"American History X": a reflection paper

Thesis Statement: The direction of history and the meaning of our very humanity is ultimately our own to decide. To forget the past is never an option.

The direction of history and the meaning of our very humanity is ultimately our own to decide. When one is to recall one’s mistakes, what usually comes to mind are offences either advertently or unintentionally committed. What is so often missed is the sin of omission, that of not doing anything, that of passivity. Humans often fail to include those which they detested to do, and thus, were avoided or worse, ignored.

It is this passivity that in certain circumstances brings more destruction. This impassiveness characterizes one of people’s worst crimes. To be impassive is analogous to being inhuman. As the being deemed most superior, humans are at one side blessed and at the other, burdened with the power of action, more so, of choice. In “American History X”, Derek Vinyard used this power to mold his life in a new definition of justice. In “Hotel Rowanda”, Paul Rusesabigini chose to immerse himself in the pot of boiling Tutsis. It was all a matter of choosing to do, and doing it.

“The Greyzone” remains faithful to this premise. The story tells of a group of Sonderkommandos who tries to choose, and does it. Like everyone else in the camp, these collaborators had no choice. The only possibilities (and not even options) for them were to die as soon as they arrive or to die after four months. In life, when one knows with certainty the darkness that lies ahead, we linger in the comfort of the present light. These Jewish males did the same.

The anguish felt by these traitors is beyond imagination. I believe that these Sonderkommandos picked their role not out of belief that they could be saved; after all, they know fully well the fate that had befallen the past units. No, I believe that these unfortunates preferred to betray their fellow Jews in order to save their humanity. To be human is to have a choice. These people, in the despair prevalent in that time, were treated inhuman. It is human instinct to want to feel humanity. In order to achieve so, these men preferred to be commanders, in a sense, to feel that they have made a “choice”, when in fact, there is none.

Preferring to save one’s life for four months while your family and race are roasted in the fire is no easy task. But in a situation such as the Holocaust, it is perhaps the only way to feel alive, to feel that one can do something amid options of nothing. More so, it was witnessed how this sense of “choice” fostered a sense of hope. After the near expiration of their grace period, the Sonderkommandos had the guts to organize a revolt. This was another big “choice” and would have entailed great assessment, despite its failure. After all, of the 13 consecutive units of Sonderkommandos, only the 12th revolted. All the rest have impassively forfeited their sense of will; the first 11 might never even have thought of it, and the last was gutless to repeat it.

It is a sense of choice, in contrast to hopelessness which brings forth inactivity, which makes us truly alive. Otherwise, as the old man who despised one of the Sonderkommandos observed, “You're dead already.” It is this same man who refused to surrender his watch who remarked, “We're always doing what everyone says.” His brief act of refusal is his best and last way to prove his humanity: for once, by defying authority and choosing not to.
It is this attempt of proving humanity that the Sonderkommandos took by preferring to let the girl live. Choosing not to kill her was a sharp contrast to their routine of killing. It was their way of showing that they are not murderers. As one of them tries to justify their “shower story”, the way they kill is that “It's not pulling the trigger!” But then, it’s not stopping the gun from firing, either.

For the Sonderkommandos, it is the Bulgarian girl who served as a means of telling themselves that they are still alive, that they are still human, that they could still choose what to do, or what not. Saving the girl showed that at least, before dying they were able to do something by not doing something. They were able to save without killing. In their stint as Sonderkommandos, that’s a great digression. They were able to die with this knowledge. As the “neighbors” remarked, “We did something.” “Yes we did.”

As for the next Sonderkommando units, the girl’s voice observes, “At this point, they're just moving. Breathing and moving. Like anyone else still alive in that place. And this is how their work continues.” Yet, are they really still alive? For at that point, in toiling as traitors, they are reduced to less than robots, which follow without questions, which do so because they are told to do so. They have become less than a human, only breathing and moving, and not doing, or choosing not to.

It is this same scenario which afflicts Sisyphus, according to the myth. He toils and toils, trying to bring the rock to the summit. And yet at the end, he suffers more knowing that all his sufferings are to no avail. And as is said, it could not be worse than that Sisyphus is aware of it. He is aware that he would not succeed, and yet he continues. He does and does knowing it would lead to nothing. The new units of Sonderkommando are like this, hopeless, living but already dead, toiling and toiling knowing that they’ll be dead anyway. It hurts us less when we don’t know that we’ll be hurt.

In the end, we are called to remember the past. We are called to do something, and in some instances, to not do something. If we could do by starting a tragedy (e.g. a war), we could not do it, and still that would be doing something. We could remember not to start it again.