arendt and pals

I'm being told one thing and shown another! I email Professor to see what I should be typing about and start in on last Wednesday's source material and see that this Monday's source material is already being discussed on these internets. Though this doesn't matter as much as I'd originally thought because the past couple of readings have been dealing with mostly the same type of subject matter. The witness.

So naturally reading these readings I find myself comparing it to my own experiences. I tried to think of what type of category I might fall into if I were put into a situation of dire peril. As the likelihood of a direct comparison to the Holocaust is non-existent in my own experiences, I try and push myself to the limits of my understanding. I try and think of a time of great loss that I had trouble getting past or over. Every time I come up against this type of situation, of loss and sadness, I get filled with anger. I suppose it's a method of outwardly directing problems that plague me, but that is what I do.

The reason for this divergence is that I realize just how important the idea of the witness is to the problem posed by the camps, but I myself couldn't do it. Without the witness, we would have no stories to hear and learn from. As that is the most important part of these kinds of studies, I believe, to never forget what happened. Just as it is the duty, as they see it, of some survivors to tell their story to anyone who wants to listen. Being a witness takes a lot of courage, almost a different kind of courage than fighting back. I'd like to point out though, that some people are innately inclined to fight back. That mentality of “If I'm going out, I'm taking as many people as I can” takes courage too. The stories of those people will never be told. On some level, with my lack of identification with the experiences, I can somehow better relate to those that didn't get to tell their story. At least they don't have to live in a world where this kind of infinite injustice can occur. In a way, it's easier for these souls to exist because they don't anymore.

These mettlesome souls would agree that maybe just being a witness to the horror is not quite enough. The trials of the Nazis can be nearly unanimously agreed to have fallen far short of their intended or expressed goal of justice. Justice doesn't seem to have a place in the world where the camps existed, this is partly because right and wrong became blurred in the quest for survival. The situation where the witness and the survivor and the fighter and the camp guard all exist is one where no normal laws of understanding can be used. Ultimately it depends on how one defines evil, but we've certainly been given a benchmark for the precedent of evil incarnate.

Written By: Javier Nelson