filends, pcicehcd or the post-Holocaust plight of survivors as a problem for all Jews and a suuhol tint should rail} coded but i into the slat reference t (cmploymei drawing on murder in 1 response- to American Je "1 Chans. Although it •i'o Atlantic, engaging mi i wo article" enthusiastic iilantic Missi (also reprinti American Je Jewish (Join Anonymous suggested th rioivd Jewlsl ciicK-s. Whtl lh.it only soi Anonymous, bigoted ffien pointed out, their fascist e: joined him."-freedom and 1 freedom for joined racists hi this con and ( iohii, lik ol an insecure and betrayed damning porn aitic 1c about l public come) Most lircrat flawed onterpt At their most people demonstrates t "This too is partly Hitler's doing" 177 ;\ en nioie icnces toiler I Ii-ll 1 V 'Oil UH'Ct- > hor ho is er in love > she does 'w, a sur->s on her ed for."-4 in» of t)ie olooaust. over the who had •eame an emory of n author versa tion lis name ilf a new deserters, 'ging his ined the • fin- the >f man's lynious's vho like n, these -'led and eruring, enough oeritieal stiantt) >od ide linnin; ist won lyinou: ived til >ol that should rally Jewish loyalty and unity. On the other hand, howevei, the author's coded but meaningful lefeienee to Jews as sheep "considetately running up the plank into the slaughterhouse" as they submitted to anfisemitic discrimination is certainly a reference to the Holocaust.-'' Although be describes American anliseimtism (employment agencies, univeisity quotas), the anonymous author seems clearly to be dtawmg on Ins icadeis' knowledge of the Holocaust, and their beliefs about Jewish murder in Hurope. Name changing, Anonymous seemed to suggest, was a i.itional tesponse to antisemitisni; indeed, it was even an ingenious stiategy that might help American Jews avoid the violent peisecution that had decimated the jews of Kuiopo. "I Changed My Name" had wide leadership and sparked substantial debate. Although it was initially published in the mainstream but upscale intellectual journal the Atlantic, it was also leprinted in the more niiddlebiow Rendels' Digest, theieby engaging millions of ordinaty Americans m the question of Jewish name changing. Two articles, moieover, appeared m print soon afteiw.nds to lefute Anonymous' enthusiastic defense of name changing and his use of Nazi genocide. In the April Atlantic Mississippi writer David L. Colin produced a rebuttal, "I've Kept My Name," (also leprinted in Raider's Digest), which testified to the opportunities piovided to American Jews, even those with distinctive Jewish names, while in the American Jewish Congiess publication, Cougtcss Weekly, editoi Sblomo Kat/ ruled against Anonymous m an editorial entitled "So You've Changed Your Name." Both pieces suggested that Anonymous — and by extension, other name changers had aban doned Jewish pride and identity for the thin promises of acceptance into racist elite circles. While Cohn testified to the "kindliness" ot the United States and insisted that only social climbers felt the need to deny their identity. Katz lashed out at Anonymous, suggesting that the wntei had abandoned the Jews.-' When his new bigoted friends confided in him their prejudices against Jews and Negroes, Katz pointed out. Anonymous had to keep up his disguise: "you have to gun and appiove their fascist obscenities. You are not confusing the enemy, as you claim; you have joined him."JK Both Katz and Colin thus lewaote Anonymous' paeans to Ameiuan freedom and his appropriation ot Nazi genocide, suggesting that America could provide tieedom for Jews with their names intact and aigoing that name changeis actually joined racists in their attacks upon the Jewish community. In this context, J. Alvin Kugehnass's piece on name changing lit light m: like Katz and Cohn, like Hobson and Wechslei, Kugelmass poitiayed name changing as the act of an insecure, pathetic eow.ud who had sepaiated himself fiom the Jew ish people and betiayed his Jewish identity. And even though a few othei aulhois olieied less damning poiliaits —in I95K, Tauest Maass, for example, wiote a sympathetic scholarly article about name changing among Centiai Euiopeati imnugiants - the tenor of the public conveisation on name changing leniamed haishly judgmental. Most literature of the post-World War U eia, then, porfiavcri name changing as a flawed enteipnse, one animated by insecurity, anxiety, and even bigotis oi sell baticd. At then most extieme, writers after I 945 suggested that name changeis betiayed the Jewish people in the wake of genocide. Tins dominant peispettive on name changing demonstiates the impact of the Holocaust cm postwar Anient an Jew ish thought 1 ar 178 Kirsten Fermaglich from repressing their knowledge of the Holocaust, American Jews in the late 1940s and 1950s used European genocide as a lens through which to interpret their most fundamental public identities in the United States.30 Yet, it is worth noting that some authors during the war perceived of name changing as a rational act that could be undertaken pragmatically. It is also worth noting, moreover, that large number's of ordinary individuals chose to change their names in the years during and after World War II, even in the face of communal scorn. Although few of those individuals chose to defend their actions in print, as did Anonymous, their decisions to change their names may have reflected a different understanding of the lessons of the Nazi genocide: name changing was a freedom offered to Jews in the United States and denied to European Jews. Far from viewing their actions as a betrayal of the Jewish people, many may have viewed name changing as a means of maintaining the well-being of the Jewish people, a defensive response to the treatment of Jews as a despised race in the 1940s. Notes 1 J. Alvin Kugelmass. "Name-Changing and What It Clefs You," Commentaty 14 (1953): H5; 150. 2 1 am grateful to the Cavil Court of New York City for allowing me to examine its name-changing iecords--a remarkable scholarly resource. I am particularly grateful to Ernesto Helzaguy and to Michael Boyle tor facilitating my research. In my research. I examined the name-change petitions tiled with the City Court from 1882 through 2002. I collected records for every fifth year (1892. 1897, 1902-, etc.). I also examinee few outlying dates 1918, 1940 and 1946. 1 chose 1918 because accounts of ami German prejudice dunng World War I suggested that name changing might go up during those years. I chose 1940 and 1946 because simply an eyeball examination oft records demonstrated that name change petitions skyrocketed during those yeais. Between 1892 and 1927, I collected every single petition or judge's order in each yeai 1 examined: between 1932 and 2002, 1 collected 1 m 10 petitions because of the lap. munbeis of petitions during those years. I selected the 1 in 10 petitions landomly- I selected the first of every 10 I counted. When I saw particularly interesting petitions. I gathered them but marked them separately so they could be included for qualitative, not quantitative analysis. It is important to note that the records held at the Civil Court wen-actually submitted to the City Court before 1962 (in 1962, City Court and Muniei] Court were merged to form Cavil Court). Moreover, City Court was not the only plj where New Yorkers could officially change their names during the twentieth cental Residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island could also change th names in sepaiate borough courts, and residents of all five boroughs could also chan their names at the Court of Common Fleas before 1895 and in Supreme Court af 1895. furthermore, immigrants could officially change their names on iiaturalizau petitions aftei 1906. Some information on the history of name changing in the New York City court system can be found in Arthur Scherr, "Changc-of-Nainc Petitio the New York Courts: An Untapped Source in Historical Onomastic s," Names 34, no. 3 (September 1986): 284 -302 and at the website for the New York City court system: hup://nycouits.gcw/comts/nyc/civil/ci\'ilhistory.shtnik Accessed August 12, 2010. 3 To detennine Jewish identity. I either looked for the fust or last name to be categor Jewish: Israel, Yakcw, or Chann; Levine. Shapiro, or Kaplan. If either name was categorically Jewish, the person was Jewish, and so was his/her family. If not that sii 1 gcneially looked for iwth the fust and the last name to he a Jewish-identified nan the Ui and Sa Jewish. was a Patrick seemec Jewish identit- petitioi if Victc garmei chautfc Jew's. other i adoptei when 1 probab around inv cor 4 I:or the Hon. J Jewish Yom 1< dien al The nn if tends 5 See. fo lury (P A Ceil, 59-60; Press, 1 valuable (courts, See Scl 6 New N207- - 7 New N207- 8 New Y 9 See. fo Box 19 Collect 10 New Y see also I 1 New Y 12 Ernest i Europe percent refugee: immigr. 13 Gerstie, Shaped . Eric Gc Prinretc This too is partly Hitler's doing" 179 the United Stales. That is, 1 included fust names like Rose, Ceil, Einiiv, Han\, Max, and Sam as Jewish, and I also included last names like I ubinsky 01 Waishawskv as Jewish, but only it those Jewish-identified names malched one anothei if the lust name was a name rarely used by Jewish Americans — I homas. James, Anthony. Frederick, Patricia, or Mabel, for example --1 did not count the peisou Jewish, even it the last name seemed Jew lsh. It neithei the fust name not the last name was a common 01 citegoiical Jewish name, but both names weie used by Jews and togcthei seemed to c onnote Jew ish identity—foi example, m a name like Victot Kavaisky- I used othei maikeis m the petition, such as residential address, occupation, and birthplace, to help make |udgnients: if Victor Kavaisky was born m Russia, lived on the I ower hast Side, and wotked in the gaiment industiy, I counted hnn as a Jew: if he lived m Queens and winked as a chauffeur, 1 did not count hnn as a Jew. When m doubt, 1 did not count individuals as Jews This methodology is not peifect—given the- wide-iangmg unguis of Jews and other immigrants m America and the varieties of names that they and their families adopted m vanous corneas of the wodd, I am ceitjin thai I am making some mistakes when I guess at ethnic ongins. Hut I believe that, m geneial, given mv methodology, 1 am piobably undeicountingJews, lather than oveicounling Jews. Since my aigument ievolves aiound high numbeis of Jews. I believe that iindeiestimation should not negatively alfeel my conclusions. 4 Foi the Jewish population of New York, see C. Moms Hoiowitz, lawiente ) Kaplan, Hon. James I elt, 'l'lw listiniatt d jewvli Population of die New Yoik Aiea (Tedeiatiou of Jewish Philanthiopics of New York, 1959), ?2-23 Rese.ueheis foi this stuiH used the Yom Kippur method of calculating Jews—that is, they calculated the numbers of children absent from public schools on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year tor Jews. The method, of comse, has Haws: it hnksjewisb identity to Jewish lehgious piattuc, and it tends to uudeistate Jewish population where the population is small. 5 See, foi example, Gaiy C.eistle, '\maiuiii Ciuublc: Raw mid Nation in the Iwentittli ('.in liny (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 164—60; Charles Siibennan, A Certain People: American lews and Thar Lives Today (New York: Summit liooks, 168-»). 5')-60, I eonaid I )iuneistein, \nli-Stimivm in Ameiiui (New Yoik. Oxtotd Univcisitv Piess, 1694), 124—25. One significant exception is histonan Aithui Si hen, who wiote a valuable aiiicie lntioduting icadeis to the name change petitions in the New Yoik Couits, and eneouiaging leseaicheis to do fuither study of then lustoiical sigmluame See Scherr. "Change-of-Name Petitions of the New York Courts." 6 New York City Civil Court, Name-Change Petitions Collection. Box 1912. N207-1942. 7 New Yoik City Civil Comt, Name-Change Petitions Collection, Box 1912. N207-1942. 8 New York City Civil Court. Name-Change Petitions Collection. Box 1942, NI55- 1942. 9 See, foi example, New Yoik Cits' Civil Court, Name-Change Petitions Collection, Box 1952, N72-I952, N575-19's2, and N4I5-I«5J. See also Name-Change Petitions Collection. Box 1947, N191-1947. 10 New York City ( lvil Court. Name-( hange Petitions Collection, Box 19-.3, N2-I4 19S7, see also N284-I952. 1 I New York City Civil Comt, Name-Change Pennons Collection, Box 1946, N129-19I6 12 Fanest Maass, "Integiation and Name Changing among Jewish Refugees horn Cential fuiope m the United States," Nanus 6 (1958): 141-42; 168-69. Par tewei than torn peieeut of my name-change petition documents weie submitted by Cential Faiiopean refugees. One reason tor the discrepancy between my numbers and Maass's is that many immigrants may have changed their names on their naturalization petitions. 13 (ieistle, Amiiiiau Cnuihle. 187- 257; Deboi.ib Dash Mooie. CI Jews. How Hdild Wai // Shaped a (Aueiatiou (Cambiidge, MA: Belknap Piess of Haiv.nd Univeisity Piess, 2001), Fan Goldstein, 'lite I'me of ]]~liitcm'" Jetv\ Rate, and \muiuiu Ideulit) (Princeton, N| Princeton University Press, 2006), 192-93. 180 Kirsten Fermacjlich 14 15 10 17 18 19 20 21 '7 Although 1 disagicc with his evaluation of the significance of white fighting troops, n conclusions here agtee essentially with those of Goldstein, who argues that Jews in the I94u. weie welcomed into the white mainstream, so long as thev kept their group different' to a minimum. Goldstein interprets those group differences primarily as expressions racial libcuhsm, hut another (and more uniquely Jewish) measure of group differeu was a Jewish-identified name. Louis Ad.imtc. If lull's Your Name? (New Yoik: I Iarper and Brothers, 1942), 22-25. Manfred George. "Müssen Sie Washington heißen?" Aufbau (August 6, 1943), cited in M.iass, "Integration and Name Changing Among Jewish Refugees," 166. Ibid. . hiueuiau MinovSpcttator (October 9. 1940), i ited in Adamic, What's Your Name?, 85. Jewish Opinion (September 1939), cited in Adamic, What's Your Name?, 86. I aura /.. I lobson. Cattleman's Agieemeut (New Yolk: Avon Books, 1968; orig. pti New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 127-2.9. Joseph Wechsler, " Die Rules of the Game," AVii- Yoiker (October 1, 1949): 29. Bernard Malamud, " l'he 1 ady of the I ake," in . \mcrican Jewish Fiction: A Century Stories, cd. Gerald Shapiro (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 94. Original published in The Magii Hanel (New York: Random House, 1958). Malamud, "Lady of the Lake," 100. Malamud. "I ady of the 1 ake." 100. Anonymous, "I ('.banged My Name," Atlantic 181 (bebruaiy 1948): 72-74; reprinted in Readers' Digest 32 (|une 1948): 13-15. Accessed at http://www.thcatlantic.com 19 1802/cbanged-nanic (October 21, 2010). Accoiding to Anita Shapira, the phrase "like sheep to slaughter" had been used as cabas 1941. in a leaflet written by Abba Kovuer describing the murder of jews in the Vilm ghetto. By late 1943, the phiase began to appear in print in Palestine, and it be dominant Hope in Zionist self-understanding. At least by 1946, if not before, the bad begun to appear in print in the United States as well. Anita Shapira, Lc, Power: l'he Zionist Resell to Pone, I HHP P>4H (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 330-42; "Aid Pledged Here to Palestine Army," New York 'Firnes (July 3, 1946), David I . Colin, "i've Kept My Name," Atlantic 1H J (April 1948): 42-44; rep Readeis' Digest 52 (|une 1948): 16-18. Accessed at http://www.tbeatlantic.coni doc 194804/kcpt-name (October 31, 2010). Shlonio Kat/. "So You Changed Your Name," Congress Id'cekly (February 1948) Maass, "Integration and Name Changing." Lor other aiginnenls that suggest American Jews did not repress memories ot the 1 Inloc.tiw. in the yens immediately after the event, see, for example, Jeffrey Shandler, While Walihes: Televising the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press. 1999), Michael Staub. 7cu» tit the Roots: l'he Crisis of Jewish Liberalism in Postwar America (New Columbia University Press, 2002): Rona Sheramy, "'Resistance and War": The Holocaust in American Jewish Education, 1945-00," American Jewish History 91, no. 2 (June I'uu'i.: .'87-513; lawieiko Baron, "The Holocaust and American Public Memory, 19-15 on." Holocaust and Ceuoiidc Studies 17, no. I (Spring 2003): 62-88; Eric Sundquist, S, the Land: Pinks, Jews, Post IJolocaust Amerita (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2ni'-s ; Kirsten Perm.iglich, Ameiitan Dieatns and Nazi Nightmares: F.arly Holoatust (ioiisrion-m and Libeial Amerita, IV7-/''65 (Hanover, NFL Braudels University Press, 2000V belli Cohen. Case Closed: Holoiattst Survivors in Postwar Amerita (New Brunswick: Ruttels Umveisily Pi ess. 2,007); and 1 lasia 1 )iner, II "e Remember 11 Ith Reveieuce and Love (Nc w YoiL. New York University Pi ess, 2009). Surviv Beth ti. Prom I94C settled in t suivivors re channeled quietude o Finally, bei raced again Providence I lolocaust by survivoi survivors' c tiotn hisroi ii.u i ative.^ "survivors contradicrec Diel survive expressed? / histories tak refugee ager v " >ous strai: It is true began the pi for ant) settle moving fon difficult. Th men tones in American Je" Toon-. im tin- l')-Hh litlou-me. :essious o|- dlt!oK-|lCe 2-2 L ). tiled in te?, >rig. pub J, Jemmy ,>l >H:m'illy niiucii in in i .is cult he Viln.i ki phi.isc- is, I-J';.'), rimed m Mil/ dor ' 0: olo( .111^( • Aniens Midi.iel v Yoik: Oloi .Hist 45 mi; 2005); ' ion si ics> >); Beth Kutgcis v York; 12 THE MYTH OF SILENCE Survivors tell a different story Beth B. Cohen Fiom 194(5 thiough 1954, 140,000 surviving souls of the remnant of European Jewry settled in the United States.' Unable to bear their recent traumatic experiences, the suivivors icpressed their painful Holocaust memories in its immediate aftermath and channeled their eneigy and emotions into rebuilding new lives. Decades later, in the quietude of retirement and impending old age, survivors began to find their voice, finally, beginning in the 1980s, they were able to face their Holocaust years and i.iced against the clock to do so. From New York to Los Angeles, from Dallas to Providence, from San Francisco to Buffalo, America witnessed a proliferation of Holocaust oial history projects, memorials and museums driven, in large part, by survivors' urging and participation." This awakening signaled a major shift in suivivois' confrontation with their past. Or so popular as well as scholarly observers fiom historians to sociologists to psychoanalysts have traditionally described this narrative.3 Survivois, however, tell a very different story. Prompted by their remarks, which contradicted the accepted explanation of postwar silence, 1 probed this question.4 Did survivois speak in the immediate aftermath? If so, to whom? Flow was this expressed? And, if they did, why would we think they did not? Scrutinizing oral histories taken after the war, analyzing contemporary case files of survivors in Jewish refugee agencies' aichives, and studying postwar media helped illuminate and synthesize various strands of this thorny issue. It is true that most, though by no means all, Displaced Persons (DPs) quickly began the piocess of acculturating to life m America. They looked for jobs, searched tor and settled into apartments, and began raising families. The newcomers found that moving forwaid was possible but ignoring their memories less so. Forgetting was difficult. They could not forget, nor did they want to. Far from repressing their memories many weie eager, willing, indeed compelled to speak. But few in the American Jewish woild were inclined to listen. 