rå Remnants of Auschwitz

The Wìtness and the Archive

Homo S¿ee¡ III

Translâted by Daniel Heller-Roazen

Giorgio Agamben

ZONE, B()OI(S ' NEal¡ YORß.

€Contents9"i:;Tr'^*t*' rts

rzz6 h,ospect AvenueBrooHyn, NY rrzrS

First Papertack Edition

Thtultuinnqg,2M5

Ân rigbtÁ rcserred-

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Disttibuted bv The u shame, or on the subject a7Cambridge, Masseôusetts, md l¡ndq¡, EoCl"od

Library of Congress CatalogÍng-in-Þublication Data Mhe Ardrive and Tixtimony rs7Aggrb€¡r, Giorgio, r94:-

[Queldrerestadi¡¡¡çft¡ris- F¡gli¡hl : Bibliography L72Remnants of Ausùwttz : tùe wibess and tbe

archiæ / Giorgio Âgmben ; træslated þDaniel Heller-Roazen-

P. cllr.Includes bibliographical refert¡rces.rsar r-89o9gr-r7-x (paperbae)r. Holoanst, Je$ish (t939-r945) - personal narra_

tives - History md siticim. z. Holocaust, Jerish(1939-1945) - Monl and ethical aspects. 3. Auschwitz(C,onceotration ørrp) ¿ poststrrcUralisn, ¡. TTtIe.D8o4.t95.a53 tooo94o,53'rt-dczr 99_260¡l

clP

In memortømBianca Casalini Agamben

"To be exposed to everything is to be capable of everythingJ,

To .Andrea, Daniel, and Guido who, in discussing these pageswith me, allowed them to come to light

t

Áûdrrr€û it¡hall c@e blnssiDùatday. tetùr€GDant of Isa€|, and mó as ale escaped of úG house

of Jacoù, ùall no more again *ay l+on Lim rfut soteùem¡ ha .t"n *ayqontùe L,ord, tüe lloly OneofIsa€Linerrü.

Ihe¡emnantùaübe sared, ewn tbe re¡orotoffacob, rmto r[e n{ht]' Go¿

Isaiaü 10:20-22

Ereo so ten at Èis ¡nesent çne dso the¡e ¡s e

Ìemnant accordiryto tùe electiou of grace....anil so

alllsael ùdlbe sared.

Romats 1l:5-26

sñ

Preface

Thanks to a series of increasingly wide-ranging and rigorous stud-ies - among which Raul Hllbds The Dætruaion oJ the Eutopean

,/ørs occupies a special place - the problem of the historical, mate-rial, techûúcal, bureaucratic, and legal circumstances in which theexterrrination of the Jews took place has been sufficiently clari-fied. Futu¡e studies may shed new light on particular aspects ofthe events that took place in the conceutration camps, þ¡3gen-

political signif icance

of the extermination, or even for a human understanding of whatNotevend the

victims,

like Auschwitz to remainFrom a historical perspective, lè kt o*, for orample, túe most

minute details of how the finat phase of the'etÚerminàtion was

executed, how the deportees were led to the gas chambcrs by a

sguad of their fellow in-mates (the so-calle d Sonilqkommondo)' whotlhen saw to it that the corPses were dragged out and washed' that

often theirvery words, still seem

tl

their hair and gold teeü were salvaged, and ttrat their bodies,fr""lly'were placed in the crematoå. w" .ân eñÌrñÃr a+a ^^Ã

REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

ofhistorical

Some want to understand too muc-h and too guickly; they have

Moreover, adifficufty must be considered, one which is particularly

important for anyone who studies literary or philosophical texts.Many test''nonies - both of executioners and victims - comefrom ordinary people, the "obscure" people who clearþ com-prised the great majority of camp inhabitants. One of the lessonsof Auschwitz is tha! it is infinitely harder_to_g3lpjhe milSþtanordina¡y person tha¡r to understand thq mi4C of a Spino¿a orDa+te._(Hannah Arendt's rliscussion of the "banality of evil," sooften misunderstood, must also be understood in this sense.)

