English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Outcomes Addressed
A student:
H1
explains and evaluates the effects of different contexts of responders and
composers on texts
H2
explains relationships among texts
H3
develops language relevant to the study of English
H4
explains and analyses the ways in which language forms and features,
and structures of texts shape meaning and influence responses
H5
explains and evaluates the effects of textual forms, technologies and their
media of production on meaning.
H7
adapts and synthesises a range of textual features to explore and
communicate information, ideas and values, for a variety of purposes,
audiences and contexts.
H8
articulates and represents own ideas in critical, interpretive and
imaginative texts from a range of perspectives
H9
evaluates the effectiveness of a range of processes and technologies for
various learning purposes including the investigation and organisation of
information and ideas
H10 analyses and synthesises information and ideas into sustained and logical
argument for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts
H12A explains and evaluates different ways of responding to and composing
text
This module requires students to:
 Explore the text’s representation of the Holocaust
 Evaluate how medium of production, textual form, perspective and
features of non-fiction influence meaning
 Understand the relationship between representation and meaning
 Supplement the study with a variety of texts of their own choosing, drawn
from a variety of sources, in a range of genres and media
 Explore different versions and perspectives of the Holocaust
 Develop a range of imaginative, interpretive and analytical compositions
that may be realised in a variety of forms and media, explore the
relationships between individual memory and documented events, and
consider the role of personal experience and empathy in the growth of
cultural knowledge.
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Students explore the relationship between individual memory and documented
events and consider the role of personal experience in the growth of cultural
knowledge.
As memory is the individual, so is history to the community or society. Without
memory, individuals find great difficulty in relating to others, in finding their
bearings, in making intelligent decisions – they have lost their sense of identity.
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
What is history?
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What has happened
Evidence
Documented events
Facts
Record
Objective in essence
The past
Detached from emotions
Collaborated understanding
Lacks personal experience and emotions
History repeats itself
o Humanity – some issues in human nature
o Power – politics, religion, morality, ethnicity
o Detached from emotions
o Can’t learn vicariously
o Some things we can’t change
o Lacks personal experience and emotion
Easily manipulated
o Different interpretations
o Secondary Source
o Reliability?
Shared memory
o Verified
What is memory?
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Inherently individual
Blocked
Idiosyncratic
Subjective
Perception of history
Recollection of events
Fragmented
Can be unrealistic
Manipulated
Fill in the blanks
Influences decision
Can control it
Shaped by emotions
Becomes history when verified
Repressed – pain, denial
Forget
Blackness – sheds light
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
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Unreliable
Collective memory
Shapes who you are
Epigram – metaphor of the book
“There is a palace of hidden treasures.”
Palace
- Aspiration
- Precious
- Large
- Magical
- Place of hidden memories. esp. mother – hides hers
- Hidden treasures – what cannot be found
“In this palace there are fourty – nine gates that separate
good from evil, the blessing from the curse.”
- Double edge sword
- Opposites
“Beyond them is a fiftieth gate lager than the entire
world.”
- Once you are there you are in heaven
- Paradise and nirvana
- Oxymoron – choose to ignore
- Hidden – too large to contemplate – vastness of mind
“It is a hidden gate.”
- Concept of knowledge rather than the physical. Don’t
have to see it.
- hidden – hidden within yourself
“On this gate there is a lock, which has a narrow place
where the key may be inserted.”
- Obstacles in the way
- Need to overcome these obstacles in order to reach the
fiftieth gate
- narrow place – contrasts to ‘large gate’ – only a small
opportunity in which to overcome these obstacles
“Come and see.”
- Asked to go on a journey
- See through the eyes
“Through this gate all other gates may be seen.”
- Is retrospective, will understand how you got through
clear understanding
“Whoever enters the fiftieth gate sees through
God’s eyes from end of the world to the other.”
- Is omnipresent, omniscient, everywhere – creator sees
and knows everything
- Will see god once fiftieth gate is reached
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
“The darkness or the light.”
- Need light – end of darkness for Mark Baker – stop the
darkness for his children
“Come and see.”
- Repetition
- Eyes/ seeing motif
“The key is the broken heart, the yearning for prayer,
the memory of death.”
- Paint and suffering emotional hurt
- Asking for forgiveness, understanding, insight
- Wanting to believe
- Death of others, a way of life, of your soul
- A part inside you dies – layers of life on top of bad
memories
- The key is on the inside – only the individual can reach
the fiftieth gate – unaided
“The key is the forgotten heart, the murdered prayer,
the death of memory.”
- Emotion or love has been buried
- Reliving memories. Put the past behind them. Allows you
to move on.
“It opens the blessing or the curse.”
- Don’t do right thing, have values or intentions, thought
about how you would get rid of it.
“Come and see.”
- Motif
Chapter 1
“Nothing I don’t recognise anything.” – Deterioration of memory
Repression of memory – loss – age contributes
Past experiences force them to forget
“This memory thing is no light matter for my father.” – Links to epigram – light –
father clinging onto past culture
“Infectious smiles, dancing images.” – Memories are seen through the eyes
“Stream of light rushes past us…” – light motif – links to epigram
Chapter 2
Memory is affected by age and context
History deteriorates memory
“Hobbles past a fallen gate” – indicative of lost memory – metaphor
Chapter 3
“In the fields there is an eery silence” – silence – like her mind – trying to repress
memory
Physically searching through memory – “I began this search through scattered
stones.