182 Beth B. Cohen Survivors' recollections of this are vivid. "We were very bitter," said one cam survivor. Because "in the beginning the people in America didn't want ..." his vok failed. "We started to tell, nobody wanted to listen. And if somebody listened, the thought that, we told them stories, that it is not true. From the first minute I spoke, he continued, "... When I came to America, when 1 told the people, they thought I'm crazy ... they didn't want to listen," he repeated.5 Hanne was ready to tell her new family about the war years but when her American cousin asked her if she had had orange juice for breakfast in Auschwitz, she knew she could not and would not share her story. "People had no—no understanding," she said, explaining her cousin'-crushing ignorance. Even more, they "didn't really want to know." Hanne suggested that guilt rather than disinterest played a key role. But she remembered, too, that (American) jews "were also complaining that they suffered ... they didn't has enough meat and sugar."6 The attempt to equate their wartime experiences with survivors or to suggest that they empathized with their European relatives' suffering because of their own did not sit well with the newcomers. To the refugees, this signaled a deep, even unbridgeable chasm between the two groups and reinforced the belief that their American hosts did not care to hear about nor did they appreciate what survivors had endured. One woman recalled her frustration: "when I made an attempt to explain something sometimes, about the war, there was such lack of comprehension on the part of people I was talking to, that it shut me off ... And I—I just couldn't;—couldn't cope with that." A young Auschwitz survivor recollected a time when a classmate asked about her tattooed arm, inquiring "Why did you put your telephone number there?" It \va> question to which she knew she could not possibly offer an explanation.x "[I] siw tin-lack of understanding in the first years, so I decided not to waste my time," remembered another woman. "It was too emotional to open my wounds," she explained.9 Not long after her arrival in 1949, one young woman, a refugee reporter for the Yiddish daily the Forward, was asked to assist at a fund-raising event for a women's organization in Baltimore and readily accepted the invitation. Thinking she would find empathetic ears, she recalled looking out at her audience and began, "your faces remind me of my mother, murdered by the Nazis."10 The organization's president quickly interrupted and reminded the guest that her bad memories were in the past. As the hostess urged the band to resume playing, the survivor fled, resolving never to speak publicly about: her experiences again.11 .Some tried to broach the subject with their American kin, but in other instances the topic never came up. "How could the relatives not wonder about their murdered aunts and uncles?" puzzled one woman, whose father was the only child our of his large family who survived Auschwitz.12 But they did not inquire about their lel.itivfs fate. And the silence hung like a curtain separating the newcomers from their hosts. Commented another woman with finality, "No one ever asked."13 Similarly, at the New York Association for New Americans (NY AN A), a Jewish agency created in 1949 to help those refugees who settled in New York, professton.il social workers showed little curiosity about their clients' past. In the hundreds of NY ANA case files I scrutinized, few asked or encouraged conversation about w.mmir experience casework ei and a varie of the nigl was all abc Her traum; and "occas worries alx eager to fi difficulty r< continue h Mr. H. murdered i newcomer to him. Mr loss. The aj. search for e Mr. I me tl comp ted at he pe severe Fie durtin an ort and sc Thi syrnpti start a receive useful accusal expresi work ; Ihe messa the i ase files woikers igno believing t.ha Ai times the dial they wer ahcari as qnic Survivors tell a different story 183 id one o.unp ■., his voice listened, they rite I spoke," they thought ly to tell hei er if she had d would not ; her cousin's lie suggested "d. too, chat didn't have suggest that 'n did not. sit tnhridgeahle an hosts did Jne woman sometimes, .'ople 1 was ►vith that."7 I about her re?" It was '1.1 J saw the -•membcred ed.y •ter for the a women': she would 'your laces s president n the past, g never to i instances murdeied out of his r relatives' leir hosts. , a Jewish ofessional ndieds of t wartime experiences. But it was not because of reluctance on the DPs' part. One woman told her uiseworker that she "suffeis severe dizziness, heart palpitation, high blood pressure and a variety of anxieties." She went further, describing how she "wakes in the middle ut the night screaming and although she does not remember exactly what the dream was all about, she does know that she has very bad dreams and nightmare |sic|."14 Her traumatic experiences plagued her days, as well. She feared the dark and subways, tnd "occasionally, she suddenly gets the idea that they are about to be deported and worries about that for days at a time," her social worker noted. While she was most eager to find employment, her nightmares kept her awake for hours and she had liflieulty rousing herself in the morning. The social worker pressed the woman to :ontinue her job search. Mr. H. was a widower who arrived in New York City in August 1949.,:* His murdeied wife's sister and brother-in-law sponsored him but quickly referred the newcomer to NYANA when they felt that they had more than met their obligation :o him. Mr. H.'s wife had been killed in 1942, and he continued to struggle with the oss. The agency referred him to a psychiatrist when his condition interfered with his search tor employment. The examining physician wrote: Mr. H, 43 years old, was examined by me on June 1, 1950. The patient told me that he had never been seriously ill before, and that he had developed no complaints during 4 yeais in concentration camps but that his complaints started after his liberation. He has been here for 9 months, and complains now that he perspires excessively, that sometimes he has a weakness in his hands and gets severe headaches. He attributes his complaints to the severe emotional upsets he has suffered during the last 10 years. ... On physical examination there was no evidence of an oiganic disease of the nervous system but he showed increased perspiration and some trembling of the hands, disappearing when distracted. This patient suffers from a psychoneurosis with depressive and hysterical symptoms. I told him that the best way to get over his complaints would be to start a new life here by getting a regular occupation, and that his chances for recovery would not be good if he would have to spend the whole day without useful work. To this he reacted rather violently, saying that this meant an accusation that he was not willing to work. Nothing of this kind has been expressed by the examiner. It is my opinion that this patient should be put to work as soon as feasible.16 The message that work was seen as a remedy for the client's ills echoed throughout the case files. Repeatedly, in their rush to get the refugees off relief, the agency workets ignoieri, minimized or even mocked the newcomers' references to the war, believing that the newcomers wanted special treatment because of their experiences. At times the case workers suggested that the refugees were weak and dependent, or that they weie better off because of their experiences, and urged their clients to move ahead as quickly as possible and leave the past firmly behind. 184 Beth B. Cohen What accounts for these responses? A former social work intern at the Montefioi Hospital offers one explanation for her own and her colleagues' seemingly unsyii) pathetic stance. "We had no sense of the Holocaust as we know now, with a capital H. We really didn't understand what people were telling us," she remembered. "Tinstones were too horrible. We simply did not believe them," she admitted.17 Th social worker's response is illuminating. It highlights an attitude, which prevailed among the professionals. It also confirms that refugees were hardly repressing their experiences. The comment by the young intern professing disbelief, however, is worthy of a closer look. Numerous accounts in the postwar media, including newspaper's, memoir and professional journals (not to mention film and television), make it clear that thcr was considerable information about the Holocaust available to the public.IK With steady stream of information flowing from reliable sources, why would anyone who came face to face with the victims react to their stories with disbelief? How can w understand this? Or grasp why American Jews would ignore or trivialize survivors' attempts to speak—effectively silencing their efforts? Clearly, some may have dismissed or showed little interest in survivors' si ones because, when they finally confronted them, the Americans wished to avoid the pain—either their own or the survivors'—that they imagined discussion would evoke. Profound guilt on the part of American Jews that they were spared while Europe's Jews were slaughtered has also been suggested. In some instances, accultu-rated American Jews were likely embarrassed by the predominantly Eastern European refugees or the then-popular perception of European Jewry having gone as "sheep to the slaughter" and therefore distanced themselves from survivors. The records cei-tainly reveal that many American Jews did not want the financial or emotional burden of newly arrived relatives. It was one thing to read about genocide but quire another to be confronted with the living proof. The idea of disbelief seems implausible, and yet there may be a nugget of truth in it. While Americans may have seen 1945 newsreels of camps and their emaciated victims, or read searing accounts of camp life and the effect on its victims, the newcomers arriving particularly alter die DP Act of 1948 were outwardly healthy. Perhaps the American hosts simply could not or did not want to push their imaginations to bridge this dissonance. Finally, then-is the possibility of saturation. Americans may have felt they had already heard enough and did not need to hear more directly from the source. 1 suspect that all of these reasons contributed to the silence that survivors consistently remember greeted them. Can we hold the mental health professionals who worked with the refugees to a different standard? One might argue that we cannot expect otherwise in the immediate aftermath of the war, that in those years they simply did not have the took to help Holocaust survivors. After all, it is only with the Vietnam War that the notion of post-traumatic stress disorder became a widely accepted diagnosis, [s it unfair, then, to think that those who worked with the survivors would treat these victims of genocide any differently than they did? 1 believe not. The response of the Jewish Family and Children's Services in Boston (JFCS) argues most tellingly and persuasively for the possibility that the professionals, at least, could have behaved differently. In 1946, the who were American Bridgton, work coni New Ann "are able r rugged eir with sever Leonard Americans response ti was the kit to them .. hard to beli would be food for th That tin learning E included an magazine ( w hich he i One event we \ mem only quite ready time of till wliiel We \ some In this envi l heir past. ! v. espouse among the j w ere also gl; tor that rcas< after arrivini that she cot Survivors tell a different story 185 1946, the agency decided to experiment with placement strategies for refugee children who were beginning to arrive in the United States. One effort was a separate New American unit at an already existing Jewish summer camp, Camp Kingswood, in Bridgton, Maine. Beatrice Carter, JFCS director, delivered a paper to a national social work conference in which she stressed the therapeutic nature of this initiative. The New American unit was intended to offer a supportive setting in which the youths "are able to utilize many of the skills acquired in European experiences to master the rugged environment, which the new campsite offers."1'' This unique program began with seven children in 1946 and by 1949 had grown to include nineteen orphans.20 Leonard Serkess was a young social worker whose involvement with the New Americans began in 1947 at the summer camp. Speaking in 2002, he noted the staffs response to the refugees' attitude toward food. "One of the biggest problems we had was the kids would steal food and bring it back to the tents. And we tried to explain to them ... that there would be plenty of food," he remembers. Still, "they found it haul to believe. There was a perpetual hunger. ... |T|hey just never felt secure that there would be enough food for them."21 The staff recognized the special significance of food for the young DPs and allowed for it. That understanding pervaded the camp. The youngsters spent some of their time learning English, but there were also opportunities for creative expression. This included an original play by the teens about their lives during the Holocaust. In a literary magazine of the campers' work, one boy wrote "Why We Put the Play On," in which he describes the unusuabproduction; One day Szmul came out with the idea of a play about concentration camp events, and, m talking, he had already acted out parts of the future play. At first we were stunned and resented to be overcome again by the flood of evil memories. Then we resolved to face once more the reality that had been. We only needed to pass out roles, never learned any parts and never twice said quite the same words during the life-like rehearsals. Within a week we were ready to perform in front of the entire camp. During that week we had little time for classes. We lived only partly in the present. Some of us sang the songs of the concentration camps; some, who were to act as Nazis, sang the songs which before we so often had heard and hated. Then the Friday night came. We were deeply steeped irrto the past and we played from our hearts ... In some way we are freer now to live for the future.22 In this environment the young people, encouraged, spoke often and freely about their past. Responses such as the Jewish Family and Children's Services' were, however, rare among the Jewish communal organizations. Among newfound family members they were also glaringly absent. Even the expression of genuine sympathy was unusual and for that reason important to note. In an oral history, one survivor recalled her despair after arriving in the United States. She mourned her murdered family so intensely that she could not stop weeping. At night she screamed from her nightmares and 186 Beth B. Collen woke her young cousins. "Why are you crying?" they wanted to know. The young woman told her relatives. The response was simple and direct. "Cry, if this will help you," her aunt encouraged her. Moreover, she told her, "1 know it's not caw tor you, but we love you and we want you to be happy." Her aunt's understanding meant a gie.U deal. "1 appieuate those wotds what [sicj she said to me," recalled the woman in an mreiwcw neaily forty ye.us latei. "Till now 1 lemember them.' she emphasized M Although such examples aie conspicuously absent trom suivnor testimonies and case files, those that do appear indicated that smvivois could, would, and did speak under certain circumstances. Certainly there were those who chose to keep silent. Bernie Sayonne of Denver believes some did nor speak because they could not shake the internalized teat of persecution that shadowed their lives in America; better to keep a low piofile. he-reasoned, than to become a possible target of antisemitism.24 Some simply could not articulate their experiences. But many, many others' recollections belie the myth ot silence. "We, the survivors, even me, I'm talking personally, I wanted to, I wanted to talk about it," emphasized Nessie God in, who settled in Washington, DC, in 1949. "Why?" she asks hoi self. Because "in the most horrible times during the Holocaust, we used to sit and talk to each other, the women, hungry, cold, all the women used to say, please don't forget us. If you survive," she was instructed, "tell the wodd of what happened."'5 Nessie. as have others, takes this obligation seriously. "Those women asked me to talk about it." she affirmed.26 And talk she did. But, if the outside world was largely indifferent, to whom did Nessie and others turn? At first it was largely amongst themselves that they found the persistent desire to recall, a common language of mutual grid, and sympathetic ears. No matter where they settled, the newcomers created groups. Many who stayed in New York turned to laiidsmanschaftn, or hometown social clubs, which had been established by earlier Jewish immigrants after their arrival in America at the turn of the 20th century.2' During the Great War, the majority of the Eastern European Jewry in the United States still had parents, siblings, and cousins overseas who kept them strongly and directly attached to the towns of their birth. But by the late I' these connections bad attenuated. Their identities had shifted so that, as historian Daniel Soyer has noted, "the immigrants came to see themselves clearly as American J -..s. community distinct from those in the countries in Eastern Europe."2f> So much so that when DPs eagerly sought out their landslayt (descendants from their hometown} once in the United States, they were not necessarily received with open arms. 1 hese encounters were disappointing, noted survivor Hiller Bell, president of the United Belchatower Assistance Committee, when the old-timers did not welcome the refugees.29 The existing groups mobilized to send money to Palestine or to DIN in Europe, but welcoming the newly arrived landslayt in the United States whe both part of the surviving remnant of European Jewry and also the last link to then-own communities was not a priority. The lack of unconditional acceptance by his fellow Bellehatowcrs still rankled Mr. Bell more than fifty years later. Still, the growing number of refugees in New York like Mr. Bell jump-started existing I societies, in form their core of surv "to preserve New Cracc group, not because the Whether members a . survivors di were eager found "som Similarly, V friends; half must under: were each c The neee immigrants < defined one wherever st Club, as die together. 13 1939 Club, home to twi New Amen their associa group.-5-"' In comm In smaller c framework, homes on , arrived in 1 houses, evei .summertime suivivor, do.* boardwalk c Sam, who b small circle e great was hi: I is traveled I le recalled rime with ot And, ono couples, sup, Survivors tell a different story 187 re you 111; tins will not easy i standing Mlletl the f llicin." survivor 1. w Ollld. t Denver d fear ot' ofile, he ould noi airvivois. iph.isi/cri i herself d talk n> i'i toigel bout it," eient. u> Ives that rich and stayed in ad been turn ol uiopc.ui ho kept te MMOs l 1 J.inicl jews, a 1 111 l h so lelow m i. I hese United me th DPs in IO WIT to their > by hi till, th existiiii icieties, many of which were on the decline or defunct.30 Some felt the need to form their owrr groups within established organizations. Such was the case with a are of surviving Bialystokers who formed the Club of Bialystoker Friends, promising to preserve the cultural and spiritual heritage of Bialystok."31 Yet others, such as the sJew Cracow Friendship Society, differentiated themselves from the original Cracow group, rioted survivor Roman Weingarten and former landsmatndiqft president, because the earlier immigrants had no interest in the newcomers.32 Whether newly formed or recendy revamped, landsmamchafin promised the new niembeis a connection to their lost homes and murdered families. Within these circles, irvivors discovered others who might have known their parents and who, in turn, ■ere eager for information about their owrr relatives. Imagine the joy when a survivor found "someone who knew something about the family," remembered Fliller Bell.33 similarly, Roman Weingarten emphasized, "We came together as survivors and as friends; half of us ... we knew each other from Crakow or: we knew the family. You must understand [that] people came here after the war ... they had no family. We were each other's families."34 The need to be with others was consuming. In the absence of Imuhnumschaftn, the immigrants created alternatives where identity as a survivor, not one's country of origin, defined one's membership. The postwar landscape was dotted with these groups wherever suivivots settled. In 1950, Indianapolis refugees created a New Americans Club, as did those in Boston. In Kansas City, Missouri, newcomers quickly joined together. Twelve Polish refugees in Los Angeles banded together in 1952 to form the 1939 Club, so named to remember the year Hitler invaded Poland. Denver was home to two clubs: Club 1939 for German Jews who had survived in Shanghai and the New Americans Club for those from Eastern Europe. Some DPs in Dallas dubbed their association "New Texans." Refugees in Cleveland, Ohio, formed the Menorah group.33 In community after community, New American Clubs sprang up and took root. In smaller communities, survivors met informally without an official organizational framework. Some families in Providence, Rhode Island, congregated in one another's homes on a weekly basis, recalled Heinz Sandelowski, a German survivor who arrived in 1947.36 Nearly fifty years later, he recounted, "We got together at our houses, every Saturday night at somebody else's house. We played cards and in the summertime, we went to the ocean or to the park."37 Sidi Natansohn, an Auschwitz survivor, described how young adult refugees met regularly in the late 1940s on the boardwalk of New York's Brighton Beach. It was there she met another survivor, Sam, who became her husband.38 Mr. Krell, a Polish refugee, began meeting with a small circle of other men in a local coffee shop. Soon it became a regular event.39 So great was his need to be with other newcomers after his arrival in 1949 that Naftali Lis traveled by train from Hartford, Connecticut, to New York City every Sunday. He lecalled going to the temporary refugee hotels in New York in order to spend time with other DPs even if they just "walked the streets together."40 And, once together, what did the refugees discuss? Nessie G. recalled "five, six couples, survivors coining to our house on the Sabbath, having a little lunch, what 188 Beth B. Cohen did we talk about? ... comparing each other's suffering, telling how it was, talkin about bow by miracle we survived this selection and that selection and in a wa} 1 think this was really beneficial to us ... we didn't keep it inside."41 Mr. Weingarten of the New Cracow Friendship Society unequivocally stated, "There was no con versation that did not end up on the subject."4- "Even in social situations," remarked one woman, "the topic always came up."43 When Denver's New American Club socialized, the discussion "always came back to the same thing," recalled lierni Sayonne. Mr. Fan) Kroll continues to meet with a small cadre of other male stirvivoi at a local coffee shop in the Bronx. "No matter what we start talking about; politic the stock market ... we always end up talking about the war," he asserted.44 'Fhe newcomers sought one another out. The structures varied but the intent was clear: they wanted the comfort of others like themselves. These groups provided sustenance on many levels, from mutual aid to casual socializing to profound and lasting bonds. For many, these groups became the family and the community that had been brutally and irrevocably destroyed. Those wdiose physical and existential past hat! been shatteied longed to be with others who shared a common histoiy; to reclaim their past and ensure that it existed outside of their imaginations. Whethei by virtue of their refugee status and their Holocaust experiences, or because ot a hometown association, these bonds formed the basis of new communities. The desire to be together and create or re-create a community clearly motivated the formation of their first groups, but many quickly came to address the comples and pressing need to remember in a more formal way. Many of the groups became the spiinghoarris for some of the first Holocaust memorials in America. Some created yizkor (memorial) books, and commemorations, others erected monuments. 