The Fiftieth Gate
Mark Raphael Baker
An initial look at the text reveals ideas on how the
past is represented, the use of history, the use of
memory and when these may fail.
Epigram and Gate I
There is a place of hidden treasures.
In this place there are forty nine gates that separate
good from evil, the blessing from the curse.
Beyond them is a fiftieth gate larger than the entire world.
It is a hidden gate.
On this gate there is a lock, which has a narrow place
where the key may be inserted.
Come and see.
Through this gate all other gates may be seen.
Whoever enters the fiftieth gate sees through
God’s eyes from one end of the world to the other.
The darkness or the light.
Come and see.
The key is the broken heart, the yearning for prayer,
the memory of death.
The key is the forgotten heart, the murdered prayer,
the death of memory.
It opens the blessing or the curse.
Come and see.
What is
the 50th
Gate?
What
contrasts
and tensions
are initially
seen?
What is the
first image
used in Gate
1?
Gate III
The Silence of the Past
When history and memory fail..... p14
here in this carload
i am eve
with able my son
if you see my other son
cain son of man
tell him that i
Gate III
The Silence of the Past
“When I return to our hotel in Warsaw, I recite the
poem for my parents.
My mother said the train must have arrived.
My father says: ‘When I was taken from my mother she
said nothing.’
I want to break the silence for him, to force him to look
back for his mother, Hinda.
He is crying; I look away.
here in this carload
i am hinda
tell him that i
Gate XXVII
The silence of the past
p156
“Only once did she ask where they might have gone:
‘Belzec.’
‘I know but what was it like for them?’ She held her hands to
her chest as she asked, as if she meant to catch a gasp of
breath trapped inside her.
I could not answer her. The final moments can never be
retrieved by history.
Nor by memories: for every life, there are countless other
deaths.”
Gate VIII
The conflict of memory
p 44
I remember where we lived in Bolszowce.
“This must be the park. No? I played here,
I’m sure it was here.”
Gate X
History can fill in the gaps
p 54
From the Geographical Dictionary of the Polish Kingdom and
other Slavonic countries, 1880:
BOLSOZOWCE: ... The locality, together with adjacent
villages, is in the possession of Kornel Krzeczunowiz.....
That’s him.
Kornel Krzeczunowiz.
He sold us the fields.... Now I remember.
Gate XXII
History and Memory intersect...
History and Yossl remember the same day...
p 123
“The round up began in the morning...they
called all the Jews of Wierzbnik out of their
houses.”
‘You all remember’, writes someone from
the same town... ‘It was the twenty
seventh day of October 1942.’
Gate XXXIII
History and Memory intersect...
p 195
‘Who is Kogut?’ I ask my father.
His name reappears constantly in my father’s
stories....
I know that Kogut can help me too. This
mysterious man is the only person whose
life spans the memories of father and son,
and connect both to me.
He appears on the transport list to
Buchenwald.
Gate XXII
History and Memory intersect...
And then it diverges...
p 124
It was cold, winter, we had winter boots on.The ones
with money sewn inside.
He says it was cold. Winter.
But it was warm. Autumn. That’s what they all say.
It gnawed at me, the feeling that my father’s
narrative had surrendered to forgetfulness.
Gate XXXII
Can the memory be trusted?
p 190: Baker
does not believe that his mother learnt the Lord’s Prayer
‘I don’t believe you.’
It was the first time during my mother’s story that I expressed
doubt about her memory recall.
It was an uncontrollable urge, this repeated questioning of her,
this interrogation, as if I was David Irving and not her son
pointing the video camera at her.
And then, to my everlasting shame, I crossed the boundary:
‘Prove it.’
Gate XXXV
Can the memory be trusted?
Genia’s memory is contrasted against the
Polish family that Baker finds:
p 221
‘Don’t steal my memory’, my mother later
erupted. ‘You think because I was so
young I don’t remember. It’s clear now,
like a photograph. It can’t be them.’
Gate XLII
The role of the imagination in
representation
: Baker recreates Hinda’s death from her
perspective - he utilises what he has learnt
from history and memory; and then fills in
the gaps!
p 261
“My prayers and hands reach out for my
children.”
Gate XLVII
There is always more to uncover
p 306
It is 21 April 1945. After liberation, the beginning in
the end, in Bolszowce, her farewell. She is ten
years old. I had always ignored the part of the
story when we went back after liberation to
Bolszowce. I went to school there for a short time, but
we were forced to leave when the Banderowce came.
The episode is recorded by her teacher in a
handwritten report card.