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1Filipetti
Carrie Filipetti
RELJ 4559
Asher Biemann
10 May 2010
Holocaust as Aberration: How Oral Histories Particularize the Holocaust
The purpose of this paper is to show how oral histories have both particularized and
historicized the Holocaust in a way that contrasts with the work of survivors. That is, the agenda
commonly attached to the collection of oral histories, as well as the themes they choose to
underscore, serve to further characterize the Holocaust as an aberration rather than development
of history.
First, we will investigate the motivations provided by survivors and compare them with
the motivations of oral historians. This will demonstrate that survivors write with a preventative
inclination whereas oral historians conduct their research with an informative inclination. Next,
we will analyze the way in which each genre depicts Nazis, showing that the emphasis on Nazi
brutality and the de-individualization of Nazi party members so present in oral histories contrasts
with the focus on daily life and individualized Nazis that characterize survivors’ works. By
representing Nazis as an amorphous, semi-corporate machine rather than simple men and
women, the oral historians strip all humanness from their decisions, thereby removing them
entirely from the experiences of modern generations. Then, we will study the representation of
Jews, ultimately showing that whereas survivors make them relatable figures who ferociously
struggle with their conditions, oral historians place them within a larger pure good vs. pure evil
framework that mythologizes the Holocaust, once again, serving to further remove the Holocaust
from human responsibility. Finally, we will investigate how the books approach chronology,
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concluding that because oral historians are so emphatic on locating the Holocaust in history, it
loses the contemporary relevance so central to survivors’ works. In such a way, it will be clear
that whereas both survivors and oral historians view the Holocaust as unique, survivors see clear
thematic and historical continuity between then and now; that is, it is unique, but it does not have
to be – and, in all likelihood, will not be. Oral historians, on the other hand, because of their
motivations for writing, their treatment of Jews and Nazis, and their stringent linear chronology,
serve to both particularize and historicize the Holocaust, stripping it of all relevancy to the
modern age.
Before delving into the research, it is first important to justify my choice of sources. My
primary sources for survivor literature include Elie Wiesel’s Night1, Imre Kertesz’s Fatelessness2,
Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz3, Paul Steinberg’s Speak You Also4, and Jean Amery’s At the
Mind’s Limits5. My purpose for choosing these works was three-fold. First, all of them were
produced by survivors of Auschwitz. Though all of them were at other camps at some other point
– Dachau, Buchenwald, etc. – Auschwitz was a central part of their lived experience. While
works on other camps can certainly supplement my thesis, “it is not simple to find a common
denominator for these…camps.”6 With that in mind, I have selected these books to keep as much
consistency as possible, keeping in mind the vast body of survivor literature that exists. Second, I
choose works that included a wide range of literary genres; that is, Wiesel and Levi composed
1� Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006)
2� Kertesz, Imre. Fatelessness. Trans. Tim Wilkinson. (Evanston: Random House, 2004)
3� Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. Trans. Stuart Woolf. (New York: Touchstone, 1996)
4� Steinberg, Paul. Speak You Also. Trans. Linda Coverdale. (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2000)
5� Amery, Jean. At the Mind’s Limits. Trans. Sidney Rosenfeld. (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980)
6� Ibid., 6.
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memoirs, Amery wrote a collection of essays, Kertesz wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, and
Steinberg wrote what can best be categorized along with Wiesel and Levi’s memoirs but which
is, in actuality, more of a stream-of-consciousness reflection. Each of these genres lends itself to
different forms of expression, all of which will be studied in relation to their function within their
particular genre. Third, and finally, all of the authors hail from a different location: Wiesel is
from Transylvania; Kertesz, Hungary; Levi, Italy; Steinberg, France; Amery, Austria. Choosing
authors from various regions ensured that I would not be inadvertently representing the opinions
of French Jews, for example, rather than survivors as a generalized whole7.
As representative of oral histories, I studied Lucette Valensi and Nathan Wachtel’s Jewish
Memories8, Harry James Corgas’s Voices from the Holocaust9, Rhoda Lewin’s Witness to the
Holocaust: An Oral History10, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (USHMM,
henceforth) Oral History Interview Guidelines11, Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah12, and Art
Spiegelman’s Maus I13 and Maus II14. My emphasis will be on Shoah, Maus I and Maus II, and
USHMM. The purpose for focusing on these works in particular is because of their prominence
in both popular culture and oral history research. The USHMM is at the forefront of conducting
oral histories, and both Shoah and Maus have received uncommon attention. Because I am
7� As much as they can be generalized; see section on flaws.
8� Valensi, Lucette. Jewish Memories. (Berkeley: California UP, 1991)
9� Corgas, Harry James. Voices from the Holocaust. (Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1993)
10� Lewin, Rhoda. Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral History. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990)
11� United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Oral History Interview Guidelines. (Washington, D.C., USHMM, 1998)
12� Lanzmann, Claude. Shoah: The Complete Text of the Acclaimed Holocaust Film. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995) (henceforth, Shoah)
13� Spiegelman, Art. Maus. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986) (henceforth, Maus)
14� Spiegelman, Art. Maus II. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991) (henceforth, Maus II)
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studying how oral histories function in the eyes of their readers/listeners, I have sought to ensure
that the works I was have studied have been widely received. The other works listed will serve
largely to supplement my investigation into these main sources. Occasionally, I will also draw in
outside sources to further underscore a particular theme or technique.
A few flaws of my research must be conveyed at the outset. Firstly, within all of the
books and oral histories investigated lies a vastness of opinion and interpretation that, for the
purposes of the generalized study at hand, must be consolidated. Each author comes from a
different socio-intellectual background, with Jean Amery as a self-identified intellectual 15,
Steinberg as a gambler16, Wiesel as a mystic17, etc., and all of these “former lives”18 have
understandably influenced not only their experiences in the camps but also their reflection and
reconciliation of those experiences. In certain instances, then, my statements and interpretations
will come off as overly homogenizing. Though I do attempt to pay proper respect and attention
to different perspectives, in the interest of space constraints those viewpoints that are particularly
exceptional will have to be relegated to a footnote. Secondly, I freely admit to – and embrace – a
lack of complete objectivity in analyzing Holocaust literature and approaching Jewish themes in
general because of my deep personal identification with Judaism and my personal political
affiliation. I therefore have a natural sensitivity to the idea of particularizing the Holocaust,
which I am sure has played a not inconsequential role in the development of my thesis. Third –
and this is not particular to my research but rather to the subject at hand – much of what
survivors write contradicts other things they say previously. This makes it all the more difficult
15� Amery, 2.
16� Steinberg, 3.
17� Weisel, 3.
18� Steinberg, 79.
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to draw out an overarching perspective from each work; to combat this, however, I have chosen
to be more inclusive than exclusive. That is, I will include their contradictions as a vital part of
their perspective rather than attempt to gloss over them for the sake of uniformity.
Despite these shortcomings, however, this paper provides a well-documented and
necessary inquiry into two related genres—the writings of survivors and the conducting of oral
histories—that has a valuable place among existing Holocaust scholarship as it engages with the
question of how the Holocaust has been conveyed to the world. Moreover, it focuses on a
particular question – how the Holocaust has been mythologized and historicized – and precisely
who is responsible for that phenomenon.
Survivors and oral historians provide very different reasons for their investigation into the
Holocaust, and it is these motivations to which we first turn. Understanding why each individual
has undertaken to preserve the memory of the Holocaust allows us to better account for his/her
particular thematic choices later on. It is the motivation for writing that serves as the foundation
for whether or not a work as a whole historicizes or mythologizes the Holocaust.
Survivors of the Holocaust, as a general rule, write with the understanding that their
stories are important to tell not merely as a point of history but rather as a point of prevention;
that is, they write with the underlying assumption that the evil they experienced, though unique,
has at the very least the potential to be repeated. This is not to say that the survivors do not
struggle with the question of why they write. In fact, Wiesel indicates the uncertainty with which
he undertakes the project, asking himself:
“Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in
order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had
erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind? Was it to leave behind a legacy of
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words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself? Or was it simply to
preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent?” 19
Similarly, Paul Steinberg is unclear on why he is writing, only on “what he want[s] to avoid.”20
The fact that both Wiesel and Steinberg question their intentions is important in two ways. First,
it indicates the importance of understanding why we write, the task to which we have turned.