1 here were those who did both. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, monuments began to crop up in cities or towns with a suivivor community. Providence survivors purchased a plot in the city's ]cwbl) cemetery for their stone. The Hilled Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Denver, donated space on their grounds to the New American Club.4'' Soiuewh.u later, in 1961, the New Cracow Friendship Society erected three stones. "Our lust monument that went up has our parents' names," explained Roman Weingaitcu."' Fhe inclusion of names became a common practice and crucial component ol the monuments. It not only guarded against oblivion but as scholar James Young notes, also acted as a symbolic grave tor those who had none.47 Monuments were not the only acts of memorialization. Survivors from numeiotis Itimlsmtmsclhift and New American groups recall that communal yizkor services abo began as soon as, or veiy soon after, the groups were established and continue even ,is their numbers dimmish. "We have a monument for the people who died by the Nazis and every year we go there for yizkor to remember our people" emphasized Mr. Bell of Belch.itower.48 While Jewish tradition mandates the recitation of yizkor on the deceased's yolirzcit (anniversary of date of death) many, of course, did not know the exact date of relatives' deaths. Therefore, groups adopted the custom of communal yizkor on a date that carried a particular significance. "Every year the organization [New Cracow Friendship Society] commemorates the liquidation ot the ghetto in ! they sent Crodners their horn chose the service.3' during the the Day ol to the deci A third is the recc the war, s tangible fc and descrip specific pla communiti I ithuanian 1 lebrew, a on recordii and vibran which inev during the written am their menu postwar ye; Survivor: American k memories, t American li g.iottps, the did — thron« books and Stnvivois h world enco roc eptive au indeed, fror tes 1 I eonard Univeistt he Natic '-' It was di retted ,r Meinonal Survivors tell a different story 189 was, talking d in a way, Weingaiten /as no eon ," reniaikeil erican Club died lieiuie lie survivors nit; politic s, " intern )s provided afound and nunity thai I existential history; to Whether by cause ok a motivated te complex ips became me cieatcd 'iits. There ■s or towns ity'sjev -• school m Somewhat "Our fust ingarten.'" cut of" the ung no s numerous rvices also tie even as ed by the mphasi/.ed i of }>;'.;/.vi ', did not custom of ' year the ion of"the ghetto in Match 1943," Roman Weingarten explained.4'' "We chose August I I when thev sent out all the people from our little ghetto," commented Mr. Bell.'0 The Giodners in New York picked the date in Maich that marked the deportation of their hometown's twenty-nine thousand Jews."'1 The Denver New American Club •hose the anniversary of the Wat saw Ghetto Uprising as the annual date for their ervice.'•' The 1939 Club in l.os Angeles did likewise.'3 Still otheis chose a day lining the week between Rosb Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yoni Kippur, he Day of Atonement, when Jews traditionally visit a cemeteiy to pay their respects o the deceased. A third profound and compelling example of survivors' early acts of meinotialization s the recording and lemembering embodied by yizkor books. Immediately after he war, survivois began the process of memorializing their devastated world in a tangible form. Culled from membeis' rich collections of photographs, anecdotes, aid descriptions, these books paid homage to the vanished Jewish world in general and pecifie places, in particular. "For 1 ithuanian Jews, like Jews liom all of the muideied ommunities in Europe," wrote Uriah Katzenelerrbogen in his introduction to the Lithuanian memorial book, "aie in mourning,"34 Written primarily in Yiddish or Hebrew, and largely the effort of hitidimiiisfhaft groups, the memorial books focused >n recording and restoring to memory, in as much detail as possible, the people, life and vibrancy of a place. The books followed a chronological nanarivc, however, vhich inevitably led to the survivois' accounts of the final days ot their hometown luring the khinbn (Holocaust). The close to eight bundled yizkor books that were vritten and published as early as 1947 testify to the fact that lather than lepressing heir memories, survivois acquhed a purposeful and collective voice in the immediate lostwar years.'" Survivors were by no means silent immediately after the Holocaust. While their American hosts typically encouraged the newcomeis to move on and abandon their nemories, the surviving lemnant found this to be impossible. As they aceultuiated to American life, refugees joined fences and created a lange of social networks. In these ■.roups, they confionted their past and the need to lemember. And remember they lid - through speaking, building the first Holocaust monuments, clearing memorial looks and coinmemotations. Ample evidence contradicts the myth of silence. Survivois had much to say but not because relatives, social workers, or the outside vorld encouraged them. It would be some yeats befoie survivois' stories found the icceptive audience that they wanted and deserved from their American bietbren and, indeed, from the wider society. Notes 1 leonaid Dinneisteiu Await a tiutl the Smrwois of the Hokums! (New Yoik Columbia Univetsity 1'iess, 1982), 388. The leioids of the United Seiviec for New Aniem.uis and the National Refugees Semie agtee with this (iguie. 2 It was duimg this penod that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was erected as well as regional Holocaust museums including the Rhode Island Holocaust Memonal Museum when- I was Dneetoi of Ecluc ation fioni l')88 <)8 190 Beth B. Cohen 3 7 8 9 10 1 l 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 Sec Martin Bergman and Milton Jucovy, eds. Generations of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press); T.L. Brink, ed., Holocaust Survivals' Mental Health. (Binghamtoii, NY: Hayworth Press, 1994); W. Helmreich, Against . 1// 0,M<: Holoutitst Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 19%); Dorothy Rabinowitz, New Lives: Survivors of the Holoiaust Living in Ameiita to name a few that reinforce this notion that survivors repressed their past in order to move forward and build new lives. See B. Cohen's Case Glased: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 2007), which draws on hundreds of oral histories and case files from Jewish Communal agencies to analyze survivors' early postwar years. Bernie Sayonne, interview with the author, tape recording, Rookville, MI). 2. December 2004. H. Liebman, RG-50.407*0086, Postwar Interviews, 5 July 1998, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) Archives. S. Lipiiian, RG-50.02*0018, Postwar Interviews, 4 August 1998, USHMM Archives. R. Gelb. RG-50.02*0013, Postwar Interviews, 18 March 1998, USHMM Archives. A. Salsitz, RG-549.02*0054, Postwar Interviews, 5 July 1999, USHMM Archives, S. Taube, interview with the author, tape recording, Rookville, MD, 14 Dei ember 2004. Ibid. Anat Bar Cohen, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 6 January 2005. Amalie Sandelowski, interview with the author, tape rerouting. Providence, Rl, 3 March 2000. NYANA Case file 322-49, New York Association for New Americans Archives (NYANA), New York, NY. NYANA Case file 324-50.NYANA Archives. Ibid. As quoted in Barbara Burstin, "Holocaust Survivors: Rescue and Resettlement," in JiteiJi Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Paula flyman and Deborah Dash Moore (New York: Routledge. 1997), 656. ' '■'■..'■ See ("ollen. Op.Cit.1 55-72, Hasia Diner, We Remember with Reveieuce and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962 (New York: NYU Press, 2009) and Lawrence Baron "The Holocaust and American Public Memory, 1945-60," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 17:1 (Spring 2003), 62-88 for discussion of the Holocaust in the public eye. Beatrice Carter, "Social Case Work with the Adolescence in a Piogram of Son il Cjv Work with Displaced Persons," paper read at the National Conference of Social Woik. Atlantic City, 1950, cited in Glantz, "Factors in the Adjustment of New American Children in their First Year in the United States" (master's thesis, Simmons Colhis.v. 1950), 27. Ibid. Leonard Serkess, interview with the author, tape recording, Newton, MA, 27 February 2002. Harry Plow, "Why We Put the Play On," in Twice Bom, ed. Joshua Rosenberg, writing from the New American Unit, Camp Kingswood, Bridgcon, ME, Summer 1948, 21. E. Beder, RG-5().()91*()0()4, National Council ofjewish Women Oral History P.ojat. Cleveland, 27 August 1984, USHMM Archives. Sayonne, interview. N. Godin, RG-50.549.01*0009, Postwar Interviews, 14 December 1095, USHMM Archives. Godin, interview. Studies of'taiidsniatischaftn include Daniel Soyer's Jewish Immigrant Associations and Amencm Identity in New York,' WHO-1939 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1WT, which provides an excellent analysis; a work produced by the WPÄ Yiddish • project (Yiddish Writers' Group, Di yidishe landinanschaftn fun nyu york), which i-, the most ci Kliger's 11 'riteis' 28 Sover, , 29 LIriler i 30 Ibid. 31 I. Ryba NY:' Ei 32 Roman 33 Bell, int 34 Weinga 35 "Aroun 3 (May 36 Heinz S 2000. 37 Ibid. 38 Sidi Nat 59 Paul Kr. 10 Naftah I i I Godin, 12 Roman 13 T.R. tel 14 Krell, in 45 Sayonne 46 Weingai 47 James' Y CI': Yal 48 Bell, int. '9 Weingai >0 Bell, Int, 4 Yizkor I Lor Jewis Sayonne .'3 To Rente M. Soda 1951), 3. 55 Jack Kus Polish feu Holocau: Survivors tell a different story 191 (New York-nihil Health. Ills: I A'/e.-i/m; Iiaiis.K iron. II ■illhlh.l [o der to move Brunswick: from Jewish 2 Decembcr es I loliH-.uist Aiehiv Archive chives. ,'nrber 2004. »05. ■■■■ idence. Rl. ns Aichives it," in Jewish 'oi.ih D.ish it".- Ainniuiu Press, 201 I'll <>0," Holo' lolocatist in Social ( icial Work, ' American rs Collotie. most comprehensive contemporary description of the societies in the 1930s; Hannah Kliger's Jewish Hometown Associations and Family Circles in New York: 'Die WPA Yiddish Wiitcis' Group Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992). 28 Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations, 162. 29 Hiller Bell, telephone conversation with the author, Sharon, MA, 12 January 2003. 30 Ibid. 31 I. Rybal, L. Kronick, and 1. Sbnmlewitz, eds., The Bialystoker Memorial Book (Brooklyn, NY: Empire Press, 1982), 171. 32 Roman Weingarten, telephone interview with the author, Sharon, MA, 20 January 2003. 33 Bell, interview. 34 Weingarten, interview. kS "Around the Nation," New Neighbors (United Service for New Americans newsletter) 3 (May 1950): 7. 36 Heinz Sandelowski, interview with the author, tape recording, Providence, RI, 9 March 2000. 37 Ibid. 38 Sidi Natansohn, interview with the author, tape recording, Sharon, MA, 4 February 2003. 39 Paul Krell, interview with the author, Bronx, New York, 7 March 2002. 10 Naftali Lis, interview with the author, Sharon, MA, 21 March 2002. 11 Godin, interview. 12 Roman Weingarten, telephone interview with the author, Sharon, MA, 20 January 2003. 13 T.R. telephone interview with author, Sharon, MA, 3 December 2002. 14 Krell, interview. 15 Sayonne, interview. 16 Weingarten, interview. 17 James Young, The ""Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 7. 48 Bell, interview. 49 Weingarten, interview. 50 Bell, Interview. 51 Yizkor Flyer, United Grodner Relief Inc. of New York, N.Y., 1954, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Archives, RG 996, Box 1, New York. 52 Sayonne, interview. 53 To Remember Is to Know (Los Angeles: Club 1939, 1982), 3. 54 M. Sodarsky and J. Katzenelenbogen, eds., Lithuania, vol. 1 (New York: Futuro Press, 1951), 33. Translated from Yiddish by the author. 55 Jack Kugelinass and Jonathan Boyarin, From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Hooks of Polish Jewry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998). 7 Pebmaiv g, writings 94 S, 21 ry Projci t. USHMM •d Amen ess, 19<; sh writt lieh is i ORIGINS AN YTH OF SI! M E Al „NQE Hasia R. Diner The title of this volume After the Holocaust, Challenging the Myth of Silence alludes to my 2009 book, We Remember with Reverence and Love: American jews and the M Silence After the Holocaust, 1945-1962. In that book I explored the multiplicity of ways, times, places, and genres in and by which American jews in the period from the end of World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany into the early part of the tempestuous decade of the 1960s made the Holocaust part of their communal cultine. I examined how the jews of the United States through their many institutions -including but not limited to synagogues and seminaries, philanthropic and defense organizations, schools, summer camps and youth groups, political and human relations bodies, their press and other organs of opinion and information in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew—-wove the details of the catastrophe into their public works. I asked how, text by text, artifact by artifact, deed by deed, they attempted to accomplish several chores. How did they, so divided by political ideology, class, region, religious affiliation, and language, experiment with words and actions to hallow the memoiy of those who had been so brutally extirpated as well as that of their destroyed communities and cultures? How, through the thousands of organizations scattered in hundreds of communities which made up the inappropriately labeled "Amenc.in Jewish community," did they employ the details and images of the horrendou appearance of one-third of their people to affect political and cultural changes in their own Jewish world, in America, and indeed in the world writ large? Having set that as my task, the phrase "myth of silence" should have had no place as part of my title. After all, that myth, a term I use to actually refer to a false histoiv. first surfaced in the late 1960s, an era so different from the one I focused on. Dining the years I studied nearly no one complained that American Jews did not talk, write, and act in the name of the Holocaust. Writers and educators, rabbis and coniinunitv leaders articulated a fear that forgetting would take place and directed much ol their attention to imbuing in children and young people a sense of connection to the destroyed groups wl about this lessons as segment a to remem those whc recognizee the Holoc In cont I had not post-war i venues for as they pn who wield volition 01 its affltienc under the and much destroyed believe haj end of the in general Since I ] Holocaust experimen decades di< those of tl that proviil but rather Yet the in a circuit and those scholarly c me, in oik I retrieved writings an oblivion? X i got not ( leinember they dotib University explore wl so resilient. Origins of the myth of silence 193 destroyed Jews and their culture. American Jews, representing the many interest groups which flourished, surely sparred with each other over the correct way to go about this memorialization, and each swathe derived different political and religious lessons as to how the Holocaust did and ought to reverberate in their present. One segment after another considered that it had devised the best and most effective way to remember the victims and the most appropriate way to act in the name of those who had been liquidated. But all converged around a shared perception that lecognizcd how much American Jewish public life had become an arena which put the Holocaust in a prominent place. In contiast, in the late 1960s and continuing into the present, a period of time 1 had not chosen to study, a narrative took hold which asserted emphatically that post-war American Jews either could not or would not make their communities venues for the memorialization of the Holocaust and that failed to use the Holocaust as they presented themselves to their American neighbors, and certainly not to those who wielded political power. In this rendition of the past, whether told as a matter of volition on the part of 1950s American Jews, or by compulsion, in those years, with its affluence, its increase in religious and ethnic tolerance, its rush to the suburbs, and illudes to under the thieatening cloud of the Cold War, American Jews had nothing to gain ' Myth of and much indeed to lose if they kept alive the narrative of the six million Jews 'hcity of destroyed by the German Nazis and their allies. This understanding of what they iod from believe happened in the post-war, or better, what did not happen, which arose at the ut of the end of the 1960s, continues to dominate the thinking of many American jews, who 1 culture. in general dismiss evidence to the contrary. The myth pievails. utions— Since I had wanted to write about the years from 1945 until the early 1960s when defense Holocaust commemoration and the political action in its name took place on an relations experimental, glass roots, scattered, and nearly spontaneous basis, the subsequent Yiddish, decades did not enter into my scholarly calculus. The texts of the earlier years, not I asked those of the later era, constituted the vast archival and published trove of material .'omplish that provided me with the stuff of research. I was not concerned with the false history religious but rather the actual one. memory Yet the "myth of silence" did end up on the cover and spine of the book, although "d com- in a circuitous way. When I spoke to rny colleagues, historians of the United States tered in * and those who studied in particular the American Jewish past, when I presented at anern.ni scholarly conferences, or shared my ideas with rny doctoral students, they all asked ions dis-, me, in one way or another, where did the myth come from? Why had the material m their I retrieved gotten lost? Why did the ceremonies, liturgies, political and philanthropic • writings and speeches, the ceremonies, journalism and pedagogical works get cast into no place oblivion? When 1 lectured to community groups, mostly in Jewish communal settings, history, ..