44601120-Agamben-Remnants-of-Auschwitz

CHAPTER FouR
The Archive and Testimony
4.1 One evening in 1969, Emile Benveniste, Professor of Lin-
guistics at the CollCge de France, suffered an attack: on a street in
Paris. Without identification papers, he was not recogni:zed. By
the time he was identified, he had already suffered a complete and
incurable aphasia that lasted until his death in 1972 and kept him
from working in any way. ln 1972, the journal Semiotica published
his essay, "The Semiology of Language:' At the end of this article,
Benveniste outlines a research program that moves beyond Saus-
surian linguistics, one that was never realized. It is not surprising
that the basis for this program lies in the theory of enunciation,
which may we11 constitute Benveniste's most felicitous creation.
The overcoming of Saussurian linguistics, he argues, is to be
accomplished in two ways: the first, which is perfectly compre-
hensible, is by a semantics of discourse distinct from the theory of
signification founded on the paradigm of the sign; the second,
which interests us here, consists instead "in the translinguistic
analysjs of texts and works through the elaboration of a metase-
mantics that will he constructed on the basis of a semantics of
enunciation" (Benveniste 1974: 65).
It is necessary to linger on the aporia implicit in this formula-
tion. If enunciation, as we know, does not refer to the text of
'37
Uf AUSCHWIT.i:
vvhat uttered but to lts taking place, if it is nothing other than
pure reference lo Jtself as actual discourse, in what
sens<.; is it possible tG speak of a ''semantics" of enunciati{m? To be
sure, the iso]atlon <,f the domain of rnunciation first makes it pos-
sibl.:: to distinguish in a statement bet\"f'een what is said and its
laking plac;:;:, But docs enunciation not thrn Teprescnt a non-
semantk' dimvnsion prcdsdy on M.:Count of this identification? it
is certainly possible to define som.ething like a meaning of the
l
'!'t . "I .. .• « H Hh ., 't' I '"!' L
:, 11 ets , now, ere \ or examp C; means tt1e
onf: who utlers tbe present speech in which 'I' is contained''); but
this is completdy to the lexic,1] meaning of other
linguistlc "I" is neith\:!r a notion nor a suhstance, and enun-
ciation conc<:rns not •Nhat is said in discourse but the pure fact
th;tt it is said, {'Vent of language as which is by definition
ephernenL Lik;:: tht- phiJosophcrs' concept of Being, enunciation
is what is most unlque and since it refers to the
1utdy and unrcpeatabk event of discourse in act; but at
the ;;arne time, it is wh<it is nw:;t vacuous and gctH:ric, since it is
,,hvJys repeated without its ever being possible to Jssjgn it any
lexicallY:(llit y.
\Vhat, from this perspective,. can it mean to speak of a rnetase-
mantics founded on a Sf;mantks of enundadon? \Vhat did Ben-
veniste glimpse before falling into aphasia?
4.2 In 1969, publishes The ArclLieology r:f
which formulates the method and program of hiS
research through the foundation of a theory of statements (inon-
ds). AlthOugh Benveniste's name does not appear in the book and
despit{c the fact that Foucault could not have kno·\vn Benveniste's
last articles; a thread tics Foucault's program to the one the
outlined. The incomparable novelty of The Archaeology ?f
Knowledge conslst,;; in having .:;.:xpllcJtly taken as its object neither
IMONY
nor propositions hut "stat{:ments," that is.
not the text Of discourse but its phce:, Foucault was thus
the first to comprehend the novd dimension of Bt:rrvenistc 's
theory of cntl!Ki,niont and he was rhe firRt then to make this
dimension into an object of study. Foucault certainly recugnized
th<lt this object is, in a cf:rtain sense, undefinable, that archaeol-
ogy in uo WilY delimits a partlcuklr lingttistk area comparable to
th{)Se assigned to the v;n1ous disciplines of kno'>vl{:dge. Jnsofur as
cntm·ehttiun refers not to a text but t(J a pure event of language
(in the terms of the Stoics, not to something s,1id but to the
sayable th,H· remains UJt>aid in it), lts territor)' cannot coincide
with a dcfinJte level of linguistic aualysjs (the .sentence, the
proposition, illocutive acts, or with the specific domains
examined by the sciences, Instead, it a function
cally present in aU sciences and in aH a·cts of speech. As
\\Tites. willt Judd avvarene)s of hi".; methnd':; ontological .impl.i·-
cations: "the statt,ment is not therefore .1 structure ... ; it is a
function of ,;xisknce" (Fnu<::anlt 1972: 86). In other wonk enm1-
ciation is not a determined by n:;1J, ddinitt: propettles; it
is, pure exl;;tence, the fact that a certain being -language
takes Given the of the sciences and the many
know1edg<:s that, define meaningful sentences
and more or less well fanned dis;.:ourses, claims tlS
its the pure taking place of these propositions and dis-
cmu:-es1 that is, the outside of language, the brute fact of its
existence,
ln tJ1ls wr1y, Foucault's archaeotogy perfectly n:alizes Benve-
niste·s program for a '\octa:;emantics LuHt on a semantks of
cnv.nciaHou.H After h:rving, used a semantics of enunciation tG
distinguish the donMln of statem<7nts from that of propositions,
Foucault establishes ·a ncvr poJnt of view from which to .investi-
knovvlr·dr>es and disdpHnes, an outside that mJkes it possible
lJ9
REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ
to reconsider the field of disciplinary discourses through a
semantics": archaeology.
It is certainly possible that Foucault thus merely dressed up
old ontology, which had become unacceptable, in the modern
garb of a new historical metadisdpline, thereby ironically propos-
ing first philosophy not as a knowledge, but as an "archaeology"
of alJ knowledgcs. But such an interpretation fails to recognize
the novelty of Foucault's method. What gives his inquiry its incom-
parable effkiency is its refusal to grasp the taking place of lan-
guage through an "I," a transcendental consciousness or, worse, an
equally mythological psychosomatic "I." Instead, Foucault deci-
sively poses the question of how something like a subject, an "I,"
or a consciousness can correspond to statements, to the pure tak-
ing place oflanguage.
Insofar as the human sciences define themselves by establish-
ing a linguistic stratum that corresponds to a certain level of
meaningful discourse and linguistic analysis (the sentence, the
proposition, the illocutive act, etc.), their subject is naively iden-
tified with the psychosomatic lndiYidual presumed to utter dis-
course. On the other hand, modern philosophy, which strips the
·transcendental subject of its anthropological and psychological
attributes, reducing it to a pure "I speak," is not fully aware of the
transformation this reduction implies with respect to the experi-
ence of language; it does not recognize the fact that language is
thereby displaced onto an ascrnantic level that can no longer be
that of propositions. In truth, to take seriously the statement "I
speak" is no longer to consider language as the communication of
a meaning or a truth that originates in a responsible Subject. It is,
rather, to conceive of discourse in its pure taking place and of the
subject as "a nonexistence in whose emptiness the unending out-
pouring of language uninterruptedly continues" (Foucault 1998:
148). In language, enunciation marks a threshold between an
THE ARCHIVE AND TESTIMONY
inside and an outside, its taking place as pure exteriority; and
once the principal referent of study becomes statements, the sub-
ject is stripped of all substance, becoming a pure function or pure
position. The subject, Foucault writes, "is a particular, vacant
place that may in fact he filled by different individuals .... If a
proposition, a sentence, a group of signs can be called 'statement,'
it is not therefore because, one day, someone happened to speak
them or put them into some concrete form of writing; it is be-
cause the position of the subject can be assigned. To describe a
formulation qua statement does not cons-ist in analyzing the rela-
tions between the author and what he says (or wanted to say, or
said without wanting to); but in determining what position can
and must be occupied by any individual if he is to be the subject
ofit" (Foucault 1972: 95-6).
In the same year, Foucault undertakes his critique of the notion
of the author following these very same princi.p]cs. His interest is
not so much to note the author's eclipse or to certify his death as
to define the concept of the author as a simple specification of the
function whose necessity is anything but given: "VVe can
easily imagine a culture vvhcre discourse would circulate without
any need for an author. Discourses, whatever their status, form or
vaiue, and regardless of our manner of handling them, would
fold in the anonymity of a murmur" (Foucault 1998: 222, transla-
tion emended).
