In 1998 Ian Kershaw published the first volume of his biography of Adolf Hitler entitled Insult. Two years later, the second, with the title, would follow Nemesis. Some years later Kershaw himself would rework the material, remove some things, make some corrections, and reissue his book in an abridged edition. I started reading this abridged version of a thousand pages sometime last spring.
Kershaw begins with Hitler's childhood analyzing his relationship mainly with his father, a rather violent man with whom little Adolf had an odd relationship to say the least. The book, although very interesting and well written, did not match the spring orgasm that surrounded me, so after about 120 pages I put it aside to continue it at another time.
But Hitler didn't leave me.
The Second World War was undeniably a pivotal event, not only of the 20ου century, but also of human history in general. So it's no wonder that art in general, and literature in particular, often deals heavily with both the causes that led to this devastating war and what happened after the war. So in many books I read last year I found references to B'PP and of course to the most painful dowry he left us.
The Holocaust.
I have come into contact with the Holocaust through films, books, short stories, documentaries. Every time I feel that there is nothing more horrifying to hear and learn. Every time I start to read a new book or watch a movie, I think, what could be added to what I already know? And yet I am surprised every time.
In 1963, Iakovos Kampanellis published his unique prose work. An autobiographical book describing his experiences of being incarcerated in a concentration camp during WWII. The simple title of the book was the name of the camp. Mauthausen.
Campanellis found himself imprisoned there by chance. As stated in his official bio on his website:
During the German occupation (1942), he and a friend plan to flee to the Middle East. Because the amount of money they needed was enormous, they decide to cross to Switzerland via Austria. On the way from Vienna to Switzerland at a check they are arrested in Innsbruck. Campanellis is taken to Vienna for interrogation and ends up in the Mauthausen concentration and extermination camp.
On May 5, 1945, Mauthausen is liberated. Kampanellis is chosen by the rest of the Greeks as their representative in the international committee set up by the survivors. He will leave Mauthausen among the last together with the Greek Jews who wanted to go to Palestine in a novel way.
The narrative begins on May 5, 1945 and ends three months later with the author on a train from Piacenza to Greece. In between we will learn various incidents from the daily life of the camp, tragic stories of people from all parts of Europe whose fate brought them side by side to the threshold of death.
This text began to be written on Wednesday.
Today is Friday.
In between I read an interview by Serge Klarsfeld with Yiannis Achyropoulos. I have to admit that I was unaware of the story of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld. Their interview and story is very interesting. What impressed me, and which keeps coming back to Serge and Giannis' conversation, is the randomness. Once you were in the cogs of the Nazi machine it was luck that largely took control of your destiny. When you would be arrested, where you would be sent, which officer you would fall under, how that officer would wake up one morning, all these seemingly independent events wove a web of probabilities that sifted through the lives of prisoners like a sieve. In Mauthausen, one in nine survived.
You will probably remember a scene from the Steven Spielberg movie, Schindler's List, where Ralph Fiennes is shooting from the balcony of his house targeting the camp inmates walking through the camp. When someone falls dead from the bullets the others act as if nothing has happened. And all because he's bored. And because prisoners were expendable.
I used the term above Nazi machine. It is a widespread term denoting the methodicalness and efficiency of the Wehrmacht both on the war fronts and in the rear, and more specifically in the concentration camps. The extermination of so many millions of people was done with admirable method in spite of many practical problems.
But the use of this term carries a risk.
The danger of removing the human element from this whole process.
As incredible as it seems to us, and it is incredible, all this was done by people. From people many of whom possessed a higher level of conscientiousness. There were many who thought they were just doing a job. And they wanted to make it as good as possible.
Perhaps this is ultimately the most shocking feature of the Holocaust. Not the number of dead, not the brutality, not the impoverishment they experienced, but that all this, this complete annihilation was carried out within a bureaucratic process.
In the 2666 by Roberto Bolaño there is at one point the following dialogue between two Nazi officers regarding a shipment of Jews:
“Are you still there?”
"Here I am" I said.
"Look, as it stands we don't have a means of transport to take the Jews. Administratively they belong to Upper Silesia. I spoke with my superiors and we agreed that the best and most convenient thing is for you to get rid of them there and then."
I didn't answer.
"Did you understand me?" said the voice from Warsaw.
"Yes, I understand you," I said.
"Well, then the matter is clear. Correctly?"
"Right" I said. "But I would like to receive this order in writing," I added. I heard a singsong laugh on the other end of the phone. It could be my son's laugh, I thought, it was a laugh that reminded me of afternoons in the country, blue rivers full of trout, scents of wildflowers and grasses plucked by hand.
"Don't be naive," said the voice without the slightest arrogance, "these orders are never given in writing."
Although this is obviously fiction, the dialogue hides a terrible truth. Our collective experience tells us that he is true to the last word.
So what does another book about the Holocaust have to offer us? What does each new piece of information that comes to light about that dark period have to offer us? What can we learn about our lives by looking back?
I think we have a lot to learn. WWII and the Holocaust left an indelible mark on human history. The day Hitler came to power, the Austrian-Jewish author Joseph Roth left Germany. Some time later he will write to his close friend Stefan Zweig:
You will have realized by now that we are heading for a massive disaster. Apart from our personal destruction – our literary and economic existence is already ruined – all this leads us to a new war. I wouldn't bet a penny on our lives. They have succeeded in establishing a reign of brutality. Don't fool yourself. Hell reigns.
The following year Zweig would follow Roth into exile. Roth will die in self-exile in Paris in 1939. Zweig will commit suicide with his wife in 1942 in Brazil. In a letter to the author Jules Romains he will note:
My inner crisis consists of not being able to identify with my passport self, the self of exile.
Campanelli's book ends with the author leaving Piacenza on a train. Delighted by the heat and the crowd, he stares at the headlines in the newspaper held by a fellow passenger. The headlines mention the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
LONDON, August. The English press highlights the development of weapons of mass destruction and… Now with the atomic bomb of course… And a new era…
The wind fluttered the newspaper, the lines became a blur in my eyes... "and a new age... an age... age..."
The blur got worse and worse, it was impossible to see a word anymore. I closed my eyes, leaned back and began to think that it was August, that it was nineteen forty-five, that a new era was beginning...
There is a shocking photo from Hiroshima.
The frame shows the outer wall of a house, and a wooden ladder leaning against it. The shadow of the ladder falls on the wall. Along with the shadow of the ladder, the shadow of a man has also been imprinted on the wooden wall. Of a man standing there, by the stairs, in the morning of 6her August 1945 at quarter past eight in the morning. Of a man who from one moment to the next passed into non-existence leaving behind only his shadow.
This is also the Holocaust.
A shadow that has been falling on man for 80 years.
And every book, every movie, every document about that time helps us not to forget.
Whether it will help us not to repeat it is another matter.
*Cover photo: Silhouette of a Japanese person left on the wall of a building in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb – August 1945