- I got not only the adamant response that I had to be wrong because they did not During • - remember the post-war years as I presented them, but also if I am right, which s, write, they doubted, how come everyone else got it wrong? My editor at New York lniuniry- University Press and nearly everyone else pressed me to tackle the myth, not only to of their explore where it came from and how it developed, but why it has proven to be to the so resilient. 194 Hasia R. Diner Initially 1 answered quite glibly, that answering those questions, important ones, did not fall into my purview. Let some other scholar tackle them. This subject woul make an important book, or better, books. Perhaps I would put one of my doctoral students on to this. But ultimately my interlocutors convinced me that without th myth, We Remember with Reverence and Lone would be incomplete and would leav my readers dangling. So I ended up tackling it, in what I realize is a tentative an hopefully suggestive manner, by devoting a chapter, entitled "The Comiption of History, The Betrayal of Memory," to the question hurled at me by so many. That chapter, which in fact lay beyond the scope of my extensive primary material research, led me to see how the myth of silence sprouted in the latter part of th 1960s as an engaged and enraged generation of young Jewish activists, imbibing, am indeed playing a formative role in creating, the heady youth rebellion, began to challenge the elders of their communities, whom they defined as the "Jewish establishment," a subset of the hated establishment responsible for racism, the war ii Vietnam, class inequalities, and the like. Like so many other young people, colleg' students in particular, they castigated the dominant practices and prevailing rhetoric of die America they had grown up in. They took it to task for its emphasis on consensus and compromise with evil, its pressures towards conformity and willingness to shed ideology in order to get ahead. No institution lay outside the scope of the fury of' the youthful rebels as they trained their attention on the corrupt workings of die government, the universities, the families and communities of the middle class. For those insurgents who had been raised in a variety of ethnic communities, die late 1960s provided a time to lambast the leaders of the organizations and institutions that represented their group. According to these young people, the adults who tan the institutions that made up their ethnic enclave had too long faced the larger society with an accommodationist, conciliatory and assimilationist persona, ignoung the violence which American society had perpetrated upon them. Among the eneigt/cd young people of the late 1960s, African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Native Americans, among others, stood out as examples of those who held up their establishments for harsh criticism for the sin of having neglected to condemn American society harshly enough for the sins of the past and present directed against their people, for having given America a too-easy pass for its crimes. They leserved some of their harshest rhetoric for group leaders who went out of their way to understate the evil perpetrated by America and to counsel soft rather than haish rhetoric. This barb, heard broadly in the heated discourse of the era, gave a prominent place to narratives of the past, as articulated by students and young adults in the various communities. Why, militant young Japanese Americans asked, did our patents, leaders of our communal institutions, our ethnic press, and the like fail to tell us and others about the horrors of the World War II internment camps? Why, militant voting African Americans asked, did the community leaders, the creators of our texts and communal practices, downplay, almost to the point of suppression, the brutal history of slavery in favor of a narrative which emphasized achievement over adversity? Flies all made the tragic history of their group an element in a vast generation gap. Anierii might rot of the lati communi message t that cond what the) leaders to 1940s, or These v and its m attention genuine g federation corruptioi had atfetK boldly cla with utter blotted 01 agenda of Powerfi generation For one, tl own time, they first It journalists, of a range to believe fhcy matu nities, they the post-w only hail f organizatio ami such ii promising ; and distine 1960s and they had e much detn to power," silence seiv Because and substai behind a cc Origins of tlie myth of silence 195 *nt ones, . American Jewish college students and others who associated with a group we '-1 would might roughly call the "new Jews," not only helped shape the general youth rebellion doitoral of the late 1960s, but some among them turned their attention to their own Jewish m"" die ■ communities and its leaden. In a rhetorical flood which echoed in tone, tenor, and aid leave message that of their peers, they lobbed a critique at their own establishment, and in u,Vt' -'"d that condemnation of the status quo they had much to say about the Holocaust and Pr|ou what they believed to be the failure of the Jewish communal institutions and their '}'• ■ leaders to confront it, either as it proceeded along its deadly pace in the 1930s and •material 1940s, or in its post-war aftermath. 11 oi die These young "new Jews" took on a variety of issues, not just that of the Holocaust >ing. .mil anxl its memory. They also critiqued the Jewish leadership for devoting too little H"8',n U) attention to education, squandering resources on superficialities, and not instilling *b est,iP genuine group pride. They condemned rabbis, Jewish community center workers, ■ 111 federation activists, educators, and others for going along too willingly with the > college corruption of American society. Despite the programs at the summer camps that they etonc of had attended, despite the community events, pedagogic material, and sermons, they onseusus boldly claimed that the subject of the Holocaust had never surfaced. They charged ro sbed with utter certainty that the adults who held tightly to the reins of power purposely buy of blotted out the memory of the Holocaust because it jarred with the communal ;s of the agenda of accommodation and assimilation. iSS- Powerful and long lasting implications flowed from the words composed by this ities, the geneiation of young Jews, who like their peers put little stock in subtlety or nuance, •ti tut ions For one, these young people grew up to become an establishment, as it were, in their who ran own time, and they continued to assert the truth which had seemed so right when ic larger they fust tiompeted it. That is, they continued, whether they became rabbis, historians, ignoring journalists, liteiaiy critics, directors of communal organizations, and active members neigized of a range of Jewish institutions who shaped and participated in community projects. 1 Native t0 believe in what they had said decades earlier. In the decades beyond their youth, as ir estab- they matured and made up the leadership and membership of the Jewish coinmu- .niencau nitics, thev consistently repeated this assertion as an incontestable fact. That fact, that against the post-war geneiation had ignored the Holocaust, allowed them to claim that not reserved only had thev "discovered" it but also that they, unlike those who had directed the way to organizations, institutions, schools, summer camps, community centers, synagogues, in hatsh , and such in the post-war period, did so from an assertively particularistic and uncompromising peispective which in an unembarrassed manner asserted Jewish difference aminent and distinctiveness. Unlike those who came before them, they said starting in the late the var- 1960s and then into the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, that parents, they had exchanged the shallow obsequiousness which characterized the Jews of the ' us an^ much demonized 1950s for a willingness to boldly shriek, as the phrase went, "truth it young to power," even if they had to do so in uncomfortable ways. That is, the myth of .'Xts and silence served to confirm a generational narrative. I history Because the young Jewish militants of the 1960s, so much in line with the style I bey ;U,d substance of their era, produced so much in the way of written texts, they left '• behind a compendium of documents on which future historians, from the 1980s and 196 Hasia R. Diner beyond, could draw as they began to write the history of post-war America. Until then historians did not yet engage with the developments of the years after World War II, but by the 1980s, with just enough distance and enough archives, the subject emerged as a focus of scholarship. By the 1980s younger scholais entered the profession and for many of them the post-war existed as history as opposed to part of their own lived experiences. These scholars also could turn to the rhetorical output of the "new Jews" to learn what had happened in the post-war. Thus by the second to last decade of the twentieth century we began to see the first journal articles and then books, or chapters in books, which focused on the years following the conclusion of World War II and the 1950s. For anyone wanting to write something about the histoiy of post-war American Jews and their relationship to the Holocaust, the words of the late 1960s generation proved to be foundational. Here they had broadsides, articles, manifestos, and books that offered a very clear statement as to what had happened. These polemical works provided the evidence not only of the culture of criticism which rocked America in those years, but also proof of the now assumed truth that the post-war years had been resoundingly silent when it came to the Holocaust. As they were used, these works served as handy and accessible primary documents, less of the late 1960s than of the period which preceded it. These words proved to be useful to historians who wanted to achieve a variety of ends, which could be seen as fundamentally political. For those who hoped to write a history of the period which took as its theme the post-war American Jewish generation's assimilationist goals, pursued in order to win acceptance into the white middle class during an era shaped by an emphasis on compromise and fitting in, then American Jewry's unwillingness to talk about the Holocaust, to remember it publicly to act upon it politically, served as a compelling piece of evidence. Insofar as it confirmed the historians' assumptions that winning acceptance into the post-war American mainstream, which emphasized sameness, abhorred ideology and suspected deviance, a world that opened up to American Jews in the years immediately following the war's end, then the "fact" that they eschewed talking, writing, thinking, or acting upon the Holocaust made ample sense. Many of the historians who helped build and sustain the myth of silence put a great deal of stock in the momentous days of early June 1967. The myth of silence in fact pivots on the war between Israel and the Arab countries which commenced that month. According to the dominant paradigm of American Jewish histoiy, that war transformed the Jews of the United States. It functions as a key watershed m the periodization of that history. Some scholars have, seen Israel's military victory as a critical moment that linallv gave American Jews something to be proud of, and which shook them out ol lhen post-war lethargy. The brilliance of Israel's military might pushed American Jews into a "sudden" willingness to be demonstratively Jewish. Once invigorated by brack American Jews could now confront, as articulated by these makers of the myth, that which they could not before, memorialize that which they previously shunted aside, and go public with a story that heretofore they had veiled in obscurity. Israel's 1 1967 mili rebellion lacked. Tl hiding pla lipli Other 1 kites' - - the meani ■4 American Holocaust place on t mifdlnlis ii communa American marginalit particular AIP and also t Holocaust •ftWffP-- '■' "■■ oiiahzatioi síl myth, litfk with contc Whatev minenee c: 1967 war, justified tl bottom lin ■Pŕ and broad All?/:' -,; make elain Wß claim that Likewise and its atfr, ing in it. By th iiplíl now niatu f|||!!^; sli Liggling ■'S behave in lllJJlg had always in lie lieu end of the memories i sulfering ai place to in agendas m miß- took place history ova ÉiPií words as ti Origins of the myth of silence 197 c.c Until it Work! ic subjoc i the pro -o pari of" autpur of econd u> and then fusion of \merican .'Deration id books al works lierica in had been se works in of" the /ariety of o write a location's idle class \nierican iy to -act anfirmed \mcrican leviance, wing the jr acting ce put alence in iced thai that war d in the at: finally of" then ews into >y Israel, yth, that shunted /. Israel's t%7 mihtaiv bravado, an event which, by coincidence, took place as the youth rebellion churned, piovided American Jews with the backbone winch they had lacked. That backbone made it possible for them to bring the I lolotaust out of its hiding place. Other historians, writers, and intellectuals have offered a ditfeient kind of lake on the meaning of 1967, but for them that date resonates just as profoundly in terms of Ameilean Jews' willingness to go public with, and derive pohtH.il capital from, the Holocaust. They have claimed that until 1967 Israel occupied a relatively low place on the Anient an Jewish agenda, just as the Holocaust did. But aftei that annus mihibilis m modern Jewish history, Isiael climbed to the top of their political and communal concerns, and in outer to suppott, sustain, and advocate fin Isiael, American Jews, the leadeisbip in paiticulai, extricated the Holocaust fiom its maigmality and pushed it into the center of the rhetorical aisenal. Attonhng to this particular rtetation of the myth, as American Jews sought to make then case foi Isiael and also transformed Israel into a sacred religious symbol, they found use for the Holocaust, something which they had not clone or needed to do befoie. I be mem-onalization of the Holocaust as such had. according to one set of petpetiatois of the myth, little or nothing to do with the tiagedy of"the six million and everything to do with contemporary politics. Whatever their aims, schohus who have pinpointed the ruining point in the pio minence of the Holocaust m American Jewish life and culture at the moment of the 1967 war, have turned to lhetonc of the late 1960s radical youth as evidence that justified their conclusion. In doing so they have violated what I cousidet to be a bottom line necessity m the practice of history, namely, a thorough, deep, systematic, and bioad linmeision m the piunaiy souices. Histonans have an obligation to not make claims about silence without a careful analysis of the historic lecoid. I he) tan claim that silence reigned only aftei digging deeply and widely m the souices. Likewise the myth of silence owed something of its tenacity with the Jewish public and its attiactiveness to histoiians because it dovetailed with the woids of the suivivois living m America in the years beyond the post-war period, the 1970s into the pie-sent. By the 1970s and especially m the two subsequent decades, I lolocaust suivivots, now marine adults who had settled down firmly in then once new homes, finished stiugghng for a living, and completed the laismg their Anient.an clulthen, began to behave in relatively new ways. While they bad always acted politic ally as a bloc and had always participated in building the memorial cultuie m America, as 1 demonstrate m lie Reniemba witli Hcmenie and Uwc, survivois now. like many Ameucuis m this end of the twentieth-centuiy mode, insisted on telling then stones and sharing then memories of what had happened to them both during the most dreadful days of their suffeiing and upon their hbeiation and lesettlement in America. While tins is not the place to interrogate how they recalled what had happened to them and what their agendas may have been, they shared their memones many decades after the events took place. In sharing those memories they have insisted on the supeiioritv of oial lnstoiy over aicluval and other papei souices, and histoiians have accepted their words as true statements of past events. 198 Hasia R, Diner The survivor witness programs, like those undertaken with many other people operated on the assumption that memory equaled fact. Notwithstanding the over whelming conclusion of cognitive scientists and others who have studied the spurious and flawed nature of memory, historians already predisposed towards the myth, nov had yet another form of corroboration which confirmed the truth that the public world of post-war American Jewry constituted one in which no one wanted to hear what had happened to those who had undergone the ordeal of the Nazi conquest of Jewish Europe. If no one in the American Jewish community cared to learn tin details, then surely the places Jews occupied—schools, synagogues, organizational gatherings, and the community press—must surely have been devoid of discussion o the Holocaust. Because of the nearly sacred role adopted by the survivors and accorded to them by late twentieth century American Jewry, few historians have been comfortable with the idea of interrogating those memories and this furtlie ground the myth of silence firmly into the soil of the communal culture. The historians who have bought into the words of the late 1960s radicals and tin retrospective statements of survivors, among others, frankly ought to have known better than to take what emerged as communal memory and inscribe it into their scholarship. Those memories and politically-charged declarations should have scived not as the stopping points for scholars but rather as the starting point. If most or even all survivors, for example, have said in their oral histories that in the communities where they settled no one ever mentioned the Holocaust, then it behooves the historian to search the primary sources of that city, read the programs of public meetings, discover the documents of the organizations, imnietse themselves in tin-local Jewish press. Do those documents confirm the memories of Holocaust avoidance or do they offer an alternative portrait? 