Pilgrim Among the Shadows

by Boris Pahor

                                                              

Boris Pahor, aged 102, from Trieste, looks back at  the past, his past and the past history of Slovenia from a present day perspective.

There are two themes in this book :

The fate of minorities, still a topical subject nowadays and

the writer’s life in a concentration camp.

He was the young boy who was once caught in the panic of a crowd as he helplessly watched flames destroy the theatre in the center of Trieste in a deliberate act by the regime to eradicate Slovenian culture . From then on, his vision of the future will be ruined for ever. 

Fascist Italy was proceeding towards the genocide of Slovenians condemning them among other things  to speak Italian .

Pahor was caught speaking Slovenian with a friend hence «  condemned for using  the language in which he expressed his love for his parents and with  which he first came to know the world. »

As a result, he was sent to the concentration camp  of Harzungen in the Vosges.

There, he worked as an interpreter and a medic during WW II, a privileged position compared to the other prisonners.

Since after the war, he regularly went back « as a pilgrim » to the camp where he witnessed the worst cruelty and horrors perpetrated on humans beings who became mere «  shadows « of their former selves.

What he relives of his past on those visits is put into perspective with the factual  explanations that  a guide gives nowadays to a group of visitors about life in the camp during the war.

Fear of death was worst of all. Pahor tried to fight it off through work and the concern for others.

Although this book was very hard to read, we found Pahor’s message full of humanity : 

«  Except for love which indisputably holds first place, high-minded resistance to injustice is the most we can contribute to the salvation of human dignity. When one becomes  a shadow, mass resistance is the only possible salvation for it allows all the remaining sparks of energy to unite in a fire. »

Pahor hopes that «  love will prevail, this beautiful instinct of the youth which will survive and live on stubbornly. « 

We in our group didn’t really know about this camp in the Vosges and about the fate of Slovenians who have resisted assimilation throughout their history.

Anne Van Calster

This book was different from other books I had read on the same subject in two ways: 

Firstly, though it describes the most horrid things and events, it also at times manages to include beauty. It reads as a sort of poem and the images are often poignant (comparing the dead bodies to pieces of wood, to pick just one).  Secondly, it had been written from a point of view of a Slav, underlining the fact, that not all the prisoners were Jews and not all the camps were run by Germans : “... then the guard began to curse loudly over the body that lay motionless and I realized he was a Croat Ustasha…I felt hollow at the kindred Slavic words spoken in such circumstances.”

 (Ustasha were the fascists of Croatia that ran an extermination camp prevalently for Serbs and Gypsies at Jasenovec in Croatia).

The writer touches on various themes, p.e. the role of fear in the behaviour of an individual and a collective “... the elite´s fear of missing its one historical chance – there perhaps lies the elemental kernel of the German tribe´s mad extasy: elemental fear…For a person who does not fear his neighbour… feels no need to destroy him.” Which is true about the Nazis as well as the Communists.  Or, that “Man is capable of anything….Man grows accustomed to anything…” The main theme of the book, however, seems to be Pahor´s trying to come to terms with the feeling of guilt for apparently having had an easier time than the other prisoners: “…became  an interpreter and secretary to the prison head physician. This was not an official camp assignment and I have no idea why an exception was made for me, as it has been repeatedly throughout my life. I am never weighed on the usual scales…”). This obtained him some privileges: “…the cold of Dachau…”could have been my last if I had not contrived to get a vest…for a pack of cigarettes.” Or: “…I asked myself, why I deserved  to have my chest x-rayed when bodies lay in crates… a few kind impulses weren´t enough to redeem me in the face of millions of dead.” And many more instances. Yet he was not the only one: “The musicians had every right to use their profession to save their lives and get an extra helping of food.”

It occurred to me, that his dwelling on his guilt made the book less powerful - in the end it, despite the generalisations of the last pages, the book was more about him than about the reality of the camp. Still, he did bring home the horrors of it and that nobody that did not experienced it can ever really understand it: “Under the clear, sunny sky these images become implausible, and I realize that our forced processions have moved into the realm the past for ever. They will become shadows in mankind´s collective sub-consciousness.” 

Blanka Pešinová