In a study of the memoirs of Wiesel, Levi, Frankel and the diary of Anne Frank the reader can see different dimensions of survival and endurance of the persecuted during The Event. Surviving the process of hiding or the unknown of travel to the camps. Survival of horrific camp conditions including hard labor and unsanitary conditions. Survival of starvation in camps or in some cases the hardships of acquiring food while in hiding. Survival of spiritual and religious grounding, especially seen in Wiesel’s works, the avoidance of spiritual death. Lastly, the survival of psychological devastation including the psychology of prisoners, loss of and/or separation from family and friends, daily killings, fear of death, and other psychological factors as discussed in Frankel’s work and other issues as faced by Jews in hiding. The survival strategies of those who endured hiding and concentration camps are different in type but similar in nature; every oppressed person wanted to survive with their life.
Jews in hiding:
Enduring the process of hiding
secrecy Secrecy and defiance of the Reicht are themes we see prominently in Anne Frank’s Diary. Reading Anne’s writings the reader can see that she understood the injustice and wanted to resist what was happening, she showed us a side of confinement and the stress that the secrecy of hiding had on her and her cohabiters.
Not only is her family in secret hiding but she wishes to use the diary as a friend with whom she is completely comfortable revealing her secrets and a safeguard for emotional survival (Timms 178). Anne stated that she will use the diary as a friend with whom she will be able to have mutual trust unlike her “real” friends, even her best friend (Frank, June 15, 1942). In writing this diary Anne writes in Dutch, rather than her native German, not only as a defiance to the German regime, but also to maintain her secrecy from others in the “Secret Annex” due to the fact that she was more fluent in Dutch than the other members of her family (Timms 185). Anne also uses the diary to state the defiance she felt towards the Germans when she makes her list of rules for the secret annex which contained anti German rues such as “No German music” and “No German books” (Timms 184). Though in a time of stress when her beloved paperwork was accidentally ruined by spilled water, she reverted to lamenting in German; “ I was so upset I started speaking German…” (Frank, May 20, 1944). This was psychologically revealing of the stressful impact the war was having on Anne (Timms 186). The use of Dutch was a comfort to Anne because she could “shield herself from her rawest of emotions, providing her with a protective shield” and saw the Dutch people in Annes eyes were her protectors, “Tolerant and civilized, not hard and mean” (Timms 186).
There were many acts of defiance much larger than language (for the fact that they were illegal) such as using illegal ration booklets to obtain supplies such as food and soaps. It was illegal to be in hiding as a Jew as well as to aide a Jew in hiding, there fore Miep and the others who helped them hide were knowingly committing a crime because they believed in doing the morally right thing, however illegal it may be.
Defiance can again be seen in the many people who risked and even lost their lives to hide Jews during the war.women of valor
Children in hiding:
Children in hiding were, if not in hiding with their nuclear families were often hidden with non-Jewish friends, in churches or orphanages. Young children mainly infants and toddlers, were easier to hide because they were less likely to expose themselves due to the fact that they adapt more easily to a new living situation and have less memories of their heritage as a Jew. Girls were easier to hide than boys due to the Jewish tradition of circumcision which left boys (if discovered) unable to hide the fact that they were Jewish. Some boys had to live as girls to avoid this exposure. Living as a girl meant that not only did the boy lose his culture but his gender as well. Polish speaking boy, for example, would also lose their language because of the structure of Polish the language is spoken differently by women than men so he would have to learn to speak like a girl. Children hidden in churches would have to learn Christian traditions, especially those hidden in Catholic Church; learning prayers traditions and going to confession without being found out was a source of stress for the children. Some hidden children were difficult to find and recover after the war; If a child had been passed from one family to another to hide them, it became extremely different, especially if their name was changed to locate the child post-war. Children hidden in orphanages were often left orphans after the war, some were however found opts-war by friends or family members. Many orphanages charged a fee called a “redemption fee” to recover the child. Some children who were hidden with Christian families during the war were difficult to recover due to the attachment to the host family and the host family refusing to let go of their attachment to the child. Some families were in hiding in walls, cabinets and other cramped and hidden places, living in constant fear of being discovered. Some families hidden in churches were able to remain hidden for the duration of the war due to help from church leaders. Boredom was a challenge, especially for children in hiding. In hiding places the children were encouraged to remain still and quiet all day to avoid detection. Reading was a common activity even if they had to read the same book again and again, to ward off boredom in silence.
food etc…anne frank It was a daly struggle to stay quietly hidden and to find the necessities of life such as clean food and water. Some were lucky having illegal ration booklets and or help from Christian friends, like the Frank Family, others had to live on only what they could find at night.
family dynamics Anne Frank wrote extensively about the changing family dynamics as well as personality changes among the who are in hiding. Living in hiding and secrecy was a type of captivity for Anne. She wrote about he arguing and the “toungue bitting” it took to keep the peace at times.
death/illness in hidingOne difficult aspect of being in hiding was the difficulty of obtaining medical care. Jews in hiding were unable to obtain medications or medical advice and often suffered illness and sometimes death. Selma Goldstien, a jewish woman who survived in hiding with her family through the war, recounts that her father became ill and passed away while they were in hiding. The sadness and grief was overshadowed by the danger of disposing of his remains; the family had to wait until dark and the neighbors helped cover him within a bed, take him out, telling other neighbors that the bed needed to be cleaned, and a “good policeman” helped watch over them while they buried him in a field on the outskirts of the town.