1 pose these here as rhetorical questions because they provided me with im research plan, and what I found amounted to the complete opposite of the suivivor memory. Nearly all American Jewish communities into the early 1960s (and no doubt beyond) staged, for example, an annual Warsaw Ghetto Memorial program. Organizers invited survivors to stand on the platform and light memorial candles, and asked one or more of them to talk about what had happened to them. The questions must be asked about the claims of survivors that when they came 10 America they met indifference and even hostility everywhere, including in the hnul-smanshaftn, the hometown societies of the Polish communities that had been founded in America a half century or more earlier. They may remember it that way, but die records, the minute books and program notes of these groups, tell a very different story. Besides documenting the clubs' efforts to find survivors from their town and offer them material assistance, the minutes of the meetings testify to the joy survivors showed up, the excitement articulated in a nearly sacred tone, that one ol their "gehlihbene," those who had been left, physically appeared. Narratives of what had happened to them as individuals and to the destroyed community made up the stuff of the societies' documentary material. Further, as organizations made up of septuagenarians and beyond whose American-raised children had little or no c <>n-nection to the home town, the landsmanshaftn recognized the need from a vciy practical slamming, systematic in these y America 1 How i Jewish cc hold doe: it contim two ways this proje deprecate ungratefu rather tin Some or teenag synagogu beard. Vv Educatioi 1950s, co they will Jewish hi in its thir catastropl my staten Jewish Tl the Holoc remembe book, am on empir certainty newspape Jewish Sen 1 come ii I tend to : often in a What I Holocaust think the) what they silence. T the coiimi So too, received v Origins of the myth of silence 199 ople, piactical stand point to have the dues of new, young working members. Rather than over--- slamming the door on the survivors they eagerly tried to get them to join. While no irions systematic oial history project like the ones that would blossom decades later developed now in these yeais, these community documents provide a very different picture of post-war niblic American Jewish life. hear How deeply in fact has the myth of silence been planted into organized American est of. Jewish community life beyond the small community of historians? How tenacious a i the hold does it have in the American Jewish popular imagination? To what degree does ional it continue to dominate the memory culture down to this day? 1 might answer that in on of :-~e two ways by pointing out the reactions I received to both public presentations about , and this piojeef and then to the published book. 1 do so, particularly the former, not to have depict ate or mock the people who attended, and still attend, the lectures or to be uther ungiateful to the institutions around the country which have invited me to speak. But ,: rather their incredulous reactions say much about the iron-strong hold of the myth, d the Some set of audience members who may have been young children in the 1950s town or teenageis decidedly declaim that where they lived, where they went to camp, the their > synagogues or Hebrew schools they attended, no mention of the Holocaust was ever erved ľ heard. When I note, however, that Tlie World Over, a publication of the Jewish even Education Association given out free to eveiy child enrolled in a Jewish school in the nities \ 1950s, contained articles in many issues that had something to say about the Holocaust, s the i they will tell me that I atn wrong. When I point out that the most widely circulating niblic 1 Jewish history textbook for children, Deborah Pessin's The Jewish People, contained n the " in its third volume, which dealt with the modern period, a lengthy chapter on the .lance ; catastrophe of the World War II era, they are certain it was not there. In reaction to my statement that the weekly radio broadcast "The Eternal Light," sponsored by the i my ' Jewish Theological Seminary, aired many dramas set during the catastrophic years of vivor the Holocaust, they reply, that their family listened to the show regularly and do not d no , remember any like that. While they express fond memories of the magazine, the gram. book, and the radio dramas, they manifest a deep resistance to my statement, based «, and on empirical evidence, that they contained Holocaust related material. With utter same certainty those attending the lecture will similarly note that their hometown Jewish re to newspaper, the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Boston's Jewish Advocate, or the Chicago land- Jewish Sentinel, made little of the Holocaust in the post-war years. Indeed, even when inded ( come in armed with handouts, photocopies of articles from these publications, it the I tend to get from more than one individual a firm, "you cannot be right," articulated ferent often in a tone between anger and dismay. i and What I hear instead from those in attendance, some of whom serve as professional when ' Holocaust educators, are a string of memories of that era, statements as to what they ne of think they remember, what their parents may have told them about the post-war era, what what they heard in a sermon, or read in a book which disseminated the myth of p the ." silence. They do not want to let go of the myth because its tentacles have grabbed up of the communal culture. con- So too, some of the reviewers of We Remember cannot distinguish between fact and very . received wisdom, reflecting a communal will to not part with the comfortable truth 200 Hasia R. Diner ot the myth. Reviews in such publications as Commentary, the Forward, and others have made what Í consider to be a leap in logic which points to the importance ot tire myth in sustaining communal ideas about itself. Diner, they have said, on the one hand, has hit us over the head with too much evidence, too many examples, a surplus ot details. She drowns her readers in a surfeit of sources, hoping to convince by the sheer volume and weight, of her material. But having admitted that the gravitas of the evidence clearly lies on rny side, the reviewers contend that what I have presented does not constitute evidence which would undermine the truth that post-war American Jews could find no place in the public realm to confront the Holocaust. The memorial texts, ceremonies, political and fundraisiiig action, the sermons, textbooks, and letters to the editor and to public officials, just do not constitute remembering and acting upon those memories. Despite my deliberately assembled tsunami of material, the paradigm holds, and basically asserts that because they, the jews of the post-war period, did not do what we—American Jews shaped by the upheavals of the late 1960s—do, then it just does not amount to their having constructed a memorial culture. None of the reviewers have been able to offer an alternative interpretation of the appearance and dissemination of the books, articles, sermons, songs, pageants, memorial markers, calls to political action, fundraisiiig propaganda, film strips, poems, editorials, radio broadcasts, and on and on that American Jewry, in its great diversity based on ideology, class, age, region, language, religious sentiments, produced in the post-war period which took as their theme and the reason for their creation the horrific experiences of the Jews of Europe under the German Nazi hoot. If the Jews of the United States in the years after World War II through the end of the Eichmann trial in 1962 did not remember the Holocaust and did not care about it, how to explain these works? American Jewry has since the end of the 1960s become so wrapped up in a nairative of the post-war period that takes the silence as a given that it cannot, at least not to date, depart from its myth. This myth frankly makes it feel good about itself, as a community, which it believes does remember, directed by a leadership group which in large part is made up of the veterans, figurative and literal, of the late 1960s who want to be able to claim that they themselves undid the evils of the pernicious postwar period when the Holocaust constituted taboo topic, an uninvited guest to the community table, a reflection of a widespread, self-imposed collective amnesia. Inherent in the constant iteration and perpetration of the myth of silence is a valorization of what a later generation of American Jews did vis-á-vis the Holocaust and the kind of memorial practices which it constructed. As they have come to celebrate their own patterns of Holocaust remembrance, they have felt compelled to contrast themselves with the Jews of the post-war period, and to lay at their feel the claim that in those years American Jews had turned their backs on the hallowing images of the destroyed six million jews. These late twentieth centiirx and early twenty-first century Jews are firmly convinced that they would never haw behaved in such a seemingly timid manner when it came to memorializing the Holocaust. As Ion; of silence the earlie eatastropl' pedagogy tions and coursed p angered tl and moth They n as to renn victims w They incc to the cat. Yet in Jews of A shunned t and other ignoring t Jewish wo the losses, the pieces expression Jews of po as a group political at their Jewis the six m believing t helped imj Origins of the myth of silence 201 md others; .mance of ■ii the one , a surplus ce by the itas of the ■nted does American he mem-ooks, and ering and material, post-war "' the late memorial an of diets, mcm-, poems, diveisity ed in the creation at. If the id of the about it, narrative st not to self as a p which 60s who mis post-it to the .ia. nee is a olocaust ome to relied to leir feet harrow-my and er have riali/im> As long as community leaders arrd intellectuals have a stake in repeating the myth of silence, the more they will distort history and obscure the complicated history of the earlier era when American, Jews had much to say about the European Jewish catastrophe, doing so in a multiplicity of ways. Whether in liturgy or journalism, in pedagogy or sermons, in staged ceremonies or in the deliberations of their organizations and the discussions of their youth groups, the tragic fate of European fewiy coursed prominently through their public culture. It moved them, frightened and angeied them. It stirred them, to action and they consistently designated times, places, and modes to say so. They leflected widely and broadly on the horrific set of events, the Holocaust, so as to remember it for its own sake, and to teach and learn more about the fate of its victims with whom they identified, referring to them as "we," "us," and "ours." They incorporated into their communal cultures images, words, names, and references to the catastrophe. Yet in perpetuating the myth of silence by claiming that the shallow, assimilating Jews of America in the two decades that followed the end of World War II had shunned the Holocaust arid made it utterly marginal to their public lives, historians and others produced a flawed history and perpetrated an injustice to the past. By ignoring the full and variegated historic record, they essentially defamed a group of Jewish women and men who had in tact confronted, as they could, the enormity of the losses, had taken note of the gravity of the cultural destruction, tried to pick up the pieces of a shattered Jewish world, and experimented with language and modes of expression to create memorials and other projects that tit their time and place. The Jews of post-war America, rather than ignoring the Holocaust, instead should be seen as a gioup which constantly sought ways to fit it into their communal culture and political action. They searched for ways and times to weave it into the texture of their Jewish projects, and what they created they believed to be fitting memorials to the six million. They did what they could and took pride in having done so, believing that they simultaneously kept alive the memory of what had been lost and helped improve America and the world in the process. SILENCE RECONSIDLRED An afterword Eric j. Sundquist We now know—beyond argument, it would seem—that there was no silence about the Holocaust in the first decade and a half of its aftermath. And yet there was. Hov else explain the counter-claims of silence so frequently stated and adamantly professed that no collection of essays will ever fully refute it? "Silence," of course, implies a categorical condition, and any effort to refute "tin myth of silence," no less categorical in its own way, may well compound the problem By comparison with the "era of the witness," as Annette Wieviorka calls tin post-Eiehmann trial years,1 during which testimony, along with scholarship and representations in many media, began to flow more rapidly toward the flood tide of the 1990s, the years 1945-60 might better be thought of as "quiet" or "reticent," an era of response to the Holocaust marked first by an explosion of testimony and inquiry, and then intermittently by shock, incredulity, evasion, and repression. E historians writing in Yiddish, along with ghetto scribes and camp prisoners, began to document the Nazi genocide even before the term "genocide" existed—coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1943, the term first appeared in print in his Axis Rule it Occupied Europe the following year—and survivors soon told their stones in many languages, the effective integration of the stories of the victims and the stories of tin perpetrators lay far in the future. If impressive scholarly work emerged as quickly a documentary evidence could be assembled, some of the postwar era's most wideh read English-language studies, such as Alan Bullock's Hitler: A Study in Tyratm (1952; rev. ed. 1962) and William Shirer's Rise artel Fall of the Third Reich (1960) clearly subordinated the mass murder of Jews to the greater cataclysm of the war in Europe. If some survivors willingly told their stories in print or orally, and if sotm families and communities willingly heard those stories and commemorated the dead in the early years, later survivor testimony and the psychological and interpretive literature devoted to it abound in claims of silences both painfully chosen and painfully imposed.2 Write Appelfel "repress! reductiv experien had bee willingly an explai "because writers 1 survivors a son of though i Jew, his Israeli ch about: th of misstn Even multiplie that such commen to the N silence it "silence,' require t settings, By wa to this v silence h. the most power tc some roll represent silence, ii others, it on whos< "For tl wrote Isii in a fun "Now, al them—tl ever be h In yeat function Silence reconsidered 203 Writer-survivors have been particularly eloquent on this point. Although Aharon Appelfeld's assertion that the many collections of Holocaust testimony are actually "repressions" whose dexterous weaving of facts "veil the inner truth" is surely reductive, his contention that "the survivor did not know what to do with his experiences" and therefore oscillated between speech and silence is incisive, "if he had been able to keep silent," Appelfeld writes, the survivor would have done so willingly, yet neither his own "impulse to seek a moral" nor the requests of others for an explanation made the telling any easier. Indeed, "the reckoning was impossible," and "because it was beyond one's power, one took refuge in silence."3 Second-generation writers have often felt the silence just as acutely. "Silence was the bitter syntax of survivors. The secret codes that could never be cracked," writes Thane Rosenbaum, a son of survivors, in his novel Second Hand Smoke (1999),4 while David Grossman, though not himself the child of survivors—his mother was a native-born Palestinian Jew, his father a 1936 immigrant from Poland—has described his generation, the Israeli children of the early 1950s, as living "in a thick and densely populated silence" about the Holocaust, one broken only by the daily ten-minute reading of the names of missing relatives on the radio.5 Even if such testimonies, and not only among prominent writers, can easily be multiplied, the counter-evidence amassed by Hasia Diner and others demonstrates that such claims cannot simply be taken at face value. It is also the case, however, that commentary on the question of silence was from the very outset pervasive in reactions to the Nazi genocide, a fact that has surely contributed, paradoxically, to the idea that silence itself was pervasive in the postwar years. A thorough account of Holocaust "silence," as well as the mythology surrounding it, remains to be written. It would require that silence be understood from multiple angles and investigated in many settings, many languages, and many different historical moments. By way of reflecting on the convincing arguments against silence by the contributors to this volume, we should also recall some of the many ways in which Holocaust silence has always been with us and always will be. A phenomenon that touches on the most sensitive and profound issues in theology, epistetnology, and ethics; that has the power to convict or exonerate those swept up in a monstrous crime; and that plays some role, whether literal or figurative, in most every eyewitness testimony or artistic representation—such a phenomenon demands our continued scrutiny. In speaking of silence, in probing its deep recesses and measuring its dark implications, survivors and others, it might be said, broke silence and kept it at the same time. Silence, yes, but on whose part, of what kind, and for what purpose? "For the first time in years, the tortured of Europe dare to cry out in their suffering," wrote Isidore Sobeloflf, Executive Director of the Detroit Jewish Welfare Federation, in a fundraising note carried in the Jewish Social Studies Quarterly in late 1945. "Now, after all these years, we can hear their cries. We can reach them, we can help them-—those who before military victory did not know whether their voices would ever be heard again by the outside world."6 In years to come the seeming silence of the victims would often be construed as a function less of their own muted cries than (if the world's refusal to hear them, even 204 Eric ). Sundquist its active suppression of theni. Arguments about the "silence" of President Franklin After c< Roosevelt's administration and those in the Jewish community with whom it con- that am suited, notably Stephen S. Wise, became an indictment with the publication of not be Arthur Morse's While Six Million Died (l%7) and later a field of scholarship whose therefor foremost articulation is David Wyman's Abandonment of the Jews (1984).7 Such argu- God s v ments may never prove completely that the Roosevelt administration, by taking "it won earlier action on the ambiguous evidence of genocide it was presented or by meaning employing different wartime tactics once the evidence was more conclusive, could only th. have made more than a marginal difference in the number of Jews or others rescued-- address, arguably, any difference would have mattered—and rebuttals have assumed the form Sake Ai of charging Wymati and company with propagating another myth—namely, "the scripture myth of rescue."" more ir What they have clearly demonstrated, however, is that war-time protests on th< that vvi part of groups such as the Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestiniat was Go. Jews, led by Peter Bergson (Flillel Kook)—notably, its ongoing ad campaigns abou. control) the refugee uisis and the onset of genocide m the IVeic York limes and other venues the vict as well as its 1943 staging of "We Will Never Die," a theatrical pageant written b; Cone Ben 1 let lit, in New York. Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles--broke punishn through the official silence m a pointed way. Whether made as a public call to arm God ' (I in Europe, the United States, and Mandate Palestine, or recorded in the clandestine written words of those imprisoned in ghettos and camps, condemnation of silence on the part o Before Allied leadeis and the world in general began during the war and has been reiterated belief ii through the present day. "How was it possible that men, women, and children wen his prid being burned and that the world kept silent?" asked Elie Wiesel in a famous passage humanii m Night (1958; trans. I960).9 Although Wiesel became the foremost prosecutor of issues a the world's silence.