Final essay assignment: Connect Paul Celan's "Death Fugue" to another reading, image, idea, or point of interest for you in our course and discuss this connection in 500 words or so.
be sure to refer directly to both Celan's poem and to the other point of connection.
Celan, "Todesfuge" ["Death Fugue"]
Everything 10 pt; double spaced; doc format; no wacky fonts; title; name; date.
Kate Butler
July 24, 2008
“Fugue of Death” by Paul Celan pulls the reader into one of the many death camps during the Holocaust, and expresses the sorrow and emotional pain that victims experienced when essentially watching their graves being dug. This poem symbolizes the inevidibility of death, in that it depicts the filth in food, the lack of space and order, as if each victim were just another animal in line for a dance of death. Although the Holocaust was an event that took place primarily because of human hate, greed, and work, rather than a raging disease, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death” mirrors “Fugue of Death” in many ways.
“The Masque of Red Death” is a short story about a fictional plague, in a fictional country, in which one man tries to avoid it by shutting himself in his palace. Like the Holocaust, this fictional plague is rampant on those suseptible to it in the area affected by it. Before being shipped of to concentration camps, many Jews went into hiding to avoid a deportation that was virtually inevidible. One open door, and a victim in hiding could be snached away by the human inflicted disease we call the Holocaust. One open palace door, as “The Masque of Red Death” confirms, could easily let in the plague.
In “Fugue of Death”, the Paul Celan portrays an image of the dance of death, writing, “he whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in the earth, he commands up to strike up for a dance…” Similarly in Edgar Allan Poe’s story, the central character decides to hold a costume ball, in which a man inflicted with the plague shows up. Naturally, each person who attended the ball is now avictim. The clock is ticking, and they have nothing to do but wait for the disease to overcome them.
In Paul Celan’s poem, death is character as well, and there are discriptions of him to hint that this character is Hitler. He writes, “…death comes with eyes that are blue”. The blue-eyed Nazis, this suggests, are the plague that is consuming the Jews. All they have left to do is drink the black milk all day long, and sorrowfully wait to die.
Marisa Halm July 24, 2008 “Todesfuge” and a War Diary
The roles of the Holocaust victims and perpetrators are two opposite roles, yet the two roles can both look at an event and take something similar away from it. As I studied Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge”, I couldn’t help but think about how familiar the poem was, as if I remembered hearing some of the information before. Then I connected the war diary of Felix Landau to the poem, and his diary had included events that where also found in the poem. It turned out that these two opposite roles had written about many of the same events.
“Todesfuge” was quite confusing when I first looked at it. However, I started to pick the lines apart, and after reading it a couple times, the poem is very symbolic and moving. For instance, the poem speaks of “Black milk” in the first line of almost every stanza, and the narrator was drinking it all the time. This reminded me of the never-ending hope and faith that the Jews showed everyday in the concentration camps. The excerpt “he cultivates snakes” is Celan’s way of describing the ways the concentration camp leaders “fed” evil through their actions. He also mentions “he calls scrape that fiddle more darkly then hover like smoke in the air”, which seems to relate to the fact that the Jews worked very hard in hopes of staying alive, but in the end they still burned.
The connections between the poem and the diary are startling. For instance, Celan goes on to write, “we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie” and “…starts us scooping a grave out of sand”, which states that the Jews dug their own graves. Of course, this is a well-known fact and is supported by Landau’s diary, which reads, “The death candidates assembled with shovels to dig their own graves” (Bartov 194). Celan also acknowledges the popular stereotype of all Germans owning dogs that could kill when he writes, “he whistles his dogs to draw near.” Of course, Landau records that he found a sheepdog and mentions her growth throughout the diary: “My small young dog is coming along fine. As each day passes she is becoming more and more devoted…” (Bartov 196). Celan remembers many things, such as “He calls jab it deep in the soil you lot there”, and then Landau also documents this, “I keep them digging longer and longer” (Bartov 194). Celan writes in “Todesfuge” that “he shoots you with leaden bullet his aim is true,” and naturally Landau’s words come to mind: “Six of us had to shoot them [Jews]… I took the heart” (Bartov 194). What shocked me were the different details that both roles picked up on and how these details seemed to connect each role’s literary works.
