Emotion and Intellect in the Works from Terezin Essays -- Holocaust Li

Emotion and Intellect in the Works from Terezin In the quote opening Art Speigelman’s Maus: A Survivor s Tale. I: My Father Bleeds History, Adolf Hitler expresses his urge to rob the Jewish people of their humanity: The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human (9D). Hitler’s quote begs for a response What makes one human? Many scholars and scient ist would argue that it is t he ability to think and reason t hat defines the human species. I would argue that it is a combination of the ability to reason with the ability to feel. In Elie Wiesel s Night, it is his passionate anger at his spirituality alongside his intellectual struggle with that spirituality that screams out his humanity: What are You, my God, I thought angrily, compared to this afflicted crowd proclaiming to You their faith [. . .] (63). In the range of Holocaust literature, there is a range of emotion mixed with intellect, and this combination creates a picture of human beauty. One can witness this range in Wiesel s anger and disillusionment (62, 63) and in Speigelman s father s love and frugality (157). It is the ability to think about and feel something towards one s situation that makes one human. In the painting Sailboat (56-57) and the poem Birdsong (80-81) fro m the collection I Never Saw Another Butt erfly: Children s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944, one can see how a range o f emotions combined with reason creat e an undeniable portrait of humanity. In Sailboat an anonymous child artist expresses both emotion and intellect through color choice and subject matter (56-57). The artist portrays night as a black abyss followed by a teal-gray sky dotted w... ...r Saw Another Butt erfly: Children s Drawings and Po ems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. 56-57. Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor s Tale, I. My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. Stargar, Nicholas. Children s Art of the Holocaust. Past & Present. Nov. 1998. Electronic. Expanded Academic Index ASAP. 10 February 2001. Weil, Jiri. Epilogue. I Never Saw Anot her Butterfly: Children s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. 101-104. Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books, 1982. Weissova, Helga. Lights Out. I Never Saw Another Butt erfly: Children s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. 22, 24.