One Generation After Read Free

being inadequate to the task, betraying a unique experience by burying it in worn-out phrases and images. They were afraid of saying what must not be said, of attempting to communicate with language what eludes language, of falling into the trap of easy half-truths.
    Sooner or later, every one of them was tempted to seal his lips and maintain absolute silence. So as to transmit a vision of the holocaust, in the manner of certain mystics, by withdrawing from words. Had all of them remained mute, their accumulated silences would have become unbearable: the impact would have deafened the world.
    When they agreed to lift the veil, many obstacles and inhibitions had to be overcome. They reassured themselves: This is but a difficult first step. In any event, we are only messengers. With some luck, other men will benefit from our experience. And learn what the individual is capable of doing under a totalitarian regime, when the line between humanity and inhumanity becomes blurred. And what wars are made of and where they lead. They will discover the link between words and the ashes they cover.
    How guileless they were, those surviving tellers of tales.They sought to confer a retroactive meaning upon a trial which had none. They thought: Who knows, if we can make ourselves heard, man will change. His very vision of himself will be altered. Thanks to illustrations provided by us, he will henceforth be able to distinguish between what he may or may not do, what goals to pursue or forgo. He could then forge for himself a reality made of desire rather than necessity, a freedom commensurate with his creative impulse rather than with his destructive instinct.
    Twenty-five years later, after the reckoning, one feels discouragement and shame. The balance sheet is disheartening. There are even farcical aspects to the situation. In Germany, where Nazism is on the rise again, one finds former killers hiding beneath the respectability of judges, attorneys, businessmen, patrons of the arts, and even clergy. A French politician—and member of Parliament—publicly accuses the Jews of peddling their suffering. Robbed of their property and rights, the Jews in Arab countries live in constant fear. They are slandered in the Soviet Union, persecuted in Poland. And, fact without precedent, anti-Semitism has finally reached China.
    Which raises the question for the survivors: Was it not a mistake to testify, and by that very act, affirm their faith in man and word?
    I know of at least one who often feels like answering yes.
    If society has changed so little, if so many strategists are preparing the explosion of the planet and so many people willingly submit, if so many men still live under oppression and so manyothers in indifference, only one conclusion is possible: namely, that the failure of the black years has begotten yet another failure. Nothing has been learned; Auschwitz has not even served as warning. For more detailed information, consult your daily newspaper.
    If the witness happens to be a storyteller, he will be left with a sense of impotence and guilt. He was wrong to have forced himself upon others, to have badgered a world wishing to take no notice. He was wrong to have thrown open the doors of the sanctuary in flames; people did not look. Worse: many looked and did not see.
    Thus, writing itself is called into question. To set oneself the task of bringing back to life the hallucinatory reality of a single human being, in a single camp, borders on sacrilege. The truer the tale, the more factitious it appears. The secret must remain inviolate. Once revealed, it becomes myth, and can only be tarnished, diminished. In the end, words lose their innocence, their power to cast a spell. The truth will never be written. Like the Talmud, it will be transmitted from mouth to ear, from eye to eye. By its uniqueness, the holocaust defies literature. We think we are describing an event, we transmit only its reflection. No one has the right to speak