Bau, Artist at War, Joseph Bau, author; Assaf Cohen, narrator
I found this book to be a bit disappointing at first read. I borrowed the audio from the library, and the important drawings in the print copy were absent. I obtained a print copy, and the experience changed. Perhaps, a print copy is advisable.
With a great deal of description, the Plaszow Camp where Joseph Bau was kept prisoner is described in great detail. It was hard for me to picture it accurately, so the drawings were very helpful. I do think that the memoir needed a bit more editing, however. The time line was sometimes confusing as it seemed to move back and forth. I also think that the relationship between Joseph and Rebecca was too sparse, but perhaps the book is also intended to promote the movie which will emphasize it.
The cruelty of the Germans was alive on the page, and there were examples of behavior I had never read about before, like having red stripes painted on their clothing, or having to carry a heavy stone on one’s back until one dropped and was crushed by it, or latrine buckets doubling as the serving bucket for the soup or coffee, or that Jewish tombstones were used as the paving stones in the camp and the camp was built over the cemetery. I was also unaware that the latrine was the social center where deals were made.
There was a total loss of humanity because Jews were not treated like human beings by their captors. Even after the war, those who pretended not to know what had happened, still refused to return the property they had stolen from the Jews. They were just as barbaric. For the most part, the thieves and accessories to the genocide got away with it. So, Jews were forced to leave their homes again. There was nothing left there for them. Family, friends, and possessions had disappeared forever, although some recompense would be made in the future.
In the audio, the portrayal of Joseph’s brother Marcel seemed stereotypical of a Shylock type character and was disappointing for me. The tone of voice and stress placed seemed to demean him. I hope the movie presents him a little differently. Marcel was also a clever survivor, in many ways, but his defiance was treated as if he was just an arrogant con man, always promoting schemes rather than attempting to resist the demands of the Germans and to help his family. It was off-putting. Joseph on the other hand acquiesced to the Germans in order to survive and worked as a graphic artist. He fell in love with Rebecca and bravely sneaked into the women’s camp to see her, disguising himself with a white kerchief over his head, like all the women wore. He was lucky to eventually wind up working in Schindler’s factory as a draftsman. Rebecca gave manicures to Commandant Goeth. She escaped death at Auschwitz when either luck or G-d intervened.
I was surprised that the Plaszow Camp often seemed to be functioning in some ways as a community with shops for the Germans like shoemakers, bakeries, laundries, furriers, tailors, locksmiths, etc., and that his mother seemed to live with a bit more freedom in a hut which he visited, although not without danger. Perhaps the translation gave the place an impression that was a bit inaccurate. The fear and barbarism were presented as were the awful living conditions. Couple that with Schindler’s heroism and the search for the Germans responsible for The Holocaust to balance it out. The entire picture is presented for the reader to experience.
I am not certain that the idea of the betrayals of each other, often forced upon them by the Germans, often Jew upon Jew, was presented with the emphasis on blaming the Germans for putting Jews in such a position. Of course, there was terrible depravity and of course the extreme deprivation contributed to their behavior. The Jews had no escape. The diabolical German plan to annihilate them was thorough, and they were humiliated and robbed of everything. Then they were hidden away and there was no escape from the barbaric behavior of their German captors and their sadistic participants. Their sadistic barbarism was carefully hidden and/or denied for years as most of the Germans and the world leaders proclaimed their ignorance while millions were tortured, starved and murdered in an attempt to wipe out the world’s Jewish communities, gay communities, disabled communities and anyone not belonging to the elite Aryan race. Did fear keep the world from acknowledging the horror or was it that these people being eliminated so heinously were just not important enough?
So, yes, while the Jews seemed to calmly go into captivity, and then to adapt to their loss of rights as they sewed on their stars, went to the ghettos and even to the camps, they had little other choice. Their neighbors turned against them. They had no friends, no support, no police to help them. They were surrounded by their enemies. Their only hope was that the war would end, and then they might be able to return to normal life. They could never have imagined what would take place, nor could any decent human being. They could never imagine the betrayals of those pretending to help them.
I am at a loss to explain how so many decent human beings stood by as it did happen. They denied awareness. For me, that is just incomprehensible. I am Jewish. No one was that blind, unless it was a willful blindness. I fear for the Jews today, as the demonic minds of many are once again hypnotized by those marching and chanting “from the river to the sea” as Jews are being blamed for the very genocide committed against them. Many are standing shoulder to shoulder as they once again condemn innocent Jews. The cries of “never again” are lost in the wind as it is, indeed, happening again and again. When I visited Vienna, four decades after the war, I witnessed its surviving antisemitism in the flesh. Today, the Holocaust deniers are alive and well, although it is almost four decades after my visit to Austria, and the madness is once again spreading throughout the world. It is simply a bridge too far to cross. The haters must be stopped in New York, in Paris, in Vienna, anywhere it rears its ugly head.