Elie Wiesel, “Why I Write:
Making No Become Yes”
Why
do I write?
Perhaps
in order not to go mad. Or, on the
contrary, to touch the bottom of madness.
Like Samuel Beckett, the survivor expresses himself “en
désepoir de
cause”—out of desperation.
Speaking
of the solitude of the survivor, the great Yiddish and
Hebrew poet and thinker
Aaron Zeitlin addresses those—his father, his brother, his
friends—who have
died and left him: “You have abandoned me,” he says to
them. “You are together, without me. I am here.
Alone. And I make words.”
So
do I, just like him. I also say words,
write words, reluctantly.
There
are easier occupations, far more pleasant ones.
But for the survivor, writing is not a profession, but an
occupation, a
duty. Camus calls it “an honor.” As he puts it: “I
entered literature through
worship.” Other writers have said they
did so through anger, through love.
Speaking for myself, I would say—through
silence.
It
was by seeking, by probing silence that I began to discover
the perils and
power of the word. I never intended to
be a philosopher, or a theologian. The
only role I sought was that of witness.
I believed that, having survived by chance, I was duty-bound
to give
meaning to my survival, to justify each moment of my life.
I knew the story had to be told. Not to transmit an
experience is to betray
it. This is what Jewish tradition
teaches us. But how to do this? “When Israel is in
exile, so is the
word,” says the Zohar. The word has
deserted the meaning it was intended to convey—impossible
to make them
coincide. The displacement, the shift,
is irrevocable.
This
was never more true than right after the upheaval. We all
knew that we could never, never say
what had to be said, that we could never express in words,
coherent, intelligible
words, our experience of madness on an absolute scale. The
walk through flaming night, the silence
before and after the selection, the monotonous praying of
the condemned, the
Kaddish of the dying, the fear and hunger of the sick, the
shame and suffering,
the haunted eyes, the demented stares. I
thought that I would never be able to speak of them. All
words seemed inadequate, worn, foolish,
lifeless, whereas I wanted them to be searing.
Where
was I to discover a fresh vocabulary, a primeval language?
The language of night was not human, it was
primitive, almost animal—hoarse shouting, screams, muffled
moaning, savage
howling, the sound of beating. A brute
strikes out wildly, a body falls. An
officer raises his arm and a whole community walks toward a
common grave. A solider shrugs his shoulders, and a
thousand families are torn apart, to be reunited only by
death. This was the concentration camp
language. It negated all other language
and took its place. Rather than a link,
it became a wall. Could it be
surmounted? Could the reader be brought
to the other side? I knew the answer was
negative, and yet I knew that “no” had to become
“yes.” It was the last wish of the dead.
The
fear of forgetting remains the main obsession of all those
who have passed
through the universe of the damned. The
enemy counted on people’s incredulity and forgetfulness.
How could one foil this plot? And if memory grew hollow,
empty of
substance, what would happen to all we had accumulated along
the way? Remember, said the father to his son, and the
son to his friend. Gather the names, the
faces, the tears. We had all taken an
oath: “If, by some miracle, I emerge alive, I will devote
my life to testifying
on behalf of those whose shadow will fall on mine forever
and ever.”
That
is why I write certain things rather than others—to remain
faithful.
Of
course, there are times of doubt for the survivor, times
when one gives in to
weakness, or longs for comfort. I hear a
voice within me telling me to stop mourning the past. I
too want to sing of love and of its
magic. I too want to celebrate the sun,
and the dawn that heralds the sun. I
would like to shout, and shout loudly: “Listen, listen
well! I too am capable of victory, do you
hear? I too am open to laughter and
joy! I want to stride, head high, my
face unguarded, without having to point to the ashes over
there on the horizon,
without having to tampers with facts to hide their tragic
ugliness. For a man born blind, God himself is blind,
but look, I see, I am not blind.” One
feels like shouting this, but the shout changes to a
murmur. One must make a choice; one must remain
faithful. A big word, I know. Nevertheless, I use it, it
suits me. Having written the things I have written, I
feel I can afford no longer to play with words.