The different contexts, Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” and Felix Landau’s war diary, help us to see that different roles can connect their pasts and their literary works without even meaning to, and that different humans think that the same events are worth recording. This poses odd questions concerning humanity, especially after considering the fact that a perpetrator and a victim were similar enough to write about the same events.
Brenda Hernandez Holocaust Final Essay July 24th, 2008
It could be said that the reason for the occurrence of the Holocaust was because of people’s views on anti-Semitism. The hatred and discrimination towards Jews, disabled, and gypsies caused them to be treated, as lower-class citizens and it made the Germans feel superior and powerful. Hitler wanted Germany to be a pure “Aryan race” and that meant eliminating the Jews, disabled, and gypsies. This poem by Paul Celan could be interpreted as the discrimination and hatred towards Jews, while at the same time the methods by which they were killed.
Although this is not mentioned in the book, many people know that Hitler’s perfect “Aryan race” consisted of people with blonde hair and blue eyes. There are many references made in the poem regarding “golden hair” and “blue eyes”. The person who writes with a serpent could be seen as Hitler because he “whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in the earth.” Hitler is the perfect race and the Jews are not, which signifies that he can give out orders and kill whoever he wants to kill just because he, himself, best represents what Germany and the perfect society would be like. Furthermore, this implies that the Jews had no rights and therefore they had to obey and dig their own graves. Also, in another part of the poem it states that “he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings and blue are his eyes” symbolizing the enthusiasm contained in Hitler that is portrayed through his bright eyes.
More importantly, we can see that the “Aryan race” killed the Jews by any means. Milk is normally white, but Hitler is feeding the Jews black milk. This takes us back to when we read Maus I. Vladek Spiegelman stated that “we got spoiled cheese or jam” which is the same as black milk. They were given bad food in order for them to die slowly and painfully. Celan is portraying that the “Aryan race” gives the Jews spoiled food at daybreak, noon, and night because once it is drunk “death comes as a master from Germany”, meaning that Hitler wanted them dead. The poem also portrays the need in Hitler to get rid of the “inferior” society and accomplish his perfect one. This is portrayed when it states, “he plays with his serpents and dreams death.”
A lot of interpretations can come from this poem, but what jumped out at me was Hitler’s perfect society and how he pictured it. We can also tell the determination that was behind Hitler’s blue eyes.
Anderson Hurley July 24, 2008
Fugue of Death in Connection With Our Study of the Holocaust
Todesfuge or Death Fuge is a poem originally written in German about the happenings of a German concentration camp. It was written by Paul Celan and was published in 1948. The version I am working with was translated into English by Christopher Middleton. The poem uses intense imagery to bring across its message of the horrors of a concentration camp. Paul Celan himself was a Jew and a Holocaust survivor. During the war he was forced to live and work in a labor camp. Both of his parents were killed during the Holocaust. After writing this poem he was unable to escape its fame and success; no one cared about his later work as a poet. The poem has several similarities with the movie Night and Fog. A lot of the images described in the poem are strickingly similar to scenes from the movie.
The poem starts out with a some what ironic statement “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall” (1). Black milk in its self is ironic, milk is positive while the black color is negative. This says a lot about life at a concentration camp. It was life witch is always positive but at the same time it was cruel and harsh treatment of life believed by the Germans to be unworthy of life. In the movie Night and Fog the Jewish prisoners were portrayed as trying keeping their will to live despite the blackness crushing down upon them. The images of the skeletal bodies of formally fit people still working through the pain and hunger show their will to keep on keeping on. The line “we are digging a grave in the sky…” (4) is the way Paul Celan chose to depict both mass graves and the burning of dead Jews killed in the gas chambers. The movie showed the Jewish prisoners digging mass graves to burry and or burn bodies. They the ashes of the burning Jews would rise up into the sky turning the sky black blocking out the light. This is shown in both the poem and the movie.
