Holocaust remembrance tattoos
This describes a pretty ghastly, though thankfully rare, way that a some descendents of Holocaust survivors are paying tribute to their aging relatives: having the elderly survivors’ camp numbers tattooed on their own arms.
The 10 tattooed descendants interviewed for this article echoed one another’s motivations: they wanted to be intimately, eternally bonded to their survivor-relative. And they wanted to live the mantra “Never forget” with something that would constantly provoke questions and conversation.
It seems repellent and almost ghoulish, a form of histrionic appropriation of another’s suffering (and also a violation of the Jewish prohibition on tattooing the body), although on reading the entire article I could also see it as a form of love, and a desire to not let the world forget. But the world will forget—in fact, a great deal of the world has already forgotten, or never was outraged by the Holocaust in the first place.
And the Nazis knew that this would happen. I remember reading several books about the Holocaust—including, if I recall correctly, Primo Levi’s masterpiece Survival in Aushwitz, which I highly recommend—that mentioned that one of the ways the Nazis running the camps used to torture the inmates was through constant reminders that in the unlikely event the prisoners managed to survive, no one would ever believe their story, or care.
One of the tattooed young people says that among the comments she’s gotten is “a man who called her ‘pathetic,’ saying of her grandfather, ‘You’re trying to be him and take his suffering.'” I don’t know what the man who said that was thinking, but it struck me that he could have been using the word “pathetic” not in a negative sense, but in a more archaic way, as in the expression “pathetic fallacy”:
The pathetic fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. The word ‘pathetic’ in this use is related to ‘pathos’ or ’empathy’ (capability of feeling), and is not pejorative. In the discussion of literature, the pathetic fallacy is similar to personification.
So yes, her tattoo is “pathetic” in the sense of empathic. And “You’re trying to be him and take his suffering” is merely descriptive.
It’s not possible to do so, of course. History moves on, the Holocaust generation will die out, and young people cannot appropriate what was not their experience, despite their love for their relatives and their fears for the future.
In 1990, five students at UF were horrifically murdered in a span of about 5 days by a vagrant named Danny Rollins. It was a calculating, cold-blooded, and blatantly sociopathic attack… apparently, each of the four girls who were murdered (the fifth, a guy, shared an apartment with last one)>
Since that time, there has been a 10’x20′ panel on a local “graffiti wall” which has memorialized their deaths — even though the entering Freshmen weren’t even a gleam in their parents eyes when the murders occurred.
Is this wall “pathetic”? Yes, in the sense used. But the main point of it is to try and make sure that what happened is not forgotten in the mists of time.
The tattoos are just as legitimate — especially in a world filled with Islamic Denialists — to make sure that, as the survivors pass from this existence, their trial is not forgotten.
So yes, her tattoo is “pathetic” in the sense of empathic. And “You’re trying to be him and take his suffering” is merely descriptive.
In 1990, five students at UF were horrifically murdered in a span of about 5 days by a vagrant named Danny Rollins. It was a calculating, cold-blooded, and blatantly sociopathic attack… apparently, each of the four girls who were murdered (the fifth, a guy, shared an apartment with last one) met Rollins in a checkout line at a nearby Wal-Mart. He was an itinerant “bum”, and it’s a fair bet the girls dissed him for it (or at the least, that was his impression), with particularly horrific results. I won’t describe what he did, but it was fairly grisly in at least two cases.
Since that time, there has been a 10′x20′ panel on a local “graffiti wall” which has memorialized their deaths – even though the now-entering Freshmen weren’t even a gleam in their parents eyes when the murders occurred…
Is this wall “pathetic”? Yes, in the sense used. But the main point of it is to try and make sure that what happened is not forgotten in the mists of time.
The tattoos are just as legitimate – especially in a world filled with Islamic Denialists – to make sure that, as the survivors pass from this existence, their trial is not forgotten.
My take is that they’re just doing what the young people do these days: make their body a tombstone to a dead friend or relative. I talked a young woman out of wasting money on a tattoo commemorating her childhood friend who ODed by reminding her that he always told her to save her money for college. But recently a young man who didn’t even KNOW his Vietnam vet grandfather decided to have his grandfather’s name, birthday, and death date tattooed with a Marine symbol on his arm. It’s cool.
Then again, you’ve heard me talk about my Baby Bro who decided in college not to get any tattoos after a girl he despised said, “I want to get a tattoo to be different, JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.” Truer words never spoken. 🙂
I’m not Jewish, so it’s quite possible that I just can’t understand. But I see it as a memorial, a tribute, and not that they’re appropriating someone else’s suffering.
When I read the first paragraphs of your post my thoughts went back 30 years. I was raised Catholic and didn’t know any Jewish people. I read quite a few books on the Holocaust as a teen. I was moved and disturbed, but in a detached way. Then in my early 20s I met a Holocaust survivor. I was working in a doctor’s office talking to a patient, Elsie, who had been coming in for months. She reached to sign something, her sleeve came up, and I saw the crude tatoo. I was deeply, deeply shocked and moved. I subconsciously reached out and placed my hands over it. She saw my tears and told me about how it happened. This was a sweet lady who had been treated as sub-human. She was marked like a thing, an object. Seeing it in person made me think and feel about the subject as I would not have otherwise. If this girl can cause that to continue to happen, it will be a powerful tribute.
