Dance Me to the End of Love

I trust most of us are familiar with the song by Leonard Cohen which bears the titular name.

Several years ago, I was made aware of the following quote by Cohen when he was asked about the meaning of that song:

“I don’t think anyone needs to know what gave me the image of the “burning violin” but there were these little orchestras the Germans put together in the concentration camps. They played while people were being incinerated or gassed. If you want to read the song from that point of view, it becomes something quite different.”

That is the point of view I chose to read it from when I decided to teach it to my students before Yom HaShoah. And what an experience it was for all of us.

When I handed the song to them, I asked them to read it silently and share their impressions of it. To most of them, it amounted to no more than a love story between a man and a woman who have lived a full life sprinkled with episodes of joy, crisis, love and pain. None of them even remotely related it to the Shoah.

In order to make my choice of interpretation of this song clearer to them, I decided to focus on a few lines which, at least for me, reinforced the notion that I was trying to convey to them. I pointed to the first line.

“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin…”

Though all my students were familiar with the history of the Shoah, many, unfortunately, were not aware of the quartets or “little orchestras” that the Nazis put together to welcome the new inmates of the concentration camps. They were composed mostly of violins.

Naturally, when considered from my point of view, the burning violin, mentioned in the first line, is a reference to the fate of many of the residents who were burned in the ovens of those camps.

“Dance me to the panic till I’m gathered safely in…” is the next line I drew their attention to. Of course, they have all been introduced to the conditions in which those doomed to death were brought to the camps. They have seen movies and photos; they have heard testimonies about the freight trains they were pushed and crammed into. They know about the poor sanitary conditions on cattle cars, the stench, the hunger, death and despair. Who would not be experiencing “panic” under such conditions?

What most of them did not know, though, is that the Nazis had lied to the Jews and promised them that the trains they were about to embark were for the purpose of relocating them to a “nice, safer place,” a “new home.” Many Jews believed these lies and were fooled by them. What reasons did they have to think otherwise? Hence, in my view, the shred of faith echoed in the words “till I’m safely gathered in.”

“Oh, let me see the beauty when the witnesses are gone…” is where many of my students realized why I chose to teach that song the way I did. They, like many other fellow Jews, are aware that those who witnessed the Shoah, those who lived to tell and share the horrors they had been through, abate in numbers. Soon, there will be none left. It will, then, be my task, as a daughter of two Shoah survivors, to ensure that “Never Forget” is alive. After me, it is them who will have to bear the torch of that vow and ensure that it is never extinguished. They are ready for that.

Finally, we reached the line referring to the children, our most precious asset. “Dance me to the children who are asking to be born…” a line that melts a frozen river in me, breaks a dam, frees the gushes of tears that surge in my eyes and blurs my vision each time I hear it.

The first time I read that line, I recalled Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s book Kappa, a science fiction describing Japan in the early 20^th century. One of the ideas discussed in this book is that, after they are presented with an overview of what life has in store for them, the soon to be born babies of Kappa can choose or refuse to be born. Most of them choose to be aborted.

Unlike the children of Kappa, Cohen’s babies are asking for practicing their right, and our duty to allow them “to be born.” After all, it is in accordance with that which the Torah commands us, “And you should choose Life!”

As I was about to finish the lesson, I looked around the classroom. The silence that prevailed, the bittersweet scent of the air we were breathing as the rays of the shining sun were alighting the room and their beautiful faces, I knew that from then on, this song will not be just another song they hear and enjoy. In Cohen’s own words, it has “become something quite different,” a more meaningful piece of poetry, one that connects them to our People’s past and their role in its future.

Shabbat Shalom 

A Little Known Genocide

History has been laced with genocides. Some, however, received much coverage and are known to many, albeit by name only.

But few, so it seems, know about the first genocide of the 20^th century, the one that took place not on European soil and by members of the Second Reich, a few decades before the rise of Hitler.  I am referring to the genocide committed against the Herero Tribe of Namibia, a genocide that left them close to extinction.

I recently spent a couple of weeks with members of the Herero Tribe. What a wonderful experience it was. I visited their villages, their homes and their schools. They are generally happy people, hospitable and polite. Looking at them, it would be hard to trace any hint of the fact that merely two generations ago, attempts were made to rid the world of them and their beautiful heritage.

That is why I set out to learn as much as I could about this little known atrocity, share it and educate others about it.

