assignment 7- Immediate Aftermath

[Joe Blumenthal]

In both "The Tenth Man" and "An Encounter in Linz", we are invited to try to understand how the few survivors made their jounrye back to life, after what they had experienced. What seems common is that the people who had survived were in a different world. They lived in a tunnel. They had trouble communicating and expressing feelings and emotions. They didn't share stories like one would expect. Yet there there were two important things that stuck out from the stories that we can learn about the survivors. In "The Tenth Man" we read about a man who kept on waiting for his wife every day for her return by the railroad. This character trait shows this constant drive that this survivor had. This was the most important thing to him, and that was how he would spend his time. He was determined to find his wife, and even if he was 99% sure she was dead and wouldnt return that would never stop him. A drive that this man had used to survive up until this time is how he survived, and he would use that same tool, to find his goal. In "The Encounter in Linz" we are told of anther common and understandable feeling that many of the survivors experienced, especially right after the Holocaust. How can they trust anymore? Even before finding out that their host's son was involved in the SS, there was always this constant doubt in his mind that someone was after him. This feeling is very understandable of how many survivors share this emotion. When living on the run and being hunted down, it would be hard to fully trust anyone anymore.