Some readers may be disappointed to find that there is little in

more directþ tåan byilethommaado who en-

marorium rrr, which came to üîï:j":îålî*,H::;;the events that took place therean being,o Lewental writes in

an)¡one could exactþ recount-.. w€r tåe small group of ob_

faceour most intimate experiences

]PP]s to the sr¡rvivors as the onhrfclrr,'-8^---- r ,lutely unforgettable; on the other h.¡rd, this truth is to the sarnedqt"unimeoin"hl- +r^.:-./ r _,-ce¡tain poinÇlt became

"luar that testir.nooy -nt"itr"d "t it ro."

an essential lacuna; Ín other words, the sirrvivors bore witnesq þgeqree uni_constitute

thatiql:rredu"ibm r .Asaconsequence,commenting on survivors' testimony necessarily meant interro-gating this lacuna or, more precisd attempting to listen to iLListening to something absent did not prove fruitless work forthis author. Above all, it made it necessary to clear away almost aIIthe dochines that, since Auschwitz, have been advanced in then""e of ethics. As we shall see, almost nong of the ethicd princi-

deci$v-e $tt*rat of an Ethica more r{usc.hwia ileøonstrata- Fo'r myt*t p"ta, i *ill consider myself content with my work if, inattempting to locate the place and theme of testimony, I have

Pï*::is far more tragic, fat r

+vrrwLo¡ wrrLes' tne comPlete tuthfrtghr""i¡g6f;# more frightenitg"'i' More tragic, more

a reality tåáf necessaril.,*"*ilf ^;'#;iäi:ii*,Ti jîå:l.:l:î#ilï'"ä

lX:l*a it wrongon at least one point. There is no doubt*:"-T:y-".:n"iil;;;;"-*i:,i: j:j,',i:ì:ii:iJunderstood - tL. tt *l-"*srw PcuPre ( oDscure" here is to be

sense as invisible, tùat which ca¡rnot beTt:"':¿l will continue to give historians work to do. The aooria-of Auschrvik is. indee.l +1,^ ,.^*- -

funrre of ttre new

r3

,ethical territory to orient

REMNANIS OF AUSCHWITZ

Cneprrn ONB

The Witness

1. I h ù".*py*" d*" **. tÞL"* d.i* "

pr¡firmly decided that,I would not take my

own life... since I did not want to suppress t]e wihess that I couldbecome'(Langbein 1988: 186). Of course, not all deportees, in-deed only a small fraction of them, give this reason. A reason forsurvival can be a matter of convenience: "He would like to su¡-vive for tlis or that reason, for this or that end, and he ffnds hun-dreds of preto<ts. The Euttr is that he wants to live at whateyercost" (Lewental1972; 148). Or it can simply be a matter ofrevenge: "Naturally I could have ¡un and thrown myself onto thefence, because you can always do that. But I want to live. Andwhat if the miracle happenS we're all waiting for? M"yb* we'll beliberated, today or tomorrow. Then I'll have my revenge, then I'lltell the whole world what happened here-inside there" (Sofsþ1997: 34O). To justify one's su¡vival is not easy-least of all in tle""mP."&ime of my friends, very dear füends of mine, never speak of .

Ausdiwitz" (Levi 19972 224). Yet, for others, the only reason tolive is to enflrre that the witness does noüperish. 'Others, on theother hand, speak of it incessantl¡ a¡rd I am one of them" (iô¿).

t4 t5

ANIS OF AUSCHWITZ

1'2 "o

h"returns home, he tirelessþ recounts'his experience to everyone.lle behaves like Coleridge's Ancient Ma¡ine¡:

You remember the scene: the Ancient Mariner accosts the weddingguests, rvho are thinking of the wedding and not paþg attention tohim, and he forces them to listen to his tale. Well, when I first¡etumed from ùe concenþation srmp I did¡ust that. I felt an unre-strainable need to tell my story to anyone and everyonet... Everysituationwas an occesion to tell my story to anyone and everyone:to tell it to the factory director as well as to the worker, even if theyhad other things to do. I was reduced to ttre state of the AncientMariner. Then I began to write on my typewriter at night.... E"oynight I would write, and this was considered even craziert (Levi1997t224-25)

But Levi does not consider himself a .writer: he becomes a

y to the question of whetler heemist: '14, chemist, of cou¡se, let02). Levi was profoundly uneasy

almost in spite of himself, heoks thathad nothing to do withI acquired tle vice of writing"+

o sæLLa,I striPPed

;#ä:ï:ness...l (ibid;167)

a sense, he never becameo novels and many short

- Levi had this unease about him when I saw him at m€etings atthe Italian publisher, Fin¿qd¡. He *ufJi""ie,Jry fof hr"Írre ,*-

2J6). It seems, in fac! that the that inte¡ests him ismakes i the zone in which victims

about this above all that thã *.@,.Nogroup was more human than any other', (ihid.: 232)...Victim andexecutioner are equaþ þoble; the lesson of the camps is broth_e¡hood in abjection" (Rousset, cf. Levi 1997:216).

