Patterson, David. Along the Edge of Annihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary. University of Washington Press, 1999.
Page ix. In Patterson's view, since Truth was targeted for annihilation
the good, the holy the thing that sanctifies life", we as readers incur a debt and a duty - as their audience; for we are the future denied the diarists, the generation whose ear the diarists so desperately sought. Even without any hope of surviving the Holocaust themselves, Patterson sees these diarists as having engaged in a profound form of spiritual resistance by refusing to allow their despair to silence them." The focus of review of Holocaust diaries is through the lens of the spiritual dimension and the upholding against all odds of 'the Jewish tradition.
Page 9. For that reason, Patterson writes: "if we are to find our way into these diaries, we must find our way into our own souls." For as Martin Buber comments, "My people is my soul." (Judaism 20). What this means is that a Jew cannot stand alone, in isolation from other Jews - Patterson writes that it "is this relation that lies at the heart of responsibility to current and future generations - that is to be found in every Holocaust diary...(p.13)
Patterson understands that the emphasis on the 'other' is paramount in Judaism - Time is contained in the word - so the diary is an address to the other -even if the other is the diarist himself... The daily fight is to retrieve and record traces of life that can exist in the diary even after the diarist's own death...
Page 5. Patterson is keen to differentiate the Holocaust diaries from other kinds of Holocaust writings - such as Memoirs -with which they are often lumped together. What he does in this work is to concentrate on the implications coming out of the Holocaust diaries for understanding Jewish life and tradition - "that is Jewish existence ad a category of being."
Page 6. Patterson discusses the 'de-historization' of the Holocaust - - as a method of overcoming the Shoah - by burying it in history"...He discusses the many attempts to 'transcend the truth of Anne Frank" - which have failed - Patterson see it as tremendously important NOT to see the diaries as just accounts and sources of information - BUT as "outcries of Jewish souls" that do indeed implicate us. through the archetypal patterns that emerge from the Holocaust diaries... They all hold up a human aspect that bonds us to the diarists. (p.11)
Page 11. Abraham Levin - a member of Oneg Shabbat - Rejoicing in the Sabbath) wrote about his group's diary writing efforts as: Our purpose is that our sufferings, 'the pains before the coming of the Messiah', should be noted down for remembrance by future generations, for remembering by the whole world."
Page 21-51. Patterson lays out the distinguishing features of the Holocaust diaries.
Patterson explains, a Holocaust diarist felt an impulse to record experience and to recover time and meaning, but in addition, was "accountable" to his community (p. 21). On its behalf, the diarist began and ended his writings with a "why " (p. 25). Patterson writes: "the Holocaust diary is above all a Jewish diary: this is the key to the diarist's accountability to and for a community, past, present and future."
Page 50-68. Here Paterson lays out the relationship between Holocaust Diarists and the Book... here as a text 'tied to life' - the diaries' inclusion and transmission of the sacred texts of the tradition that nurtures life. This consciousness of the Book in the diaries, is a consciousnesses that sustains life even when "all the world conspires against that life'.
Page 64. Patterson writes, "to have meaning in life is to have direction in life" and that direction implies a future...and in many ways, it was this direction that helped to keep the Holocaust diarists alive even knowing that they had no future themselves.
Page 68-86 - Patterson discusses the Measure of Time... in discussing the measure of time the other speaks of the abolition of time into quote nonexistence places the Holocaust diary and its measure of time into a single category. In the Holocaust during the measure of time is not a drinking of the days of a life, Rhonda, it's arises in a struggle to retrieve time, and with it the prices. In other words, the measure of time in the Holocaust and Tails the recovery of a pre-connected to a present made meaningful a future.
Page 73-74. the author goes on to say: In the Holocaust, the life sort in the recovery of time is the life of the world and of the Soul. It is the life of the soul that unfolds in the world in time. They also talks about memory as Wiesel says for a Jew nothing is more important than memory. Wiesel and Primo Levy have noticed that the Shoah was a war against memory. As such it is characterized by an effort to erase past and present, since the memory of the past imparts meaning to the present.
Page 79. In talking of time Patterson discusses time characterized by the Envy of the Dead which he says is precisely and tee time, but time without a present and therefore without a past or future. The reason he gives for why this is because the harrowing reports made known cannot be assimilated by categories of knowledge (by which ordinary moral human beings live by). Patterson goes on to say that the measure of time in the Holocaust diary is a measure of the annihilation of knowledge. In essence, the weight of time collapses on the human being whose weight is without resolution.
Page 81. Patterson discusses the divorce from the future. he explains Holocaust Diaries have lost the future.
Page 85. Patterson write stock quote the measure of time that unfolds in the Holocaust starring is a measure of humanity. He goes on to say quote for the Jew then come up the measure of present time in humanity lies in a relation to return to that future which as Rosenzweig puts it " without ceasing to be a future is none the less present. Eternity is a Today which is, however, conscious of being more than Today."
Page 88. The Nazis assault on time included an assault on the prayers and mitts vote as well as on the human beings who observe them it was an attempt to affect an absolute pleasure of the portals through which the holy might make an appearance in the midst of the mundane.