Both the poem Fuge of Death by Paul Celan and the movie Night and Fog accurately and vividly manifest the horrors of the treatment of the Jews, death camps, and the overall attitudes of Holocaust as a whole. The Jews were the victims of the Holocaust. It is important for them as victims to let their stories be known. As students of the Holocaust the best way to learn about what happened is to hear first and even second hand accounts. Art Spiegleman’s Maus is a great example of a survivor’s tale that as taught the world a lot about how some one could survive the Holocaust and its effects on the rest of the survivor’s life.
John David Ike Dr. Denham 7/23/08 Holocaust Essay #3
When an individual wants to express emotion about events of the past or life in general, poems provide an adequate medium to transmit emotion in a subliminal or obvious manner. In the poem “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan, he uses poetry as a medium to express his feelings towards the Holocaust. In this poem certain lines from the English translation help shed light on the readings of the Bartov book. When examining the quote from the Celan poem, the text can be applied to perspectives from the Bartov essays.
After first analyzing the Celan passage the views expressed illuminate a more encompassing view of events in the Holocaust. The Celan quote which reads, “He Shouts play sweeter death’s music death comes as a, master from Germany, he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you, shall climb into the sky, then you’ll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie, there” This quote reflects the use of crematoriums in the Holocaust and the smoke stacks which were constantly filling the sky with black smoke. The latter part of the quote reveals how the clouds contain the spirits of the dead and remain in the sky for eternity. The image of the dead being in the clouds can also be viewed as the author’s expression of how such a terrible event looms over our head reminding us daily of the horrors of the past. The image of smoke also represents fluidity in terms of blackening and affecting all that surrounds it. This nature of smoke can be directly related to Horwitz’s essay which discusses the role of bystanders.
In Horwitz’s essay, the role of the bystander is discussed; however, this is not the main discussion. Throughout the essay the author addresses how towns are involved with the workings of the concentration camps and how the average citizen aided in the sustaining of the camps. It is this encompassing nature of the camp towns that smoke can relate too. The essay states that “there was on one level a routine, everyday quality to the interaction between the camp and the town” (209). Along with the everyday interaction on some levels, many people would attempt not to look at the destruction going on. Horwitz’s reaction to not seeing is states when the essay reads, “people had some control over what they saw…Smoke respected with no absolute boundaries. The unmistakable, sickly sweet odor of burning human flesh was, as townsfolk readily admit, a part of the atmosphere” (212). It is this quote that relates to the ideas in Celan’s poem. The fact that there was no escaping the smoke and the feeling of death that filled the atmosphere links directly to Celan’s statement of the smoke in the air and the fact there is no escaping reality. Horwitz’s essay helps to show the effects of the bystander and displays a useful example of how the town interacted with the camps even if it was not visible, and the smoke described in both Celan and Horwitz’s writing shows that the effects of the Holocaust will always loom overhead.
Dan Johnson Dr. Denham 7/24/08 Final Essay
Paul Celan’s Todesfuge uses motifs and commonly repeated words to create an image of the venomous nature of the Nazi concentration camps. The image that his writing evokes is similar to the image of writings related to slavery in the United States. The idea of a master watching over his workers, who are underfed and treated like sub humans, is extremely similar to that of slavery in the 19th century. Another comparison can be made by remembering the movie 300 and the slaves who carried King Xerxes and his gigantic throne. However, as similar as these two other demonstrations are with the main idea of forced labor under terrible conditions, after watching Night and Fog in class today, it is the subject we have discussed that first comes to mind. The image of lifeless bodies being bulldozed into pits makes me think of those very pits that the victims were digging.
The poem repeats the word ‘drink’ twenty times throughout its entirety—drinking ‘black milk’ to be precise. Milk is white and nurturing; white is an innocent color; innocence is something that relates to victims a majority of the time. However, the idea of black milk seems almost like poison. It is the venom spewing from the mouthes of the Nazis. The link between the imagery of the movie and the poem occurs when Celan says ‘he whistles his hounds to come close; he whistles his Jews into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground’. The line concerning ‘shove a grave to the ground; although it is brief, it brings about a vivid image of the mass graves displayed in the Night and Fog movie.