4.3 In his underst,mdahle concern to define archeology's terrain
with respect to other 1m ow ledges and domains, Foucault appears
to have neglected- at least to a certain point- to consider the
ethical implications of his theory of statements. Only in his last
works, after having effaced and depsychologized the author, after
having identified something like an ethics immanent to writing
already in the bracketing of the question "Who is speaking?," did
R£\ilNANTS OF AU HWP .L
Foucault begin to reflect on the co.nsequences that his desuh-
jectification and deco1nposition of the author impHcd for the
ject. It is thus possible to say, in Benveniste's terms, that the
metasemantics of disciplinary discourses ended by concealing the
semantics of enunciation that had made it possible, and that the
constitution of the system of statements as a positivity anJ histor-
ical a priori made it necessary to forget the erasure of the
that was its presupposition. In lhh: way, the just concern to do
away with the false ''\Vho is f'lpeaking?" the
mutation of an entirely different and inevitable questjon: \Vhat
happens in the living individual when he occupies the 'vacant
place' of the subject, when lw enters into a process of enuncia-
tion and discovers that "our reason is the dlffcrencc of discourses,
our history the difference of times, ourselves the differen<_.e of
masks?" (Foucault 1972: 131). That is, once agaln, what does it
mean to be subject to dcsub}ectification? How <;an a subject give
an account ofits own ruin?
This omission- if it is an obviously does not corre-
spond to a forgetflll,ness or an incapacity on Foucault's part; it
involves a difficulty implicit Jn the very concept of a semantics of
enunciation. Insofar a.s H inheres not in the text of the statement,
but rather in its taking place-" jnsofar as it not some-
thing said, but a pure saying a semantics of enunciation cannot
constitute either a text or a Jiscipline. The subject of enuncia-
tion, vvhose dispersion founds the possibility of a metasemantics
of know ledges and constitutes statements in a positive system,
maintains itse1f not in a eon tent of meaning but in an event of
language; this is why it cannot take itself as an object, stating
itself. There can thus be no archaeology of the subject in the
sense in which there is an archaeology of knowledges.
Does this mean that the one who occupies the vacant place of
the subject is destined to he forever obscured and that the author
!\RCH v=: T:;;STIMONY
must lose himself fully in the anonymous murmur of ''\Vhat does
it m:atter who is speaking"? ln Foucault's work, there is perhaps
only one text in whkh this difficulty thematically comes to licrht,
< "
in which the darkness of th,e subject momentarily in all
lts 'Ph',ndor. This text is "The Life of Infamous Men.'' which was
originally conceived as a preface to an anthology of archival docu-
ments, regjsters of internment or lettres de cacbet. In th<' very
moment in \vhich it marks them with infamy, the encounter with
power reveals human existences that vvou1d otherwise have left
no traces of themselves. \Vhat momentarily shines through these
laconic statements are not the biographical events of his-
tories, as suggested by the pathos-laden emphasis of a certain oral
history, but rather the luminous trail of a. different history. \Vhat
:sudden1y comes to light is not the memory of an oppressed
tence, but the silent t1ame of an immemorahle e·ifws not the
suhjt::ces fat: e. but rather the disjunction he tween the lh,ing being
and the speaking being that marks its empty place. H,;re life sub-
sists only in the infamy in whkh it existed; here a name lives
solely in the disgrace that covered it. And something In disw
grace hears \'.titness to life heyond aH htography.
4.4 Foucault gives the name ''archive" to the positive dimension
that corresponds to the p1ane of enunciation, "the general system
of the fnrmatfon and transformation of statements" (l
1
oucau1t
1972: 130). Ho\V are '\Veto conceive of this dimension, if it corn:-
sponds ndther to the archive in the strict sense- that is, the
storehouse that catalogs the traces of v.rhat has been ;mid, to con-
sign them to fttturc memorv- nor to the ilabeHc lHnanr that
' '
gathers the dust of statements and allows for their resurrection
under the historian's gaze?
As the set of rules that define the events of discourse, the
archive is situated betw-een langue, as the system of constructio_n
14.l
The ethical
question of
"desubjecti-
fication"
of possible that is, of possibilities of speaking and
the corpus th.tt unites the set of what has been said, the thing>
actually uttered or ·vnitten, The archive is thus the mass .:>f the
inscribed iJJ tvery meaningful discourse as a
tion of its enunciation; it is the dark margin anU
every concrete act of speech. Between the. obsessive n1e1nury
of tradition, which knows only what has been and the e:xagN
geratcd thoughtlessness of oblivion, which cares only for what
was never i>aid, the archive is the unsaid or sayable inscribed in
everything saict hy vinuc of being enunciated; it is thr: fragment of
mcuwry that is always forgotten in the act of saying "L" It is in
this "historical a. priori," su.spended between langue and parole,
that PmlZ'<mlt establishes his construction site and founds
ology as "the genenl theme of a description that. questions the
at the level of its (ibid.: 131)-thitt is, as
the system of relations between the unsaid and the sald in every
act of speech, behveen the enunciative functicm and the discourse
in which it exerts itself, bet the outside and the inside of
Let us now attempt to n:peat Foucault's operation, lt
toward language (longue), thus displacing the site that h<: had
established hf:'tW<:'en lansue and the acts of <ipeech, to relocate it
ln the dHTerence between language (_langue) and ard:liYe: that is,
nnt discourse .md its taking place, what is said
and the enunciation that exerts itself in it, but rather hetwten
langue and its taking place, hetween a pure possibility of spcakiug
and its existence as such. If enunciation in some way lies
pended between lanflt.lt' and parole, it will then be a matter of
conslfll:nng statements not from the point of view of actual dis·
course, but rather frorn that of Lmguage (lmwueh it will he d
(jUestion of looking from the site of enunciation not toward an
act of .speech
1
hnt toward langue as such: that is, of arricubtlng ,ut
TH HD 'MOh\
in,\ide and an outside nut only in the pl.me and actuzd
discourse. but «bo in the plane of as po-.:entidllty of
speech.
In oppo;,ition tv the which designaLcs tle system of
bctv.-een Lhe unsaid and the give the n;tne testi-
to the Of relations between the i11side and the (mt-
side of lunstw, lwtwe .. ;n t11e :mvab!e and the unsayable in every
ianguage ·-that is, between a of speec.b and its
tence, Lct\ivcen a possibility and an impossibility of speech, 1{1
think a potentiality in act os potenuulity, lo thlnk on
the plane of lanHue is to inscribe a e<\CSllfa in possibility, a
that divides it into a pos,ibiHty and em Jmpossihility, in.to a poten·
tiality and an and it is h; s.ituatc ,1 subj;:ct in thh
very ctH':sura. The archivc
1
.s C•)Jt!Tthution pre::mpposcd the bracket-
ing of the subject, \Vho vras reduced to a simple function or an
empty position; it \¥-as fuun\k;d \HI the subject's disappe-arance
Into the anonymous murmur of statements. In testimony, bv
contrast, the ;mpt)' place (If the suhj<.:ct becomes the
question, It is not a qu-tsth"m, of course, uf returning to the old
problem that Foucault hJd to eliminate, namely, "How
can a subject's frecd•)tn h\'· iH:>•:rted into the rules of a language?"
Rather, it ls a rnauer of situating the suhjt:ct Jn the disJunction be-
tween a possibility and an impossibility of speech, asbng, "1·-Io\v
can something like a strtletncnt exist in sit.-: of loniJue? In 'ivhat
way can a possibility of speech realize Hsdf ,1s such?" Precisely
because testimony is the rc!arion bc.t\veen a po$s(bility of speech
and its taking place, it can exist only through a relation to an
hnpos.'i.ibility oC rhat is, only as (OnrfnaerHy, ::)S a capacity
not to be. Thb contingency, this occurrence of language in a sub-
ject, is different from act11:Jl discoursf''3 utrenmcc or
it<:> speaking n!' not speaking, its productJ<>H or non·production as
a statement. It concerns tht' subject's capacity to b,w<; ur not to
'45
have The suhjecl. is thus the possibHity that language
docs not exist, does not take place-· or, better, th;lt it t.1kes pldce
o-nly througb its po&.sibility ol not being tht:te, its contingtl!Cy.
The heing is the speaking being, the living being who has
lallg'Ua:ge, bccau-;c the human h;;·ing is capab1c of nai having lan-
b(·<::d:Ust: it is of it;; 01.vn ln-fancy. is
not one among others, alongside possibility, impossthi]-
lty, ami it is the actual giving of a possibility, the way in
which a potentiality r-xists as such. It is an event (contingiL) of ;l
potentiality as the of a between a capacity to be
and a capacity not lu b<:. In languagt>:, this giving has the for_rn of
subjectivity. Contingency is possibilhy put to the test of a subject.
In the. relation what is said and its taking place, it was
to bracket the subject of en:wciation, since speech had
already taken pL.1te. But the relation bet"veen language and ibi
existence, bet·ween langoe and the ?trchive, demands subjectivity
as that ·which, in its very of speech, bean witness to an
iwpo.,.slbHHy of This i,:; why Stlhject:iv:hy appears as witncs;;;
thb is it can for those ;vho cannot speak. Testimony is
a pnteutiolity that hecomes actual through an 1m potentiality of
spec••cn; it is, rnorcoV<::r, an impossiLHity that gives Itself ex:is:l:t:nce
tbrough a possibility of Thc;<;e two movements cannot
be identifle(l eHher with a subject or with a consciousness; yet
they cannot be divided into two incommunicablf. substances. Tlwir
inseparable intimacy is tc,-;timony.
