The Holocaust and the Nonrepresentable

David Patterson

Description

Many books focus on issues of Holocaust representation, but few address why the Holocaust in particular poses such a representational problem. David Patterson draws from Emmanuel Levinas's contention that the Good cannot be represented. He argues that the assault on the Good is equally nonrepresentable and this nonrepresentable aspect of the Holocaust is its distinguishing feature. Utilizing Jewish religious thought, Patterson examines how the literary word expresses the ineffable and how the photographic image manifests the invisible. Where the Holocaust is concerned, representation is a matter not of imagination but of ethical implication, not of what it was like but of what must be done. Ultimately Patterson provides a deeper understanding of why the Holocaust itself is indefinable—not only as an evil but also as a fundamental assault on the very categories of good and evil affirmed over centuries of Jewish teaching and testimony.
List of Photographs
Acknowledgments
Preface

Part I. Reflections on Holocaust Representation and the Nonrepresentable: Theoretical Considerations

By Way of a Prologue

Naming It

Naming Auschwitz

Post-Auschwitz Implications for an Understanding of Language

The Nonrepresentable and the Murder of the Mother

The Silent Scream

The Nonrepresentable Site of Silence

Naming the Name, the Nameless, and the Assault on the Name

The Nonrepresentable Assault on the Nonrepresentable Good

The Assault on Time, the Death of Death, and Holocaust Representation

A Memory and a Name

Part II. The Literary Transcendence of Holocaust Representation: Speaking the Ineffable

Opening Thoughts: Epiphany and the Ultimate

A Word about Method: Substitution and the Transcendent

The Extermination of the Eternal

The Annihilation of the Father

The Obliteration of the Mother

The Collapse of Human Relation

The Disintegration of Knowledge

The Devastation of the Word

The Demolition of Meaning

The Desolation of the Soul

The Death of Death

The Eradication of the Child

Part III. The Photographic Transcendence of Holocaust Representation: Revealing the Invisible