After researching the Night and Fog movie a little bit I found out that it was supposed to have an alternate name. Sources discuss how its original title was supposed to be Resistance and Deportation, but it was changed to Night and Fog. ‘Night and Fog’ is a term that was given to ‘Nacht und Nebel’ prisoners during World War II. ‘Nacht und Nebel’ prisoners were deported to concentration camps because they were political figures that dissented from Hitler’s ideologies. A order publicized by Himmler on December 7, 1941 stated that resistors to the Reich would be arrested and transported to concentration camps as if they were vanishing without a trace. The title became Night and Fog because the prisoners would be disappearing into the night and fog.
When I learned that this was why the title was named what it was, I thought of the beheaded political figures that we talked about in class. They were beheaded so that no one would be able to identify the body. Political prisoners were normally recognized as missing, so by eliminating the chance of identifying the victim, there was no way to be sure what had happened to the victim. The poem was able to invoke images that really had very little literal relation to what Celan was trying to discuss, but the fact that it brought up other images is extremely important. The idea of a poem is to make someone remember an event rather than simplily an image.
Sarah Lanners 24 July 2008
Scooping Out a Grave for Freedom
In Jerome Rothenberg’s translation of Paul Celan’s Todesfuge, the Jews “scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie.” This statement seems to welcome death and the freedom that accompanies death. Arbeit macht freit. Work makes you free. This proclamation of freedoom through work adorns the gates of Auschwitz, welcoming all to work. However, by freedom, the entrance to Auschwitz could be referring to the death for which the Jews in Celan’s poem are preparing graves.
During the Holocaust, prisoners of concentration camps and ghettos were constantly at a loss for space. Crowded into barracks, into cattle cars, and into apartments in ghettos, prisoners were never able to find the space that any person would need and expect. They were never capable of gaining the freedom that they, like any human being, deserved. On arrival at Auschwitz, prisoners were told that work would make them free. In a sense, work would provide the space and freedom that was so greatly craved. The seempingly simple statement, arbeit macht freit, can be interpreted in several different ways. Will working keep camp inmates from being murdered, making freedom the state of being alive? Or will being overworked cause death, making freedom equivalent to dying and having space “in the sky where it’s roomy to lie?” Nazis may have thought little about the statement designed to encourage all prisoners to work; nevertheless, its meaning to the actual inmates can be debated.
When studying the Holocaust, the goal of most prisoners appears to be survival. Inmates were willing to do whatever it would take to survive, whether or not that meant compromising their morals and taking from another. Still, some lost all hope. Through viewing films and reading erudite works, our class has heard of those who lost the will to live. Those people died in a relatively short amount of time, and others were able to survive because they took from the hopeless. But was it a loss of hope that caused them to stop fighting for survival, or was it the recognition of a new hope for freedom, of “a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie?” Perhaps the lifeless few that simply allowed themselves to freeze or starve to death were attempting to freeze or starve, not to death, but to freedom from the pain that Nazi Europe inflicted.
I believe that Celan’s intentions for this repeated line in his poem were to bring about such questions. Rothenberg’s translation leads the reader to believe that the Jews were being forced to “scoop out a grave” against their will. In fact, the word grave, itself, has a negative connotation. However, saying that they were digging “a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie” has a positive undertone of freedom. By utilizing both negative and positive undertones, I believe that Celan wanted to make the point that death could be a welcomed end to a terrible life that concentration camp inmates were force to live. Contrary to the expected instinct to survive, some had the nature to be free, and a welcomed death could provide that freedom.
Elizabeth Lewis 7/24/08
The Impact of the Wannsee Conference in Death Camps
In the poem “Fugue of Death” by Paul Celan, an officer whistles to his dogs. During the Wannsee conference Sturmbannführer Dr. Lange must calm his dog. The idea that these German officers could be one and the same is supported by other evidence from the poem and the Wannsee protocol.