—the original title of his book when it appeared in Yiddish ii burns ir 1056 was Vu di volt hot geshvigu (And the World Was Silent), and a three-volume col- unveil V lection of his shorter writings is aptly titled Against Silence (1985)—his protest- millions thioughout many works of fiction and commentary against man's silence, as well a with G< (iod's, passionately recapitulated ideas that were notable less for being new than for Gods v the (act that they have seemed to require stating time anil again, often in conjunction already In his opening address ot the new school yeai at Hebrew University in November "those \ 1044, f<>r example, Judah Magnes quoted from a document given him four month drownii earlier concerning the arrival and processing of 1,600 French Jews at Birkenau. Ot I hen these, one thousand were immediately gassed, and the document described the delusior operation in some derail: the structure of the gas chambers and crematoria; the eyewitn deception of the "shower" room; the role of the Sondetkommando; and the use ol that silt' Zyklon B, "a preparation of cyanide which becomes gaseous at a given tempeiatuie. of dece In three minutes all were dead." Yet despite the accumulating evidence of Na/i Auschw atrocities, Magnes observed, "our minds prefer to reject the truth," and he wondeied and his how it was possible "that this can happen under (iod's heaven."1" past the The rejection of evident truth, its cloaking in stunned silence, was a perennial motives concern in disuission of the Holocaust both while it was happening and in the might s aftermath, but the remainder of Magnes's address pursued a more vexing question. appearii Silence reconsidered 205 After considering a variety of ways to comprehend God's reticence, Ire concluded that anyone seeking "the meaning of these massaenngs, this wanton butchery," will not be answered: "from that man God hides His Face," One could only hope, therefore, to emulate Rabbi Isaac Levi of Berdichev, who asked not to comprehend God's ways "but only this: Do I suffer for 'Thy sake?" For us too, Magnes determined, "it would be enough to ask, not what is the meaning of this anguish, but that it have a meaning; and that our need of asking be so sincere that it becomes a prayer: Teach us only this: Does man suffer for 'Thy sake, O Lord?" And yet the title of Magnes's address, taken from Psalm 44:23, was not a question but an affirmation: "For Thy Sake Are We Killed All Day Long"—and one, in fact, whose subsequent line in the scripture, not quoted but surely taken for granted by Magnes, makes God's purpose more mysterious and demanding: "It is for Your sake that we are slain all day long, that we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."" By this account, not only was God silent but the voice of scripture, one that especially haunted postwar Israel's confrontations with the Holocaust and its immigrant survivors, appeared to enjoined the victims to passivity and silence in the face of their own destruction. Condemnations of the world's silence also led at times to calls for judgment and punishment. Such was the case in Zvi Kolitz's short stoiy "Yossel Rakover s Appeal to God" (1946), a work of fiction originally taken to be recovered eyewitness testimony written in the final hours of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and later found in a bottle. Before his message concludes with the words of the Shema, Rakover proclaims his belief in God, despite God's having turned away from the Jews of Europe, and his pride, indeed, his honor, in being a Jew when it is hard to be one. Insofar as humanity has evidently been "abandoned to its evil instincts," however, Rakover issues a challenge to God: "I should like to ask You, O Lord—and this question burns in me like a consuming fire—What more, O, what mote must transpire before You unveil Your countenance again to the world?" Those who have been "murdered by the millions" have a right to know: "What are the limits of your forbearance?" It is not with God's silence alone that Rakover is concerned, however, for he pleads that God's vengeance be visited not specifically on the perpetrators ("the murderers have already passed sentence upon themselves and wrll never escape it") but rather on "those who are silent in the face of murder ... those who express sympathy with the drowning man but refuse to rescue him."1 ~'! There were multiple reasons why victims might go silently to the slaughter— delusion, catatonic shock, exhausted resignation, religious faith, stoic defiance—but eyewitnesses who wrote from inside the inferno of die death camps both corroborated that silence and called it into question. After describing the increasingly adept forms of deception by which the SS reassured arriving transports about their future in Auschwitz, Filip Müller, a survivor of the Sonderkommando, reflected on his own and his comrades' mute paralysis while new prisoners seemed to file unknowingly past them on their way to the gas chamber. Their reticence grew from a tangle of motives—a sense of futility, an instinct for self-preservation, the slim hope that some might survive to bear witness—but Müller added one that is no less surprising for appearing to be a rationalization after the fact: 206 Eric J. Sundquist We stood rooted against the wall, paralysed by a feeling of impotence and the which certainty of their and our inexorable fate. ... Hitler and his henchmen had testimo never made a secret of their attitude to the jews nor of their avowed intention gold te to exterminate them like vermin. The whole world knew it, and knowing it live to remained silent; was not their silence equivalent to consent? It was considerations furnish] like these that led my companions and me to the conviction that the world efforts t consented to what was happening here before our eyes.13 comple Delbo, Unlike Müller, who wrote retrospectively and may have composed his conscience "learne accordingly, Zahnen Gradowski, a member of the Sonderkommando who left four recurrii testimonies buried at Auschwitz, gave a more complex and nuanced account. The of the i uncommon lyricism that marks his portrait of a transport of Czech Jews on their way lt. w to the gas chamber is pierced by the voices of those who by no means went silently evident to their deaths. Gradowski witnessed songs of solidarity and protest among the vie- publish tuns, as well as accusations firing in the faces of the kille»: himself disbelic Another woman, this time a lovely, blond girl, had addressed the officers: whose "Wretched murderers! You look at me with your thirsty, bestial eyes. You glut over a yourselves on my nakedness. Yes, this is what you have been waiting for. In an hou your civilian lives you could never have dreamed about it. You hoodlums and work a criminals, you have finally found the right place to satisfy your sadistic eyes. weaket But you won't enjoy this for long. Your game's almost over, you can't kill all enemy, the Jews. And you will pay for it all." And suddenly she*leaped at them and might struck Oberscharführer Voss, the director of the crematoria, three times. Clubs reflexiv came down on her head and shoulders. She entered the bunker with her head By tl covered with wounds, and the warm blood caressed her body lovingly; she laughed certainl for joy, for her hand still tingled from the blow she had dealt the notorious about t killer's face. She had achieved her final goal, and proceeded calmly to her death. covety and eta Having done his terrible work of collecting and burning the bodies, Gradowski, Germai against the backdrop of "ovens blazhng] furiously, like waves in a storm," reiterated after th the woman's promise of vengeance when he addressed an audience he could only articles hope would one day hear his voice: Mass K 1944), If you who are free should chance to notice this great fire; if some evening you "Slang! should raise your eyes to the deep, blue sky and see that it is covered by flames, "Dacha then you will know that this is the same hellt it o that burns here endlessly. Reflect Perhaps your heart will feel its heat, and your hands, as cold as ice, will extin- well as guish it. Or perhaps, your heart bolstered with courage, you will exchange the titles su present victims of this never-ending inferno for those who first ignited it, that .Story o they may be consumed by its flames.14 (Jacob Ew,ij>e , Not only fear that their voices would never be heard but also fear that their words / II would fill on deaf ears, rendering witnesses silent even when they found words in (David Silence reconsidered 207 which to convey their experiences, is a hallmark ot many of the most evocative testimonies. After describing the black market that surrounded the extraction of gold teeth from corpses Miklos Nyiszli reaffirmed his doubt that his story, should he live to tell it, would be believed. Because "words, descriptions are quite incapable of furnishing anyone with an accurate picture of what goes on here," he wrote, "my efforts to photograph in my mind all I see and engrave it in my memory are, after all, completely useless."15 "Useless knowledge," the French political prisoner Charlotte Delbo, who survived Auschwitz and Ravensbriick, called it. Like Delbo, who "learned / over there / that you cannot speak, to others," Primo Levi recorded his recurring Auschwitz dream in which he was tormented by "the ever-repeated scene of the unlistened-to story."10 It was not victims alone who feared that those presented with incontrovertible evidence of the Holocaust would either not believe it or quickly forget it. In an essay published in the New York Times Magazine m January 1944, Arthur Koesfler placed himself among the "screamers" whose reports of Nazi atrocities were greeted with disbelief. Facts, photographs, and eyewitness reports were ot no avail, wrote Koestler, whose lectures on starvation, transports, and mass murder to Allied troops in England over a period of three years had made little impression. "You can convince them for an hour," he said, "then they shake themselves, their mental self-defence begins to work and in a week the shrug of incredulity has returned like a reflex temporarily weakened by a shock."17 If soldiers going into battle suppressed such truths about the enemy, it may be no surprise that others, learning of the events at a greater distance, might "prefer to reject the truth," as Magnes said, or absorb the shock and then reflexively shrug it off. Fiy the end of 1944 and certainly by the tune of liberation in 1945, and even more certainly within a few years following, it would have been difficult to speak of silence about the events that later came to be known as the Holocaust. Although the discovery and evaluation of archival materials from the ghettos of Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, and elsewhere would take years, historians and survivors writing in Yiddish, Polish, German, and other languages produced a wealth of information during and soon after the war, much of it quickly translated into English. Consider just the dozens of articles in leading American newspapers and popular journals with titles such as "Nazi Mass Killing Laid Bare" (New York Times, 1944), "Merchants of Murder" (Newsweek, 1944), "Here the Nazi Butchers Wasted Nothing" (Saturday Evening Post, 1944), "Slaughter of 4,000,000 in Nazi Camp Disclosed" (Lis Angeles 'Times, 1945), "Dachau: Experimental Murder" (Colliers, 1945), and "Eyes of Breathing Cadavers Reflect Grotesque Flicker of Hope in Nazi-Made Hell" (Washington Post, 1945), as well as works by survivors and observers written in English or quickly translated with titles such as One Year in Treblinka (Jankiel Wiernik, 1944), This Was Oswiceim: The Story of a Murder Camp (Philip Friedman, 1946), Balance Sheet of Extermination (Jacob Lestchinsky, 1946), Smoke over Birkerwu (Sewetyna Szmaglewska, 1947), Escape from the Pit (Renya Kulkielko, 1947), Five Chimneys (Olga Lengyel, 1947), / Was a Doctor in Anschuntz (Gisella Perl, 1948), 1 Did Not Interview the Dead (David Boder, 1949), The Theory and Practice of Hell (Eugene Kogon, 1950), 'The Dual 208 Eric j. Sundquist Solution (Gerald Reitlinger, 1953), and Harvest of Hate (Leon Poliakov, 1954)'K. their 6 Confronted with such evidence, the public, at least in the United States, would have "their been hard pressed to believe that silence was a problem to be overcome. be thei If there was no silence about the Holocaust, however, there was still significant living, apprehension about silence as wartime fears about the world's silence bled into post- was no war fears that the events would be ignored or forgotten. Writing in the same month accuser as Koestlei, Shlomo Kat/ was aheady woiulenng how to "tiansfoim the manors ol filling tins expeiiente into a < i\ ihzmg force that will tend to pievent the jecuirence of stub testimc calamities." He womeri. howevei. that once legal letnbution had run its ionise the the ot, nations of the woild would "eiase the memoiy of wdiat has happened from their The Tl minds even while the) aie lebmldmg then tinned cities," and he asked what could radio i be done about the "deep scar" that would be left in human consciousness: "Will it glossy, suffice merely to comb our hair back over the place where the skull was broken and ■ entitlet where perhaps permanent damage was done to the brain?"'" Repression prompted by myopi; horror, in other words, might give way to repiession prompted by political expediency. Solutio Soon after the war a further apprehension about forgetting was expressed. Instead which of a lack of knowledge or its repression or erasure, knowledge itself, some feared, been if could lead to silence. Isaac Rosenfeld was tormented by the surfeit of information Abo about the Jewish genocide—a surfeit that was, nevertheless, inadequate. "By now we forgetti know all there is to know. But it hasn't helped; we still don't understand," he to Nu obseived in his 194S essay "Terror beyond Evil." As an event "beyond all He coi extremes incompi ehensible, unattainable to reason," what happened to the Jews of tional i Europe constituted for Rosenfeld a "terror absolute" that yielded only "numbness" the loi and could not be penetrated despite the tact that "it lies so close at hand."-" Writing a preven year later, Solomon Bloom worried that the world was in danger not of forgetting the Ne the "extraordinary catastrophe |tbat| struck the Jewish people" but rather of "fearing of the to think about it." In discounting it as a consequence of fascism, sadism, or militarism million gone mad, said Bloom, we risk "killing true knowledge by premature under- Nazis. standing."21 Whereas Rosenfeld recoiled from terrible knowledge that began where Hov "our old evil left off," Bloom recoiled from terrible knowledge too blithely cate- industr gonzed by an age that "abhors the unexplained event." and di: Nearly two decades after Katz feared that the world would forget the Holocaust, highly and Rosenfeld feared that no degree of knowledge could make it comprehensible, Irving and Bloom feared that it would be chalked up to aberrant ideologies, the same the sur questions surged forth once more during the trial of Adolf Eicbmann in Jerusalem— quarrel as though the questions had never been asked and no answers ventured, for all of the had loi ways in which the claim that the Eichiiiann trial "broke the silence" about the wdio la Holocaust is misleading, then, it cannot simply be set aside. "What had been silenced been si and suppressed gushed out and became common knowledge," Haim Gouri has written - Arendt of the trial's effect in Israel.22 There and elsewhere its extensive media coverage provoked public discussion of a kind not previously witnessed.2 5 r Other kinds of broken silence were also evident. The dead themselves, it was said • t repeatedly, were to he given a voice. Gideon Hatisner, the chief prosecutor, proposed c m his opening speech to represent the "six-million accusers" who "cannot rise to a Silence reconsidered 209 their feet and point an accusing finger towards him who sits in the dock." Because "their blood cries out, but their voice is not heard," proclaimed Hausncr, "I will be their spokesman and in their name 1 will unfold the awesome indictment."24 The living, too, now had a voice. In contrast to the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial was notable for the testimony of survivor witnesses, who one by one condemned the accused and the regime for which be stood—or spoke all the more dramatically by falling into convulsed grief or complete silence, the most famous instance being the testimony of the Israeli writer Ka-Tzetnik (Yehiel Dinur), who spoke haltingly about the other-worldly tenors of "planet Auschwitz" and then feinted dead away.21' The Third Reich likewise had a voice in the testimony of Eichmann himself—on the radio in Israel, orr television in the United States and elsewhere, and even in the t ■■ glossy, middlebrow pages of Life magazine, where a version of his testimony, garishly 1 entitled "I Transported Them ... To the Butcher," put his prevarications and moral i myopia fully on display. "It would be as pointless to blame me for the whole Final Solution of the Jewish Problem as to blame the official in charge of the railroads over 1 1 which the Jewish transports traveled," Eichmann averred. "Where would we have been if everyone had thought things out. in those days?"20 i .' Above all, however, the trial was about remembering—or rather, about never e ' forgetting. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dismissed comparisons e to Nuremberg and even treated Eichmami's guilt as a secondary consideration. 11 He contended rather that the purpose of the trial, beyond its domestic and interna- >f . tional implications for the state of Israel itself, was hortatory, a means to demonstrate the long reach of justice, to clarify the particularity of the Jewish genocide, and to a prevent future generations from forgetting this essential point. As Ben-Gurion told g the New York Times on December 19, 1960: "We want to establish before the nations g of the world how millions of people, because they happened to be Jews, and one n million babies, because they happened to be Jewish babies, were murdered by the r- Nazis. We ask the nations not to forget it."27 re How, it might be wondered, could anyone have forgotten the systematic, often industrialized slaughter of some six million Jews? And yet, it seems, they had forgotten, and discussion of the fact circled continually around the question of silence. The it, highly inflamed controversy over Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), wrote e, Irving Howe, grew from "a guilt pervasive, unmanageable, yet seldom declared at re the surface of speech or act." One useful result to be salvaged from the "debris" of the quarrel, Howe remarked, was that people were at last "acknowledging emotions that he had long gone unused."2X It was thus not only the young radicals of the late 1960s he who later attacked the silence of their elders; the elders accused themselves of having ed been silent. While avoiding the misinterpretations that characterized some replies to en Arendt, Harold Rosenberg maintained that the anguish of Arendt's critics represented a recovery of the Jews from the shock of the death camps, a recovery that took lid fifteen yean and is by no means complete (though let no one believe that it red could be hastened by silence). Only across a distance of" time could the epic to accounting begin. 210 Trie J. Suudquist Although there was no shortage of published testimony and documentary images includ in photographs and film alike during the 1950s, it did take time for the awful mag- Borov nitude of the event- —in conception, in scale, in method—to come more clearly into Delbo view and for the Nazis' programmatic effort to eliminate the world's Jews to be the u| comprehended as a distinctive kind of racial murder set apart from the catastrophic 1960s violence of total war. As Rosenberg emphasized, it was not that the Holocaust had Arthtl gone unmentioiied or that the facts were unavailable, but instead that their import make remained elusive: "For most who lived through this period, the Nuremberg Laws, caust asphyxiation buses, rabbis scrubbing pavements, boycotts, death marches, the Crystal silence Night |Kristallnacht| atrocities, gas chambers, are all jumbled together in a vague hurt Eqi as of a bnnse received m the dark. ... Perhaps no crime in history has been better no psy documented and more vaguely understood." Whether or not Rosenberg was right to termn characterize the trial as a Creek tragedy with Fichmann the fated protagonist and Eichn survivors a chorus shouting their judgment from the gallery—Arendt bad advanced a missin comparable argument - his focus on the proceedings as a media spectacle made a use d key point: Roser Writ was possible for the first time to visualize the massacres that had taken place the w across the face of Eastern Europe not as disconnected atrocities, like outbursts ceptio of violence in an insane asylum, but as a planned and centralized undertaking world aimed at the annihilation of all Jews. By his presence, Fichmann removed the "holo crime from the madhouse and situated it in history.'1" referrt ■■<■ is not In the wake of the trial the idea that dormant emotions had been aroused and to bo: moral consciousness awakened was commonplace. Although good examples to the Holot contrary make it hard to credit Saul Bellow's contention, expressed in a 1987 letter to way t Cynthia Ozick, that Jewish American writers had "missed what should have been for Thi them the central event of their time, the destruction of European Jewry," his judgment, "final in which he included himself, is representative. "Crowing slowly aware of this "Arise unspeakable evasion," he said, "I didn't even know how to begin to admit it info mv impos inner life."31 despit Cue might argue that Bellow's early novel 77/e Victim (19-17), along with his later eratio: Mr. Satnmler's Manet (1070), stands in partial qualification of his censure. So do other sileno postwar American novels of the late 1940s through the 1960s such as Irwin Shaw's "holo 7J(c Young IJons (19-18), John 1 Jersey's 77/e Wall (1950), Michael Blankforfs The notati Juggler (195;)). Leon Uris's Exodus (1958), Edward Wallant's 77/c Pawnbroker (1961), increa Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of 1 boh (1962), Meyer Levin's 77«* fanatic (1963), Jeray the pi Kosinski's The Painted Bird (1065), Meyer Levin's 7/rc Stronghold (1965), and Richard that h Elman's trilogy 77/r 28ih Day of Elul (1967). Lib's Diary (1968), and 77/c Reckoning could (1(>60), as well as works such as Isaac Bashevis Singer's 77/c ,S7 Ki 16 CI C. Notes 5» Yc 1 Annette Wieviorka, lite Eia of the Witness (1998), tuns. Jared Stark (Ithaca, N. Y.: 17 Ar Cornell University Press 2006). Oi 2 See. for example. Shoshana fehnan and Doli fauh, Testimony: OiVs of Witnessing in 18 Fo Literature, I'syeltoauaiysis, and History (New York: Routledge, 1992); Aaron Hass, lite Cc Aftermath: I iving with the Holocaust (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and He 1 lemy < ireenspan. ()» Listening to Hohkattst Smvivors: Recounting and Life History (Westport, (jsj Conn.: Praeger, 1998). Nř 3 Aharon Appelfeld, Beyond Dcspaii: 'I'hree h\ntres and a Conveisation with I'hilip Roth, trans. Pr, Jetlrey M. (liven (New York: Fronim International Publishing, 1994), pp. 13-14. 