Not that a judgmeut cannot or must not be made. ..If I had hadEichmann before me, I wouìd have condemned him to death"(ib:+ 144r. 'If they have cornmited a crime, then they must pay,,

to exhaust tJ¡eof truth

non-Ë.: ,

i can

cerns the survivo-the 4w, radicallv withdrawingl from the füal.'Each of us cãn

t7

neve¡ bg rqdlrced !e the gíoes¿¡o luriç iÉs tu irr"l""ty-lryË*n-

and

ments ate in some

to invoke

dirested to-vya¡d rte_establishment áf i*ai"". Nor is it directedtow¿rd th" ".tificaããî

l:_"J:-,T t**. I of law is the produáon of a rcs juiticata,m sc:ntence becomes the substifute for tl¡e true and

Law finds

ANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

be üied, condemned and punished without even loowing why'(ibid.:75).

1.4 One of the most common mistakes - whic.h is not only made

is contaminated by it) is only tribunal rigþt, theaexecultion and

3ll becomeùì _distinct and lose their llpgllEqgg."The court wantsnothing from you. It welcomes you when you come; it releasesyou when you gol The ultimate end of the juridical regulation is

One of tÀe consequences tlrat can be drawn from this self-referential nature ofjudgment- and Sebastiano Satta, a great ItaI-ian jurist, has done .o - i. th"

is in the judgment, that the action cha¡acteristic of the punish-ment - incarceration, execution - matters only insofar as it is, so

to spealç the carrying out of the judgment" (Satta 19942 26).Thùsalso means that "the sente¡rce of acquittal is the confession of a judi-cial enor," that "everyone is inwardly innoceng" but trhat the onlytruly innocent person "is not the one who is acquitted, but ratherthé'one who goes tht"Wh life without judgment" (ibid,:27)'

1. 5 ff thit it true - and the zurvivol hows that it is üue - thenit is possible that the trials (the twelve tials at Nuremberg, and the

others that took place in and outside German borders, includingthose in Jerusalem in 1961 that ended with the h*gtg of Eich-

ades, has made itnecessity evident insuflÏciencY

- 1t9!3, the publisher Einaudi asked Levi ro Þanslate Kafl<a,st ne hial. Infinite interpretation s of The füal have beer¡ offered;

etic political cha¡acter (modernits theological dimension (thebiographical meaning (condem-

believed himself to suffer).s book, in which law appears

al, if all right (and morality that

(they involved only a few hundred p""Ph)@"

mene had been passed, the

r9

directed toward

lith the exception of occasional moments of lucidity, it has takenalmost half a century to understand that law did not exhaust the

The confrrsion U"t* A"ot_og¡r and law has had illuscious victims. Hás Jonas, the philoso-

is particularþ clearlY u.î thi' rh""dr"lãiñ-;rt}trrs about Ausch_witz, eittre¡ abour its victims ;:;;;;;"."_ï:i";

pher and student ofHeidegger who speciali""¿å "Oi"¿problerr,*,is one of them- In r9g4, when he ieceived the Lucas Award in

estion of Auscùrwitz by preparing, how it was possible for God toa trial that seeks to establish theGod. Like all theodicies, Jonas,s

for the sentence is some-snipped himself completely inating the world, God gave it. Thus, having emptied him-

. ManaPPen

iuridical responsibilitv-not in order to assume another kind ofresponsibility, but to articrrlate zones o.lnon-¡esponsib,Ü5r. Thisdoes not, of course, mean impunity. Rather, it signifies -at leastfor ethics - a confrontation with a responsibfüty that is infinitelygreaterfairìftI