One similarity is the ideal of a pure race. This race, “Aryan”, is often described as having distinct features such as blond hair and blue eyes. These features are described differently as ones belonging to Jewish peoples. In Celan’s “Death Fugue” he repeatedly refers to an officer with ashen hair and blue eyes. This officer, also, writes to a blonde woman. The men involved in that important conference all possessed some amount of the “Aryan” traits and have proven their backgrounds. They share an aversion to mixed marriages, as well. This goal was carried out in the ghettos, then the concentration camps.
The removal of Jews from their homes to ghettos began at the end of 1939. This was the first step towards the “Final Solution”. Along the way much suffering occurred. The poem uses the words “black milk” to show both of these conflicts as well as the suffering the inmates endured. During the day many people were beaten, shot, and starved. At night many prisoners died from the cold weather and lack of proper clothing. After the decision to implement the “Final Solution”, which was supported at the Wannsee conference, many more Jews became victims of death. Another time “black milk” is referred to have been drunk is in the morning. In concentration camps, the morning was a time for roll call. This was the time when inmates were forced to stand in the cold for long periods of time as the German soldiers made sure no one was missing. At this time a selection occurred where some Jewish people were removed from the general population and never seen again, except as smoke in the sky, which is implied in “Todesfuge”. These sufferings and subsequent deaths can be described as happening in a poisonous environment just as “black milk” means something that is good for one’s body but has been turned into something dangerous.
Sturmbannführer Dr. Lange orders methods of gassing, shooting, and starvation to produce a Jew free nation. The serpents in the poem can be interpreted as these types of elimination. Officers “play” with these methods meaning they use them in the camps with small amount of remorse. Using these systems of killing, Jews were killed rapidly. Thus, allowing Dr. Lange to report Estonia is “judenfrei” during the meeting in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
The officer referred to in Celan’s “Todesfuge” is not bothered by the extermination of the Jewish population. This attitude was echoed during the Wannsee conference by Sturmbannführer Dr. Lange, who was pleased to report the elimination of all the Estonian Jews.
Mary Alyce McCullough
Connecting Celan’s Death Fugue
7/24/08
“Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night.” The line is repeated throughout Paul Celan’s Todesfuge. Celan couples darkness with nourishment and brings together two opposing concepts in the process. We know that the poem’s subject is the Holocaust, the horrors of the concentration camps, and the seemingly split personalities of the perpetrators. In our readings we encountered another complex perpetrator. The war diary of Felix Landau gave us a personal look at the thoughts and reactions of a perpetrator during the atrocities. At times in both the poem and diary entries we witness ‘normal’ thoughts and feelings to which we can relate as well as the Nazi ideology to which we can not. These ideas run along side each other, like the notion of “black milk”, twisting and overlapping to develop the juxtaposition of the two sides of each perpetrator.
The names of two women are mentioned in the poem, Margarete and Shulamith. Each is indentified by her hair color, one blonde and the other ashen. The poems main character, the perpetrator, is described with blue eyes. He seems to have an intimate relationship with the golden-haired Margarete. They both possess trademark physical traits of the “Aryan race”, her with her blonde locks and he with his blue eyes. Shulamith however is described as having “ashen hair”, more like a Jew would have. “Golden” creates the image of beauty and superiority. Mention of Margarete is always connected to softer images of the perpetrators personality, such as the image of him writing home to her in Germany. Shulamith fits into the reality of his deeds in the present. She is nothing more than a victim forced to engage in grave diggings. Landau describes the same images of mass executions and grave diggings and he too has a girl back home, Trude, whom he pines for daily. His love for her nearly brings us to sympathize with him, but then he callously describes the “work” he carries out and his Nazi persona is thrust back at us. Similarly the perpetrator in the poem fluctuates between his two worlds right until the last lines. The poem refers to “play with serpents”. This could symbolize the sadistic plans the Nazis implemented. The image of a snake or serpent is often related to deception or betrayal. The tiny glimpses of relatable human emotions we observe in the Landau and in the perpetrator of the poem are fleeting. They momentarily mask the true motives of the men.
