Colby Magazine

Volume 90 Issue 4 Fall 2001 Article 10

October 2001

Indomitable Subtext

Stephen Collins Colby College

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Recommended Citation Collins, Stephen (2001) "Indomitable Subtext," Colby Magazine: Vol. 90 : Iss. 4 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/colbymagazine/vol90/iss4/10

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Though no one ,,·ho knows her ,,·ould Roisman, arriYed from Israel. Her research and other]ews. But my fa mer could not talk describe Professor of Classics Hanna Rois­ and writing have fo cused on motivation-on about it at all, fo r it pained him too much." man as com·entional, her life has all the what makes classical characters tick. "\Vhat For bom parents it was a second mar­ trappings of normalcy and success in turn­ is unsaid is often more important than what riage. Eugenia Zaphir was born in me of-the-century America. Granted, reYie,,·s of is said," she said. Ukraine and Leon Maslowski in me Silesia her latest book suggest the way she is inter­ \\'hat fe w colleagues and students know region of Poland. Each had a fa mily before preting the classics is extraordinary. Her is Roisman's own subtext: her exu·aordinary ·world Wa r II. ex-pectations in the classroom seem tougher fa mily history. Much of the tragedy, oppres­ \i\Then the azis came to round up than aYerage. And her penchant fo r bridging sion and betrayal is unspoken because of the Jews in me Ukrainian town of Yanov, her modesty and profes­ where Roisman's mother uved, Eugenia sionalism. Some is simply and her infant daughter-Hanna's half-sister, unspeakable. Shoshana-were away trying to get milk fo r In an office she is using me child. They managed to hide in the woods as a visiting scholar at Cor­ fo r days and men headed fo r Krakow, Poland. nell niversity during a Roisman's fa tl1er was captured as a POvV sabbatical, and later in the early in me war and spent five years in comfort of a sumptuous concentration camps and working as a slave rented house nearby in laborer fo r tl1e Germans. For a whjle he Ithaca, she agreed to sit was in Auschvvitz-Birkenau. "He must have down and talk about her been a strong man to be fo r five years in me years growing up in post­ various camps and not sent to be gassed," war Poland, her immigra­ Roisman said. tion to Israel and her life as But while they sill\rived, both of Roisman's a child of Holocaust sw•ri­ parents lost fa mily. Her mother's first hus­ vors. Nluch of her story was band, who had joined me resistance, was shot told matter-of-factly. Occa­ when 1 azis fo und his bwlker in the woods. sionally memories would Roisman's grandmomer Ham1a Schlager was gush out, evoking smiles gassed in me deatl1 camps. and laughter; at otl1er times Of her fa mer's fa nuly, h·e alone survived her quavering voice trailed the war. His firstwif e and tl1eir fo ur chil­ off, sentences unfinished, dren-Roisman's half-bromers and -sisters, memories inex'j)ressible. ages 3 to 14--were all killed in tl1e Nazi

