The Holocaust: This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

Deeksha Bhandarkar chose This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski (This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Viking Penguin, 1946), and Amulya Hiremath chose What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander (The New Yorker, 2011)

Deeksha: Let’s again start with why we chose our particular stories.

Amulya: Yeah! Why did you choose This Way for Gas?

Deeksha: I am sort of generalising here but unlike a lot of Holocaust writings — like there are a lot of types of writings under Holocaust —

Amulya: Ah. But I can’t actually confirm because this is the first time I’m reading one, after Anne Frank of course. 

Deeksha: So, the first kind is actually writing that comes from the people who went through it — either the Germans who saw it happening or the people who survived the concentration camps, like it wasn’t just the Jews, there was Polish Resistance happening, women who helped etc. and traps were laid to catch them. Like if you saw Jojo Rabbit, like I asked you to, you would know.

Amulya:  Yeah, I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

Deeksha:  See. So, this writer’s fiancé actually got caught that way in a trap and when she didn’t come back home, this guy went searching for her and also got caught in a bigger trap. So, his personal perspective of the Concentration Camp is different from the Jews in the Camp. And there is a hierarchy that is also being followed there and we see that in the initial conversations we read.

Amulya:  This guy was a Pole who was taken in as a political prisoner.

Deeksha:  Yeah. I really liked that and this perspective stood out, so I chose it.

Amulya:   Yeah. So, this is from the time period of the Holocaust and narrates the experience from inside a camp.

Deeksha: Right, why did you choose yours?

Amulya:  Being honest, I haven’t had a lot of encounters with Holocaust literature. Ever since Anne Frank in middle school — we didn’t even have the whole text in tenth like most people — I have actively avoided reading about it, simply because it was too much. But when you suggested Holocaust as one of the themes, I was like okay maybe it’s time.

Deeksha: I think I genuinely understand what you’re saying. Like when you watch a lot of violence or something related to war, we see so many shades of innate human nature.

Amulya:  Yeah so, I’ve avoided watching or reading about violence in general, especially when you do these things for entertainment.

Deeksha:  And because you can’t do anything about it now.

Amulya: Right. So, while choosing for this week’s theme, I just went on Google to find a story. But I picked this because I wanted a story that spoke about the Holocaust in retrospect, something contemporary. I wanted to sort of highlight the fact that the Holocaust is not an incident limited to that time period in history, it’s almost like this trauma that is being passed on from one generation to another. And I think this story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank speaks about that.

Deeksha: And I think that’s perfect because we’re getting an insight into both the generations — the survivors and their children. 

This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Read the story: http://www.pelister.org/courses/topics/borowski/this-way-for-gas.pdf

Amulya: This Way for Gas is a short story from a collection of stories with the same name, he wrote a couple of years after he was out of the Camp. The story is narrated from the perspective of Tadek, and some people have commented that it is autobiographical and parallels what the writer, Borowski went through. In a nutshell, the story revolves around the unloading of trains full of people who were captured and were sent to the Camps. The narrator is already a prisoner/labourer in the Camp and he has to “work the ramp” to help clean the trains after the people have spilled out. He also sees people being sorted — into people who are put to the Gas immediately and people who qualified for labour. Just a hand signal from an SS Doctor would decide their fate — whether they would live or die. And these people are eager to work the ramp because they get access to the food, and sometimes shoes and clothes, that they’re bringing in. They are not allowed to touch anything else like gold or money which all goes into what is called Canada. So, the short story narrates the happenings of working the ramp, in one line, and it’s not pleasant, as is to be expected. 

Deeksha: Yeah, let’s not give away everything, if people are interested in reading. (Story is linked above if you are!)

Amulya: So, the thing that stood out to me the most is it shows humans in their most primal form.

Deeksha: The story itself starts with all of them being naked.

Amulya:  Exactly! And there is also this dehumanising tone with which he is narrating and he’s not doing it intentionally in a way that, that’s just what it is, it’s the reality. And walking around naked, it couldn’t get more stripped down than that. Also, the fact that they are looking for food. They want to satiate their hunger and that’s why they are eager to do the most horrifying labour, like clean the train of corpses and human remains, and work long hours — all because they get access to a little more food.

