Page:Minority of One March 1961.pdf/8

“And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

Many a pseudo-psychologist and pseudo-sociologist has been attempting to reconstruct the mentality of the millions of people who were led to death by Hitler's executioners without offering resistance. From the comfort of their living rooms and rebelling against nothing but the slightly burned supper their wives have just fed them; or against the worn out ribbon of their typewriter; or against the hissing of a defective heating system; or against the picture that hangs unevenly on the wall-from all these experiences of personal discomfort the arm-chair philosophers go leaping into the depths of an historic martyrology, and with one fictitious glance they know, understand and feel it all.

As one who has experienced that martyrology, not through the fiction of his imagination but by actual physical and mental suffering, I feel an inner call and compulsion to educate the would-be psychologists and sociologists. I must do this for the memory of millions of people whose innocent deaths have all too often been used for their defamation and for the memory of my own father, mother and sister who were among them.

Once, in Jerusalem, I addressed a commemorative rally for the victims of the Israeli War of Independence. Succumbing to the pathos of the occasion, I referred to the fallen freedom fighters as "Israel's best sons and daughters"-the usual rococo language of patriotic display. My remarks elicited the protest of a former participant in the independence struggle who bitterly protested my implication that those who survived the War of Independence were not quite as good and worthy as those who were killed. Of course, both of us were wrong because the murderous bullets and shrapnel make no discriminations among their victims. Nevertheless, the man's protest was interesting psychologically. Because here was a man competing for recognition with the dead and displaying a jealousy towards them that would risk life itself. It was as though he feared that showering the dead with praise would exhaust praise and none would be left for him.

In some of the dissertations I have read about the millions who passively went to slaughter in Hitler's camps, there is a similar bigotry against the dead. All too often it seems that the author was trying to assert his own value and reinforce his own self-confidence by displaying a con- tempt for the behavior of those who, unfortunately, were no longer around to answer him. As if he were saying: in their death they were inferior to me in my living. Had I been in their place, I would have behaved differently, more honorably, more heroically. I am, therefore, a better human being than they were.

Recently, I read in a piece of intellectual acrobatics that Polish and East European Jews accepted Hitler's verdict more passively than Dutch Jews, because the former were more conscious Jews than the latter. Some Jewish intellectuals feel uncomfortable because they cannot point at Jewish resistance like that waged by Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. An insatiable thirst for heroic glory leads many of the analysts to a contemptuous evaluation of the murdered people.

Before addressing myself to the psycho- logical reality of the Jews under Hitler's persecution, I must point out that the complete history of Jewish resistance to Nazi extermination will never be written. At best, we never know history, but only its recorded part. This is especially evident in our study of ancient civilizations. For years we are taught their history only to gain eventually, under the impact of new archeological discoveries, new insight into previously unsuspected truths. Similarly, we know of the heroic uprisings in Ghetto Warsaw, Bialystok and elsewhere, about the Jewish partisans behind the German east front only because those groups left some survivors to tell their story. Hitler's forces, however, wiped out literally hundreds of communities without leaving a single survivor. The circumstances of their death and the story of their last minutes will remain forever unknown. If, therefore, we accept the historical record as a complete account of history itself, we may well be doing this at the risk of perceiving an unreal picture.

Newton's Second Law has proved quite inapplicable to the psychology of rebellion and resistance. The multiplication of suffering does not necessarily multiply resistance. Human tolerance of oppression cannot be traced in a straight, rising line. Our graph would disclose some unsuspected curves, detours and reverses. It is a fact amply observed by historians that the great revolutions did not erupt at the height of persecution. That climactic point usually passed without a serious challenge to the oppressor.

The French Revolution did not break out until Louis XVI, in convening the meeting of the states-general at Versailles on May 5, 1789, displayed an ominous weakness of the crown. The Russian revolution of 1905 did not start until Nicholas II conceded a duma, thereby confirming the effectiveness of reformistic demands. And the Russian revolution of 1917 came amidst a general disintegration of authority, in the conduct of the war as well as in internal affairs. For as long as there were no concrete indications that a revolution had a chance to succeed, the masses were not ready to follow the revolutionaries. In each of these cases the banner of rebellion was raised only after the worst sufferings had passed, only when the situation of the oppressed started improving, however slightly, These improvements were brought about by concessions the authorities believed themselves forced to make in order to appease popular discontent.

This revolutionary pattern may invalldate Newton's law in relation to a sociological phenomenon, but psychologically it poses no puzzle. At the height of oppression the persecuted are paralyzed by the seeming hopelessness of their situation. The more severe the oppression the less does the prevailing authority seem open to a challenge. There is nothing in the totally oppressed people's environment that would indicate any chance for successful resistance. In the absence of any promise of deliverance, the persecuted consider the revolutionary gang among them as no more than irresponsible fanatics willing to recklessly invite the retaliation of the authorities. The logic of this intuitive perception is perfect. It refuses to shed anyone's blood or to add even momentarily to anyone's suffering unless the blood and suffering have a reasonable chance of achieving some social improvement.

This intuitive logic should not be equated with cowardice; in the very next step it will lead to the taking of reasonable but also daring risks. When the prevailing authority is forced to take notice of the fanatical group, it usually discontinues some excess of oppression as a preventive measure against the spread of revolution. Here, however, the masses display an amazing incorruptibility. They take the partial concessions of authority as a call to arms. In doing this, they once more follow the perfect logic that correlates risk to the chance of success. Suddenly, the masses have discovered that the prevailing authorities feel less secure than they believed them to be. If passive animosity could extract concessions from the authorities, intuition tells the masses, then active resistance would be that much more effective. Suddenly they see a ray of hope, suddenly rebellion is a road to victory rather than suicide. Yesterday's defeatists become today's optimists and revolutionaries. For revolution is impossible without optimism. Psychologically. a revolution is not a burial but the labor pains of a rebirth.

There is a basic difference between the rebel and the desperado. The rebel is an optimist; guided by intelligence, he weighs risks against prospects. The desperado no