Vicente Rosenberg, a young Jew born in Poland, was lucky.
In 1928 he sailed from Bordeaux, France, to Buenos Aires in search of a new life.
He arrived in Argentina with a meager sum in his pocket and a letter of recommendation from his uncle, which is addressed to the Polish bank in Buenos Aires, and despite its humble beginnings, he got to his feet, opened a shop and got married.
Vicente has long since forgotten Yiddish and learned to speak fluent Argentine Spanish, blended into society, and with the exception of Ariel, his friend from Poland, no one called him by his old name anymore.
"One can easily imagine the fate of Vicente, if in September 1940, instead of putting his children to bed after dinner in his peaceful home in Buenos Aires, he was still living in his homeland," says Santiago Amigorne, an Argentine writer, director and playwright living in Paris and Rosenberg's grandson. Conversation with "Israel of the Week" ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day to be celebrated next week.
That Friday, September 13, after telling the children a story they loved to hear before bed about inventing their last name in the Napoleonic era ("an old Jewish legend - or a new family legend," Amigorna calls it), he suddenly came across a question from his little daughter Martha: "But Before that, what was our name before that? " - and did not know what to answer. He promised the children to ask their grandmother, who remained in Poland. When the children finally fall asleep, Amigorna continues, Vicente must have been angry with himself for knowing he might not be able to keep his promise. That is, he knew he could write to his mother and ask what their name was before they were called Rosenberg, but he knew he probably would not get an answer. After all, for months she had not replied to any of his letters.
What happened next to his grandfather and the important people in his life, Amigorna describes in his book "The Inner Ghetto" (Literature Notebook Publishing, French: Abigail Burstein).
The events unfold in three seemingly different but intertwined axes: Vicente's life in Buenos Aires, his mother's life in occupied Poland, as reflected in letters she sent him, and the Nazis' progress toward realizing the "Final Solution," which would cut off the lives of millions of Jews, including Vicente's mother. .
The bond of silence
Vicente's body, being and life are in the center of the large and bustling Buenos Aires, among the crowds of people busy with daily affairs and rushing to the shops, betting on horse racing and satisfying hunger and thirst in noisy and happy restaurants and cafes.
It is not that his new compatriots were completely indifferent to the war that turned the world upside down.
In idle conversations between the halls in the main hall at the always-crowded El Imperial, or the fashionable Tortoni, alongside a vocal debate over municipal football games, they also talked about US attempts to negotiate with South American countries on a military agreement that would ensure protection Common in case of attack from countries outside the continent.
"But the Argentines suspected the Uruguayans, the Uruguayans suspected the Paraguayans, the Paraguayans in turn suspected the Chileans who suspected the Argentines ...", says Amigorna, adding that above all - no one probably cared about the small and scattered people slaughtered systematically and cruelly.
Unlike others around him, Vicente was unable to move on with his life, even though his knowledge of what happened in the old world was vague.
As a terrible tragedy occurred 12,000 miles away, his own drama unfolded.
The vast distance from Europe did not save Vicente from the ghetto, to which his mother, brother Berl and masses of other Jews were pushed.
Amigorna says that it is precisely personal salvation that becomes a curse.
The memories, pangs of conscience and longing to forget conquer the whole, to the end.
"The only thing Vicente sometimes hoped for, in the rare times he still hoped for something, was to wake up one fine morning after a gambling night that forced him to sleep from exhaustion and poverty, and wake up to forget everything," the protagonist's grandson writes, making it immediately clear that such a wake never came.
Your book is very different from other Holocaust books.
"The book was originally published in France about two years ago, in 2019, and since then I have talked about its various aspects in different countries, and also heard a lot of reactions. For me the main theme of the book is the silence in which Grandpa wrapped himself. Readers have referred to it as a book about the Holocaust, about the guilt of one who is far from the physical danger but drawn to the tragic intensity of the happenings.
"But for me it was really important to understand the way my grandfather left me his silence. I wrote many books about my silence, and here I could research its origins. I was exposed to so many stories about Holocaust survivors, people who suffered directly and were much more harmed than my grandfather, and most "The stories were characterized by the same element of silence. They stopped talking and could not tell about the atrocities until their deaths. My grandfather died when I was 7, and I remember him mostly as a silent person."
The Holocaust generation was silent because the horror could not be expressed in words. What, then, is the role of the third generation, to which you belong?