Both works break the robotic image of the Nazi which we carry in our minds. They highlight the other roles they may have played in their personal lives. Celan and Landau demonstrate that these roles, of lover or companion, are overshadowed by their lives in and loyalty to the Nazi regime. The fact that we can no longer think of every perpetrator as a sociopath, devoid of emotional response, is more disturbing and intriguing than our image of them as stone faced creatures. This poem and diary entry forces us to think of them as human. They force us to regard them as individuals. These realizations force to see the bits of ourselves which lie amongst the Nazi ideology in their minds and personalities.
Eliza Nagle
The Holocaust
July 25th, 2008
Connections between “The Grey Zone” and “Todesfuge”
“The Grey Zone” by Primo Levi perfectly captures the impossibility to accurately profile the Holocaust in a neat pattern of events. In three weeks, we have made an accurate timeline, discussed noteworthy people, and read a variety of survivor memoirs. However, Levi’s essay brings to light the total obscurity and chaos of the Holocaust. When I think of Levi’s “grey zone”, I visualize a Venn Diagram and the in between area of participation and victim hood. Paul Celan captures this ambiguity with several contradictory phrases, such as “black milk” and “sweeter death’s music”.
The oxymoron of “black milk” conveys that something nurturing and clean has become blackened, or diseased. This contradiction can perfectly be paralleled to Levi’s “grey zone”, where irrational actions are performed under the pressures of extreme and inhumane situations. He delves into the unending fusion of oppressors and victims, the disloyal deeds of the “privileged”, and the morality shattered owing to survival instinct. Furthermore, Celan stresses the ever-presence of this “diseased goodness” as they (meaning the Jews) drink it at daybreak and nightfall. The20omnipresence of the Holocaust parallels Levi’s entire thesis, meaning we will always be surrounded by the ambiguity of this event and the victims will always be a living piece of it. The Holocaust consists of a series of actions, a complex web of good people doing bad things - an oxymoron.
“He shouts play sweeter death’s music” is a second contradiction by Celan. For the most part, death is not observed as pleasant and satisfying, especially in light of the Holocaust. As Levi said, we can never truly know the thoughts and motives of the Nazi officers. We can never know if they undeniably believed their actions were justified and patriotic, or if at any moment, they saw the inhumanity of their actions - murder. Levi gives us an example of a Nazi officer’s moment of hesitation when confronted with one girl who survived the gas chamber. The Nazi officer, and the intermediate perpetrators, can symbolize sweetness (good people) who deliver death due to the snowballing effects of anti-Semitism. Levi also wrote of the Nazi’s ability to manipulate and distribute power and incentives. The privileged are represented perfectly as Celan wrote, “He shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you shall climb to the sky”. I interpret the strings to be the inevitable willingness of the oppressed (“Special Squad”) to be “played” in order to survive. The Nazi’s are also able to tighten control, or “darken th e strings”, by distributing power effectively. For example, Levi writes that the “Kapo” was composed of sadistic thugs who were willing to use their experience to torture Jews.
Three weeks ago, the Venn Diagram in my head was once structured as the “bad guys” and the “good guys”. Now, I have come to find that the Holocaust is too deep to simplify into catagories and declare a “winner”. However, it is by critically thinking of situations and their grey zone’s that we can arrive at a deeper and better understanding behind each contradiction.
Julie Purcell July 24, 2008
Animal Symbolism in “Todesfuge”
There has been much debate about whether or not full responsibility and blame can be placed on Hitler for the extermination of the Jews. Throughout our studies in class, we have identified those involved with the Holocaust into different categories, such as perpetrators, bystanders, and victims. While there may be some difference in opinions on the extent of Hitler’s role in the Holocaust, there is no argument against the fact that Hitler was a perpetrator. However, in his poem “Todesfuge”, Paul Celan classifies him as not only just a perpetrator, but an instigator as well.