19 Sh 4 4 bane Rosenbauni, Second Hand Smoke (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), p. 18. 20 Isa 5 David Grossman. '4ndiviilti.il 1 anguage and Mass Language" (2007), Writing in the Dark: the Lssays on laterattire and Politics, trans. Jessica Cohen (New York: Fairar, Straus and 21 So Giroux, 2008), p. 71. 73. ' CI 0 Isidore Sobeloff quoted in "Notes on Futidraising," Hie Jewish Social Service (Juaiteily 22 Hi 22 (December 1945), 177. ' hra 1 Aitluir 1). Moise, While Six Million Died: A Cluonicle of American Apathy (New York: 23 Ot Random House, 1967) ami David S. Wynian, T'he Abandonment of the jews: Ameiica and At, the Holocaust, I9dt-I9-H (New York: Random House, 1984). See also Monty Noam pp Penkower, 'I'he Jews Were Expendable (1983; rpt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 24 Gi 1988) and David S. Wynian and Rafiel Meriotf, A Race against Deth: Peter Bergson, R( Ameiica. and the Holocaust (New York: New Press, 2002). 25 Sei 8 See William D. Rubinstein, 77«" Myth of Rescue: IF'/iy the Democracies Could Not Have Hs ,S'(/i»c(/ More Jews from the Nazies (New York: Routledge, 1997). See also Henry L. the Feingold, Bearing ]]'uuess: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust (Syracuse, 26 Ad N. Y.: Syracuse'University Press 1995) and Frank W. Brecher, "The Western Allies and 19, the Holocaust: Davit) Wynian and the Historiograph)' of America's Response to the 27 Da Holocaust: Countt r-Considerations," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 5 (1990), 423-16. Dc 9 Hie Wiesel, Night, Irans. Marion Wiesel (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), p. 32. 28 Irv lOJudah M.ignes, "For Thy Sake Are We Killed All Day Long," f. I.. Magnes. In the 19 Perplexity of the 'Linus (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1946), pp. 65-67. 29 Ha 1 1 Magnes, 'Tor Thy Sake Are We Killed All Day Long," pp. 77-78. The scripture continues: 30 Rc "Why do You hide Your flee, ignoring our afflictions and disttess?" (Psalm 44: 25). For God's 31 Sai piomise to hide I lis fu e from those who bleak the covenant, see Deuteronomy 31: 16-18. Ta 12 Zvi Kout/, "Yossel Rakover's Appeal to God," in Kolitz, 77ie 'I'iger beneath the Skin: 32 Fo Stories and Parables of the Years of Death (New York: Creative Age Press, 1947), pp. 91-94. A The story was first published in Yiddish in Buenos Aires in 1946, reprinted in Israel in 19. 1954. translated into Geim.in and French in 1955, and into Hebrew in 1965. all the (N while being taken as an authentic eyewitness document, with the misundeist.inding 33 Ar finally corrected in an English edition published in New York in 1968. A 1996 edition, Nt with a text established by Paul Badtle, appears in English as Vo.sV Rakover Talks to God, 34 Ph tuns. Carol Brown janeway (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999). in B.tdde's biographical 2, sketch of Kolitz and his story's strange fate, however, he does not mention tli.it the story 35 Sei appeared in 'Phe Tiger Beneath the Skin. La. 13 Filip Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: 'I'hree Years in the Gas Chambers, trans. Susanne 36 Sat Dataller (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1979), pp. 3<>-37. Th 14 Zahnen Gradowski, " I'he Czech Transport: A Chronicle of the Auschwitz Sonder- Sir kouun.indo." in Davit! G. Roskies, ed., The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Ui Catastrophe (New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988), pp. 559, 564. Re Silence reconsidered 21S 15 Miklos Nyiszli, Ausdnvitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (1946), trans. Tiberc Kreiner and Richard Seaver (New York: Fawcett, 1960), p. 64. 16 Charlotte Delbo, Useless Knowledge (1970), in Ausdnvitz and After, trans, Rosettte C. Lamont (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 225; Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (1958), u ans. Stuart Woolf (New York: Touchstone, 1996), p. 60. 17 Arthur Koestler "On Disbelieving Atrocities" (1944), in The Yogi and the Commissar and Other Essays (London: Hutchinson, 1945), p. 90. 18 For more on books and other publications during these years see the essays by David Cesarani and David Roskies in this volume, as well as Hasia Diner, We Remember with Reverence and Lope: American jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962 (New York: New York University Press, 2009), pp. 86-149, and David G. Roskies and Naomi Diamant, Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide (Hanover, N. FL: University Press of New England, forthcoming 2012). 19 Shlonto Katz, "Shall We Forget?" )oe/\7, Frontier 11 (January 1944). 19. 20 Isaac, Rosenfeld. "Terror beyond Evil" (1948), in An Age of Enormity: Life and Writing in the Forties and Fifties (New York: World Publishing Co.', 1962), pp. 197-99. 21 Solomon Bloom, "Dictator of the Lodz Ghetto: The Strange History of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski," Commentary! (February 1949), I'll. 22 Haini Gouri, "Facing the Glass Booth," in Geoffrey H. Hartman, ed., Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), p. 155, 23 On media coverage, especially in the United States, sec Jeffrey Sbandler, While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 83-132. 24 Gideon Hausner, ,6,000,000 Auitsers: Israel's Case against Eiclunantt, trans. Shabtai Rosenne (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Post Press, 1961), p. 29. 25 See, for example, Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, trans. Haim Watzman (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), pp. 3-4, and Wicvioka, 7/ic Era of the Witness, pp. 80-81. 26 Adolf Eichmann, "I Transported Them ... To the Butcher," Life 49 (November 28. 1960), 21. 27 David Ben-Gurion, "The Eichmann Case as Seen bv Ben-Gurion." New York 'Times December 19, 1960. SM7. 28 hung Howe, Dtditii of tin Nav (196 '>, ipt New Yoik Hauoutt, Bin e is Woild, Im , 1970), p. 245. 29 Haiold Roscnbeig, " 1 he ľual and En himnn," ( otmmutat) D (Noxenibei 1961), W4 30 Rosenberg, " 1 be I rial and Eichmann." 3/4—75. 31 Saul Bellow, July 19, 1987, lettei to C uitlm Oziik, m Saul Bellow, Ulhis, cd ucupimu lavloi (New Yoik Viking, 2010), pp t Š8 W 32 For relevant studies that take up a number of these writers see Alvin H. Rosenlelcl, 1 Double Dymet Reflations on Holocaust I tuiatuie (Bloommgtou Indian i Unnusiu Pi ess, 1980) and S.ua R Doiowitz I ouiua tin I oul Mutt in ss and \hmoi) m I lolotaust I utton (New Yoik State Uimeisits of New Yoik Pi ess, 1997) 33 Aithui A Cohen, I hi liaiiindmn 1 Iluoloiiiuil Intiipiitatiou ol tin lloloiauo (1981, ipt New York: Continuum. 1993), p. 95. 34 Philip Beinstem, "the jewsof 1 mope I he Remnants ot a People," \aliou 1 11 ([ami in 2, 1943), 11. 35 See, among otheis, Anna Veia Sullain (\ilini.ini, 'A Name loi 1 xieimination,' Moduli Lam;uaei Rivuw<>l (Octohei 1999). 9 78 99 36 Saul tiiedhndei, Reflultotis of i\ii;ow In Fw/)< on kttsilt and Death (1983) Ullis I bom is Weu (Blooinington Indiana Um\eisit\ Ptess, 1981), Miehiel doldbeiv; Why Should fat's Sutvivi' looking I'asl tin lloloiaust towaid a h wish I utiut (Ntw Yoik Oxfoiel UimcisitA Pi ess. 1995), pp tl 66, Noiman G I mkelsiein I hi lloloutust Indiisity Riflutiow on tin / splottatiou of /uns// Stilfiiitio (New Ye>ik Veini, >li()0) 216 Eric |. Sundquist 37 Hjinio Bettelheini, "The Holocaust—One Generation Later," in Surviving and Other Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 198')), pp. 90-91. 38 Zev Ciarber and Bruce Ackernian, "Why Call the Holocaust 'the Holocaust?': An Inquiry into the Psychology of Labels, Modern Judaism 9 (May 1989), 209. 39 Prirno Levi, 77«: Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Vintage, 1989) , pp. 83-84, 52. 40 Heinrich Himmler quoted in Peter Padfield, Himmler; Reichsführer SS (London: Mactnillan, 1990) , pp. 468-70. 41 Eva Hoffman, After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), pp. 175, 177. 42 Timothy Snyder, Bloodhmds: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010), p. xviii. 43 Salo W. Baron, "Opening Remarks," Jewish Social Studies 22 (January 1950), 14-16. 44 Mane Syrian, "On Hebrewcide," Jewish frontier 12 (July 1945), 10-11. 45 1 am grateful to David Cesarani, David Roskies, and Michael Bayzler for their helpful comments on a draft of this Afterword. Index A-S scale 130 academics 60-02, 69, 109 Aekennan, 13. 212 Adamic, L. 174-75 Adelsberger, L. 24 Adorno, T. 8, 129, 132, 1.35 advertisements 152, 156 aesthetics 46-48 African Americans 128, 194 afterword 202—16 Agnew, 8. 135 Agnon. S.Y. 94 aid workers 46, 50, 69 Aleichcm, S. 41, 48-50 Algeria 74 alienation 134, 174 Allen, L 157 Allies 59, 152-53, 156-57, 160-61, 163, 165, 204, 207 Allpott. G.W. 132 Alteniian, N. 96 Alttzer, T. 143 Antcho troupe 41, 44 American Jewish Committee 8, 30, 74, 127 American Jewish Conference 28 American Jewish Congress 127, 177 American Jewish Joint Distribution Conmiittee (AJDC) 71,74 American National Military Tribunal 74 American Psychological Association 109 Americanization 2, 173, 175 Aminado, D. 69 Anglo-American Committee ot Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine 26 Anhalt, E. 163 Anielewicz, M. 82-83 anoinie 134 Anski 48 anthologies 86-87, 95, 97-98, 132 anthropologists 141 Anti-Defatnation League 127 anti-semitism 4, 6, 9, 26; documentation 67—72, 75; films 15.3-54, 156-57, 159, 165; myth of silence 210; name changes 172-75, 177; personality studies 129-31, 134-35; role 30-31, 44, 47, 56; survivor stories 186; theology 142, 148 Antwerp 23 Appelfeld, A. 93, 203 Ardeatine Caves 22 Arendt, H. 30, 129, 209-10 Argentina 48, 55, 58, 93 Aron, R. 29 Asch, S. 49, 87 audiences 152—69 Auerbach, R. 16, 82, 97 Auschwitz 3, 16-17, 19-24, 26-28; communal mentory 92-93; DP camps 116, 118, 121, 123; literature 63; myth of silence 205-7, 209, 211; responses 30; survivor stones 182, 187; theatre 41; theology 139, 143-45, 148 Austria 20, 73, 75, 102, 160-61, 175 authoritarianism 127-38, 157 avant-garde 41 Avisar, I, 165 baby boomers 10 Balbetyszski, M. 62 Baltic states 115 Baltimore 182 218 Index B,unbelt; dtatna stntlio 49 H.ii [Km Uimeisits 57 Hai du, 1 8, I7. 128, 152-69 Baton, S 2D B.iskmd. B 19 Basok. M 89. 94 Bassfieimd. J 120 ISu.ei, Y 146 Baut, A 69 Betkei, I 21 I Beet Hall Putsch 154 Beit: Dm 91 Bekei, I IK Belgium M--L II Bell, 11 186 89 Bellow, S Mt. '10 Belsen 21 '7. 41 14, 104, 116, 159 Belsen Kat/et- \ eater 41-44, 49 Ben Guiion, I) 209 Beim. B 8 1 Beuhtesgulen |6> Benin In v 205 Beigen Belsen 2(>. 104, 116 Betgson, 1' 20 t Belkelet 129 V 135 Bet lit! >1, 11, 14 2 Beilm Anlitt 59, 160 Bernstein, I* l\ 1 Betiistein, V 38 Bettellieim. B si. 211 Bnlwoh 26, 81, 187 BiaKstok I Holds. C lub of 187 Bibci, J 42 Bible 91,9/. I V), 142 Bihltogiaphit al Senes 58 Biebow. II 16 Bielski. I 1/ Bikl, \ ol Billig. I I"), 28, (.9. 71 biogiaphs 17, 's. \7, 30; communal liiointm 91, 91. DP camps 115; Ohus 15 5, Ids, un-belatetl testimons 103 Bitkenau 70, '2 21, 28, 123, 204, 207 Birnbaum. 1'. 76 1 iniili.itiii) S 22 Initl) tcttifitaies I /1 Bist'iihaus, 1' 10 1 Bishoft, S. 15.1 Blatk Amemans I ^8, 177 Bl.tt k Book ( ommittees 87 Blatk I lld.l) Ki blatk maiket '0/ Blanktoit. M ?l(> Blotk Aeltestc 97 blootl mones 90 Bloom, S ■>(!() Bloxham, D. 27 Blücher, H. 30 Blumental, N. 6, 16, 18, 57-60, 62-64 B'nai B'rak 86 Boczkowska, S. 43 Boder, 13. 7-8, 102-26 Bohemia 159 Bonn 142 Bonnann, M. 157 Borowski, T. 21, 89, 211 Borszczow 57 Borwicz, M. 16, 74, 85-86 Boston 184, 187, 199, 204 bourgeoisie 44 Boyarin, j. 62 Brando, M. 163-65 Brazil 55 Breen, J. 153 Bridgton 185 Britain 24, 26, 28 British Army 96 British Mandate 39, 44, 46, 204 Brown House 161 Brown v. Board of Education case 133 Browning, C. 121 Brunswick 41 Briber, M. 8, 142 Buchenwald 20, 23, 27, 106-7; communal memory 91-92, 95; DP camps 122; films 159; name changes*! 76 Buczacz 94 Budapest National Relief Committee (DEGOB) 17 Buenos Aires 28, 58, 83, 85, 92 Buffalo 181 Bulgaria 74 Bullock, A. 202 Buntlespressauit 142 Bundists 19, 59, 61 bureaucracy 171 Calvocoressi, P. 28 Camen Theater 96 Camp Kingswood 185 Canada 55 cannibalism 29 capitalism 21 Carter, B. 185 case studies 25, 130, 182-83 catharsis 50 Catholics 154 Celan, P. 95, 21 1 censorship 153, 155 Center for Research on Jewish Deportees 74 Central Committee for Liberated Jews 41, 47-48 Centr; Centr:; Centr;: (CJ1 Centr," Centr;: Centre Cm 67-Centrt Césara Chaga Chapli Charit' Chelir Chicag Chicat C limit Cbrist: 94; 139 Churc ciretm civil ri class ss classic: Clevel 1939 ( eognit Cohei Cohei Cohei Cohn. Cohn. Cold 89; per Cole, coloni Colun Colun Comii (Cl comni Comr Jun Comr comrr Comr cotnn: couip; conce 152 59; 31; 42- u n- Index 219 Central Committee of Polish Jews 16 Central Europe 173, 177 Central Jewish Historical Commission (CJHC) 16, 28, 56-60, 63, 73-74 Central Jewish Information Office 17, 74 Central Union of Polish Jews 58 Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) 6, 15, 18, 20, 28, 67-81, 89-90 Centre d'Etucles d'Histoire ties Juifs Polonais 74 Cesarani, D. 10, 15-38 Chagall, ivi, 86 Chaplin, C. 153 Charles F. Deems Lectures 143 Chelmno 16, 59 Chicago 102-3, 115, 199, 204 Chicago University 109 Chmielnieki 94 Christianity 8, 12, 42, 91; communal memory 94; films 162; name changes 176; theology 139-40, 142-43, 145-47 Churchill, W. 156 circumcision 84 civil rights movement 128 class system 172, 194, 196, 200 classical theatre 48—50 Cleveland 187 1939 Club 187, 189 cognitive scientists 198 Cohen, A.C. 211 Cohen, B. 9, 12, 181-91 Cohen, E. 29-31, 108 Cohn, D.L. 177 Cohn, N. 31 Cold War 1, 29, 72, 76; communal memory 89; films 163; myth of silence 193; personality studies 133—34; theology 142 Cole, I, 155 colonies 69 Columbia Pictures 156 Columbia University 56 Comitate Ricerche Deportati Ebrei (CRDE) 17 commandments 57, 143-47 Commissariat General aux Questions Juives 71 Committee for a Jewish Army 204 communal memory 82—101, 116, 123-24, 198 Communist Party 89 communists 60-61, 75, 89, 152, 155-56 compassion fatigue 5 concentration camps 1, 8, 20, 24-25; films 152-54, 156, 159, 161, 164; literature 57, 59; memory 116, 120, 123; responses 29, 31; survivor stories 183, 185; theatre 39, 42-43, 46, 50-51; theology 144; un-belated testimony 104—6, 108 Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany 73, 87 consciousness 30, 140 consensus 1, 4, 60, 75, 83, 152, 194 Consistoire Central 69 Corgi 3 Crakow 17, 20, 42, 187 credibility 146-47 crematoria 46-47, 91-92, 121, 159, 204, 206, 212 Cressy, D.R. 108 Grossman, R. 26 Cmni, B. 26 Crystal Night 210 cyanide 204 Cyprus 25 Czars 49 Czechoslovakia 24, 102, 122, 159, 206 Czenstochow 61, 63 Czertok, L. 69 Dachau 207 Dahlein 142 Dallas 181, 187 Dawson, J. 25 de Gaulle, C. 31, 70 tie T'oth, A. 155 tie Wind, E. 30 Dean, G. 160 death camps 1, 16, 19-20, 25; films 156; memory 27—28, 95, 97; myth of silence 205, 209; theology 144 Debenedetti, G. 19, 22 Deblinger, R. 7, 10, 115-26 dejudatsation 22 Delbo, C. 207, 211 democracy 70, 72-73, 75, 129-34, 160, 173 demographics 11, 39, 46 Denmark 17 Denver 186-89 Detroit Jewish Welfare Federation 203 diaries 83-85, 91 Diaspora 1, 10-11, 75-76, 94, 96, 98 dictatorship 8, 72 Diner, H. 4, 10, 12, 128, 141, 192-201 Dinur, Y. see Ka-Tzetnik Displaced Persons Act (1948) 184 Displaced Persons (Di's) 9, 17, 26, 152; camps 5, 10-12, 16, 25, 27, 30, 39-55, 58, 61, 73, 75-76, 92, 97, 115—26; survivor stones 181, 183, 185-87; un-belated testimony 102-3, 106-8, 110-11 Dmytryk, E. 152, 163-65 doctors 129, 164 documentation 56, 63, 67—81, 1 ll double binds 140—41 Drancy 22, 27, 118 220 Index Dror 90 Falkenau 163 j Gebir Dubnov, S. 61 false history 192-93 1 tteblibk Dworzccki, M. 6, 57-59, 61-63 fascism 19, 21-23, 31, 130-32, 135, 177, 268 i Geiun Dzigan 97 Faure, E. 28 gener; Feder, S. 41-44, 49 ge„oc h scale 136 Federation des Societes Jnives de France 87; 1 aglc's Nest KP (FSJF) 69 K,' bast 9t) Feigenbaum, MJ. 74 . nal I ist Iferlin 1 P Feirotein, M. 5-6, 10-11, 39-54 m„ I ast (.itiiuin IP Feldafing DP camp 41, 44 sur I asiein 1 mope I, (>, 18 19, 23; documentation Feriicbel, O. 130 ' |4( 69, T> /$, /■> /(>, hiei Hurt* 60-62; memory Fenster, Fl. 86 Georg 3/ 28. Sil, 86 87, 89, myth of silence 210; Fennaglich, K. 9, 12, 170-80 Germ sumsoi stones 181, 186-87; theatre 46; films 4, 8-9, 12, 27; Hollywood 152-69; Germ theolog) 1 11 memory 48; myth of silence 184, 200, 213; Germ economics I. 11,69, IP responses 30-31 Germ 1 delm.in, M 19 Final Solution 20, 29, 121, 209, 21 1 . 84, oelneatois 36. 192, 19 s. 199 Fmkelstein, N. 2, 4 ! >| l'i< hnunn, A I Id,'/ >8, 84. 96, 102, 142, First Infantry Division 163 ' 15< >0n, '()', 708 H First World War 69, 153, 186 ' „ai hin.iutJi 32 Flannery, E. 146 19 I ins.it/gnippen '8 Flossenbürg 163 sur I mstein, A I /s Fölireuwakl DP camp 42, 44, 46-47 the lisenhaih, A l(> Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust tes Fisenbeig, 1 28 Testimonies 102 Gern: 1 iscnhi ig, K 119 I 'I Fourth Reich 160 „„ I isetihouei. 1) 166 Fourth Republic 70 cat 1 Ikins, S il Foxman, A. 3 16 I lman, K 310 France 6, 15, 17, 19-20; documentation 67-81; silt 1 luui (ones >8 DP camps 115, 117; 121; literature 55, 59; 17, amine Jtklimm; 8/ memory 22-23, 28, 31, 41; myth of" silence res Inglmd \ 19, '6/ 67-81, 204, 207; un-belated testimony 102 the English language I/, 19 >3, 25, 28; films 157, Frank, A. 30, 97 ' tes 159, hutauiie on. (P. memory 75, 97; myth Frank!, V. 22 Gerst ofsileme 192, >(P 20/, 21 1; name changes Freielländer, S. 6 Gesta 17', 171, sursisoi stoiies 185; theology French 24, 159 ghett> I W, 1 12, un belated testimony 103 ' French language 23, 72, 75, 122, 139 82 I nlighk nmenl 9S Frenkel-Brunswick, E. 8, 129 lid episiemologe 20 s Friedan, B. 31 20 I pstcm Ivo/kmski N 121-22 Friedman, D.D. 172-73 sto Iiikson, 111 HO Friedman, 1..A. Jr. 172-73 14 establishment 191 9i Friedman, P. 6, 16, 18-19, 21, 25, 29, 56-63, Gilfo 1 stoma 0 5 73-74 Gins! ethus Bi, I 10. I 1/ )9, 203 Fromm, E. 130-31 Glaes ethnic in 10, 19, 68, 71 films 153, 160, 165; Frytlman, Fl. 118, 121 Glatsi until of silence 19s 9 4; name changes Frydman, T. 74 Glaze 171 7', 171 /s Fuller, S. 8, 162 Gltk, hiuopean t'ooiilinition Committee 76 globa 1 uiopiMiiists 17 Galilee 90 Codi 1 \pic ssionists II, 9> Galtung, J. 108 God' extcimination camps 77 Galvin Library 110 Goffi Gar, J. 61 Gold F scale 130 Garber, Z. 212 goldc facial gangrene 24 Garcia-Granados, j. 26—27 Gold Fackenheim, E. 140, 143-46, 148 gas chambers 22, 27, 44, 67; films 157, 159, Gold Factory C. 91 164; myth of silence 204, 206, 210, 212-1.3; Gold Fajner-Dinus, Y. 91 un-belated testimony 104 Gold Index 221 Gebirrig, M. 42, 86 Xcblibbem- 198 Genera) Jewish Workers' Union 59 generation gaps 194, 203 genocide 1-2, 9, 12, 20; communal memory 87; documentation 73; films 152—53, 156—57, 163-64; myth of silence 202-4, 208-9, 211; name changes 170-71, 177-78; personality studies 127—28. 135; responses 28, 31; survivor stories 184; theology 139, 146-47 George, M. 174-75 German Army 27-28, 1 16 German Historical Commission 111 German language 89, 159-60, 207 Germans 4, 6, 9, 11—12; communal memory 84, 87, 90-92, 97; documentation 70-73; DP camps 119, 121-22; films 153-55, 157, 159-60, 162-63, 165; literature 59, 62-63; name changes 171, 173-74; iespouses 15~ 16. 19, 21-22, 25-26, 28-29; role 67-69; survivor stories 187; theatre 43, 47-48, 51; theology 141-42, 148; tin-belated testimony 104-5 Germany 5, 8, 16-18, 20; communal memory 97; documentation 73-75; DP camps 115-16: films 152-53, 157, 160-61, 163-64; literature 58; military 71; myth of silence 192-93, 200, 212; name changes 173; personality studies 129.....32, 135-36; responses 27, 29, 31; theatre 41-42. 45, 50; theology 142, 144, 146-47: un-belated testimony 102, 111 Getstle, G."l74 Gestapo 47. 71, 164 ghettos 4—5, 7, 16-17, 19; communal memory 82-83, 85, 87-92, 97-98; 17P camps 121; literature 58—63; myth of silence 202, 294, 2(17; responses 22, 26, 29; role 57; survivor stories 189; theatre 39, 42, 48, 50; theology 141 Gilford, S.R. 173 Ginsburg, S. 61 Glaeser, L. 69 Glatstem, J. 85, 87. 95 Glaze-r, N. 132 Glik, H. 42, 59 globalization 2, 18 Godin, N. 186 God's will 142-43 Goftman, li. 8, 108 Goldberg, L. 96 golden chain 58 Goldfaden 48 Goldfarb, S. 173 Goldstein, B. 19 Goldstein, E. 174 Goodman, M.E. 133 Gordon, A. 141 Goring, H. 159 Gouri. H. 208 Grade, C, 28, 58, 87, 93-94, 142 Gradowski, Z. 206 Great Deportation 89 Great Depression 132 Greece 74, 171 Greek Orthodox 123 Gn-enberg, G. 14 I Greenberg, U.Z. 94-95 Greenspan, H. 121 Grenoble 15, 68, 72 Grimm, W. 153-54 Grmberg, R. 69 Gringausz, S. 29 Gns.'N. 97 Grodners 189 Grodzinsky. Y. 51 Grossman, I.). 