A Dance of Redemption

“If someone would tell me here, then, that I wout come sixty something and three years later with my grandchildren, so I’d say what are you talking about?… so here you are. This is a really historic moment”. – Adolek Kohn, survivor, Auschwitz.

The video to the left features three generations of a Melbourne family – a holocaust survivor, his daughter, and his grandchildren dancing on the grounds of concentration camps across Europe and in front of synagogues and signs of Jewish life across Europe. Full of joy and determination they are accompanied by Gloria Gaynor’s song “I will Survive”. In the final moments Gaynor’s song merges with Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love”. It was produced by his daughter, Australian artist Jane Korman.

The video is the first in a three part series: the second shows her dancing as a child with her father and other family members to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love”. The final video interviews Adolek Kohn playing his memories of the train ride to Auschwitz begging for water against his joyous return so many years later with grandchildren, a trip few ever had a chance to make:

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in …
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love (Leonard Cohen, 1984)

Kohn’s daughter who produced the video, explains that she had noticed that people had become numb to the word “Holocaust”. She wanted a fresh way to get people thinking about the Holocaust. Later when the video created controversy, she asked her parents how they felt about the negative reactions. He said “We came from the ashes – now we dance.”. “I came with my grandchildren… I don’t know how many people can come with their grandchildren because most of them are dead.”

The video series first published in the summer of 2010, created some controversy and a wide range of responses. For some it shifted their understanding. For others it was a sign of hope. For others a sign of disrespect.

thats seriously amazing. Its so empowering. That survivor went back to where he watched hundreds of thousands of people died and danced with his grandchildren, I think its just an amazing example of the power of the human spirit ( bhawk911 on Youtube )

I think the main thing that this video challenged in my ideas was the notion that Auschwitz is a grave site. It isn’t. It’s a crime scene. Those are two very different things. ( iwoj on You Tube )

I think this display at the site of extreme horror for many Jews is mistaken and a desecration. It is wonderful that Mr. Kohn survived, but there are many others that seek to destroy the Jews and it is a mockery of those who succumbed. (Facts Life on DebbieSchlussel.com )

Some fellow Holocaust survivors were also offended. “It seems to trivialize the horrors that were committed,” said Kamil Cwiok, 86. “I don’t see how this video is a mark of respect for the millions who didn’t survive or for those who did.”

The range of responses should not be surprising. There is no such thing as a simple response to the kind of evil presented by the Holocaust. The potential for evil must not be forgotten. The dead deserve to be honored. The living deserve to rejoice and underscore the failure of those who tried to harm them, most especially by transforming the very sites where the horror took place.

Judaism has often struggled with the conflicting dynamic beween acknowledging evil and refusing to let it have the final word. In Jewish tradition the trecherous Amalek and Haman are supposed to have their names blotted out forever. Yet each year Jews remember them by remembering their oblivion. How? By turning it into a celebration. On Purim, children and adults dress up in clothes that deliberately mock the normal roles and conventions of life. In synagogue, every time the name of Haman is mentioned during the reading of the Purim story (book of Esther) it is drown out by loud noises – groggers, table pounding, cymbals and other loud noises – at once both remembering and forgetting.

There is also precedent in Jewish tradition for dancing at graves, as strange as the idea may seem. Each year at Rosh HaShanna, followers of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav gather in Uman to spend the holiday in the presence of this holy story teller and Hassidic leader. Rabbi Nachman taught that joy was a pathway to God, so his followers dance in his name through the streets and even at his grave.

To have died in the Holocaust is to become a holy person, a tzaddik. To dance near and at the graves of those who did not survive acknowledges that their martyrdom was not without cause, that their courage will never be forgotten. We live in the shadow of their holiness. We must not forget. At least some of those for whom the murdered died live on and continue to thrive in their name. Is there any better way to remember?

How would you wish to be remembered if your life had been stolen from you? If your loved ones’ had