Second, it hints at the idea that there is something unexplainable that lies behind their decision to
write, something that Wiesel ultimately describes as a moral obligation, revealing, “The witness
has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow.
He does not want his past to become their future.”21 The use of the term “forced”—along with
the preventative explanation provided— is more telling of his motivations in writing than his
series of questions are. That is, it plainly points to an outside driver that compels him to write,
despite his personal reluctance to do so. What is this force? In his own words, “moral
obligation.”22 Steinberg likewise views his authorship in similar terms; that is, “I’m purging
myself as I write, and I have a vague feeling not of liberation, but of fulfilled obligation.”23
Steinberg, though ostensibly writing to deliver himself from the world of Nazi atrocities24, is
therefore similar to Wiesel in that both view the compilation of their works as the fulfillment of
some sort of moral obligation.
19� Wiesel, vii.
20� Steinberg, 62.
21� Wiesel, xv.
22� Ibid., viii.
23� Steinberg, 63.
24� Ibid., 14-15.
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What, then, is the moral obligation? It is here that the survivors deviate from oral
historians in a tangible way, for unlike the historians, who as we will soon see write largely to
preserve history, the survivors are writing to prevent future disasters. By that I mean that they
are, for the most part, explicit in their attempt to connect the horrors of the past with
contemporary experiences. For Wiesel, this is done in three ways, all of which are intimately
connected to what he ultimately settles on as his primary motivation. First, he connects his past
at Auschwitz with his personal life today. Second, he emphasizes the ability of man to move back
and forth between madness, thereby indicating that it is not a particularistic trait; and third, he
expresses an interest in preventing similar things from happening in the future, thereby revealing
his belief that these atrocities are not merely the problems of the past.
Wiesel connects his life in Auschwitz to his choices of today. “If in my lifetime I was to
write only one book,” he states, “this would be the one. Just as the past lingers in the present, all
my writings after Night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes,
profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my
works.”25 Similarly, he admits, “I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer—or
my life, period—would not have become what it is.”26 Auschwitz, for Wiesel, was not left in the
1940s. It exists not as a distant theory but as a reality that affects his present life no less than it
affected his past. By locating Auschwitz in his present rather than his past, Wiesel presents a
view of Auschwitz as a modern reality.
Wiesel also implies that madness is not something that affects only a small segment of
the population. Instead, he asks, “Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad
25� Wiesel, vii.
26� Ibid., viii.
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in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted
in history and in the conscience of mankind?”27 Here Wiesel indicates that it is possible to move
into the realm of madness, and more importantly, that it is unclear where madness lies. Does
madness lie in the investigation into the atrocities or in the lack of investigation? This blurred
definition of madness, as well as the ease with which one can traverse its realm, has a clear
implication: that which one can call “mad” and, therefore, a deviation from nature, is not.
Madness is not contrary to man, it is an aspect of man, into which one can cross with much
fluidity and ease. In such a way, Wiesel once again locates the Holocaust – and its cause, insofar
as one can accept madness as its cause—in the present.
Finally, Wiesel ultimately settles on his motivation being the prevention of a similar
atrocity; in such a way, he overtly states that the Holocaust is not something that can be relegated
to history alone. While it is true that he emphasizes the particular history of the Holocaust in that
he wants “to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be
erased from human memory,”28 he connects the idea of forgetting these crimes to a repetition of
them. That is, recording his experiences is not meant only to indict the enemy, but also to prevent
him from committing atrocities in the future. This is obvious in the afore-mentioned passage,
“For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to
become their future.”29 The implication here is that Auschwitz can become their future; therefore,
once again Wiesel chooses to locate the Holocaust in the present rather than only in the past.
Wiesel’s purpose in writing, then, is clear – it is to use his reality, what he calls his “testimony,” 30
27� Ibid., vii.
28� Ibid., viii.
29� Ibid., xv.
30� Ibid., viii.
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not merely to inform future generations of what the Holocaust was but to prevent those
generations from experiencing what it is.
Steinberg’s central motivation for writing his book is for it to serve as a personal
deliverance31. Despite this more introspective spin, however, Steinberg, like Wiesel, refuses to
relegate the Holocaust to a past moment in history. In his eyes, he writes because “We live within
parentheses, a reprieve that has lasted fifty years.”32 “Parentheses” is a term that implies a
continuation, the lack of an end. The reprieve—the lack of systemic anti-Semitism— has lasted
so far, but it exists only as a temporary deviation from the norm. Steinberg articulates precisely
this as his reason for writing his memoir, for “Perhaps this risky expedition will allow me to give
an account—unsettling, no doubt—of the world from which perhaps I have not escaped even
after half a century.”33 Steinberg is writing, then, not so much to inform others, as to deliver
himself. That said, Steinberg indicates that he has “not escaped” Auschwitz, even in the 1990s
when he composed his book. It is for this reason – that Auschwitz has persisted to his present,
that he is writing.
Amery is perhaps most explicit of all in his purpose for writing. Unlike Steinberg, who
writes for personal deliverance, he rejects the notion of catharsis34. Instead, he writes for two
reasons: first, to locate the Holocaust within a larger framework of his life, and second, to make
the Holocaust relevant to the modern world. Both of these motivations can be tied back to the
overarching idea of rejecting the notion of the Holocaust as a past moment in time.
31� Steinberg, 163.
32� Ibid., 14.
33� Ibid., 14-15.
34� Amery, xi.
10
Amery’s first reason for composing his series of essays is to connect the Holocaust to
something more than a point of history. As he explains, “At first….I merely wanted to become
clear about a special problem: the situation of the intellectual in the concentration camp. But
when this essay was completed, I felt that it was impossible to leave it at that. For how had I
gotten to Auschwitz? What had taken place before that? What was to happen afterward? What is
my situation today?”35 Amery finds it of supreme importance, then, to connect his experiences of
the past to the present and explain how they have played out in his present life. His motivation,
then, is to reject the compulsion to relegate the Holocaust to a moment of history. To Amery, it is
more than a moment; the proof of this is the purpose of his work.
Amery’s second reason for writing is to make the Holocaust a moral reality even for
those who themselves neither experienced nor perpetuated it. As he explains, there is a lack of
understanding among those who were neither Nazis nor survivors36. He writes, then, to “be a
witness not only to what real Fascism and singular Nazism were, but…also [to] be an appeal to
German youth for introspection.”37 The intended audience, then, is German youth. While at first
this may seem odd— after all, the youth had little to do with the Holocaust and thus it seems
unwarranted to hold them morally responsible—Amery explains that “At stake for me is the
release from the abandonment that has persisted from that time until today.”38 The importance of
having German youth as the audience is to show that “My resentments are there in order that the
crime to become a moral [rather than merely factual] reality for the criminal, in order that he be
35� Ibid., xiii.
36� Ibid., ix.
37� Ibid., x.
38� Ibid., 70.
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swept into the truth of his atrocity.”39 The crime, then, is not a past historical fact but a relevant
moral dilemma that exists to today. It is for that reason that he writes to “the Germans…who in
their overwhelming majority do not, or no longer, feel affected by the darkest and at the same
time most characteristic deeds of the Third Reich.”40 His ultimate goal, then, is to make relevant
the actions of the past to the modern present; to allow non-survivors to “contemplate a fact that
yesterday could have been and tomorrow can be theirs.”41 In such a way, he wants the world to
understand the Holocaust as more than a mere accident of history. “‘Hear, oh Israel,’ is not my
concern,” he writes. “Only a ‘hear, oh world’ wants angrily to break out from within me.”42
We have therefore seen through Wiesel, Steinberg, and Amery that a central motivation
for survivor literature is to make the Holocaust relevant to today; that is, to locate its legacy
within modern times and not exclusively within the past. This is not to say survivors don’t view
the Holocaust as unique; they do. After all, Amery views it as “singular Nazism”43 and Steinberg
and Levi imply that their experiences are so unique so as to separate them from the rest of
human-kind44. The point is not to claim the Holocaust happened before or since the Third Reich,
it is simply to argue that, though it is unique, it does not have to be unique. The survivors write
with a common assumption that what happened once may, if they do not serve as witnesses,
happen again.