If I say that the writer in me wants to remain loyal, it is
because it
is true. This sentiment moves all
survivors; they owe nothing to anyone; but everything to the
dead.
I
owe them my roots and my memory. I am
duty-bound to serve as their emissary, transmitting the
history of their
disappearance, even if it disturbs, even if it brings
pain. Not to do so would be to betray them, and
thus myself. And since I am incapable of
communicating their cry by shouting, I simply look at
them. I see them and I write.
While
writing, I question them as I question myself.
I believe I have said it before, elsewhere. I write to
understand as much as to be
understood. Will I succeed one day? Wherever one starts,
one reaches darkness. God? He
remains the God of darkness. Man? The source of
darkness. The killers’ derision, their victims’ tears,
the onlookers’’ indifference, their complicity and
complacency—the divine role
in all that I do not understand. A
million children massacred—I shall never
understand.
Jewish
children—they haunt my writings. I see
them again and again. I shall always see
them. Hounded, humiliated, bent like the
old men who surround them as though to protect them, unable
to do so. They are thirsty, the children, and there is
no one to give them water. They are
hungry, but there is no one to give them a crust of bread.
They are afraid, and there is no one to
reassure them.
They
walk in the middle of the roads, the vagabonds.
They are on the way to the station, and they will never
return. In sealed cards, without air or food, they
travel toward another world. They guess where
they are going, they know it, and they keep silent. Tense,
thoughtful, they listen to the wind,
the call of death in the distance.
All
these children, these old people, I see them.
I never stop seeing them. I
belong to them.
But
they, to whom do they belong?
People
tend to think that a murderer weakens when facing a child.
The child reawakens the killer’s lost
humanity. The killer can no longer kill
the child before him, the child inside him.
But
with us it happened differently. Our
Jewish children had no effect upon the killers.
Nor upon the world. Nor upon God.
I
think of them, I think of their childhood.
Their childhood is a small Jewish town, and this town is no
more. They frighten me; they reflect an image of
myself, one that I pursue and run from at the same
time—the image of a Jewish
adolescent who knew no fear, except the fear of God, whose
faith was whole, comforting,
and not marked by anxiety.
No,
I do not understand. And if I write, it
is to warn the readers that he will not understand either.
“You will not understand, you will not
understand,” were the words heard everywhere during the
reign of night. I can only echo them. You, who never
lived under a sky of blood,
will never know what it was like. Even
if you read all the books ever written, even if you listen
to all the
testimonies ever given, you will remain on this side of the
wall, you will view
the agony and death of a people from afar, through the
screen of a memory that
is not your own.
An
admission of impotence and guilt? I do
not know. All I know is that Treblinka
and Auschwitz cannot be told. And yet I have tried. God
knows I have tried.
Have
I attempted to much or not enough? Among some twenty-five
volumes, only three
or four penetrate the phantasmagoric realm of the dead. In
my other books, through my other books, I
have tried to follow other roads. For it
is dangerous to linger among the dead, they hold on to you
and you run the risk
of speaking only to them. And so I have
forced myself to turn away form them and study other
periods, explore other
destinies and teach other tales—the Bible and the Talmud,
Hasidism and its
fervor, the shtetl and its songs, Jerusalem and its echoes,
the Russian Jews
and their anguish, their awakening, their courage. At
times, it has seemed to me that I was
speaking of other things with the sole purpose of keeping
the essential—the
personal experience—unspoken. At times I
have wondered: And what if I was wrong?
Perhaps I should not have heeded my own advice and stayed in
my world
with the dead.
But
then, I have not forgotten the dead.
They have their rightful place even in the works about the
Hasidic
capitals Ruzhany and Korets, and Jerusalem. Even in my
biblical and Midrashic tales, I
pursue their presence, mute and motionless.
The presence of the dead then beckons in such tangible ways
that it
affects even the most removed characters.
Thus they appear on Mount
Moriah, where Abraham is
about to sacrifice his son, a burnt offering to their common
God. They appear on Mount Nebo,
where Moses enters solitude and death.
They appear in Hasidic and Talmudic legends in which victims
forever
need defending against forces that would crush them.
