Late Night Reading: Jacques Lusseyran - the 'Blind Frenchman' - Poetry In Buchenwald

"It is always the soul that dies first, even if it's departure goes unnoticed. And it always carries the body along with it...Man is nourished by the invisible, man is nourished by that which is beyond the personal. He dies from preferring the opposite."

Jacques Lusseyran, Poetry at Buchenwald


"We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Jacques Lusseyran was a high school student in Paris at the time the German army occupied France in 1940. Although he had been totally blind since age eight as the result of an accident, Lusseyran, who was then sixteen, decided to organize his friends and other students into an underground group to resist the occupation.

“News was needed, surely, but courage even more so, and clarity. We were resolved to hide nothing. For here was the monster to be fought: defeatism, and with it that other monster, apathy. Everything possible must be done to keep the French from growing accustomed to Nazism, or from seeing it just as an enemy, like enemies of other times, an enemy of the nation, an adversary who was victorious just for the moment. From our past we knew that Nazism (Fascism) threatened the whole of humanity, that it was an absolute evil, and we were going to publish its evilness abroad..."

Within a year the group numbered some 600 members who produced and distributed an illegal underground newspaper despite the risk of imprisonment, torture or death if they were caught. Lusseyran describes the mood of both surrender and joy he experienced in the resistance movement:

“I had not a single friend who had anything left to lose. They had given up literally everything except life. . . On my word of honor, the air was different where my friends were. There you could smell joy. Even when they were sad and talking about their own death, the smell of their talk was good and gave you a lift.”

Lusseyran was eventually betrayed by a pro-Nazi student who infiltrated the resistance group, resulting in the arrest of Lusseyran and other leaders of the group.

Following interrogation, Lusseyran was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

In the camp, disease and malnutrition were rampant, and Lusseyran himself became sick and was very near death. But at that point he became aware that a will to live “had taken possession of me and filled me to overflowing ... Slowly I came back from the dead.”

He recalled that “on May 8, I left the hospital on my two feet. I was nothing but skin and bones, but I had recovered. The fact was I was so happy that now Buchenwald seemed to me a place which if not welcome was at least possible. I was free now to help the others; not always, not much, but in my own way I could help. I could try to show other people how to go about holding on to life. I could turn toward them the flow of light and joy which had grown so abundant in me.”

Lusseyran was asked by his fellow inmates to visit the various blocks of prisoners each day to share whatever factual information was available about the progress of the war and to dispel rumors.

The guards allowed prisoners to hear German news reports; Lusseyran was fluent in German and “read between the lines” of those reports to infer what was actually happening. He also received information from time to time via a clandestine radio which the prisoners had hidden.

Lusseyran writes: “The remarkable thing was that listening to the fears of others had ended by freeing me almost completely from anxiety. I had become cheerful, and was cheerful almost all the time, without willing it, without even thinking about it. That helped me, naturally, but it also helped the others. They had made such a habit of watching the coming of the little blind Frenchman with his happy face, his reassuring words, that on days when there was no news, they had him visit just the same.”

In April 1945, he was liberated by the Allies, surviving German massacres of the concentration camps in which some of his friends were killed. Many of his friends had died during the course of the war. After the war, Lusseyran taught French literature in the United States and wrote books, including And There Was Light and Against the Pollution of the I.

He died together with his third wife Marie in a car accident in France on July 27, 1971.

“We had to live in the present; each moment had to be absorbed for all that was in it. When a ray of sunshine comes, open out, absorb it to the depths of your being. Never think that an hour earlier you were cold and that an hour later you will be cold again. Just enjoy.

The amazing thing is that no anguish held out against this treatment for very long. Take away from suffering its double drumbeat of resonance, memory and fear. Suffering may persist, but already it is relieved by half.”

“Life had taken possession of me. I had never lived so fully before. Life had become a substance within me. It broke into my cage, pushed by a force a thousand times stronger than I. It was certainly not made of flesh and blood, not even of ideas. It came toward me like a shimmering wave, like the caress of light. I could see it beyond my eyes and my forehead and above my head. It touched me and filled me to overflowing. I let myself float upon it… I drew my strength from the spring. I kept on drinking and drinking still more. I was not going to leave that celestial stream… Here was the life which sustained the life in me..."

“The Lord took pity on the poor mortal who was so helpless before him… But there was one thing left which I could do: not refuse God’s help, the breath he was blowing upon me. That was the one battle I had to fight, hard and wonderful all at one: not to let my body be taken by the fear. For fear kills, and joy maintains life..."

“I was nothing but skin and bones, but I had recovered. The fact was I was so happy, that now Buchenwald seemed to me a place which if not welcome, was at least possible. If they didn’t give me any bread to eat, I would feed on hope..."

"I was carried by a hand. I was covered by a wing. One doesn’t call such living emotions by their names. I hardly needed to look out for myself…I was free now to help the others; not always, not much, but in my own way I could help. I could try to show other people how to go about holding on to life. I could turn toward them the flow of light and joy which had grown so abundant in me..."