4.5 It is time to attempt to redefine the categories of modality
from the p{'r"'pcctive that interests m. The modal categories
possibility, conhngency, necessity- are not innocu-
ous logical or epistemological categories tl'w.t concern the struc-
ture uf propositions or the relation of something to our faculty of
'T11ey arc ontological operators, that is, the
l"viOHY
ing weapons nsed in the biopolitic:al for Being, in wh_kh a
decision is made each time on the human ::rnd tb·e inhuman, on
"making live'' or "l-etting die." The field of this battle is smhjectiv-
ity. The fact that Being gives itself in modalities: that
living beings, Being is life"' (to de zen tois z("isJ einai estin) (Aristo-
tle, De anima: 413b13); it implies a Uving subject, The c:ttcgories
of rnodality are not fuundFd on the :mhject
1
as Kant maintalns,
nor are they de-rived from it; rathet·, the '>Uhfect is what Js at stake
in the processes in which they interact. They Jjvid::: and separate)
in the subject, what is pos-sjhle arn] what h impns':iihlc, the livJng
being and the speaking belng, the Jh.>rlmanr; and the witness··--
and in this vvay they de-cide on the-"'"''"·
Possibility (to be able to be) aml contingcrH"Y be ctblc not
to be) arc the operators of subjedifkatlon, th<: point in which
sornething possible palises into t'Xlstence, irsdf through J
relation to an impossibility. Impossibility, as of
ity (not Ito be ablGJ), and necesslty. as twgatit)n of contingency
(not fto be able not to he]) are the operators of desubj<·ctificarinn,
of th..:: destruction and dest-itution of the subject that is, pro-
cesses that, in :i'·ubjecthrity, divide potentiality .and
the po:Jsible and the in1possible. The fir5t two constitute Being in
its subjectivity, that is, in the final as a -world that is always
rny \vorlfl, :;ince it is in my world that impossibility t;xistf' :>nd
touchos (cDntingit) the real. Necessity and de··
fin..:; Being in its wholeness and solidity. pure substantiality with-
out that is, at the Jim it, a world that is never world
sinct.'. does: not exist in it. Yet mmbl rt.s
operators of Be-ing, never stand before the subject as. some1hing
he can choose or reJect; ancl they do not confront hirn as a t.tsk
that he c;tn decide to assume or not to assnme in a privih:ged
morncnt. 'Tbc suhject} rather
1
is a n .. of forces always tr.aili
versed by the Jncandcscent and h.istork:aHy determined <:ll!Tf:nts
of potentiality and impotentla1ity, of being able not to he ,md not
being able not to he.
From this perspective, Allsr:hwit:t 1·epresent:s the historical
point in which these processes collapse, the
encc in which the imposf'ib]e is forced into the real. Auschwit7. is
the <::xistence of the irnpo.,siblc, the most radical negation of
tingency; it is, therefore, absolute necessity. The kfuselmann
i]uced by Ausch,:vitz is the Ci'ltastrophe of the subject tlut then
foJiows, the subject's eftu_'emcnt as the place of contingency and
its maintenance .:ts existence of the He-re (iocbbe]';;;
definition of-politics- "the art of making vvha:t svems in1possibl1'::
possib1e"- acquires its full weight. lt defines a binpu1itka1
iment on the operators of Being, an experiment that tramfUrms
and disartlculates the subject to a limit point in whlch the link be-
twe-en subjectificatiDn and desubjc-ctification seems ro break
4.6 The modern meaning of the tern:r
1
'authoru appear-s rela-
tively late. Jn Latin, au;_"tor originally designates the person who
intervenes in the case of a min<.)r (or the person who. ft)r
(::vtor reason, docs not have the capacity to posit a leg:tlly v.1lid
in o-nler to grant him the- valid title that be retltlircs. Thus thr\
tutor, mterlng the fon11ula auctorJia, furnishes the pupil with the
"authority" he lacks (one then says that the pupil acts tilton: auc-
tore). In the same way, p<1trum is the raLHkaUon that the
senators- thus called patres auctores- hring to a popular re:::olu-
tion to make it valid and obligatory in ail cases.
The oldest meanings of the term also include "vendor" in the
Jet of transferring property; ''he who advisc_s or persuade:;" and,
finally, In what way can a term that expn.:::;scd the idea
of the completion of an imperfect act also signify seller, advist:l,
antl witness? \Vhat is the common character that lies at thf' rool
of these apparently heterogcneou;; meanings?
:H"' • ;\t..jD TESTir.-iUt-lY
As to the meanings of''seller" and "adviser," a (jUick
tion of the relevant texts suHices to contlm1 the-:ir substantial
tinence to the tl.mdamental mea"!1ing. The ;;.eller is said to
he rwctor insofar h-is vvitl. merging "vith that of the buyer,
date:. aod legitimates the property at issue. The transfer of prop-
erty thus as o convergence of at least t\VO parties in a
in >-vhich the right of the acquirer is always fonnded on
that of the sdlcr, who thus becomes the buyer's aucLoL \Vhcn we-
read in the Diaesr (50, 175, 7) non debeo melioris condidoni .:ssc
1
quam auctor meus, a r1w; ius in me transit, this simply means the
foHm-ving: "My right to prope1ty is. in .1. necessary and sufficient
fa:::hion, foundcd on that of the buyer, who 'anthorlzt'-5' it.'' In any
C.t:i(-';
1
vvlut b 0SS(•ntial is the idea of a rdation.,hip behvez'n two
in which one acts a<> rwct-or for the other: :waor mew; is
the nJme the buyer w the current seUer, who renders
property kg1tjm<'-te,
"The of 'he who advises or persuade./ also prcsup-
pos<,'s an <ma]t)gous idea, It is the author w·ho t,'T<mts the uncertain
or hesitant wm of,{ subject the impulse or supplement that allows
it to lw actualized. 'When \\(C read ln Plautus's Miles, "quid nunc ml
cwcror es, utfadmn?," this docs not simply mean, "What do you
advise rne to do?" lt also m·eans, "To what do y-ou 'authorize' me,
ln what way do you compl-ete my will. rendering it capablf' of
mald ng a decision about ,1. certain action?"
From this perspective, the meaning of'"witncss" also becomes
tr<ll1>Do.rent. and the tluet; terms that, in Latin, express the idea of
testimony all acquire their characteristic physiognomy. If testis
designates the witness insofar as he interrcncs as a third in a suit
betwt·en two subjects, and if superstes indicates the one who has
fully l.ivcd thnwgh an ('Xperience and can therefore relate it to
others, auctor signifies the 'vitness insofar as his testimony c1lways
presupposes something a fact, a thing or a word-- that preexists
R!=.t·/,NAN-S 00' AUSCHWiTZ
him and whose reality and force must he va1idated or certified. In
this sense, auctor is opposed to res (auctor maai.r . . , quam .res .. , movit
1
the witness has greater authority than the witncs:led thing 2
1
37, 8]) or to vox {Yoces ... nullo auctore emis:we, \Vords whose valid··
ity no witness guarantees !Ckero, Coel. 301). 'l}sthnony is thus
alw,tys an <let of an "author": it always implies an essential duality
in '..vhid1 an insufficiency or incapacity is completed or made valid.
It i;'i tlms possih1e to exphin the sense of the term dUd or in the
poets as ·'founder of a race or a city," as v.:dl a:> the !11(;'an-
ing of"setting into being" identified by Benveniste as the original
of au8ere. As is well knmNn, the -classical world is not
acquainted \Vith creatio11 r.x: nihilo; for the a1ld<:nts every act of
creation ahvays irnp1ies something else, either unformed maU<::r
or -Jncomplete Being, which is to be completed or "made to
Every creator )s always a co-creat<1r, every author a CO··auth<Jr.
'fhe a_ct of thz: dactor completes the act of an incapahlr> person,
giving strength of proof to what in itself lacks it and granting life
tO rvhat could not live alone. It can eonver!H:iy be sait1 that the
imperfect act or incapacity precedes twcwr':- act and th.:tt th<-'
imperfect act complet-es and g!vc:s meaning to the ¥mrd of the
aoctot-wltness. An author's act that claims to be V<llid on its own
is nOii.Scnse, just as the surYivor's testimony has truth and a
f()r being only if it is completed by the OIJC who c<mnot- bc.u wit-
ness. The survivor and the Muse! mann, like the tutor and the inca-
pable p(·rson and the creator and his rnatcrLtl, are inseparable;
their unity·-difl'erenc_e alone constitutes testimony.
•'L7 Let us return to Levfs paratJox: ''the ;l1uselmann is the com·
plt)te witn.;·ss.'' It implies two contradictory propositions: 1) "the
,tJusdmtJ.nn is tbc non-human, the one who could never bear wit-
ness," and 2) "the one -..vho cannot he,1T vvitness is the true wit-
ness, the absolute witnes:;.'