Technically, so to speak, they are of course
elsewhere, in time and space, but on a deeper, truer plane,
the dead are part
of every story, of every scene.
“But
what is the connection?” you will ask.
Believe me, there is one. After
Auschwitz everything brings us back to Auschwitz. When I
speak of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
when I invoke Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiba, it
is the better to
understand them in the light of Auschwitz. As for the
Maggid of Mezeritch and his
disciples, it is in order to encounter the followers of
their followers that I
reconstruct their spellbound, spellbinding universe. I
like to imagine them alive, exuberant,
celebrating life and hope. Their
happiness is as necessary to me as it was once to
themselves.
And
yet—how did they mange to keep their faith intact? How
did they manage to sing as they went to
meet the Angel of Death? I know Hasidim
who never vacillated—I respect their strength.
I know others who chose rebellion, protest, rage—I respect
their
courage. For there comes a time when
only those who do not believe in God will not cry out to him
in wrath and
anguish.
Do
not judge either group. Even the heroes
perished as martyrs, even the martyrs died as heroes. Who
would dare oppose knives to prayers? The faith of some
matters as much as the
strength of others. It is not ours to
judge, it is only ours to tell the tale.
But
where is one to begin? Whom is one to
include? One meets a Hasid in all my
novels. And a child. And an old man. And a beggar.
And a madman. They are all part of my inner landscape.
The reason why? Pursued and persecuted by the killers, I
offer them shelter. The enemy wanted to
create a society purged of their presence, and I have
brought some of them back. The world denied them,
repudiated them, so I
let them live at least within the feverish dreams of my
characters.
It
is for them that I write, and yet the survivor may
experience remorse. He has tried to bear witness; it was
all in
vain.
After
the liberation, we had illusions. We
were convinced that a new world would be built upon the
ruins of Europe. A new civilization
would see the light. No more wars, no
more hate, no more intolerance, no fanaticism.
And all this because the witnesses would speak. And speak
they did, to no avail.
The
will continue, for they cannot do otherwise.
When man, in his grief, falls silent, Goethe says, then God
gives him
the strength to sing his sorrows. From
that moment on, he may no longer choose not to sing, whether
his song is heard
or not. What matters is to struggle
against silence with words, or through another form of
silence. What matters is to gather a smile here and
there, a tear here and there, a word here and there, and
thus justify the faith
placed in you, a long time ago, by so many victims.
Why
do I write? To wrench those victims from
oblivion. To help the dead vanquish
death.
Translated from the French by
Rosette C. Lamont.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
Belgium? Where is that?
People ask me all the time (because I have an accent) "Where are you from?"
they can't figure it out that I can't say "th" and a "tree" is the same as a "three".
It follows with my answer "I am from Belgium, the Flanders where the poppies grow!"
Many Americans then look at me with a blank face.
They have no idea where Belgium is.
One man said (I promise this is a truth) "Oh in China!"
I guess I now also look Chinese.
Guess Bejing sounds like Belgium?
Guess the man needs a bit more geography.
A lot of Americans never hear news from Belgium either.
They will hear and know about the Netherlands and then jump over that small country and make France
the new neighbor to the Dutch.
Unfortunately today they will read and hear all over TV that indeed there is a Belgium, not a long ride to Paris from the Belgium boarder and that the Belgian Police is now also under attack by terrorist.
Terror found Belgium. Did the police also design obnoxious cartoons?
Are the Jews in Belgium again in danger? Antwerp ,the diamond center of the world, better be on tripple alert.
It makes my head spin , I liked it better when no one heard about Belgium and just bought Godiva chocolate thinking it was made in Middle America.
they can't figure it out that I can't say "th" and a "tree" is the same as a "three".
It follows with my answer "I am from Belgium, the Flanders where the poppies grow!"
Many Americans then look at me with a blank face.
They have no idea where Belgium is.
One man said (I promise this is a truth) "Oh in China!"
I guess I now also look Chinese.
Guess Bejing sounds like Belgium?
Guess the man needs a bit more geography.
A lot of Americans never hear news from Belgium either.
