The Omnibus Homo Sacer
Page 119
Pépin, Jean, Théologie cosmique et théologie chrétienne (Paris: PUF, 1964).
Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae Petri Pictaviensis, 2 vols., ed. Philip S. Moore and Marthe Dulong (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1943–50). Also in PL 211.
Peterson, Erik, Das Buch von den Engeln: Stellung und Bedeutung der heiligen Engel im Kultus, in Ausgewählte Schriften, vol. 1: Theologische Traktate (Würzburg: Echter, 1994). English translation: “The Book on Angels: Their Place and Meaning in the Liturgy,” in Theological Tractates, trans. Michael J. Hollerich (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
Petronius, The Satyricon of Petronius (Paris: Charles Carrington, 1902).
Philo of Alexandria, “Who Is the Heir of Divine Things?” in Philo (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 5, trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932).
Picavet, François, “Hypostases plotiniennes et Trinité chrétienne,” in Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études. Section des sciences religieuses 1917–18.
Platter, Charles L., “‘ Officium’ in Catallus and Propertius: A Foucauldian Reading,” in Classical Philology 90, no. 3 (1995).
Plautus, Casina, in The Comedies of Plautus, trans. Henry Thomas Riley (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1912).
Plotinus, Enneads (Loeb Classical Library), 7 vols., trans. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Pohlenz, Max, Antikes Führertum. Cicero “De officiis” und das Lebensideal des Panaitios (Leipzig: Teubner, 1934).
Pufendorf 1: Samuel Pufendorf, Gesammelte Werke, I: Briefwechsel, ed. Detlef Döring (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1996).
Pufendorf 2: ———, Gesammelte Werke, IV: De jure naturae et gentium, 2 vols., ed. Frank Böhling (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1999). English translation: The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf, trans. Michael Seidler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Pufendorf 3: ———, Gesammelte Werke, II: De officio, ed. Gerhard Hartung (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1997). English translation: On the Duty of Man and Citizen, ed. James Tully, trans.
Michael Silvermore (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Quintilian, Instituto Oratoria (Loeb Classical Library), 4 vols., trans. H. E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953).
Rahner, Hugo, “Das christliche Mysterium und die heidnischen Mysterien,” in Eranos-Jahrbuch 11
(1944); repr. in Pagan and Christian Mysteries. Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, trans. Ralph Manheim and R. F. C. Hull (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).
Rhetorica ad Herennium, ed. and trans. Harry Caplan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954.
Schelling, F. W. J., Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Freedom, trans. Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (Buffalo: State University of New York Press, 2006).
Schopenhauer, Arthur, Über die Grundlage der Moral in Werke in zehn Bänden, ed. Angelika Hübscher, vol. 6: Die beide Grundprobleme der Ethik (Zürich: Diogenes-Verlag, 1977). English translation: The Basis of Morality, trans. Arthur Brodrick Bullock (New York: Macmillan, 1915).
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, trans. Richard Mott Gummere (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917).
———, On Benefits, trans. Miriam Griffin and Brad Inwood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
758
HOMO SACER II, 5
Sohm, Rudolf, Kirchenrecht, I: Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen (München: Duncker und Humblot, 1923). Partial English translation: Ancient Christianity, trans. Ernest B. Koenker (Typescript translation of §§1–12 of Kirchenrecht, available in the Joseph Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago).
Steidle, Wolf, “Beobachtungen zu des Ambrosius’ Schrift ‘De Officiis,’” in Vigiliae christianae 38
(1984).
Strathmann, Hermann, s.v. “leitourgeō, leitourgia,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1942).
Strauss, Leo, Einige Bemerkungen über die politische Wissenschaft des Hobbes, in Gesammelte Schriften, III: Hobbes’ politische Wissenschaft und zugehörigen Schriften-Briefe, ed. Heinrich Meier and Wiebke Meier (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2001).
Stroumsa, Guy Gedaliahu, La fin du sacrifice: Les mutations religieuses de l’Antiquité tardive (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005). English translation: The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity, trans. Susan Emanuel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Suárez, Francisco, Opera omnia, vol. 13, ed. Charles Berton (Paris: Vivès, 1859).
Summa Sententiarum (anonymous), in PL 176.
Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos, in PL 2.
———, De baptismo, in PL 2.
Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis, in S. Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, www.corpust
homisticum.org/iopera.html.
———, The “Summa theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1920), www.newadvent.org/summa.
Varro, On the Latin Language (Loeb Classical Library), trans. Roland G. Kent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938).
Vatican Council II, Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, Dec. 4, 1963, www.vatican.va/archive/
hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documentsvat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_
en.html.