In I'J-5-:'. . hortf, · l}(:filf'e thr�, - l'llli!£rrltedfimn Poland to "You have to remember deam camps. "I would love to know. I had lsml'!. /(oislllfln ri!!h t tmsed ll'illi lwr l/([(rsister Slwslwna mat I am not a survivor of fo ur siblings. I tluJLk: it was bom ways: he ' ru11/ lwr 11/ntlll l l.n!!l'llia. in fimll '!f t!w e.q1ansire IIC'II' tl1e Holocaust, but a child didn't want to talk to protect me, and to ,.,,/tnrul 1·r·ntr•r ul II ursrur. /)urin!! II odd II ar /1 DI!!C'IIia of tl1e Holocaust, a child talk about children who were killed-I don't und "/ws!tru/11 11'1'1'1' si'Jillf'lltl'd. hut t/11�1 - both surrired t/1(' of surYivors," she began. know-I can't-" Her voice broke. !lnlrlf'ullst ([fl(/ trr•n• r•n•utuuf�,- f'f'llllited. "There are many Israelis "Sometimes you can find in me ancient cLw,icJI Jin.:rature and popular culrure ha� and jews around the world who are the chi!- literature cases in which you can understand gorren ">Omerem,trL tble auention. But as drcn of T lolocaust sur\·ivors, and it has an the rage I fe el when I read about the Holo­ a te;Jcher, scholar, '' riter, mother and '' ife, impact on all of us. The horror of our par­ caust. Because what I fe el is rage. The world ROJ.,man "'' model of success, balancing ent�' e\pcricncc� is always lurking in the stood there watching." L1 m1h life 11 1th an academ1c career based on background, 11 hethcr they talked about it or After their narrow escape in the Ukraine, her pa .,ion fo r classical hterarure. not. In m� case it 11·a� my momer, Eugenia Roisman's mother managed to get fa lse doc­ ROJ.,nun h'" uught at Colb� '>IliCe I<)<)(), Z,tphir, "ho thought it ll'as important that f uments in Poland that said that she and 11 hu1 ,he .m d her hu,h;lnd, Profe.,.,orJo .,eph .,hould kno11 11 hat happened ro her, my fa ther Shoshana were Aryan, and fo r three years

18 A they survived the German occupation and the woman and sent her packing. the Holocaust. "The odyssey of her survival, "At the time-I was only six-my imprisonment, escaping from prison is mother didn't think she could worthy of many hours of story telling," Rois­ explain why my beloved narmy man said. Eventually mother and daughter was fired, and I raged against were separated when Eugenia had to give her with all a child's sense of Shoshana up to hide her from the Nazis. She outrage and hau·ed. \Nhen I was was placed with a Polish-German nanny-a old enough to learn whatmy Catholic woman who was inso·ucted to raise nanny had done, it was a terrible the blond-haired, green-eyed girl to pass as shock," Roisman said. Aryan and Christian. At the end of the war, vVhat the woman had done a only after an intensive search, the mother decade earlier was only revealed and daughter were reunited. to Roisman's parents in the mid- It was during the search fo r surviving 1950s. They learnedthat, rather fa mily members that Roisman's parents met. than protecting Roisman's half­ They were married, and in 1948, before sister during the war, the nanny Ham1a was born, they tried to emigrate from , Is a young girl in posl-ll"ar Poland. Rois111a11 had tried to turn Shoshana over Poland to the newly fo unded Jewish home­ learnedclassica! tnytholog\ -ji·om her be/aced Po/is!t­ to the Gestapo. Only the girl's land of lsrael. But they were denied. CemJCl/1 nan11_1: ll"ho also told Ca tholic stories that fa ir hair and green eyes had saved The climate for Jews in Poland remained 111igftt !telp thP liffle girl pass as Cltristian �/ onot!ter her. Finally the true explanation purge of t he ./e11·s II'Pre to occur. as 111an l fe ared. It threatening. Those who survived the Holo­ of why Shoshana had gone to live IC011ld later be rercoled t!tat It er caretaker betrr�)·ed caust were the subject of state-supported with people in the moumains had prejudice and harassment, and Jewish fa m­ been repeated. But fo r a 6-year­ ilies fe ared that another Holocaust could nanny, and she had only a child's com­ old it was incomprehensible. happen at any time. When Hanna was born prehension of the politics and hatred that In 1957 the fa mily finallywas permitted her parents had her baptized as a Christian, still existed. It was this nanny, beloved and to go to Israel as part of a wave of immi­ and the same nanny that had taken her half­ trusted, who introduced Roisman to the acts gration sparked by more government-backed sister during the war was engaged to care of heroism and betrayal in classical mythol­ anti-Semitism in Poland. That and subse- fo r the new infant and to teach her Catholic ogy. "She, to a large extent, was the one quent waves ofJe ws fleeing tl1ecountr y culture. Against the possibility of another who imbued me with these stories. She also during the 1960s have left only a tiny Jewish attempt to exterminate the Jews, the two had terrific religious stories-Catholic sto­ population in Poland today. fa ir-haired sisters were given the cultural ries," Roisman recalls. "There were few kids Before they departed, Roisman's mother backgrounds to pass as non-Jews. who knew names like Achilles and Odys­ organized a fa mjly pilgrimage to Auschwitz Roisman spent her early years in Poland, seus, but I did." to show her children that fa ce of the Holo­ much of that time in the company of her Then one day her mother abruptly fired caust. Roisman describes the camp in the