They will hear and know about the Netherlands and then jump over that small country and make France
the new neighbor to the Dutch.
Unfortunately today they will read and hear all over TV that indeed there is a Belgium, not a long ride to Paris from the Belgium boarder and that the Belgian Police is now also under attack by terrorist.
Terror found Belgium. Did the police also design obnoxious cartoons?
Are the Jews in Belgium again in danger? Antwerp ,the diamond center of the world, better be on tripple alert.
It makes my head spin , I liked it better when no one heard about Belgium and just bought Godiva chocolate thinking it was made in Middle America.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Nightmares
My children will love this entry.
For years they have been telling me not to watch the news.
I am a news junky, especially ABC in the evening.
I am addicted like I am going to miss something important.....I know..I know....it is my mental chocolate.....
So for several nights now I have nightmares ,people chasing me, guns every where, mean faces,
I wake up in sweating..oh well I also have numerous blankets on me.....the feet and hands stay cold forever...
Then I was thinking that my son and daughter Sabrina just watch horrendous movies.
Blood , knives, guns, poisons.....Bob even said that Doogie Howser now frightens him after
seeing him in some series last night.
Usually Bob does not get scared about anything on the screen.
He keeps telling me:"Mom it is all acting, no blood, ketchup..."
He is trying to get me to join him in his viewing and I am just good for chick flicks.
So I wondered when I got up with this black cloud over my head until I had my coffee....wondered
why I had these nightmares and wake up frightened.....I know, I know......I am watching the
news.....between complete villages being burned down and thousands of people dead in a far land, there I
saw all of Paris like THE liberation day, proclaiming the Freedom of speech after a horrible
massacre. I saw the policeman on the sidewalk he was hit and could not walk as best as possible you see him pleading with the man in black, holding up his arms , he must have said :"spare me I am wounded"
the man in black answered with a load of bullets ending a life right there in front of us.
No fake blood, no ketchup .....this is reality..........
My kids are right, what I watch is worse than their movies. .....
For years they have been telling me not to watch the news.
I am a news junky, especially ABC in the evening.
I am addicted like I am going to miss something important.....I know..I know....it is my mental chocolate.....
So for several nights now I have nightmares ,people chasing me, guns every where, mean faces,
I wake up in sweating..oh well I also have numerous blankets on me.....the feet and hands stay cold forever...
Then I was thinking that my son and daughter Sabrina just watch horrendous movies.
Blood , knives, guns, poisons.....Bob even said that Doogie Howser now frightens him after
seeing him in some series last night.
Usually Bob does not get scared about anything on the screen.
He keeps telling me:"Mom it is all acting, no blood, ketchup..."
He is trying to get me to join him in his viewing and I am just good for chick flicks.
So I wondered when I got up with this black cloud over my head until I had my coffee....wondered
why I had these nightmares and wake up frightened.....I know, I know......I am watching the
news.....between complete villages being burned down and thousands of people dead in a far land, there I
saw all of Paris like THE liberation day, proclaiming the Freedom of speech after a horrible
massacre. I saw the policeman on the sidewalk he was hit and could not walk as best as possible you see him pleading with the man in black, holding up his arms , he must have said :"spare me I am wounded"
the man in black answered with a load of bullets ending a life right there in front of us.
No fake blood, no ketchup .....this is reality..........
My kids are right, what I watch is worse than their movies. .....
Monday, January 12, 2015
"Beauty" what does it mean to you?
Today I saw something on the internet which baffled me. "The stars who do not age well" 30 photos
So Brigitte Bardot did not go the knife , the peels, the botox.
So who cares? Do we gloat because now she looks old? Or do we say "Good for you girl to let nature take its course!".
Why does it matter to any of us.?
We applaud the ones who look good and curl up our noses to the rest of the "old ladies".
Whisper behind their backs :"did you see her? she looks so old now!"
My husband taught me a long time ago that he would rather do portraits of old ladies full of
wrinkles than a young girl.
Even Anita Ekberg before she passed told a reporter:"I am not a pile of
synthetic stuff, these babies are real".
