Between Meir Dworzecki and Yehiel Dinur: amidah in the writing of Ka-Tzetnik 135633

ABSTRACT

The term amidah or Jewish resistance during the Holocaust has been controversial since its inception. Should it be limited to armed or at least active and collective operations, or should it include spiritual and moral responses? In his 1968 paper ‘The day-to-day stand of the Jews,’ Meir Dworzecki argued for the wider definition, and a similar approach is evident in Ka-Tzetnik’s Salamandra novels. This study employs Dworzecki’s perspective as a key for a close analysis of Ka-Tzetnik’s literary testimony. Read in tandem, these writers–survivors enrich our understanding of Jewish response and of the dynamics of early Israeli Holocaust discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Ka-Tzetnik
• Dworzecki
• Meir
• amidah
• Jewish Resistance
• Holocaust

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Or Rogovin is Assistant Professor, Silbermann Family Professor in Modern Hebrew Language and Literature, Department of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA.

Notes

1. The papers given at the conference are collected in Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust. For a discussion of the conference’s background, procedures, and contents, see Cohen, Israeli Holocaust Research, 208–25.

2. Meir Dworzecki, “The Day-to-Day stand of the Jews,” 153. For a survey of Dworzecki’s biography and a discussion of his scholarly contribution, see Cohen, “Dr Meir (Mark) Dworzecki.”

3. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 153, 190.

4. Dawidowicz, “Toward a History of the Holocaust,” 53–4.

5. “Debate,” Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, 66.

6. Tec, “Jewish Resistance,” 65–6. Dan Michman’s comprehensive discussion of the concept of Jewish resistance and the developments in the field presents ways to settle this terminological and ideological dispute. See Michman, Holocaust Historiography, 217–48.

7. Gottlieb, “The Concept of Resistance,” 335.

8. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 153.

9. Dworzecki makes this point also in Mahanot hayehudim be’estonia, 239. The issue has also been observed by Terrence Des Pres: ‘any sign of elementary humanness – pales to insignificance,’ in survivor testimonies, mainly because as a witness, ‘the survivor aims above all to convey the otherness of the camps, their specific inhumanity.’ The Survivor, 99.

10. Blumental, “Sources for the Study,” 47.

11. Michman, Holocaust Historiography, 217–18. See also Shapira, “The Holocaust,” 75–7.

12. Yablonka, The State of Israel, 226.

13. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 174. The Nazi assault against the Jews’ very humanity is central to Dworzecki’s understanding of the Holocaust. He makes a similar point in his Mahanot hayehudim be’estonia (239, 241), where an entire chapter is dedicated to amidah in the camps. The point is also made in his book on the Vilna ghetto, Yerushalaim delita, 127, 430.

14. Bauer, The Jewish Emergence, 27. Bauer’s italics.

15. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 119.

16. For Dworzecki’s reference to amidah as ‘conduct,’ see “Debate,” Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, 190. The Hebrew original reads hitnahagut (behavior). See “Debate,” in the Hebrew edition, Ha’amidah hayehudit bitkufat hashoah, 151.

17. This is a central theme in Dworzecki’s personal memoir, compiled of essays he published immediately after the war. See Dworzecki, Bein habtarim, 51, 52, 76. For a comparative discussion of the various versions of the texts included in the memoir, see Piekaz, Sifrut haedut al hashoa, 46–61.

18. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 174.

19. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, session 68, part 1. The website provides the complete protocol of the trial.

20. Dworzecki, “Ha’adam vehahevra nokhakh hashoah,” 12. My translation.

21. The 1946 Hebrew edition of Salamandra was translated from the Yiddish original which Dinur wrote in Italy immediately after the war and was never published. For comprehensive discussion of the text and its creation in the context of Dinur’s biography, see Szeintuch, Salamandra: Mitos vehistorya.

22. For a discussion of Ka-Tzetnik’s impact on Israeli society, see Miron, “Bein sefer le’efer”; Bartov, “Kitsch and Sadism”; Segev, The Seventh Million, 3–11.

23. Miron, “Bein sefer le’efer,” 156; Bartov, “Kitsch and Sadism.”

24. For some instances of this debate, see Libsker’s film, Stalags; Karpel, “Akhen tmunot kashot”; Kershner, “Israel’s Unexpected Spinoff”; Wallen, “Testimony and Taboo,” 5–8.

