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The Yiddishists THE YIDDISHISTS OUR SERIES DELVES INTO THE TREASURES OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST YIDDISH ARCHIVE AT THE YIVO INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH Blumental’s Jewish Historical Institute membership card; Dictionary cards from the public but also from oneself, and thereby enables the horrors of mass murder, gas chambers, extermination camps, and robbery to become normalised in the discourse of everyday life. Nazi language, Orwell observed, brutalised and degraded German language and thought. Blumental understood this. The thousands of Nazi euphemisms and neologisms he examined are not simply examples of perverted language. They are a key to understanding the mentality of totalitarianism, whereby Nazi ideology became instrumentalised in the genocide of the Jews. The unthinkable becomes thinkable; the unspeakable becomes a matter of daily, ‘innocent’ speech. THE HOLOCAUST DICTIONARY After the war, Blumental returned to Borszczów to find the Polish man who had Nachman Blumental’s investigations into the Nazi perversion of murdered his wife and their three-year- THE YIDDISHISTS language are key to understanding how totalitarianism operates. old son. He interviewed him as well as the townspeople who had witnessed the Jonathan Brent explores his remarkable work murder of his family. Blumental’s notes from these he archive of Nachman Blumental, diaries and poetry; survivor accounts and interviews complement his study of the recently donated to YIVO by his son, much more. His investigation into the Nazis’ ‘innocent’ speech. The so-called T Miron, constitutes one of the most perversion of the German language by the bystanders observed the mother and important bodies of Holocaust evidence Nazi regime occupied his entire life. The son being led to the killing place and to come to light in recent years. it adds first volume of his study, Słowa Niewinne watched in fascinated horror as the around 200,000 documents to the seven [Innocent Words], was published in 1947. mother undressed her son. But they did million in YIVO’s Holocaust archive. It included the following examples of how not protest or demand that this latter- Blumental was born in 1905, in some words acquired another, sinister, day Passion play be stopped. Were they Borszczów, Poland. He was a history meaning under the Nazi regime: innocent? Or were they by their inaction teacher and member of YIVO before World also enablers without whose passive – and War II. During the war, he fled to the Soviet AUSSIEDLUNG (eviction): the destruction sometimes not so passive – participation zone but his wife Maria and son Ariel and robbery of Jewish property the terrible work of genocide could not remained in Poland and were murdered in ENTLASSEN (to dismiss): murder proceed? 1943. In 1944, he was among the founders ERHOLUNG (recreation): prison Blumental’s archive raises these of the Jewish Historical Commission, which BAUERNHÄUSER (farmhouses): gas questions and takes us into the heart of collected survivor eyewitness testimony chambers the unspeakable. His work anticipated to the Holocaust. In 1947 he became the GROßEINSATZ (major operation): the current critical reassessment of Polish first director of the Jewish Historical liquidation of the Jews collaboration in the Holocaust that has Institute (ZIH) in Warsaw. He also served THE PHRASE ‘DEPORTATION TO THE EAST’ produced so much consternation in as an expert witness in the trials of Rudolf murder in extermination camps Poland and which has given rise to new Höss and Arthur Liebehenschel, both generations of ‘innocent’ words that commandants of Auschwitz, and in other In his 1946 essay, Politics and the are not innocent at all. The role of the post-war trials of Nazi perpetrators. English Language, George Orwell noted ‘bystander’ both in those horrific times The archive contains Blumental’s life’s that language shapes thought – not and in the present day may be the most work: an examination of Nazi merely how but what you see. As a result, troubling of the moral issues raised in any language, as well as perverted language – language reflection on the evil of the Holocaust and photographs and whose true aim is to genocide more generally. n personal materials; conceal – hides Nazi documents; one’s actual Visit yivo.org for more. Jonathan Brent is YIVO’s songs, ghetto intentions not only Executive Director and CEO. JEWISH RESEARCH FOR INSTITUTE FROM THE ARCHIVES OF YIVO 46 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JANUARY 2020.
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