Deeksha: Yeah.

Amulya:  The other thing is the way that there is no emotion explicitly shown in the whole story. It’s just like machines working without a human touch to it. And whatever emotion that is shown, it is shown through a physical display, like when he carries this corpse of a baby out, he can’t handle it anymore, he pukes. He doesn’t cry or scream or break down.
And the most shocking, sort of a revelation, in the whole story comes at the very end where he says, I quote, “I lie against the cool, kind metal and dream about returning to the camp. Suddenly I see the camp as a haven of peace.” Here is the unexpected. I think there is something so innately human here. Whatever our conditions are, we eventually get accustomed to it, and sort of find comfort and home.

Deeksha: It’s actually a syndrome in psychology called Stockholm Syndrome, where you start liking your prisoner. Here it is the camp for him.

Amulya:  Ah. And you would think a concentration camp is the absolute rock bottom you could possibly hit but then the drudge work that he’s made to do and not only that, but getting to witness hundreds of people being sorted in such a superficial, horrifyingly binary way, I think the contrast that this brings out, the writer couldn’t have put it in a better way. It straight up gives you goosebumps. And the other thing is he has just put it without any sugar-coating of words or the situation. As someone who went through this experience first-hand, he’s not made it any better or more bearable of an experience for us readers.

Deeksha:  Can I add a point here that supports this? So, the collection of short stories this is from is connected by a narrator and he is made to seem like someone who is driven by survival, like someone who takes care of himself and is surface-level. But people around the writer, who have seen him for who he is have said he wasn’t at all like that. He was very caring and kind. So what I think hit him stronger than anything is only a person who was this way could see it for what it was. He was able to bring out this tone that many other — and I’ve read quite a lot of Holocaust-related things — works don’t.

Amulya: He’s writing in this tone to narrate the way he saw things in there even if it doesn’t correspond with the writer’s actual personality.

Deeksha: Yeah, it’s like everyone around you is orange but you are red, someone who is red might not notice one person being orange, he/she can avoid them, but for orange, it is red everywhere. For the writer here, I think everyone around him was like the narrator he has created — heavily based on survival instinct and greedy and selfish. And that stood out for him because he wasn’t that way.

Amulya:  Yeah, that makes so much sense. His tone definitely was one of the things that stood out to me. Also, the narration is fragmented in a way, even though it’s all the happenings of a single day-night, he shifts from one scene within it to the other.

Deeksha: Yeah. I think it’s how you think back at something and remember what happened.

Amulya: Right. And it’s not easy to figure out what is happening.

Deeksha:  He uses a lot of inside language.

Amulya:  Yes, and because you don’t know the experience, it’s a lot of Googling what certain things are and why he is using specific terms like Canada and Muslim or ramp. He’s not explaining it to you, making sure you understand this is this, this is this.

Deeksha:  He is just thinking.

Amulya:  Another thing I wanted to mention was how cleverly the narrative is shaped and narrated. He is showing us all these glimpses and the writing is brilliant when it comes to descriptions of both the people around him and the surroundings. But he never lets us fare too far away from the harsh reality of it all because he time and again gives allows us hope — like when he is describing this beautiful, absolutely unfazed by it all lady — and you start to think and hope that oh maybe her fate will be different, she will be spared but then, no. And there are also bleak descriptions of people as they come in and in places, he is completely merciless, like when he sees a mother disowning her own child, or when they shoot a child without a second thought because she is bawling or when they carry a one-legged girl only to toss her onto a pile of corpses, where she will “burn alive”.

Deeksha: Yeah, on one hand, he is romanticising his surroundings. And it is more about how they are feeling in the situation rather than how the reader will feel while reading.

Amulya: There are a lot of haunting lines in this story and you have to read it to feel it to its full extent. Especially when he sees the new people being brought to the camp. He is particularly observant of their humanness. I think it’s because he has had to leave that side outside the camp and work here.
I am actually going to stop here because this is a short story and we could go on forever and especially because this is such a monumental incident in history, there is a lot to unpack.

