Fragment -- #93

[April 1999 journal entry]
I recently read Terrence des Pres’ 1976 publication -- The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. des Pres (d. 1987) was an English Literature professor at Colgate University (1973-87). Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors, The Survivor has become a classic interpretation of concentration camp existence. des Pres identified his subject in the first sentence –

“My subject is survival, the capacity of men and women to live beneath the pressure of protracted crisis, to sustain terrible damage in mind and body and yet to be there, sane, alive, still human” (p. v).

He described the Nazi death camps as ‘extremity’ experiences. I have not yet had such experiences fully and firsthand. I have been very near as a spouse, as a friend, as a prompter. I have been and continue to be near enough to have been changed personally/existentially and to serve as an interpreter. I am a volunteer of sorts. I feel a responsibility (1) to tell the victims’/survivors’ stories of maintaining integrity and remaining ‘human’ and (2) to encourage those professionals who choose to be near enough the victims/survivors to respect and to strengthen them. My thoughts while reading The Survivor included:

• The analogy of a soldier in a losing battle
  Possible writing project title – Equal to the Worst
  
  
• A survivor resolves to force those in authority/power to call a trial (a point unfortunately avoided by the author of the story/play Job in the whirlwind section, thus leaving it ambiguous whether or not the ‘scrapheap’ Job should be seen as a ‘survivor’).
  
  
• Note the subtle temptations to yield to those in authority/power and, therefore, to violate one’s integrity.
  
  
• Being with my first wife (d. 1987) as truly/authentically as possible through her battle with multiple sclerosis meant having my ‘conventionalities’/‘civilities’ taken away, resulting in clarification of what was/is ‘the simple truth’ or ‘the integrity’ or ‘the core humanity’ in my life.
  
  
• The question facing the ‘scrapheap’ Job – “Will I be a survivor?”
  
  
• There is considerable personal and social pressure to forget (or not to notice) the breadth/depth of human suffering. What are the implications for ‘memory’ and ‘remembering’?
  
  
• Job’s three close friends are most ‘human’ in their initial response from afar – i.e., feeling and expressing horror at Job’s situation/plight. Their initial response approaches being the friends Job so desperately needs (i.e., the 6:14 type friend). But then they quickly fail.
  
  
• My attempt to be truly/authentically with my first wife in her illness and death (1) eventually had nothing to do with being faithful to ‘God’ or to ‘Jesus’ (as such concepts/constructs died for me in their ‘religious’ meaning) or to a ‘religious’ tradition/denomination, but (2) centrally had to do with being genuinely present with the person to whom I had vowed to be present ‘for better or worse’ whatever the cost. To be genuinely present with her in her ‘extremity’ was unavoidably to be unfaithful to ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ as understood within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm/sphere.