Victorinus, Contra Arium, in Traités théologiques sur la Trinité, 2 vols., ed. Paul Henry and Pierre Hadot (Paris: Cerf, 1964). English translation: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, trans.
Mary T. Clark (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2002).
Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Theodore C. Williams (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1910).
Vitale, Antonio, L’ufficio ecclesiastico (Naples: Jovene, 1965).
Vogüé, A. de, ed., La règle du maître, 3 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1964). English translation: The Rule of the Master, trans. Luke Eberle (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1977).
Werner, Eric, The Sacred Bridge: The Interdependence of Liturgy and Music in Synagogue and Church During the First Millennium (London: Dobson, 1959).
This page intentionally left blank
HOMO SACER III
REMNANTS OF
AUSCHWITZ
The Witness
and the Archive
TRANSLATED BY DANIEL HELLER-ROAZEN
Contents
Preface
767
1. The Witness
771
2. The Muselmann
788
3. Shame, or On the Subject
819
4. The Archive and Testimony
852
Bibliography
877
This page intentionally left blank
In memoriam
Bianca Casalini Agamben
“To be exposed to everything is to be capable of everything.”
To Andrea, Daniel, and Guido who, in discussing these pages with me,
allowed them to come to light.
And then it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but
shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
The remnant shall be saved, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
Isaiah 10: 20–22
Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace . . . . and so all Israel shall be saved.
Romans 11: 5–26
Preface
Thanks to a series of increasingly wide-ranging and rigorous studies—among
which Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews occupies a special place—the problem of the historical, material, technical, bureaucratic, and legal
circumstances in which the extermination of the Jews took place has been suffi-
ciently clari fied. Future stud
ies may shed new light on particular aspects of the
events that took place in the concentration camps, but a general framework has
already been established.
The same cannot be said for the ethical and political significance of the exter-
mination, or even for a human understanding of what happened there—that is,
for its contemporary relevance. Not only do we lack anything close to a complete
understanding; even the sense and reasons for the behavior of the executioners
and the victims, indeed very often their very words, still seem profoundly enig-
matic. This can only encourage the opinion of those who would like Auschwitz
to remain forever incomprehensible.
From a historical perspective, we know, for example, the most minute details
of how the final phase of the extermination was executed, how the deportees were
led to the gas chambers by a squad of their fellow inmates (the so-called Sonder-
kommando), who then saw to it that the corpses were dragged out and washed,
that their hair and gold teeth were salvaged, and that their bodies, finally, were
placed in the crematoria. We can enumerate and describe each of these events,
but they remain singularly opaque when we truly seek to understand them. This
discrepancy and unease has perhaps never been described more directly than by
Zelman Lewental, a member of the Sonderkommado who en trusted his testimony
to a few sheets of paper buried under crematorium III, which came to light sev-
enteen years after the liberation of Auschwitz. “Just as the events that took place
there cannot be imagined by any human being,” Lewental writes in Yiddish, “so
is it unimaginable that anyone could exactly recount how our experiences took
place. . . . we, the small group of ob scure people who will not give historians
much work to do.”
767
768
HOMO SACER III
What is at issue here is not, of course, the difficulty we face whenever we try
to communicate our most intimate experiences to others. The discrepancy in
question concerns the very struc ture of testimony. On the one hand, what hap-
pened in the camps appears to the survivors as the only true thing and, as such,
abso lutely unforgettable; on the other hand, this truth is to the same degree
unimaginable, that is, irreducible to the real elements that constitute it. Facts
so real that, by comparison, nothing is truer; a reality that necessarily exceeds
its factual elements—such is the aporia of Auschwitz. As Lewental writes, “the
complete truth is far more tragic, far more frightening. . . .” More tragic, more
frightening than what?
Lewental had it wrong on at least one point. There is no doubt that “the
small group of obscure people” (“obscure” here is to be understood in the literal
sense as invisible, that which cannot be perceived) will continue to give histori-
ans work to do. The aporia of Auschwitz is, indeed, the very aporia of historical
knowledge: a non-coincidence between facts and truth, between verification and
comprehension.
Some want to understand too much and too quickly; they have explanations
for everything. Others refuse to understand; they offer only cheap mystifica-
tions. The only way forward lies in investigating the space between these two
options. Moreover, a further difficulty must be considered, one which is partic-
ularly important for anyone who studies literary or philosophical texts. Many
testimonies—both of executioners and victims—come from ordinary people,
the “obscure” people who clearly comprised the great majority of camp inhabi-
tants. One of the lessons of Auschwitz is that it is infinitely harder to grasp the
mind of an ordinary person than to understand the mind of a Spinoza or Dante.
(Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the “banality of evil,” so often misunderstood,
must also be understood in this sense.)