39� Ibid.
40� Ibid., xiv.
41�Ibid., 93.
42� Ibid., 100.
43� Ibid., x.
44� See: Steinberg, 85; Levi, 87.
12
Oral historians, however, locate the Holocaust in a particular moment of history, with the
underlying assumption that what happened to them will not happen again; therefore, their stories
are important only insofar as they preserve as a record of a since lost world.
Lucette Valensi and Nathan Wachtel undertook an extensive oral history program that
ultimately resulted in the book Jewish Memories. The central motivation of Jewish Memories is
apparent in Valensi’s opening remarks to her interviewees: “Your history is important. The
society you belonged to no longer exists. It passed away without leaving any archives and you
were witnesses to an eventful period. Tell us about it.”45 Within this one statement one can begin
to discern a contrast between Valensi and Wachtel’s purpose and the purpose articulated by
survivors. First, the emphasis is not on personal experiences – that is, only one sentence is
devoted to “your history;” the rest is interested in “the society you belonged to.” When they ask
“tell us about it,” the “it” is not one’s life but rather the “eventful period” in which they lived.
The motivation, then, is to get a generalized sense of time and place rather than of personal
experiences—a motivation that contrasts with not only the individual words of the survivors but
also with the memoir/novel structure that has been employed by survivors. Most importantly,
however, Valensi explicitly argues that “the society you belonged to no longer exists” thus
underscoring the point that oral historians view the Holocaust as a long-since-passed aberration.
Her purpose, then, is to learn about the Holocaust to inform humanity of a past age rather than to
make that past relevant to contemporary existence. This emphasis on locating the Holocaust in a
moment in time is obvious in her framework as well, which is similarly organized by time and
place, including “Salonika between the two wars”46, “Tripoli between 1908 and 1920,”47 and
45� Valensi, 1.
46� Ibid., 33.
47� Ibid., 30.
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“Tunis at the beginning of the Century.”48 Therefore, the purpose of Jewish Memories is to
provide an objective historical record of a bygone era.
Rhoda Lewin, like Lucette Valensi and Nathan Wachtel, similarly decided to conduct an
oral history, the result of which is called Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral History. In it, her
goal “was to create teaching materials…in part to discredit the so-called scholars who were
saying that the Holocaust was wholly imaginary.”49 The agenda of her work, then, is not unlike
Valensi’s. She fears that, if a record is not produced, the world will not only forget what
happened during the Holocaust but will outright deny it. It is her mission, then, to provide
uncontestable evidence that the Holocaust is a part of human history. Unlike the survivors,
however, there is no overarching sense that such an atrocity could happen again, there is only the
sense that she must preserve a record of the events themselves. Therefore, Lewin’s oral history
likewise is motivated by a desire to relate the events of an historical event with the intent to
inform rather than prevent.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is one of the central
foundations that conducts oral histories related to the Holocaust in the United States. Because of
its reputation for accurate and well-researched data, it produced a guidebook in which it indicates
what its purpose is in conducting such histories; that is, “An individual’s testimony can
supplement those documents by providing a detailed and personal look at a historical event that
may be underrepresented or even unrepresented in written works.”50 The goal, then, is to fill the
gaps of existing research on the Holocaust but to do so in a way that is “accessible and usable for
48� Ibid., 25.
49� Lewin, xviii.
50� USHMM, v.
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the listener.”51 Because the understanding of the audience is central to the success of filling the
gaps, one must “place the interviewee’s experiences in historical context.”52 Once again, then,
there is an explicit emphasis on historicizing the Holocaust that is intimately tied in with the
motivation for conducting the interview. Once again, then, the goal is to inform individuals on a
past event – it is the historicity, not the surrounding themes of evil, humanity, and survival – that
is important.
Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah, however, provides a take on oral histories that is more in
tune with the survivors than the other oral historians we have thus far reviewed. That is, his goal
is to “somehow communicate to an audience something of the degradation and horror
experienced by millions of innocents.”53 While this contrasts with Steinberg and Amery who, as
we will see, choose not to explore Nazi brutality, he is at least responding to the same problem as
the survivors are – that is, a sense of the Holocaust as an “operational accident of history”54 that
bears no weight on modernity. While is he concerned about the “forgetting and rejection of the
Holocaust”55 a la Lewin, he is not interested in merely recounting history56. Instead, “the film is
the abolition of all distance between past and present.”57 As he explains, “a film devoted to the
Holocaust can only be a countermyth. It can only be an investigation into the present of the
51� Ibid., vii.
52� Ibid., vii.
53� Lanzmann, Claude. “From the Holocaust to ‘Holocaust.’” Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Ed. Stuart Liebman (New York: Oxford UP, 2007). P. 4
54� Amery, 79.
55� Lanzmann, 33.
56� Ibid., 39.
57� Chevre, Marc. “Site and Speech: An Interview with Claude Lanzmann about Shoah.” Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Ed. Stuart Liebman (New York: Oxford UP, 2007). P. 45
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Holocaust or at least into a past whose scars are still so freshly and vividly inscribed in certain
places and in the consciences of some people that it reveals itself in a hallucinating
timelessness.”58 The promotion of this timelessness—the weaving together of past and present –
is a precise reflection of the central motivation of his work: that is, to combat the current
discourse on the Holocaust that “excise[s] it from history with the pretext that it was only an
aberration.”59 Therefore, Lanzmann’s Shoah stands out among oral histories as, at least in
motivation, the least particularizing of the oral histories reviewed. Perhaps he best sums it up
when he says, “I consider the Holocaust an unqualifiedly historical event, the monstrous, yes, but
legitimate product of the history of the western world.”60 By creating a film that forwards this
ideology as part of its motivation, Shoah is a prime example of an oral history that does not
particularize the Holocaust.
Thus, what informs the survivors in their desire to record their stories is the assumption
that, without their words, mankind would again perpetuate a similar atrocity. Contrastingly, what
informs the oral historians, other than Claude Lanzmann, is that the Holocaust is an historical
event that must be recorded so as to preserve a vestige of what is assumed to be an otherwise
deceased world.
While the motivation for writing memoirs and conducting oral histories helps us better
understand how survivors and subsequent generations view the Holocaust (and, in a small sense,
human nature as it relates to the Holocaust), the way the two genres treat particular themes
demonstrates that this motivation is manifested throughout their works; that is, oral historians,
58� Lanzmann, 35.
59� Ibid., 29.
60� Ibid., 28.
16
because of their historical bent, continue to particularize the Holocaust within their thematic
choices. Whereas survivors reflect their desire to portray the relevance the Holocaust bares on
modern society by creating relatable figures in both Jews and Nazis, oral historians instead use
these same themes to further characterize the Holocaust as an historical accident.
In analyzing the depiction of Nazis, we will take a two-pronged approach. First, we will
focus on the image of the individual Nazi, and second, we will focus on the magnitude of the
violence portrayed.
Survivors, as a general rule, describe Nazis not as a corporate, faceless machine but
rather as individuals. As Amery explains:
Many things do indeed happen approximately the way they were anticipated In
the imagination: Gestapo men in leather coats, pistol pointed at their victim – that
is correct, all right. But then, almost amazingly, it dawns on one that the fellows
not only have leather coats and pistols, but also faces: not ‘Gestapo faces’ with
twisted noses, hypertrophied chins, pockmarks, and knife scars, as might appear
in a book, but rather faces like anyone else’s. Plain, ordinary faces.”61
Amery does not, however, provide this human-quality to the Nazis in order to give them
humanity; rather, in keeping with his afore-mentioned motivation, he does so to give humanity a
sense of the evilness it can hide under a kindly façade. Amery describes one particular Nazi—the
one who tortures him— as appearing “gruffly good-natured;”62 Steinberg beautifully
encapsulates this dichotomy between the phenotype of a Nazi and his inner wickedness by
similarly relaying his experiences with a particular Nazi, Hauptscharfuhrer Rakasch:
61� Amery, 25.
