J o u r n a l of Religion and Health, Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 1991

The Triumph of Humanity: Wiesel's Struggle with the Holocaust ROBERT J. WILLIS ABSTRACT: Confronted a m a t u r e p e r s o n survive?

with the Holocaust, I pose the question: How could the h u m a n being a s Through examining the writings of one survivor, Elie Wiesel, we m a y discover how h e pictures personal h u m a n i t y conquering impersonal death. By placing his reflections in a n analytical psychological structure, we may illustrate responses to threat, both h e a l t h y and u n h e a l t h y responses. At the same time, we may illumine the struggle to grapple h u m a n l y with a n i n h u m a n environment. Such a discussion may encourage reflection on our own daily dealings with stressful situations; it may also serve to guide the professional assisting in the h u m a n struggle with mortality.

A warning: Elie Wiesel writes stories. Go read them. He speaks impossibly about th e unspeakable, about the Holocaust. "To substitute words, any words, for [Auschwitz] is to distort it. A Holocaust literature? The very t e r m is a contradiction. ''1 If he who "lived t h r o u g h it can never fully reveal it," and he who didn't "can never know it, ''2 t h e n w ha t pretension lies behind this article or allows this discussion? If even the celebrated Rabbi Israel of Ritzyn could not light the ritual fire or say the holy p r a y e r or find the sacred wood, t hen how m ay those who n e ve r faced the black forest of soul-searing Nazi chimneys dare to speak, let alone pray? The Rabbi surrounded by misfortune was able "to tell the story . . . . And it was sufficient, ''3 because the story belonged to him. B u t h e a r a n o t h e r story: A woman came to Rabbi Israel, the maggid of Koznitz, and told him, with many tears, that she had been married a dozen years and still had not borne a son. "What are you willing to do about it?" he asked her. She did not know what to say. "My mother," so the maggid told her, "was aging and still had no child. Then she heard that the holy Baal Shem was stopping over in Apt in the course

Robert J. Willis, Ph.D., is Clinical Director of the Pastoral Counseling Center of West Hartford, Connecticut. 161

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of a journey. She hurried to his inn and begged him to pray she might bear a son. 'What are you willing to do about it?' he asked. 'My husband is a poor bookbinder,' she replied, 'but I do have one fine thing that I shall give to the rabbi.' She went home as fast as she could and fetched her good cape, her 'Katinka,' which was carefully stowed away in a chest. But when she returned to the inn with it, she heard that the Baal Shem had already left for Mezbizh. She immediately set out after him and since she had no money to ride, she walked from town to town with her 'Katinka' until she came to Mezbizh. The Baal Shem took the cape and hung it on the wall. 'It is well,' he said. My mother walked all the way back, from town to town, until she reached Apt. A year later, I was born." "I, too," cried the woman, "will bring you a good cape of mine so that I may get a son." "That won't work," said the maggid, "You heard the story. My mother had no story to go by. TM People who value life, who desire to pass it vibrantly on to waiting generations, must not rely on others to do their work. It is not enough for Wiesel to tell h i s story; we all, after listening, are bound as survivors of this bloody century to respond with our own. As tale builds on tale, his revelation, only just "darkly" here, m a y at least fill out, increase in health, and nourish more broadly. And so to my story. As a psychologist confronted with the deranged horrors of the death camps, I often pose this crucial question: How did the h u m a n being as a m a t u r e h u m a n survive? Should I t u r n to the psychoanalytic tradition, an answer m a y lie in regression. The autonomous being becomes an incompetent child and a helpless victim. Personal identity and the ability to choose to be different surrender to the unchosen u n i t y of the anonymous mass. Safety and survival depend on uniform facelessness and blind luck. By disidentification with ego and identification with the numbered abstraction of the crowd, death's glance m a y sweep by without pausing. What might a behaviorist reply? Environment alone finally exists. Survival comes through becoming a consistent and coherent expression of the dominant behaviors bombarding the facile fiction of selfhood. Disidentification with self and the illusion of personal freedom make possible a life t h a t becomes a non-conflictual extension of mechanized death. H u m a n survival and non-survival ultimately are identical. Thus m a y a depersonalized being leave the camps alive. But how m a y a person with some intact sense of self do so? The gross abnormality of the Nazi experiment could suggest t h a t only a transmuted h u m a n i t y in which abnormal is normal m a y explain personal survival. H u m a n persons, ones we recognize as ourselves, would thus lack the capacity in themselves to withstand the demonic and live on. I disagree, and so does Wiesel. Through examining his writings even briefly, we m a y discover how he pictures personal h u m a n i t y conquering im-

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p e r s o n a l d e a t h . To do so, we will first consider h o w h e w i t n e s s e d t h e N a z i t h r e a t a n d how, u n d e r stress, t h r e a t in all its t e r r i f y i n g r e a l i t y m a y be distorted. T h e n we will h i g h l i g h t t h e d e f e n s i v e s t r a t e g i e s , b o t h n o r m a l a n d n e u rotic, h e p o r t r a y s as d e s p e r a t e a t t e m p t s to s u r v i v e h u m a n l y t h e i n h u m a n .

