This is from Auschwitz and After by Charlotte
Delbo, in which she recounts her experience
in Auschwitz. This passage describes her
numbness to everyday life upon her return. I
though this would be interesting to look at
in light of some recent speculations about
authenticity and the Holocaust. Note how
Heideggerian "idle talk" would relate here.
"I try at times to imagine what I'd be like
were I like everyone else, that is, if I had
not been taken over there. I don't succed in
doing so. I am other. I speak and my voice
sounds like something other than a voice. My
words come frou outside of me. I speak and
what I say is not said by me. My words must
travel along a narrow path from which they
must not stray for fear reaching spheres
where they'd become incomprehensible. Words
do not necessarily have the same meaning. You
hear them say, 'I almost fell. I got scared.'
Do they know what fear is? Or, 'I'm hungry. I
must have a chocolate bar in my handbag.'
They say, I'm frightened, I'm hungry, I'm
cold, I'm thirsty, I'm in pain, as though
these words were weightless. They say, I'm
going to visit friends. Friends... People at
whose house you have dinner, or with whom you
play bridge. What do they know about
friendship? All their words are frivolous.
All their words are false. How can you be
with them when you bear only heavy, heavy
words? There are images beyond my eyes. When
my concentration slackens, they burst forth,
occupy the foreground, foist themselves on
me, and I no longer see what is before me but
images coming from beyind my eyes. At every
moment I must push them back into the
storeroom or they will separate me
irretrievably from all that surrounds me."
Actually, this is from the section in the
book, "The Measure of our Days" entitled
Mado, and I still can't figure out if it's
Delbo speaking or someone named "Mado".
Auschwitz and After, Charlotte Delbo. New
Haven: Yale. 1995. (page 264)
---
Where there is peace, there is war.
Tom Blancato
tblancato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
Delbo, in which she recounts her experience
in Auschwitz. This passage describes her
numbness to everyday life upon her return. I
though this would be interesting to look at
in light of some recent speculations about
authenticity and the Holocaust. Note how
Heideggerian "idle talk" would relate here.
"I try at times to imagine what I'd be like
were I like everyone else, that is, if I had
not been taken over there. I don't succed in
doing so. I am other. I speak and my voice
sounds like something other than a voice. My
words come frou outside of me. I speak and
what I say is not said by me. My words must
travel along a narrow path from which they
must not stray for fear reaching spheres
where they'd become incomprehensible. Words
do not necessarily have the same meaning. You
hear them say, 'I almost fell. I got scared.'
Do they know what fear is? Or, 'I'm hungry. I
must have a chocolate bar in my handbag.'
They say, I'm frightened, I'm hungry, I'm
cold, I'm thirsty, I'm in pain, as though
these words were weightless. They say, I'm
going to visit friends. Friends... People at
whose house you have dinner, or with whom you
play bridge. What do they know about
friendship? All their words are frivolous.
All their words are false. How can you be
with them when you bear only heavy, heavy
words? There are images beyond my eyes. When
my concentration slackens, they burst forth,
occupy the foreground, foist themselves on
me, and I no longer see what is before me but
images coming from beyind my eyes. At every
moment I must push them back into the
storeroom or they will separate me
irretrievably from all that surrounds me."
Actually, this is from the section in the
book, "The Measure of our Days" entitled
Mado, and I still can't figure out if it's
Delbo speaking or someone named "Mado".
Auschwitz and After, Charlotte Delbo. New
Haven: Yale. 1995. (page 264)
---
Where there is peace, there is war.
Tom Blancato
tblancato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------