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B. B. | August 16, 1944
My whole being seems paralyzed and with each passing day I feel more apathetic about the world outside, less suited to life as it is now. If our goals and political aims donât materialize, if the world remains as it is now, if new social relations donât emerge and substantially change human natureâwell, then, I will finally become and forever remain a clumsy, incompetent, damned creature, a failure.
Up to now I have frequentlyâeven constantlyâlooked inside myself to find the causes of my misery and unhappinessâin my being, my character, my background. Iâve always struggled to understand the necessity behind human destiny, individual fate, and to explain such things in light of atavism, heredity, education, childhood, and any number of psychological factors. And Iâve done the same to understand and explain my own life. The method is sound, no doubt.
dp n="39" folio="38" ?But recently itâs becoming clearer to me that oneâs faults arenât something to look for solely in oneself or in oneâs personal life; they are largely hidden in the world around us. Today, I understand quite well that the endless string of bad days, the dark thoughts, and the extremely difficult situations Iâve lived through in my life were directly caused by none other than external vicissitudes, the absurdity of the current social structure, and human nature as it is today.
This becomes glaringly obvious today, right here, in this camp, and in the atrocious servitude that binds us to each other. And so Iâve learned to link my own particular destiny closely to the more general question that will determine the outcome to the current social and international upheaval, and Iâve learned to envision the solution to my own personal problems, above and beyond all else, within the context of the solution to global problems. So Iâve decided to stop being the victim of my previous convictions, to free myself from the clutches of individual fatalism that used to throw me defenselessly into an imminent, inevitable, predestined, eternal, and necessarily fatal unhappiness. It goes without saying that in spite of everything, my personal unhappiness flows from these kinds of things, in a sense; but that unhappiness is not a definitive and stable feature, since it must, since it canât not vary within the general context of the social and global transformations taking place today.
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B. B. | August 19, 1944
People from different social classes are crammed together here, but itâs the standard petty-bourgeois type that predominates. There are also a few typical capitalist individuals, moderately decadent types. In general, everyone continues to display mean and petty habits, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness. Out of this come endless conflicts of interest, friction, and cases of bigotry on top of it all.
The atmosphere is suffocating. The fact that we were all deported here from every corner of the world and that you hear no fewer than twenty-five languages being spoken is not the worst of it. If only we were united by one determined, common consciousness! But this is not the case. This human mass is heterogeneous. It is piled together here, by force, by violence, in this small patch of dirty, humid ground, forced to live in the most humiliating conditions and to endure the most brutal deprivations, such that all human passions and weaknesses have unleashed themselves, sometimes taking on beastly forms.
What a disgrace! What a sad spectacle! A common misery uniting beings who barely tolerate each other and who add their own lack of social consciousness, mental blindness, as well as those incurable ills of isolated souls, to these distressing objective conditions. Certain selfish instincts have found in this place an ideal ground for their own justification to the point of being grotesque. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to generalize all these problems.
dp n="41" folio="40" ?But the high moral values that you can sense in some people, their moral and intellectual honesty, remain in the shadows, powerless.
B. B. | August 20, 1944
I feel extremely tired and disconnected from everything around me. My soul moans, aches. Where is beauty hiding? And truth? And love? Oh, how the thought of my life, my whole life, pains me.
B. B. | August 22, 1944
The very limited space and the even more limited possibilities of keeping it cleanâitâs enough to push anyone to the brink. Rainy days transform the entire space into a mud pit, which further increases the overall level of filth as well as the vermin. And itâs all accompanied by interminable squabbles systematically encouraged by the common enemy, the Nazi. Itâs only the first month and already, depressed, we can foresee endless misery.
I should have gone âup there,â into the mountains, to be with them.a Definitely. Of course, there too, over time, you would have noticed some conflicts, some petty disagreements, some minor inconsistencies in some people, a lack of conviction or principles in others ⌠and it would have been even more painful, more bitter, perhaps. But at least you would feel like a human being, free to think, to express yourself, to act. And you would be surrounded by human beings, by real men, who say human things to you, men who, today, are the only ones who deserve respect and whose words and deeds matter. Only âup thereâ could I know my reason for being, my true worth, and what I am truly capable of contributing, or not contributing.
