“We Refugees” – an essay by Hannah Arendt (1943)
“The
comity of European peoples went to pieces when, and because, it allowed its
weakest member to be excluded and persecuted.” A message that projects a long
arm into the present and can be read in the current global context that sees
indifference and outright hostility to refugees, a political and social
attitude that can only come at the price of exacerbating tensions and rupturing
the moral fabric of the perpetrators of such indifference and hostility.
“We Refugees”
In the first place, we
don’t like to be called “refugees.” We ourselves call each other “newcomers” or
“immigrants.” Our newspapers are papers for “Americans of German language”;
and, as far as I know, there is not and never was any club founded by
Hitler-persecuted people whose name indicated that its members were refugees.
A refugee used to be a
person driven to seek refuge because of some act committed or some political
opinion held. Well, it is true we have had to seek refuge; but we committed no
acts and most of us never dreamt of having any radical opinion. With us the
meaning of the term “refugee” has changed. Now “refugees” are those of us who
have been so unfortunate as to arrive in a new country without means and have
to be helped by Refugee Committees.
Before this war broke
out we were even more sensitive about being called refugees. We did our best to
prove to other people that we were just ordinary immigrants. We declared that
we had departed of our own free will to countries of our choice, and we denied
that our situation had anything to do with “so-called Jewish problems.” Yes, we
were “immigrants” or “newcomers” who had left our country because, one fine
day, it no longer suited us to stay, or for purely economic reasons. We wanted
to rebuild our lives, that was all. In order to rebuild one’s life one has to
be strong and an optimist. So we are very optimistic.
Our optimism, indeed,
is admirable, even if we say so ourselves. The story of our struggle has
finally become known. We lost our home, which means the familiarity of daily
life. We lost our occupation, which means the confidence that we are of some
use in this world. We lost our language, which means the naturalness of
reactions, the simplicity of gestures, the unaffected expression of feelings.
We left our relatives in the Polish ghettos and our best friends have been
killed in concentration camps, and that means the rupture of our private lives.
Nevertheless, as soon
as we were saved—and most of us had to be saved several times—we started our
new lives and tried to follow as closely as possible all the good advice our
saviors passed on to us. We were told to forget; and we forgot quicker than
anybody ever could imagine... read more:
https://amroali.com/2017/04/refugees-essay-hannah-arendt/see also
