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| QUOTATION 1575(conclusion) |
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| 1575(conclusion)The daughter, Syl, is 16. In this story she represents the third type of the Jewish response to the active anti-Semitism. Apparently she is good looking, or at least the young antisemitic hoodlums find her so, for they often try to pick her up, driven by this peculiar attractions the anti-Semites always had for Jewish women , the mixture of lust for the forbidden, urge to rape and desecrate, and the ultimate means of humiliating Jewish men. So, perhaps being aware of her womanly powers, or as one [who is active in the high-school social science club] and understands the wider and more sinister implications of the petty jew-baiting by local hooligans , or simply because of her personality, for whatever reasons, Syl is both fearless and fierce. She isn't the one "to sand it" or "watch her steps carefully". She would not stoop to avoid an open confrontation, to hide or change her ways "to walk on the other side of the street". She would take on whatever comes her way, regardless of the consequences: [ Then I see my sister coming from high school carrying her brief case and heading this way. Why the heck doesn't she cross over so she won't have to pass the poolroom, I say to myself; why don't she walk on the other side of the street? But that's not like Sylvia; she is a girl with a hot temper, and when she thinks she is right you can't tell her a thing. I knew she wouldn't cross the street and the cross back, because according to her, why, that's giving in. That's telling those hoodlums that you're afraid of their guts. So she doesn't cross over but walks straight on. When she comes by the pool hall two guys come out and say something to her. She just holds herself tight and goes right on past them both.] She isn't the one to calibrate the assaults, to calculate which warrant her reaction and which may be let pass by. She faces them all head on: [We were standing around when something hit me in the head, a half of a rotten apple. It hurt a little. I turned quick but didn't see anybody, but Syl started yelling. She was pointing to a big E1 post across the street behind which a guy was hiding. "Come on, show your face," my sister was saying. "Come on, you hero, show your yellow face!"But the guy sneaked away, keeping the post between. Syl turned to me and her face was boiling. "The rats! It's not enough with all the trouble over in Europe; they have to start it here."] I must remind the reader that the story was written in 1938, right after Germany had annexed Austria and the news about persecution of Jews there spread over the world: [They took the papers, kidding him, and hurried up the stairs to the Elevated, reading all about Austria and going home to eat. My father kept staring at the headlines and couldn't take his eyes off the print where it said that soldiers were pouring across the border and mobs were robbing people they hated and spitting on them and making them go down on their knees to scrub the street. My old man's grew small, like he had the toothache and he shook his head like he was sick. "Pa, go to Nick's," I told him. He just stood there, sick over what he read.] But if such terrible news plunge the Jews like her father into paralysis of despair and hopelessness, for the Jews like Syl this is a call to arms . It makes them even more determined to fight here and now. [I could tell by my old man's yes that he was nervous and wanted to smooth things over, but Syl didn't give him a chance. When she gets started and she knows she's in the right not even the Governor of the State could make her keep quiet. "Don't pay attention to them," she said in a cutting voice while my old man looked anxious. "When men hide behind Elevated posts and throw rotten apples at women you know they're not men but just things that wear pants. In Europe they put brown shirts on them and call them saviors of civilization. Here they haven't got the shirts yet and hang around poolrooms."] But as fierce and eager of a fighter Syl is, she certainly has her job cut out for her, for [they have to start it here], they feel almost "moral" obligation to do so. For as always the anti-Semites of the world unite and see the maltreatment of Jews in one part of the globe as an invitation to do the same in theirs. And she didn't have to wait long for it - the antisemitic hoodlums don't hide behind posts forever. If not stopped by the superior force, they get bolder and each new assault is more brazen than the last one, until the final and decisive confrontation takes place. This time they came in force: [There were about eight or nine of them, all big boys around eighteen and nineteen]. And they had a plan - the usual anti-Semitic plan - to humiliate the Jews, to beat them up, and to destroy their possessions. And no pleading of the father, no resistance of the son, no bravery of the daughter could stop them. For nobody helps the Jews. [By this time a few people were passing and Mrs. Oliver called at them to interfere. But the gang were big fellows and there were eight or nine of them, and the people were afraid. Then while they had me down on the sidewalk Syl came running up the street. When she saw what was happening she began kicking them and yelling and trying to make them let me up. But they didn't pay any attention to her away. "Please," my pa kept saying, "please let him up; he didn't hurt you. I don't want to have to call the police-" Then Syl turned to the people who were watching and yelled at them, "Why don't you help us? What are you standing there for?" But none of them moved. Then Syl began to scream. "Listen, why don't you help us" Why don't you make them stop picking on us? We are human beings the same as you!" But the people just stood there afraid to do a thing] By the time the police arrives it's, as usual, all over: the anti-Semites have destroyed yet another Jewish family and again got away with it. [But when the cops came it was too late; the stand was a wreck. The newspapers and magazines were all over the sidewalk and the rack that holds the Argosy and Western Aces was all twisted up. My pa, who looked sicker than ever, stood there crying and pretty soon I began to bawl. People were standing looking at us like we were some kind of fish...] Thus , the anti-Semites won and the Jews lost. There is nothing new under the sun. In the aftermath of the destruction father -the pleader is taken to the lunchroom for a drink of hot tea to recover, son -the reluctant resister desperately but futilely tries to salvage what is left of the damaged magazines, and daughter - the fighter is totally devastated by the defeat. The unavoidable conclusion one draws from this story is that against the superior forces of an active and determined anti-Semitism no traditional Jewish strategies are sufficient and none of the above described type of the Jewish responses makes any difference. The long suffering meek like Mr. Silverstein, or the uncompromising fighters like Syl, or the reluctant resisters like Harry, neither separately nor collectively could save themselves from catastrophe. In the end it is left to Syl - the hero of the family, the one who climbed the highest and fell the hardest, to expresses this ultimate Jewish reality: ["Listen," one of the cop told my sister, "are you coming to the station or not? We can't hang around here all evening." Then Syl broke down and began bawl as hard as me. "Oh, leave us alone," she told them and began wailing her heart out. "Leave us alone. What good would it do?"] The significance of this story of the heartbreaking experience of one small Jewish family in 1938 Chicago is that it symbolizes the Jewish fate for the last two thousand years. So, how did Jews survive against such overwhelming odds? Fortunately for them, the majority of the anti-Semites are not active or determined, like the young hoodlums in this story. And though they dislike or even hate the Jews they don't act upon it because of the inherent human passivity. It took the systemic and systematic fanaticism and singlemindness of Nazi party in Germany to almost completely exterminate Jews as a race. In 1944-45 in the middle of the "total war" when all German resources were supposed to be mobilized to prevent losing the war the Nazis would give priority to the transportation of the Jews from all over Europe to the extermination camps rather than using railroads to deliver arms and troops to the front. Clearly for the Nazis total destruction of Jews was more important than the "total war" against the rapidly advancing allies, threatening to totally destroy Germany and them. Such an unprecedented determination is unheard of in human history and that's why The Holocaust occupies such a unique place in it. The experience of Holocaust has proved once and for all that no Jewish strategies of self-preservation are sufficient against the superior forces of the bent on their destruction anti-Semites. Very few Jews survived it. Should all that was said above lead to the soul-shattering pessimism? Not necessarily. Though it may make one to conclude that the Jewish future is bleak, it also make it clear that it is not bleaker than the past. The life goes on. It brings as much misery and happiness as it always did. As usual we shall suffer, as always we will survive. P.S. Whatever the reader may think about my arguments, if after reading this essay he would want to read or re-read "Prelude" by Albert Halper I shall consider my task fully accomplished. |
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