Page 93. Patterson News the Nazis forbade the Jews to pray before they were killed. They were setting out to destroy Jewish Souls before they destroyed Jewish bodies.
Page 103-104. in writing about the Holocaust Diaries Chronicle of the Holy Patterson rights that it is quote more than a diary record of events that transpired on certain days of the year it is a witness born by a human being who becomes the bearer of the Holy. he goes on to say that the Sabbath adds to the world which is the dimension the La Familiar with the concept that the Sabbath imparts a meaningful future to the time of the present. guitarist writing in the midst of the darkness produced by driving God out of the world was attesting to an assault on the Holy One himself.
Page 105. Patterson rights of chapter on the assailing of God. Basalt in the Holocaust of God's chosen which is quintessentially an assault on God himself.
For the body and the spirit of Israel was under attack. the Nazis employed the destruction of Torah Scrolls as a systematic way of destroying Jewish communities. This is salt of the desecration of synagogues was an assault on God in the very place where his name was involved in the synagogue and often the synagogues was set Ablaze that's burning the Jewish god to ashes as a Nazi has said. The Jews worship as an expansion of the presence of God in the world. The assault on the Jewish synagogues is there for an assault on the encounter between the human and the divine which is an assault on the capacity of this space to consecrate all of the spices in life. The Nazis assaulted the rituals the prayers and the holy places, they set out to exterminate the very presence to destroy the very symbols of Everything Jewish. that was indeed a complete assault on the sanctuary of the home masseuses would turn off the door person ripped apart.
Page 115. Patterson notes that the Jewish tradition of argument with God goes back to the first Jew to Abraham himself when he argued with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Page140. Patterson writes about witnessing the end of civilization, plunging into the void, and finding no exit, the Holocaust diarist undergoes an experience that robs him of all sense of self and therefore robs existence itself of all sense of meaning.
Page 144. Patterson goes on to say that the Holocaust re-quote not turning records the undoing of meaning but opposes it in a time and place with such opposition is as unintelligible as the empty world into which these Diaries are plunged. the Holocaust diary in essence represents resistance in form and the resistance in life.
Page 149.Patterson comments on forms of Silence. He talks to the Silence of the crumbling of creation and the undoing of meaning. “The shriek of Silence represents the absence of everything and anything meaningful which is the presence of meaning undone”. Patterson to comment old Iris in the Holocaust wondered whether the world knows about our suffering and if it does know why is it silent? Why is the world not stirred when tens of thousands of Jews are poisoned? Throughout the War years then as much as they assailed God for his silence the Holocaust Diaries laid the charge of Silence at the feet of humanity.
8155. Addison recognized that the Nazis were imposing an absence note Emily on the Jews but on the significance of the Jews. the sum of the teaching and truth of the Jewish tradition was to be made absence. As Captain writes in his diary quote tragedy is the senselessness of atoll. Suffering inflicted on us because we are Jews well the real meaning of Jewishness has disappeared from our lives.
Page 166. The goal of the Nazis in the obliteration of the Jewish Family. In order to murder the Jews but the sanctity of life in human relation that they signify the family must be torn asunder in the process. In recanting the obliteration of families in Diaries is to preserve the memory and the meaning of the family says Patterson. The Holocaust attempts to recover a trace of life that can attest to the dentist of a family this is why families were separated and broken up upon arrival at Auschwitz.
Page 187. The Nazis assault on and annihilation of women meant that they would be stopped from becoming mothers this was a primary aim of The Architects of the Holocaust. and of course this was followed by the Suffocation of the child. Holocaust Diaries attested to the murder of children. it should also be noted that the Nazi would not marry murderers they were in hot that heartless Essence child hunters and child murderers who relentlessly track down their prey. as Patterson unable to save the children or to die for them the diarist can only follow them along the edge of annihilation.
Page 204. Diarists witnessed the murder of children in front of their mothers. Patterson says that the task of the diarist is not merely to search his soul or to record the events of the day but to become a voice for those who have been rendered voiceless. Patterson says it is easier to understand the words of Elie Wiesel when he declares quote the death of a man is only the death of a man, but the death of a child is the death of Innocence cover the death of God in the heart of man.... what more can be said when the death of a child is the slaughter of a child, the slaughter of Innocents and of God? Looking for a way to say more Michael Zilberberg sites a poem by Haim Bialik in his Warsaw diary.:
The cost of The Salvation of the child who brings us salvation, as well as the testimony to that, is found in numerous Diaries.
Page 211. perhaps most fundamental to the idea of man that Vizio invokes is the idea of the sanctity of the human being. When the Human images defiled, the meaning and significance of humanity or destroyed, beyond the slaughter of bodies and soul. Indeed, the calculated defilement of a human image is part of the singularity, because it is a distinctive part of the Nazis singular assault on the essence of the Jews and Judaism.,
Page.212. "The most important thing which Judaism gave two men - the contribution which enables man to feel the ethical consciousness of his dignity as an individual human being is the idea of his likeness to God."