So much in this country counts on beauty, heaven forbid you get older and you look your age.
The echos come with the judgment ,"Oh! she smoked look at her wrinkles!"
"She drank like a Fish, that is what gave her bags under the eyes"
Check out the ladies in our history books, the ones who made a difference in teaching, nursing,science, law makers, the list goes one. How do we view them today?
So Brigitte Bardot did not go the knife , the peels, the botox.
So who cares? Do we gloat because now she looks old? Or do we say "Good for you girl to let nature take its course!".
Why does it matter to any of us.?
We applaud the ones who look good and curl up our noses to the rest of the "old ladies".
Whisper behind their backs :"did you see her? she looks so old now!"
My husband taught me a long time ago that he would rather do portraits of old ladies full of
wrinkles than a young girl.
Even Anita Ekberg before she passed told a reporter:"I am not a pile of
synthetic stuff, these babies are real".
So much in this country counts on beauty, heaven forbid you get older and you look your age.
The echos come with the judgment ,"Oh! she smoked look at her wrinkles!"
"She drank like a Fish, that is what gave her bags under the eyes"
Check out the ladies in our history books, the ones who made a difference in teaching, nursing,science, law makers, the list goes one. How do we view them today?
Saturday, January 10, 2015
the old women in my tribe said:
My mother in law at age 86 and that was around 1983 said to me:
Jeannot, I am so happy to be this age as I really do not want to know where this world is heading....
My mother said :
All people who are fanatics about their religion are dangerous to the rest of us.
That was in the 1960's
In the 1960's Belgium imported a ton of laborers for work the Belgians did not like to do
anymore..like coal mining and such. My mother shook her head:
She said: you wait and see the Turks will come here with 4 wives , they will get
all the benefits of a single household here x4.
I called her racist and she shook her head, she added:
if we are too lazy to work we need outside help but no one in government has considered
what the consequences will be.
My mother was a very smart lady. When she turned 73 she decided she wanted to write to
the countries who were then tabboo. She became fluent in Esperanto and found friends to write to all over China and at that time also Poland and the Ukraine. She just hated that we are not always thought the truth in the media. Esperanto was used a lot by tons of people during that time.
Esperanto was invented with the ideal outcome to be if we all spoke the same language there would be more peace.
Mother said : During WW2 as : She first used a curse word which she very seldom did and added:"I wish that the guy who invented ammunition would have been chocked to death by his mother."
I replied with logic:"Someone else would be born and try it later then".
"people are fickle, Jeannot, now after the liberation we are all for America and England...wait and see when they will turn against them one day and adore another place.
Two months after 9/11 I was in Belgium and some people around me said:
"It is time that America gets to be attacked ".
In a shop the shopkeeper hid me as people came in. Later she told me these guys have been singing in the street about 9/11 and so happy about that.You are speaking Flemish with a slight American accent now and I did not want these guys to follow you.
Jeannot, I am so happy to be this age as I really do not want to know where this world is heading....
My mother said :
All people who are fanatics about their religion are dangerous to the rest of us.
That was in the 1960's
In the 1960's Belgium imported a ton of laborers for work the Belgians did not like to do
anymore..like coal mining and such. My mother shook her head:
She said: you wait and see the Turks will come here with 4 wives , they will get
all the benefits of a single household here x4.
I called her racist and she shook her head, she added:
if we are too lazy to work we need outside help but no one in government has considered
what the consequences will be.
My mother was a very smart lady. When she turned 73 she decided she wanted to write to
the countries who were then tabboo. She became fluent in Esperanto and found friends to write to all over China and at that time also Poland and the Ukraine. She just hated that we are not always thought the truth in the media. Esperanto was used a lot by tons of people during that time.
Esperanto was invented with the ideal outcome to be if we all spoke the same language there would be more peace.
Mother said : During WW2 as : She first used a curse word which she very seldom did and added:"I wish that the guy who invented ammunition would have been chocked to death by his mother."
I replied with logic:"Someone else would be born and try it later then".
"people are fickle, Jeannot, now after the liberation we are all for America and England...wait and see when they will turn against them one day and adore another place.