"From that time on they stopped stealing my bread or my soup. It never happened again. Often my comrades would wake me up in the night and take me to comfort someone…I became “the blind Frenchman.” For many, I was just, “the man who didn’t die.” Hundreds of people confided in me. The men were determined to talk to me. They spoke to me in French, in Russian, in German, in Polish. I did the best I could to understand them all. That is how I lived, how I survived. The rest I cannot describe...”

"That is what you had to do to live in the camp: be engaged, not live for yourself alone. The self-centered life has no place in the world of the deported. You must go beyond it, lay hold on something outside yourself.

Never mind how: by prayer if you know how to pray; through another man's warmth which communicates with yours, or through yours which you pass on to him; or simply by no longer being greedy. Those happy old men were like the hoboes. They asked nothing more for themselves, and that put everything within their reach.

Be engaged, no matter how, but be engaged. It was certainly hard, and most men didn't achieve it.

Of myself I can't say why I was never entirely bereft of joy. But it was a fact and my solid support. Joy I found even in strange byways, in the midst of fear itself. And fear departed from me, as infection leaves an abscess and bursts.

By the end of a year in Buchenwald I was convinced that life was not at all as I had been taught to believe it, neither life nor society."

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Up to the Trendline In Options Expiry - Summoning the Bernank

Gold and silver caught a pretty decent pop higher today as the markets turned their eyes from the awful earnings reports given by the real economy stocks, and looked in a candlelit mirror chanting, "Ben Bernanke, Ben Bernanke, Ben Benanke."

Once again we are in the shadow of Comex Options expiration, last trading and first notice days.

July 26 Comex August gold options expiry
July 26 Comex August copper options expiry
July 27 Comex August miNY gold futures last trading day
July 27 Comex July gold futures last trading day
July 27 Comex July silver futures last trading day
July 27 Comex July copper futures last trading day
July 27 Comex August miNY gold futures last trading day
July 27 Comex August E-mini copper futures last trading day
July 31 Comex August gold futures first notice day
July 31 Comex August copper futures first notice day

Far be it from me to tell anyone what to do. But I will say that I have stopped trading all options, both in stocks and commodities.

The rigging that characterizes the markets overall, through the manipulation of price and the mispricing of risk, is most pronounced in the paper derivatives such as options and artificial constructs like some of the ETFs which are designed to lose almost without regard to what the market does.

Gold and silver could go either way here. I do not have enough visibility into where the suckers are placing their bets, and where the wiseguys are placing theirs, at least for the short term.

I do believe that one of these days a major player is going to pop these markets, and rip the faces off some of the funds and specs who are leaning nakedly on the short side in a particularly painful and protracted rally from hell. I just do not know if we are there yet. The more I look at the structure of the Comex and their position and delivery policies the more it looks like a paper Ponzi scheme that could be tough to beat on its own turf.

Despite some of their identifiable predilictions, the Banks and big machers of the Street are very open minded about screwing anybody and everybody. They have no abiding loyalties or allegiances except to themselves.

I see where the House has passed the Ron Paul Bill to Audit the Fed. While that sort of thing may be gratifying I think the Senate also has to pass their own version of it, and then reconcile the two. And that prospect does not seem likely.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

More shenanigans as the equity market shook off the awful earnings reports from last night and came off the lows on expectations that Uncle Ben would crack open the beer barrels of quantitative easing again.

Tim Geithner testified to the Congress today, and he is the very picture of the bureaucrat. Intraday commentary inspired by his performance here.

"And he began to teach them, saying:

'Blessed are the poor in spirit,
  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
  for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
  for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
  for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
  for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
  for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
  for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake,
  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, or falsely speak evil
  about you, because you stand with me.'"

About the Poor and Taxes

I see a push coming from the fortunate again, the ones who have been rewarded by the system as it has been, to 'scrap the tax system' and go to a lower flat tax, or even better, a much lower but general consumption tax. Whatever benefits them the most. And economics is a handmaiden flexible and malleable enough to provide them whatever rationale is required to support their arguments.

But the truth is that a consumption tax falls particularly hard on those with the least disposable income, who must still buy the necessities of life.

A flat tax is not much better, for much the same reason. The burden falls disproportionately on those who can bear it the least.

I should add that a shift from an income to a consumption tax is a great idea if you would like to stimulate and subsidize a new bubble in speculative financial paper that would bring down the financial system once and for all when it collapses.

Personally I would like to see a very nominal financial transaction tax of nominal flat of about $5 per trade, with NO exemptions including wiseguys trading for their own books in HFT. I would obviously like to dampen speculation and encourage real investment. And of course I would be in favor of the abolition of all 'dark pools' of publicly traded instruments or delays in reporting those trades. And charging for basic quotes in real time by the exchanges which should be a cost of their doing business. But that is a subject for another day.

The problem with the tax system we have today is that there are so many loopholes and ways to avoid taxes for those with the most power and money. It really is more of a scandal than you might know. It encourages and rewards expoitative behaviour and foments financial corruption.