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Memory helps history live on.
Memory forces him to live in fear.
Chapter 4
“It’s very clear from the past, more clear than now.” – Deterioration of memory
“What was his name? I’ve forgotten, but It’ll come back to me.” – Opening of the
fiftieth gate – unlocking memory
Chapter 5
“’Ruins, ruins.’ She muttered at the end of the tour.” – Looks at happy memories,
ignores the sad – selective memory
Chapter 6
“I remember on Saturday all the Jews…”
“So much more to say about my family before the war.” – Memory – before and
after
Melbourne – symbol of new beginning – Mark’s birth
“Do you remember crying when you were a baby?” – Unreliability of memory
“I have heard much about the moment from my mother.” – Memory given from
mother.
Hot tea – Mark’s worst memory – contrast to parent’s worst memory – Holocaust
Cracked egg for burning – no cure for emotional burning – have no panacea
Younger generations cannot empathise – hot tea and cracked egg downplay the
significance of Holocaust
Jewish tradition is still carried on in Melbourne – cultural values, customs carried
on
Got punched for being a Jew when he was younger – If we don’t learn from the
past history repeats itself
Hunger acts as a trigger
Chapter 7
“Do you still believe in god… after everything that happened?” – Does he believe
that god would let that happen?
Yossl says Genia’s faith is stronger.
Yossl survived with luck, Genia with courage.
“My facts from the past are different.” – Mother has memory of a perfect town –
doesn’t believe her town was corrupted – hard to take – history broke her
memory down.
“I don’t see a gate.”
Chapter 8
Fairy tale – history was validating memory
Chapter 9
“I went to a fancy dress party as Hitler.” – shows his naivety of situation
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Mind is constantly alert – mother a born survivor – father is not – mother is left
alone – Yossl is not, he has his comrades
Chapter 10
Extract – describes Bolszowce – language factual – indicative of history
Chapter 11
Focus of chapter is Yossl and Yossl’s memory
“My father works amongst his departed friends, seeking signs of intimacy with
fragmented moment from his childhood.”- Struggle to link physical history with
memory
“It is an empty and chaotic landscape of death.”
“Can you hear, or do the screams from the mass grave drown out the sounds.”
Attempting to unlock the memories – can memory prevail? Lamenting the death
of his friends
Chapter 12
About sages they’ve learnt – A Garden of Eden. Rabi entered and existed in
peace – taught different by Mark’s parents – Mark’s parents do no want to openly
reveal memory
Chapter 13
Report card – trigger
There was more to this episode then he was prepared to admit – Genia can’t
substantiate her memory with facts
“Tomorrow you children will shed your tears, tuck your memories in and say
goodnight.”
Chapter 14
Mark reflecting on what he has done.
Chapter dominated by history
Yossl – sense of pride “For my father the rivers have not thawed, until now, when
his words break out from their glacial silence, releasing a torrent into his darkest
nights.”
Chapter 15
Mark’s father recounting the loss of his own father.
Different view – history shows exactly what happened – as a number
Chapter 16
“I repeat: I can show you what your father wore when he arrived in Buchenwald”
Power of history – Baker uses it to reveal mundane detail – what he is here –
father is outraged – downgrades Mark’s use of history
“I know the story she is about to tell, word for word…”
Still have happy memories/communication
Focus on Mark’s memories – his childhood
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Because his parents didn’t reveal memories, it compelled him to discover it for
himself
“I turned my own bedroom into a horror-house of memories… photographs of
massacred bodied.”
Didn’t understand it, as it wasn’t explained
Chapter 17
Historical recreation of his Grandfather’s life
When he was in the concentration camps – Yossl’s dad
Very blunt “Jews were only fit to die…”
Representation – history is blunt/scientific
Chapter 18
“…even today I’m still scared of darkness…”
“Nightfall is to me sadness and darkness and I just can’t disconnect my past…”
How the past influences the future.
Chapter 19
Presents different memories/perspectives
Highlights the contrast between history and memory and their cohesive nature
“I believe I have never come home so depressed. I am a man but I cry at home
because of the fact that this was expected of me.” Regretting was cruelty – which
wasn’t his choice
“What we did was brutal, cruel and inhumane…”
“I can’t describe my inner feelings.”
Chapter 20
Combination of history and memory – allocation of how everyone was murdered
– scientific, blunt
“Jews do not remember with flowers… they wither… as if the corpse is a
temporal thing… Jews do not remember with mirrors… Jews remember with
stones… and… with Lords…” repetition – stones – permanent
“tak, tak, tak” – memory – trigger – sound – aural - Yossl
Chapter 21
Memory remembers scenes of emotional hurt.
“Damn Jew can’t you run?” – A forceful use of language – Yossl’s memories
“Left, right. Left, right.” – Something to trigger memory – repetition of marching
The fight of memory – the fight to reach the fiftieth gate – “He throws the child
against the gate. He smashes her head.”
The purpose of the text – To remove the ‘blackness’ – For Mark himself to reach
the fiftieth gate, and remove the burden from his children
“An old man struggles…” “A younger man cries out…” – Contrast between young
and old – the older man is adamant, he struggles, he is stubborn reflects Mark’s
relationship with his parents – Mark cries out and tries to remove the blackness,
while his parents continue to struggle.