Piecemeal encroachment
The book “Night” explains the piecemeal encroachments upon the freedoms of the Jewish people in Wiesel’s community leading up to the Holocaust; as well as disbelief of rumors that circulated in Europe about the Nazi regime. Wiesel explains to us how the people were so slowly encroached upon that it was too late when they realized their freedoms had been taken from them and they were forced into incarceration. He tells us stories such as the first train ride to a concentration camp and realizing that they could be murdered there, forced labor and deplorable living situations at the camps, courtyard hangings, death marches and starvation. His vivd imagery and blunt story telling let us see the true horror of what he survived and the tragedy of every life lost, stolen.
travel to the camps. Wiesel and Levi each describe in their memoirs their trips and booking onto concentration camps. The trip to a concentration camp includes a train trip on an over crowded cattle car, and upon arrival being stripped of all possessions, and often family members as the gender segregation and immediate selection separated prisoners. The prisoners were stripped of personal possessions, clothing including shoes, shaven including women hair, and bathed before being issued new clothing and a tattoo number on their arm. The tattoo would become the prisoners new name, and he (or she) must learn to recognize it in German, regardless of speaking the language or not…“I have learnt that I am Häftling. My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die” (Levi 27). Here Levi uses the reference to baptism to incite the severity of the situation. The “baptism” into the concentration camp and into a new and different life of imprisonment. The language barrier of the camps wherein many prisoners were from many different countries made the communication in the camps difficult, especially for new arrivals who did not “know the ropes.” Through a Biblical reference Levi describes the situation as a “perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning…no one has patience, no one listens to you…” (Levi, 38).
Survival of horrific camp conditions including
Levi and Wiesel each described the back breaking labor in the camps and the inhumane treatment of prisoners; According to Levi the environment was designed to be dehumanizing.
Precisely because the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent (Levi 41).
It is this will to survive and the horrors of this camp that drive Levi to write and speak out about the fascism of the Nazis (Schehr 441). The struggle to endure and survive the struggles of this environment was unimaginable. Many turned on one another and some stuck together to help one another to survive. Levi described the rare gift of help during he received during hard labor. Resnyk, a fellow prisoner helped Levi when he was struggling with the strenuous labor of moving sleepers (building materials). The sleepers were extremely heavy and for a man of small stature, as Levi describes himself, it was difficult to manage the labor of the task. Resnyk was a larger stronger man who helped Levi to manage the task by taking more of the weight of the sleeper so that Levi would avoid punishment for not keeping up with the task (Levi, 67). Wiesel recounted the selection processing which prisoners are “inspected” for fitness for work, and if they did not pass they would be killed; in the description of the selection, Wiesel recounts running as fast as he could to prove his fitness thus ensuring his survival until next selection (Wiesel, Night, 72). Wiesel and Levi also each recount the starvation in the camps. Prisoners were fed only soup with some vegetables, if they were lucky and bread, often which contained sand in starvation rations. Many prisoners would fight over food, and try to obtain favor with the Kapo or cook in order to get a ration with more substance. Prisoners often ate their ill friends rations to give themselves and edge, some would eat only half their bread and save the other for later, still some ate what they had as soon as possible to prevent it from being stolen. Every calorie a prisoner could consume was one calorie closer to survival. Wiesel spoke of Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah and fasting that is a tradition of the holiday, but that he refused to fast. First because his father asked him not to, for survival purposes, because of this starvation rations they were already enduring; second, refusing to fast was in some ways a spiritual “symbol of rebellion, of protest” against God (Wiesel, Night, 69). Conditions in the camp made it difficult for Wiesle (and many others) to remain spiritual.
unsanitary conditions. The sanitation of the camps was deplorable. Prisoners did not have regular access to soaps or clean running water, laundry services or proper toilets. In the night prisoners had to defecate in a bucket, which when full, had to be carried to be dumped.
death march The transportation of prisoners from one camp to another post-evacuation, via making the prisoners run long distances on no food or water, in the snow while inadequately dressed. The name death marches refers to the many people who dies on the journey due to the deplorable conditions. Wiesel and his fathers were victims of a death march and they luckily survived the march. Wiesel recounts a father who was searching for his son, believing he had mistakenly left him behind, Wiesel said he had not seen the son, but it was a lie…Wiesel knew the son had left him, in an effort to “free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival” (Wiesel, Night, 91).
Lastly, the survival of psychological devastation including the
psychology of prisoners,
loss of and/or separation from family and friends,
daily killings,
fear of death, and other
psychological factors as discussed in Frankel’s work
Liberation
Wiesel recounts the quick battle that liberated Buchenwald, and recalls that his only thoughts after his liberation were of bread and how the prisoners threw themselves into the provisoina; soon he became sick and was in a hospital, and a corpse looked at him in the mirror (Wiesel, Night, 115). Levi recounted the difficulty in surviving the last days in camp as he was in the infirmary and was not evacuated with the rest of the camp, they had ample potatoes but it was not sufficient food and some people continued to die, especially those who were already very weak or ill (Levi, 153).