Pagis's Fragmented Fictions
Dan Pagis, in the series
of poems entitled “קרון חתום" (“Marked Car”),[1]
approaches the topic of the Shoah indirectly. By doing so, he explores the
theme of the Shoah using certain specific thematic elements (such as silence
and biblical allusion) that open up questions about how we should think about
the Shoah, questions that neither Adorno’s nor Levi’s more direct approaches
allow them to open.
Pagis as Alluding to the Shoah
Pagis’s allusions to the Shoah are indirect enough that if the poems are
taken in isolation, one might miss the allusions altogether or argue that
reading them as references to the Shoah is a stretch. For example, “כתוב
נעפרון בקרון החתום"
(“Written in Pencil in the Marked Car”), for example, reads:
Here in
this shipment כאן במשלוח
הזה
I am Eve אני חוה
with Abel my son עם הבל בני
if you see my elder son אם תראו את בני
הגדול
Cain son of Adam קין בן אדם
tell him that I תגידו לו שאני
One might read the term “משלוח" (“shipment”) as referring
to the shipments of Jews to the concentration camps, especially given the title
(where “קרון” [“car”] refers
specifically to a car on a train), yet most of the poem plays with a biblical
allusion to Eve's and Adam’s family. Because poetry from the Hebrew modern
period (directly preceding the Shoah and thus the tradition after which Pagis
is writing) treats biblical characters as references to tradition and trains as
references to modernity, one might easily read this poem as a play between the
modern and the traditional, where the modern is transporting Jewish tradition
into an unknown future. Because the future is still open, the poem never
closes; rather, it ends in mid-sentence.
In the above argument, the potential reference to the Shoah is read as
being another reference (to modernity), a reading that has more evidence in the
poem. Yet, once we take into account the other poems in this series, each of
which has one or two ambiguous references like “shipment,” it becomes clear
that, perhaps in addition to the other themes, the Shoah exists at least as an
undercurrent to the whole series. In the first poem of the series, “אירופה, מאחר" (“Europe,
Late”), the speaker identifies the year as halfway through 1939.
Sorry, what's the year? סלחי לי, מה השנה?
thirty nine and
a half, about, שלשים ותשע וחצי, בערך, עוד מקדם מקדם
still early early
(ll. 2-3)
That the speaker calls
1939 “early” already suggests that he is waiting for something to occur,
despite his attempt to comfort the listener of the poem with the claim that
ends the poem:
Don’t worry so much, madame, אל תדאגי
כל כך מאדאם,
here for the world it won’t happen, כאן לעולם
זה לא יקרה,
you’ll still see, את עוד
תראי,
here for the world כאן
לעולם
(ll. 16-9)
In fact, this insistence
itself reveals a sort of anticipation. The speaker claims that it won't
happen, that is, a thing of which both the speaker and the listener are aware
yet remains unspoken throughout the poem and unalluded to until the
third-to-last line. Hence, at the same time as it is a denial that it
will happen, the speaker's claim here reveals his implicit worry that something
will happen. Futhermore, the speaker's “מקדם מקדם" (“early early”) is, in
fact, ironic given the title of the poem, “Europe,
Late.” Although the speaker claims that it is early enough to keep it
from happening here, the title reveals that it is already too late. In sum, the
speaker is referring to something about which he is uncomfortable speaking,
though he does not believe it will occur, yet in truth this thing is
inescapable as of halfway through 1939. If we compare this situation to
descriptions of Jews right before the Shoah, such as in Elie Wiesel's Night,
we see a similar attitude, such that it would make sense to read the “it” in
this poem as the coming of the Shoah.[2]
If we combine this potential reference to the one in “Written in Pencil in the
Marked Car,” we start to see the evidence for the claim that the Shoah, even as
it is something that the speakers in these poems do not directly reference,
remains an implicit theme in each text.
[1] All translations are mine unless otherwise
noted. For the poems in (my) translation, see Appendix B.
[2] See for example Wiesel 4-5.