1
The sense and nonsense of this paradox hccome clear at this
point. YVhat Js exptC$sed in thern Js nothing other than the
mate dual s.tructure of rlS an act of an ztt;cwr, JS the
difference and completion of an i.mpu%JbiHty ,tn.J possibility of
speaking, of the inhuman an(l the hunun) .; living and a
speaking being. The :mbject nf Js constitutively frac-
tured; it ha,., no other than dlsjuncdon di:doca-
tion- and yet it is nevc.rthelcs)) irreducible to them. Thh is what it
means ''to he subject to desubjectifkation,'' and this is \vhy the
witness, the ctbic<tl subject-, is the subject who lK::ars witnc.<Js tu
-(_1csubjectification. And the unassignahility of tc:stlrnony is
ing other than the of thill fracture, of the inseparable
macy of the Muse/mann and the witness, of an impotc·ntiality and
potentiality of spe:tking_
Levi"'s second paradox, to which ''the human being
is th-e one who can S!J7Yin: the human being." also finds its true
sense here. Jiusclnumn and witncss
1
the inlwnun and the human
are coextensive and, at the same time; non-coincident; they are
divided and nevertheless inseparable. And this indivisib1c parti-
tion; this fractured and yet !ndissn1ub1e Hf,:: t'xpresst:·s itself through
a double survival: the h 1he nne who C<tn survive: the
human being and the human is the one whu can !}Urviv.c the
non-human, Only because a ;J1usclmann could be i:;ohted in 3
human bdng, nnJy becal.ISe hum.m life is essentially destructible
and divisible can the :mrvlvt> the Mu.1dmarm. The wltneBs'
sun.-ival of the inhuman is a function of the /Husdmurm 's
of the human, VVhat c;m be infinitely i.;; what can
nitely survive.
4.8 Bichat's ceutral thesis is that life ;:,m smvhe itsdf and that
life is, indeed, constitutively fractured into;; plurality oflive:1 .md
therefore deaths. All the Recherches physiologiqves s11r fa vie: et sur
l)l
la mart are frxunded on Bichat's observation of a fundamental frat>
turc in lifel \Vhich he presenb as of two ·'ani-
m;ds" in every organism. First there is the "'animal on rhe
ins.idt: 1'' \-vhose life caBs "organk'l and cf•mpan':s to
that of a plant is but a ''habitual successiOn of assim1-
hti()n ond excretion." Then (here ls "the animal living on 1he
outsi{le," w!K•sc which is the only one to merit the name
''anlrnal" -·-is .. kfined by its relation to the externaJ world. The
l'racture between th-t· organic cmd the animal traverses the entire
life of rhc tndh-idual, its mark in the oppo:,ition bctvveen
the continuity of organic functions (blood circulation,
tion, as!limi1ation, etc.) and the intermltteucc of animal
funrtions (the most evident of which is that of drearrdng-vl'aking);
h1:twcen the asymmetry of organic life (only one stomach, one
1iver1 one heart) and the svmmetrv of animal (·a <yJnn,1cltri<:J
./ / "'-
btaio, two eves1 i¥'0 cars, t\vo arms
1
etc.).; and fJn.tiJy in the
' '
coincidence of the beginning <tnd end of-o-rgank and anim<ll life.
Jmt as in the fetu;, org.mk begins before that of animal life, so
in oJd and dying it survives its animal death. Foucault
has noted the of death ln Bichat, the emergence of
<t or deta.Ue-.l death. which divides dcctth into a series of
pattial Jeatbs: hri\iH death, liver death, heart death .... But what
Bichat c.wnot accept, what continues to present him with an ir-
redueJb!e is not ':iO much this multiplication of dNth as,
organic life's f;Htvival of ;mim.,!lifc, the inconceivable sulv>isten(;e
of "'the animaJ on the insidr:" once the ''animal on the outside!'
has ceased to exist. If the precedence of organic life with respect
to life can he uuderstood as a process of development
to\vard more and more elevated and complex forms, how is it
possible to explain the animal on the inside's sensPle.ss survival?
The passage in \Vhich Hichat des<:rihcs the gradual and incxor¥
able extinction of anhnu! life in the- indifferent survival of orga:nk
''"'r. Af:CFJI\11; AHD TF,iTI'VONY
functlons constitute;; ont:' of the most intens-e mom-ellts in the
Recherches:
Natural death i'1 renHrkable in tbat it puts 4n almost -:::omp!cte end to
animalllfc long heforc life ends. Cousider nun, who fades
away rtt the t·-nd of a period of old age, He dies in det<tib: nne
aft<.'l his cxtcrnd functions l·;oml': to an eud; aU his senses
cease to function; the usu.1l c.tuses of sensation no longer leave any
impression on him. His sight gro\Ys dim, conf;.lsed, and ends by 111.:-t
transmitting tl:c of objecls; he t:nffers from ge-rhtric
ness, Sounds strike. hi$ ear in a confuse-J fashion! and soon his ear
hf:comt>-s t(l thern. At this point, the cuLl"
neons layer, hatd¢ned) cun:;rcd with ;;allu;,cs partiaHy deprived oi
hloofl ,nul now inadive, allo\YS for only an obscur<'" and
indistinct sense of touch. Habit, in ;my \'?.St, has b'Junkd :1Jl sen-
sation. Ali the org.m.:s that depend oH !'he skln grow weak ant!
hair a:td hair gttnv thin, VVithout the that nourishc:d it,
mcd hair faHs out. Odors now unly a light imprt"s<:ion on his
sense of S\itf'l!., , lsoht<;d iu tht midJlv of nature, partiaUy depriH-::d
of his sensitive organs, thv old m:m's brain is soon extinguished, He
no longer ntt:dl of' auyd·dng; s<:ns<>.s are almost int>l-
pahk of being e::u:rch-:cd al alL His imagination fades away and djs,
His memory ofpn:scnt things is destroyed; in a second, the
old man forgets vv hat just said to hJm, since his external senses,
which have gnnvn -..vt:ak and are, it ;,vcre, dead
1
cannot confi:-m
what his spirit thinks. lt grasps. fdcAs !escape him, wh:le the Jrr.age:.
traced by h.is S<'n5-ts no
200·-20 1).
retain their imprint \Hkhat 1936:
An intimate estrangement from the world corresponds to this
dedine of external senses, an that c1osdy n:caHs
the- descriptions of the .Mu,.elmmm in tiw t'<Unps:
Ihe old man's lUOVtl!1f:ntS J.rt: s-;,•Jdmn md t:t'Jow; he lt>aVt:S onJy with
great cn.'>t the condition in which he finds h1msdf. Stated beside the
fite rb::tt is him, he spends his concentrating on himself,
aHcn<-1ted from wh;Jt surrounds him, in tb(: abseuce of desires, p,1S··
siom, sensattons-almost without since Ttnthing pmhes
him to hrcal' his silence. He is luppy to fed that he still ex{st:;, for
ctlmost: \.'Very other h,1S vanished.'.' It 'i.'> ,ca.;;y to see, fr0m
-what we have said, that in thr old man cxtem:d fum:tions ate extin-
guished one after another and life even after ap_:i-
m,,Ilife <Jlm.ost fully corn;; an end. Fn•m this point of-view-
1
the
condition of the living: about to be aurdlliht<:£'i rkatb
h1cs the state iu which we find oursel vcs in the mat<.:rn,\l womk or
in thf r,f ve1?etati•m, \vhich Hv,_;s
to nature (ibhL 202 <W3
The description culminZttr·s in a ques1lon th.Jt is trn1y a bitter
confession of power1essness in the f8.ce uf an
But yvhy i-; it that, when we have u::ased to exist on the otJtside, we
contJnue to llve 011 the inside, \vhcn <t•:ns(:S, lonmwtiOJI, :.o forth
are ahow; all lo th in relation to bodlcs that nourish
asl \JV'hy do these functions grow weaker than inttmal ones! Why h;
their ce-s:sJ.tion nol simuh.aneous'? ] cannot succeed in fuHy solving;
lhis enigma
Bichat could not have foretold that tht: time would corne when
rnedJcal res-uscitation and, in addition, hlopoJitics
would on this disjunction betw('e-n the nrganic
and the animal, the of a Hfc that
indefinitely sunriv;;-::s the Hfc of a life infi".
nitely from human existence. But, almost as if a dark
foreboding of this suddenly crossed his mind, he irnag-
154
-I-:,; :o..P.C---!IVS ,\.NC
ines a symmetrical possibility of a death turned upside down, in
""""rhich man's animal fUnctions stlrYive while his organic
perish completely:
il1tcnHt functions <IS ciKulation, Jigestk•n, S>_:creti<lllS, and so
forth), permitted the snbsistence of tht se-t of function:.; of anirnsl
life, this man vvould. view the end of his Hfc with
- ence. For h? would ft>,e! th:'lr the ;votth ot his exi:<tence did not
depend on organic functions, and th,!t (even J.ftu 1hcir "death" hr:
would he capabh: of feeling and expcrJcndng th:H nntil
then had made him happy (Bkhat 1986: 205··206).