MissJean, My nephews did this when my father died. I had not heard of it before. They’re hidden, and they said every time they see them they’re reminded to live their lives in a way that would make Grandpa proud. Not a bad thing, I think.
LisaM, I have a cousin (female) who has numerous tattoos, including for the dead. So many important people in her life died that once she had one, she kept going until her back. A couple years ago I travelled with a Gold Star mom who had her son’s memorial tattooed on her shin. So I get it, but it’s also trendy.
The young man with his grandpa’s tattoo is trying to capture something of the man he didn’t know. Something good about the man who wasn’t really very good to his family even before he went to war. It’s sad to me.
LisaM,
“But I see it as a memorial, a tribute, and not that they’re appropriating someone else’s suffering.”
I’m Jewish (Israeli) and I see it that way too. I’m critical of it for a different reason: For everyone but the tattooed and friends and relatives of theirs who agree with them, this is an empty gesture. Least of all could it resonate with an increasingly hostile world.
I believe that, above the level of the nation, there is only one court to which a human being can or should plead his case, and that is the Court On High. The notion that there is such a thing as an “international community,” or even an abstract principle as “common humanity,” that we can appeal to is sentimental, irrational nonsense of the kind beloved by the Left. An individual or nation owes nothing to humanity as a whole, nor does humanity as a whole owe anything to them. This is not a cynical way of thought but a very moral one, because the opposite sets you on the track to World Government.
For furthering their own remembrance, this practice makes sense; but if it’s for appealing to the world, it shows people have learned nothing. The world will not be sensitive to the prospect of a future Jewish genocide any more than it’s going to wrench the Christians of the Middle East out of the talons of the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood regimes. Oil or just plain appeasement will prove to be as effective in greasing the statesmen’s palms as they were before and during the Second World War.
Arm yourself properly; fight like a lion; and should defeat prove imminent, make sure your destroyer goes down with you. Barring divine intervention, that is the way of the world.
We just got back recently from a great and very informative almost three week tour of Eastern Europe, during which-before we were to stop at Auschwitz I and II, i.e. nearby Birkenau–we heard a lecture in Warsaw about the Holocaust from a 90 year old Christian Holocaust survivor, Mr. Jerzy Junosza Kowalewski, who has lived a very eventful and colorful life, and who played a very significant part in WWII developments, including being a member of the Polish underground, being transferred among several camps gathering information, and playing a significant part in the Allied liberation of camps just a few hours before all those prisoners remaining alive were ordered to be executed.
You always hear the 6 million figure, and with typical German thoroughness-methodical and thorough even in evil–I just assumed that each of the people in those camps were tattooed and registered, so that a fairly accurate count of those killed was and could be made.
However, during the course of the lecture Mr. Kowalewski told us something that I had never heard or read before, and that was that those who were children, or older, or sickly and were not likely to be able to work, who were immediately “selected” and sent to the gas chambers, were not given a number and tattooed-it wasn’t worth the German’s time to take the trouble to do so, they were just immediately marched off and gassed, and likely unrecorded as individuals.
Leading me to conclude that perhaps no one really has a good tally, and that that 6 million figure may be way too low.
P.S. He didn’t say “they were unrecorded as individuals,” that was my assumption, and I’m sorry I didn’t ask a question about that at the time, but it didn’t occur to me until a few days afterwards.
Feelings turned to tribute in the form of memento mori evidencing a 20th Century annihilation – what could more represent the beginning of the 21st Century than memorializing our feelings for victims. It does no good to never forget; the point should be that it never happens again — but it’s already started… again… and I’m getting a bad feeling.
And ditto and double down on ziontruth’s comment.
Two unrelated short points.
-1- I hesitate to criticize what other people do to memorialize those who have gone on. I am no stranger to being judgmental (believe me!), but in cases like this, whatever. It’s delicate.
-2- I thought it conflicted with Jewish law/tradition that Jews are commanded not to be tattooed. Can someone enlighten me on this?
Thanks . . .
M J R,
“I thought it conflicted with Jewish law/tradition that Jews are commanded not to be tattooed. Can someone enlighten me on this?”
Yes, as Neo parenthetically remarked in the post, it’s a violation of the Torah (Leviticus 19:28). According to Maimonides, the law applies to all permanent colorings; those that fade away after time, even if that means a couple of years, are permitted. Henna art is a staple of Jewish weddings in Israel.
Those who do the Holocaust remembrance tattoos are not observant Jews. Many Israeli Jews (including some of my family members) aren’t observant of religion; the principal difference from American Jewry is that the Orthodox synagogue is the one they don’t go to, instead of the “going undressed, feeling dressed” trick of adhering to Reform or Conservative.
LisaM –
It’s a pity as a Catholic that you felt no connection to the Holocaust. “We” (and other Christians) were intentionally targeted as well. In the camps, being a priest was as bad as being a jew.