Thecen¡s an a¡ea that is independe.nt of every establishment of respon-sibility, ¿rr í¡rea in which Levi succeeded in isolating somethinglikea new ethical element. Levi calls it the "gray zo¡e? It is tle zone inwhich the "long chain of conjunction between victim and eKecu-

tioner" comes loose, where t.he oppressed becomes oppressor andthe executioner in turn appears as victim. {graLinj:gm¡ri!3!Ègny

tional etbics reach thei¡ point of firsion.What is at issue here, therefoã, is a zane of irresponsibility

and " imp otentia j udicandi" (Levi I 9 8 9: 60l-tbgf .9.:ig=*9i .3.9.bevonìI sood and evil but rathet, so to speak, beforc them' 1With a

, f€viplaces ethics befo¡e the area in we are to coh-

REMNANTS OF AUSCH\,VITZ

sid.er it. And, witåout our being able to say why, we sense thatthis "before' is more important than any "beyoud'- that the"undqrman", must matter to us more than the "ove¡manj' Thisinfamous zone of irresponsibility is our First Circle' liom whichno confession of responsibility will remove us and in s'hich whatis spelled out, minuts by minute, is the lesso¡ of the 'terriSing'unsayable and unimaginable banality of evil" (Arendt 19922 252)'

s also irremediably contami-+^*^l-^--- I.. . rI

2t

sponileo to express his corn r ¡,,*^- z-¡.- r . r Tnitnent to giving his daughter as wifeto a suitor (after which sl e o -rca nn__^__ ¿ ." , . ::-** then called a spowa) or to guaran_l*::-j.î.*on if this did not take pt""". lr'*naic Roman law,il,3:j:":,T:: was thar

" f,." ;"i ";;ñ";ö ffiä, :*;Trt,-t: -,"": is, in a state of imprisonm."., fr; rTiliäi:"#*lt;ffi,i::'^;. Tî*lee the comp;*"*, or a wrong ortire fr¡lfflrment of - ãur cuv' ur a wrong or

igation. (The term sponsØ indicated theï:i::^1.^':*tituted himserf f* rh.,,;, ;í;sing, in rhe caseof

llrea<ùr of c-ontract, to n *iri tt,"#; ,"rrå,

REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

is therefore

and tlus

-outside lau'E-*ii interiorized and moved

During the Jerusalem trial, Eichma¡¡n's consta¡rt line of defensewas clearly expressed by his lawyer, Robert Serviatus, with thesewords: "Eicb,rnann feels hirnself guiþ before God, not the law."Eichmann (whose implication in the extermination of the Jewswas well docurnented, even if his role was probably different fromthat which was argued by the prosecution) actually went so fa¡ as

to declare that he wanted'tt" natg hr-t"il* p"bliC t" otÈt q'liberate young Germ_ans ftomjbe weight 9Íguilti'Yet, until theend, þ continued to maintain that his guilt before God (u'ho wq

could not be l%all¿ p¡osecqled. The only possible explauationfor this insistence is that, whereas the assumption of moral guiltseemed ethically noble to the defendant, bg was unwilling to

ical organization of the extreme Left published a corrnuniqué ina nelr'spaper, declaring political and moral responsibility for themurder of a police officer committed twenty years ago. "Never-theless, such responsibilit¡" tlle docu-urent stated, "cannot betransformed. . . into a responsibility of penal characterl It must

way, when, in a significant Passage, they assume a responsibilitythat sounds unmisøkably juridical, stating that they conûibuted

')

ï:i.il"-Ë"i;resnonsilrl- Â^ ---rresponsibre. As such, resoon-sih;t¡r.,,--:r::r::"J v¡ urç pc'su¡r

dle con¡a^+ ^ E ^-.t- -,tÙte concent ^f .,,1^-.1-itvt - ans denied thatthere couldlr- qô ucrlleo urat there couldff;:ï:j::T:. to oneself: quoit quis ex cutpa suø damnum

;T:_ïi:t:tl"jtwitamnumsentbe:rh"d._"g;ä;;"Tï;to oneself by onJs own f uv u.*éö

Re_snn.i,-:r:r_ r tault is not juridically relevant.)

very farern but

22 23

der Mus-Matteotti, the member of thc r+.r:^_ _^ r. Giacomonated byunkr.*. *rl

t{*lltalian parlianent who was assassi-h"". b;";;;

,, - vrers itr 1924). But today in ltaly these modelssibilities is ipJ*qffi v. FPtio¡rrg¡glhe

categories (with the togi" or ".p"r,:l; *,rru;::rJäfficonfusion lies at tÀe o'escape trial rn^+ ^-r-- -,t* 1t-ù" -"',y ,L"iaes committed to