While studying the Wannsee Conference, there was mention to the belief that “Hitler merely ‘approved’ the anti-semitic measures and partial extermination programs that had been developed by others and that he did not often devise or promote plans of his own.” (Gerlach 135) Paul Celan contradicts this belief in “Todesfuge” and shows that in his opinion, Hitler was solely responsible for the mass extermination, and that those ‘others’ were simply products of his expressed ideals. As in Spiegelman’s “Maus”, Celan also uses animals to convey this relationship between Hitler’s influence, and the behavior of the perpetrators. Snakes are reptiles that are usually misunderstood and are often considered dangerous because of the fact that many are poisonous and contain venom. However, they usually do not release this venom without instigation. In this case, the snakes are the perpetrators who have been “cultivated” by Hitler. They have been tainted with the anti-semitic beliefs and goals that Hitler instilled in not only them, but the nation as a whole.
“He whistles his dogs up. He whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in the earth.” This use of ‘dogs’ can be seen in two different lights. The first is the fact that this idea of ‘dogs’ can be used in a derogatory sense in describing people who act in an uncivilized and animalistic way, as many of the Jews probably felt their perpetrators did. On the other hand, it can also be interpreted as a way to show that the perpetrators, who were first cultivated and easily influenced by Hitler, had become so loyal to him, like dogs are to their masters.
In each instance of animal symbolism in “Todesfuge”, Celan expresses his opinion that there can be no contemplation on whether or not Hitler was the central perpetrator of the Holocaust. The fact that the perpetrators below him carried out his plans does not make them worthy of the same level of blame, of condemnation, that the one who corrupted them deserves. Adolf Hitler was the ventriloquist of the Holocaust and his perpetrators and the victims, were his puppets.
Christina Veliz
Poem Connection
July 24, 2008
In Celan’s poem “Death Fugue” there are major connections to Resnais “Night and Fog” film and Blutordensträger Felix Landau’s diary. It explains more than most people can really realize and relates a lot to the film shown in class. As soon as I read the poem that was exactly the first thing that came to mind. It was as if the poem had been written about the film. The camps the film had shown were being described in the poem as well.
The words “black milk” was repeated over and over again in the poem probably have to do with what the Jews had to eat poisonous food because in the “night and fog” film there food was black and they savored every bit of it. They ate it daily and didn’t eat anything but the soup like poison. The graves Celan is probably talking about are the ones the Jews were being bulldozed in to as shown in the video. The “graves in the sky” was probably where they thought they were going to end up, in heaven. In the film you can see how crowed these concentration camps where, “roomy to lie” was likely to be referring to the freedom and space that they were receive once they die and go to their graves in the sky.
The SS troops wrote down everything and anything that had occurred in the camps. The words “he writes” in the poem are most likely referring to that and in Landau’s diary he finds out that he can write letters and the post will actually deliver them. Night and Fog also had shown how the Jews helped build there own cause of death or their graves like the crematoriums and graves. They where helping them selves more than they actually and truly knew it. “Whistles his Jews to appear starts us scooping a grave out of sand” that line must have something to do with these Jews making their own graves and having the troops whistling them to work. It seems as if the poem was most accurate on telling how life truly was in the camps through a Jewish mans point of view.
The blue eyed man in the poem is most likely referring to either one of the SS troops or Hitler him self. Since Landau is a “worker” in the camps it maybe referring to him as well. References to blonde hair, i.e golden hair, make a subtle yet unmistable reference to the Aryan race. In the poem he was talking about a girl with blonde hair who was mostly his daughter or some with importance to him.
I don’t think it was any coincidence that the dairy and the movie have so many similarities. It seems to me that it is basically the same story over and over again. Its as if the Holocaust is being retold in different ways but with the same background and same story.
Mark Viser
July 24, 2008
Sometimes, an interesting way to study a piece of literature is to change the perspective and interpret the text from another point of view. Doing this helps give the reader a more rounded, unbiased outlook on the selection. While reading Paul Celan’s “Fugue of Death”, I noticed a parallel between this poem and the personal war diary of Felix Landau. The war diary, of course, is Landau’s first-hand account of his experience in the German Army. He narrates his daily life, telling of his duties as if there were pedestrian tasks. Conversely, the poem references similar tasks, only from the perspective of the prisoners. The juxtaposition of these two works makes for an interesting comparison and a significant connection.More than once, Landau writes in his journal about his heavy workload. Landau expresses, “Well, I was not able to put yesterday’s plans into action. The reason is simply the unbelievable amount of work” (Bartov 198). Later, he writes, “Once again plenty of work, until 22.00” (Bartov 200). This sort of complaining is not unusual for middle-aged men, except the work Landau refers to mostly involves killing human beings. He discusses his work in such an indifferent tone, showing as much emotion towards his occupation as if he were a banker or engineer. His apathetic attitude creates a non-chalant and relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to the typical Holocaust accounts filled with horror and gore. Landau is simply a man willingly fulfilling his duties.