T h e threat

I f we a r e to m a i n t a i n o u r physical, psychological, a n d s p i r i t u a l h e a l t h , t h e i n i t i a l t a s k is to recognize t h e t h r e a t in all its specificity. Does Wiesel do that? As t h e 15-year-old Elie c l i m b e d d o w n f r o m t h e r a i l r o a d c a r at B i r k e n a u : Every two yards or so an SS man held his tommy gun trained on us . . . . An SS noncommissioned officer came to meet us, a truncheon in his hand. He gave the order: "Men to the left! Women to the right!" . . . For a part of a second I glimpsed my mother and my sister moving away to the right . . . . And I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever? T h e boy did k n o w , a t t h a t m o m e n t a n d place, t h a t h e r e w a s a serious t h r e a t to t h e u n i t y of his family; h e w a s not y e t c e r t a i n of t h e t h r e a t to t h e i r lives. O n l y m o m e n t s later, h o w e v e r , as he m o v e d slowly a l o n g w i t h his f a t h e r in a procession of m a l e p r i s o n e r s , a w a t c h i n g i n m a t e i n f o r m e d t h e m : "Poor devils, you're going to the crematory." . . . We continued our march. We were gradually drawing closer to the ditch, from which an infernal heat was rising . . . . Four steps more. Three steps. There it was now, right in front of us, the pit and its flames . . . . The moment had come. I was face to face with the Angel of Death . . . . No. Two steps from the pit we were ordered to the left and made to go into the barracks? F r o m t h a t l i f e - s h r i v e l i n g t i m e , h e k n e w , s t a r k l y , t h a t t h e N a z i s w e r e hell bent, not o n l y to s e p a r a t e his f a m i l y , b u t also to kill t h e m all. N o r w a s he m i s t a k e n . I d e k , a frenzied k a p o , one d a y b e a t h i m bloody for g e t t i n g in his way, a n o t h e r d a y w h i p p e d h i m b r u t a l l y for i n t r u d i n g on his p r i v a c y . T h e s a m e k a p o s a v a g e d his f a t h e r w i t h a n iron b a r for b e i n g "lazy" till t h e old m a n collapsed. 7 A n d t h e n one n i g h t as his d y i n g f a t h e r b e g g e d for water: The officer came up to him and shouted at him to be quiet. But my father did not hear him. He went on calling me. The officer dealt him a violent blow on the head with his truncheon . . . . I awoke on J a n u a r y 29 at dawn. In my father's place lay another invalid?

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T h r e a t surrounded not only his family and life. Confronted with the brutality of th e camps, watching the innocent sacrificed to the Master Race just for being Jewish, his believer's view of h u m a n i t y and God faced extinction also. Who can forget his words? Not far from us, flames were leaping up from a ditch, gigantic flames. They were burning something. A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load--little children. Babies! Yes, I saw it--saw it with my own eyes--those children in the flames . . . . Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. . . . Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself? T h a t Wiesel realizes the depths of the Nazi t h r e a t facing his life, his family, his people, his universe, and even his God, one m ay not doubt. But the guilt is not laid at Nazi feet alone. Christianity, long before Hitler, cultivated the killing fields from which the death camps sprouted. Listen to the m a t u r e Wiesel: If you study the history of Christianity, you will see that it is full of anti-semitism. More than that--there would have been no Auschwitz if the way had not been prepared by Christian theology. Among the first to dehumanize the Jew was the Christian? ~ We have to say it: All these hatreds culminated in the Holocaust. If it were not for the education of some Christian books, in some villages and in some towns, I don't think that the Holocaust could have taken place. There would have been an upsurge of conscience in the killers. And the killers did not have an upsurge of conscience.t1 T h r e a t initially recognized, two dangers, two insidious distortions of a t h r e a t e n i n g reality still confront the person in the presence of religious and racial bigotry: denial and complicity.

Denial Over and over again Wiesel's real people and fictional characters cannot believe t h a t normal, civilized p e o p l e - - b e t h e y followers of the Christ or the F f i h r e r - - c o u l d seriously h a r m t h e m just because t hey are Jews. Indeed, the warning, the t r ut h, invariably bursts out of persons others declare to be mad. Let two examples suffice. When hometown Moche the Beadle told Wiesel's family and neighbors about the slaughter of some of Sighet's Jews in a Galician forest:

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People refused not only to believe his stories, but even to listen to them. "He's just trying to make us pity him. What an imagination he has," they said. Or even: "Poor fellow. He's gone mad. ''12 T h i s d i a l o g u e is echoed as t h e W i e s e l s a n d t h e i r n e i g h b o r s a p p r o a c h t h e i r fearsome destination: On the train to Auschwitz, Madam Schachter screams, breathless, her voice broken by sobs. "Jews, listen to me! I can see a fire! There are huge flames! It is a furnace." One person says, "She must be very thirsty, poor thing! That's why she keeps talking about a fire devouring her." . . . Make her be quiet. She's mad! Shut her up! She's not the only one. She can keep her mouth shut . . . . 13 W h e n t h e fictional Z a l m e n , a n o t h e r beadle, e n c o u r a g e s t h e R a b b i to s p e a k out to t h e foreign t r o u p e of actors a b o u t t h e p l i g h t of R u s s i a n J e w s , he a r g u e s on t h e b a s i s of t h e n e e d for m a d n e s s : You lack imagination, Rabbi! You've lost hope! That's bad enough, but worse-you've closed yourself to imagination! That's unforgivable, Rabbi! For we are the imagination and madness of the world--we are imagination gone mad. One has to be mad to believe. One has to be mad to remain human. Be mad, Rabbi, be mad! TM T h e good R a b b i does, finally, s p e a k out b r a v e l y d u r i n g t h e s y n a g o g u e services on Y o m K i p p u r . W i t h w h a t r e s u l t ? L i s t e n to t h e conclusion a n d sentence, a m a s t e r y of denial, of t h e c h i e f inspector: Life goes on. And those who don't suffer refuse to hear about suffering--and particularly about Jewish suffering. That is why I pity you. You were beaten from the start, you never had a chance. And now you know it. You know that you cannot count on anyone and, what's more that you don't count for anyone. Why should we punish you? As far as we're concerned--as far as the outside world is concerned--you have done nothing. Your dream was the dream of a madman. Why should we make you into a martyr? Turn you into an example? Your revolt, that supreme and exalting gesture which, for you, was meant to bring together and justify the suppressed agonies and hopes of an entire lifetime, of an entire generation perhaps--well, my sad hero, that revolt simply did not take place! 15

M a d Moche a n d S c h a c h t e r a t t e m p t e d to w a r n t h e i r n e i g h b o r s a b o u t t h e genocide; a " m a d " R a b b i t r i e d to i n f o r m a d e a f w o r l d a b o u t R u s s i a n persecution. T h e y b o t h failed; still, t h r o u g h t h e i r s a v i n g m a d n e s s i n h u m a n i t y h a s b e e n c h a l l e n g e d a n d t h e i r o w n h u m a n i t y p r e s e r v e d . T h e y , a t least, did not j o i n t h e i r t o r m e n t o r s t h r o u g h denial.

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Complicity Complicity t u r n s victim into e x e c u t i o n e r e i t h e r by excusing t h e injustice on t h e basis of "we h a v e n ' t a n y t h i n g to complain about, really," or by a c t u a l l y doing t h e m u r d e r e r ' s foul deeds for him. In The Trial of God God's d e f e n d e r a t t e m p t s to excuse divine injustice. T h e excuses for God are excuses also for b r u t a l h u m a n s : I am looking at you, and I see people very much alive . . . what are you complaining about? TM I do not deny that blood was shed and that life was extinguished, but I am asking the question: Who is to blame for all t h a t ? . . . Why involve, why implicate their Father in Heaven? 17 What if they [the victims] felt differently? Suppose they chose, at that supreme hour, to repent. 18 I would go one step further and say that they departed from this world uttering words of g r a t i t u d e . . , for dying without prolonged suffering or shame. 19 Why evil?--why ugliness? If God chooses not to answer, He must have His reasons. God is God, and His will is independent from ours--as is His reasoning. 2~ In t h e context of t h e p o g r o m of Shamgorod, B e r i s h the i n n k e e p e r e x c l a i m e d on h e a r i n g such complicity, " B u t he is i n s u l t i n g the dead! ''21 Recall t h a t the p u r v e y o r of these supposed excuses is, in the play's d~nouement, Satan. A f t e r the H o l o c a u s t only S a t a n could b l a m e the dead or excuse the killers. Two scenes, one real, one fictional, p r e s e n t a chilling picture of complicity in m u r d e r . As the R u s s i a n troops a d v a n c e d on Auschwitz, the Nazis h u r r i e d l y m o v e d the p r i s o n e r s o u t - - d e s t i n a t i o n B u c h e n w a l d . At a t r a i n stop, a f t e r t h r o w i n g out t h e dead, the g u a r d s t h r e w some scraps of b r e a d into t h e cattle w a g o n s loaded w i t h t h e b a r e l y living, s t a r v i n g Jews. Wiesel saw a n d recorded this scene: Not far away I noticed an old man dragging himself along on all fours. He was trying to disengage himself from the struggle. He held one hand to his chest. Then I understood; he had a bit of bread under his shirt. With remarkable speed he drew it out and put it in his mouth. His eyes gleamed; a smile, like a grimace, lit up his dead face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had just loomed up near him. The shadow threw itself upon him. Felled to the ground, stunned with blows, the old man cried: "Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your f a t h e r . . , you're hurting m e . . . you're killing your father! I've got some b r e a d . . , for you t o o . . , for y O U tOO . . . .