"I always joked that my grandfather's three daughters became psychoanalysts, as if to avoid expressing themselves and talking, preferring to hear the words of others. In my generation we look for the right words to tell the story. In that sense we have come a long way from silence, through trying to pick out words. Maybe my words are better than the words of the generation that preceded me, and the words of my children will be better than my own words. Through words. "
Do not you see forgetting as a threat?
"I believe that human history consists of forgetting and coming to terms with the past. This does not mean that one should not think about the past or live with the past, but at some point, not now but somewhere in the future, one must accept the past and look to the future. I understand much more complex to say It's in Israel than anywhere else, but I agree with the statement of the writer Jorge Luis Borges, that oblivion is the greatest forgiveness but also the greatest revenge. In the epilogue to the book, 'Is it true that we carry a liquid that keeps us alive or kills us, a history that can be told in words?'
"I have often claimed that I write only to survive my past. More than once I have written that forgetting is more important than memory."
The power of words
Although the "inner ghetto" does not delve into the German motives for committing the greatest crime in human history, Amigorna finds the roots of the Holocaust in Europe's Christian past: "In the 1,500 years since Christianity became a state religion, "The right to live among us if you remain Jews," then "you have no right to live among us," and finally "you have no right to live."
He discusses quite a few concepts that were used by the Germans and hid their actions under false, neutral and meaningless names, such as the gas chambers called in Nazi jargon "special facilities" and the gas flow called "special treatment", and spares no criticism of both the vocabulary of the executioners and attempts The later evasion of the world, which stood aside and did nothing.
Like many others, the term Holocaust, which has taken root in the English language as a nickname for the Holocaust, is not liked by Amigorna because of its literal meaning. "Whoever first chose the word Holocaust said, knowingly or unknowingly, that killing millions of Jews was a sacrifice, guiding the gods in exchange for asking for certain things," he reminds us above the pages of the "Inner Ghetto," pointing us all to the importance of the word in creating consciousness and memory.
What do you think about the voices that seek to downplay the significance of the Holocaust and paint it as one of many disasters that humanity has known?
"The Holocaust is unique because no genocide has ever been committed in such an orderly manner, and no country has ever been as guilty as Germany of doing such horrible things. Of course, other terrible tragedies have happened, in Rwanda for example, but they are not like the Holocaust in the sense that no one there legislated "Laws that established the need to kill other people. It is the so-called 'legal' cover for murder that, in my opinion, distinguishes between the Holocaust and murders with others. In fact, in this sense the Holocaust is unique because of the Germans, and not because of the Jews."
Santiago Amigorena, Photo: H. Bamberger
Being a Jew is a complex business
In one of his conversations with his friends, Vicente compares his Jewish origins to a heavy suitcase, which he and his people are forced to carry, whether they want to or not. Do you think it was "planted" in his mouth?
"It is clear that Vicente's conversations with his Jewish friends Ariel and Sami, the people closest to him in Buenos Aires, reflect my thoughts and my world of hesitation regarding the question 'Who is a Jew?' One of my friends remarked to me that they were not Jews, and I thought how strange it was: I have children who are not considered Jews, regardless of how I define them or they define themselves, but if they marry a Jewish woman - I will have Jewish grandchildren. ".
If I ask your sons who they are, what will be their answer?
"They will never answer that they are Jews. They will say that they are French, Argentine ...".
So maybe the traditional Jewish definition is not strange?
"It is certainly not absurd at certain moments in your life, because the identity of each of us is made up of many and varied things. I also will not always answer at first that I am a Jew, because alongside my Judaism I am also an Argentine, writer, father, and more. In my identity - it is an important and significant part. If someone tells me that I am not a Jew, I will obviously answer him immediately 'I am a Jew!' "A complete non-Jew, because none of us is required to be the same person at any moment in our lives."
Your heroes, like you, suffer from their inability to escape from their Judaism, but their views take place during the Holocaust, before the establishment of the State of Israel. What has changed with the establishment of the Jewish state?
"I put in Vicente's mouth the grievance about our diversity, that we are the only people that has no army and no state, and that we are Jews, but we have no idea what that means. He complains that the Jews are different, without land and nationality, and it is quite clear that When the State of Israel was established, I visited Israel only once, in 1982, but I can feel that this is also my country. At the same time, being a Jew after 1948 became something else.
"At the time the debate revolved around the question of whether a Jewish state should be established, and now that everyone knows it exists, other questions arise, such as whether one has to be Israeli to be Jewish, and whether one can be Jewish and stay away from Israel, in every sense. I am convinced things will continue to change. And with them the deliberations and questions will change. I keep asking 'who am I?', And the question 'what does it mean to be a Jew today?'
It is part of this question. "
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