64 Friday, June 22, 1919
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Dr. Martin About Significance of Bettelheim Essays:
Survivors' Life Instinct Sears Conscience of Man
BY DR. PETER A MARTIN
In deep respect for the
feelings of the survivors of
that mass murder of Jews
called the Holocaust, I feel
but partially qualified to
write this book review of
Bruno Bettelheim's "Sur-
Viving and Other Essays"
(Knopf).
As a psychoanalyst, I am
qualified to comment on the
psychoanalytic formula-
tions made in this selection
of essays written by Bruno
Bettelheim during the past
thirty years. But only a sur-
vivor can understand the
experience itself.
As Bettelheim says, sur-
vivors feel exasperated and
helpless when others who
have not the slightest idea
what their experiences were
like, hold forth as if they
, knew their real meaning. I
will attempt to avoid such
an error and present what
Bettelheim, a survivor of
Dachau and Buchenwald as
well as a world reknowned
child psychologist, presents
as the real meaning of these
dehumanizing expriences.
I am basing most of this
review on the essay which I
believe is the most impor-
tant in the book — "The
Holocaust — One Genera-
tion Later." It gives not only
the deepest understanding,
but highlights its signifi-
cance for the present gener-
ation.
Bettelheim bases his
understanding on Freud's
theory of the presence of a
death instinct as well as a
life instinct in humans. Al-
though Freud's theory of a
death instinct has generally
not been accepted by
psychoanalysts or scientists
of other disciplines, its use
does lead to a clearer under-
standing of the feelings and
behavior of the death camp
victims.
Bettelheim uses two
creative writers, them-
selves survivors, who
search for meaning of
these terrible events.
Their poetic artistry
paints the picture vividly.
We can include Bet-
telheim himself among
the creative writers. He
writes beautifully, as
illustrated in these essays
and by his previous book,
"The Uses of Enchant-
ment," which won the
National Book Award
and the National Book
Critic's Circle Award in
11,7"_
_ Elie Wiesel is quoted to
picture the survivors' reac-
tions to the use ofpsycholog-
ical defenses by others to
avoid facing the upsetting
reality of what the extermi-
,
of the camps, his parents
had perished in them. He
could not overcome the af-
tereffects and commited
suicide in 1970. He put the
experience that we must try
to understand onto one of
his poems. What follows is a
short excerpt:
DR. PETER MARTIN
nation of the Jews was all
about.
"Those who have not lived
through the experience will
never know, those who have
will never tell; not really,
not completely. Auschwitz
means death, total absolute
death — of man and of all
people, of language and im-
agination, of time and
spirit. The survivor knows.
He and no one else .. .
"The survivors will soon
be unwelcome intruders.
Their assassins are now in
the limelight. People are
more interested in their kil-
lers. This attitude exists
among Jewish and non-
Jewish intellectuals alike."
Often, Bettelheim
states, he has felt that
only withdrawal into si-
lence will do. But if the
survivors remain silent
then they perform as the
Nazis wanted — behave
as if it never did happen.
Thus they must speak up
so that thoughtful men
will develop attitudes to
prevent it from ever hap-
pening again.
What Bettelheim states
we must try to understand
about this appalling crime
of turning Jews into name-
less bodies to be destroyed
indiscriminately. That
they have faced the ulti-
mate abyss of the death
camps with its unimagina-
ble murderous terror. The
terror they faced is: the de-
structive potentialities in
man. The nature and the
implications of the death
camps cannot be fully
grasped by the rest of us if
we shy away from facing
these destructive poten-
tialities in man.
German poet Paul Ce-
lan's poetry is used to cap-
ture the plight of the death
camp victims who were
"turned into shadows of
their former selves, soon to
be made into numbers in a
hell which never recognized
them as persons, but only as
nameless bodies to be de-
stroyed indiscriminately."
Celan had been an inmate
"There was earth in them,
and they dug.
They dug and dug, and thus
their day wore on, and their
night.
And they did not praise God,
who, they heard, willed all
this
who, they heard; knew all
this."
When Celan received
the Buchner Prize, he
said "He who walks on
his head sees the sky be-
neath him like an abyss."
Bettelheim explains this
statement as being the
perspective of those who
have earth in them as
they dig — while they are
still alive, they have al-
ready returned to the
earth from which they
came, as they dig their
own graves.
"Their perspective is no
longer a human one, with
the sky above them; all they
can perceive is the terror of
the abyss."
Celan concludes his un-
named poem as follows:
"Oh someone, oh none, oh no
one, oh you:
Where did it go, if nowhere it
went.
Oh you dig and I dig, and I
dig myself towards you,
And on our finger the ring
awakes us."
The "you" to whom he re-
fers, is you the reader, you
the fellow human being. If
he digs and you dig towards
him, both are awakened by
the contact of the fingers
which touch. This was not
done or the Holocaust might
have been prevented. The
world refused to listen to the
digging of the victims. The
mechanism of denial was
too strong.
The death drive in the
Nazi monsters was not
recognized or was de-
nied. The life drive from
humanity around the
world was insufficiently
activated to touch fingers
with the earth diggers.
Thus, "the behavior of
the Jews; who, without
offering resistance, per-
mitted themselves to be
walked to the gas cham-
bers cannot be com-
prehended ... without
reference to the death
tendencies that exist in
all of us.
