Kolitz/ Holland - Yosl Rakower Talks to God

Zvi Kolitz wrote Yosl Rakower Talks to God as a response to how he experienced Yiddishkeit (a Jewish way of life) and it's bond with the 'dybuuk', a bond of such profound empathy by a living person with someone who has passed away that it is reminiscent of possession by spirits. The living person speaks then with the voice of the dead person and feels his or her pain. Such a feeling can be so strong that it dominates all others and can even change the man's identity, for a short period of time or forever. Having learned about the dimension and scope of the Holocaust, Zvi Kolitz experienced this kind of possession by pain and used it, almost like a medium, to express the feelings of the victims of the Holocaust. The unique character of Zvi Kolitz's text stems also from the fact that it was written shortly after the war, at a time when the memory of the Holocaust was being pushed aside not only by it's perpetrators and victims but also by those who, having found themselves outside Europe, survived the war. Most of the survivors wrestled alone with their ordeal, which defies any description. What Yosl Rakower has to say is something more than the description of inhuman suffering - it is a testimony of the triumph of life which is founded on the values that are greater than the most horrible of evils that man can inflict on others.