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
“Her O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is one.” – Prayer – impact of religion on
text – their faith never falters
“What of Hinda and her four children?” – Women unable to support themselves –
became head of the family while their husbands went to war – Mark’s worry
about his own family – his children growing up in the dark
Chapter 22
Yossl’s memories
The distortion of memory – “I don’t know what date… what month… what year.”
“He says it was cold, Winter. But it was warm. Autumn.” – The loss makes it feel
cold.
Memory remember scenes of emotional trauma “People were scared, the dogs
were chasing us, everyone was chasing…” – creates empathy – rhythm of
speech
The conflict of history and memory
“Dare I tell him his age?”
History is told in a factual manner – incomplete sentences – emphasis on dates
and time – makes Yossl’s experience real
The ‘us and them’ perspective as a result of the war – “They took us away. They
marched us…” – both sides of the war – anonymous – like Yossl’s number – loss
of identity “Thirteen? Fourteen?,” “1942? or 1943?” – number don’t matter
Yossl’s personal context – looks at death through the eyes of a child “Not yet bar
mitzvahed…” – looks at death through physical aspects
Chapter 23
History is the main focus of the chapter – number and statistics
Memory – “Where have the millions of Jews gone?” – death though it’s not stated
– ambiguous
Chapter 24
Memory provides closure – Mark needs his parents’ memory to gain closure –
memory cannot be learnt
“Of my mother’s world I knew next to nothing.”
Genia is opposed to history – shows her son doubts her
“Do you remember you told me you were the only one to survive Bolszowce well
it’s true. I mean, I believed you, but it’s really true.” – shows he had doubt
History needs proof
“It was not the facts that were held under suspicion, but her credibility as a
survivor.” – Mark associates trauma with physical injury – coincides with the
history/ memory theme, the objective/subjective
History can provide closure – Yossl has his past outlined – Genia doesn’t
The impact on the next generation
“Ow-switch. O shwish. Aaaarshuitz. And later were added: Arse-witch, Oswiecim,
sounds which lull me to sleep as I count the syllables jumping into the fence.”
Chapter 25
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Parents feel they missed out on childhood memories – cherish trivialities
“I was good at my work. I was young, but I was still good.”
Memory colliding with history
“But I can still se the holes” – Yossl still has scars from the war – emotional scars
The disturbance of memory refreshes past trauma
“Why, why has we brought them here?”
Proud of history – it is physical proof of one’s memory
“My father explains the process of the smelter as if her were guiding prospective
buyers through his clothing factory.”
The difficulty in accepting history
“It is difficult to imagine my father enslaved in physical toil”
Chapter 26
“How can you be so sure? Were you there? You think that suddenly because
you’ve read a few pieces of paper that you suddenly understand everything?”
“Grey hair from all your questions.” – Characterisation – Genia is tired
Chapter 27
Kurt Gerstein – experience of people getting off the trains
“The final moment can never be retrieved by history. Nor by memory,”
“It was difficult to separate them while emptying the room for the next batch.”Batch – not even human
Chapter 28
Yossl’s experiences at Auschwitz and the concentration camps
No real perception of time – mark has dates, etc
“I became his calendar, making sense of time for him, when days, months and
even years meant nothing.”
“Tap, tap, tap.” – trigger
“He is frustrated, angry at memory again.”
Chapter 29
“The fire; the parchment burning; the bodies buried; the letters soaring high;
turned to ashen dust.”
Chapter 30
Mark passing on memories to his children
Wonders whether he should have told his kids about their grandparents
memories – will it hurt them>
“Free of the mountains and stony walls that hem it’s inhabitants into history.”
“Only a broken heart yearns to heal the world.”
Chapter 31
“I don’t remember how the transport happened – was it by truck or… this, I don’t
really remember.”- Memory repressed – Genia has forgotten
Historical facts “soon after my mother arrival.” Contrasting to facts
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Yossl able to express memory easily “A disaster! How could you bring me back
here? So I can have more nightmares?”
Chapter 32
“I don’t believe you!” Mark has knowledge of history which clashes with memory
“Prove it… I don’t believe this part. Prove it.” P190.
Religion – Judaism – spread throughout – Sabbath – Day of rest – Genia had to
learn the Lord’s Prayer in Polish
Chapter 33
“For every alternative there is an alternate.” How things could have changed
“Left. Right.” – Luck
“Imagine, the same story, different endings” Everything left to chance
Chapter 34
“Oh my papa he was so wonderful…” Didn’t give Genia fatherly connection
“This book will be for generations to come… Please, I beg you be careful what
you say. It’s forever, It’s our family.” Doesn’t want him to degrade their family
“Raid on my mother’s memory.”- Relates himself to those who tormented his
mother – he raids her memory himself – connotations to stealing
Chapter 35
“So when I exhausted memory, I turned to history.”- Relates to history – less
‘true’ than memory
“Memory visited her as a stranger from another world.”p214 – Doesn’t like to
access/revisit her memories – it’s a ‘stranger’- unfamiliar
Food – trigger – buttermilk
Chapter 36
“You can’t begin to understand what it means to survive the death of your entire
world.” – Nothing lives up to the memory – can read and learn, but never
experience
“And this woman – this woman who gave me life, who is she?” Mark talking
about Genia – doesn’t know everything about Genia – so unlike Yossl – doesn’t
talk
Chapter 37
“I enter a field with a river of wine… I dreamt that the wine has turned to blood.” –
Rapid change in situation/life
Gate keeper “I do not have the key.” Mark cannot experience his parent’s
memories
Chapter 39
“She wasn’t seen but she was heard.” Never had an identity – identity through
Mark
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
“Doesn’t the photographer know that in two months my grandmother’s smile will
be erased forever?” rhetorical question – memory of smile lives one – ‘erased’
ironic
Best dress – holiday – happy memories – contrast
“Genia you are a survivor, Genia you are a fighter…”
Chapter 40
“You can take the Baker out of Bekiermaszyn but you can’t take the
Bekiermaszyn out of the Baker.”
