Sculpted in November 2003, updated: 2009_01_15

Even before I came to the retreat I felt unhappy with all the planned "silences", "meditations" and "services".

I feared, that this would be yet another format set up by "spiritual people",

to silence the pain of The Mother, the emotional aspect of God-Spirit."


It seemed to me not only inappropriate , but utterly wrong.

But it was not until Klaus Kohl, one of our coordinators,

called me to read a certain document,

that it really hit me:

silence can be monstrous!

This "Walther report", as I am now calling it, is a simple page, written with a typewriter,
[2011_06_30 - the moment I re-read these lines, Mika stormed into my room with the loudest of her sounds to frighten me, and she succeeded!]
phrased by an obviously simple-minded, even naive Nazi officer to his superiors.
It is exhibited quite inconspicuously in the Sinti and Roma Museum in Auschwitz, to which Klaus had led a few of us.

Klaus explained:
"Each nation has its own museum,
and each one is very careful not to hurt any other nation's feelings.
Only the Sinti and Roma
(to call them "gypsies" would be like calling African Americans "Negroes")
who do not have a state,
came out with no such considerateness."

Oberleutnant Walther              1.11.1941 Bericht: "Das Ausheben der Gruben nimmt den groessten Teil der Zeit in Anspruch, waehrend das Erschiessen selbst sehr schnell geht (100 Mann in 40 Minuten)... Das Erschiessen der Juden ist einfacher als das der Zigeuner. Man muss zugeben, dass die Juden sehr gefasst in den Tod gehen, - sie stehen sehr ruhig waehrend die Zigeuner heulen, schreien und sich dauerned bewegen, wenn sie schon auf dem Erschiesungsplatz stehen. Einige sprangen sogar vor der Salve in die Grube und versuchten sich tot zu stellen. Anfangs waren meine Soldaten nicht beeindruckt. Am 2. Tag jedoch machte sich schon bemerkbar, dass der eine oder andre nicht die Nerven besitzt, auf laengere Zeit eine Erschiessung durch zu fuehren. Mein persoenlicher Eindruck ist, dass man waehrend der Erschiessung keine seelischen Hemmungen bekommt. Diese stellen sich jedoch ein, wenn man nach Tagen in Ruhe darueber nachdenkt.

First Lieutenant Walther               1.11.1941 Report: "The digging-out of the ditches takes most of the time, while the gunning down happens very fast (100 men in 40 minutes)...Gunning down the Jews is simpler than that of the gypsies. One has to admit, that the Jews go into death in a very composed manner, - they are standing quietly - while the gipsies wail, yell and moved incessantly, once they stand on the shooting place. Some of them even jumped into the ditch before the gunfire and tried to pretend being dead. In the beginning my soldiers were not impressed. But on the second day it was already noticible, that one or the other does not possess the nerves to carry through a fussilation over a period of time. My personal impression is, that during the gunning down one does not feel any emotional inhibitions. Those do rise,though, when one does ponder the matter quietly after some days."

Look, how "composed" this man is:

I am warning everyone who reads this:

I am NOT judging them
for having gone to the slaughter like sheep.

I am NOT advocating resistance or flight!

Any resistance, any flight of one person
meant certain death for many fellow prisoners.

Yanina, my friend, took this photo of my loneliness after having wailed - alone - at this "Wailing Wall". Someone covered me with a prayer-shawl - I learnt that it was Ginni, and later three different participants thanked me for my wailing, but then not one among 55 people knelt down to join me.

But yes, I am screaming, roaring, thundering: Throw off your "civilized" , "composed" behavior! or your "spiritual" silent way of melting pain through "consciousness"! When you visit the execution wall, do not meditate, do not keep silent. whine and whimper, and waiiiiiiiiiiiiil! And if you believe, you don't "need" this, then think of the murdered and give them a voice! PLEASE!

When we visited the ghetto and cemetery in Cracov, our Polish guide pointed to this mosaic of broken gravestones and said: "The Jews say, that this is their local Wailing Wall." Wailing Wall not Silence Wall!

In the Museum of the Sinti & Roma I found these two notes
about "the Screaming of the Children":

Lucy Adelsberger, a prisoner who was a medical doctor and forced to work in the children's barrack: "The children could not rest at night - because of so much hunger and thirst and cold and pain. Their moaning rose like the wind in the trees and resounded through the whole block"

Barbara Adler: In den Baracken herrschte eisige Kaelte. Wir drueckten uns alle zusammen, um uns gegenseitig zu waermen. Der grosse Hunger machte uns halb wahnsinnig. Das Schreien der Kinder schallte durch den Block, es war die Hoelle auf Erden. Keiner konnte helfen, keiner griff ein. "The cold in the block was icy. We squeezed together so as to warm each other. The great hunger made us half insane. The screaming of the children rang through the block. It was hell on earth. No one could help, no one interfered.

