Memory
All written representations of the Holocaust incorporate memory as either a direct or an indirect theme. It is impossible not to. Writing after the Holocaust requires memory of the event in some way, be it personal memory or post-memory. Throughout our class we have found that memory is displayed differently depending on the voice of the speaker (or writer). Glatstein’s poetry, particularly his pre-Holocaust (end of 1930’s) and post-Holocaust poetry uses both personal memory of his own experiences in Lublin and life in a typical Eastern European Jewish town, and also a type of post-memory that imagines what his family and his people experienced during the Holocaust since he was in America.
In “To A Sister Far Away” Glatstein directly remembers personal attributes of his own sister. He calls up old memories from the “medallion on the breast” in order to piece together his sister in his mind. In this poem, he also uses a type of post-memory in the sense that he does not know how his sister looks or behaves today. It is 1943 and he had much difficulty at the time contacting his family. He remembers what he assumes is true, that she is sickly and frightened but still thinking of him as she writes him letters in her mind. He is remembering things that do not directly come from the reality of his memory bank but they are felt so strongly within him that he believes them to be.
“Good Night, World” is based upon the comparison between the traditional Jewish life and that of modern western society. Glatstein is affirming the former and denouncing the later. However, Glatstein does not end up (in real life) returning to the traditional Jewish way of life while he is living in America. In fact, after he published this poem in 1938 he was criticized for his hypocrisy since he did not exactly “practice what he preached”.[1]
Glatstein has lived both the traditional Jewish life and the modern American Jewish experience. His denunciation of the modern western experience was occurring at a time when he was angry at his country and the other western democracies for not intervening. He was exhibiting guilt as well for leaving his home and his people particularly in a time of suffering. Glatstein’s memory of his old home is in some respects idealized. Though he does pay homage to the fact that the traditional Jewish life is difficult, “hunchbacked” and “tangled” he also “walks with joy to the quiet ghetto light”. It is common oftentimes for immigrants who come to America to describe their former homes in a much better light than perhaps they actually experienced them to be. Though in Glatstein’s case he had been happy in Poland, there were specific reasons he was sent to the free and fair western society. In his poem, his memory of the old Jewish life and the “rightness” of that life obscures the very reasons why his family chose to send him to America.
“Without Jews” is clearly the poem that raises the most alarm from its audience among the Glatstein poems that I have chosen. Glatstein’s use of “Who” and “You” structures the poem ironically similar to a Jewish prayer. Who is like You, God, God of our Fathers and Mothers? This typical (and often repeated) form of praise that all Jews are used to is now transformed into direct and cynical questions to God. “Who will dream You?/ Remember You?/Deny You?/Yearn after You?” (38-41) These questions probe God to answer which of his people, of the few that have survived, will be able to continue the special covenant relationship that began when “Abraham knew You in a cloud:/Since then, You are the flame” (5-6). Glatstein writes that “Our memory of You, obscured./Soon Your reign will close” (21-22). Glatstein replaces faith with memory. He says that due to the obfuscation of God in our memory, we will no longer praise or rely on Him, and therefore He will cease to be “the flame” in our lives – His reign will have ended. Memory to the Jewish people is nearly as important as faith. Memory, or post-memory, of the times and events that happened before us is a part of Jewish existence. The entire Jewish faith being built on telling the stories of our forefathers requires a strong and willing memory. After the Holocaust, Glatstein writes that this seemingly indestructible memory that has withstood all the atrocities of the past may cease to be able to exist.
However, Glatstein’s denunciation of the traditional Jewish God in this poem may not need to cause horrific alarm from his audience. Irving Howe, a critic writing in Commentary in 1958 wrote that Glatstein, being the skeptical Yiddish poet he was, had no one else to talk to besides God. Howe claims that God and Glatstein are on good terms, not bad, and that the modernist poet and the traditional God can have a dialogue because they both owe each other explanations.[2]
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