Getting more questions than answers – questions make family relive the painful
memories – but Mark needs them for his own personal enlightenment
Chapter 41
Focuses on history
Documents shed light on the memories of his family
Contrast between history and memory – informal/personal language “Lament
propels me foreword in desperate bid for illumination” find out memory
Short, truncated sentences “The lie grows.” Lacks emotion
Single photograph – source of history
“What happens to families that die?” Baker
“Again I find myself peering into memory’s black hole.” Endless memory –
endless search
Chapter 42
“Jews were finished” somewhat matter-of-fact comment – contrast
“Memories discarded – only given meaning by those who are searching for them
“Silver spoons, faded photographs and feathers fly overhead, the empty contents
of a case abandoned by its owners.”
Chapter 43
“Child born with infinite memory.” Journey will never be complete as memory is
endless
Chapter 44
“One stone for so many lives and so many untold deaths.” Collective memory in
fragments
“Pushing the darkness of night into our vehicle.” – Vehicle to remembrance –
trigger to memory
Figures – objects “Shadowy figures grope in the dark forming a sea of human
pillar held upright in a wooden cage…” mass of people
Chapter 45
History sees numbers – memory sees people “’No!’ I say, ‘It’s not numbers, it’s
people…’”
Move away form facts, onto a personal connection “Towards the fiftieth gate
where light hovers inside the darkness…”
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
Chapter 46
“I searched for my parents. Hoping to find them somewhere between A – Z”
Interweaving true account and analysis
History provokes memory
“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse and therefore
choose life.” Suppress memory, or choose journey – reach enlightenment
Chapter 47
“In the end, the beginning.” Paradox – cyclical structure of memory in the text – in
the end of this journey – the beginning is enlightenment
Recurring light “She lights a candle for his death.” Reminisces his life
Occupation of Poland – context
History – “I can trace his journey from other fragments in the package.” History
creates memory – history reinforces what memory cannot explain
Report card – Mark shedding light on father’s darkness “sometimes I think that if I
were granted the time before I would die, I would prefer to leave the idea of me,
rather than bits and pieces…”
Chapter 48
“It’s all I have, she says, memories, just memories and nothing more.”
“I have found my first memory.”
Trigger – lock of hair.
Chapter 49
Memories can be shared with others
Context – Russian immigrants and Jews – dancing
Memory reinforcing history “From Germany we went by train.”
History – verification – dates
“For my father, his new life was accompanied by a new name…”rebirth – clean
slate, transportation from Buchenwald to Melbourne
“Freedom is not a happy ending. It is a flame that dances in remembrance inside
the blackness.” Not free from their curse – their memory
Chapter 50
“…It always begins in blackness until the first light illuminated a hidden fragment
of memory…”
Suggests one truth
Cyclical memory – same quote used in beginning of text
‘First’ – reoccurring motif
‘Blackness’ – suppression of memory
The final collaboration of history and memory – the nature of history and memory
– notion of piecing together history and memory throughout the 49 gates.
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
History is a narrative of human experience, written retrospectively. There is a
process of evaluation and reflection that colours, interprets and reshapes events
into patterns of memory that can be selective and distinctly individual.
The past is not finite, as The Fiftieth Gate highlights as it is a world marked by
shifting perceptions, contrasting moments of suffering and triumph. Authenticity
and verifiable details make history a more reliable ‘story’ of human experience
through the additional use of personal memories.
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History repeats itself (English proverb)
Not to know what happened before one was born is to always remain a
child
Every person’s memory is his private literature (Aldous Huxley)
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most
important of all the lessons that history has to teach (Aldous Huxley)
History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always
looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.
The Fiftieth Gate explores the impact of personal experience on memory and
therefore history. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ‘Men are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own mind.’
Memory is fragile, often short term and highly subjective. The mind’s impact on
memory can seriously affect a person’s life long after the events that are burned
into memory have actually occurred.
Memories can stagnate action and prevent healing, however, pain and suffering
can be cathartic and liberating as it is in the case of Baker’s parents who find
great release in having their memories of the Holocaust dredged from them. It
links them to the momentous times that impacted on Jewry as a whole and this
helps give personal understanding of their experience.
Memories can open windows of enlightenment as in The Fiftieth Gate.
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Once described as ‘a journey from despair and death towards hope and
life; the story of a son who enters his parents’ memories and, inside the
darkness, finds light’.
The past and present become fused in this non-fiction text. It is testimony
to the importance of personal experience and memory on subsequent
existence and history.
Veracity and authenticity are achieved by the author giving readers direct
access to his parent’s history through a range of research techniques that
have been used to record their memories for the posterity of future
generations.
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
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Memories are a fragile commodity – tangible links with the past become
even more tenuous – this text has an important cultural function in
cementing verifiable truths about history into the public record.