Two months after 9/11 I was in Belgium and some people around me said:
"It is time that America gets to be attacked ".
In a shop the shopkeeper hid me as people came in. Later she told me these guys have been singing in the street about 9/11 and so happy about that.You are speaking Flemish with a slight American accent now and I did not want these guys to follow you.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Peace no more
As I am writing there is a battle going on in Paris and around it for young men who have already killed a dozen or more people. In the name of their religious beliefs they kill. At this moment some are holding hostages in a Jewish Deli and another in a printing plant. It looks right now like a woman is also involved.
This is also about freedom of speech.
Makes the hair stand up on my back.
Going back to when I was about 9 or 10, middle WW2. My mother was fluent in English. We are in the Flanders, Belgium.
She was hoping for the help of England to come and save us from this invasion.
She taught me English songs, so I was just beaming when I sang "It's a long way to Tiperary ..."
I felt all grown up as I sang in English.
One day a man came to visit ,I did not know him and do not remember the reason for his visit but I
stuck out my chest and said: "I can sing in English!" Upon which I started..."It's a long way ...mother
kicked me under the table with all her force. I stopped, offended, curious and rubbing my leg.
When the visitor left Mother explained as best as she could.
I knew they always talked about the "whites" and the "blacks"
Over heard my parents often saying: "Joseph A. in the village is a black"
so and so is with us they are white.
Mother explained that we did not know for sure who was white and who was "black".
It was not about race color. It was about their beliefs.
The whites were patriotic, the blacks were pro-german.
The blacks OFTEN reported the patriotic people for things they had said or done,
for listening to radios, just for instance, or breaking curfew or having pro-British pamplets.
Anything could set a commander off to start a hunt or take him or her to a camp.
Weeks before our liberation , a friend of my father was a turn coat, he became pro German and
he reported us to the SS. Father had already left for France and joined the American invasion
but someone came to warn my mother. We got out in time first to the convent and then further in land.
They did not find us.
But this brings me back to the feelings that I had, trying to understand at my young innocent age
why I was not allowed to sing an English song.
It made me sad, and angry. I remember both feelings. Very confused I would like to sing out loud outside so anyone could hear , or I became full of fear at the sight of a grey uniform.
Freedom of speech to me is necessary or do I have to go back to fear of the new rules in this mixed up world.
This is also about freedom of speech.
Makes the hair stand up on my back.
Going back to when I was about 9 or 10, middle WW2. My mother was fluent in English. We are in the Flanders, Belgium.
She was hoping for the help of England to come and save us from this invasion.
She taught me English songs, so I was just beaming when I sang "It's a long way to Tiperary ..."
I felt all grown up as I sang in English.
One day a man came to visit ,I did not know him and do not remember the reason for his visit but I
stuck out my chest and said: "I can sing in English!" Upon which I started..."It's a long way ...mother
kicked me under the table with all her force. I stopped, offended, curious and rubbing my leg.
When the visitor left Mother explained as best as she could.
I knew they always talked about the "whites" and the "blacks"
Over heard my parents often saying: "Joseph A. in the village is a black"
so and so is with us they are white.
Mother explained that we did not know for sure who was white and who was "black".
It was not about race color. It was about their beliefs.
The whites were patriotic, the blacks were pro-german.
The blacks OFTEN reported the patriotic people for things they had said or done,
for listening to radios, just for instance, or breaking curfew or having pro-British pamplets.
Anything could set a commander off to start a hunt or take him or her to a camp.
Weeks before our liberation , a friend of my father was a turn coat, he became pro German and
he reported us to the SS. Father had already left for France and joined the American invasion
but someone came to warn my mother. We got out in time first to the convent and then further in land.
They did not find us.
But this brings me back to the feelings that I had, trying to understand at my young innocent age
why I was not allowed to sing an English song.
It made me sad, and angry. I remember both feelings. Very confused I would like to sing out loud outside so anyone could hear , or I became full of fear at the sight of a grey uniform.
Freedom of speech to me is necessary or do I have to go back to fear of the new rules in this mixed up world.
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