Please see St. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (a Jewish convert born Edith Stein).
While I have never had the least desire to have a tattoo myself, I can understand why the descendent of a holocaust survivor (or victim) would want to remember the holocaust with a tattoo.
“Arm yourself properly; fight like a lion; and should defeat prove imminent, make sure your destroyer goes down with you.”
A good motto. As a descendent of hillbillies I offer the creed I was taught: Always walk away from a fight. If you can’t walk away never fight fair, do whatever it takes to win the fight.
Somewhat related. A friend of mine was at a meeting where a scientist who was a holocaust survivor was negotiating funding with some Germans. At some point the scientist quietly hitched his shirt sleeve to show the tattoo on his forearm. He got the funding he wanted.
ziontruth (7:11 pm) responded, “Yes, as Neo parenthetically remarked in the post, it’s a violation of the Torah (Leviticus 19:28).”
Thanks. Looks like I’d read straight past that parenthetical remark. Egg on my face. Pretty unbecoming. But thanks for being patient with me.
“and also a violation of the Jewish prohibition on tattooing”
Why not wear a medal with the inmate number on one side, and “never forget” on the other?
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@parker: good advice, always.
Regarding remembrance of the Holocaust, this is exactly why Eisenhower ordered the camps to be filmed, and why he made the local German civilians walk through them after the camps had been liberated. He knew that there would be a tendency to flush the whole ghastly event down the memory hole, or deny that it ever happened. That’s much harder to do with extensive photographic evidence and thousands of local witnesses, as well as the GIs and Tommies who liberated the places. But it doesn’t keep evil-minded people (Ahmadinejad, for instance) from trying.
As far as the tattoos go, I’m no admirer of body art, but I’m inclined to give those who get them a pass in this case. If I had camp-survivor relatives, I’d probably choose a different way to remember them, but I understand the sentiment.
Each time I watch the UN’s reaction to Iran, to the turmoil in the ME, the blaming of Israel for existing; the lack of outrage by otherwise good people, I have to force myself to push out the thought we will witness a repeat of history.
I am not successful.
One thing many here in the US seem to be unaware of is that NAZI meant “National Socialist”…just saying
ziontruth, The notion that there is such a thing as an “international community,” or even an abstract principle as “common humanity,” that we can appeal to is sentimental, irrational nonsense of the kind beloved by the Left.
Powerfully and perfectly said.
I understand the reasoning behind a desire to memorialize an ancestor or departed friend with a relevant tattoo. However, I think a copy of a tattoo that was forced upon an ancestor during a time of torture and slaughter is at least bizarrely distasteful, at worst, obscene. And I think it would do nothing to cause the wider world to remember events it is hellbent upon forgetting.
As a Jew I find this tatooing idea totally repulsive and as un-Jewish as one can get. It is a sick display by people who do not understand their own heritage and commit an offense to that heritrage in order to make a pathetic (in the commonly understood sense) gesture that only shows they don’t understand, or even care to understand, the recent past, either. This is nothing less than a sad commentary some lost people have etched into their own skins, and it is even cheaper as it is clearly done in some sort of demented demonstration of self-absorption that screams more loudly than anything else the lack of care they have for the actual event they are trying to insert themselves into. I can hardly think of anything more offensive than to have Jewish kids tatoo themselves like this. Sick, sick folks who make a game of one of the most horrific episodes in all of human history.
I would lay money and give you good odds that none of these tatooed idiots even knows what a “refusenik” was, nor cares. But to wear an old bracelet representing someone stuck in a gulag for trying to get an exit visa from the Soviet Union (which a lot of these tatooed idiots probably think was a cool place, along with communist China and marxism in general) isn’t “edgy” enough or anti-Jewish enough for these little fashionistas of horror.
Au contraire, I dig it.
whats pathetic is that they dont know what they are doing, talking about, or even pretending to make a big issue of… if they did, tattoos would be the last thing on their minds…
I appreciate the sentiment – it’s a heck of a lot better than the mindless trendy Che-wear – and that they want to honor and remember their relatives. But getting the Nazi ID # reminds me of those annual commemorations of someone’s death (“it’s been ten years since he OD’d/crashed his car/was murdered by terrorists on 9/11”). I’d rather remember someone for how they lived, not based on the worst event in their life.
I do not consider the tattoos of this discussion ‘ghastly’. I consider them living memorials to a great evil, which is even now being reborn.
They distinguish themselves from the ugly, repellent ‘sleeves’, etc., paid for at great cost by the Great Unwashed aka Low Information Voters, which are without any meaning or decorative worth whatsoever.
ziontruth-I posted part of your Oct 2, 4:14 PM thread on my Facebook page as “Quote of the day” ..though it was pretty good concerning the affairs of nations…the one part I might disagree with is “An individual or nation owes nothing to humanity as a whole, nor does humanity as a whole owe anything to them.” …I would think disaster aid, missionary work does fall into the category of owing humanity…but I agree with what you are saying about the political / legal side of it…
meant to say “thought” not “though it was pretty good…”