Whether what survlvf:'s is the human or the inhuma.n, the
mal or the organic, it :seems that Ufe bears within itself the dream
-or the nightmare- of surviYaL
4.9 As l.V\-: have seen, Fou<":ault d!'.'fines the difference between
modern b:lopower and the sovereign po-wer of the nld tcrritotlal
State through the of hvo symmetrical formulae. TO make
die cwd to let smmnarilcs rhe procedure of old
pow";r, vvhich exerts itself above all as the right to kill; to make hve
and to let die is, instead, the insignia of l_;iopowcr, vvhich has as its
primary objective to transform the care of life and the biological
as such into the concern of State pow·cr.
h1 the light of the preceding reflections, a third fornutla can
be said to insinuate it;,elf benvcen the other two, a fonrrub tlut
defines the most specific trait of twentieth·ccnlury
no longer either to make die or to m()ke lire, hut to 11'!1."/ke sur-vive.
The d(;cisive activity of biopmver in our time consists In the pro-
duction not of life or death, buJ- rather of a mutahle and virtually
Jnfinitc survival. In every case, it is a matter oi.' dividing ani nul life
155
z
front or;gar1ic life, the human from the inhuman, the witness !Yom
the Musclmarm, consciou5life froin life maintained func--
tional through re;;;usdtation techniques, until a threshold is reached:
an essentially mobile threshold that, Hke the borders of
muves accm:ding to th('. pmgrP-ss of scienttfic and politka] tech-
nologies. Biopower's supreme ambition b to produce, in a human
hody, the. absolute sep<i:tat!on of the fi\'lng being and the speaking
xoe and bios, the inhmn;;;n and the survivaL
Thift is why in the camp, the iHwrelmann like the body of thf·
<,•,rcrcomatose: penon ,mil the neomort att.Jdwd to
sy;;tems tod.1y- not only shovp:; the. ofhiopovver, but abo
reveuls its secret ciphC'r, so to s;p(:ak its aramnm. In his De arcanis
rerum pul)l1canmT (!60S), Clapmar distint,ruished in the structure
of po\ver l)etween a visible hu: (jus imperii) <tnd a hidden f<1Ce
'Which he claims derives from arca
1
jewel casket or
fer). In contemporary biopolitJcs, surviv<tl is the point in whit-h
the t\vo faces coincide, in which the urcanum imperji comes to
light This is why it rt'ma.i'ns, as it were, invisible in its very
exposure, all the more hidden for itself as such. In the
;Huselmaun, hiopmver to produce its final secret: a survival
separJted from every pos::rjbility of t<:stimony, a kind of absolute
biopolitical substance that, in its isolatjon, allows fur the attTihu-
tion of dernogrJphk\ ethnic, and political identity. rfj in
the jargon ofl'\azi bureaucracy, whoever partidpated in the "Final
Solution" vvas called a a kc·eper of secrets, the
Musclmann is the absolutely unwitnessable, invisible ark of
power. lmdsihlc because empty, becau1e the Museimann is nothing
other th,m the volkloscr Raum, 1he spt1Ce empty of people at the
cN\ttr of the camp that, in aH life from itself, marks
the poJnt in whkh the citizen pas:;es into tht'- St£Jatsansehiinge
of non-Aryan descent, the non-Aryan into the jew, the Jew into
t:hs; and, finaHy, the d-eported Jew beyond himself into
Tl,c-- _•\KC•-llVF AND
the Musdmann, that is, into a bare, unassignable ;md un'-vitnes.s-
ahle life.
This is ·why those vd10 assert the unsayabHity of Auschwitz
today sho11ld be rnore cautious in their • If they mean
to say that Auschvdtz \Y.-'1$ a unique event in the fac<:' of which the
witnc.ss mw>t in Hnne way submit his every word :·o the test of ;m
impossibility of speaking, they ;;r.-:: dght. But if. unique-
ness to nnsayahHlly, they transform Auschwltz into a n:;tlity .lb-
solutely separate--d from language, if they break the tie between an
impossJi)Jlity and a pos1dhility of speaking that, In the Musdmann,
constitutes testimony, then they npeal the Nazis'
gesture; they are in secret solidarity with the atcanum fntperii.
Their s:ilt:nce thrccttcns to repeat the SS's scornful warning to the
iuhahJt<Jnts of the cam.p. wh1ch tT>1D$CTihes at tht: very sta:rt
of The Drowned and the Saved:
HO>Ycvcr the war may enrl, we have vvon thz• war
will be left m hear •,vi mess, lnH e>'en if somenn0 to sur"
vlvc, the \vor1d will nc:.t belit:ve hinL Then•, v.iH he
.,:;i0DS, n;Bcarch by hi.:;torian;;;, hut the-re will Le no
<:'crtainlie{',, because we will destroy the together \Vith you.
And even if proof remain <mtl some of you
pec>ple will s::.y thnt the e.ve11ts you are ton mous:•xmJ:> to h.;:,
of the:
{Levi 19l:l9: 1
+JO \Vith its evf'ry word, testimony refutes thb isola-
tion of survival from life. The witness att(>)ts to the tb0-t thcTe
can be testimony hcc;;ust: there is .m inseparahk division and non-
coincidence b.;.tween ('he inhuman and the hunnn, t-he living heing
and the being, the M11selmann and the survivor. Precisdy
insofar as it inher(:s in language as such, precisely insofar as it
ISJ
RLM-'-ib;'. TS OF -"J HV/ITZ
bt:ars witness to the taking place -of a potentiality of speaking
through an impotentiality alone, Irs authority depends not on
a factual-truth, a conforrnity behve<:n something said and a fact
or between memory and -..vhat happz:nt:rf, but rather on the
memorial relation hetween the unsayable and tht: sayable, benvccn
d1e outside and the inside ofhngu,:;gc. l11e authority qfthe wiwess
consist.-: in his to speak in tbe name <?fan to
spedk- tlwt is, in his or her heing a snhjcct. Te5,timony thus
tees not the factual truth of the statement safeguarded in the
archive, hut rather its unarchivahillty, its cxteriority with resp{;<:t
to the archive-that is
1
the necessity bJ -..vhich, as the existence of
language, it both memory and forgetting. It is bt:cause
thew: is testimony only where there is an impossibility of speak-
ing, because there is a witness only where there has b<:en desub-
jectificat:ion, that the Jfusefmarm is the complete witness and that
the survivor and the Alvselmann tannnt be split apart,
It is necessary to reflect on the particular status of th-e subject
frorn tbis perspectiYc. The fact that the subject of testimony-·
indeed, that aH subjectivity, jf to be a subject and to bear witness
are in the final analysis one and the sam(':--· is a remnant h not to
be understood in H1c sense that the .;;uhject, according to one of
the rne,u:dngs of the Gteek term hypo'>'tasisj ls a substratum, depoi>it,
or sediment left behind as a kind of background or foundJtion by
historical prnn:sses of subjectifkation and desubjectification,
manization and inhum:mization. Such a conception would once
again the dialectic of grounding by -which one thing- in
our -ca::;c, bare life··- must be separated and effaced for human Hfe
to be to as a propt:rty (in this sense, the Arlusel-
mamJ is the vva}' in which Jewi;;h life must be effaced for somt'··
thing like an Aryan life to be produced). Hen: the foundation is a
function of a telos that i::; the gl"ounding of the human being, the
becoming human of the inhuman. It is this perspective tbat must
he wbully into question. We musL cease to louk to>vard
t:irocesscs of subjectification and of the living
l:einis hecomJng speaking and speaking being's
living andj more generally, toward bisroric0l pro::esses .ts if
b<ld an apocAlyptic or prof:m<: telos in whk:h the be-ing and
the speaking hdng. thf: inhuman and the or any terms
of a historical process are joined in an estr;b!ishcd, completed
humanity and reconciled in a realized id-entity. This does not 1nean
that, in lacking Dn end, they arC> conJemned to rneaningltssne,;;s
or tltc vanity of ,m infinite, disenchanted drifting. They have not
an end, but a nmmant. There b no fmmdatinn in or beaeath them;
rather
1
at their CdJter lit:s a.n irreducible disjm;ction in which
each term, stepping forth in the place of a remnant, can bear
\A!h:tt is. truly hil'torkal is not vvhat redeems time in the
direction of the futur.:- or even the past; it is
1
rather, what fulfills
time in the of .t nH:dlum. The Kingdom is nei-
ther the future (the millennium) nor the p&st (the golden age): it
is, instead, a remainin9 time.
4.11 ln an inh:rvie-v; in 1964 on German tc:Ievislon, Atf:ndt
-was Jsked what temained, for htr, of the Hltle-rian Europe that
she had experienced. '"\:Vhat T(;mains?" Arendt answcn:d, "Tbe
mother tongue remains" ( Mwtersvmche blcibt).
