not so much..?
I find it very painful in my throat calling treblinka, for example, a “death camp”. Quotation marks make it easier..
Is it being selfish?
Arbitrary?
Ignorant?
Surely, the personal sensations, whichever these might be, are not more than the usage value of the common term?
However, there is a sense that perhaps can be, with some degree of “reason” – if reason can indeed come into this – can be shared if not communicated..
Camp, in the context of Majdanek/Treblinka/etc, reminds me of the Nazi labour “Camp” idea. Casting of these deadly processes with sort of childhood memories triggers of summer camps. Come to this camp – a bit of work will set you free… Or its nothing but a transit camp. Camp is also temporary, suggesting being there is for a relatively short time and made transitory – nothing like the totality of ending, the length of time’s slowness that caught up with the people that were killed. Became the food that fed, and in my mind still feeds, mechanical organisms such as treblinka, majdanek, etc..
We know the story.. We, unlike the victims, know the deadly narrative, the sequence of predetermined, calculated, mechanical and bureaucratically efficient execution of mass annihilation.
Knowing that, is it not hard to use the Nazi term “camp” linked with these places..?
Well.. Obviously am wrong and most people find it pretty easy to describe treblinka as a “death camp”.
However for me its too hard.
There is a mechanical, cold and calculated sense, in the conception, arrangement, function, activities and critique (eg Ardent) of the killing process and rhythms. Also, because of the industrial scale and inspiration of and for this way of disposing lives – am kind of with the term “factory” – at least for now.. I think its missing the organic element, though it can be argued that a factory can be a description of a very organic being/organ,,
Hence am using “death factory”… (Death factories)
Perhaps a deficient term as well.. However, until a better one come along, perhaps using it will not seem too eccentric, but as part of a long process where the impossibility of describing the killings that went on to keep majdanek, treblinka, etc. alive, bares its face..