From the Kingdom of Memory (18 page)

Furthermore, there are among you individuals and groups who have been seeking atonement in word and in deed; some have gone to work for Israel, in Israel; others are involved in religious dialogues. Writers, artists, poets, novelists, statesmen: there are among them men and women who refuse to forget—and, make no mistake, the best books by German authors deal with the trauma of the past.…

Now, in the new Wannsee museum, you will show what was done to Jews, to Jews alone. You will show pictures of Jews before they died, you will show the cold brutality of those who killed them, you will show the passivity, the cowardly indifference of the bystanders.

However, in fairness, I feel I must point out negative elements in modern Germany: the extreme left is violently anti-Israel, the extreme right is anti-Jewish. Furthermore, it is bad enough that we have revisionists in our own countries—but must we encounter them in Germany too? I know: here it is illegal to publicly deny the Holocaust. Still, it is being done in a vulgar form—by neo-Nazis—and in a more subtle manner by some historians whose intent is to “normalize” and “relativize,” and thus banalize, cheapen, and trivialize the most painful event in Jewish history. Their attitude is impudent, arrogant, obscene. Whether they want to or not, those historians will ultimately belong to the ugliest category of all—that of the revisionists who deny occurrence of the Holocaust; they serve the same gods. The normalization of the historians helps the revisionists in their fight against memory. Against the Jewish people.

But I wonder: “What has been the general response to the “Battle of the Historians”? I hope that you, young Germans, have taken part in it. I hope that you are, and will be, sensitive to Jewish pain. Was Bitburg really necessary? Was it essential for a Frankfurt
theater to stage an anti-Semitic Fassbinder play? Was it a must for your government to show friendship toward an Austrian chancellor with whom the Jewish community at large was, and remains, in open conflict?

And how come the Bundesrat has never found it necessary to officially ask the Jewish people for forgiveness?

The United States Senate has recently adopted a bill that expresses an apology to the Nisai, the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in 1941–1942. Why couldn’t the German parliament offer a similar apology to the Jewish people? Germany would not be humiliated by such a move; just the opposite.

I appeal to you: Be our allies. Justify the faith we have in your future. Fight forgetfulness. Reject any attempt to cover up the past. Remember the Jewishness of the Jewish victims, remember the uniqueness of their tragedy. Thus, it is incumbent upon you not to allow the building of museums that do not distinguish between war casualties and victims of Nazism. Be the conscience of your nation. And remember: a conscience that does not speak up when injustices are being committed is betraying itself. A mute conscience is a false conscience.

Remember some lessons from your past and ours: Words can kill, just as they can heal.… Remember: It was possible to stop the machinery of death … to save lives. So few dared.

In remembering, you will help your own people to vanquish the ghosts that have been hovering over their history. Remember: a community that does not come to terms with the dead will find that the dead continue to perturb and traumatize the living. Reconciliation can be achieved through and in memory. Memory restores absence to presence and the dead to the living. Does it also involve pain? I welcome it. I think of the children—walking slowly, almost peacefully, toward the flames—and I am almost grateful for the pain that links me to them.

The children, the children: those of Lidice, those of Oradour, the Jewish children from all over occupied Europe who were handed over to the killers will forever haunt us with their silent pleas for a shred of kindness and consolation. Might they not have grown up to help mankind? Who knows? One of them might have discovered a cure for cancer or AIDS. In killing them, the killers and their accomplices punished themselves and the world.

Thus, in remembering them, we remember today’s victims, too. We remember our hunger so as to eliminate starvation. We remember our anguish so as to proclaim the right of men and women everywhere to live without fear. We remember our death so as to denounce the insanity of violence and the absurdity, the ugliness, the shame of war.

We remember Auschwitz and all that it symbolizes because we believe that, in spite of the past
and its horrors, the world is worthy of salvation; and salvation, like redemption, can be found only in memory.

So—here we are, back at my central obsession. But you may ask: Isn’t there a danger that memory may perpetuate hatred? No, there is no such danger. Memory and hatred are incompatible, for hatred distorts memory. The reverse is true: memory may serve as a powerful remedy against hatred.

An example? At the end of the war, many Germans were afraid of Jews—they were afraid of Jews coming back for revenge. There was fear and trembling in German towns and villages. And the Jews could have come and unleashed retribution on a large scale—and nobody would have stopped them or even criticized them. But … it did not happen. Oh, I am not saying that there was no hatred in some Jews; there is a minority that hates Germany even today; its members do not buy German products, refuse to set foot on German soil, and refuse to acknowledge that young Germans are not guilty. One—a Jew born in Berlin—went so far as to urge me not to appear here today.…

But what I do maintain is that most Jews did not choose hatred as a response. Hatred is not a Jewish response and never has been. Nor is vengeance a Jewish response. The Jewish tradition understands that the punishment the killer most fears is the victim’s memory of his deeds.

This is why the killer so wanted his crimes to be forgotten. This is why we must remember them.

We must remember them for the sake of our children. And yours. They all deserve from us an offering. An offering of hope.