62� Amery, 32.
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“Absolute evil. Today, with fifty years’ perspective and experience, I realize he
was a deeply depraved man…Rakasch is dressed completely in black, head to toe,
cap to boots. His black-gloved hands, in summer as in winter, firmly grip his
black leather whip. All you can see of him is his face, framed by his cap and the
collar of his tunic. The face is androgynous: delicate features, sharp nose, thin,
pale lips. His eyes are a washed-out blue, and always on the lookout- Nothing
escapes them, their all-around vision. They are perfectly expressionless. His voice
is calm, clear, distinct…I first saw him at work a few weeks after my arrival. He
beat an old Gypsy and then drowned him in a puddle of water eight inches deep,
pinning the man’s head down with his boot.”63
This particular description of a Nazi is informative in a few ways. First, it names the Nazi, giving
him not only physical features but also a discernible identity. Second, it connects Rakasch with a
category of persons – that is, the depraved – rather than explaining his evilness as something
entirely outside of humanity. Third, though he is showing brutality, he is associating it with an
individual who can be conceived; that is, one we can imagine “had a mother, a father, maybe
brothers and sisters, that he was perhaps married, that he even had children…that he occasionally
laughed, went to the movies.”64 The Nazis in Steinberg’s book, then, are “delicate;” and yet,
despite this, they still possess within them the terrifying ability to “drown [a Gypsy] in a puddle
of water eight inches deep.” Describing Nazis in positive terms is in fact common to survivor
literature, as Kertesz refers to them as “honest,”65 “pretty friendly,”66 and “unfailingly jovial and
63� Steinberg, 108.
64� Ibid., 108.
65� Kertesz, 60.
66� Ibid., 62.
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encouraging.”67 He, too, touches on the implications of the absurd assumption that one’s evilness
will be manifested in one’s outward appearance. Writing of a Nazi doctor, he explains, “I
immediately felt a sense of trust in the doctor, since he cut a very fine figure, with sympathetic,
longish, shaven features, rather narrow lips, and kind-looking blue or gray—at any rate pale—
eyes.”68 Here, Kertesz connects outward appearance with our own personal comfort level.
Though the doctor was a Nazi, he was “kind-looking” and “sympathetic,” and therefore, he was
trusted, despite the reality of his vice. This serves as a warning to which all can relate – the idea
that one’s outward appearance does not reflect their inward personality; therefore, the survivor’s
emphasis on giving individual, and often times positive, characteristics to Nazis is a means to
connect to the individual experiences of the reader and to give them a sense of the fact that Nazis
were human, even if they did not behave humanely.
Furthermore, while survivors do indeed depict Nazi brutality, they are more interested in
portraying daily camp life. When they do refer to Nazis, it is largely to convey a sense of power
rather than viciousness in and of itself. Amery states his lack of interest in relaying the horrors of
Nazi brutality, for “people have already heard far too much about [the corpses, death, etc.]; it
belongs to the category of horrors mentioned at the outset, those which I was advised with good
intentions not to discuss in detail.”69 Steinberg is similarly intent on not depicting “the museum
of horrors, the litany of atrocities.”70 Instead, both choose to connect any brutality with the
dynamics of power rather than to emphasize the incomprehensible violence itself. Amery
describes Nazi power by asking, “For is not the one who can reduce a person so entirely to a
67� Ibid., 94.
68� Ibid., 85.
69� Amery, 15-16.
70� Steinberg, 62.
19Filipetti
body and a whimpering prey of death a god or, at least, a demigod.”71 This is an example of the
most prominent technique the survivors use to depict Nazi power – describing them as gods.
Steinberg uses this technique when he refers to Nazis, along with any of the camp aristocracy, as
gods, saying, “Per chance a dues ex machina – an SS officer, a Kapo, a block boss—precipitates
the finale with a bullet, a pickax blow, a clubbing.”72 While this is without a doubt an example of
Nazi viciousness, the purpose is the almost divine status ascribed to the Nazi members – the
atrocities committed are simply proofs of their nature rather than the focus of the discourse. Levi,
too, employs this technique, pointing out, “Some [prisoners], bestially, urinate while they run to
save time, because within five minutes begins the distribution of bread, of bread-Brot-Broid-
chlebpain-lechem-kayner, of the holy grey slab which seems gigantic in your neighbour’s hand,
and in your own hand so small as to make you cry.”73 Combining this with his earlier
characterization of camp life, one can easily see the prominence of depicting Nazis as gods while
simultaneously emphasizing daily camp life rather than Nazi brutality:
“The rites to be carried out were infinite and senseless: every morning one had to
make the ‘bed’ perfectly flat and smooth; smear one’s muddy and repellent
wooden shoes with the appropriate machine grease; scrape the mudstains off one’s
clothes…in the evening one had to undergo the control for lice and the control of
washing one’s feet; on Saturdays, have one’s beard and hair shaved, mend or have
mended one’s rags; on Sunday, undergo the general control for skin diseases and
the control of buttons on one’s jacket, which had to be five.”74
71� Amery, 36.
72� Steinberg, 73.
73� Levi, 39.
74� Ibid., 34.
20
What is given by the Nazis is described as “holy” and what is performed on a day to day basis
are “rites.” This religious language sets up the Nazis as gods in the same way that Amery and
Steinberg’s overt characterizations do. Equally importantly, however, is how Levi chooses to
emphasize daily camp life rather than Nazi brutality. His questions are not “why are they doing
this to me?” but rather “…when will they distribute the soup tomorrow? And will I be able to eat
it without a spoon? And where will I be able to find one? And where will they send me to
work?”75 It is daily life and its concomitant questions, rather than the cases of extreme Nazi
brutality, that consume the thoughts of survivors. This is likewise true for Wiesel, whose
emphasis lies on daily life and Jewish experiences rather than the Nazi imposition upon them.
For example, Wiesel admits “I watched other hangings,”76 rather than saying “the Nazis hanged
more Jews.” In so phrasing, Wiesel chooses not to focus on Nazi crimes but rather Jewish
responses.
Kertesz employs a different technique to undermine Nazi brutality, though his purpose
remains the same. What the Nazis do, in his eyes, is natural, and it is the repetition of this
justification that pervades the novel.77 Crimes against humanity are considered “unavoidable”78
or even “understandable.”79 In one of his more haunting paragraphs, Kertesz writes of an
exchange between the main character, György Köves, and a journalist upon Köves’s liberation:
“‘Why, my dear boy,’ he exclaimed, though now, so it seemed to me, on the verge
of losing his patience, ‘do you keep on saying ‘naturally,’ and always about things
75� Levi, 38.
76� Wiesel, 63.
77� See: Kertesz, 87, 170, 174.
78� Kertesz, 174.
79� Ibid., 224.
21Filipetti
that are not at all natural?’ I told him that in a concentration camp they were
natural. ‘Yes, of course, of course,’ he says, ‘they were there, but…,’ and he broke
off, hesitating slightly, ‘but…I mean, a concentration camp in itself is unnatural,’
finally hitting on the right word as it were. I didn’t bother saying anything to this,
as I was beginning slowly to realize that it seems there are some things you just
can’t argue about with strangers, the ignorant, with those who, in a certain sense,
are mere children so to say.”80
Here Kertesz explicitly explains his reasons for using words like “natural” and “understandable”
– it is not only to focus on daily camp life rather than Nazi brutality, it is also to explain that, in
fact, what was happening in the camps was natural – natural in a way that non-survivors can not
understand. Describing the Nazis in such a way is precisely the purpose of depicting them as
individuals and emphasizing their power: while future generations will try to strip human
responsibility from the Holocaust by viewing it as an accident or aberration of nature, survivors
attempt to combat this image by portraying Nazis as potentially one’s neighbor or one’s friend; to
them, Nazis are merely the expression of a natural being corrupted not by being inhuman but
merely by wielding human power.