The rebirth of neo-Nazi ideologies and the practices of revisionist
historians who distort facts so that a completely different reading of history
is given emphasises the value of this type of text
Access to the truth is more tangible when it is gleaned through the
memories of personal experience rather than sifted from historical data
and artifacts. Baker has achieved a melding of the two so that research
verifies and bears out the verbal histories of those who were there.
Responders ‘come and see’ various metaphorical gates of time, what their
survival represents.
Baker makes a journey into the past to better understand the present –
journey motif – highlight a growth in personal knowledge and moral
development.
Metaphorically, the 50th gate is ‘where light hovers inside the darkness.
Inside the broken heart’ and attests to the resilience of the human spirit.
Baker describes it as ‘the highest knowledge of God’, a state of enhanced
self-awareness and acceptance.
The legitimacy of personal memory as a way of passing the lessons of the
past into the present has been confirmed by the author’s journey through
the ‘gates of the heart’ to the stage where he welcomes the responsibility
for enshrining the memories of his parents for his children. Genia affirms
‘It’s all I have’, only ‘Memories. Just memories. Nothing more’.
Style
 The text is about historical verification – an important source for Mark
Baker’s history of the Holocaust
 He offers readers a personal perspective that uncovers history
 Visual and aural images are used to build a permanent record of his
parents’ violent past
 His parents’ traumatic experience becomes a didactic lesson for a broad
audience
 Multiple storylines weave the past into the present through the
perspectives of a father, a mother and a son into a non-fiction narration
that is able to portray a graphic depiction of the past based on factual
experience.
 The author is often brutally honest about the difficulties and the pain he
has caused, admitting that his ‘vague’ idea of setting out to record the past
ended up ‘not a search, an obsession, a raid on my mother’s memory, a
son’s theft of her past.’
 Baker’s pivotal involvement at every step gives him the authority to speak
on behalf of his parents and others like them
 Authentic characterisation is often reflected in heavily accented
colloquialisms which add veracity to what is said
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
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Readers can identify with the varied emotions the parents experience
therefore better comprehend the historical magnitude of their stories
Mark uses clear explanations to chart the process he has followed to
reach the fiftieth gate of understanding, telling us that ‘when I exhausted
history I turned to memory’
Recurring motifs and evocative imagery give the story that unfolds a
powerful resonance and confronting reality
Various images such as graveyards, fields, gates and the act of running
are used to unify different phases of the text
The end of one chapter has Genia describing how she had to run for her
life to escape capture while the next chapter opens with a scene from an
athletic race where Mark’s parents are yelling to him to ‘run’ in a totally
different context
The use of italics indicates when a different parents is speaking and gives
a more verbatim account of what they say
What Genia recalls is ‘pitch black. Pitch black’ and visions from a ‘horrible
nightmare’.
Metaphors are used to make certain moments in the history particularly
graphic and emotive
A claustrophobic and nightmarish atmosphere is conjured up in
descriptions of the gas chambers
Their transportation to the camp is captured by references to ‘shadowy
figures’, ‘grope in the dark’, ‘sea of human pillars’, ‘in a wooden cage’.
Genia
 A lone survivor who has no concentration camp experience to help design
her past or cope with it
 A complex woman, both fragile and strong ‘sometimes I know how lucky I
really am… when I’m in control’
 Regrets about her stolen youth and loss of family are never far from her
mind – explains her recurring depression
 ‘her medals, she knew, were cold dark eyes and delicately sculptured
face, features which connected her present mien to the image.
 Mark often mentions her appearance and the wrinkles that mark the
ravages of time, her ‘ruins’
 Vanity is female trait responders can identify with and comments are
realistically individual rather than stereotypical Jewish mothers – her flaws
make her real, personable and arouses empathy of readers.
 In some ways, life itself is battlefield and in her attitude towards life she
acted ‘like a victorious soldier displayed in full finery’.
 Traditional aspects of culture are important to her
 Her story always begins with the word ‘then’ for it was ‘the key to
everything; the title she gave to her story’.
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She has a unique connection with the clothes she wears – represents
facets of her life that help give it meaning, structure and coherence.
‘shmattes’ – ‘a narrative in her life’
Seeing her life signposted by memorial religious events – inner pain
frequently just below the surface.
Regret blankets her views on life – readers see it’s through Mark’s
perceptions his parents are revealed
A phase of her life has been stolen – only sees herself in broken
fragments of reflections from the past
Memories are filled with emotion – resorts to metaphorical images to
describe her feelings ‘nightfall is to me sadness and darkness and I just
can’t disconnect my past, you know.’
Her heavy accents make her portrait more realistic
Little regard for benefit of history ‘where will the past get you in life?’
Her revenge for the evils is her children – the horrors of the past are
reconciled with happiness of the present and painful act of verbalising pat
personal experience is validated
Yossl/Joe
 Baker highlights the fragility of his father in figurative terms ‘I had already
caught a glimpse of time doing its charmed dance around his body.. his
life was a gamble’.
 Described as being ‘pitifully angry at his memory for failing him’ Mark’s
descriptions show intimate knowledge of mannerisms and habits – mutual
journey to past strengthens their bond
 Initially dismissive about the project – mocks his son’s obsession ‘fecks,
fecks’
 He enjoys human relationships and has an ‘unquenchable instinct for
sociability’ – from camps
 Joe is twice reborn – 1st in Buchenwald and then Australia.
 Only observes traditional Jewish law and religious practice under pressure
from family. ‘His Jewish world was a shell that protected him’.
