Abstract
Against the view that trauma cripples the survivor’s ability to account for his or her own experience, Jean Améry, a survivor of Auschwitz, argued that trauma speaks a language of its own. In this language, what may be taken as a clinical symptom, the inability to let go of a traumatic past, is actually an ethical stance on behalf of history’s victims. Améry wrote about aging in similar terms. Aging and death are an assault on the values of life, an assault that Améry rejected with equal vigor, and in much the same terms, as he rejected the history that does not stop with the Holocaust. In the second case, Améry is mistaken. Aging and death, allowed to proceed at a natural pace, serve life, the succession of generations. This argument is pursued by comparing Améry’s position with that of a large group of Holocaust survivors. It may appear as if Améry’s argument about the Holocaust has little to do with his argument about aging. In fact, they are related, to the detriment of both arguments.
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Notes
Ozick is quoted in Diego Gambetta, Primo Levi’s last moments (1999). Gambetta argues against Levi’s death being a suicide. He is intriguing but not persuasive. About the verdict of suicide there remains hardly a doubt.
Robert Solomon cites personal correspondence as the source of this quotation from Danto, reflecting a position with which Solomon concurs.
An example of one who was evidently able to successfully communicate the pain of Auschwitz to her husband, and so experience comfort and relief, appears in Delbo’s Auschwitz and after (1995, 279–288). Delbo who like Améry was never able to experience this relief, is remarkably generous toward and appreciative of what her friend achieved. Neither Delbo nor her friend were tortured for information as Améry was.
At: walterbenjamin.ominiverdi.org/wp-content/walterbenjamin_concepthistory.pdf. On the concept of history, original 1940, thesis 9. The connection to Walter Benjamin’s angel of history is suggested by Brudholm (2008, 109, 115).
Améry (1980, 70). Resentments was originally the last essay of At the mind's limits. On the necessity and impossibility of being a Jew was added to later editions. It too closes on a note of deep resignation.
References to testimonies in the Fortunoff video archives are given in the following form: Max B. (T-1125). The complete reference would read: Max B., Holocaust video testimony 1125, Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies, Sterling Library, Yale University. The testimonies are not anonymous, but the Archives prefer this method of citation. Any reader who has questions about these or other testimonies, but does not have access to the Fortunoff Archives, can confirm the basics by searching the World Wide Web for “Yale + Orbis.” Yale/Orbis is the University library catalog, and is available to anyone. Under keyword, simply enter, in quotation marks “HVT+ [testimony number]” and it is possible to see the long index entry, about two pages, for each testimony.
At the mind's limits is a collection of essays originally published over a period several of years, and first published in German in 1966. On aging was published in 1968.
Among 921 elderly patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Israel during a 5 year period, Holocaust survivors had a significantly higher rate of attempted suicide (Barak et al. 2005). Whether this research can be generalized to the survivor population at large, and what this might mean, remain a question.
Eva Kor, a “Mengele Twin” as they call themselves, one of only about 100 victims of the “experiments” of Josef Mengele who survived (out of about 4,000), is probably the most well known survivor to have forgiven both Mengele and the Nazis, reading a statement of absolution before the gates of Auschwitz. For a critical but sympathetic portrayal see www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/can-a-holocaust-survivor-ever-forgive-the-germans-1.296163.
I interviewed this survivor in 2006. Details are withheld. His family requested anonymity.
Deep memory (mémoire profonde) and ordinary or common memory (mémoire ordinaire ) are Delbo’s (2001, 2–3) terms. I use them roughly as she does in Days and memory.
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Alford, C.F. Jean Améry: Resentment as Ethic and Ontology. Topoi 31, 229–240 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-012-9131-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-012-9131-1