For my generation, hope cannot be without sadness. Let the sadness contain hope, too.

More Dialogues

Why are you chasing me?

You are alone. We are against lonely children
.

And when I grow up, will you stop chasing me?

You won’t grow up
.

Why not?

Something in you annoys us
.

What have I done?

Nothing. You have done nothing
.

But I don’t even know you.

It’s true, you don’t know us
.

And you? Do you know me?

We don’t know you
.

Then why do you chase me?

You bother us
.

And what if I promise to get out of your way?

You’ll still bother us
.

What if I go into hiding?

You can’t. We are everywhere
.

What if I promise not to look at you? To go blind?

The blind are dangerous; they see what we don’t see
.

What if I die? Will I stop bothering you then?

You are clever. It’s because you are clever that we are after you
.

What have you done to my father?

You are too young to know
.

What have you done to my mother?

You are too young to know
.

And my grandparents? What have you done to them?

They are old, too old for you to think of them
.

And my little sister, what happened to her?

You’re really too curious for a boy of your age
.

Where is she? I love her.

Good for you
.

I promised to take care of her.

Good for you
.

Why have you separated us?

It’s good for you
.

Are you happy when families are separated?

Very happy
.

Then you are not human. You are … a wall.

A huge wall
.

But walls come tumbling down.

Not ours. Ours climbs to the sky. And higher still
.

It will come tumbling down, I’m telling you. You’ll see. I know what I am saying. The wall that you have built on Jewish children. One day they’ll move, and you’ll fall down, all of you.

Nonsense. All Jewish children are dead
.

They are dead, but they’ll start moving, you’ll see. And if I promise to forget you, will you let me go?

You could forget us?

Easy. All it takes is to think of something else, and finished: you’re gone. The beautiful face of my grandfather, the heartbreaking expression on the face of my grandmother: I think of them, and you’re but dust. You want to know something? You’re weaker than the weakest Jewish child: we decide whether you exist or not.

You’re joking
.

Now listen: the joke is on you. It’s true. You’re laughing, but your laughter is false.

You dirty little Jew. You cast a spell on us! We can’t laugh! Our throats have all dried up!

Not only your throats! Your minds also! And your
hearts! All dried up! You wake up only when you kill Jewish children!

You talk like a wise man, like an old man, like someone whose life is behind him. Like someone who is about to die
.

Then you’ll die with me. The moment my memory ceases to live, you’re dead. In provoking my death, you justify your own.

Don’t be insolent; you’re in our hands; you’re our prisoner!

I am in your hands, but you’re our prisoners. In our memory, you’re already dead. You’re the dead prisoners of a living memory.

Why do you avoid me?

I am busy
.

I need you.

Too bad. Look elsewhere
.

Why are you hostile? Do you wish to hurt me?

Hurt is the wrong word; erase it from your vocabulary
.

Why do you want me to erase words? I love words, don’t you know that?

I merely asked you to erase one word
.

Hurt?

Yes
.

Why?

Because you have done the hurting
.

Whom have I hurt?

Me. You spoke when you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have said anything
.

Have I used forbidden words? Have I offended anyone? Have I blasphemed?

You are too concerned with people. You’ve forgotten me. You behaved as if I mattered little. And yet, what would you have done without me? How would you have communicated your memories through words and prayer? I am your link to the world. And still you have offended me
.

But … by doing, by saying what?

You yielded to verbal temptation
.

Should I have kept silent? And silenced the voices that incite me to rebellion?

Perhaps
.

Then you would have been offended by my silence.

Perhaps
.

And provoked as well?

Perhaps. But then, it’s possible that I like being provoked. And that I also like silence—I mean the provocative kind
.

I don’t follow you.

You oppose me to silence, that’s your mistake. The opposite of language is not silence but apathy. I get along rather well with silence. We couldn’t live without each other
.

And what is my role in all this?

Your task is to receive. Not to dominate. Your mistake was in wishing to do both. Instead of setting me free, you wanted to chain me. We are no longer allies
.

But I love you! I have always loved you!

That’s irrelevant
.

But at least admit that you know how much I love you. You have traced the contours of my universe, the limits of my hope.

In that case, why have you sought to hurt me?
An
example? Do you remember when, in an unknown cemetery, you began looking for your father’s grave?

I remember.

And yet, you knew that your father had no grave!

I knew.

And yet you went on looking
.

What else could I have done? I am still looking for my father’s grave, and will never cease to look for it everywhere.

Everywhere? Why not look inside you?

I am looking inside myself.

In other people too?

In them too.

In me?

Naturally …

See? I trapped you! I am nobody’s grave! I can be memory or vision, but no grave! Each one of my words contains all the others. Each represents the beginning of a tale linked to the origins of creation. And you call me a grave?

There are graves filled with treasures.…

Real graves perhaps. But I was not created to be a grave. I was created to guide the living and help them overcome darkness
.

I apologize.

You won’t do it again?

I’ll try.

What do you mean?

I’ll try not to hurt you, but I shall continue to look for my father’s grave. Don’t you understand? The dead need graves. If my father had one, I would know what to do.