Nitzotz: The Spark of Resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp

1. Introduction to Nitzotz

3 1 Introductionto Nitzotz The problem of representation during and after the Holocaust is a mainstay of Holocaust studies. There is a widespread sentiment among Holocaust scholars that critical reflection was impossible within the concentration camps—that the victim, physically and spiritually bankrupt, had lost the capacity to speak.1 Even if words were possible, these scholars emphasize, there was no audience to hear them. In this context, the sophisticated moral and political analysis within the pages of Nitzotz is a powerful testament to human resilience. Against all odds, the authors of Nitzotz found a voice within the camps, and they gambled everything to preserve it for posterity. Writing in Context Historical interest in the written attempts by Holocaust survivors to make sense of their experiences is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the decades after the war, Holocaust scholarship focused primarily on Nazi documents: SS reports, government correspondence, and office dispatches. When the official archives were exhausted and collective memory of the Nazi atrocities began to recede, personal accounts emerged as a new means of understanding everyday life in the camps. And in the 1980s and 1990s, spurred by scholarly interest and their own encroaching old age, many survivors committed their memories to writing. Nonetheless, many scholars clung to their earlier assumptions about the kind of writing that was possible during the Holocaust. They believed that one could not digest the terrors of the Holocaust as one lived them—that reflection would be possible only years later.2 According to this view, the prisoners of the concentration camps were traumatized by their experiences. 4 . The Voice of Resistance Understanding what transpired would entail rupturing the silence that infected the victims, so that their voices might finally be heard.3 During recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in contemporaneous accounts and a corresponding reevaluation of the reactions and capabilities of the victims during the event. Against this backdrop, the journals and letters that survived the war are an indispensable resource. In 2002, Yale University Press released a major English translation of a journal written by Herman Kruk in the Vilna ghetto and the Estonian labor camp Klooga. Avraham Tory’s diary has been a mainspring of the historical literature on Kovno ghetto. Diaries and documents have surfaced from the Lodz and Warsaw ghettos and the Breitenau labor camp.4 Many of these accounts transcend their authors. Some are very much community endeavors. And many were preserved as the most crucial belongings of the survivors.5 Meanwhile, underground communities in a number of ghettos circulated journals and newsletters to debate ideological issues, to inform residents about developments within and outside the ghettos, and to prepare members for armed or unarmed resistance. From the Warsaw ghetto alone (the most famous repository) nearly fifty such newspapers were preserved, the majority of which were produced by the Zionist youth.6 Still, as a surviving document, Nitzotz remains in a category of its own. The uncovering of a wealth of underground literature produced in the ghettos has done little to dispel the conventional wisdom that ideological debate had no place within the concentration camps—that the prisoners of the camps, if not the ghettos, were consumed by the struggle for survival.7 In the world of Holocaust literature, the content of Nitzotz is something of an anomaly. Very little writing survived the concentration camps. The few treasures that were preserved were of a personal nature: memoirs and diaries, poetry, and letters. For many authors, newly bereft of friends and family, writing was a substitute for human companionship. Others wrote to leave a trace in a world from which the Nazis sought to erase them. The authors of Nitzotz were motivated by a different challenge. Rather than provide a written record of a life and community that would soon be stamped out, they aspired to prepare through writing for a life and community that would someday exist.8 The articles in Nitzotz are predominantly political and ideological. They contain virtually no reference to everyday life Introduction to Nitzotz . 5 in the camp. Although the journal occasionally featured memoirs and poetry that engaged the human tragedies of the camp, they too were firmly rooted in community. The articles in Nitzotz assume life, not death—for the Jewish people, if not for the authors. Concededly, Nitzotz is something of an anomaly. The authors of Nitzotz were “privileged” in their ability to produce a...