******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
I have been reading on Levinas and I may yet get around to a post on his work. An essay on the Levinasian face in literature contained a link to Tadeusz Borowski's short story *This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen* https://cc136.k12.sd.us/thiswayforgasstory.pdf I followed the link and read this passage where Borowski describes the unloading of the trains into Auschwitz. *We climb inside. In the corners amid human excrement and abandoned wrist‐watches lie squashed, trampled infants, naked little monsters with enormous heads and bloated bellies. We carry them out like chickens, holding several in each hand.* The character in the story tries to get the women to take the children but they run away in horror. An SS oficer makes to shoot the man carrying the children. Then a woman comes and takes the children. Borowski writes * You mustn't shoot, I'll carry them." A tall, grey‐haired woman takes the little corpses out of my hands and for an instant gazes straight into my eyes."My poor boy," she whispers and smiles at me. Then she walks away, staggering along the path. I lean against the side of the train. I am terribly tired.* This is the moment of redemption. The woman has look into the narrator's face and in Levinasian terms seen as the trace of G-d. The analysis is elegant and as always when I encounter faith and decency bound together, I wish it were so. But that is not why I am writing about my encounter with Borowski. Reading the story I was filled with a burning hatred for the far right. That I have lived long enough to see the filth make a come back fills me with rage. How could over 40% of Austrians have voted for a Far Rightist? How could a piece of dirt like Trump be elected to the White House? What is wrong with people? Listers should be advised that these questions are more rhetorical venting. I know, I know but I am still horrified. comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