The Legacy of Lot’s Wife

Footprints

The Glory under Assault

The Mothers of Israel

The Child

The Face

The Edge of the Anti-World

The Grave without a Cemetery

The Muselmann

Selection: No Judge and No Judgment

A View from the Gas Chambers

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Judaism
• Philosophy of religion
• Theology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438470061
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NONREPRESENTABLE
SUNY series in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Richard A. Cohen, editor
Books by David Patterson
Anti-Semitism and Its Metaphysical Origins
Genocide in Jewish Thought
A Genealogy of Evil
Sounding the Depths of the Soul
Jewish-Christian Dialogue (with Alan L. Berger)
Emil L. Fackenheim
Overcoming Alienation
Open Wounds
Wrestling with the Angel
Hebrew Language and Jewish Thought
Along the Edge of Annihilation
Sun Turned to Darkness
The Greatest Jewish Stories Ever Told
When Learned Men Murder
Pilgrimage of a Proselyte
Exile
The Shriek of Silence
In Dialogue and Dilemma with Elie Wiesel
Literature and Spirit
The Affirming Flame
Faith and Philosophy
Edited Volumes
Fire in the Ashes: God, Evil, and the Holocaust (with John K. Roth)
After-Words: Post-Holocaust Struggles with Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justice (with John K. Roth)
Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature (with Alan L. Berger and Sarita Cargas)
THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NONREPRESENTABLE
LITERARY AND PHOTOGRAPHIC TRANSCENDENCE
DAVID PATTERSON
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Patterson, David, author.
Title: The Holocaust and the nonrepresentable : literary and photographic transcendence / by David Patterson.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2018] | Series: SUNY series in contemporary Jewish thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032878 | ISBN 9781438470054 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470061 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Historiography. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Moral and ethical aspects. | Aesthetics—Moral and ethical aspects. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945), in literature. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945), and art. | Photographs—Moral and ethical aspects. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Influence.
Classification: LCC D804.348 .P39 2018 | DDC 940.53/18072—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032878
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Photographs
Acknowledgments
Preface
Part One Reflections on Holocaust Representation and the Nonrepresentable: Theoretical Considerations
By Way of a Prologue
Naming It
Naming Auschwitz
Post-Auschwitz Implications for an Understanding of Language
The Nonrepresentable and the Murder of the Mother
The Silent Scream
The Nonrepresentable Site of Silence
Naming the Name, the Nameless, and the Assault on the Name
The Nonrepresentable Assault on the Nonrepresentable Good
The Assault on Time, the Death of Death, and Holocaust Representation
A Memory and a Name
Part Two The Literary Transcendence of Holocaust Representation: Speaking the Ineffable
Opening Thoughts: Epiphany and the Ultimate
A Word about Method: Substitution and the Transcendent
The Extermination of the Eternal
The Annihilation of the Father
The Obliteration of the Mother
The Collapse of Human Relation
The Disintegration of Knowledge
The Devastation of the Word
The Demolition of Meaning
The Desolation of the Soul
The Death of Death
The Eradication of the Child
Part Three The Photographic Transcendence of Holocaust Representation: Revealing the Invisible
The Legacy of Lot’s Wife
Footprints
The Glory under Assault
The Mothers of Israel
The Child
The Face
The Edge of the Anti-World
The Grave without a Cemetery
The Muselmann
Selection: No Judge and No Judgment
A View from the Gas Chambers
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Photographs Figure 1.1 Jerusalem, Israel Leah Michelson’s statue “The Silent Scream,” Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, ID 7084, Archival Signature 5432/15, with permission of Yad Vashem. Figure 3.1 The fourth Sonderkommando Photograph. The four Sonderkommando photographs are in the public domain, because, according to Article 3 of the copyright law of March 29, 1926, of the Republic of Poland and Article 2 of the copyright law of July 10, 1952, of the People’s Republic of Poland, all photographs by Polish photographers (or published for the first time in Poland or simultaneously in Poland and abroad) published without a clear copyright notice before the law was changed on May 23, 1994, are assumed public domain. Figure 3.2 “Photographs from Łódź Ghetto—Litzmannstadt—Fotografowie getta,” public domain. Figure 3.3 “A destitute young boy lies on the pavement in the States Warsaw ghetto as other children walk by.” United Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives, Desig #481.203, W/S #69946, CD # 0634, with permission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Figure 3.4 “Auschwitz, Poland, A pile of shoes,” Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, Item ID 102153, Archive Signature 9CO1, with permission of Yad Vashem. Figure 3.5 “Poland, 31/07/1941, Humiliating a Jew wrapped in a prayer shawl on ‘Bloody Wednesday,’ ” Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, Item ID 56308, Archive Signature 1878, Album Number FA214/133, with permission of Yad Vashem. Figure 3.6 Member of Einsatzgruppe D shooting mother and child, Photo taken in the Ukraine in 1942, public domain. Figure 3.7 “Jews captured by SS and SD troops during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising are forced to leave their shelter and marched to the Umschlagplatz for deportation,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives, Photograph 2654, public domain. Figure 3.8 “Bergen-Belsen, Germany, a survivor inside a barrack, 1945,” Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, M.2, ID 50722, Archival Signature 5031/45, with permission of Yad Vashem. Figure 3.9 Auschwitz, Poland: An inscription above the camp’s gate: Arbeit Macht Frei —“Work Liberates.” Dnalor 01, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0. Figure 3.10 Babi Yar, Ukraine, Corpses in a mass grave, public domain. Figure 3.11 “Buchenwald, Germany, 1945, A Muselmann on a wagon, after the liberation,” Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, ID 102959, Archival Signature 18BO2, with permission of Yad Vashem. Figure 3.12 Birkenau, Poland, SS soldiers performing a selection, public domain. Figure 3.13 The first Sonderkommando Photograph, from the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim. Figure 3.14 The first Sonderkommando Photograph cropped. Figure 3.15 The second Sonderkommando Photograph, from the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim. Figure 3.16 The second Sonderkommando Photograph cropped. Figure 3.17 The third Sonderkommando Photograph, from the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim. Figure 3.18 The third Sonderkommando Photograph cropped. Figure 3.19 The fourth Sonderkommando Photograph, from the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim.
Acknowledgments
I would like first of all to express my deepest thanks to SUNY Press and to Rafael Chaiken for his support, encouragement, and insightful suggestions in the preparation of this book. My thanks also go to Richard A. Cohen of SUNY Press for his insightful reading of this book. I am also indebted to the reviewers of the manuscript for their astute and helpful criticisms and suggestions for revision, as well as to my PhD student Karl Sen Gupta, and I want to express my deep thanks to Eileen Nizer of the SUNY Press for her excellent work on this project. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies of the University of Texas at Dallas and to its provost and interim president Dr. Hobson Wildenthal.
Preface
For in each testimonial production, in each act of memory, language and image are absolutely bound to one another, never ceasing to exchange their reciprocal lacunae.
—Georges Didi-Huberman, Images in Spite of All
Although a preface comes first, it is often written last, as has happened in this case. Still, the preface is about the premise, so I shall say a few words about the premise guiding this investigation. Because Part One provides a detailed introduction to the basis of this examination of Holocaust literature and photographs, here I shall be brief.
First, there is no problem of representation with regard to the Holocaust; where the Holocaust is concerned, the project of representation is itself the problem. When the Nazis set out to exterminate the Jews, the ultimate object of the annihilation program was nothing that could be named, nothing that could be seen. The war against the Jews was a metaphysical war that eludes thematization, generalization, and therefore representation. It concerns not only an event in the history of humanity but also a fundamental understanding of the transcendent meaning of history and humanity. And transcendent meaning is rooted in the ethical; it is what makes the direction of history and the destiny of humanity matter . Inasmuch as such a transcendent meaning is what sanctifies human life and human history, it belongs to the categories of the Good, which, in the words of Emmanuel Levinas, is a “non-present” that is “invisible, separated (or sacred) and thus a non-origin, an-archical. The Good cannot become present or enter into a representation.” 1 Because the war against the Jews was characterized by an assault on the Good, this defining feature of the Holocaust cannot enter into a representation.
The interplay between word and image in the project of representation is lar