Passing and other Paradoxes of Holocaust Survival. . - Reviews - Escape through the Balkans: The Autobiography of Irene Grunbaum - My Father's Testament: Memoir of a Jewish Teenager, 1938-1945 - book review

Judaism, Fall, 2001 by Brett Ashley Kaplan

Edward Gastfriend is the youngest of eight children of a pious Hasidic tailor from Sosnowiec, Poland. His first experience of the war occurred as early as 1938 when Sosnowiec was inundated with German Jews of Polish descent who had been expelled by the Nazi regime. Throughout the course of the narrative virtually all of the members of his immediate and extended families are murdered. Only one brother, Haim, who had emigrated to Palestine, outlives the war. Gastfriend owes his survival to his refusal to accept the newly instituted "laws" imposed on Jews. He is a young man with a feisty survival instinct, the ability to "organize" (basically to wheel-and-deal on the black market), and "Aryan looks" that allow him to pass as Catholic. By hiding, dodging, and organizing, Gastfriend manages to survive an uncommonly long time before being rounded up and deported to Blechhammer, a work-concentration camp.

The "testament" of the title, My Father's Testament, are his father's last words, repeated throughout the text as a mantra: "'never forget that you are Jewish. You must always remain Jewish. Never question God's ways'" (69, 150, 160, 165, 172). Shortly after the first utterance of this testament, however, Gastfriend declares "I ceased to be Jewish" (76). The paradox of survival, then, for both Gastfriend and Grunbaum, is pretending not to be Jewish precisely so that one can survive in order to be Jewish after the war. Grunbaum pretends--often unsuccessfully--to be "Fatima Nova" a Muslim, whereas Gastfriend uses the knowledge gleaned from his years in a Catholic public school and his "Aryan looks" to pretend to be Catholic while nonetheless still keeping kosher, even during the most brutal moments of starvation. It was because of his Catholic schooling that he could pass: "In our region it was important, for example, for Gentiles to extend proper greetings and to make the sign of the cross when entering a Cath olic home. Luckily, I knew the Catholic prayers and was able to execute the correct gesture" (77). Just as Grunbaum saves herself by knowing and mimicking Muslim customs, Gastfriend's interaction with Catholics allowed him to pass and therefore survive.

This passing is exactly what his father was so afraid of. As was the case in Elie Wiesel's Night, the dynamic between the noble and pious father--whose resistance to resistance makes the son at once angry and proud--and the feisty and resilient son--whose impiety often angers the father--is disclosed in Gastfriend's text. As in Wiesel's testimony, Gastfriend's father prefers to accept the gruesome status quo; this leads him to obey the order to gather in the stadium that will eventually lead him to the concentration camps (69). Like Wiesel, Gastfriend watches his once proud and manly father become degraded into a weak and cowed figure: "My father had been the proud head of the house, a loving parent of eight children and a noble teacher. Now locked inside his own home, he seemed to have lost his spark. It was painful to see my once distinguished father so helpless, so deprived of his former majestic manner when presiding over the illuminated Sabbath table" (62). Here again, yet in a very different manner than in Grunbaum's testimony, the role of gender in survival is brought into play. It seems clear that the father, once deprived of his status as head of the household, loses any desire to resist because he has been demasculinized by atrocious Nazi acts such as the cutting off of pious men's beards. The more flexible son, on the other hand, not only resists by passing and black marketeering, but also becomes an active member of the Polish-Jewish resistance network. Unlike Wiesel, Gastfriend emerges from his experiences in the camps with his faith intact, even though this faith has had to undergo a sea change from the more humble and pious version espoused by his father.