 Survivor friendships form a close-knit network that is very important – hate
not recognising somebody. ‘my father’s fate was not possessed of the
same urgency as hers. His was a past written on a page of history shared
by other survivors’.
 Characterisation drawn for readers as we witness his process of
remembering ‘when his hands cease tapping… a neglected piece of
memory has been retrieved’.
 Memory is represented as a tactile place – real thing equated with factual
veracity
 Metaphors are used ‘landscape of his past’; Genia too ‘territory she is
reclaiming’
 Tendency to be apprehensive – fears the worst – especially Jewish
gatherings.
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Metaphor highlights his fear of being targeted as Jewish
Tells his stories ‘in matter-of-fact tone, with good humour but never with
an enlarged sense of his role’.
Doesn’t invest it with as much emotion as Genia
Resonance of place releases powerful emotions that disturb both son and
reader in the pain that obviously accompanies them.
Tries to clarify the intensity of his memories by demanding whether the
son comprehends their suffering ‘you read, you read. Books, books
everywhere. But do you know how it feels?’
Brutality of experiences become clear in the heightened emotive language
that he uses and his desperate attempt to capture the utter sense of
abandonment they felt. ‘we didn’t go like sheep to the slaughter’, ‘we were
standing like little lambs. Screams, crying. A massacre of weeping lambs’.
Themes
The power of traumatic experience
The fragmented nature of memory shows how traumatic experiences can change
events. Yossl thinks that one day in Auschwitz was cold, but it was Autumn, it
was warm. This shows that the trauma of this experience has disturbed his
memory.
How does it engage the responder?
Pain is universal.
Through the use of emotive language it engages on a fundamental human level.
It contrasts to the objective and factual nature of history.
The experiences of Jewish refugees in Australia after WW2
Movement from Buchenwald to Melbourne, symbolic for new beginnings,
attempting to leave the past behind them. ‘Grey hairs from all your questions…’
Genia is tied, history is draining
Experience of going to the Buchenwald Ball
Learning a new language
How does it engage the responder?
Relief – Genia and Yossl got out of trouble
Struggle is universal
Attempting to repress the past is coloured by emotion. Genia and Yossl are in
Australia, so they are within the same contextual background as the responder,
thus they can relate to the text more readily. This closes the gap between WWII
and now.
The struggle of the children of Holocaust survivors to understand, respect
and move on from their parents’ experiences
Mark dresses up as Hitler for the fancy dress party
‘In the absence of the Holocaust I was compelled to create my own.’
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Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
‘To my parents, Genia and Yossl… For my children, Gabriel, Sarah and
Rachel…’ Baker writes the fiftieth gate so that his children might escape the
blackness. Baker needs this book for his own personal enlightenment
How does it engage the responders?
Baker is not directly affected by the Holocaust and nor is the responder, so they
can empathise with Baker.
The cultural life of Jewish Australians
“‘Our sages remember… the parchment is burning but the letter are soaring high
above me’ My parents remember the parchment burning, the bodies buried,
letters soaring high, turned to ashen dust.” (p174) – influence of change on
Jewish Australians – different view of religion
How does it engage the responder?
The influence of religion on this text is very powerful and their interpretation of
the sages shows the extent to which the Holocaust has affected the. Baker uses
midrash to engage the responder
The effect of the Holocaust on Jewish thought, culture and community
Yossl – wants to know everyone – influenced from camps
Buchenwald Ball
‘…but nothing seems to set alarm bells ringing as much as public demonstrations
of Jewishness.’ – still targeted by Holocaust – How the past effects the present –
Yossl doesn’t want to be recognised as a Jew
How does it engage the responder?
Baker collaborates the context of the responder and the Holocaust, which
bridges the gap between WWII and now.
The role of memory and remembrance
‘The memory visited her as a stranger from another world.’
Darkness pervades Genia’s memories. She recalls ‘Pitch black. Pitch black’ and
visions from a ‘horrible nightmare’ – truncated sentences – the horrors of the
Holocaust flood Genia’s memories – the language is powerful due to its emotive
nature
How does it engage the responder?
It engages the responder, as the emotive nature of memory gives a ‘face’ to
history, this engaging on a fundamental human level.
Cultural Memory
Genia is able to bury some of the ghosts from her past and affirm the positive
process that her son has dragged her through. She realises that it has achieved
something momentous that is representational of the survival of Jewry itself and
that her story and that of others like her, needs to be told. Mark has recorded her
story and she recognises its value: ‘So always remember it, and your children will
remember it. They will survive, they will sing and they will dance’. The personal
story of two survivors is scarred but not destroyed them and cultural memory
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needs to comprehend their methods of survival as readily as it records the
historical details of internecine violence.
What readers are given, along with the facts of the past, is a vision of what has
followed. Mark proudly describes both of them ‘laughing, crying, shouting;
showering my brother and me with love and adoration, dreaming through us their
burnt desires. An Australian Jewish childhood.’ At one point in the book, Mark
signs himself as ‘The People’s Investigator’ and this role is crucial for cultural
memory. The journey has proved beneficial for all and it is with pride that the son
is able to ‘return memory to them. Only then can I assume responsibility for their
stories. First I must give in order to take. And give generously, details and details,
fecks and fecks.’