��You have to remember that I am not a survivor of the Holocaust, but a child of the Holocaust� a child of survivors. There are many Israeli and Jews around the world who are the chil dren of Holocau t urv1vors. and it has an impact on all of us. The horror of our parents· experience 1 always lurking in the background, "�hether they talked about it or not. The Roismans both earned bachelor's and

master's degrees (all magna cum laude) from

Te l Aviv University, and in 1977 they came

to the U.S., where they earned Ph.D.'s in

classics at the University of Washington in

1981. "I didn't want to deal with modern

history," Hanna Reisman said. "I couldn't, probably because of what happened in the twentieth century." Afterteaching in Israel from 1981 until 1990-Hanna at Te l Aviv University and Yo ssi at Ben Gurion University of the Negev-the couple learned of openings at Colby. By then they had spent five orsix years teachingand working at Cornell during the summer term, and they had tired of a situ­ ation in Israel that required Hanna to com­ mute three hours each way to her job. They In 196-:Roi sman (left. Lrith a high school.friend) cisited th of the which e Dome Rock. had looked at a map and talked about New is sarred to ./eu·s. Christians and Jluslim. ff lten ta st Jerusalem was taken by Israel Zealand as a place far away fromthe uncer­ Ji'om ./ordwt. short(\· befo re this cisit. it a!Lou·ecl the two .I'Olmg women to visit the dome and the sorred Wa iling flail fo r the first time. tainties of life in the Middle East, but then the opportunity in Maine came up. "The fac­ 1950s as a deteriorating relic of the war. in Israel. Te achers were called by their first ulty at Cornell assured us [Maine] was not as There had been no effort to make it a names, kids could say whatever was on their cold as Ithaca," Yo ssi said, chuckling. memorial, and she recalls huge piles of shoes mind, and everyone's opinion mattered," she The Roismans have maintained their ties that had been taken off of the prisoners said. vVhen a teacher asked her about a pas­ with Cornell, teaching there each swm11er and before they were herded into the gas cham­ sage in the To rah, she reverted to the Polish spending sabbatical years in residence, using bers to die. notion that she must say the correct thing. She the Cornell library's extraor;linary classics col­ "[.\ ly mother] talked about some pretty raced home to consult her mother so as not lections and consultingwith colleagues. Both terrible memories, but my fa ther's silence, to jeopardize the family by speaking against of their sons, Elad, 20, and Shalev, 18, are bizarrely, seemed almost as expressive," she the estab[jshment. "My mother laughed and enrolled at Cornell as undergraduates. aid, fo reshadowing her scholarly work on told me a very important thing, I think:'They One Cornell graduate student with whom the po"er in literature of what is implied but want you here to think-so think."' Hanna has consulted on her last two books is not aid. revered high school literature teacher Christopher Roosevelt '94, who majored "l \\ a eight years old. It was :\ lay 9, and poet, !tamar Ya oz Kest, reinforced in classics at Colby and is on the home 1957, that \\ e arri\ ed in I rae!," Roisman the importance of independent and original stretch earning a Ph.D. in classical arche­ �aid ..he de cribe� going from being part of thinking that remains a hallmark of Reis­ ology at Cornell. Roosevelt recalled the the oppre;sed Je\\ ish min rit:y in Poland to man's cholarship. intensity Roisman showed in the classroom. the role of ridicu led ne'' comers, fresh off \Nhen she enrolled in Te l Aviv University "She's no nonsense. When I firststarted the boat. "The� \\ ere making fun of us: to study classics, she met a young native taking classes from her as a sophomore, I our D1ament bicycle� and our cre\\ ocks. 1 raeli, Jo eph (Yossi) Reisman, in her begin­ was kind of startled by it," he said. "But The� laughed at our accen� and our gram­ ning Greek class. The two shared more than tl1ere's certainly more to her than her tough­ maocal lm�ml..e�." But Roi�man \\ or ked hard a love of the classics. They were married and ness. She puts a lot into her own work, and ro ma�ter I Iebre\\ and e\celled in �chool. ha\·e remarkable similarities on their resu­ if you put a lot into )'OttTwork she really "I remember m� a�toni�hmenr coming mes, up to and including "Professor of Clas­ respects and appreciates that." from off h1erarlhical Poland ro m� �chool sics, Colby College." Putting a lot into her work has earned