Some readers may be disappointed to find that there is little in this book that
cannot already be found in the testimonies of survivors. In its form, this book is a
kind of perpetual commentary on testimony. It did not seem possible to proceed
otherwise. At a certain point, it became clear that testimony contained at its core
an essential lacuna; in other words, the survivors bore witness to something it is
impossible to bear witness to. As a consequence, commenting on survivors’ testi-
mony necessarily meant interrogating this lacuna or, more precisely, attempting
to listen to it. Listening to something absent did not prove fruitless work for
this author. Above all, it made it necessary to clear away almost all the doctrines
that, since Auschwitz, have been advanced in the name of ethics. As we shall see,
almost none of the ethical princi ples our age believed it could recognize as valid
REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ
769
have stood the decisive test, that of an Ethica more Auschwitz demonstrata. For
my own part, I will consider myself content with my work if, in attempting to
locate the place and theme of testimony, I have erected some signposts allowing
future cartographers of the new ethical territory to orient themselves. Indeed, I
will be satisfied if this book succeeds only in correcting some of the terms with
which we register the decisive lesson of the century and if this book makes it
possible for certain words to be left behind and others to be understood in a dif-
ferent sense. This is also a way perhaps the only way—to listen to what is unsaid.
This page intentionally left blank
1
The Witness
1.1. In the camp, one of the reasons that can drive a prisoner to survive
is the idea of becoming a witness. “I firmly decided that, despite ev-
erything that might happen to me, I would not take my own life . . . since I did
not want to suppress the witness that I could become” (Langbein 1988: 186). Of
course, not all deportees, indeed only a small fraction of them, give this reason.
A reason for survival can be a matter of convenience: “He would like to survive
for this or that reason, for this or that end, and he finds hundreds of pretexts.
The truth is that he wants to live at whatever cost” (Lewental 1972: 148). Or
it can simply be a matter of revenge: “Naturally I could have run and thrown
myself onto the fence, because you can always do that. But I want to live. And
what if the miracle happens we’re all waiting for? Maybe we’ll be liberated, today
or tomorrow. Then I’ll have my revenge, then I’ll tell the whole world what
happened here—inside there” (Sofsky 1997: 340). To justify one’s survival is not
easy—least of all in the camp. Then there are some survivors who prefer to be
silent. “Some of my friends, very dear friends of mine, never speak of Auschwitz”
(Levi 1997: 224). Yet, for others, the only reason to live is to ensure that the wit-
ness does not perish. “Others, on the other hand, speak of it incessantly, and I
am one of them” (ibid.).
1.2. Primo Levi is a perfect example of the witness. When he returns home,
he tirelessly recounts his experience to everyone. He behaves like Coleridge’s
Ancient Mariner:
You remember the scene: the Ancient Mariner accosts the w
edding guests, who
are thinking of the wedding and not paying attention to him, and he forces them
to listen to his tale. Well, when I first returned from the concentration camp I did
just that. I felt an unrestrainable need to tell my story to anyone and everyone!
. . . Every situation was an occasion to tell my story to anyone and everyone:
to tell it to the factory director as well as to the worker, even if they had other
things to do. I was reduced to the state of the Ancient Mariner. Then I began
771
772
HOMO SACER III
to write on my typewriter at night. . . . Every night I would write, and this was
considered even crazier! (Levi 1997: 224–25)
But Levi does not consider himself a writer; he becomes a writer so that he
can bear witness. In a sense, he never became a writer. In 1963, after publishing
two novels and many short stories, he responds unhesitatingly to the question of
whether he considers himself a writer or a chemist: “A chemist, of course, let there
be no mistake” (Levi 1997: 102). Levi was profoundly uneasy with the fact that
as time passed, and almost in spite of himself, he ended up a writer, composing
books that had nothing to do with his testimony: “Then I wrote. . . . I acquired the
vice of writing” (Levi 1997: 258). “In my latest book, La Chiave a stella, I stripped myself completely of my status as a witness. . . . This is not to deny anything; I
have not ceased to be an ex-deportee, a witness. . . .” (ibid.: 167)
Levi had this unease about him when I saw him at meetings at the Italian
publisher, Einaudi. He could feel guilty for having survived, but not for having
borne witness. “I am at peace with myself because I bore witness” (ibid.: 219).
1.3. In Latin there are two words for “witness.” The first word, testis, from which our word “testimony” derives, etymologically signifies the person who,
in a trial or lawsuit between two rival parties, is in the position of a third party
(* terstis). The second word, superstes, designates a person who has lived through something, who has experienced an event from beginning to end and can therefore bear witness to it. It is obvious that Levi is not a third party; he is a survivor