Loss of Identity

A common theme we have seen throughout reading Wieviorka and watching video testimony is the loss of identity victims experienced. Whether they hid under a false name in an unfamiliar place, or whether they suffered in the camps with a number as their name, the identities of victims were buried and destroyed during the Holocaust. Furthering this problem was the general reaction after the war. Though their was a strong initial reaction, after the dust settled, Holocaust survivors went out of the public sphere to an extent. Wieviorka explains how some survivors would tell their children not to talk about their experience with people because they didn't want to hear about it, and they would never view the victim in the same way. Even in Israel it was thought "The less everybody talked about the Holocaust, the better. Thus the great silence was born" (Wieviorka p. 73). Because of these attitudes, survivors formed closed communties in order to honor the memory of their dead and to keep ties with people who had lived through the experience. This means that the memory of the Holocaust was being kept almost entirely in the private sphere of society.
What changed this was the Eichman trial, where Hausner hoped to, "superimpose on a phantom a dimension of reality" (Wieviorka p. 70). What he means is that through testimonies of victims from all walks of life, he hoped to give a real face, or identity, to the idea of a Holocaust survivor. Testimony, whether oral or written, had already been used for this purpose. Earlier Wievorka notes that the reason Wiesel and many others poured out notes right after liberation, was in order to reconstitue their identity. I think that this is the same reason that survivors formed these closed groups when the world was not interested in their story. What the Eichman trial did was give their testimony and experience a public importance and legitimacy of government attention. Also, Wieviorka states that it was the first time since the war that victims felt they were being listened to and heard.
Included on the USC Shoah Foundation's archive of testimony, George Gottlieb and Esther Bem both demonstrate this experience. Gottlieb remembers being able to meet with his mother for twenty minutes while in a camp. When he sees her, he is torn apart by the destruction that the event has had on his mother - she is almost unrecognizable to him. He ends his segment with his mother's last words to him, "Be proud of your heritage. Be proud of your name." His mother, feeling her identity and the identity of Jews in generally being destroyed, begs her son to above all hang on to his identity.
Esther Bem had a different experience. She hid in a town far from her home, under an assumed name. She spoke of how she and others would never tell anyone that they were Jewish. When liberated, she experienced great difficulty in reclaiming her true identity. After denying who you are for a number of years, this is expected. For Jewish people living during the Nazi rule, admitting who you were would give you a death sentence. It is hard for me to imagine the destruction and long lasting effect this would produce.
It seems, though, that through testimony, people are given the chance to reaffirm and, as Wieviorka says, reconstitute their identities. The demand, value, and legitimacy of their testimony was strengthened by the Eichmann trial, and I believe the value on their testimony has generally continued to this day.