For that, I will have to take you, the readers, back in time to 1884. That year, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck assembled what has come to be known as “The Berlin Conference.” Its purpose was to determine the future of the African continent. As part of it, Bismarck designated South West Africa as part of the German Empire and suitable for settlement.

 

Following that declaration, the Germans began to appropriate more and more land from the local population while at the same time introducing laws and policies aimed at limiting and restricting it. One of the reasons that the presence of the Second Reich was moderately tolerated in that part of the world was because in many instances, its representatives acted as intermediaries between feuding tribes. However, as it turns out only when it suited them. The treaties they engineered were dubious, ambiguous and drawn merely to serve their interests. According to Dutch historian Jan-Bart Gewald, the German colonial governor “Leutwein, gladly offered military support to controversial chiefs, because violence and land seizure among Africans worked to his advantage.”

 In the early days of the German colonial venture in Namibia, the Herero People which, along with other tribes, were part of Namibia’s indigenous population, were still strong both economically and socially and were thus able to fend off German colonization efforts.  The Rimferpest plague which struck their herds in 1897,though, left them fragile both economically, as it destroyed their main source of wealth, as well as physically since it shuttered their source of protein.

That, however, did not prevent from the Herero to stand firm against the endeavours by the Germans to take over their land. By 1904, tensions rose to a peak and under the leadership of their paramount chief, Samuel Maherero, the Herero rebelled against the Germans, a rebellion that turned into a full-fledged war in which 123 Germans were killed. Kaiser Wilhelm II sent thousands of troops to fight the reels. The Herero were defeated and fled to the Kalahari Desert, where many were left to die of hunger and thirst.

What, to me, was the most devastating part of this whole chapter was that all members of the Herero and other tribes that the Germans came across, men women and children, were sent to concentration camps where they were used as slave labour to build railways and buildings which can still be seen throughout Namibia.

According to an article published by the BBC in 2011, German scientists collected skulls of Herero members, and shipped them to Germany “to perform experiments seeking to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans.” 

This, of course, helped plant the “seeds for the Nazi genocidal ideology which was later followed up by similar research of other “inferior” groups by the likes of Dr. Mengele and his ilk.

March of The Living and Why I support It

I recently read an article by Varda Epstein and one of the threads by Roger Froikin. They both address the issue of “March of the Living” and the visit to Poland, where the ground is one big graveyard to many of our People.

Needless to add, I disagree, and STRONGLY, with both.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their views. So here is mine.

I have never participated in such a “march.” I have, however, visited some camps, former Ghettos and mass grave sites where millions of our brothers and sisters were slaughtered. Though some of those were first cousins of mine, many others, nameless victims were all my family. I was raised to believe that family is the most basic and important unit of every society. It is that link that connects us to our past and paves our path to our future life’s journey.

As someone who grew up in the shadow of the Shoah, I heard many stories. I relived it through my parents and their many friends and acquaintances who frequented our home. I thought I had heard it all.

WRONG!

“A Picture is worth a thousand words,” a wise person once said. I did not realize how wise that statement was until I stood on the ground of Auschwitz, walked in the footsteps of my four young cousins who were marching to their grave among the ravines of Ponar and Babi Yar. I heard their voices calling me from the ground, begging “Never Forget.”

My response to those voices was “I never will.”

I have been visiting these sites whenever the opportunity presented itself. I whisper their names, their many names, as I light the Yahrtzeit candle and silently recite the Kaddish. I am not an observant Jew in the traditional sense of the word. However, “Remember”  is one of the commandments that I adhere to performing. Visiting the graves of those that perished and through their death commanded us to Life is one of my ways of practicing and experiencing my Judaism.

A fellow lecturer at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch New Zealand, Dr. Ghazallah once told me, “Stop dwelling on Auschwitz, its ovens are already cold.” To her, Auschwitz has been reduced to merely a museum and a “cold” place.

Well, unfortunately, these are the sentiments that I get from the article and the thread I mentioned above.

Let it be known, THE OVENS OF AUSCHWITZ WILL NEVER BE COLD FOR ME! With each visit Jews make there, we reignite them and the memories they bring. There is no stronger reminder than a physical encounter with the gates of Death, a reminder of our past, our Miracle of Life and the path to our glorious future.

