Mark Weiss wrote:
> As you say, there's enough horror to go around.
>
> Jerry Rothenberg among others prefers the yiddish word korbn, which
> means slaughter, as in the slaughtering iof animals. It has the virtue
> of lacking any kind of sentimentality. But it only communicates within
> a limited circle, so holocaust it probably will remain, to the extent
> that the other connotations of holocaust, as ritual, have largely
> disappeared.
That is a horrible word. It seems--curiously--to look at the Holocaust,
Shoa, whatever, from the point of view not of the victims but of the
tormentors themselves. I have heard often enough that in order to do
something horrific to other human beings, the actor needs to take his
victims down a few steps, stop thinking of them has human beings. Yes,
no, maybe, Rothenberg's word suggests this.
> You might keep in mind that while some Jews are in fact only vaguely
> aware that other groups were systematically slaughtered the use of any
> of the available terms by most Jews isn't meant either politically or
> exclusively--it's meant to refer to our own loss, helpless grief and
> outrage, which is surely legitimate.
In June 1994 I was in Asheville, NC at some poetry festival or other.
One of the participants was a man named Charles Fishman, who did me a
couple of favors because he liked the work I showed him...most of it.
He was part of a panel on Saturday afternoon about Holocaust literature,
a good fit since he'd edited a book called "Blood To Remember: American
Poets on the Holocaust." At one point during the Q&A, a black woman
asked about literary treatments of the black holocaust. Fishman, who
far too often had his own PC agenda, went ballistic at this woman,
really close to shouting. He said that for any ethnic group to use
"Holocaust" was an attempt to appropriate the Jewish experience and
simultaneously demean it. The message seemed to be Go Find Your Own
Language, Don't Grab Ours.
The obvious ones in 1994...Armenia, the American Indians, and black
slavery. Sarajevo was in there, Ethiopia was happening. I feel like
I'm calling a horse race.
What's the term? Genocide, mass slaughter. I suppose the motive is at
issue. Did anyone besides Hitler ever write out his intentions? How
many parallels to the Wahnsee Conference have existed in recorded history?
> As to flinches, try telling a typically self-denigrating Jewish joke
> to a Jewish friend. If you don't flinch your friend certainly will--as
> with all such humor you have to be a part of the group to tell it. I
> think something similar applies here.
>
> You understand that things like the holocaust tend to make members of
> the target population edgy.
When Adolf Eichman was taken in 1960(?), by the time I arrived in
college the following year there were at least a few Eichmann/Shoa jokes
circulating. I went to a public university that was largely Jewish in
student body. Jews were telling the jokes. You laughed, you cringed.
Again, in 1961 the European war was over 16 years. Someone tell me,
please, what could have motivated the telling of such stories. I have
my own theories but don't feel like parading what I don't know today. I
need to go take some more Naproxin for my back and copy numbers from one
cell phone to another.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------
"Poetry is tribal not material....this is where you can remember the good
times along with the worst; where you are not allowed to forget the worst,
else you cannot be healed."--C. D. Wright
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.1/64 - Release Date: 8/4/2005
|