203 Grüber, H. 142 Guatemala 26 Habimah Theater 96 Haganah 44, 49 Hamilton. W. 14.5 Handlm, O. 107 Hannukah 23 Hanover 41 HaiTison, b.G. 25-26 Hart, K. 3 Hartford 187 Harzburg 41 Hass, A. 3 Hausner, G. 208-9 Hebrew 7, 17, 42, 82—101; documentation 75; films 159; literature 58, 6(1-62: myth of silence 192, 211; survivor stories 189 Hebrew University 61, 204 Hebrewcide 213 Hecht, B. 204 Heihxrsclmluc 139 Herman, N. 69 Horsey, J. 30, 210 Herskovitz, M. 105 Hertz, H. 69 Herz, F, 74 Heschel, A.J. 8, 142 Heydtich, R. 159 Heym, S. 30 HICEM Agency 69 Hilberg, R. 211 Hille) Academy 188 Himmler, H. 212 Hirsrhler, R. 69 Hirszenberg, S. 82 222 index Hist.idiut Labor Federation 90 Italians 24, 68. 171, 174 Kibbu historians 1, 3-6, 10, 16-18; documentation 73; Italy 19, 23, 32, 73; DP camps 115; 1 kibbu! DP camps 117, 121: fiance 68; literature Ministry of"Justice 17; personality > Kiddit: 55-64; myth of silence 193,195-99,201-2, studies 132; un-belated Kicke 207, 211; name changes 171, 174; responses testimony 102 Kiryat 21,26, 29; survivor stones 181, 186; theatre ■/. Knopl 44, 51; theology 141, 146; un-belated Jackson, R, 28, 158, 160, 162 :< Knoui testimony 111 jahoda, M, 133 Koestl Historians' Circle 57 Japanese Americans 194 Kofi» historiography 2, 4-7, 10, 17-18: Jaspers. K. 8 i Kogar documentation 75; DP camps 123; Jeremiah 94 :• Kol Y literature 56, 61; responses 21, 24-25, 32: Jerusalem 1, 7, 18, 46, 75-76; communal i Kolitz un-belated testimony 111 memory 86, 90; myth of silence 208; Kolor Hitler, A. 30, 44, 94, 130, 135, 142, 144-45, theology 142, 146 Ron, 147,153-54,159,161-63,170-80,187, Jewish Agency 74 Kook 206,211,213 Jewish Councils 63 ': Korcz Hobson, L.Z. 9, 30, 175, 177 Jewish Documentation Center 67-81 ; Kosin Hoess, R. 16-17 Jewish Education Association 199 : Kovel Hoffman, E. 212 Jewish Family and Children Services (JFCS) Kovm Holme-Belsen 16 184-85 Krahr HollywooclS, 152-69 Jewish 1 listoncal Commission 16,56 ■• Krakc Holocaust industry 2, 4, 21 I Jewish Historical Institute (JFII) 57. 60-61. Kram homophobia 131 ' 74,76,89 7 Krell, homosexuality 92 Jewish Professional Actors' Union 47 Krieg honor courts 90 Jewish Theological Seminary 199 Krohi Howe, I. 30, 209 Job 212 : Kumi Huberband 85 Jockusch, L. 6, 10-11 i Kugel human documents 106-7 Joint Distribution Committee 58 Kulki human rights 75 journalists 67, 69, 86, 93, 152, 195, 201 Hungary 17, 23, 25, 93, 96, 102, 155, 172-73 journals 5, 10, 17, 6ffeommunal memory 83, labou 86; myth of silence 196, 207; name labou iconography 83, 123, 156, 165 changes 174-75, 177; responses 24-25, 30; Laboi ideology 5 7, 11, 22-23, 29; communal survivor stories 184 ; Lagro memory 90; documentation 71, 75; Joy Division 92 Lamb literature 60; myth of silence 192, 194, Judaism 12, 72, 89, 143-47 Lame 196, 200, 208; personality studies 128-29, Judeocide 131 Land: 131, 135; theatre 44, 51 Lands illegal immigration 26, 46, 49 Ka-Tzetnik 135633 (Yehiel Dinur) 7, 91-93, lands!, Illinois Institute of Technology (1IT) 103, 110 95, 98, 209, 211 landsn Indianapolis 187 Kaczerginski, S. 86 Latvi; Lisdorf A. 156 Kaddhii 32, 154 bwyc Institute for Jewish Affairs 29 Kahn, G. 69 lay-pi Internationai Workers' Order 90 Kaletzka, A. 116-18 '•<''"'" interviews 102-1 I. I 15-26, 130, 142, 146, 186 kapos 5, 92 Lecle Iron Curtain 11, 76 Kassow, S. 15 Lefkc isolationists 153 Kasztner, I. 96 Leftw Israel 1-2, 4, 11-12, 18; communal memory Katz, D. 43 legisl; 83-84, 88, 90, 93, 96-97; Declaration of Katz, S. 177,208 Lehir Independence 211; documentation 72, 75; Katzenelnbogen, U. 189 Lehn DP camps 117; literature 55, 57-61; myth Katzenelson, Y. 59, 85, 90, 94 ?: Leipl: of silence 196-97, 205. 208-11, 213; Kautenng 22 Leivi. personality studies 128; responses 26; Kazin, A. 30 Lernt theatre 39, 43, 50-52; theology 144, 146 Kellogg, R. 163 Lengr Israel Prize in Social Science 62 Kelly, G. 161 Lerer Israel-Arab War (1967) see Six-Day War Kermish, J. 6, 16, 57, 60, 62, 73-74 Levi, Israeli Defense Force (IDP) 88 kluirbn 91, 93, 189, 211 Levi, Italian language 17 Kibbutz Dafna 24 Levir L Index 223 Kibbutz Lohaniei Hageta'ot 90 kibbutzim 24, 44, 83^ 88, 90, 94-96 Kiddnsh Ha-Shem 47, 49 Kieke 24-25 Kiryst Anavint 26 Knopf 26 Knout, D. 69 Koestler, A. 207-8 Kofiiian, S. 140-41 Kogan. E. 20, 108 Kol Yisrael 84 Kolitz, Z. 7, 85-87, 95, 205 Kolorney 63 Kon, H." 86 Kook, H. 204 Korczak, J. 89 Kosinskt, J. 210-11 Kovel.J. 134 Kovne 26, 61 Krahn, C. 107 Krakow see Crakow Kramer, B.M. 132 Krell, P. 187-88 Krieger, S. 28 Krohn, 1). 157 Ktuno 57 Kugelmass, J. 62, 170. 1.77 Kulkielko, R. 24 labour camps 22, 57, 116, 119 labour movement 88 Labour Party 26 Lagrou, 1'. 21 Lambert, R.-R, 69 Lamentations, Book of 88 Landau, S. 22 Landsberg 40-41, 116-17 landslayt 186 landsmansdmftn 9, 186-89, 198 Latvia 103,'l 15 lawyers 69, 158 lay-professional partnership 55, 61-64 h'bensraiiin 153 Leclerc 67 Lcfkowitz, M. 172-73 Leftwrch, J. 19 legislation 19, 70 Lehman, H. 87 Lehman, S. 59 Leipheim DP camp 40-41, 43, 50 Leivick, H. 86 Lemkin, R. 202 Lengyel, O. 23 Lerer Yizkor Book 88 Levi, 1, 205 Levi, P. 32, 148, 207, 211-12 Levin, M. 27, 30, 91, 210 Levittas, ,E. 147-48 Levinson, D. 8, 129 Levy, C. 19 Levy, D. 2 Lewfnska. P. 20 Lewis Institute 103 Lewis, MM. 172 Lewisolm, L. 24 Libau 103 Library of Congress 103, 146 Lichtenstein, 1. s>6 Lidice 153. 159 Liebmatt, S. 153 Lifton, R.I 135 ltminality 115, 117 Lind, J. 21 I Linz 17, 74 Lipscombe, P.M. 24 Lipset, S.M. 108 Lis, N. 187 literature 3, 5, 7,10; communal memory 85-87, 90-91, 93; myth of silence 202; name changes 175, 177; responses 20-21, 23-26, 29-30, 32; reviews 55-66: theology 141; un-belated testimony 107 Lithuania 90, 148, 189 Litteil, F. 8, 146-47 Litzbach 153-54 Liviau, M. 69 Locke, H.G. 147 Lodz 22, 59, 63, 73-74; communal memory 87, 90, 92; ghetto 121; myth of silence 207; responses 26 Lodz Ghetto 58 London 17-18, 26, 59, 74, 76 Los Angeles 181, 187, 189, 204 Lublin 16, 56, 67, 73, 95 Lwow (Lvov) 19, 26, 56 Maass, E. 177 Machaditu Art Editions 86 Magues, J. 204-5 Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland 16 Majdanek 26, 28, 91-92, 95, 122 Makover, FED. 94 Makimud, B. 9, 176, 210 Malrnedy Tragedy 160 Manhattan 171 maquis doeumeiilaires 72 Mark, B. 89-90 Markt Oberdorf' 40 Marlon, A. 160 Marx, K. 157 Maslow, A. 130 media 29, 89, 143, 153, 181, 184, 202, 208 Megged, A. 96, 98 224 Index iVlegged, M. 96 National Heart Institute 108 90 Meiss, 1... 69 National Institute for Dental Sciences 108 ' 16 memory 82-1 Ol, 115-26, 198 National Institute of Health 108 re' Meridl, R. 89 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Nure Mennonttes 115, 123 103,108-9 Nure Menorah group 187 National Institute for Neurological Diseases Nyk mental health/illness 129, 131-33,184 and Blindness 108 Mental Hygiene Division 108 nationalism 49-50, 173 Oflic Meiithon, F. de 28 Native Americans 194 Ca Mam, M. 92 Nazis 1-4, 7-8, 11, 15; communal memory Tt Messiah 141 90, 92, 97-98; documentation 71, 73, 75; Offlt: Methodists 146 DP camps 115, 117, 120-21, 124; films Olm Mexico 103 152-55, 157-61, 163, 165; literature 57-59, Olsz« Middle Ages 31, 59 61, 63-64; myth of silence 192-93, 198, oral I Middle East 26 200, 202-4, 207, 209-13; name changes .: Ores Milan 23, 74 171, 175-78; personality studies 127-31, Orkr Milgrain, S. 135 135; responses 20, 24-31; survivor stories OR'1 Milland, R. 158 182, 185, 188; theatre 39, 41, 44, 47-48, 50, Orth Miller, A. 9, 30 52; theology 142, 144, 146-48; youth 116 Osca Miller, J. 2-3 neo-Nazis 162 OSE Mühl, I.. 23 neo-Roinantics 87 Oym Minsk Mazowiecki 83-84, 93 New Americans Clubs 187-89 Ozic Mintz, A. 31 New Crakow Friendship Society 187-88 Modi, M. 69 New Deal 108 Pagis modernism 84 new historians 51 • PAH moguls 152 New Jews 10, 195-96 Pales Molodowski, K. 95 New School for Social Research 213 ni Moniieray, H. 15, 28 New Testament 146 D Montefiore Hospital 184 New Texans 187 na Moore, D.D. 174 New York 3, 18-20,•■€3-26, 76; communal th Moravia, A. 19 memory 83-84, 86, 88, 94; literature 56-57, Pales Morse, A. 204 60-61; myth of silence 204; name changes Paraf Mosad Harav Kook 88 170-73; survivor stories 181, 183, 186-87, Paris Moscow 87, 90, 156 189 8f Moscow Declaration 156 New York Association for New Americans fil movie industry see films (NYANA) 182-83 Park Müller, F. 205-6 New York Jewish Labor Committee 25 Pat,. Munich 16, 41, 47, 56, 61, 74, 154, 160-61 New York University 143 patlx Munich Yiddish Art Theater (MIT) 41, 43-44, New York University Press 193 Part, 47-48 newspapers 9, 19, 49, 58; communal memory Pawi Musical Yiddish Cabaret Theater (MIKT) 41, 90; documentation 67; films 156; myth of peda 44, 49 silence 199, 207; name changes 175; Pere My Lai massacre 134-35 responses 26, 28; survivor stories 184 Perk myth of silence 2-5, 10, 12, 15-38; different newsreels 9, 106-7, 153, 156-57, 184, 207 Peril stories 181-91; France 67-81; meaning Nietzsche, F.W. 148, 160 prat 192-201; origins 192-201; personality Niewyk, D. 110, 1 19-20, 123 Pessi studies 127; reconsidered 202-16; theatre Niger, S. 84, 86 Phils 51-52; im-belated testimony 102-3, 110-11, nightmares 183, 185 Phik 1 15; Yiddish 55-66 Nixon, R. 135 phik non-Jewish accounts 4, 20-21 phik Nagdn 119, 121 North Africa 69, 164 Pmst Nalkowska, Z. 19 North America 17, 103 Pints name-change petitions 170-71 Norway 17 Piskt names/surnames 9, 12, 170-80 Novick, P. 2, 4 plays Natamohn, S. 187 Nuremberg 74 pogr National Book Award 63 Nuremberg International Military Tribunal Pola National Cancer Institute 1.08 (IMT) I, 8, 15—16, 22; communal memory m Index 225 00; documentation 71; films 152-54, 156-59, 162-63, 165; myth of silence 209-10; responses 27—28 Nuremberg Laws 210 Nuremberg Principles 154 Nyiszli, M. 207 OUice of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes of the American National Military Tribunal 74 Offices of Censorship and War Information 153 Ohrdru IT 27 Olszewski, K. 21 oral history 25, 1 It), 181, 185, 197-99, 202 Orenstern, B, 61, 63 Orlcv, U. 97 ORT Association 69 Orthodox Judaism 15, 86, 92, 141, 188 Oscars 156 OSE Organization 69 Oytteg Shabes 15-16, 60, 89, 110 Ozick, C. 210 Pagts, O. 102, 111 PAH All Association 17 Palestine 9, 17-18, 24-27, 39; communal memory 87, 90, 9(>; d,ocuinent.ition 74; DP camps 117; myth of silence 203-4; name changes 176; survivor stories 186; theatre 42. 44-46, 51-52 Palestinians 213 Paraf, P. 69 Paris 4, 6, 15,18-20; communal memory 83—84, 86, 88-90, 93-94; documentation 67-81; films 164; literature 56—57; responses 27 Parkes, J. 146 Pat, J. 16, 25 pathology 131 Part, A.j. 44 Pawiak prison 22 petlagogy 103, 105, 145, 193, 195, 201 Peretz 48, 87 Perle, Y. 89 Perlmutter, H, 41 personality studies 127—38 Pessin, D. 199 Philadelphia 204 Philadelphia Early Childhood Project 133 philosophers 141k 147, 157 philosophy 139-51 Pinson, K. 25 Ptntschewski, M. 47-48 Piskorz, B. 122-23 plays 5, 39-40, 42-50, 185 pogroms 25, 42, 49, 86 Poland 16-17, 19-26, 28, 102; communal memory 82-84, 86-89, 92, 94, 97; documentation 73, 75; DP camps 116-17; films 153-56; literature 55-56, 58-60, 62-64; myth of silence 198; name changes 175; survivor stories 187; theatre 41-42, 44, 49 Poland Main Commission for the Investigation of Gentian Crimes 27-28 Poliakov, L. 6, 15, 28-29, 69, 71, 73 Polish language 19, 23, 27, 89, 207 political science 107 politics I, 6, 12, 15; communal memory 82, 88-89, 92, 95; documentation 72, 75; films 152, 163; literature 61; myth of silence 192-93, 196-98, 200, 207-8, 213; personality studies 128-34; responses 27. 29; theatre 44, 51; theology 148 Poniatow 19 Porter, K.A. 210-1 I Portugal 48 post-tr:,uiniatic stress 50, 184 post-war generation 195 postmodernism 2 Powianec 89 Prager, M. 86-87 premature closure 146 prisons 8, 20 Prix Concourr 32 Production Code Administration 153, 165 profiteering 11 Promised Land 23 Protestants 143, 140 Providence 181, 187 Psalms 205 psychiatrists 129, 134-35, 183 psychoanalysts 129-30, 135, 181 psychologists 25, 50. 109. 211; DP camps 115, 118; personality studies 129-30, 132-35; un-belated testimony 102, 106 psychology 25, 30-31, 44, 49-51; communal memory 91; documentation 70; DP camps 117; films 162, 165; myth of silence 202, 211; personality studies 128, 130-31, 133-35; theology 144-45; un-belated testimony 104, 106-7 psychopathology 129 Rabbis 15, 69, 105. 141-42; films 154-55, 160, 165; myth of silence 192, 195, 205, 210-11; system 91 racism 11, 72, 129.....31, 133-34; films 153-54, 157, 160; laws 19, 70; myth of silence 194. 210; name changes 177 radical theology 143 Ratlke-Yarrow, M. 133 Rajzinan, S. 28 Rakover, 55 85, 87, 93, 98 Rapoport, N. 7, 82, 84, 89, 95 Rattier, J. 69-70 226 Index Kavensbrück 27, 207 Rawicz, 1J, 21 I razzia 19 Rebbe, G. 86 Red Army 26, 83, 90-91 refugees 9, 26, 59, 84; communal memory 83, 94; DP camps 117; myth of silence 204; survivor stories 181-89 Reich, W. 130 Reisman, 1). 107 Reitlinger, G. 28 relief workers 24, 162 religion 139-41, 144-46, 148-49, 154; films 165; myth of silence 192-93, 197, 200, 205 repression 203, 208 republicans 70, 73, 76 Revisionists 85, 94 Riga 21 Ringelblnm Archive 58. 60 Rrngelblum, P. 56, 60 Robert Koch Institute 24 Robinson, E.G. 157 Robinson, N. 29 Rochman, L. 7, 83-85, 91, 93-95 Rogers, C. 109 Romania 62, 74 Rome 17, 19 Rommel, P. 164 Roosevelt. F. 87, 108, 155-56, 204 Reisen, A. 4, 7. 10, 12, 102-14 Rosenbaum, "F. 203 Rosenberg, 14. 209-11 Rosenfckl, 1. 30, 208 Rosh Plashanah 116-17, 139, 189 Resides, D. 7, 10-12, 82-101 Rost, N. 16-4 7, 74 Roth, J. 139-51 Rotbstein, I. 173 Rothstem, 1... 173 Rousset, D, 20 Rubenstein, R.L.. 142-44, 146-47 Rudashevsky, Y. 89 Russia 24, 49, 57, 63; communal memory 90; documentation 68; DP camps 115, 123; un-belated testimony 103 Russian language 90 SA 154 Sachs, N. 21 1 Sachsenhausen 142, 144 sacralization 212 sadism/sadomasochism 92, 97-98, 130, 134, 206 Salzburg 161 San Francisco 181 Sandelowski, H. 187 Sanford, N. 8, 129. 134 Sarny 63 Sartre, J.-P. 67-68, 74, 76 soaa Sayonne, B. 186, 188 soda scapegoats 130-31,163 socio St.Híili, J3. (39 socio Schah, W. 69 solo, Schell, M. 164 Sond Sclmeersoim, 1. 6, 15-16, 18, 20, 28, 31, Sorb. 68-72 Sosn. scholarly writing 55-66 Sour Schumacher 97 Sout Schwartz-Bart, A. 32 Sout Schwarz, L. 17, 61 Sovtc scribes 202 m second silence 212 (J Second World War 2, 30, 73, 127-29; 17 films 152, 161, 163; myth of silence Soye 192, 194, 196, 199-201; name Span changes 170-72, 174-75, 177; Spiel theology 140 Srolt Segall, 1. 48 SS 2 Segev, 47 51 \z segregation 133 2( Seidler, V.J. 3 Stain Seidman, N. 121-22 Stálit Sempruii, J. 106-7, 211 Stara Sender, R.M. 41, 50 Staul septuagenarians 198 Steir Serkess, L. 185 Steh sexual abuse 7, 29, 92 stero Shandler, J. 127 - Stem Shanghai 187 Stoc Shatzkin, L. 19 ston Shaw, G.B. 96 stras Shaw, 1. 30, 163-65, 210 Smg Shayevitsh, 85 stuck shelter houses 193 suiei Shema 205 Sunc Shirer, W. 262 survj Shoah 3, 45-46, 48-51, 94, 140-41, 147-48, Surv 157,211 p, Showman of Auschwitz 41 Suez shtetl 84, 94 Svot Slmnd 46 $we, Siedlecki, J.N. 21 Swit Siiriat Poalim 97 Sym Silesia 92 Syrk Sirnmel, E. 129-31 Szeli Singer, I.B. 84, 94, 210 Sm. Six-Day War (I967) 1, 128, 196, 212 Szm Skarzysko-Kaimciina 91 Szua slavery 31, 133, 194 Szyk Slavs 171 Slovenia 174 Tab; Smith, M. 6, 10-1 1, 55-66 u}}0 Sobeloff 1. 203 Tnrf Sobibor 92 r,mo social sciences 8, 10, 62, 106, 110, 129 -payl Index 227 social workers 9, 12, 25, 59, 182-85, 189 socialists 42, 61, 154 sociologists 108, 132-33, 181 sociology 10, 67, 107, 128 Solonion-Ma'arvi, T. 62 Sondeikommando 92, 204-6, 212 Sorbonne 63 Sosnowicz 26, 92 South Africa 55 South America 17 South Vietnam 134 Soviet Union 12, 17, 28, 40; communal memory 83, 87-90, 93; DP camps 115, 123; films 152, 160; literature 60; responses 17-18, 22; theatre 42, 48. 51, 56 Soyer, D. 186 Spanish Civil War 155 Spielberg, S. 102 Srole, L. 117 SS 23, 71, 91, 105; DP camps 120, 122; films 153-54, 156-57, 163-64; myth of silence 205, 212 Stalin, J. 156, 213 Stalingrad 68 Starachowice 120 Staub, M. 8, 11-12, 127-38 Steinberg, 1. 25 Sternberg, R.P. 173 stereotypes 134, 155 Steven, G. 152 Stockholm 74 Stone, l.F. 26 Strasbourg 69 Stngler, M. 7, 58, 91-93, 95 students 194-95 suicide 23, 59 Sundquist, E.J, 202—16 survivor witness programs 198 Survivors of the Slioah Visual History Foundation 102 Sutzkever, A. 7, 85, 90, 95 Svonkin, S. 127 Sweden 17 Switzerland 74, 83, 115 Symbolists 96 Syrkin, Fvl. 17, 213 Szeftel, j. 69 Szenes, H. 96 Szmaglewska, S. 21—22, 28 Sznaider. N. 2 Szyk, A. 87 Tabaksblat, I. 63 taboos I 16, 121-23, 15.3, 200 Tarton. R. 62 tattoos 93, 176, 1.82 Taylor, 47 28 4 chantabroda, R. 105 Tedeschi, G. 23 Tel Aviv 84-85 television 1, 127, 184, 209 Temple of Solomon 88 Tenenb.utm, li. 97 Tennenbaum, ). 25, It)7 testimony 102—14 textbooks 58, 199-201) tbeatte 5, 39-54, 96. 104. 204 Thematic Appeit option 4 est 13(1 theodicy 12, 147-49 theologians 12, 140, I 13, 211 theology 8, 139- 51. 203, 21 I 4heresiensi*attt 22 I hud Reich 27, 31, 71, 120-21; films 152, 156 -57. 162, lt>4- 65; myth oi silence 209; personality studies 129 Titus, Arch of 82 I'ombeuH da Miirtyi jail Imomiti 72 dotal) 82. 93, 95. 154 Toronto University 144 toiture 20, 47, 122. 134. 203 totalitarianism 72-73, 75, 135 Trager, H.G. 133 transit camps 43, 47 trauma 50-52, 69, 73, 76; communal meinoiv 97; films 165; peisonality studies 136; smvivor stones 181, 185; un belated testimony 106 fteblnika 16, 21, 27 -78, 92, 207 trials 1, 10, 27, 71; coninuui.il memoiy 8-1; Hollywood films 152—69; myth of silence 200, 202, 208-13: tesponses 'l6, 22; theology 1-12: im-bekited testimony 102 Truman, H. 25-2.6, 108 Tunik, I. 6, It), 57. 59-60, 63 lurkheim 22 1 urkow, J. 6, 47 Tutkow, M. 28 un-belated testimony 102—14 Umkowski, I. 121 -23 Union Genéia! des lsiaélites de fiance (UG-1F) 69 Union of Italian Jewish Communities 17 United Bekbatowei Assistance Committee 186, 188 United fimetgeucy Relief Committee tor the City of I oil/ 87 United Kingdom (UK) 12. 24 United Nations Relief .mt! K eti.tl.itit.ition Atlnnnisti.iuoii (UNItRA) -V>. 50 Uniu-U Nations Spcri.il t'omiiiitu-e tin Palestine (UNSOOU) 26 United Nations (UN) 74, 153. I 5i United States Anny 20, 8/, 106, 161, 172 228 Index United States (US) 2-4, 7-12, 16, 18-20; communal memory 87, 90; documentation 73; 1)1* camps 115-17; films 152-69; Holocaust Memorial Museum 103, 212; literature 55, 61; myth of silence 192-93, 195-98, 200, 204, 207-10, 212-13; name changes 170—80; personality studies 127—29, 131-36; responses 22, 24-26, 29-31; Signal Corps 164; survivor stories 181-82, 185-86; theology 141-43, 146; mi-belated testimony 102-14 Uris, 1... 30. 210 USSR see Soviet Union Valoch, A. 23 Van Buren, P. 143 Vol d'Hiv 31 Vichy Prance 6, 15, 68-72, 76 Vienna 17, 22, 26, 74, 175 Vietnam War 128, 134, 184, 194 Viking Press 19 Villach 26 Vilna 26, 42, 57, 61, 86, 89-90, 93, 207 Vilna Ghetto 59, 61-63 Vitale, M.A. 17, 74 Vitebsk 63 Vittel 19, 59 Wallach, f. 23 Wallant, E. 210.....1 1 war crimes 15-17, 27-28, 71, 74, 152-69, 213 Warsaw 4, 15, 18-19, 22; communal memory 83, 86, 89; documentation 74; films 154; literature 60-61 Warsaw Ghetto 7, 19, 21, 29-30; communal memory 85, 88-90; literature 58-59, 62-63; Memorial 82-84, 89, 198; myth of silence 2.(15, 207; theatre 51; un belated testimony 110; Uprising 189 Washington 26, 186 Wasser, H. 16 Wayne State University 147 Wechsler,). 175, 177 Wehrmacht 28 Weill, A. 69 Weingarten, R. 187-89 Wcinstock, E. 23 Welles. O. 8, 157 Werewolves 162-63 West 90, 93, 131, 134, 139 West Berlin 142, 160 West Germany 16, 142, 152, 160, 163 Westerbork 30 Western Europe 1, 19, 24, 62, 76 White Americans 174, 196 Wiener, A. 74 Wiener Library 17, 74, 76 Wiesel, E. 93, 102, 122-23, 139-40, 146-47, 204, 211 Wiesenthal, S. 17, 74 Wieviorka, A. 20, 202 Wilhelmstras.se case 28 Wisconsin 199 Wise, S.S. 204 Wolfenstein, M. 108 World Documentation Center 75 World War I sec First World War World War 11 see Second World War writing 55-66 Wulf, J. 16, 73-74 Wyman, D. 204 Yad Mordechai 83 Yad Vasheni 7, 18, 56-58, 60, 75-76, 83, 146 Yale University 102 Yiddish 5-7, 10-1 I. 17, 19; communal memory 82—101; documentation 75; DP camps 122; myth of silence 55-66, 192, 202, 2.04. 2.07! 211; responses 23, 25, 28, 30; survivor stories 182, 189; theatre 41, 46-50; theology 139; un-belated testimony 103 " Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO) 57-58, 61, 63 Yiddish Writer's Union 93 Yishuv 44 yizkor books 62-63, 87-88, 93-95, 188-89 yizkor services 188-89 YKUF Publishers 90 Yoni Kippur 189 Young, j. 188 youth rebellion 194-95, 197 YouTube 90 Yugoslavia 24 Zamosc 91 Zeitlin, H. 89 Zettal, I. 51 Zimmetbaum, M. 22-23 Zionists 11, 24-25, 27, 69; communal memory 85, 88-90; literature 61; theatre 42, 44-46, 49-52 Zuekerman, Y. 89, 94 Zygelboym, S. 59 Zyklon, B. 204 Zywulska, K. 22