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The old man again whispered something, let out a rattle, and died amid the general indifference. His son searched him, took the bread, and began to devour it.~2

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When in Dawn David ben Moshe was sentenced by the British occupiers of Palestine to h a n g for terrorism, the Jewish underground kidnapped a British officer, J o h n Dawson. The moment Moshe dies, so will he. Young Elisha is chosen to execute h i m - - i f such must be. And it must be. Hoping he could at least hate Dawson to ease his task, Elisha went to his cell, talked with him, and excruciatingly, liked him. Still, it must be: When the moment of execution arrived, Elisha said to him, "Don't smile." . . . What I meant was: "I can't shoot a man who is smiling." Two seconds. He was still smiling. . . . One second. "Elisha--" said the hostage. I fired. When he pronounced my name he was already dead; the bullet had gone through his heart. A dead man, whose lips were still warm, had pronounced my name: Elisha.'... There was a pain in my head and my b~dy was growing heavy. The shot had left me deaf and dumb. That's it. I said to myself. It's done. I've killed. I've killed Elisha. 23 Complicity's price: the death of one's father, the death of one's friend, the death of oneself, and the death of "El"--one's God. If denial and complicity simply issue in the killers' triumph, how then m a y persons in extreme conditions h u m a n l y defend themselves?

The defense Once a t h r e a t has been specifically determined, the healthy h u m a n fashions a defense appropriate to the t h r e a t and commensurate with its gravity. It shows itself either as a form of withdrawal or of attack.

Withdrawal. When German troops took over the village of Sighet, the Jewish people "gathered in private houses: the Germans were not to be provoked." When a new decree m a n d a t e d t h a t "every Jew must wear the yellow star," Mr. Wiesel remarked to the Jewish community leaders: "The yellow star? Oh well, w h a t of it? You don't die of it . . . . " As a ghetto was fashioned, the Jews obediently occupied it. During the day m a n y of the men quietly stoked coal on military trains. In the face of superior German might, the Jews obeyed with the hope they would "remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Then everything would be as before. "24 Although this was "illusion" t h a t "ruled the ghetto," such withdrawal was, based on German might, the war, some promise of ultimate freedom, and no founded sense of the Holocaust to come--appropriate and healthy. Then came Auschwitz. Unarmed, confronted with armed and brutal men,

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in a place w h e r e d e a t h c a m e swiftly w i t h t h e l e a s t provocation, t h e p r i s o n e r s h a d little option except e x t e r n a l c o m p l i a n c e or d e a t h . So t h e y stood or r a n , w o r k e d or slept, a n s w e r e d or k e p t q u i e t u n d e r t h e w o r s t m i s t r e a t m e n t s - - j u s t to s t a y alive. B u t s u c h w i t h d r a w a l did not in i t s e l f d e m a n d d e n i a l of t h e t h r e a t , complicity w i t h t h e SS, or j o i n i n g t h e m in t h e i r i n h u m a n i t y . L i s t e n to t h e words of t h i s y o u n g Pole, t h e i n m a t e in c h a r g e of W i e s e l ' s g r o u p his first n i g h t as a N a z i prisoner: There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now muster your strength and don't lose heart. We shall all see the days of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a p r a y e r - - o r rather a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive. 25 I n a g h e t t o of d i s e a s e a n d d e a t h could t h e r e be a m o r e h e a l t h y response, a m o r e h u m a n defense? How, indeed, m a y w i t h d r a w a l b e c o m e u n h e a l t h y ? C o n s i d e r t h e following p a t t e r n : F a c e d w i t h a t h r e a t , a p e r s o n p u t s up a n i m m e d i a t e defense. B e c a u s e of e i t h e r its o v e r w h e l m i n g n a t u r e or t h e i n a p p r o p r i a t e n e s s of t h e defense or a l a c k of p e r s o n a l s t r e n g t h to s u s t a i n t h e defense, a n x i e t y grows u n t i l it bec o m e s t h e m a j o r p r o b l e m . T h e n w i t h d r a w a l is e m p l o y e d as a m e a n s of h a n dling t h i s p e r s o n a l l y c r e a t e d i n t e r n a l t h r e a t . N e e d i n g now a s t r o n g e r response to block out t h e p a i n f u l a n x i e t y , t h e s u f f e r e r b e c o m e s depressed, d e s p a i r s , a n d e v e n gives in to panic. T h i s l a t t e r often leads to d e a t h e v e n of t h e person 9 N o t e v e r y p r i s o n e r died o n l y b y N a z i h a n d s . Wiesel gives a p o i n t e d account of n e u r o t i c w i t h d r a w a l t h a t issued in p e r s o n a l death. O v e r w h e l m e d a t t h e t h o u g h t of Dr. M e n g e l e ' s c o m i n g selection process, Akiba Drummer wandered among us, his eyes glazed, telling everyone of his weakness: "I can't go on . . . . It's all over . . . . " It was impossible to raise his morale. He didn't listen to what we told him. He could only repeat that all was over for him, that he could no longer keep up the struggle, that he had no strength left, nor faith. Suddenly his eyes would become blank, nothing but two open wounds, two pots of terror . . . . Poor Akiba Drummer, if he could have gone on believing in God, if he could have seen a proof of God in this Calvary, he would not have been taken by the selection. But as soon as he felt the first cracks in his faith, he had lost his reason for struggling and had begun to die. When the selection came, he was condemned in advance, offering his own neck to the executioner. 26 9