REMNANIS OF AUSCHWITZ

I+:----.€Ë: -rsçrtpfS IO COmne¡¡gfp f^,

escape triar (nor onry ¿,i. orr.r"i; ;i;i'_iäi:"r.""iassumPtion of moral suilr "+ro*-* ^ __-*r,'

-

cyanotic acid, and wash them with water; make sure that no valu-able objects were hidden in the orifices of the bodies; extract goldteetlr from the corpses' jaws; cut the women's hair and wash itwith ammonia clloride; bring the corpses into the crematoria andoversee their incineration; and, finally, emPty out tåe ovens of theash that remained. Levi writes:

Concerning these squads, vague and mangled rumors already cir-culated among us during our imprisonment and were confirmedafterward.... But the inrinsic horror of this hunan condition has

One of theur dedared:'Doing thisfirst day or gets accustomed to it."

Another, though. "Certainl¡ I could have killed myself or got myselfkilled; but I wanted to survive, to avenge myself and bear witness'

You mustn't think that we ale monsters; we are the same âs you'only much more unhappy:'... -.O-1"--fal]tglgl¿tj]!þ- ** ú'

(Levi 1989: S2-3).

men of the SS and the rest of tùe squad are Plesent at the game;

they take sides, bet, applaud, urge the players on as if, rather than

at the gatei of hell, th" g"-" were tfüng place on the villagegreeno (Levi 1989: 55).

of lawo. But

,Hä";:ï-{f:H:trftT*#;i;iïi*i

the colpses, stained

24 2s

*::::i:*|.TT ,ï*rre as a brief pause of humaniryin the middte of an inffnite l"*". l,-rit"";.ä;dî*""å

so far away from us.

THE WITNESS

languages I do not know have remained etched in my memor¡lik" orr a magnetic tape; I have repeated them to Poles arrd Hun-

garians and have been told that the sentences are meaningful' For

Jo-" ,."ron that I cannot explain, something anomalous hap-

pened to me' I would oY fu*tjl]ry$prggÍsþbearing witness" (ibiil.: 220)---ñffi-point of connection is even more profound, mole

insfructive. The study of the first Christian texts on martyrdom -for exarnfle, Tertdúants Scotpiocus -reveals some unexpected

teachings. The Chu¡ch Fathers were confronted by heretical g""ltthat rej"ected martyrdom because, in thei¡ eyes, it constituted a

wholl/."osele'ss deaih Qøtue sine cousa)'What meaning could be

founðin professing onet faith before men - Persecutors and exe-

cutioners-who would understand nothing of this undertaking?Must inno-

cents suffer these things?--.O immolated

himself for usi once "oã

fo, all he was killed' precfeþ so that we

would not be killed. If he asls for the same in retuÍi' is it per-

haps because he too expects salvationìn my death? Or should one

p.;h.p. think that Goá demands the blood of men even while he

disdains that of bulls and goats? How could God ever desire the

REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

It isoftt"ffid shame of the

in everyone of the .tohu_bohu,,-

v r v¡, vr¡ç ur urc Lolll_Dollu,crushed under the spirit of God

ot succeed in understanding thatever be hope.

ess is marúis, mart)¡r. The firstm a rtfu ium ft om ma rtis to indicates, who thus bore witness to their

epts of ',witressing" a¡rd ..mar_

. The frst conceros the Greeke verb meaning.to remember.',

se that happened to me beforehave a visual and acoustic mem_cannot explain. . .. sentences in

to Luke l2z g-g and to Mutthlw l0: 32-33 ('\vhosoever there-

fore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before

my Father which is in heaven' Butwhoso"Y,thdtlîtÏ:

death of someone who is not a sinner?'US d""1rineoftherefore the scandal of a

b"-'f*" -"t, fr* will I also deny before my Father which is in

heaven") made i1

B s' For what aPPears

26 27

REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

ii tle camgs is g+extermination for which it mav be

some religious extternistscording to tf¡e manner of the

ol I do not accept this..3,(Levi 1997:219).