\Vhat is language as d temnant? How can a langoage survive the
subJects and even the people that sp<::ak it? And what do eo: it mean
to in a remalu.ing language?
The case of a dead langnagt: is exemplary here. Every language
can be considered as: a field traverseJ two opposite tenfiions,
nne moving toward innovation and transforrnation and the other
toward stri.hility and presc:rvation. ln language, -:he fiyst
ment corresponds to a ?:one of anumi11, the 'iecocd lo the gram-
matical norm. The intersection point bet\veen these two
159
FtEk>NI\NT:S Of' ;\USCHVVITZ
cun-cots is the speaking subject, as the auctor who alw-ays
\Nhat can he said ::md what cannot he said, the sayable and the
unsayable of a language. VVben the relation between norm and
onomia, the sapblc and the unsayable, is broken in the
language (lies and a nevv linguistic identity emerges. A dead Lm-
gnagc is thus a language in which it is no longer possible to
nonn and (Jtwmla, innovation and preservation. \Ve thus say of a
dead language that it is no longer spoken, that is, that in it it. js
impossible to assigo the position d mbject. Here the
fonns a 'vholc that is dosed and lacking .1ll e:xteriority, that can
only he transmitted through a corpus or evoked thrnugh an archive.
For Latin, (his happene-d at tht, time of the definitive colhpS(' or
the tension between urbmws and sermo wstiws; of which
spectkers are aln-;ady in tile Republican age As !ung as
the oppos1don wa::; percejved as an internal polar tension, Litin
w;1s .;: living language aad the subject felt that h.:: spoke .a single
\.mguagt:. Once the opposition bn:aks down, the normative part
becomes a dead Lmguage (or the languagr: D,mle caUs Hmmmat-
iw) and the anomie pnrt gives. birth to the Romanc"'; veTnacuhrs.
No"' t'nnsider tlw case of Giov;mni Pascoh, the Latin poet of
the of the t\ve11ticth century. that is. a time when Latin
had a)n;ady been a dead language for many centuries. Jn his case
t\n individu;d i11 assuming the position of subject in a
dead thus lf•,nding it 0.gain possibility of opposing
the s;:.yable and the unsayable, innovation <Hi.(J preservation that it
is hy definiikm lacking. At first glance one could say that insofar
as he establishes himself jn it as a subject, such a poet genuinely
resurrc:t:ts a dead language. This is what happened h• cases where
pt•op!e followed the 0>r:ample of an isolated <Juctor, ilS in the Pied-
monn:se dialect of when, between 1910 and 1918, one last
speaker pasS(',<1 his hmgnctge on to 3. group of young people whu
b0gan to speak or in the case of moden1 Hebrev;:, ln '.vhkh a
t6o
Th "IIVF ANO
-,.v)wle community placed itself in tht: position of a subject wlih
respcd to a languagt; that had ptm:ly But in this
case the situ.;tinn is more 1b the
who \Vrites in a dead n:rnains isolah:d ;HHi contjnues to
sp(:a_k and \Vri\e in mother wtl}!\JC, it c;m he Sdld that in Home
vvay he makes a survive thz' >ul'>iccts \Ylw it, p1Y>-
ducing it as an undecidahle medium or th;;t stands
la,,guage and a dead language. ln a kind of pbiJo,
log-ical hb; voke and blood to the sh,vltJW of
a dead so thAt it may return mas to Such
1s this curlou;;. auctor, who ;n;{hor!zes ,111 ahsolutf' impo-."-;ihi!ity of
m<·a<nnv and sum1nons it to c
if we u•Jw return to testimony, tV!:" xn<ty say that to ];cdr witili
ness is to place oneself Jn one's own in th,; nc.,i,inn of
those who have lost it, to est:>blish ont'o:u:lf in a living '"''5!'"'11'' .u;
if it '-Vt're dead, or in a dead ,ts if it were
fn any
case, outside both the archh:,.; and the r:<JJ'{'US of what has
been sald. 1t is not suTprhing that the 'vitnes.->' is also thot
of the poet 1 the aucwr pJr exceJlencc. Hdlderlin's th,1t
uwhat :rernaint: is vvhat the poets found'' die
J)jcbter) ]<:;not to be understood in the ttiviaJ sense th:•t poet:;'
\'Vorks are things that last and rem.tin throughout time. Ratlu:cr
1
it
means that tbe poetic vvord is the on(· that is PEhvays situated in
the p.::.1sitlcm of a remnanr and that c.:tn, theref()re, bear \Vitness.
\'Vitncsses- language what remains, as what
ally survives the

or impossibility, of speaking.
To what does such a bear 1-vitnessl 'To something·-·-· a
fact or an event, a memory or a hope, a delight or .:ttl agony thai
could registered jn the corpus of \vhat has alrc,H1y been said? Or
to enunciation, whiC'h, in the <1rchive, attests to the irreducihility
of saying to the said? It bears witness to neither one nor rht other.
\Vhat cannot be stated, what c,mnot be archived h the la1ngua:ge
in which r1lt author succeeds in Dearing witness to his I!H:apactt y
to speak. In this language, a language thrtt survives the·- &tthjc:cts
who spoke it coincides •.vith ·-a sp-e!lker wh<J remains beyond it.
This is the language of the ''d,trk shadows'' that Levi heard
ing in Cdan's poetry, like a "ba..:,kgr.ound noif;ef;; thi:s is
binek's language (mass-klo, matisldo) that bas no plac:e in the
libraries of what has heen said or in the archive of staternents. Just
as in the starry sky that we see at night
1
the stars shine
rounded by a total darkness accotdh1g to ±s
nothlng other than the te,stimony of a time in which the starli did
not yet shine, so the speech of the witness bears witness to a time
in which human beings did nor yet speak; and so the te6timouy of
human beings attests to a time in which they w-ere _not yet human.
Or, to take up an analogous hypothes._ls, just as in the expanding
universe, the farthest galaxies move a\.vay from 11s at a
than that of their light, -...vhich cannot reach us, :::uch that th<: dark-
ness we st:e in the sky is nothing but the lnvisibilit y of the of
unknown stars, so the complete w·itncss, according to para-
dox, is the nne. we cannot see: the i'Ji!Jselnwnn.
LJ.l2 The remnant is a theologko-messjanic In the
phetk books of the Old Testament, what is saved i:. hot the \-Yhnl-::
people of Israel but rather only a remnant, which is indicated in
Isaiah as shear __.visrad, the remnant of Israel, or in Amos as slwrH
the rcnmant of Joseph. The paradox here is that the prophets
address aU of Israel, so that it may turn to tlw good, ,.,_hilt\ at the
S.;lffiC time announdng to the whole people that onJy a remnant
of it will he saved (thus in Amos 5:15: ''Hate rbe evH, and love the
good, and esta,hlish judgment in the gate: it may be that tbe Lord
God of hosts vliH be gracious unto the remnant of J osepht and in
isaiah lO: 22: ''For although thy people as the sand of the sea,
yet a remnant of them shall be saved'').
Tl·lt: .\RCHI\/E .1'.['"0 TESTIMONY
\Vhat are V."e to understand here b)' "remnane'? VV'hat is deci*
sive is that, as theologians have obsen:ed, "remn.t.nt" does not
.seem simply to refer to a numerical portion of IsraeL Rather,
temnom: designates the consistenq (t:;sumed lm1d 'vlu'rr placed in
relation rvith an e-skhaton., wJtb clc-:ctJon ox the tnessJanic e:ve1H, In
its relation to salvaUon, the whole (the penpl<') thus ncc'''""n
posits itself as remnant. This is particularly dear :n Paul. In his
Letter to the Romans, Paul makes use of a series of Biblicctl cita-
tions to conceh"e of the messianic. event as a series of caesuras
dividing the people of Israd and, at the same time, the <xtmucs,
constituting them each time as remnants; "'Even 1hen at this
present time also [literally 'in thf' time of now,' en to mm
Paul's technlcJJ expression for n1essianic time] there is a remnanl
according to the election of grace., (Romans 11: The caesuras
do not, however, merely didde the part from the whole (Romans
9: 6-8: ''For they are not aH Israel, which are of l5raeL Nelther,
because they are the seed of Abraham, are J1l children: hut,
in Isaac shaH thy seed be caHed. That is, fbey \Vhich are the
<.lnm of the Hesh, these are not the children of God: hut the_ chil-
dren of the promise arc counted for the seed"). The e;acsuras also
divide the nou-people from the as in Homans 9: 25,··6: 'f'\s
he salrh also in Osee, 1 will call them my people, which werr not
my and her beloved, which not BlJ beloved. And it
shall come to pass, that in the pbcc where it was said 111110 them,
Ye ;:n·¢ not rny people; there shall they be called the children of
the living God." In the end, the remnaxil appc.ars as: a redemptive
machine allowing for 1l1e salvation of the very whole whose diviM
sion and 1oss it had signified (Romans ll: 26: "And so aH fsrad
shall be saved").