Deeksha: Yeah. Let’s stick to the main points. And this incident though it happened so far away, it’s not hard to relate because we have had similar incidents in our histories too and we have seen what oppression is, most commonly as women. Even if the magnitude of it was less, it is something we all share and are scared of it happening again.

Amulya: Yeah, and that is particularly highlighted in the other story we have here.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Read the story: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/12/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-anne-frank

Deeksha: Nathan Englander who wrote this story was born in New York and was raised in a very orthodox Jewish family. When I actually finished reading this, I was doubtful about if we are even touching the topic of the Holocaust here. I then wanted to know the meaning of Holocaust Literature, so I Googled and found out that there are various types under it and this falls into the second-generation category.

Amulya:  Yeah, I think this is such a colossal incident that it simply can’t be confined to the time period it occurred in and to people who went through it first-hand.

Deeksha: And this kind of literature often reflects the inherited trauma. So, the title takes inspiration from a collection of short stories, and a story in it, by Raymond Carver, titled What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. So, the similarity between that and this story is that it involves two couples and has one of the men as the narrator; there they are drinking gin and here it has pot and vodka.

Amulya:  Hahaha yeah.

Deeksha:  So, to give you a short summary of the story, it is a first-person narrative and the narrator is explaining the situation, which is a reunion of his spouse with her childhood best friend. The tone of narration shows that the couples know each other really well.

Amulya:  Yeah, he has that tone you use when you know someone well and are comfortable enough to joke around about them.

Deeksha:  Yeah, it’s like you can be politically incorrect around them. It’s a safe space to disagree on their religious practices too. Loosely put, the story revolves around this game they play called the Anne Frank game where they discuss hiding places in case of a second Holocaust and they also make and evaluate like a mental checklist of people who would be up for hiding them, including their own husbands. I am actually going to skip a formal summary because there isn’t much of an incident.

Amulya:  Okay because this is based more on observation of events as they occur in a linear.

Deeksha:  So, it’s like a record of what happened and what came out of it. The narrator and his wife Debbie are from South Florida and are the hosts, while the other couple, Lauren who is now Shoshana and her husband Yerucham, who was previously Mark are visiting from Jerusalem. The main thing is that all of them were brought up similarly but now they are in different places in life, geographically too. The way they are living their lives is in contrast to each other.
The major theme here is religion, which is a common theme to most of the stories in the collection of the same name. Religion versus secular is a strong point the writer is making. Mark and Debbie are secularly religious while the other two are ultra-orthodox. The narrator continues to call Yerucham, Mark, Mark, Mark even after he has changed his name. But then that tone is very unequal because, towards the end, he does call him Yerucham

Amulya: Yeah, even for Lauren.

Deeksha: Maybe he is confused about how to feel about them.

Amulya: Probably. I think he changes as he starts liking them more and more. In the beginning, he’s pretty rebellious and doesn’t want to align himself with their extremist practices.

Deeksha:  It’s difficult for him to do that, I think, given his views and where he is coming from. He struggles to accept that it is okay to live that way. By accepting that, he sees it as a failure to himself, because he has fought against it his whole life.

Amulya: Yes, that makes sense!

Deeksha: Another thing we can see that American/Americanised Jews versus the traditional Jews. There is a change in customs and how they celebrate. It’s like NRI’s celebrating Indian festivals. This is okay but the difference is just evident. However, Shoshana and Yerucham are adamant about disliking the way the other two live.
The third theme is trust issues. The narrator and Debbie are clearly not on the same page about a lot of things, they hold each other back. And towards the end, Shoshana cannot trust that Yerucham, her husband would die to save her. Like, how can you make somebody understand that? Though they are bound so strongly with religion, there are a lot of underlying trust issues.

Amulya: Yeah, like them practising religion in a certain way is not a guarantee of anything and it does not necessarily save lives.