Such a depiction is visibly absent from oral histories, which instead serve to locate
Nazism within a larger Good vs. Evil framework. Instead of focusing on daily life, oral historians
focus explicitly on Nazi brutality and the terrifying atrocities committed by the Third Reich.
Moreover, their description of Nazis is over-generalized and corporate, lending itself to the
natural inclination to deny human responsibility by depersonalizing the perpetrators of the
Holocaust and mythologize rather than humanize their violence.
80� Ibid., 247.
22
To best embody this second aspect, we will first relate the writings of Cynthia Ozick.
Though not an oral historian, her work impeccably demonstrates the “otherness” ascribed to the
Nazis by non-survivors. As she explains in her short story The Shawl, “Above the shoulder [that
carried Magda] a helmet glinted. The light tapped the helmet and sparkled it into a goblet. Below
the helmet a black body like a domino and a pair of black boots hurled themselves in the
direction of the electrified fence.”81 Here, Nazis are described not as humans but as a
combination of a helmet, domino, and boots. Ozick’s Nazi, in contradistinction from Steinberg’s
and Amery’s, is not only unnamed, he is an object, a machine – at the very least, he is not human.
This, along with the continuous description of Nazis as an unnamed “they,” denotes the
depersonalization of Nazis in non-survivor literature.
Maus continues this theme of stripping the Nazis of any relatable human identity. By
portraying Nazis as cats, Spiegelman implies that all Nazis were snarling, sharp-toothed, and
aggressive. Spiegelman further depersonalizes them in his refusal to draw Nazis differently.
Whereas one can easily distinguish Art, Vladek, and Mala, the Nazis are all homogenized into a
single form82. As in Ozick’s novel, then, Maus, too depersonalizes the Nazis.
Beyond the depersonalization of Nazis, there is also the question of how prominent Nazi
brutality is within oral histories. Once again, Maus is an especially useful example, as the
artwork is the creation of the non-survivor and thus provides a welcome indication of how the
words of survivors are envisioned by those in a culture in which Nazism has become so
paradigmatically evil as to separate it fully from humanity. This is exceptionally clear in those
instances in which the words of Vladek are reinterpreted by the images of his son. When Vladek
81� Ozick, Cynthia. The Shawl. (New York: Knopf, 1989). p. 6.
82� Maus, 41.
23Filipetti
simply says, “Some complained – those what were too old or weak for such work,”83 Spiegelman
draws not a group of inmates refusing to work but rather a Nazi beating a mouse with the butt of
his rifle. Even when the words are provided, Speigelman feels the freedom to reinterpret them
through his art – how much more so, then, in the recorded oral histories, which can be edited or
ignored so as to only include the opinions of those survivors consistent with the oral historians!
As Valensi admits, “All we had to do was orchestrate that chorus [of voices], giving up a number
of biographies we had collected, and cutting large fragments of those we retained.”84
The USHMM, like Maus, emphasizes Nazism as the fundamental point of inquiry for
oral historians, advising interviewers to “Demonstrate the kind of life and culture that was
interrupted or destroyed by National Socialism…it is also important to draw out the interviewees
earliest recollections of the Nazis.”85 The problem, however, is that it was not only the Nazis who
perpetuated the crimes of the Holocaust. Poles and camp leaders like the Kapos are, in Wiesel,
Levi, Steinberg, and Kertesz’s eyes, responsible for much of their anguish during their
imprisonment – yet the USHMM, in its list of suggested questions, never asks for information on
them86. In such a way, then, the USHMM not only focuses on Nazism, which in and of itself
relegates it to a purely historical location, but it also fails to reflect reality – a reality in which
many individuals, not just a corporate Nazism, were complicit in the extermination of millions of
people. By emphasizing Nazi brutality alone, then, not only do oral historians sensationalize and
mythologize the Holocaust, they also reduce it to a purely “Nazi” phenomenon. Considering the
83� Ibid., 56.
84� Valensi, 2.
85� USHMM, 26.
86� Ibid., 27.
24
reality of the complacency of millions, this further removes human responsibility from the act
and continues to historicize the event.
Perhaps most emphatic of the role of Nazi brutality is Claude Lanzmann, who, as
previously demonstrated, had the visualization of Nazi brutality as his central motivator. When
an interviewee states “they burned people here,” he clarifies “to the sky?” in order to underscore
the hyperbole87. He continues this trend of asking questions to accentuate the severity of what is
being said, often times not even questioning but rather remarking on the mind-boggling nature of
it. When another interviewee mentions Jews being forced to dig trenches for graves with just
their hands, Lanzmann interjects “with just their hands!”88 Perhaps more importantly, Lanzmann
even asserts answers that the interviewees are not providing so as to further stress Nazi brutality:
Lanzmann: What did the Germans do?
Interviewee: They forced the Jews to…
Lanzmann: They beat them?89
In such a way, Lanzmann uses an aggressive line of questioning to underscore Nazi violence.
While he reads this as in keeping with his goal of combating those who trivialize the Holocaust,
in reality, there is an implication that he seems to ignore; that is, by emphasizing the supreme
horrors committed by the Nazi regime, he serves to inadvertently particularize the event. What
commonality can one find with the smell of burning flesh wafting through miles of Polish
countryside?90 What possible humanity can one find in the gas chambers, or the senseless beating
of an unarmed innocent simply because of his perceived race? By refusing to portray relatable
87� Shoah, 3.
88� Ibid., 15.
89� Ibid., 47.
90� Ibid., 46.
25Filipetti
circumstances of the Holocaust and instead depicting Nazi brutality alone, oral histories strip the
Holocaust of any relevancy for the generations in which National Socialism is not the central
component91. In such a way, the Holocaust becomes effectively historicized.
It should be here noted that it is not that Nazi brutality does not exist in survivor literature
– it does, as it well should, as that was the reality of the Holocaust. This is also not to say that
Nazis were not singularly evil; Amery, in fact, seems to imply that all Germans bear
responsibility for moral awareness92, and he continues to hold resentment for what was done to
him and others. It is simply that survivors pay far more attention to more simple matters: matters
of soup, shoes, etc., rather than their interaction with the Nazis. This is in contradistinction to the
oral histories, which are clear in focusing on Nazi atrocities as the crux upon which their
collected testimonies rest. By focusing on the brutality of Nazis, however, oral histories lend
themselves to particularization of the event. Only the Nazis could have done this. Particularly
when this is combined with a lack of personalization of the Nazis, it is easy for readers to
understand the Holocaust as perpetuated by something other than human; and in such a way, the
Holocaust becomes the very aberration against which Lanzmann warns.
Having investigated the depiction of Nazis within both genres, we now turn to the
portrayal of Jews. Like our analysis of Nazis, our study of the Jews will be two-fold; that is, we
will focus on how survivors and oral historians describe the lifestyle of Jews in the camps as well
as how they describe the necessarily conditions for survival.
91� This is to say, the Holocaust and its associated horrors in and of themselves have a particularizing quality to them. They are, without a doubt, unparalleled and unimaginable to those who were not themselves witnesses to the atrocities. That said, survivors strike a balance between portraying this brutality and articulating other aspects of camp life that are, in fact, understandable and relatable. In such a way, they serve to de-particularize what is otherwise only further seen as evidence for the Holocaust being an aberration.
92� Amery, 73.
26
As previously mentioned, survivors focus on camp life rather than Nazi brutality. As part
of this camp life, Jews are portrayed not as men and women who march dignifiedly to their
deaths but rather as animals struggling to survive. Far from finding comraderie in their shared
fate, Jews in the camps “had been reduced to vileness and humiliation,”93 with “…scores of
prisoners driven desperate by hunger prowl[ing] around, with lips half-open and eyes gleaming,
lured by a deceptive instinct to where the merchandise shown makes the gnawing of their
stomachs more acute and their salvation more assiduous.”94 The animalistic associations continue
in almost all of the survivor literature, with Jews simultaneously being sheep95, farm animals96,
and cattle97. Jews had a “…rage to live in spite of all obstacles, the perfectly irrational hope, the
animal instinct that made us cling ferociously to life without letting go, not even for an instant,
which would have proved fatal.”98 Beyond the animal associations, however, Jews are also
overtly characterized as self-interested, irrational, and aggressive. Steinberg argues that Jews like
himself who were able to make it up the camp aristocracy are a perfect example of human
nature: “You do evil, if you have even the slightest scrap of power.”99 Here Levi agrees, writing,
“…I already know that it is in the normal order of things that the privileged oppress the
unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human law.”100 What happened in
93� Steinberg, 27.
