RISASODI
361
there's no great interest in remembering the Holocaust outside of the
Jewish community .
PL:
Perhaps. Interest brings along with it guilt feelings.
RS:
I was struck by the letters that the Germans readers of
Survival in
Auschwitz
wrote to you after the book was translated into German.
Many of those letter-writers mentioned the episode of the German
guard who wiped his hands on your shirt. Why did that episode in
particular strike the Germans?
PL:
It was a highly symbolic act and that's why it strikes
people-even me . It wasn't a painful act: a blow to the face would
have been much more painful. But the fact was that he used me as a
dirty rag. Then , and even now , I perceive that as one of the biggest
insults I suffered .
RS:
What weight did these offenses to your dignity carry?
PL:
Well, at the beginning they carried some weight because it was
before worse things were to happen . It was a sort ofprqlogue. Then,
clearly, we got used to it. They became routine.
RS:
What does it mean , morally and spiritually, "to get used to it?"
PL:
Simply put, one loses one's humanity. Inurement to life in the
camp is the only way to survive, but it also robs you of a part of your
humanity. It effects both prisoners and guards. Neither group was
more human than the other. With precious few exceptions, the in–
humanity of the Nazi system trickled down to even the prisoners.
RS:
How does one reacquire one's humanity?
PL:
Do you recall the last few pages of
Survival in Auschwitz?
In it I
wrote about how I reacquired a feeling of humanity when a camp–
mate and I were able to help the sick and dying, even though we
were sick ourselves. I've maintained a fast friendship with Charles, a
Frenchman who helped me; we still write to each other. I've been to
see him twice, even though he lives in a remote and hard-to-reach
area of France. Our friendship has survived because both he and I
had the impression that we were sharing an important adventure:
trying to save human lives. Our imprisonment had just ended
(though we were still in Auschwitz). We were still deathly ill, but we
put together a stove, cooked for ten people, and tried to help them
survive just a little longer. We truly had the impression that we were
reacquiring our dignity by helping others. And the others felt it too.
Those poor sick men, some of them on the brink of death, gave us
the extra slices of bread that they couldn't eat. This too was a human
act, different from what had gone on before.
RS:
Were you always sure you'd survive?