25. Glasner-Heled, “Reader, Writer, and Holocaust Literature.”

26. Milner, “The ‘Gray Zone’ Revisited”; Bartov, “Kitsch and Sadism,” 63.

27. Rogovin, “Ka-Tzetnik's Moral Viewpoint.”

28. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 153.

29. Ka-Tzetnik, Shivitti: A Vision, 15–16.

30. Popkin, “Ka-Tzetnik 135633,” 344.

31. Ibid., 347.

32. Litvin, Madrikh lamore, 203. English translation for this passage appears in Ka-Tzetnik's Kaddish, 152.

33. Litvin, Madrikh lamore, 203.

34. Analyzing the social map of the ghetto and camp that Ka-Tzetnik draws, Galia Glasner-Heled observes a certain degree – more of an emotional weakness than ideology – of the author’s identification with the perpetrator, while the Jews are portrayed in negative stereotypical lines. A gap, according to Glasner-Heled, is maintained between Ka-Tzetnik’s perception of himself and of the victims he attempts and presumes to represent. See Glasner-Heled, “Et mi meyatseg Ka-Tzetnik?,” 197.

35. Ka-Tzetnik, Salamandra, 9. The story of rebellion in this edition is limited to chapter 11, and the actual fighting is related in the last seven pages. In the 1971 edition of the book, which Dinur edited himself and which was translated as Sunrise over Hell, the description of the fighting is half as long.

36. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 160.

37. Ibid.

38. Ka-Tzetnik, Star Eternal, 38.

39. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 242–8.

40. Ibid., 105.

41. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 160; Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 67–68.

42. Ka-Tzetnik, ibid., 113.

43. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 163; Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 160.

44. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 7.

45. See, for example, Dworzecki’s chapter on the amidah of the prisoners in his book on the Estonian camps. The chapter is dedicated to the documentation of numerous acts of compassion and solidarity as the behavioral norm, rather than the exception. Dworzecki, Mahanot hayehudim b’estonia, 239–255.

46. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 112–13.

47. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 39.

48. Ibid., 41. Dinur refers to Fella’s moral character directly in his dedication on the Yiddish edition of House of Dolls. Addressing the photo on the cover (of a girl’s exposed breast tatood with Feld-Hure and a number which in the book itself is attributed to Fella), Dinur thanks the ‘Jewish daughter,’ who ‘has not lost human image even at the bottom of the abyss,’ for rescuing the diary on which the book is based (my translation). See Ka-Tzetnik, Dos Hoyz fun di Lyalkes. For a discussion of this dedication as a historical resource, see Szeintuch, Salamandra, 117–18.

49. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 162–3.

50. Ka-tzetnik, Atrocity, 183.

51. Dworzecki, Bein habtarim, 76.

52. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 160.

53. Marrus, “Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust,” 95.

54. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 170–1. Italics in original. For a discussion of this passage in the context of the Yiddish literary tradition, see Szeintuch, “The Myth of the Salamander,” 117–20.

55. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 171. Italics in original.

56. Ibid., 181–2.

57. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 160.

58. Esh, “The Dignity of the Destroyed,” 356. Nissenbaum is quoted in Ek, Straying on the Paths, 37.

59. Esh, “The Dignity of the Destroyed,” 356. Esh’s italics.

60. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 120. Bauer’s italics. Gutman, Ba'alatah uva-maʼavak, 79, 84.

61. Ka-Tzetnik, Atrocity, 200–1.

62. Ibid., 202.

63. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 174.

64. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, session 68, part 1.

65. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 153; “Ha’amidah behayey yom-yom,” 121.

66. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 174; “Ha’amidah behayey yom-yom,” 137.

67. Dworzecki, “Day-to-Day,” 174; “Ha’amidah behayey yom-yom,” 137.

68. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls, 141–2.

69. Ibid., 142.

70. Ka-Tzetnik, House of Dolls,144–5. Ka-Tzetnik’s italics.

71. Ibid., 143.

72. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 130.

73. Ibid., 131.

74. Sofsky, The Order of Terror, 161.

75. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 203.

76. Ibid., 203.

77. Ka-tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 205, 203.

78. Ibid., 203.

79. Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise over Hell, 204.

80. Cohen, Israeli Holocaust Research, 218, 214.

81. See Dworzecki’s essay “Shonim hayu darkhei hama’avak,” in Dworzecki, Bein habtarim, 52.

82. Cohen, Israeli Holocaust Research, 213–14.

83. “Debate,” Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, 187.