Only there does suffering have meaning. Only there do faults become more obvious and easier to correct. Only there does man learn to know himself and to devote himself. And to the extent that, there too, the verdict would indicate that I am a failure ⌠It would only be for the better. Everything would be clearer: the only thing left for you now is to drop, like an overripe fruit that decomposes of its own accord. Why not? Such is the world. But I suspect vaguely, yet deep within me, that once âup there,â I would not necessarily have been destined to total ruin.
Maybe itâs precisely this dilemma that landed me here in this wretched camp; itâs been tormenting me for some time. On the other hand, because of it many things within me and in others have been clarified. And today I can state without fear of inaccuracy that I was madeâif not absolutely then decisivelyâto be there with them, rather than here. In a sense, this evolution hasnât been totally worthless to me: I came out of it hardened in my convictions, having gotten to know the enemy better and having learned more thoroughly what we must fight in the future. The knowledge acquired was worth it.
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B. B. | August 23, 1944
Thatâs not entirely true. I had this knowledge before, complete and alive in my consciousness. And I didnât have to wait until my thirties to become âmore hardenedâ at the cost of such infamous ordeals ⌠since so many others were able to resolve this crucial question so much more quickly and positively. Thatâs whatâs hard. Thatâs whatâs behind this dissatisfaction with myself that often, very logically, throws me into despair.
This struggle between two worlds being waged within me and within many others like meâwill it last forever, to mortify us throughout our entire existence? Or is there some hope that it will end favorably? It seems as though itâs inevitable, like a natural phenomenon that occurs in people whose lives have unfolded in circumstances I have known, a phenomenon that most likely will not fail to manifest itself in us again in the future, on the threshold of a new life, like it does in the world described by P. Romanov, Gorki, Gladkov.b These external signs of private battles and moral suffering that destroy and consume. And struggleâthe only way of life capable of putting an end to these unhealthy thoughts in an evolving man ⌠struggle, nothing but struggle.
dp n="44" folio="43" ?Iâm not writing all this to justify myself. There is no justification for faults that we are the first to become fully conscious of, any more so than for shortcomings that we are the first to condemn.
B. B. | August 24, 1944
I am overcome by extreme fatigue and total disinterest. What can I add? A world that is falling apart ⌠A new world, a saner one, will come along and replace it. I shudder with joy at the thought of a new life, one where clarity and truth will triumph. So many things will finally be explained and discovered, in books, in activity, in life.... And everything will be infinitely simpler, fairer, clearer, so there will be no room for this sort of dilemma.
B. B. | August 26, 1944
There is one thing that baffles me completely. Itâs to see that men are so much weaker, so much less resilient than women. Physically and often morally, too. They donât know how to get hold of themselves and often display such a lack of courage itâs pitiful. Their hunger shows on their faces and in their gestures in a way thatâs alarmingly different from women.
Many of them either donât know how to discipline their stomachs or else they donât want to or are organically incapable of it. The same goes for thirst, fatigue, their physical reactions to any fundamental deprivation. They lack the strength to adapt, to keep pace. There are some who have such a miserable demeanor that their misery is much more painful for those who look at them. And there are some whose lack of discipline goes so far as to border on meanness, on overt greediness, on total disloyalty toward their fellow internees in this dire suffering and ordeal that we all share.
Is the whole male sex like this? Thatâs just not possible.⌠What about those men who are strong in the face of adversity, in the midst of the struggle, who know how to suffer and remain silent with dignity, how to calm and discipline their instincts because they are guided by more humane and lofty impulses than their stomachs or other purely physical needs? This goes without saying: the spectacle before me is nothing other than the natural extension of its protagonistsâ pasts. In the majority of cases, it is merely a question of their bodies having been used to satisfy their basest instincts without limits, spoiling and fattening up their stomachs for so long a period of time.
For too long, personal pleasures and convenience have been at the center of these peopleâs lives, to the point where privations become unheard-of and tragic things, and self-denial is unthinkable. As for self-discipline, it is an unpleasant novelty that they cannot grasp and that they only accept as necessary for other people. Raising the consciousness of such elements is difficult work, very difficult, nearly impossible; from this perspective they are irresponsible creatures. And this leads to another, much more troubling result: few, very few are those who know how to preserve their dignity before the enemy without cowardice.