In the concept of remnant, the aporia of testimony coincides
with the aporia of mes-sianism. Just as the remnant of Israel sjgnj-
fks neither the 1.vho!e p<-'ople nor a part of the people bu1,
the of the whole and the part, and just .as mes·
sianic time is neither histm·ical til:ne nor etern!ty but, rather, the
disjunction that divides then1
1
so the remnants of Auschwitz- the
art· neither the deaJ nor the survivors, neither the
drowned nor the o;aved. They are what remains hetwecn them.
4,13 lnsofar J!i it defines testimony solely through the Jl.1usel-
mann, Levi's paradox ({)ntains tb.e only possible refutation of every
denial of dJ(; cxistl'nce of the camps.
Let us, indeed, posit Auschwitz, th.lt to ""·hich it is not possible
to bear vdtness; and let us also posit the il1mclmann as the abso-
lute impossibility of bearing witness. If the witness bears \vitness
for the Musclmann, if he succeeds in hringing to speech an impos-
sibility of the Muselmmm is thus constituted as the
wlwlt· witness then the dcniJJ of :\usch1.t.'itz is reft1ted in its very
foundation. In the ;l1m:elmann, the impossibility of hearing wJt-
ness is no xnere privation. Instea(!, it has become real; it
<:xist'i as such. lf the survivor bears witness not to the gas cham-
ber;; or to Auschwitz but to the Mw,dmarw, if he speaks only on
the has is of an lrnpossihility of speaking, then his testimony can-
nor be denied. I\uschwltz- that to which it is not possihle to bf:ar
\Vitness ·-·is ahsolutely ancllrrt:fntahly proven.
This means thai tlH:. phras<:s, ''I hear witness for the A1usel-
mann" and "the Mnsdmarw is the whole witness" are not consta-
ttve judgments, iHocutive acts, or enundal:ions in Foucaules sense.
Rather, they articulat!;:': .:t possibility of speech soldy through an
impossihility in this: way, mark the taking place of a language
as the event of a subjectivity.
4J4 ln 1987, one year :::tfter Primo Levrs death, Zdzisla\v Ryn
,lnd Stilnsl.nv pnbhshed the Hrst study dtdicated to the
Mu,dmrmn, Th..: published in heating the
signific,mt title "At the Border Bcnvc:en lift and A Study of
the Phenomenon of the Jlllselmmm in tht: ConcentraLJon Camp."
contains testimotJics, almost all of forrner Auschwitz
had heen asked {(, respond to a questinnn.1ire on
the origin of the tenn, zhe Jf,rs.:f'Vdnver's ao1d psychnlog-
ic,1l traits, the circumst;mcc:: thot produced ''Musd;nannizatirm,"
the beh,wior of other prisoners with respect to
:VJvseJm,:inner, and Muselmdnner's death and of sunival.
Tbe t('Stinwnies cnHected in the article do not add anything essen-
tia) to V'>'hat vve already cxn"pt for one particularly inter-
esting p(>int> which calls into ljtJ<:-stion not Levi's testimony,
but even one ofhi5 fnmbmental One secti011 of
the monograph (Ryn and Klodzinski !987; 121-24) is entitled kh
war ein Mns<;lnwtm, ''I W<'!S ,1 ;}}uselmann." It contains t.::n tcsti-
m<:mics of men yy}w survived the C•)ndition of bdng AJu . .:elmiinner
and now set:k to tell of it.
ln the ''l was,\ Mmelnwnn," Levi's pna<lox reaches
its most extreme formulation. r\ot is the Muse/mann the
complr:t<;' h.:: now and bears w itncss in the first
person, Ry now it should be dc:ar that this formulation-
"I, who speak, was a that is, dtt:: om: \vho cannot in any
r-ense sp(:ak)' not only does not contradict Levi'H par.u1ox but,
fullv verifies lL This is whv we thenl the J1usel--
, '
mlinue!'-·the last word.
1 the tiays when l was a Muselmann, l1rt1s weak,
exhausted, dead I saw somr:rlling to eat wherever I looked. 1
dreamt '!f bread and soup, but a;; SfJOfl as I woke up I was
Jnmrp)·· Tbe}iwd l'd been 8iven the night l>40te (rny Fottion
.fifty grams qf margurine,}Jfty grams •!fjam, and Jour potatoes cooked
With their shns on) was a th-ing <:f t-lw past. The heaJ <![the harrock
un.l other inmates who had positions threw out their plJtdto-skins,
sometimes even a wlwlc potato. I used to watch !.hem s,:crcrly Lind looh
rhe skins in t:he tmsb so that I could eat them. 1 would jam
on t-hem; they were tealtv flOod. A pig wouldn't lwve eaten them, but
I did. I'd chew on them until IfClt sand on my teeth ... , (Lucjan
Sobieraj)
I rersondllv was a 1V1nselmannj0r a short while. I remember that
(!Jtcr tbe move to the barwd_, I completely collapsed asfc<r as my
ps;chololiical ltfC concerned. The coflapse took thef,,lJowifl[J
JCmn: l was onorcDme l;y a genera} apmb_y_: nothinB ifltetested me; I no
lonller reacted to either cxtemal or internal stimuli; I Wtlsh-
in,q, even when I here was water_: I no longer e>-rim felt lum;<jry.
(Feliba Piekarska)
I am a Musdrnann. Li.ke the other inmates, l tried to protat
m)'sefffr-om setting pneumonia bx leaning JOrward,
shoulders as mucb as' 1 omlJ and, p•1tientl_y. rhythmicallj1 mbYing
banrls over my nernum, This is bow J Repr my-:c!f wrtrm when tbe Ger-
mans weren't rvarchin8.
Prom then onward 1 went hack to the camps on the shoulders
r:o11M,<]1!es. But there are more C!f us :\hJselmtinner.,
{Edvqrrl Sokol)
1 J:uo was a Muselmann, )Tom 1942 to the be,qinning of 1943. I
wa<:n 't canvcious <!{being one. I thin]?. that many Muselmanner didn't
t66
THE ARCH!VG /1ND 'ii'.STIMf!rlY
r,;alize th,:y helonged to that cot:cp,ory. But when the in mares vvcre
dirided up. I rvas put in the group Jn mm'l cases_,
whether or not. an inmate was considered a Musc:lm::mn vn
his oprearance. (Jerzy Mostowsky)
fif:1Joe;·er hm not himseJ[heen a :V1us{;ltrhll1nj(n J w,';}/c CCillJHH
imaghte the deprh the tlral men l'rdcnvcnt. Yrm
' J iT r ' 1 1
ocmmc )·o in to your]ote Lh<it you no H'.Jl1t<X•
.fl'om drl)'OJJC. lou just Wtdrcd in peacefor death. 1'h'!,v Dfl had
eirher the s!ren[Jrli or the will toJlffhtjOr datly strn'ir:al. was
enough; you were content tYlth f-vhat )'Oll could find jn t!u trad1 ..
(Karol Talik)
In nencrtJl, one can say that among Mus:dmlinner there were
the samt.' djj}Crenccs, l mean physical and ,lif]Cr-
ent?S, as between men liring in normal com1iOons. Camp t'tmditions
made these Jdferences more pronounced, ond we (!Jien witnessed r;:ver·
saL-: ?f 1he rol!!s pla_ycd hy physical anJ psydwfogicolJdctors. (Adolf
Gilwal.ewicz)
I'd J!rearl-v fwd a present-iment of' this state. In the 1 felr Ji
1
fC
? J J •
lc;rviv;J me. Earth!)' thinps no longer mattered; bodilv {Unctions f'aded
<I • < _, '" ••
uwr!-V· Even hunga_r t,':lrmented me less. lfelt a strange strcetness. 1 just
duln 't haFe the ;,trenatb to Het cot, and !fl did, I btJd t.o leon
Dn the vva!ls to make it to the bucket., .. (WJ.odzimierz Borkuvvski)
{n In)' own 1 lived through the most atrocious kind r:f l?fe in
the camp, the honor hein,_q a Musclnunn. 1 was one'![ tile}irst
Muselmanner. I wandered thr-ough the camzl like a stray dol]; 1 WdS
t:o eFeqthing. I jmt w·anted to _mrvive another avy. 1
arrired in the camp vn_jrme 14, 1940, with theftrst transport from the
Ti11now prisoJJ ... . ·1ftcr some miHal hardships, I was put in
ing Kammundo1 where I n:orked ar lianesting potatoes and hay and
threshing until the J411 if the some _yeflr. hap-
pened in d1c Kommando. They had discorcrel that civilians outside
the camp ?/ere sh·ing us fOod. I ended up iWIO!lfJ the disciphn:lfx
group, and that is where the • in rhe camp bl!gan. I
lost strcngtb_ and health, JJfrer a coup1e da_ys q_f hurd work, the
Kapo

old Kummondo had me mort:d {rom the discivlinarv Ql'O!Jf'
' ·- J j _. "
roth$ sawmill Kommando. Tbe wurk wasn't as hard> but l lwJ to
ouuide all :.md that year the fall was cold. The rain wa_<:
alwa;·s tnixed IYith snow. lr had begun r-o vver and we
were dressed in light tmdenrcar and ;voodcn clof}S
without s(lcks with doth caps on our fu:aJs, in such a sil . .uati['n, wfth_,.
om st.ifjlciem rwur.isb_mcnt, drenched anJJf • .txcn evcJ}" Ja)', lift
us no Wt9' vut,,,. This -n·as the heHillnin,[J pnivd in which
Muselm .. 1nnbood fda:; Musdnunntum]l1ecame rnore ami more com-
mon in all the reams working outdoors. Mus<dman·
ncr; even the Muse-lmann 's}:ll(l!r imMtes ... Ills senses are dulled
and h;; becMnes completely inzldfcrcnt t;.l evcqtbina around him. He
can no lonser speak unyt.hin,q; he can't even pn.JI, since be no
longer believes in h?aven uf hell. He no longer tltin.h ahovt lris home,
his family, the other people in the camp.
