Review by Frank Plowright
In recent years the horrors of the World War II death camp at Auschwitz have become quite the cottage industry. The Tattooist of Auschwitz has burrowed deepest into public consciousness, but other volumes will tell you of the Detective, the Doctor, the Dressmaker, the Librarian, the Mistress, the Photographer, the Redhead, the Twins and the Violinist. Ari Richter, then, is tapping into the zeitgeist in combining the experiences of his ancestors with his own complicated journey to forming cultural self awareness.
Richter was well into his adult life before showing an interest in his family history, and poring through old documents revealed horrors he’d never previously personalised. He doesn’t take the straightforward path, though, but leads a discursive trail through theory and observation to accompany the experiences of relatives. He asks if Jewish people are more prone than others to nervous habits? If so, why? Could it be be the genetic inheritance of trauma? That’s an early thought, immediately followed by the frankly scary selection of Richter’s collections, connected to the previous topic via an inherited tendency to hoard, initially prompted by his grandfather’s lack of control over his life when younger. Such moments to ponder occur throughout.
What strikes about the personal recollections of concentration camps, which encompass more than just Auschwitz, is how matter of fact some are. Horrific events and personal injury are delivered in short sentences, with Richter’s art far fussier, and he notes how visualising the scenes he read about was actually calming. Survival hinges on ludicrous chance, like one grandfather not being shipped to Dachau because the transportation list was prepared a year in advance, and he’d only moved to the town ten months previously. Richter’s working with the memories of survivors, and stories of his relatives who managed to escape Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and their attempts to save others are equally engrossing. One relative escaped to the USA and enlisted in the army. He relates the incident of finding himself back in his German home town and able to treat the head of the Nazi Women’s Auxiliary to the same middle of the night raids Jews endured.
Richter is an obliging host, with a surprisingly bleak sense of humour at times, dextrously navigating family conflicts and experiences. Toward the end he details his own trip to Germany and Poland, with all the conflicting visceral moments it supplies. It comes with more horrific revelations including a poll taken after World War II in which a majority of Germans believed Nazism to be a good idea poorly applied. It’s one of several occasions you’d wish for a specific reference rather than a list of sources. Richter ends by considering his Jewish heritage in the context of his own child, and fearing Donald Trump’s demagogue policies and where that might lead,. He supplies comparisons of how his ancestors fared after World War II and the greater challenges applied to people from other ethic backgrounds.
Atrocities featured here have been well documented elsewhere, yet still shock, but what also resonates is the hatred toward ordinary decent people living undistinguished lives. Should it matter to anyone that their neighbour has a different faith and customs associated with it? It’s as senseless as persecuting people for enjoying Taylor Swift’s output more than Beyonce’s or growing geraniums in their garden in preference to roses. Yet it endures.
Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz is dense, thought provoking, enlightening and broad ranging in connecting past and present, and as such transcends single person memoirs. It’s several hours extremely well spent.