Page.214. Patterson believes that by writing a diary during the Holocaust, diarists were resisting a certain insidious transformation within themselves, and by resistance and by writing the rest is not accepting the image of the animal that is forced upon him and upon all of humanity he struggles to sustain the idea that human being in the midst of the slaughter of humanity and the defilement of the human image.
Page 216. The Nazis assaulted the face of humanity forcing the imposition of Shame tears and Lamentations sorry when Tara that then became the essential features of the Jewish faith creating as practice and says quote and irreversible cataclysm at the core of the human being. Hence as the Jews of plans more and more into the definitive sorrow and Tara that the Nazis impose on them, they are less and less able to retain the traces of the human image. So the human life that are shown in their eyes is drained into a sort of a terror that by degrees displace the human image of the Jew. But that is not the end of the attempt to run to the Jew faceless. Patterson rights quote as the assault on the face of the Jew runs its course his face is gradually emptied of every expression of life that would animate the face. Patterson rights quote what is the image that the human being a serious as this defilement proceeds? It is the image of the beacon animal imposed by the Jews by their bestialized oppressors.
Page 231. Finally, Patterson writes the during the show up the scope of the defilement of the human image is totaled. Is includes both the defilement of human identity and the destruction of human time. Which is to say it includes the defilement of human life and the desecration of human death.it goes on to say it's at Auschwitz Not only was man killed but also the idea of man, then at Auschwitz not only with lies consumed the death itself was made into something other than death.
Page 234. In the final section of his work passing discusses death and the death of death this is because he says these are the features of the Holocaust, and a significant part of what is addressed in the Holocaust diary. Ruth Andreas Frederick rights quote stifling the name of God on the lips of the dying, the Nazis ran to the Jews themselves not having a life less but nameless literally and none of us. They are not laid to rest in a grave, with their names inscribed on the memorial - they are forced to live in a grave that must remain unlocked less they be murdered in what Hillel Seidman calls "the underground World bunkers and hiding places." The Nazis saw to it that the Jewish dead had no such link to the living. HG was murdered many times over in body and soul in memory in name in substance -and in death."
Page 237 Patterson writes that the Rumanian diarist and Neil Dorian Cries Out
I tried to tell myself out of the vortex that is pulling me down I did manage to complete a translation, it's ready on my desk, but everything has a taste of ashes and sticks in my throat like a full test of death. The lifeline to which the Diaries fangs as he struggles against the vortex of death is the word that he can signs to the pages of History. Returning meaning in life to the word is he's one means of resisting the overturning of meaning in the realm of death. For the work of his overturning also arises from words come up from words used not to join wood to meaning in life to life, but to tell a lie from The Souls of the Jews.
Page 241. Patterson explains how Death Dies. Rather it is murdered. For in the Shoah, the conditions and contacts that would make death matter are not just absent, they are annihilated.
Page 248. Patterson's final comment about the Holocaust diary is a design for the invisible.to “Die For The Invisible” that is metaphysics. and that is martyrdom. Dying for the invisible - dying in the midst of a living that from every visible indication, should not be that - is what characterizes the Holocaust diarist’s affirmation of life in the midst of an ontological assault on the metaphysical. That is how he restores Jewish death to its proper sacred ground. And that is how he, the diarist, clings to life.
Page 249. By saying if the Holocaust Diaries strive to recover life, they do say by affirming a relation to the other human being which is expressive of the relation to God and that's to all the distractions in the Holocaust.
In every instance is clinging to life and entails a sacrifice that far exceeds the parameters of life itself. Patterson rights and so quote admit the Sea of Darkness from which these Diaries cry out come up there are beacons of humanity that perhaps justify the Diaries and Devin. Cleaning to the life that emanates from those points of light, the Holocaust Diaries are themselves possible light to which they a test. Let us consider then, this light that the darkness cannot comprehend. what Holocaust Diaries bring out to the lesson, Patterson says comes to the world through Israel. for that is teaching cries out to the world in the midst of the assault on his rail. The time with the other is not it's only as responsibility and the time with the other is the time with life seeking to recover life in the midst of its collapse, the Holocaust are is seek to maintain this title I threw a responsibility for the other. This represents a definitive feature of the most ancient of Jewish teachings. Quote all Israel as for one another and we are told in the Talmud.
Page 270. In Patterson's last paragraph he talks about as quote we are flooded with the undeniable darkness and death of luck and every Page of the Holocaust Ari, we are overwhelmed with a stubborn, Jewish clinging to life. And in this clinging to life we encounter over half collide with a clinging to the living. As the diarist hand descends to the Page, it reaches into our soul and will not let go. It's in scribes it's testimony on The Souls of those who come to me the diary, and from the midst of that testimony arises the first question put to the first man Como where R you? And so we come to our closing remarks. Or rather to re-opening remarks cologne for those who come before the Holocaust re on never done with it.
The final paragraph makes the conclusion that these diaries that came to us from the dead are about life. Unless we respond to the summons that comes to us we can have no life. we are summoned to remember we have a responsibility.