Cultural Context
Sages
Torah
Yossl wants to know
everybody – cultural
context of Wierzbnik
– sense of
community
Baker dresses up as
Hitler – pop culture
influence –
sensationalisation of
Holocaust
Mark’s own history
Mark feels a certain duality of role in his relationship with his parents who are the
primary source for his journey into the past. It is history that has affected his life
from an early age and the author admits that the process of quantifying and
validating the events that occurred becomes almost and obsession for him.
 He sees he is both son and academic researcher – conflict of interests –
makes the delving into the past painful for parents
 He reflects on what he does and why he does it – allows reader to gain
insight into his own memories and personal history
 He confesses he embedded himself into the world they had experienced –
fusing history and imagination – fantasy world linked him to the past. ‘I
invented a biography for myself from elements of my parents’ lives…’ He
looks back on his own past trying to comprehend his motivation for makebelieve – results in conclusion that ‘In the absence of the Holocaust, I was
compelled to create my own…’ – thus the author becomes a mediator
between the past, present and future.
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He sets out on ‘a fact-finding mission’ in an effort to verify the version of
history his parents has passed down to him. He seeks eye witness
accounts or documentary evidence – he doubts the veracity of their
memories.
Often he pushes, prompts and perseveres where they would choose to be
left undisturbed.
As the process continues, transformation begins where Mark changes
course, becoming more participatory: ‘I knew then I has to wrap myself in
the details of her story, if only immunise myself against the thing that lay
there…’ The act of listening gives him emotional access to the often
‘empty and chaotic landscape of death’ that they describe.
Midrash as a literary device in Mark Baker’s Fiftieth Gate
The word midrash comes from the Hebrew root DARASH meaning ‘to
investigate’ or to ‘seek out’. Indeed Midrash is exactly that – it is and investigation
of the Biblical text in order to try and probe its deeper meaning/s.
Midrash therefore refers to both a method of interpretation (exegesis) and a body
of literature that is a result of this literary methodology.
Midrash is an ancient form of exegesis but it continues to be practiced in Jewish
communities in the present as Jews continue to search for meaning and
relevance in their sacred texts. Midrashic method rests upon four basic
assumptions concerning the Biblical text
1. The Biblical text is cryptic ie. not self-evident. We therefore need to search
the text to understand its true or multilayered meanings.
2. The Biblical text is perfect and self-referential. For example, if the text
seems to contradict itself (such as the different accounts of the number of
Israelites that left Egypt), this simply means that we have not understood
its true meaning OR the answer is found elsewhere in the Bible.
3. The bible text does not simply describe Israel’s collective past but is
relevant to its present – particularly to current beliefs and practices.
4. The Biblical text is in some way Divine or divinely inspired.
Midrash is comprised of three elements
1. 1 Exegesis
2. Starting with Scripture
3. Ending in community
Midrash can begin as word play, a concern with textual irregularity, word plat,
parable and all of the above. Ultimately it seeks to provide a ‘lesson’ of sorts –
whether that be to expound a verse more clearly and with greater relevance to
contemporary communal needs, to make political or theological point or to seek
out an answer to a question posed by the text itself. It is a varied and immense
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Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
literature spanning the entirety of Scripture, beginning, some argue, within the
Biblical text itself, reaching its greatest heights in classical Rabbinic literature and
continuing into the present day.
Midrash is a corpus of literature that has enabled Jewish communities to remain
in dialogue with living Biblical text – bridging the gap between past and future –
and enabling the text to intersect and inform the day to day life of generations of
Jewish communities.
Consider the Midrash below:
Rabbi Judah said in the name of Rav: When Moses ascended on high to
receive the Torah he found the Holy One, blessed be He, engaged in
affixing taggin to the letters. Moses said: “Lord of the Universe, who stays
thy hand?” He replied “There will be a man at the end of many generation.
Akiba Ben Joseph by name, who will expound, upon each title, heaps and
heaps of laws” “Lord of the Universe,” said Moses, “permit me to see him”
He replied: “Turn around.”
Moses went (into the academy of Rabbi Akiba) and sat down behind eight
rows (of Akiba’s disciples). Not being able to follow their arguments he
was ill at ease, but when thy came to a certain subject and the disciples
said to the master “When do you know it?” and the latter replied . “It is a
law given to Moses at Sinai, he was comforted.
This Midrash powerfully illustrates how midrash has allowed the Hebrew Bible to
remain a living document in Jewish communities throughout history. The parable
spans literally thousands of years as Moses is reported in time from Senai to the
second century yeshiva of the famous Talmudic Rabbi Akiva. Yet the point of the
parable in clear : Divine law is immutable and changing – it was ‘given to Moses
at Senai’. All Akiva is doing is ‘interpreting’ what is already there. Yet is doing so,
he is making the law vital and relevant for the Jewish community in which he had
lived.
Similarly, in Baker’s novel, midrashic technique is used to link and differentiate
ancient and modern Jewish history – particularly the experience of the
Holocaust. Consider the following passage:
Our sages remember: Rabbi Hanina Ben Teradoin was studying the Torah
and holding a Scroll of the Law to his chest.
Our enemies took hold of him, wrapped him in the scroll, placed bundles
of branches around him and set them on fire.
His disciples called out, ‘Rabbi, what do you see?’
He answered them, ‘The parchment is burning but the letters are soaring
high above me.’
My parents remember:
The fire
English Advanced
Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
The parchment burning
The bodies buried
Letters soaring high.
Turned to ashen dust.
