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of Moslem psychology), a state so extreme that, as Primo Levi once put
it, "One hesitates to call them living: one hesitates to call their death
death"; or else a much more integrated state characteristic of privileged
Jewish prisoners who (we learn from Steiner) "know nothing [and] act
as if death does not exist." In this last pattern numbing is an aid to
survival, while in the first its extreme form is a surrender (and prelude)
to death. No inmate could avoid elements of one or both of these
states, which
in
fact tended to overlap with each other. Even such
things as gallows humor and eroticism (which had their counterparts
in Hiroshima 'also) could reinforce numbing: the first by assuming what
Steiner calls "professional attitudes" of corpse-carriers as a means of
warding off the realization of what one was actually doing ("Hey,
Moshe! don't eat so much.... Think of us who'll have to carry you!");
the second resembling the orgies taking place at the time of the plagues
of the Middle Ages, and denying the pervasiveness of death by means
of a pseudo-affirmation of life.
What eventually emerged was a form of
collabo'rative .numbing
which was perhaps the unique psychological feature of the concentra–
tion camp experience. It was maintained through a tenuous but func–
tional equilibrium in the victimizer-victim relationship. This equilibrium
required sufficient brutali2'Jation to keep the Jews in a numbed, non–
resistive state and at the same time to permit victimizers their sense of
omnipotence, but it had to stop short of either producing too many
Muselmanner
(which at first actually occurred and greatly interfered
with getting the work done) or interfering with guards' own numbing
by making them aware of the consequences of their actions. The key
to collaborative numbing was a gruesome work ethic, the psychological
significance of which has not been adequately appreciated. In addition
to their own conscientiousness in carrying out their project, victimizers
succeeded in conveying to victims the literal message that "work equaled
life." The gas chamber became "the factory" and everything was
organized along assembly-line principles. Precisely this numbing focus
upon "work" obscured the issue of "works." Never has the ' distinction
been more critical.
Contributing to collaborative numbing were a series of everyday
"games" ending in death and humiliation for Jews, a rather dramatic
festival of arts and sports staged by Franz with performing musical,
literary and boxing talents drawn from among the prisoners, and a
strange but significant pattern of "socIalizing" between victimizers and
victims which began to take place toward the end. Steiner tells us that
the two groups were a bit stiff with one another until "the ice was
broken," and ironically points up the absurd collaboration involved
