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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-whose-agony-is-greater-than-mine-testimonies-of-gaza-and-october-7-ask-us-to-recognise-shared-humanity-257554>
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Review: Eyes on Gaza – Plestia Alaqad (Macmillan), Letters from Gaza –
edited by Mohammed Al-Zaqzooq & Mahmoud Alshaer (Penguin), Gates of Gaza –
Amir Tibon (Scribe)
In 1962, poet and Auschwitz survivor Yehiel Dinur took the stand in Jerusalem
in the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Dinur was a much-anticipated
witness, bearing the audience’s hope this man, a poet, would be able to explain
– to capture and to transmit – the experience of Auschwitz, and of the
Holocaust; that he could speak the unspeakable. Prosecutor Gideon Hausner hoped
such a witness might “do justice to the six million personal tragedies”.
Dinur used the name Katzetnik 135633 in his writings, also translated as
“Prisoner 135663”. On the stand, he said: “I believe wholeheartedly that I have
to continue to bear this name until the world awakens.”
Awakening, understanding, empathy and change are the sentiments many survivors
hope for, or ask for, during and after periods of trauma. The 20th century saw
many of those pleas. The 21st century has done no better at honouring the
promise, captured in the title of the 1984 Argentinian commission report on
forced disappearances,
Nunca Mas: never again. No matter how many such pleas
appear before the courts, before the aggressors, before those in solidarity,
the horrors of war, torture, starvation and genocide seem to happen again – and
again.
Three recent books from the region where war was been raging since the Hamas
attacks on Israel on October 7 2023, and the ensuing war on Gaza, are part of
these pleas."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