“Fugue of Death” describes the receiving end of such an attitude. Throughout the poem, the speaker describes the actions of German officer. He writes, “A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes.” He continues to tell how the officer calls his dogs and orders the Jews to dig a grave in the earth. Later in the poem, the speaker writes, “he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings it and blue are his eyes, stab deeper your spades you there and you others play on for the dancing.” By including the words “house” and “dogs” along with “iron” and “stabs”, the speaker creates a link between the human seen in Landau’s diary and the monster seen in the poem. Told from the perspective of a prisoner, the careful reader is able to understand the hell through which the Jews suffered, set forth by fellow men.
“The Fugue of Death” and Felix Landau’s journal mirror each other, writing on the same subject but from different points of view. Studying both of these works reveals more about the Holocaust than either one could separately, because collaboratively, the selections tell the entire story. Revolving around the fact that Jews were treated poorly and savagely murdred, the selections chronicle the events from both sides. The Jews naturally looked upon their oppressors with contempt, taking them for viscious animals. However, taken from Landau’s diary, German soldiers were normal men patriotically carrying out the instructions of their government. These works dually complete the circle of the different kinds of people involved in the Holocaust.
Connor Yates
Holocaust Essay
July 24th 2008
Todesfuge
The poem Todesfuge by Paul Celan and translated by Jerome Rothenburg, begins with the words “Black milk” almost an oxymoron with milk being an essential part of life and black usually referring to death. This poem is about life in concentration camps and how life, being a good thing, is restricted and controlled by someone else, the black part of “Black milk”. While reading this poem, I could only think about the parts of Shoah we viewed in class. I thought of the testimonies from the survivors as they described the camps and their daily routines just as this poem seems to do. Todesfuge seems like a survivor testimony writing from a concentration camp. I can connect this to when we discussed the victims, bystander, and perpetrators because this poem seems to be in the viewpoint of a victim. Shoah was the primary connection I made to this poem but the movie Resnais: Night and Fog because it depicted life in Auschwitz. The main difference was the Nazi’s were in control of the cameras and the perspective was in the perpetrators’ eyes.
The testimonials in Shoah were verbally descriptive but the visuals in the movie were subpar. This poem is a lot like Shoah because it uses words to describe life at concentration camps. However, Celan uses colorful and descriptive words such as “and the stars all start flashing” that can paint a picture for the reader. Life at concentration camps has been depicted through many different ways, but survivor testimony is by far the most accurate. Paul Celan, being an interment camp survivor, writes his stories in a very unique way. Instead of being interviewed for hours on end as in Shoah, he writes poems that pass his message and story on in an intellectual, deep way.
In Resnais: Night and Fog, the story of the concentration camps, Auschwitz in particular, is displayed through visual representation. This allows the viewers to see the true atrocities endured by the inmates and guards. It can do something that no survivor or poem can do by physically showing what concentration camps were like. The gas chambers, the ovens, the graves, the fences, the causalities, and all the other horrors of the camps were shown in the movie. The images from the camps were enough to make people feel extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, today we do not need to choose which one we use as we have both survivors’ tales and physical footage of the concentration camps and we can appropriately depict the horrors of the Holocaust. Furthermore, Paul Celan chooses to convey his story through his poetry giving us a unique look at a victim testimony. By studying the differences and roles between victims, bystanders, and perpetrators we are able to grasp Paul Celan’s story and message. Each individual survivor has a story to tell and has a duty to pass on their stories and Paul Celan’s poem accentuates the role of the victims in telling their story.
[to come]