Listen to your body, wail and moan,

hummm at least, or buzz your lips,

stop denying your body, whimper and weep,

sound your pain, your fear and your shame,

don't silence your feelings,

sound them, breathe them, move them.

For if you don't,
not only will your body get sick and die,
even if you should now survive,
but you will play into the hands of the murderers:

Gunning down the Jews is simple!

they don't scream and fidget like the Gypsies!

they stand quietly, composed and dignified!

For this is what their adopted Western culture had imprinted in them.


How can you read hundreds of names of men and women and children and babies

and then sit in silence?

Why didn't you follow me to the fence,

and walk along it outside and inside

and wail and voice and weep?

Why did you stand like mute fish in front of the execution wall

and not fall on your knees together with me

and start a small hummm,

to overcome your shame

- for it is shameful in our society to do what Body needs to do with pain -

and let the hummm turn into sounding vocals or into an OOOOMMM,

until your sounding will increase in volume and feeling

and finally explode into a shrill lament,

which will pierce the heart of God and Man.

You ask yourself over and over again:

"How could humans do this to humans."

And you do not see the answer!

You even repeat, that "the perpetrators are in each of us",

but those are just words with no meaning at all.

Read the Walther report! Learn it by heart!

See how victims cooperated with their victimizers!

For both silenced their feelings.

Have you heard, that once Himmler came to see such a fusilation of 100 men in 40 minutes? He became so nauseated, that he vomited right there and then! It is easy to sit in Berlin-Wannsee, with your boots under the table, Himmler, and decide upon the "Endloesung", the "Final Solution". But to watch one hundred men fall dead into the ditch they themselves had dug out before , this is quiet a different thing! Unless, of course, unless you have first killed your feelings. And so it was decided, that the death laborers had to be trained, and they went to the harshest of trainings - to kill all feelings and never utter a sound.

Looking at the people around me, I find it surprising, that this training was even necessary.
There is so little feeling left in most of them.

In the Auschwitz retreat I begged my group to sound with me. It was interpreted as domination. I explained with words, that it is vital not to be silent. I was told, that "everyone has different needs". I pleaded: "If your son would sleep for 18 hours a day or take drugs, would you also say, everyone has different needs? Wouldn't you be worried because of his way of escape? Wouldn't you try to help him to cope instead of avoiding his pain and hiding in sleep?" This value of silence is nothing but a monstrous defense-mechanism, monstrous, because it is surrounded with the halo of spirituality! And the connection with Auschwitz, with the victims and the victimizers, is done away with as absurd and grotesk.

Mark Jacobs, you encouraged me to keep my promise "to upset the group"! This was in the candle atmosphere of the children's barrack, where at least three participants voiced, that they didn't feel anything. I did not keep my promise then. I was too afraid to be even more of a trouble-maker than I had been already. I am keeping my promise NOW. Be Sounding!!! - not Silent! Again I warn of misunderstanding me: There is a time for silence! When the alternative would be chatting!!!! The instruction to be silent at the beginning of a meal and the starting of a walk from the hostel to Birkenau was appropriate. There was no such instruction, when people walked to the selection place for the Meditation-ReadingNames-Meditation ritual. I walked with people only once and felt very much disturbed by their chatting. Since I could neither bear their non-silence in a situation which asked for silence, nor their silence, when the situation asked for wailing and weeping, I took part only from a distance, thus living my solidarity and love for all the group members but not violating my need for either silence or sounding.

The question that I have always been asking, I never heard someone else ask:
If the Nazis took their "Final Solution" seriously -
why didn't they kill everyone in the gas-chambers right away, once this method had been developed efficiently?

Continuation:
Coping with Evil
The answer, that they needed people to work for them, is stupid, to say the least.
Like Pater Staniswov in Harmeze said to me:
"People, who are needed for work, must be fed and kept in good shape."
But the purpose was not the need to get slaves.
The purpose was the need to torture.
And why was there the need to torture?

Simply, because this was the only way,
the deadened feelings could get "a kick" for a moment.

Again, this is not so far away from what people do,
who seek out movies of action and horror.
Their living is lifeless,
for their feelings are dead.
No one taught them, how to vibrate feelings physically,
no one trained them to move emotions,
to breathe and sound and move
pain, shame and fear,
humilation, boredom and powerlessness.
That's why they couldn't bear their feelings,
so they killed their feelings,
so they need their kicks.

"Will there still come days in forgiveness and grace" - sung by Hava Alberstein in Poland on Holocaust Memorial Nov. 16, 2008