Deeksha:  Exactly. Like having religion in your life can still be unsettling.
So, the fourth and the most important theme is the Holocaust and the effect it has on the present-day survivors and their second generation. The theme is very evident throughout but hits its peak in the very end when he says, “And so we stand like that, the four of us trapped in that pantry. Afraid to open the door and let out what we’ve locked inside.” I thought that was beautifully written, like a beat drop. The Anne Frank game part that is written in the story unfolds in front of your eyes and what it says is how people who haven’t gone through the Holocaust but have this inherited trauma are still afraid of it. The fear you have after falling to fall again is different from the fear you have if you have watched someone else fall. I think that is the definition of second-generation Holocaust trauma and by playing it as a game they are telling us that this is how second-generation survivors feel. They have heard about it but cannot relate to it. It is almost like a joke on some level, like on some level they are not taking it seriously.

Amulya:  But I think they are taking it seriously because they’re actually playing the game. Like Yerucham stands and checks out his wife to see if he is going to save her at the risk of his own life.

Deeksha:  Yes, yes, yes. This is another reason why I think it is brilliant writing. When they say they are afraid to open the door and let out what we have locked inside, there are two issues they are afraid to let out. One is displacement issues or their inherited trauma and the second is trust issues in their marriage. This is the point he is trying to make and emphasise that this game where they are afraid about a second Holocaust, transitions into trust issues between themselves.

Amulya:  Yeah, I think you put that very well.

Deeksha:  But I feel the trauma of a second-generation survivor, is in its own way a different ball game. You don’t know how it really felt and there is nothing you can do about it. This is a trauma that nobody can understand. All I expected to read when I asked you to pick a story for me was a similar story to the one I sent, something that happened at that point. I really like that this was a newer work and it is contemporary and that fact that it speaks about other issues than Holocaust as well, like how it is affecting their day-to-day life today. To have a hiding place even today.

Amulya: And I think the fact that this covers other aspects of their life as well shows that the event is not their main preoccupation and they have moved on but they are never too far away from it.

Deeksha: Yeah, the narrative is so fresh and it’s not sad. It’s actually funny.

Amulya:  I am so glad you liked it this much because this is the kind of short story I love to read. When I picked up on that tone in the beginning, I am like okay I’m choosing this one.

Deeksha: I went to German classes for a while and I really like that my German teacher gave me an introduction to their culture. One of the first few things he told us was they repent the Holocaust a lot and are very very sorry about it.

Amulya: I was so horrified while reading the story you picked because I had avoided thinking about it that deeply.
So, do you want to talk about the similarities between the two stories?

Deeksha: I think we should about the dissimilarities.

Amulya: Okay, yeah. 

Deeksha: One is, they are both in two different time periods. Second, one is a first-generation narrative and the other is second. Thirdly, the first story was sad and this has a funny and happy undertone, though it makes you think at certain points, it is lively on the whole.

Amulya: And it’s not that I didn’t like the one you chose it’s just a different level of severity. It’s like it’s not meant to be loveable. It’s an account of what happened, plain and simple.  

Deeksha: Yeah, it’s supposed to make you feel uncomfortable.

Amulya: It definitely made me feel uncomfortable, horrified and shocked me, gave me goosebumps, took me on this whole rollercoaster ride of emotions, sadly of which happiness wasn’t one of them.

Deeksha: Yeah, and I think the closest you can get to happiness there is hope.

Amulya:  And there is none of it there.

Deeksha: Hmm. So, should we end it here?

Amulya: Yes! And you get five marks for the very neat, almost tabular dissimilarities you mentioned between the two.

Deeksha: Hahaha. If these two are ever thought, this would make good notes for students to study from.

Amulya: So, we are hopeful about helping people in the future here.

We would love to hear from you! Let us know your thoughts, interpretations and anything in between in the comments below!

ABOUT:

Deeksha Bhandarkar and I met in our MA English class. Both of us sharing Mysuru as our hometown, and Mysuru being the smallest place in the world, we grew up in the same literary backyard — attended the same story-telling sessions on Saturdays, watched the same plays, visited the same bookstores and had a bunch of mutual friends. But it was only in 2021 that our paths finally converged.

Sharing a passion for literature and a curiosity to explore more facets of it outside our postgraduate classrooms, we decided to pick a piece of literature each and swap our choices, having the other person interpret and discuss our pick, with a hope to gain new perspectives on writing we have loved individually.

Bookmarked is an ongoing, weekly series, we hope you enjoy it! Happy reading!