At The Mind’s Limits

“If one speaks about torture, one must take care not to exaggerate,” Jean Améry view of torture comes from a place of uneasiness (22). He discusses in his book At The Mind’s Limits, about the torture that he underwent while a prisoner in Auschwitz. In his chapter titled “Torture”, he goes into deep description of not only the torture he endured, but also how that torture never leaves a person. Améry goes to great lengths to make sure that the torture he speaks of is accurate and as he says on page 22, not exaggerated.

Many may believe that talking about an experience that is of a horrible nature can be a way of coping with the event. However, Amery believes differently. He wrote his book as a way to make people understand went he and millions of other Jews went through. He does not see his book as a way of understanding the pain he went through every day even after the war had ended. Amery speaks of the torture because he feels it is important to understand the different elements of torture. He writes, “What was inflicted on me in the unspeakable vault in Breendonk was by far not the worst form of torture…it was relatively harmless and it left no conspicuous scars on my body” (22). The embarrassment of the torture to Amery; is knowing that “they” have taken away who you are in a matter of moments. It is losing who you are to evil without wanting to, that is torture.

Amery continues to state that the torture never ends even after the pain is gone and the wounds have healed. It becomes a part of you and you begin to lose yourself in it. He writes,

But for the person who suffers them they are still experiences that leave deep marks – if one wishes to use up the high-sounding words already and clearly say: enormities. The f...

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...h the “crackling and splintering in my shoulders that my body has not forgotten until hour” (32). He would never remember anything as it was, for it was now a distant and vague memory. But his torture was happening every day and every moment of his life.

In conclusion, Amery’s book is a testimony of him accepting what has befallen to him. He brings light to what torture was and is now in a world that can be distrustful. That losing one’s faith in the world and humankind is not an easy understanding. He wants the world to know that torture is not just physical; it is also mental and verbal. It is the “first blow” whether that is a word in meanness or punch to the face, torture is the evil that comes from someone who knows nothing good. Torture for the Jews is a way of life now, because it will never leave their memory, it has become a part of them in every way.