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Before concluding this topic of defensive withdrawal, a brief word is in order. Many Jews, camp survivors and Holocaust survivors, publicly and privately question the health and courage of the millions who trudged silently to their deaths "like sheep to the slaughter." Shouldn't they have fought back openly and violently in the cause of justice, for their lives and those of their people? From the preceding discussion, it should be eminently clear t h a t withdrawal does not in itself negate or diminish either courage or personal health.

Requiescant in pace Attack. When the cattle wagons deposited the Jews from Sighet at Birkenau, two longtime inmates brutally informed them of the ovens of Auschwitz: "You dumb bastards, don't you understand anything? You're going to be burned. Frizzled away. Turned into ashes." At first shocked and frozen with terror, some among the new arrivals soon began to murmur: "We've got to do something. We can't let ourselves be killed. We can't go like beasts to the slaughter. We've got to revolt." There were a few sturdy young fellows among us. They had knives on them, and they tried to incite the others to throw themselves on the armed guards. One of the young men cried: "Let the world learn of the existence of Auschwitz. Let everybody hear about it, while they can still escape . . . . -27 Faced with a growing recognition of the surrounding horror, these young men, filling with anger, were ready to fight. To ward off the threat, their immediate defense was most understandably the urge to strike out against their persecutors. Because of gigantic odds against them and the restraint of their elders, no outward attack, indeed, materialized. Nor in Wiesel's account of his days in these camps were there often outward displays of anger against the SS. But there were some. As a condemned m a n is being hanged, he cries out "in a calm, strong voice 'Long live liberty! A curse upon Germany! A curse . . . . A cur--.' ,,28 A Dutch oberkapo is arrested for blowing up the electric station at the Buna work camp. Young Elie himself on Rosh Hashanah, linking Nazi cruelty with divine rejection, revolts angrily against God: Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? . . . How could I say to Him: "Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory? Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou who has chosen us to be butchered on Thine Altar. '29

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Anger such as this young lad's must have filled the souls of untold numbers of Jewish inmates, anger directed not only at their h u m a n persecutors but also at an "absent" God. Before the unconcern of either, however, what direct actions could be t a k e n - - e s p e c i a l l y if one wished to m a i n t a i n both life and sanity? The question presents itself: I f the Jewish people had been able to attack, how could they have done so and remained true to their Jewish background, at least according to Wiesel? In The Oath, when the little town of Kolvillag ("every village") prepared itself for a pogrom, some of the Jewish inhabitants formed into a self-defense group. When the slaughter finally began, they waited their moment, then struck. How? They quietly ambushed pillagers loaded down with Jewish possessions, disarmed them and tied them up, and placed them in an abandoned asylum. When the mob got word t h a t some Jews were resisting their looting and raping and murdering, enraged, they attacked the supposed Jewish stronghold, the asylum. Finding it locked, thinking they had the upstarts cornered, they burned down the building. As the Christian hostages screamed out in death, the fire spread, the panic grew, the mob turned its destructive fury on itself9 Soon the whole town was a picture of evil destruction gone mad. In Wiesel's account, it is noteworthy t h a t no Jews of Kolvillag directly attacked the drunken, wild-eyed mob. They certainly were participants in the destruction of m a n y Christian people and homes, but only by directing the executioner's fury back on to themselves. We t u r n to Wiesel's own life after the World War. On a bus in Tel Aviv Wiesel confronted a former barracks-chief from Auschwitz: I was in your barracks. I used to tremble before you. You were the ally of evil, of hunger, of cruelty. I used to curse you?~ The m a n insisted Wiesel was mistaken 9 He demanded t h a t Wiesel stop pestering him, but the former inmate refused to get off the bus. He stayed till the end of the bus line so they had to leave--together. At first still denying, abruptly the stranger began to shout, to y e l l - - i n German! Engulfed by his voice, lashed by his invectives, Wiesel was suddenly no longer afraid. Not of dying nor even of killing. It is something else, something worse. I am suddenly aware of my impotence, of my defeat. I know I am going to let him go free, but I will never know if I am doing this out of courage or out of cowardice. I will never know if, face to face with the executioner, I behaved like a judge or a victim. But I will have acquired the certitude that the man who measures himself against the reality of evil always emerges beaten and humiliated. If someday I encounter the Angel of Death himself in my path, I will not kill him. I will not torture him. On the contrary I will speak to him politely, as humanely as possible. I will try to understand him, to divine his evil; even at the risk of being contaminated21 9