94� Levi, 78.
95� Steinberg, 11, 47.
96� Steinberg, 54
97� Levi, 154.
98� Steinberg, 14.
99� Ibid., 108.
100� Levi, 44.
27Filipetti
the camps, then, is not contrary to human nature – Jews were reduced to animals because it is
within human nature to be so. Their behavior as animals carries with it a further implication, one
that results in heart-wrenchingly brutal segments like Wiesel’s description of his time on a train:
“A piece [of bread] fell into our wagon. I decided not to move. Anyway, I knew
that I would not be strong enough to fight off dozens of violent men! I saw, not far
from me, an old man dragging himself on all fours. He had just detached himself
from the struggling mob. He was holding on e hand to his heart. At first I thought
he had received a blow to his chest. Then I understood: he was hiding a piece of
bread under his shirt. With lightening speed he pulled it out and put it to his
mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile, like a grimace, illuminated his ashen fact. And
was immediately extinguished. A shadow had lain down beside him. And this
shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the bows, the old man was crying:
“Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me…You’re killing your father…I
have bread…for you too…for you too…” He collapsed…The old man mumbled
something, groaned, ad died. ..His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and
began to devour it. He didn’t get far. Two men had been watching him. They
jumped him. Others joined in. When they withdrew, there were two dead bodies
next to me, the father and the son.”101
Life in the camps, then, was cruel not only because of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, but
what the Jews were forced into doing to each other because of their conditions. Jews played
practical jokes on each other that could have resulted in beatings or worse102, and though
101� Wiesel, 101.
102� Levi, 28.
28
technically Jews had a choice—that is, to sharpen one’s wits and strengthen one’s will “or else,
to throttle all dignity and kill all conscience, to climb down into the arena as a beast against other
beasts, to let oneself be guided by those unsuspected subterranean forces which sustain families
and individuals in cruel times”103 – their answer was largely the same: to become “the beasts they
had made of us.”104
Following this characterization, those who did survive provide every reason for their
survival other than being more fit or morally capable; more often than not, they attribute it to
luck, and when they do not, their next option is to credit it to the complete moral debasement of
man. “…it’s hard for me to present my behavior in an honorable –let alone glorious—light,”105
Steinberg begins, for his survival, in his eyes, was purely luck:
“That we won in the end, that the death machine seized up and by some miracle
allowed a few survivors to slip through the net, isn’t this reason enough to believe
that somehow we were different?...Yet we are not special in any way, of course,
save for the stubborn, persistent, flawless good fortune that made us the winners
of this unlikely lottery. The proof is that the indestructible ones, the iron men,
lasted only a few months, and among the rare survivors are a few whom none of
us would have given the ghost of a chance.”106
Luck, however, was not the only function that saved lives – so too was one’s successful
eschewing of all human morality, according to Levi. In describing particular survivors, Levi
103� Ibid., 92.
104� Steinberg, 151. This is not to claim that there were no heroes and none who did march with dignity. This is simply to demonstrate that survival often reduced Jewish inmates to their very basic instincts, and thus understanding the victims as pure good serves only to mythologize the Holocaust.
105� Ibid., 11.
106� Ibid., 14.
29Filipetti
argues that “[Elias] has resisted the annihilation from within because he is insane…if Elias
regains his liberty, he will be confined to the fringes of human society, in a prison or lunatic
asylum.”107 Speaking of “Henri,” who is, in fact the very same Paul Steinberg we have been
investigating, Levi writes, “He is enclosed in armour, the enemy of all, inhumanly cunning and
incomprehensible like the Serpent in Genesis.”108 These are, without a doubt, not the moral
heroes of Holocaust mythology. The point of the survivors, however, is not to defame the Jewish
people but rather to be explicit in that, under the right conditions, anyone can fall into madness
and depravity. In such a way, survivors keep the Holocaust relevant to contemporary society in
two ways: first, by refusing to mythologize themselves as uncommonly heroic, and second, by
connecting their own brutality with the idea that human nature does not preclude the choice of
evil. Under the appropriate conditions, anyone – even today – can behave with total moral
ruination.
Kertesz and Amery, too, attach something else to their characterization of Jews: that is,
the naturalness of Jewish victimization. As Kertesz writes:
“It was obvious that from now on my lot could not go on as well as it had up till
now, and he did not wish to make any secret about that, as he was talking to me
‘man-to-man.’ ‘You too,’ he said, ‘are now a part of the shared Jewish fate,’ and
he then went on to elaborate that, remarking on this fate was one of ‘unbroken
persecution that has lasted for millennia.’”109
107� Levi, 97.
108� Ibid., 100.
109� Kertesz, 20.
30
Kertesz, then, sees his initiation into Judaism – a religion with which he did not previously
identify – as beginning for him the cycle of oppression that had been felt by the Jewish people
since the dawn of time. Amery agrees, writing, “To be a Jew, that meant for me, from this
moment on, to be a dead man on leave, someone to be murdered, who only by chance was not
yet where he properly belonged; and so it has remained, in my variations, in various degrees of
intensity, until today.”110 Even after the Holocaust, Amery “was forced to recognize that little had
changed, that I was still the man condemned to be murdered in due time, even though the
potential executioner now cautiously restrained himself or, at best, even loudly protested his
disapproval of what had happened. I understood reality.”111 Survivors, then, depict as natural not
only the fall into madness but also the human proclivity to oppress in the first place. In such a
way, they further tie together the Holocaust and the modern age.
In contrast, oral historians attempt to set forth some sort of logical framework that explains
why some Jews survived and why others did not. That is, they feel the need to assert Jewish
survivors as heroes, placing them in a hero/villain context that both glosses over reality and
mythologizes the Holocaust, thereby further removing it from human responsibility. In Shoah,
there are no questions on how one survived within the entire nine-hour production, nor are there
any such questions in USHMM’s suggested list112. Furthermore, the USHMM seems to assume
there is some sort of condition required for survival, for “If one’s education or background was
not academic (for example, if the person were a trade or skilled laborer), that factor may have
provided opportunities that saved his or her life.”113 This is in contradistinction to Amery, who
110� Amery, 86.
111� Ibid., 92.
112� USHMM, 31.
113� Ibid., 23.
31Filipetti
implies that in Auschwitz, while some had a clear advantage in physical strength, everyone soon
came to be at the same level114. What the USHMM is doing, then, is trying to promote some sort
of logical framework that would be able to rationalize how some lived and how others didn’t – a
logical framework that, according to survivors, did not exist. By assuming that a formula existed
for survival, oral historians make it easier to triviliaze the Holocaust, and by not asking questions
on how one survived, they are able to gloss over the complex reality of natural survival instinct
and instead lay the groundwork for our next point: the representation of Jewish inmates as
heroes.
Beyond asserting a logical framework to survival, oral historians also depict Jewish survivors
as heroes. In Jewish Memories, Valensi portrays Jews as the height of spiritual perfection,
insisting that “religious rituals stand out vividly in memory...everyone emphasizes the
consistency of practice” (emphasis added)115. Not only is this contrary to most survivors – only
Wiesel indicates a strong connection with Judaism prior to the Holocaust, whereas Steinberg
“didn’t know a thing…about the Jewish religion”116 and Amery “came to realize [I was a Jew
only] in 1935 after the proclamation of the Nuremberg laws”117—it also lays the groundwork for
assertions of heroism and perfection. Similarly, in Voices from the Holocaust, Corgas describes
survivors as those who “resist[ed] evil activity.”118 But as Steinberg explains, “I’ve often
wondered if I didn’t choose my fate deliberately. After all, a prisoner’s vocation is to escape,
114� Amery, 59.
