An essay, or a gnawing thought, for our consideration:
Did it really happen — who tells this story (who listens) — and how it is used . . . (* see note from the Haggadah at very bottom of this page)
A ‘retelling of a story’ is especially critical when the ‘retelling’ itself demands that we (each and every one of us) re-experience the whole thing (an ex. of the Haggadah: ‘as if we ourselves came out of Egypt’) — in our own time experience degradation, slavery, death, liberation, and rebirth . . .
Here is one of the writer’s thoughts (of today’s essay):
That my chosen medium is fiction further complicates matters, particularly when people continually try to deny the reality of the Holocaust. These things really happened, a survivor said to me at that survivor appreciation luncheon. If you make it fiction, people will think it isn’t true.
_________
This guest opinion piece talks of the story of the Holocaust — as it is now being re-told.
One question that emerges: is this ‘re-telling’ a current Haggadah for our times?
After all, the Haggadah does re-tell a story — but it is not the story of the actual survivors, instead, it is the story of the reader, the listener, the one who attends the Seder, and the one who either asks questions or is incapable of asking questions — or perhaps the one who does not see him or herself in the story . . .
By Daphne Kalotay
Ms. Kalotay is the author of the award-winning short story collection “The Archivists.” She teaches at Princeton University. This opinion piece appears in today’s New York Times Guest Opinion.
Second and Third Generation Storytellers Are Telling the Story of the Holocaust Now
(full story link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/opinion/second-and-third-generation-storytellers-are-telling-the-story-of-the-holocaust-now.html). If you would like to read the entire essay, and can’t break the firewall, let me know and I will copy it and ‘send’)
Some years ago, I was invited to a luncheon event where the majority of guests were survivors of the Holocaust. I was there to present “Relativity,” a short story I’d written inspired by my family. In it a social worker who aids Holocaust survivors becomes a living archive of stories shared by his more vocal clients.
The story grew from the history my grandmother, great-aunt and great-uncle shared with us over the years. Offering testimony is not a given, of course. My father, who was 4 years old when the war ended, does not speak of that time, whereas his sister recently gave her testimony to the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
Earlier in my career, I needed emotional distance from this material. In my novel “Russian Winter,” for instance, Uncle George’s stories of the labor camp transformed into those of the character I called the Happy Forced Laborer — George’s actual nickname — in the gulag.
But as the witnesses in my family began to die, I incorporated their voices more overtly into my work while still confronting the topic elliptically. Just as some survivors do not speak outright of their experiences, I prefer a story to address the topic at a slant.
I’m grappling, of course, with the fact that I am one generation removed — I was not alive during the war — and these memories belong to others. At the same time, second-generation storytellers have grown up with something pervading our existence. “Secondhand smoke,” as one of the Happy Forced Laborer’s daughters calls it. At a remove yet just as toxic.
(Clipped also above) ->
That my chosen medium is fiction further complicates matters, particularly when people continually try to deny the reality of the Holocaust. These things really happened, a survivor said to me at that survivor appreciation luncheon. If you make it fiction, people will think it isn’t true.
Hope to see everyone this afternoon at 3:30 PM …
Rabbi Seth Frisch / מהרש״ף
Lerhaus Bet Midrash: A New School of Jewish Thought and Learning
www.newshulofamerica.org
(215) 385-0778
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* From the Haggadah . . .
Therefore in every generation, every person is obligated to look upon himself and is he himself had gone forth out of Egypt, and it is written, and thou shall declare unto thy son in that day, saying, this is done because of that which the lord did unto me, when I came forth out of Egypt. Not only our ancestors did he redeem, blessed be his holy name, but even us did he redeem with them.
בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה’ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרַיִם. לֹא אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בִּלְבָד גָּאַל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֶלָּא אַף אוֹתָנוּ גָּאַל עִמָּהֶם