. philologically, it is aterrr that, when it ff.rt "ror",ed that it was Wiesel himselfit and wanted to take it back"

The names of two of tüese are significant.The hottat was tùe sasi-fice employed especially to enpiate ttre sin ølleà hattat ot hataah,

the definition of whic.h given in Leviticus is unfortunateþ exbemeþvague. The shelaminis a comsrunion sacrifice, a sacrifice of t}anls-giving of alliance, of vows. As for the terms 'oI¿å and miaåa, they

are purely descriptive. Each recalls one oftlre special operations ofsacrifice: the latter, the presentation of the victim, if it is of veg-

etable niatter, the former, tìe dispatc.h of the offering to the divinity(Mauss and Hubert 1964: 16)-

The Vulgate usually tanslates olahby hoTocaustum (holocousti

oblotio); hattnt by oblatio; shelamin by hostia pøciJicorum; minha bym themanyof the

:

socrificionm $uentoÍum et holocoustomatum niìlorosutum o deo

exøctio? "'What is more foolish than a god who demands bloody

sacrifices and holocausts that smell of burnt remains?" Ailveßus

',:29

term can also prove instructive.scription of the t¿tin holocaus_

of the Greek tetm holocaustns

in fact with neither rþoural doctine of the Bible (inomy). Leviticus reduces all

s: oloh, hattat, shelamin, minha.ert w¡ite in ..The Nature and

28

---ù w,^qLures, to my f*"*f.åg,rcfo-^-^^ -

L ^: , - ** vr rtolocaüSts--). The tefrr".13 sîse-in Bp. Alcock (Mons pe{eø C

,1e 1an holocauste of marÐrrdom made tot (?s¡chexxiv. cxciv: ..The perfect holocaustton, where it signifìes a complete con_1702: "I;ke thJ

""lf_begottån bird Inost, Thatno second lsrows nor third, And

ry 1989: 315).

ened upoa a pas-

completed bdore the next day. And tüe otler cities a¡rd towns ofthe region irritated the faith of the inhabitants of London and,with dre sa.ure devotion, sent their bloodsuckers to hell Qtañ ilevo-tione suas sanguisugas cuø sanguine transmisetant ail inJeros)" (Car-d¡.; 1994' 131¡.

Insofar as it imlEgqlg=bsti1@"

u-phernism always involves ambiguities- Iu this case, however, the

lrrbiguity is itolegble. The Jews also use a euphernism to indi-cate the extermination.,Th.y use the terrn so'ah, which means"deva-station. catastophe" *d, +-tt* gibL. "ft* i*pli9t-ÈÈid*of a divine punislrsen'! (as in Isaiah l0:3: 'What will you do inthe day of punishment, when ùte so'ah will come from afar?").Even if Levi probably refers to t}is term rvhen he speaks oftheattempt to interpret the extermination as a punishment for our

is why rve will never

REMNANTS OF AUSCìHWITZ

?:i r^rirr|.ticua' l' 4: holocawum.... camÍs eius per 'ignumthe semantic whic.h the term .tolo-

the

arion of Richa¡d I (11g9), thearly bloody pogrom:at about the hour inat about the hour in

y began in London tocoeptum est in civitate; and the celebrationocaust could not be

3ç.j.'

en

3r

Ícertainrv," *.";;: :;';; the ruture). AsLevi_points out *Up to tÏe moment of thi, *ritiog, and notwith_st¡ndirìg the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasfü, the sharne of theGulags, t.he useless and bloody Viemam niar, the Cambodian self_genocide,_tåe ilesopareciìlos in Argentina, and tle many aÈocious

1989:21

ï î also.easily Fd t ourseloesl,iigorously arguing againsthis adversaries in afffrming the incomprehensibility of God, who

and t'un-

bestwavøwellhe*ù"tthir*ã the

and ado¡e ( ¡¡arbtnìn\flim Fvg¡for the of* *:t."." glo.tfy and adore Him, offering Him their mystical

(,rner terms that cannot be uttered for reasons of modesty ortlTY:3b say that Auschwitz is .r¡nsayableJ o" ..irr"o-o""herr-

songs. John contrasts the angelic hosts with äor" s""kiog in vainto understand God: ..thseektooo¿",,._¿,"":i"Jï" j*:irJ,:låt:#:"1î:;ïthemselves wo¡k to do; tåose ones divert tåeir gaze, these onesare not ashamed to stare into unsayable glory" (Chrysos tam 1970).The ve¡b'that we have translated .,to adore in silence,, is, in the

means ttto

word "eu-tituted for

THE WITNESS

does with a of one's intentionq this contributes

of itself, we caû also easiþ find in ourselves.

