Edition: October 2009

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On the Holocaust

By: Mey Elghusein

The term Holocaust is usually used to denote the mass killings of millions of Jews and other minorities by the Nazis during the period from 1933 -1945 in Germany and German occupied lands.

Jews are a race of people whose traditional religion is Judaism, and they were the first people to receive a definite monotheistic religion, a condition that put them on a higher spiritual and moral level than other ancient nations. During history Jews were subject to discrimination and humiliation not only by ordinary people but also by very famous literary figures.

American literary theorist and critic Ihab Hassan, describes such situations when he says in an interview with Jerzy Durczak:

....But I have not yet mentioned the root cause of these intellectual miseries: the reduction of everything –morality, art, religion, culture, metaphysics, every personal feeling and spiritual state to politics....

The term pogrom refers to any organized massacre or attack on a minority of people, especially one directed against the Jews. In his book, A History of the World in the Twentieth Century, J. A. S. Grenville, describes a famous pogrom ‘Kristallnacht’ which is part of the Holocaust:

....Of 9 November, a pogrom all over Germany was launched. Synagogues were set on fire, Jewish shops –windows smashed. With typical black humour, Berliners dubbed the 9 November ‘Kristallnacht’, the night of crystals. Gangs of ruffians roamed the streets and entered Jewish apartments –it was a night of terror. Jewish men were arrested in their homes on the following day and incarcerated in concentration camps.

American writer William Styron 1925-2006 is one who is deeply moved by the atrocities of the Holocaust, his work Sophie’s Choice testifies his true feelings and his attempt to show his readers what happens if national and racial impulses with their deficient standard of moral righteousness gain the upper hand in political power. The following excerpts from the book show Styron’s powerful style in action, trying to remind his readers about what happened in the Holocaust:

....When I arrived everyone who was selected to be killed was sent to Birkenau, but very soon later Birkenau become a place where only Jews were killed. It was a place for the mass extermination of the Jews.

...During the five months or so before Sophie was taken prisoner the Nazis had made vigorous effort to ensure that the north of Poland would become Judenrein – cleansed of Jews. Beginning in November, 1942, and extending through the following January, a program of deportation was instituted whereby the many thousands of Jews living in the northeastern district of Bialystok were jammed onto trains and shipped to concentration camps throughout the country.

...No selections were made among the Jews in order to winnow out those who would be assigned to labor, and while it was not particularly rare for an entire transport to be exterminated, the slaughter should in this case be remarked upon as perhaps representing the Germans’ zeal to exploit and show off to themselves their latest, largest and most refined instrument in the technology of murder: all 1, 800 Jews went to their deaths in the inaugural action of Crematorium II. Not a single soul among them escaped immediate gassing.

And about the idiom of horror, Sophie’s Choice, we read:

...’you may keep one of your children.’

‘Bitte?’ said Sophie.
‘You may keep one of you children,’ he repeated. ‘The other one will have to go. Which one will you keep?’
‘You mean I have to choose?
‘You are a Polack, not a Yid. That gives you a Privilege – a choice.’
Her thought processes dwindled, ceased. Then she felt her legs crumple. I can’t choose! I can’t choose!’ She began to scream. Oh, how she recalled her own screams! Tormented angels never screeched so loudly above hell’s pandemonium.
‘Ich kann nicht wählen!’ she screamed.

About the Author:

Mey Elghusein holds a BA in English and English Literature from the American University of London.

She can be reached via email at: meyelghusein@gmail.com

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