The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

Perhaps Arthur was wrong. Perhaps his idea of the superman asking a subhuman for
something superhuman was not more than a phrase which sounded very enlightened, but was
no real answer. The SS man's attitude toward me was not that of an arrogant superman.
Probably I hadn't successfully conveyed all my feelings: a subhuman condemned to death at
the bedside of an SS man condemned to death…Perhaps I hadn't communicated the
atmosphere and the despair at his crime so clearly expressed in his words.
And suddenly I was assailed by a doubt as to the reality of all this. Had I actually been in
the Dean's room that day?
It all seemed to me doubtful and unreal as our whole existence in those days…it could not
have been all true; it was a dream induced by hunger and despair…it was too illogical—like
the whole of our lives.
The prisoner in the camp was driven, and he had to learn to let himself be driven without
a will of his own. In our world, nothing any longer obeyed the laws of normal everyday life,
here everything had its own logic. What laws were still valid in captivity? The only law that
was left as a reliable basis for judgment was the law of death. That law alone was logical,
certain and irrefutable. All other laws paled into insignificance, the result was a general
passivity. We constantly reminded ourselves that this was the one law that was inevitable,
that one could do nothing to change it. The effect on us was a mental paralysis, and the
inconsolable attitude in which we were enveloped was the clear expression of the
hopelessness of our lot.
During the night I saw Eli. His face seemed paler than ever and his eyes expressed the
dumb, eternally unanswered question: Why?