6 | APRIL 15 • 2021
N
ot long after the grue-
some reality of the
Holocaust had burst
onto the world’s consciousness,
the philosopher and social
theorist Theodor
Adorno famous-
ly observed
in 1949 that
writing poetry
after Auschwitz
was barbaric —
“nach Auschwitz
ein Gedicht zu
schreiben, ist bar-
barisch.
”
Less well known but equally
insightful was Adorno’s sub-
sequent conclusion, expressed
in a 1966 radio address in
Germany, that Auschwitz,
itself, constituted nothing less
than a “relapse into barbarism.”
Adorno understood that the
Shoah’s calculated, systematic
savagery was an absolute devi-
ation from the fundamental
norms of civilization and civi-
lized behavior. To be valid, any-
thing written or said about the
Holocaust, whether in poetry
or prose, must first and fore-
most encapsulate and reflect
its barbaric essence. Aesthetic
sensitivities and considerations
must yield to the undeniable
absolute evil that sparked and
perpetrated the genocide of
European Jewry, requiring us
to absorb and try to come to
terms with the unprecedented,
the unfathomable and, above
all, the inexplicable.
Perhaps the most cogent
context for this inexorable
immersion into the unknown
was given by my late teacher
and mentor Elie Wiesel, who
explained in his essay “
A Plea
for the Dead” that “
Auschwitz
signifies not only the failure
of two thousand years of
Christian civilization, but also
the defeat of the intellect that
wants to find a Meaning —
with a capital M — in history.
What Auschwitz embodied had
none.”
Menachem
Z. Rosensaft
Times of
Israel
GETTY IMAGES/JTA
PURELY COMMENTARY
continued on page 10
1942 - 2021
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essay
Writing Poetry Helps Me Process
the Unspeakable Evils of the Holocaust
Barbed wire fence against a dark sky