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Although the m a t u r e Wiesel does not condemn societally sanctioned killing (he nowhere clearly espouses a pacifist position), he seems to prefer confrontations that express cherished Jewish values, especially relationships and the sanctity of life. Violence must be stopped, granted. But truth to oneself must be chosen always and one's h u m a n and Jewish dignity staunchly maintained. What turns an attack into an act of self-destructiveness? As with unhealthy withdrawal, the key is anxiety. An attack begun because of inadequate defenses has as its focus the painful battle against a growing inner anxiety, not the maneuvers of enemy threat. Instead of a healthy anger fueling the defensive attack, neurotic anxiety now sets off the following chain of interior and exterior events: 9 aggressive actions are taken to gain control over one's environment, both internal and external; 9 this attempt at control fails because the threat still exists and the defenses are still inadequate; anxiety increases; 9 hatred cloaks the stress-filled anxiety by throwing one's attention and focus outward toward others; 9 this hatred fails as control did; g u i l t is the only way that hatred, as selfhatred, can be rescued from frustration and failure. Throughout Wiesel's writings we m a y find some clear examples of this neurotic pattern of attack. The most vivid depiction of the drive to control one's environment appears in the novel D a w n . Written immediately after N i g h t , it shows the post-Holocaust Jewish world striving anxiously to make impossible any future Holocaust. If they could only have their own homeland, then they would be free f o r e v e r - - a n d safe. Etisha joined the Zionist Movement in its desperate struggle against the English and for a Palestinian homeland for all Jews. Immediately, he was taught to attack, to make others afraid: The paratroopers, the police dogs, the tanks, the planes, the tommy guns, the executioners--they are all afraid. The Holy Land has become, for them, a land of fear . . . . They dare neither to speak nor to be silent. They are afraid? 2 As relieved as difficult to kill, soldiers running shrieking to the

he was to be the attacker instead of a victim, Elisha found it even in the cause of his people. Seeing ambushed English like rabbits, caught in the guerrilla crossfire, and falling ground:

I remembered the dreaded SS guards in the Polish ghettos. Day after day, night after night, they slaughtered the Jews in just the same way. Tommy guns were scattered here and there, and an officer, laughing or distractedly eating, barked out an order: Fire! Then the scythe went to work. A few Jews tried to break

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through the circle of fire, but they only rammed their heads against its insurmountable wall. They too ran like rabbits, like rabbits sotted with wine and sorrow, and death mowed them down. No, it was not easy to play the part of God, especially when it meant putting on the field-gray uniform of the SS.33 Somehow, attacking without anger and the immediate r e q u i r e m e n t of selfdefense; somehow, a m bus hi ng for the sake of abstractions like "the Jewish people" or "a Palestinian homeland" linked Elisha with Nazi brut al i t y and the prideful pretense of unchallengeable control over life and death. And wh en Elisha cold-bloodedly executed J o h n Dawson in the nam e of the Jewish people, he knew he had destroyed himself. Holocaust anxiety had, as he said, outfitted him "in the field-gray uniform of the SS." In winning this way, he had failed most deeply--himself. When anxiety-driven control fails, h ate boils over. In the concentration camps the cruelest, most hate-filled people were often the kapos. Although t he y too lived only at the discretion of their Nazi masters, t h e y could diffuse t he i r anxiety, t hey could get some pretense of control th r o u g h the exercise of hate. In N i g h t , for example, Wiesel gives more explicit atten tio n to the berserk hat r e d of Idek, the kapo, t h a n to anyone else, the SS included. Prisoner A-7713, young Elie, himself struggled with a kind of hatred, not toward the screaming guards but at a silent God. On Rosh H a s h a n a h while other prisoners prayed: I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the Accused. My eyes were open and I was alone--terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger24 But note, he was still standing there. Feelings of abandonment, estrangement, even h a t r e d still bound him to God. A relationship still existed; indifference had not t a k e n hold, indifference t h a t negated all possibility of feeling, including hate: We didn't hate the Germans, and the Germans didn't hate us. It was worse. You can only hate a human being25 In the camps--I am trying to remember--my senses were too atrophied to allow me to be capable of hate. Yet if I was able to feel hate, it was directed toward my bunkmate because he had wrangled an additional ration of soup or bread. You hate man. For us the SS guards were a force that destroyed and denied man. You do not hate the stone that crushes you, or the animal that devours you. Only man inspires hate, and only man suffers it26