115� Valensi, 57.
116� Steinberg, 12.
117� Amery, 43.
118� Corgas, xiv.
32
even in the direst situations. I went meekly to the slaughter like a lousy sheep.”119 The description
of Jews as sheep going “meekly to the slaughter” does not suggest the same sort of heroic anti-
Nazism assumed by Corgas. As Lanzmann writes in his criticism of the mini-series Holocaust,
“After years of ghetto confinement, terror, humiliation, and hunger, the people who lined up in
rows of five…had neither the leisure nor composure to die nobly. To show what really happened
would have been unendurable.”120 Thus, Lanzmann points to further proof of a romanticization
of Holocaust survivors that, particularly when compared to the emphatic Nazi brutality of the
same works, places the Holocaust within a hyper-mythologized good vs. evil framework to
which humanity simply cannot relate.
One can perhaps best see the difference between later generational ascription of heroism to
survivors and survivors’ own viewpoints in Maus. Here, like in survivor literature, Jews are not
depicted as the heroes they are in other oral histories. Vladek describes being sold out to the
Gestapo by a Jew, recalling, “In the morning we gave [a Jew] a little food to him and left him go
to his family…the Gestapo came that afternoon.”121 Despite this, however, one can see the
reluctance to attach this behavior to the Jews, for accompanying this narrative is a picture of
Nazis with guns screaming “JUDEN RAUS.” The emphasis, then, is not on the Jew who sold out
the others but rather on the Nazis who followed through on his tip. We see, then, a clear attempt
to depict Jews as wholly innocent—in so far as Vladek’s narrative allows it. While this is
admirable and, likely out of respect for those who were put in the most unimaginable conditions
in which there existed “no moral law to contravene,”122 there is value in choosing to portray
119� Steinberg, 11.
120� Lanzmann, 30.
121� Maus, 113.
122� Levi, 97.
33Filipetti
Jewish immorality; that is, it better prepares readers to understand that, under the proper
conditions, anyone can become an animal. It was not, then, just a battle between pure evil (as
represented by Nazis) and pure good (as represented by Jews and other inmates). Relegating it to
such serves only to mythologize it and strip its relevancy to the modern age; this is precisely
what oral historians have done.
Maus II questions the very phenomenon of labeling survivors as moral upstarts. While
Speigelman speaks to his therapist Pavel, a dialogue ensues that reflects the non-survivor trend
of ascribing heroic status to survivors:
Pavel: Do you admire your father for surviving?
Spiegelman: Well…Sure I know there was a lot of luck involved, but he was
amazingly present-minded and resourceful.
Pavel: Then you think it is admirable to survive. Does that mean it’s not
admirable to not survive?...It wasn’t the best people who survived, nor did the
best ones die. It was random.”123
This sequence is important in two ways. First, it demonstrates how survivors, like Pavel,
understand luck and randomness to be the key factor in survival, rather than moral or physical
strength. Vladek, too, understands this, for he interprets even his own physical condition as a
product of luck, pointing out, “Most were not lucky to still be strong.”124 Second, it makes clear
that Spiegelman, who represents the later generation, originally ascribes some sort of heroic
quality to survival that over-trivializes and homogenizes the reality.
123� Maus II, 45.
124� Maus II, 84.
34
Therefore, by portraying the reality of the Jewish condition in the camps, survivors assert
a terrifying naturalness to brutality and oppression – all it takes is placing someone in the proper
conditions, and true, brutal, animal nature comes through. Contrastingly, by portraying only Nazi
brutality and reading all Jewish victims as walking heroically and dignifiedly to their death, oral
historians place the Holocaust within a hyper-mythologized Evil vs. Good framework that serves
only to further particularize it and remove it from human understanding. Pure evil and pure good
are not present in the lives of most, and therefore, the Holocaust becomes something so far
outside imagination that future generations can only treat it as an aberration. By attributing
survival to luck – or even moral debasement—rather than heroism, survivors continue their trend
of making the Holocaust relevant. Once again, then, oral historians further particularize the
Holocaust by reading heroism where there was only survival.
Finally, we turn to chronology. We have seen that oral historians attempt to place the
Holocaust within a logical framework that further mythologizes, but what about the
chronological framework? In a similar way, oral historians emphasize the history of the
Holocaust – that is, they attempt to place everything within a clearly discernible linear
framework in which 1944 explains 1945, and so on. Survivors, however, attempt to weave
together past and present in a way that links 1944 with 1993, etc. In such a way, survivors once
again attempt to make the Holocaust relevant as a timeless moral/philosophical problem while
oral historians relegate it to an historical evaluation of a long-since-passed age.
Survivors, both in their overt declarations and through more subtle literary techniques,
merge together past, present, and future. While Amery indicates that chronological order is not a
concern125, other survivors are less explicit about their choices to remain outside a temporally
125� Amery, xiii-xiv.
35Filipetti
linear framework. Instead, these authors juxtapose modern experiences with past ones, use
present tense verbs to indicate past experiences, and frame their novel in ways most reflective of
a merger between past, present, and future.
Survivors juxtapose modern experiences with past ones to indicate both the relevancy of
one’s Holocaust experiences on his present and to draw parallels between camp life and post-
camp life. While discussing travelling from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, Wiesel recalls:
Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker
watched the spectacle with great interest. Years later, I witnessed a similar
spectacle in Aden. Our ship’s passengers amused themselves by throwing coins to
the ‘natives,’ who dove to retrieve them. An elegant Parisian Lady took great
pleasure in this game. When I noticed two children desperately fighting the water,
on trying to strangle the other, I implored the lady: ‘Please, don’t throw any more
coins!’ ‘Why not?’ said she. ‘I like to give charity…’”126
Wiesel relates a similar story earlier on when he describes reuniting with a French woman whom
he met in the camps127, and Steinberg, too, intermittently reflects on his childhood within the
context of his life at Auschwitz128. By refusing to adhere to a linear timeline and instead weaving
tales of the past, present, and future together, survivors imply that the Holocaust can not be
relegated to a mere moment in history; events of the Holocaust – no matter how simple they are
– can continue into today.
126� Wiesel, 100.
127� Ibid., 53.
128� Steinberg, 34.
36
Steinberg and Amery further this technique by not only connecting their past experiences
in the camps with their later experiences post-liberation but also connecting their Holocaust
experiences with other moments in human history. As Steinberg admits, “I slapped the old Polish
Jew. The Khmer Rouge massacred their own brothers and sisters. French soldiers tortured people
in Algeria. The Hutus hacked the Tutsis to death with machetes. And in this concert, I played my
part.”129 By connecting his own decisions with the decisions of later genocidal regimes, Steinberg
purports a continuity of action and ideology that, though perhaps manifested differently in the
Holocaust, persists to today.
Likewise, Amery associates his experiences with later events, forwarding this idea of
ideological and actionable continuity:
“Between the time this book was written and today, more than thirteen years have
passed. They were not good years. One need only follow the reports from
Amnesty International to see that in horror this period matches the worst epochs
of a history that is as real as it is inimical to reason. Sometimes it seems as though
Hitler has gained a posthumous triumph. Invasions, aggressions, torture,
destruction of man in his essence. A few indications will suffice: Czechoslovakia
1968, Chile, the forced evacuation of Pnom-Penh, the psychiatric wards of the
USSR, the murder squads in Brazil and Argentina, the self-unmasking of the
Third World states that call themselves ‘socialist,’ Ethiopia, Uganda.”130
Amery links these events with the same sort of motivations and inclinations as those that
produced the Holocaust. Again, this is not to say that Amery does not view the Holocaust as
129� Steinberg, 127.
130� Amery, vii.