· 20 C 0 l B Y r A • 2 ��sometimes an insight into life is explicitly stated [in classical literature] , sometimes it is an implicit subtext, and it is my life-long awareness of subtext learned from my parents that guides my research .... I knew that there were questions that should never be voiced unless brought up by my parents, that everything has a background which is not spoken but exists underneath what is explicitly stated, that people do not mean everything they say."

Roisman some outstanding notices in the Euripides' play, opening our eyes and arous­ Roisman has avoided talking about her last year. After 103 scholars presented papers ing our minds to the implications, ambi­ own history in the classroom and clearly at the Classical Association's annual meeting guities and double-entendres ...Roisman is torn about sharing her story. "I am not last April in Manchester, England, Th e takes up many established views, turns them unique," she repeated. Ti mes (of London) chose to highlight Rois­ upside down and offers us fairly new insights But her motivation is not obscure. It is man's analysis of classical themes in Arnold on the dnnnatis personae." to keep tl1e memory of the Holocaust alive Schwarzenegger's Te rminator movies. Though the title of her book, Nothing Is in hopes of preventing a repetition of tl1e When she tackled Euripides's Hippolytus As It Seems, was selected to represent her abominations-"the excesses, the barbarity, in her latest book, Nothing Is As It Seems, a approach to analyzing Euripides, she now tl1e cruelty, the savagery." reviewer for the prestigious classics journal sees how it fits her own life and work. "I "I think the passage of time is important Scholia wrote: "Roisman guides us tl1rough had no clue when I wrote it. You work by in looking beyond tl1e atrocities to see how nature," she said. can we prevent tlus," she said. "Now, when "Sometimes an insight into you learn about it, it will be a chapter saying life is explicitly stated (in clas­ 'methods of extermination."' But it is the sical literature], sometimes it is personal stories that resonate most pow­ an implicit subtext, and it is my erfully: people-relatives-who leapt from life-long awareness of subtext prisoner trains to escape, others who jumped learned from my parents tl1at into mass graves to hide among tl1e corpses. guides my research ...." Clearly her visit to see tl1e gas chambers "I knew that there were and piles of shoes at Auschwitz, just before questions tl1at should never be she left Poland as a child, was a traumatic voiced unless brought up by experience. Now she agonizes over the pros­ my parents, that everytl1ing has pect of returnjng mere. If it were just her­ a background which is not self, she probably would not return, she said. spoken but exists underneath But looking beyond her own comfort, what is explicitly stated, that her motivation in speaking, and in possibly people do not mean everything revisiting the concentration camps, is an tl1ey say ...." obligation to fu ture generations. "I would "InIsrael we learned to read go. I feel my sons, Elad and Shalev, need to between the lines," she said. see," she said.

!Ianna and Iossi Roisman. both classics professors at Colb_1: are on sab­ batical. doing research as risiting scholars at Cornell L ·n irersi(1 · in It haca. . \eu· I ark. /-Janna Roisman sp ecia!i::;es in literature. particular(!· Homeric ep ic. Greek tragec(1 ·and classical themes in modern cinema. Iossi Roisman is a historian sp eciali::;ing in Greek and Roman his tor� · and historiography as Lre/1 as ancient }eu·ish hisiOf":\ " and Greek drama.

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