(The Fiftieth Gate p.174)
Triggers
Sound
“Tak, tak, tak” – record history on typewriter
“A nervous rhythm”
“So too does my mother recall the shots… the moaning… the terror”
“Wshhh. Wshhh” – the sound of running water triggers Yossl’s memory of being
showered in the chamber
“you could hea those boots, boots, boots” – sound of heavy footsteps
“Zhiip. My hair… Zhiip” – memory of hair cut in concentration camps
Prayer “I can still hear her reciting it”
“Tap, tap, tap” – tries to remember, he taps his fingers – memory has been
retrieved
“I remember how everyone was saying Muller… it has stuck.”
“He practices ringing on a bell… its peal echoing across the landscape of his
past.” – Yossl
“Can you hear or do the screams from the mass grave drown out the sounds… of
Wierzbnik in its innocence?”
“Genia, I still hear it, ‘Genia you’re not allowed’” – sound of her own name can
prompt memory
Yiddish melodies and lullabies “Ohh my papa”
Fragments of recognition through words which spoke of mother’s tears…”
Genia – “A new melody snatched from a forgotten moment of her life.”
“The camp song whispered his cry for freedom” – “Buchenwald song”
“Tateh Tateh” – “he imitates the sound of a young boy…”
“Left, Right. Left. Right.” – the sound of these words is the sound of life and death
“at the sound of a visitor she would jump under a bed and hide for hours” –
sound of arrival she relates to past experiences of her being torn away from her
family.
Sight
“The Ukrainians are marching past the market square… gesturing us to enter the
vehicle so we can escape his approaching nightmare.” Pg 182 – the appearance
of the Ukrainians ignites painful memories of Yossl’s traumatic experiences
“No the chimneys were closer... it wasn’t this spot.” – in Yossl’s mind the image
of his concentration camp is different to that presented when they visited the
camp. Because these images fail to collaborate he can tell they are in the wrong
part of the camp.
“A gate confirms that he knew this town once before...” – the sight of the gate
reminds Yossl of his childhood residence in the town.
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Module C: Representation and Text: History and Memory
The prisoner number tattoo is a visible sign of what the Nazi’s put the prisoners
through referring to them as numbers not names.
“Pitch black.. 100 per cent black…” – Genia’s adult dislike of the darkness is a
direct result of her childhood ‘imprisonment’ in a small dark bunker.
“Nightfall is home to me sadness and darkness and I just can’t disconnect my
past…”
Smell
“It seems right that his memory should begin in his stomach. Doesn’t all
knowledge originate with a single forbidden bite?”
“A terrible odour wafts past my nose, different from the smell of decay… which
dominated our carriage.”
“The smell of burning flesh…” – Yvonne
“The air is mixed with the pungent odour of fresh vomit and faeces…”
“My clothes smell of decay and ruin, yet the music revives my body. It makes me
feel human again…”
“I want to know more about the blackberries picked from forests surrounding his
home Wierzbnick. He allows the smell to carry him through his house...” pg 27 –
The diction of ‘move’, exposes the character’s need to manipulate smell as a
vehicle which carries him to a particular destination
“Mmmm, what did they call it? Mmmm. I can smell it but I can’t remember what
we called it. The oven I remember. The smell of special cakes with blackberries
from the forest. It makes me hungry just thinking about it…” – repetition of
‘mmmm…’ as the smell in combination with the longing to remember the type of
food shows the distorted memory.
Touch
“He knocks with his knuckles on the planks of wood against which he had once
rested his body…”
“I slept good last night. You know, it’s a comfy bed.” – Comfort absent during the
war, propelling a desire to feel the comfort he missed out on. Hard/uncomfortable
beds trigger back those memories.
“’Push,’ we scream, ‘lift the latch and push.’”
“No. They’ll think we’re coming back to take our house. I remember too much
now. No.” – Touching may open the gates to a flood of memories he wants to
forget.
“’…the hot tea,’ I tell my father. ‘Do you remember someone spilled hot tea on
me?’” – Physical pain, traumatic memories never forgotten.
Feelings of coldness Yossl remembers Auschwitz as cold, but is contradicted by
history. Makes every effort to not feel cold, and therefore not feel the way he did
on that day – not relive those moments
Taste
“Soft and doughy, filled with sweet cheese and bitter memories.” Page 211
“My mother still savours these American chocolate bars, her rations in Berline.”
Page 281
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“They made such pastries for me – pierogi. Sometimes special things. They
always gave me the same to eat as their child.” Page 193
“’Everyday we’d go into her corner shop on the way to school and buy
icecream.’” Page 130
“The thirst is harder to bear than the hunger; a desperate woman feeds her baby
its own urine, while another offers a child the salty juice of her skin to lick.” Page
265
“Lollies. Anyone who was alive today from another town would remember buba
laya and her lollies.” Page 29
“For my father, it is cabbage soup that connects his tastebuds to the camps.
Anything tastes good in hunger, he tell us, a piece of bread, a drop of rain, a
watery soup.” Page 281
Representation and Text: History and Memory: The Fiftieth Gate
History and memory validate each other
Memory can be unreliable – emotions
Individual and collective history and memory
Objective vs subjective information
Tragedy of Holocaust is lifelong
Impact of suppressed memories on future generations
History lacks personal experience and empathy
History patched the gaps to form a mosaic of memory
Fragmented nature of memory – based on senses
Purposes of combining both is to gain an accurate representation of truth
Uses midrash to offer insight to the responder
No language to accurately represent the experience of Holocaust survivors