Until you have some serious walking around money, and it draws in the lawyers and accountants, one does not see what a racket the current system is, and how well it serves those 'in the know,' to the disadvantage of everyone else.

Rather than put forward my own solution, I would like to address a current tagline that is being quoted by the 'tax reformers.'

The fortunate are indignant that the working poor, and the poor themselves, are paying so little in income taxes on the whole. And this is true, if one measures it by actual federal income tax receipts alone.

It is less so if one considers all the other taxes that add up, like sales taxes and gasoline taxes, and fees.

But even further, I contend that the poor are being taxed to death, by a rotten, corrupt crony capitalist economic system.

The tax may not be levied by the IRS, but it is set down by the system itself. It is set down by the banks that cheat them, by the powerful corporations that use the law for their own excessive profits to exploit them.

They are taxed by those who exploit and cheat them and collect their unjust rents, not because they are smart and hard working, but because they can.  They have carefully positioned themselves to do so.

The poor are taxed by sickness, and a healthcare system with insanely different classes of treatment and payments, and extractive and the predatory practices of pharma-healthcare trusts.

They are taxed by the accidents and tragedies of life, that if one is rich or comes from privilege are not a lasting problem, but if one is not, there is no second chance. One is held in debt bondage, forever.

And when it comes to it, it is the poor who predominantly offer their tears and blood, and their own children, to fight the wars for this nation around the world. And when those wars are not entered into reluctantly for the sake of defense, but rather as expansive adventures in nation building in far off places, for the benefit of the hellish combine of the manufacture of death for profits, that is the gravest injustice and most horrific tax of all.

The corporations, in one form or another, own the housing, pay the wages, charge what they will for the food and medicine, and essentially own the company store in a pernicious monopoly whose sole goal is to sustain and maximize itself as its own end.

The system is so unfair and so rigged now that the poor will pay the price of it, the taxes of its corruption and injustice, from the moment they are born until the day that they die.

We have presided over the destruction of almost one hundred years of social progress, almost without parallel in human history. Oh, well done.

That for the most part is the reason why they are poor. Not because they are lazy, not because they are stupid, and not because they engage in high risk behaviours. Yes, some people are poor for these reasons. I know we can always think of someone like that. But just as many of the rich do the same things and more, and remain rich despite it. The system carries and subsidizes their failures, again and again.

The indignation of the well-to-do is like a group of highwaymen, who rob the passengers on a bus, and strip and beat them senseless, and then become angry when the survivors try to go on their way, but do not have enough money left to pay the region's exit tax.

The crony capitalist system is rigged, and it exploits the poor, and that is what makes most of them poor, and keeps their children the same way unless they are both incredibly bright and incredibly lucky.  A few may make it, but most do not.  And sometimes those who make it are among the worst, because they wish to forget who they are and where they have been.

And such a system is not sustainable, without increasing repression and force, until it finally extinguishes itself.

Changing the tax system is not the answer. The real answer is genuine economic reform and real justice, and an end to the principles of the serving the greater greed and might makes right that has shaped the perverse economic system which we have today.

I dare not even bring up the parable of the talents here, that what you have has been given you, and you are obligated to use it well, or it will be taken from you.

And how can I appeal to the principles which have guided many of the progressive gains throughout western history. "When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."

How can one appeal to noblesse oblige, when nobility and chivalry are dead, and craven grasping by the crudely nouveau riche is the highest example for all?  

One can only appeal to the practical wisdom of the parasites, that when you kill the host, you kill yourself. Or risk being targeted and removed like some intrusive and unproductive organism that you may be.

The fortunate will not admit their humanity, because it lowers them from their exalted and imagined ubermensch status to what they really are: ordinary people with more in common with the poor than they care to think. And that is what frightens them.  The stench of their own mortality drives them obsessively.

That is the lesson which we have forgotten.  Yes, you do not wish to hear it.   But it is the oldest story in the book. It is the sin that brought down the light-bearer, the Son of the Morning, first among angels. Pride. And so we cannot admit it, we cannot even see it in our own blindness to the fact:

There but for the grace of God go I.

Do not feel envious, or fearful, or even angry at the parade of the powerful now, the pampered princes of corruption.  I had a terrible vision, a vivid dream, of what they will look like in the time that comes.  Their souls are so empty, so shallow, so broken and insubstantial, that when stripped of their earthly husks there will not be enough of them left to be recognizable as a personality.  

They look like the remnants of dried brown leaves, blowing along the gutters and alleyways of a hard and unyielding hell.   No one remembers them, or even know what they are.

They still think and feel, but the sounds and cries that they make blend together into an indistinguishable rustling, a chorus of soft scratching from dried remnants on the pavement, made of unyielding alabaster paving blocks, as they cling to their lies and self-delusions.  

And no one hears them, their dry scratching cries, and they are alone.   It is hard to even think of it again, much less imagine falling into that state.  And yet, that is not the worst that I saw.