Currently I’m reading a memoir titled “Survival In Auschwitz”, by a man named Primo Levi. He was an Italian Jew captured and sent to Auschwitz during World War II. As most would be, he is extremely confused about the whole situation and struggles to find a reason why this is happening to him. He dreams of being home and spending time with his family, which one may think would be an escape for him, a chance to remember what life used to be like. But for Primo, this is not the case. His dreams are as follows:
“It is an intense pleasure, physical, inexpressible, to be at home, among friendly people, and to have so many things recount. But I cannot help noticing that my listeners do not follow me. In fact, they are completely indifferent. They speak confusedly of other things among themselves, as if I was not there. My sister looks at me, gets up and goes away without a word.”(pg. 42)
I’m a firm believer in dreams having major symbolism and that they help you to see what you’re actually thinking if you’ve maybe been pushing something away. I saw this as Primo feeling like no one is going to hear his story, or if they do, they aren’t going to believe the horrific things he’s going to tell them. I know the Holocaust is a fact, and I still have a hard time believing some of the things that went down in these camps. I started looking through my google reader to find something, anything about soldiers or people involved in the war speaking about how they enjoy the fact that they can share their story through blogs and came up empty handed, until I came across a post entitled, “Worlds Oldest Known Military Blogger…” A man by the name of Solomon Fein, is a World War II veteran, and has a very lengthy blog full of war stories. I was immediately intrigued, clicked the link and found this:
“I am stationed in Ghent, Belgium.
It’s May 1945.
Hurray!
The War is over!
It’s August,1945!
We get leave to go to Paris.”(full post)
I found a ton of different posts, all leading up to D-Day. Posts full of first hand accounts by Solomon Fein. I know, we have milblogging now so we’re able to see soldiers accounts straight from the source all the time. But I have never come across a blog from a World War II veteran. I started to think, what if we had milblogging during WWII? Would the concentration camps gone as far as they did? Would the war have gone on for as long as it did? I don’t believe it would have. But maybe. Looking back to the early 1940′s, some Americans might have looked at a milblog from someone fighting over in Europe, and not believed a word they said about the awful treatment happening to the Jews. Although blogging probably wouldn’t have been accessible to prisoners of a concentration camp, if it was available after release, Levi, and others would have been able to share their stories immediately to the whole world, and in mass. Countless accounts all having the same gruesome details would have definitely caught people’s attention.
Yes, we are hearing their stories now. But does it really matter?
Solomon Fein’s Blog
October 29, 2009 at 3:12 pm |
It does raise an interesting question as to the importance technology is today. We now live in world with almost instantaneous communication, and breaking news reach’s the masses in a matter of hours or even minutes. To think about what it would have been like if this technology was available during WWII is hard to imagine. Would these atrocities have still taken place? I like to think that somebody would have step in sooner after finding out the news. I also find Soloman’s blog to be interesting because yeah you get all of the modern day soldiers blogs, but how often do you get to her about the exploits of the soldiers from WWII. Only if you read them in a book. I am glade that he is choosing to share with the world his experiences because the knowledge and life experiences he has had, I feel need to be documented and told.