42
PART ISAN R EV IEW
mo ti va tes public remembrance as a co ll ec t of testimo nial vo ices and a co l–
lec tive of hea rers. It also mo tiva tes our g rea tes t w riters after the war.
T heir effo rt is shadowed, however, by a temptati on that has no t been
talked abo llt very mu ch and whi ch stems from intimacy rath er than aes–
th eti c o r intell ectual di stancing. Writers often transgress a boundary.
Imaginati ve power can push them across a thresho ld into ove r- identify ing
w ith victims o r a victimi zed ge nerati o n, to the po int of seeking a m ys ti cal
correspondence w ith th e dead. (One thin ks of N ell y Sachs but also of
Walter Benjamin 's suggestion that "a secret date" exists be tween pas t gen–
eratio ns and the present one.) Documentary o r reifi ed deta il , in any case,
does not sati sfy the bereaved imaginatio n, w hi ch demands a grea ter, mo re
full y imagin ed so lidari ty.
Thi s desire fo r solidari ty is reinfo rced by a fi'a ternal idea l inspired by th e
French
n ...
evo luti on and th e intern ati onal camaraderi e o f th e Spani sh C ivil
War; it makes Semprun choose fo r one o f hi s epi graphs Malraux's " I seek
th e crucial region o f th e soul wh ere abso lute ev il stands in oppositi on to
fraterni ty." As an
illla,!!ill lltilJC
need, howeve r, the solidari ty-dri ve is equall y
present in Ida Fink 's sto ri es. Havin g escaped death by passing as a C hri sti an,
she looks back from th e positi o n of bys tander as we ll as victim and express–
es in va rio us ways a temptati o n to j oin those wh o di sa ppea red, to envisio n
th eir end by merg ing w ith them . Yet th e compass io nate thinker should no t
try to identi fy w ith th e victims any Ill o re than the tell er of a sto ry w ith its
charac ters. " I should no t have wr itten 'we,'" one of Fink 's narrato rs con–
fesses, " fo r I was no t standin g in th e ranks [o f those rOllnded up for
deportati on and death] . . .."
Eve ry identifi ca tio n approac hes over- identifi ca ti on and leads to a per–
sonifyin g and then appropriati o n of th e identi ty o f o thers. Th e di stance
betwee n self and o th er is vio lated and th e possibili ty of intel lectual w i tness
abo rted. So, too, Lanzmann's iden tifi ca ti on w ith th e wi tn esses in hi s film
SIIoIIll
is bo und to be anti- intell ec tual. Hi s angry, qu as i- reli gious comments
abo ut th e "obsceni ty" of seek ing
to
unders tand th e H o locaust betray thi s.
He reillains, at the same time, very prese nt in th e film as an ironi c and often
domin eerin g ques ti oner. He rel entl essly press ures the victims as if uninter–
es ted in their human needs o r their life beyond th e trauill ati c event and
subo rdinates all oth er considerati ons to a revelati o n o f th e event in its full
ho rro r.
Arti sts like these revea l that th e intell ectual part of consciousness always
keeps us in the positi on of spec tato r o r bys tander. It is a deeply uncomfo rt–
abl e place to be in , because we are exposed , at o ne and th e same time, to
trauma
alld
the anx iety of no t empathi zing eno ugh.
In
thi s cru cial area lit–
tl e can guide us. We say, fo r instance, that, on the part o f hi sto rian as well