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When hatred fails to quiet anxiety, neurotic guilt m a y be a final attempt at peace. To understand such guilt it must be distinguished from two similar inner realities: discomfort from breaking long-followed patterns; and healthy guilt from violating one's values, one's worth, oneself. Among the Jews at Auschwitz a debate swirled over whether the inmates should, as is customary, fast on Yom Kippur. Wiesel wrote: I did not fast, mainly to please my father, who had forbidden me to do so. But further, there was no longer any reason why I should fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him. And I nibbled my crust of bread. In the depths of my heart, I felt a great void27 Why the void? I f there truly were for him no valid reasons for fasting, then only the habitual pattern identified with his sense of himself was missing. That is most uncomfortable, but it is not guilt. Few examples of Jewish guilt, healthy or unhealthy, come out of Wieset's experience of the camps. Guilt there belonged too noticeably to God, to the Nazis, to a spectator world refusing to acknowledge the horrible reality of the Holocaust. In the beginning of Night, Wiesel reports t h a t "the general opinion was t h a t we were going to remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army," t h a t it "was neither German nor Jew who ruled the g h e t t o - - i t was illusion." He m a y have been implying t h a t the Jews should have recognized the Nazi intentions and were culpable for willed blindness and silence. 38 Many years later, in Ani Maamin, we catch this echo when Issac tells God: A forest, One Spring morning Surrounded by killers And their dogs, Jews from the nearby village March toward death. There are those Who have guessed But say nothing-And those Who have chosen Self delusion29 He does offer one poignant scene of personal guilt, his own, in Buchenwald.

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As his old f a t h e r lies n e a r b y d y i n g of d y s e n t e r y , t h e cell block h e a d counsels him: " . . . don't give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There's nothing you can do for him. And you're killing yourself. Instead you ought to be having his ration." I listened to him without interrupting. He was right, I thought in the most secret region of my heart, but I dared not admit it. It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself. You ought to be having two rations of bread, two rations of soup . . . . Only a fraction of a second, but I felt guilty. I ran to find a little soup to give my father. 4~

E v e n t h o u g h t h e s t a r v e d lad did not act on t h i s t e m p t a t i o n , still it v i o l a t e d his s e n s e of h i m s e l f a n d his love for his father. T h i s is h o n e s t guilt. I n Wiesel's fiction t h e J e w s w h o should be g u i l t y b e t r a y t h e i r o w n people. L i s t e n to a n o t h e r b o y ' s g u i l t a b o u t his f a m i l y : W h e n t h e a d o l e s c e n t P a l t i e l c a m e u p o n a p h o t o g r a p h of his g r a n d f a t h e r , a s t a t e l y H a s i d , his m o t h e r quie t l y u r g e d h i m to be p r o u d he bore his n a m e . H e replied w i t h b i t t e r h a u g h t i ness: "Proud of a Hasid, me? I'm ashamed . . . . You forget the age we're living in, Mother; we believe in Communism, we reject God, and even more those who use faith in God, who use God to prevent the Jews from freeing themselves, from emancipating themselves, from claiming their rights as citizens and h u m a n beings." In a frenzy of arrogance and stupidity, I tore up the yellowed photograph, in a way annihilating my grandfather, right under the horrified eyes of my mother. That memory still haunts me . . . . Today, Citizen Magistrate, I regret that act. 41 W h e r e m a y we, finally, o b s e r v e e l e m e n t s of n e u r o t i c g u i l t r e c o r d e d b y Wiesel? One possible i n d i c a t i o n of s u c h a t e n d e n c y m a y be found in his reflections on t h a t f i r s t Y o m K i p p u r in Auschwitz: Then came the Viddui, the great confession. There again, everything rang false, none of it concerned us anymore. Ashamnu, we have sinned. Begadnu, we have betrayed. Gazalnu, we have stolen. What? Us? We have sinned? Against whom? By doing what? We have betrayed? Whom? Undoubtedly this was the first time since God judged His creation that victims beat their breasts accusing themselves of the crimes of the executioners. Why did we take responsibility for sins and offenses which not one of us ever had the desire or the possibility of committing? Perhaps we felt guilty despite everything. Things were simpler that way. It was better to believe our punishments had meaning, that we deserved them; to believe in a cruel but just God was better than not to believe at all. 42

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As an antidote to accepting a world out of control and beyond hate, as a w a y of avoiding the anxiety provoked by judging God unjust, some were tempted to manufacture sins. Such guilt would at least explain everything and leave for them an ordered, and thus secure, universe. Another example m a y be found in the so-called "survivor guilt." In A n i M a a m i n A b r a h a m speaks to God: I do not ask you To reveal to me All your intentions. I no longer ask you To shed light On all your mysteries. Yet there is one, Just one, I ask you to dispel: That of the survival of the f e w . . . Lest the survivors Because of you Continue on their stooped And guilty march. Why, O Lord, Must they feel guilty For suffering And for living? 43 Although survivors m a y k n o w they gained no special favors in the camps, did nothing unjust or unmerciful to survive, this guilt in many constitutes a heavy burden. Why must they feel guilty for living?--as a way to bring justice and order into the irrational chaos of the Holocaust. If such could happen, then anxiety generated concerning its unprovoked return might be stilled. Rational beings may foresee, forestall, and avoid what may be analyzed. Any success in making the Holocaust rational may protect one from a feared future. But the Holocaust, sadly, defies reason and sanity. Survivor guilt, like all neurotic guilt, though understandable, is doomed to fail as an antidote to the ultimate irrationality of perhaps another Holocaust.