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unique; in fact, he calls the Holocaust “singular and irreducible in its total inner logic and its
accursed rationality.”131 His point, then, is merely to show that the same factors that contributed
to the rise of Nazism exist today, including genocidal tendencies. His book serves to explain how
“We had the chance to observe how the word became flesh and how this incarnated word finally
led to heaps of cadavers. Once again people are playing with the fire that dug a grave in the air
for so many. I sound the fire alarm…”132
Survivors also use the present tense to make the story more relevant to the reader. The
use of direct quotes and dialogue is in and of itself a literary technique to make the past present
and is used in Wiesel’s, Levi’s, and Kertesz’s compositions. Furthermore, Wiesel and Levi use
terms of the present to refer to instances of the past. For example, Wiesel explains that “By now,
I became conscious of myself again”133 and likewise, Levi “do[es] not know what I will think
tomorrow and later; today I feel no distinct emotion.”134 The use of words like “now” and
“today” to refer to moments of the past read the present into the past, thereby contemporizing
rather than historicizing the events of the Holocaust.
Finally, survivors employ particular framing techniques that, once again, try to break
down the historical barrier that bars current generations from relating to the Holocaust. Kertesz,
for example, “reached home at roughly the same time of year as when I had left it.”135 The lack
of any profound social or spatial difference between when he left and when he returned is a
131� Ibid., viii.
132� Ibid., x.
133� Wiesel, 87.
134� Levi, 128.
135� Kertesz, 237.
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highly poignant commentary on the lack of discernible change in humanity, even after an event
as paradigmatic as the Holocaust.
Contrastingly, oral historians, because their goal is to inform future generations of an
historical event, focus their attention on locating the Holocaust within a clear chronological
framework. In such a way, they serve to over-historicize the event by locating it explicitly in the
past, with no attempt to connect it to modern day experiences. The USHMM encourages oral
historians to “organize your questions chronologically”136 and “encourage [the interviewee] to
anchor his or her experiences in a chronological and geographic framework.”137 Moreover, the
overall framework of the questioning itself serves to hyper-historicize the event, as it is ordered
into a pre-war, war, and post-war framework.
Maus II is perhaps most effective in showing the difference between survivors and oral
historians in their approach to chronology. Despite searching for the “human dimension of an
event unparalleled in human history,”138 oral historians often care little about the personal lives of
the survivors and favor, as has already been proven, the brutality of the Third Reich. While being
interviewed, Vladek begins to digress into a personal story, at which point Spiegelman screams
“ENOUGH! TELL ME ABOUT AUSCHWITZ!”139 This exclamation shows the tension between
survivors, who view the Holocaust within the larger framework of their own lives, and oral
historians, who see the Holocaust as a moment unconnected to any other moment. This lack of
connection is precisely how the Holocaust is described as an aberration: if there is no continuity,
the Holocaust must have been a spontaneous accident of nature rather than an outgrowth of it.
136� USHMM, 22.
137� Ibid., 43.
138� Lewin, xx.
139� Maus II, 47.
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Spiegelman, however, does negotiate the difficulties of time in some ways. He goes back
and forth between 1982, 1979, 1944, and 1987 as he tries to sort out where his life and Vladek’s
life became so intrinsically merged140. Accompanying his back-and-forth is an image of a pile of
emaciated Jews below his desk, a skillful representation of how his father’s past has shaped his
present. Likewise, Spiegelman’s conversation with his therapist Pavel continues the dialogue
about how the past has influenced the present141, and in such a way, it is clear that Spiegelman
comes to understand the inherent continuity between the past and the present.
That said, Spiegelman still falls into the same trap that other oral historians do – that is,
he is determined to place the Holocaust within a clear historical framework. He becomes
frustrated when it is apparent that this may be impossible:
Spiegelman: How long were you in quarantine teaching English?
Vladek: Maybe 2 months…there I had it good. I –
Spiegelman: You told me about that. How many months were you in the tin shop?
Vladek: In this workshop—tin and shoe work combined—I was about 5 or 6
months.
Spiegelman: So, black work lasted 3 months.
Vladek: Yah…No! I remind myself…after black work I came again as a tinman
with Yidl for 2 months. They –
Spiegelman: But WAIT! That would be 12 months, you said you were there a total
of 10!
140� Ibid., 41.
141� Ibid., 44.
40
Vladek: So? Take less time to the black work in Auschwitz. We didn’t wear
watches.142
Spiegelman becomes frustrated because, as an oral historian, he is attempting to learn about the
historical past, of which chronological order is a major component.
Whereas Maus seems to move back and forth between the two genres in terms of its
treatment of a chronology, Lanzmann very clearly errs on the side of the survivors. He condemns
historians for tracing Nazism, claiming that in so doing it implies that particular conditions must
be satisfied for such an event to occur:
“One must start with the naked violence and not, as is usually done, with the
bonfires, the singing, and the blond heads of the Hitler Jugend; not even with the
fanaticized German masses, the shouts of “Heil Hitler!” – the millions of raised
arms; nor from the series of anti-Jewish laws that, beginning in 1933, gradually
made life for German Jews impossible…No, in creating a work of art, one deals
with another logic, another way of telling the story…the Final Solution would not
be the culmination of the story, it would be its point of departure.”143
He understands the importance of “the abolition of all distance between past and present,”144 an
idea that manifests itself in his “non-sites” of memory in which he “mingle[d] past and
present.”145 By visiting the present-day locations of past atrocities, Lanzmann tries to prevent the
mythologizing – or, as he sees it, to remove the legendary qualities146 – of the areas and make it
142� Ibid., 68.
143� Lanzmann, 34.
144� Chevre, 45.
145� De Beauvoir, Simone. “Shoah.” Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Ed. Stuart Liebman (New York: Oxford UP, 2007) p. 65.
146� Chevre, 43.
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real and relevant to today’s generation. Lanzmann’s use of chronology is therefore in perfect
keeping with his motivation; a motivation that, as previously shown, is likewise in consistent
with that of survivors. Therefore, we see through Lanzmann’s work the influence that one’s
motivation has on the ultimate construction and treatment of particular themes.
We have therefore shown that the motivations, depiction of Jews and Nazis, and
chronological framework of oral histories serves to particularize and mythologize the Holocaust
in a way that makes it utterly extraneous to post-Shoah generations. Reading survivors, one sees
them not as witnesses to an historical anomaly but as a window to a buried part of human nature.
Reading an oral history, however, one sees the Holocaust as an important, yes, but outdated
accident of human nature; something that is so beyond anything we can imagine so as to make it
wholly immaterial to our daily lives. While it is important to understand the Holocaust as a
unique event, survivors do not read “unique” to mean “aberration.” There is no conception
within survivor literature of the Holocaust as anything other than, in the words of Claude
Lanzmann, “the monstrous, yes, but legitimate product of the history of the western world.”147
This is not to claim that all survivors view human nature as intrinsically bad, but rather than
survivors, because of their lived reality, understand that humans have at the very least a distinct
potential to become bad based on one’s conditions – and it is the interest of the survivors to
ensure that potential is seen as neither obsolete nor contrary to human nature. As Amery states
when discussing how victims are often seen as the irreconcilable ones, “I know that what
oppresses me is no neurosis, but rather precisely reflected reality.”148
147� Laznmann, H2, 28.
148� Amery, 96.
42
There are many reasons survivors may feel the need to make the Holocaust relevant to
subsequent generations; choosing the correct one, then, is outside the purview of this paper.
Perhaps they want to create a shared experience – to, as Amery begs, turn the “antiman” once
again into a fellow man.149 Maybe instead they want to ensure that that which was killed in the
Holocaust is not forgotten. Perhaps they hope their words may stave off the next genocide by
providing a history of the victim rather than the victor. Or perhaps they simply want to hold
Germany and other genocidal regimes responsible for their sins out of some overarching moral
compunction. Regardless of the reasoning, one thing is clear: survivors understand their plight to
be relevant to modernity, and they write in order to convince us of the same. Once again, this is
not to postulate that the Holocaust – or anything ideologically or practically similar – is
imminent. It is only to say that survivors seem to connect the Holocaust with something natural –
something that exists in some form or another, enough to be the moral obligation that compels
them to write. The purpose of the interweaving of past and present, the focus on relatable
personalities and individualized enemies – all of these serve as the vehicles through which they
achieve their goal – writing to prevent a similar atrocity by bearing witness to the most
cataclysmic event in human history.
149� Amery, 70.
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