"After thelorrible trans-
port into the death camps,
when confronted with the
BRUNO BEITELHEIM
gas chambers and cre-
matoria, the life drives in
the Jews, who were de-
prived of everything that
had given them security,
robbed of all hope for them-
selves and, worst of all, des-
erted by the entire world,
were no longer able to keep
their death drive in bounds.
But in their case, the death
tendencies were not di-
rected outside, against
others, but turned inward,
against the self."
America
and
its
President were as guilty as
any other country in the sin
of omission. No one cared.
Had there been concern
abroad, the Nazis would
have had to stop their ex-
termination of the Jews.
Never again should Jews
be allowed to feel the des-
perate cry of the poet "Oh
someone" and have "no one"
respond. This is the respon-
sibility which Jews must
take for each other. How
pathetically far we are from
that ideal. How deaf many
Jews are to the lesson de-
lineated in this book and
many other publications.
The material is not
new. I repeat it in this re-
view because it is so eas-
ily forgotten. And what a
horrible price is ulti-
mately paid by the vic-
tims when the path of
least resistance is fol-
lowed and the
mechanism of denial is
utilized to avoid the pain
of the truth.
I have not responded to
essays on other themes be-
cause to do so would blunt
the point of the meaning of
the survivors' experiences
and their themes pale in
significance. Also, when I
read the book for the first
time, my mind led to how
the term survivors seems to
minimize what many of
them have since accom-
plished. To call them heroes
would give a more accurate
picture of what they were
and what they are. The
work of men like Bet-
telheim, Elie Wiesel and
Simon Wiesenthal illus-
trates the creative potential
of the life instinct that re-
sides in man. However, at-
tention to this important
part of human nature in-
furiates some survivors.
Efforts to make the sur-
vivors appear as unusual,
most superior persons
draws attention away from
the millions who were mur-
dered. With this, I agree.
Despite my great respect for
many of my friends and
patients who have contrib-
uted so much since leaving
the concentration camps
and despite my personal de-
sire to stress the victories of
Eros over Thanatos, I won't.
By implying that the
death camps produced
superior beings as sur-
vivors, all of our interest
would be focused on the su_
vival of a lucky few, at the
cost of neglecting the mil-
lions who were slaughtered.
As the division psychiatrist
of an Infantry Division in
World War II, that walked
into the stench of Nor-
dhausen, when it was aban-
doned by the retreating
Nazis, I could not desecrate
the memory of the smell of
the dead. They were stacked
on top of one another as if
they were logs of wood. The
dying were an emaciated
collection of skin and bone.
Their eyes, sunk deeply into
their sockets, seared a
wound in my conscience
that will never heal.
It fights successfully
against the use of the
mechanism of denial of the
lesson to be learned from
the experiences of the sur-
vivors. Their lesson must
never be lost. Can you, the
reader, commit yourself to
this cause? Please think
about it.
Compromise Sought to Halt
Feud Between Chief Rabbis
By MOSHE RON
The Jewish News Special
Israel Correspondent
TEL AVIV — The Israeli
population has become ac-
customed to the clashes be-
tween the two chief rabbis,
Shlomo Goren and Ovadia
Yosef. If one of them orders
"kosher," the other one
claims "treife," If Chief
Rabbi Goren maintains that
according to the Torah, Is-
rael must not give up the
territories of Judea and
Samaria, Chief Rabbi Yosef
says that for a peace Israel
is allowed to do so.
In most questions, includ-
ing nominating rabbis to
the rabbinical courts, the
two chief rabbis are at
loggerheads.
Because of these quarrels
it was impossible for years
to hold elections for new
chief rabbis. Last time, the
elections had to be post-
poned at the last minute be-
cause there was a chance
that the new Ashkenazi
chief rabbi would be a can-
didate of the Sephardi Chief
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The
Knesset ordered a post-
ponement of the elections
for a year in order to try and
find a compromise.
Minister for Religious
Affairs Ahron Abu-
Hatzeira has prepared a
compromise: A division
of the office of chief rabbi
and of president of the
Rabbinical High Court.
Today the two chief rab-
bis fulfill both missions.
Under the compromise
the two chief rabbis would
be elected for a period of 10
years, but alternate five-
year terms as chief rabbi
and president of the Court.
The two chief rabbis have
rejected this formula. Ac-
cording to the law the elec-
tions should take place in
three months, but it appears
that they will be postponed
again. -
In the meantime, there
are no rabbis and members
of the rabbinical court in
some towns and villages.
According to the law, local
rabbis are to be nominated
by the two chief rabbis.
Abu-Hatzeira tried to
make peace between the
two chief rabbis and find
a way for nominating 15
new members of the rE0- -
binical courts. WE-
these efforts failed, irk-
-chose 15 members out of
40 candidates. The two
chief rabbis had to
confirm them, but
no "peace-agreement"
could be achieved.
The dispute has affected
the appointment of new
rabbis, and consequently,
the supervision of kashrut.
Some hotels are beginning
to circumvent the strict
kashrut laws because of a
lack of supervision.
The government has ap-
pointed a special Cabinet
committee to arrange a
peace between the chief
rabbis and hold the rabbini-
cal elections.