A great Hassidic Master, the Rabbi of Kotsk, used to say, “There are truths which can be communicated by the word; there are deeper truths that can be transmitted only by silence; and, on another level, are those which cannot be expressed, not even by silence.”

And yet, they must be communicated.

Here is the dilemma that confronts anyone who plunges into the concentration camp universe: How can one recount when – by the scale and weight of its horror – the event defies language? A problem of expression? Of perception, rather. Auschwitz and Treblinka seem to belong to another time; perhaps they are on the other side of time. They can be explained only in their own terms. Only those who lived there know what these names mean. And for a long time these very people refused to speak of it. “In any case,” they thought, “no one would understand.” An ontological phenomenon, “The Final Solution” is located beyond understanding. Let's be honest: In this sense, the enemy can boast of his triumph. Through the scope of his deadly enterprise, he deprives us of words to describe it.

Having completed his masterpiece “The Blood of Heaven,” the late Piotr Rawicz was left with a feeling of defeat. Other survivor-writers could say the same. We know very well that we speak at one remove from the event. We have not said what we wanted to. The essential will remain unsaid, eradicated, buried in the ash that covers this story like no other. Hence, the drama of the witness. He realizes, to paraphrase Wittgenstein, that only what cannot be said deserves to not be silenced.