Almost all Muselmdnner died in camp; only <1 smal1 "'''·,yot-
a_qr managed to come out sum:. Tlwn.b; to [)Ooclluck m provi-
dence, s-ome wel'e liberattrf is 1 can describe lww I wrH able
to pull condition ..
YOu ccald see Muselmiinner ever,vu:'lrere.· skinny, dirtyj!gures,
their sldn and blackened, their gaze (}one, 1.heir e ..yes hollowed
out, their claducs threadbare, and stinkina. Jhey illfl\'Cd with
hesuolinB steps poor!y suited to tbe ri?yriun o[ the mnrch.
They ::poke on£-v about rbeir mcmr>rics and how many picas
potato ther:: were _in rile sovp yesterday, how many c_!_{'meat,
soup was thick or only ·water.. The letter:; that: arrivedJOr
t68
F AkSHi T STitv1Q,,,
them from their homes didn-'t con:{r:rt -d1em; th'-:y had no illusions
about ever going home, :viuselmlinner onxiously expected packages,
th.inkina ofhe1n
1
·1 t"'Ull at lt41St once. dremnt ofrummcwina through
" v ' ,_j 0 '
the kitchen trush ro find pieces <:f ln·ead or grinds.
MuseJm:inner liY•rh;d out,?} inertl(f mtlwr. pre!.cndcd to work.
1-'<Jr exam1;!e Jurm1-1 mr work at the sawmill, !Ve used TV look fOr rhe
' ') _., <
hhmrcr [bat were easjer u: use, rdt!wut W(IJT_yins abum :-vhahcr
they <1Ctua1.0: ntt or not. !.Ve r:.Jf-en pretended to work like that J•r a
who1e without even cmrinlJ one block q{ wood. !r we were sup-
po<:cd to stnl!?Jlnen nails, we would instedd lwmma at the amril.
But we J-wd to make sure thqt no ow: smv us
1
wl1ich V'LIS also tJrln,q.
Mmdm.dnner fw.-l no goals, They did their work H'ith,mt ihiJ1king;
they moved .lmtmd without t.hinkinfJ> drMming f!J'hcrring a plaa
in lme in which 'd }),; given more soup
1
more thick "'HlP, lvi
nt:inner paid close attentinn to the the food t!fJlccr lO se-e
!f: 1vlum he ladled out tbc soup, lu: drew itjfom the top or the bottom,
They .--ae '{mckly and tho11giu al:out aettin(f se::·ond helpings. Rm
nevt.r hJpp•med rhe t:mes who BOt sel'Oihl helping> were
tbosu who had worked the mast and the lwrdt!-St, who rven:- l::.Y
the-food r:!Jlrer.
The other inmates av-oided .\1uselm-iimH'r. Thuc could be il<-' com-
mon subject' <:f conversm:10n hetrreen rhcm, since !\.1.uschw:inner
fanwsizcd and spoke about food, lvlusdmJnncr didn't: like the
ter" prisoners, unles-s <.'Otdd smwthin,q to mtfrom th,;rrL They
the company- r:ft.bosc like rher:n:lr-es, since r.hcn they could
exclwnge [>read. cheese, and sdtEdtf<' a fi?j01 ctte or other
kinds of f;.Jo,r They were aFraid c;f aoin_q to the jnf;rrnill']"; tJJCv nc'ler
claimeJ·;o f.e Usucillj: the:y .nuidcnlj' coJl;l["Sed durin;; work
! can still s,;e the tF,7/.'h C(!mJnH l"fack.from work in lines ?.fJir:c. The
l
r;rst. line of flve would m:?rcb accordine
1
to the rhvtltm of the- on:hcstm,
' ''"'" i .: J
bill the next line would already be incapable <;1j'kecpmg up with them.
TheJ1ve behind them would lean aHainsr each other; and in tile last
NAN C AUSCHWITZ
lines the Jour stronaest would carry the one: by his arms and
leas, since he
As I said, in 1940 l drifted ihrouiJh the camp like a stray do9,
dreuming Ctl!Illnfj across at least n single potato skin. I tried to lon·er
rnyse!f into the near the sawmill, where tbcyfermcnted potatoes
to make }Oddc:rjor the pigs and ocher animals. 11w inmates would eat
slices potat-Oes smeared with sacch<1fifl, which tasted somewhat
like pears . • condition arew !+'Ol'SC everyday; I dereloped
on lll)' legs and I rw longer hoped to survive. 1 hoped volyfor u mira-
cle, altlhWf]h [didn't have the strength to concenuate and prayJtith-
fully.,.,
This was the stdLe 1 was in when I was noticeil by u commission t::f
who had 1.mtereJ the barracks <:fter tbe last roll call. I think
tbq were SS doctors, There were three or four f!f and they >vere
particnlurly interested in Musehniinncr. In uJJitimJ f(Jblisters on my
lens, 1 also haJ a swcliin[! tbe size of on e8g on my ankle bone. This is
why they ptescribed an operuLion and rrwved me
1
tooether with some
others, ta Barrack 9 (which to he Barrack 11). were alven the
samefood as the we Jidn 't EfO w work and we were allowed
to rest. all day long. Camp phJ'l'Jcians ttislted us; J rvas apemtcd on
1be scarsJrom tl1e opel'ation are stil} toda,.v-and I not better.
We didn't hove to l)e present aL the roll call; it was warm and we were
dointJ well. Tl1en one day. the SS tifkcrs who WJ:re responsible for the
barratk didn't conu:. They :wid that the air was szifJocatmg and
ordered all the windows to be opene,J. It was December, 1940 . .. , After
a Jew minutes, we were all shiveringJrom the cold; then tlwy made us
run around in the room ttJ heat our,wdves up, until we were all coYeret!
in swear. Then said, "Sit down," and we di-dos said. Ona
our l>odtes had cooled down, and we were once aeain cold, it was t-ime
for more 1'unnin8- and so it lasted for the whole
When I undcrstoo{l what was soina on
1
I decided to leave. When it
was time for me to be examined, I Mid that 1 was all better and that 1
THE AHCHIVt AND TLSTiMOt.;Y
wanted to work. And this is what happened. I was tramferrerl to Bar-
rack 10 (which bud become number 8). They put ""' in a room in
which there were only IJelY arrivals .. ,. Since J was an old prisoner
1
the
head C!f the barnu:k Jjked t.t!e, and he spoke <;[me as ott example for
the other prisoner5,, .. As o result I was Lran:J'crre.I ro the Forming
Kommando, in the cowshed, There 1 also won cbe trust f!f tbe other
i1lmatcs
1
and J had extra j(;od) pieces c;{ beetroot,, bltJck .mam: soup
from the pig's sry-.. iarae •1mwtities '![milk and, whar's more., the heat
if the cowshed. TlJ1s got me back on my feet a£1aln; it saved me from
Muselmannhood. , . ,
The period in which I was a Musdmann a pndtmnJ impres-
sion on m1 memory. 1 rememhcr pe:fect{v the accident Jn the sarttmlll
Konmwndo r:JJall l_fNO; 1 still .:>ee the saw, ilu: heaps !>locks,
tbe barracks, Muselmdnner keepino euch ot.her lYarm} their nes-
tures . . , . The last moments tlie Muselmtinner rvere just as they say
in this camp srrno:
I:Vbaes worse than a Muse]mann?
Does be even have the rigllt LO li pel
lsn 't he there to be stepped an
1
suuck, beaten?
He wanders through the camp like a stmy dog.
Ereqone chases him tJway. but the crematorium is his deliverance.
The wmp iriflrmary does away with him!
(Bronislaw Goscinki)
(Residua desiderantur)
171
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17?
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