It was Marcel Marceau, who stated

“I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment”

In discussing silence and the Holocaust one needs to mention and honor Marcel Marceau, the genius of mime. While Marceau has always been intent on telling stories that probe and express the human condition he has not revealed until recently, his history and role as a hero during the Holocaust.  His alter ego Bip lives in a world that teeters ironically on the thin edge between pathos and pratfall. That he never falls into either is one of Marceau’s achievements. Bip came into being in 1947 after World War II and Marceau’s first –hand experience with the Nazi occupation of France.

Named after Pip, the favorite hero of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations   Bip‘s search for adventure , his humble position in life, his struggles to fit into society, deal with technology and pursue love are mirror images of Everyman. Marceau states” Born in the imagination of my childhood, Bip is a romantic and burlesque hero of our time. His look is turned not only towards heaven, but into the hearts of man.” He is easily inspired, easily touched and easily wounded. It is his simplicity that allows him to quickly reconcile any conflicts and maintain his love of life.

Were it only that simple…

Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France,one of two sons of a kosher butcher. The Nazis uprooted the Jewish residents of Alsace-Lorraine after marching into the region in 1939. Marceau and his family were given two hours to pack up their belongings, as they were transported to the southwest region of France. Instead, he and his brother changed their name from Mengel to Marceau and fled to join the underground movement in Limoges. Marceau’s father was captured, deported to Auschwitz where he was killed. Marcel’s brother was also killed.

 While in the French underground, Marceau used his artistic ability to change the identity cards of scores of young children, so they would appear to be too young to be sent to labor camps.  He also posed as a Boy Scout Leader, and under the pretense of hiking in the Alps he led seventy young boys to safety in Switzerland.

 After Paris was liberated, Marceau enlisted in the Free French Army, where he was appointed liaison officer of General George S. Patton, because of his fluency in English. He entertained the American troops with his pantomime. Bip Remembers is one of Marceau’s famous sketches. However, Marceau is careful to explain that Bip is not a Jewish character, but that he belongs to the world and his art goes beyond religions. It is his silence that speaks volumes to us. Marceau states: “It is in silence and movement you can show the reflection of people.”

 Twenty years later, in 1965, Simon and Garfunkel wrote these famous lyrics:

“Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.” 

And the silence continues……

 Much more recently on May 28, 2006 a different kind of silence was heard.

While in Osweicim, Poland, Pope Benedict visited the Auschwitz concentration camp as "a son of the German people" and asked God why he remained silent during the "unprecedented mass crimes" of the Holocaust.

Pope Benedict further stated, "To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a pope from Germany," he said later.

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?"

Others have asked how the Vatican under Pope Pius XII could have remained silent during the Holocaust. Some have asked how the Polish church in particular could have remained silent even when Poles massacred around 40 Jewish Holocaust survivors in the city of Kielce. This was in July 1946, almost two years after the liberation of Poland. The police stood by. The army stood by. The church said nothing. Silence. Silence. Silence.

Marcel Marceau has stated in his lectures: “To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man.” Let them be good ones.

Greta Brewer

Vice President of Education,

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