1.12 Testimor¡Lhowgver, contdnl1þgult The su¡vivo¡s agreeabout this. 'There is anot-her lacuna in every testimony: wihessesare by definition survivors and so all, to some degree, enjoyed aprivilege.... Ng one has told the destiny of the common pri:gne-t,

..-. I havealso described the common prisoner when I speak of 'Muslims';but the Muslims did not speak" (Levr 1997 215-16). "Those whohave not lived tlrough the experience will never know; thosewho have will never tell; not really, not completely. ... The pastbelongs to the dead.. .l' (Wiesel 1975: 314).

It is worth reflecting upon this lacuna, which calls into qug-tion tle very meaning of testimony and, along wit]r it, the iden-4tv aqd reliab¿ljgr-glllbglglqlgssgs- "I must repeat: rr-e, thesurvivors. are not tle true witnesses.... We survivo¡s are not%

only an origuous but also an anomalous minority: we are thosewho by their prevarications or abilities or good luck did not touchbottom. Those who did so, those who sals the Gorgon, have notreturned to tell about it or have ¡eturned mute, Þu[hSyJr. _ç_the

behalf of third,

. returned to describe his qtq¡-dgath. Even if they had paper and

I

composed his heatise On the Incomprehensible-Notute oJ Goit_ Heopposed those who maintained that êod's essence could be under_stood, on the grounds ùat %verything that He lsrows of Himself

32

; "are not intol even at tle risk of discovering t}at what evil hows

more or less wisdom, to recountthe others, indeed o@" a.o*o

rn

33

REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ

certer it containi witress to andthe surviìiõiã witnesses

notbea¡ witness and

Proxy, asstead, by

a proxy makes no sense; thedrowned have nothing to sa)6 nor do-they fr"* "-..*""î"Ëi

4-_e*:-.*_:-.6 -" rarr uur urJ

unexpected area.

:

ever assumes the charse .rr"*"3,*""i*TlÍ11i] JT:"

about it.gpgn a minqtelS!!_oflthÞ s.itua_ti-o_U_How can you lcrow ttrat tåesituation itself sristed? That it is not the fruit of your informant simagination? Eithe¡ the situation did not exist as such. Ch else itdid erist,

*ould rç_m$l_14_g!. .. . To have 'really seen with his own eyes' agas charnber wor¡ld be tlre condition which gives one tre autlorityto say tåat it exists and to perzuade ttre unbeliever.rYg! qrs._!till_n_e_c-

Ieg_sggj The only acceptable proof that it was used to kill is thatone died from iL But if one is dead, one cannot testi$ tlat it is onaccount ofthe gas charnber (Lyotard 1988: 3).

A few years later, Shoshana Felman and Dori I¿ub elaboratedthe notion of the Shoah as an "event without witnessesl' In 1990,one of ttre authors fu¡ther deveþed this conceptin the form of acommentar)¡ on Claude Lanznar¡n's film. The Shoah is an event

wiûress to it from the inside - since Do one can bear witness fro-^m-: -tJ

tion excluded from the event¡

It is not really possible to tzll the trutÄ, to te.stifï, from the outside.Neither is it possible, as we have seeu, to testify from the inside. Iwould suggest tùat the impossibleposition and the testimonial effo¡tof the fìl¡n as a rvhole is to be, precisel¡ neÍther simply inside norsimply outside, but paradoxially,both insiile-anil outside: to ctcgla

t"ry*,r:þZy+J:4,*g$:- to set them botl¡ in motion a¡rd indialogue with one another (Fehnan and Laub 1992:232).

Þ

sv¡,{uvç way; rr makes it necessary to look for its meaning in an

Ïj-..1,_lXlready been observed that, in testimon¡ there isi::P,q_T" 1" Tlî*1b,trg "f b"*i,s;;;s. rn 1e83, Jean_François Lyota¡d published Tt " n¡g- ì1,.t :"i_^_î' :: " t ^ :-

You are informed that huryr beings endowed with language were' placed in a situation such that none'of tt"m is ,row abre to te' aboutit, Most ofthem disappeared then, and the survivors rareþ speak

that

mony. And vet to¡-J

35