Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Surviving the Holocaust
Ephraim survived the Holocaust because of one thing: luck. If he was not one of the ten people taken away that one night, he wouldn't have survived. This book, more than the others, exposed the brutality of the camps and how it was almost impossible to survive. The camps takes tolls both physically and mentally on each member of the camp. Friedman makes a great comparison during the third to last chapter of the book. "He lights a cigarette. Another lies smoldering in the ashtray, forgotten" (121). The cigarette that was forget resembles all the people who died in the Holocaust. They were not remembered even though they endured so much physical hardship. If Ephraim was not saved that one night, he, like all the others with him, would have lied there dead and forgotten.
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I don't fully agree that those who perished during the Holocaust are now forgotten. Of course there were entire families wiped out and in those cases, there are very few remaining that are directly connected to those members. However, I feel that because of the extent to which Jews were murdered, there are bound to be hundreds of people that went and are no longer remembered. Thus, I feel that the novels that we are reading in Literature of Witness not only allow us to better understand those numbers, but also to step back and see that there are those who have been forgotten, but on the whole, an event like this should never be forgotten. I also feel that when listening to stories of Holocaust survivors, as they describe those that they had been with in earlier times, it becomes easier to understand and commemorate the others who had not been so lucky. Though we are unable to truly remember each individual that passed during the Holocaust, through the stories of survivors, we are able to look through their memories as a window to the others who had not made it through.
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