Holocaust Soundscapes a cacophonous maelstrom

[DavidM]

Screams of Fear in Holocaust Soundscapes
by Sara Ann Sewell
https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcaf047
[Synopsis]
Analyzing Holocaust victims’ diaries, memoirs, and interviews, this essay investigates the ways that Jews felt and exhibited fear. It specifically explores nonlinguistic screams as expressions of fear, employing methods from a variety of academic fields. Holocaust soundscapes resounded with the screams of terrified victims. For the scream-emitters, the oral outbursts were sonic signs of the fear that emanated from within their bodies. Fear was, indeed, fully embodied, flowing kinesthetically within bodies, from releasing adrenaline to falling into a state of semiconsciousness to unleashing nonlinguistic screams. Through screams, fear moved from one person to another, underscoring the social transmissibility of fear.
Her article starts with "testimony" claiming that a young girl "screamed so much...that her little child's heart could not take it and gave out."
Professor Sewell goes on, "Although brief, this story sheds light on defining aspects of the roundups of Jews during the Holocaust."

In another article Professor Sewell claimed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau "concourse"
"As Jewish arrivals deboarded the trains, an array of threatening noises battered them, including amplified commands blasted in German, antisemitic slurs, vicious barking, beatings, and gunshots. "


SS guards used these acoustic assaults to perpetrate sonic violence against the arrivals, subduing their targets by instilling fear through sound. By generating an atmosphere of chaos and confusion through sound, they achieved their chief objective: prisoner compliance. Acoustic assaults inflicted somatic and psychological pain that manifested itself physically. Many deportees responded to the sensorial onslaught with their own sonorous outpourings. Cries, wails, and screams flooded the concourse, evidence of their trauma. Besieged sensorially, many became mentally immobilized, underlining the capacity of sonic violence to impair cognition. Their mental paralysis amid the cacophonous maelstrom marked their shattered subjectivities, which seared themselves sonically into their memories.

Like so many Holocaust "scholars" Sewall has created a hellish history based on goof-ball tales.

An actual arrival at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concourse was photographed and can be seen at
https://wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibit ... rrival.asp.
The truth is about what you would expect. No people screaming themselves to death, no wailing, no amplification equipment visible, no barking, beatings or guns being fired. Arrivals and inmates talking, no sign of fear or panic.

[pilgrimofdark]

For the auditors, the victim-earwitnesses, hearing the screams of others often activated their own sense of fear, and many joined together in episodes of collective screaming.

This is the first I'm reading about Holocaust victims being able to hear each other scream.

What was the point of the orchestra if everyone could hear each other screaming anyway?

It's hard to provide much commentary on this article without being able to read the full text.

Jacob Flaws has a section on "Sound" in his hagiography of Treblinka. It quotes the usual witnesses (and non-witnesses) who report hearing shouting (over the orchestra?), the orchestra (so the shouting wasn't audible?), the excavators (how loud compared to the screamers and orchestra?), etc.

[Stubble]

Not just the orchestra Herr Pilgrim, what was the point of the ambulance. The ambulance specifically driven up to 'the homicidal gas chambers' at Auschwitz Birkenau to 'drown out the screaming of the condemned'.

[DavidM]

For the auditors, the victim-earwitnesses, hearing the screams of others often activated their own sense of fear, and many joined together in episodes of collective screaming.

This is the first I'm reading about Holocaust victims being able to hear each other scream.

What was the point of the orchestra if everyone could hear each other screaming anyway?

It's hard to provide much commentary on this article without being able to read the full text.

Jacob Flaws has a section on "Sound" in his hagiography of Treblinka. It quotes the usual witnesses (and non-witnesses) who report hearing shouting (over the orchestra?), the orchestra (so the shouting wasn't audible?), the excavators (how loud compared to the screamers and orchestra?), etc.

It costs $58 to download the entire article...I would rather give the money to CODOH.

The soupçon of the article I posted keeps us informed of the crazy world of Holocaust Believers.

[Hektor]

Not just the orchestra Herr Pilgrim, what was the point of the ambulance. The ambulance specifically driven up to 'the homicidal gas chambers' at Auschwitz Birkenau to 'drown out the screaming of the condemned'.

From Ambulance to Orchestra to overtone the screams of homicidal gas chamber victims... How diabolically fiendish?

[Stubble]

We have this famous photograph...



Unless I am mistaken, it appears in 'The Blackbook of Polish Jewry', it may be 'murder mills', I have trouble remembering specifically.

[Eye of Zyclone]

Not just the orchestra Herr Pilgrim, what was the point of the ambulance. The ambulance specifically driven up to 'the homicidal gas chambers' at Auschwitz Birkenau to 'drown out the screaming of the condemned'.

From Ambulance to Orchestra to overtone the screams of homicidal gas chamber victims... How diabolically fiendish?

I also remember accounts of a flock of geese that were made to quack during the gassing executions.
Deutsche Technologie ist die beste. Aber jüdische Lügen sind besser...

[slob]

Sorry, they are all as mad as March Hares if you ask me, not a very constructive contribution, but there you go.

I thought this was from the above mentioned article, but anyway, it all seems so ridiculous to me, cannot help but laugh, am I wicked for laughing?


https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document ... 0-009/html


https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/c ... cophonies/


https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/8/article/990415