The Aftermath: Living with the Holocaust (review)

204 SHOFAR Spring 1996 Vol. 14, No.3 even enroll them in the courses at all? Their race and their religion should make them automatic experts. Martin S. Goldman Institute ofJewish-Christian Relations Merrimack College The Aftermath: Living with the Holocaust, by Aaron Hass. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 203 pp. $21.95. There have been hundreds of important books written about the Holocaust by historians, psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and others. This book is one among the few that make a significant contribution to understanding the Holocaust from the perspective of the Holocaust survivors who witnessed, lived, suffered, and survived with their painful memories. Hass interviewed 58 survivors from 11 countries who are currently residing in the United States. The author tells us that while some were reluctant to be interviewed by him, many did so because they wanted to tell the story and perhaps unload their burden. A more salient reason for panicipating is that they are very troubled by the fact that people forget the Holocaust. As one survivor said, "I feel sad because I'm afraid we are going to die out and there won't be any witnesses that there really was a concentration camp. They are already denying that it took place." Others were motivated to tell their stories because revisionist historians, as well as plain bigots, have taken on the task of denying the existence of the Holocaust or generalizing it into simply another violent event in human history, claiming that there was nothing unique about it. In the twelve chapters of the book, titled "A View of Survivors," "Whose Fault Was It?," "Mourning," "Vulnerabilities," "The Mask of the Survivor," "The Importance of Age," "Intrusions of Memory," "Survivor Families," "Was God Watching This?," "Revenge," "Collective Guilt," and "The Legacy," the author manages not to waste a single word. Each chapter is well constructed and clearly written. In Chapter One the author reviews the literature written on survivors and their adjustment or maladjustment, suffering, and perceptions of the world, one of which is that others do not care about their stories of suffering. The chapter continues with a discussion of the loss of physical ability brought on by advancing years. Survivors are particularly sensitive to this decline because of their previous terrors and feelings of vulnerabili- Book Reviews 205 ty. The network of social support also fades away as spouses or friends die and children move away. In Chapter Two, the profound question is asked, "Whose fault was it?" Many survivors feel guilty for not helping or staying with their loved ones who were to die. Thus survivors' guilt is a real and present factor in their lives. (This reviewer is a survivor who has similar feelings and nightmares from time to time.) Several survivors reflect the notion that there is something wrong with them because of the extraordinary hell that they have seen, lived, and experienced. The survivors are aware, as the author says, "that they are a tiny fraction of those who escaped their persecutors' sweeping hand of death." In Chapter Three, the author describes the mourning and sadness that many of the individuals feel. There appears to be a double sadness in the hearts of some survivors: first, that they were rejected by the people of the countries upon arrival, including Israel and the United States-even American Jews, and second, that the people of the host country were not interested in the Holocaust, forcing the survivors to carry the burden of memory alone. The chapter on the intrusion of memory is a very important one. The survivors have found that it is impossible to escape memories of the Holocaust. Because of their physical or psychological state of the past, thousands of stimuli have potential for eliciting strong feelings. Sights, smells, sounds, items, situations, people, evoke sadness or anger which reminds them of their terrifying experiences. One survivor said, "Many times I would come home from work upset. My children would ask, 'Why is daddy angry?' I wasn't angry, but something hit me that day, maybe I heard German spoken, maybe I heard someone talk about the Holocaust and they were wrong." Another survivor confessed, "When I see a...