A conclusion

This has been a psychological journey. In the beginning we asked how a person m a y emerge from the death camps. Rejecting both psychoanalytic and behavioral explanations as involving dis-identification and de-personalization, it was asserted that our ordinary humanity has personal resources stronger than the insidious technologies of mass hatred. Having peered

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through Wiesel's eyes, it is more strongly declared as well founded and shared by him. Though the task of this article is nearly concluded, the road stretches on. Consider briefly its contours. Given a specific recognition of a real threat and appropriate defensive responses, one must still deal with past scars, not only for the pain they harbor but also for the future they may foretell. An honest assessment of modern history compels these conclusions: 9 at this stage of human development, civilization with all its admitted goodness barely covers over depths of barbarity and evil; 9 modern technology has now enabled evil to deliver newer, more ingenious, more life-distorting, more worldwide devastation than humankind has ever before conceived; 9 the memory of this century's barbarity and moral depravity makes sickeningly real the possibility of future repetitions. As the Jewish people remember their specific agonies in this hellish history, how may they respond, how should they respond? Certainly, no thinking person may today doubt that the fate of individuals and families, cities and nations, hangs on a fragile thread. No mature, aware person may claim that human life has more than a tenuous hold on earthly existence. Pain and sickness and death belong ineluctably to each individual. But worldwide extinction is also terrifyingly possible. The Jewish people have two options at this moment in history. They may give in to their memory of hurt, let the fear of future pain become their driving motivation; and, overwhelmed by anxiety, they may scramble to fashion ever more elaborate neurotic defenses against the future. Or, alternatively, they may face bravely and openly their undeniable human mortality. In and through this root anxiety of human existence they may seek to find new ways to hope, hope based not simply on life, but hope founded more deeply on the human spirit. What does Elie Wiesel teach about anxiety, mortality, and the human spirit? How would he counsel moving into a human future? Where in his people's memory does he find hope? Perhaps other writers, reflecting more deeply on his work, may help us answer these questions; perhaps future writings by Wiesel himself may have to address them. And underneath it all lie the abysses: child separated from parents, lover from beloved; neighbor estranged from neighbor, citizen from homeland; Abraham's people divorced from Palestine; believers in Yahweh forgotten by a silent, distant, seemingly unjust God. In such a world loneliness and confusion could easily take over, increasing fear and pain, demanding withdrawal or attack, creating and maintaining

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enemies everywhere. Or separation could spur one on to hunt for bridges across these abysses, could accentuate the search for internal unity and peace in spite of the specter of mortal frailty. Does Elie Wiesel understand anything about building bridges that could help his people in this dread-filled task? Does this man who won the Nobel Peace Prize have any insight and wisdom to offer, any sure guidance to give, for the journey into healing and peace? Let me conclude: I hope so.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Wiesel, E., A Jew Today. New York, Random House, 1978, p. 175. Ibid., p. 175. Wiesel, E., The Gates of the Forest. New York, Schocken Books, 1982, p.2. Buber, M., Tales of Hasidim: Early Masters. New York, Schocken Books, 1947. Wiesel, E., "Night." In Night~Dawn~Day. B'nai B'rith Judaica Library, 1985, p. 38. Ibid., pp.41-42. Ibid., pp. 62, 65. Ibid., pp. 115-116. Ibid., pp. 41-42. Wiesel, E., A Small Measure of Victory, an interview by Gene Koppell and Henry Kaufmau. Pamphlet, University of Arizona, 1974, p.20. Wiesel, E., "Freedom of Conscience--A Jewish Commentary," J. Ecumenical Studies, 1977, 14, 642. Wiesel, "Night," op. cit., p. 17. Ibid., pp. 34-35. Wiesel, E., Zalmen, or the Madness of God. New York, Random House, 1974, p. 79. Ibid., pp. 169-170. Wiesel, E., The Trial of God. New York, Random House, 1979, p. 126. Ibid,, p. 128. Ibid., p. 130. Ibid., pp. 130-131. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., p. 130. Wiesel, "Night," op. cit., p. 106. Wiesel, E., "Dawn," In Night~Dawn~Day, op. cit., p. 203. Wiesel, "Night", op. cit., pp. 20-21. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 82-83. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 74. Wiesel, E., Legends in Our Time. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968, p. 45. Ibid., p. 53. Wiesel, "Dawn," op. cit., pp. 135-136. Ibid., p. 146. Wiesel, "Night," op. cit., p. 75. Wiesel, E., "Talking and Writing and Keeping Silent." In Littell, F.H., and Locke, H.G., eds., The German Struggle and the Holocaust. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1974, p. 272. Wiesel, Legends in Our Time, op. cit., p. 142. Wiesel, "Night," op. cit., p. 76.

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38. Ibid., p. 21. 39. Wiesel, E., Ani Maamin: A Song Lost and Found Again. New York, Random House, 1974, p. 15. 40. Wiesel, "Night," op cit., p. 115. 41. Wiesel, E., The Testament. New York, Summit Books, 1981, p. 44. 42. Wiesel, Legends in Our Time, op. cit., p. 36. 43. Wiesel, Ani Maamin, op. cit., p. 63.