I, for one, will continue to be there at every opportunity. Through my visits, I will continue to remind the victims that they are never forgotten. Because as a teacher I can tell you that if we stop this practice, in a matter of a generation of two, the memory of the Shoah and the high price we Jews had to pay for the mere fact that we were born may fade into oblivion!

Any educator will tell us that experiencing or getting as close as possible to experiencing any lesson is getting as close as possible to living it no matter how brief or how much they think how futile the encounter is.

An answer by one of my former students reinforces my sentiments on the subject. His words upon returning from the "March of the Living" were:

"Now I understand why I should join the IDF. It is the only way to ensure that what I witnessed through the 'March of the Living' never happens again!"

I will conclude with the wise words of my friend, Judy Berlin, because they echo my view on the subject:

“Seeing is believing and that may be the only way for many young people to make the emotional connection to the past. Their parents don’t infuse Holocaust history in the home, nor do the Jewish schools or synagogues teach it. This may be the only way that our young people can feel and see the painful conditions that the Jews of Europe were forced to endure. They need to see the victims as their families.”

The Guilt of Some

I just got back from a seminar on Yiddish literature in Lithuania and Poland.

Needless to say, it was a very difficult trip. The monuments, the memorial sites, the death camps, every place was soaked with painful memories from our Jewish people’s recent sanguine history.

The visit to Poland, naturally, was overshadowed by the recent Polish law which calls for criminalizing some Holocaust speech accusing the Polish state or people of involvement or responsibility for the Nazi occupation during World War II. Punishment for breaking it can range from a fine or up to three years in prison. It went into effect on March 1, 2018.

Those who know me, know that as a daughter of two Shoah survivors, the subject is close to my heart. Some simply did not understand why I even bothered to visit Poland after this law had been enacted. For them such a law is a slap in the face of the victims and chose to ban Poland.

This was not my first visit to Poland. It may not be the last either. Let me make one point clear. I do not go there for cheap shopping or a vacation. I go there to tell the victims that they are not, nor will they ever be forgotten.

The last visit, however, brought about some insights which shed a light on a new reality. That reality, I believe, is not a pleasing one to the eyes, minds and collective subconsciousness of the Polish people.

Based on testimonies of friends and relatives who had visited Poland in the past, mainly before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Poland did not have nearly as many monuments commemorating the Shoah and its Jewish victims as it does now. Most tributes were dedicated to the Polish victims of the Nazi and Soviet occupation. And there is no denial that they were many.

Nowadays, more than ever, though, there are additional and new markers. They were erected to honour the Jewish ones. These are yet another permanent reminder of the extent of the Jewish graveyard that Poland was turned into by the Nazis and their Polish collaborators.

A note of caution is called for. In times of anger and grief, our human nature tends to generalize. One cannot and should never make sweeping statements. There were some Poles who helped Jews. My father was saved by one. I, for one, will never forget that.

Let us also not forget that many Poles were themselves victims of the Nazis. However, anyone who denies the collaboration between Poles and the Nazis verges on Shoah denial. That includes some of my Jewish friends who have suddenly become bleeding hearts for Poles.

Many Poles did assist the Nazi killing machine as it ploughed through their country in an effort to make Europe “Judenrein.” My parents lived through that. They, other members of my family and their close friends were my most reliable and trusted witnesses for what happened during those times.

No one, be it an individual or a nation, likes to be constantly reminded of or hammered about their past transgressions.

That is precisely what the many monuments with Hebrew and Yiddish epitaphs inscribed on them, which have sprung since the end of the Cold War and which are strewn all over Poland, do. They put a permanent mirror to the face of a nation that was turned into a killing field pushing many of its members to becoming willing and in some cases unwilling collaborators.

And that, in my view, that constant reminder of past transgressions prompted the Polish Law which I mentioned above. It is, I believe, part of the Polish nation’s way to help its members overcome a hard, and unfortunately for them, a dark and uncomfortable chapter in their nation’s history. It is their defense mechanism, one means to cleanse and wash off their guilt especially when it is sprinkled with small doses of projection as reflected in the words of its Prime Minister who claimed that the Shoah had not only Polish, German or Ukrainian perpetrators, but Jewish ones as well.

It may help the Poles. As far as I am concerned, though, “Never Again” is as vibrant in me as ever before. Am Yisrael Chai!

May we all have a meaningful Pesach.