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B. B. | August 28, 1944
Iâm in charge of taking care of the children. There are 110 of them in our barracks, all different ages, from three-year-old infants to fourteenâand fifteen-year-old boys and girls. Itâs not easy to work without books. Iâm forced to write by hand on dozens and dozens of little scraps of paper, filling them with varied content, for the littlest ones who have hardly begun to read and write as well as for the most advanced children. As for paper and pencils, the children manage to acquire them in various ways, by selling their bread rations or engaging in all kinds of transactions, or even stealing them from each other.
Since we have no books, we often have to resort to oral lessons exclusively, which demands particularly sharp attention from the students. On top of that, our lessons are often interrupted, either by Appelle or by air raid warnings or by inspectionsâthose visits by officials that remind us of ourselves when we used to go to the zoo long ago. Each time there are circumstances beyond our control that disrupt our school work. Or else itâs all the chaos and noise right near our âclassroom,â times when theyâre hunting for workers, when people are arguing, the commotion when the distribution of soup begins, etc.
The children are unleashed, wild, famished. They feel that their existence has taken an unusual and abnormal turn and they react brutally and instinctively. Bad habits catch on quickly among children in calamitous times and in an overall atmosphere of distrust and fear. A small minority of them shows a keen interest in studying; the others couldnât care less. They are not ignorant of the fact that the Germans have forbidden any true teaching in the camp and that serious study must be undertaken in secret. So they escape from it with impunity.
But itâs out of the question to lecture them about it; that would even be ludicrous. All moral lectures have absolutely no effect. The adults get impatient; the childrenâs mischief gets on their nerves. So the adults are sometimes quick to treat the children as âcriminalsâ or âpunks.â They demand the children be punished in the most severe ways, by making an example of them, taking away their bread rations or whipping them. If for no other reason than to restore some calm! And when they run up against my opposition to such things, they vent their anger against ⌠âsuch a school and such an education.â As if there really could be any education, and as if you could ask children to be nice and polite in a disastrous human environment where all nerves are on edge, where the adults fight among themselves, insult each other, steal from each other, beat each other up without shame or discretion, where everything is warped and corrupted.
The men have forgotten that leading by example is by far more important and effective than any lecture, advice, or punishment. Besides, even in normal or quasi-normal circumstances, didnât teaching and school leave much to be desired in our Slavic homeland? So many things that were absurd, out of step, and poorly adapted to the needs of the people and the times! How often did our work at school seem senseless and useless because of the reactionary nature of the curriculum! We managed with great difficulty to change some aspects of it here and there.⌠The base remained the same. Itâs even more absurd to aspire to an ideal education here, in a concentration camp.
Nevertheless, we do what we can, and the childrenâs fundamentally good nature often wins out, and we witness surprising results. Yes, indeed, children have such energy that they can often muster much more than we think them capable of.
Therefore, itâs ludicrous to rail against the children for the difficulties they cause when they are the least responsible for them. Itâs not through beatings and coercion that you extirpate the root causes of difficulties when those root causes are so deeply entrenched that they must be eradicated once and for all. You donât get rid of evil by attacking its effects, but rather by attacking its cause, by pulling it out by the root.
Thatâs why I get overcome with impatience waiting for the new era that will help us to cure this ill by attacking it at its root. Itâs with immense joy that I imagine the possibilities that will open up to me in my teaching as well. And if my efforts are successfulâwhat happiness! Will I be successful or not? Or will time have passed me by? Always the same doubts, always the same anguish. Because a large part of our being belongs, alas, to this sick and dying world of todayâas well as to its past. To hell with it! Itâs this camp thatâs depressing me and making me look on things darkly.âŚ
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B. B. | August 29, 1944
Without books, we are ill. I feel beaten down at the core of my being. So many lost hours, so many vanished, inaccessible riches ⌠What a miserable, sterile existence.⌠atrophied minds. I spend a lot of time thinking; Iâm learning a lot in the midst of this misery; Iâm learning how to understand many things in life that escaped me before. But I think about life wit...