EDGAR KUPER -KOBERWITZ

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Hello everyone,

 

You must read this!!! What an incredible wisdom!!

 

Take care,

 

Sandra Wijnveldt

 

 

Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz

 

The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp Dachau, in the

midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital

barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day

by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months.

 

 

Dear Friend:

 

You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of

my behavior. Perhaps you think I took a vow -- some kind of penitence --

denying me all the glorious pleasures of eating meat. You remember juicy

steaks, succulent fishes, wonderfully tasted sauces, deliciously smoked ham

and thousand wonders prepared out of meat, charming thousands of human

palates; certainly you will remember the delicacy of roasted chicken. Now,

you see, I am refusing all these pleasures and you think that only

penitence, or a solemn vow, a great sacrifice could deny me that manner of

enjoying life, induce me to endure a great resignment.

 

* * *

 

You look astonished, you ask the question: " But why and what for? " And you

are wondering that you nearly guessed the very reason. But if I am, now,

trying to explain you the very reason in one concise sentence, you will be

astonished once more how far your guessing had been from my real motive.

Listen to what I have to tell you:

 

I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings

and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered

so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own

sufferings.

 

I feel happy, nobody persecutes me; why should I persecute other beings or

cause them to be persecuted?

 

I feel happy, I am no prisoner, I am free; why should I cause other

creatures to be made prisoners and thrown into jail?

 

I feel happy, nobody harms me; why should I harm other creatures or have

them harmed?

 

I feel happy, nobody wounds me; nobody kills me; why should I wound or kill

other creatures or cause them to be wounded or killed for my pleasure and

convenience?

 

Is it not only too natural that I do not inflict on other creatures the same

thing which, I hope and fear, will never be inflicted on me? Would it not be

most unfair to do such things for no other purpose than for enjoying a

trifling physical pleasure at the expense of others' sufferings, others'

deaths?

 

These creatures are smaller and more helpless than I am, but can you imagine

a reasonable man of noble feelings who would like to base on such a

difference a claim or right to abuse the weakness and the smallness of

others? Don't you think that it is just the bigger, the stronger, the

superior's duty to protect the weaker creatures instead of persecuting them,

instead of killing them? " Noblesse oblige. " I want to act in a noble way.

 

* * *

 

I recall the horrible epoch of inquisition and I am sorry to state that the

time of tribunals for heretics has not yet passed by, that day by day, men

use to cook in boiling water other creatures which are helplessly given in

the hands of their torturers. I am horrified by the idea that such men are

civilized people, no rough barbarians, no natives. But in spite of all, they

are only primitively civilized, primitively adapted to their cultural

environment. The average European, flowing over with highbrow ideas and

beautiful speeches, commits all kinds of cruelties, smilingly, not because

he is compelled to do so, but because he wants to do so. Not because he

lacks the faculty to reflect upon and to realize all the dreadful things

they are performing. Oh no! Only because they do not want to see the facts.

Otherwise they would be troubled and worried in their pleasures.

 

* * *

 

It is quite natural what people are telling you. How could they do

otherwise? I hear them telling about experiences, about utilities, and I

know that they consider certain acts related to slaughtering as unavoidable.

Perhaps they succeeded to win you over. I guess that from your letter.

 

Still, considering the necessities only, one might, perhaps, agree with such

people. But is there really such a necessity? The thesis may be contested.

Perhaps there exists still some kind of necessity for such persons who have

not yet developed into full conscious personalities.

 

I am not preaching to them. I am writing this letter to you, to an already

awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels

responsible -- internally and externally -- of his acts, who knows that our

supreme court is sitting in our conscience. There is no appellate

jurisdiction against it.

 

Is there any necessity by which a fully self-conscious man can be induced to

slaughter? In the affirmative, each individual may have the courage to do it

by his own hands. It is, evidently, a miserable kind of cowardice to pay

other people to perform the blood-stained job, from which the normal man

refrains in horror and dismay. Such servants are given some farthings for

their bloody work, and one buys from them the desired parts of the killed

animal -- if possible prepared in such a way that it does not any more

recall the discomfortable circumstances, nor the animal, nor its being

killed, nor the bloodshed.

 

* * *

 

I think that men will be killed and tortured as long as animals are killed

and tortured. So long there will be wars too. Because killing must be

trained and perfected on smaller objects, morally and technically.

 

I see no reason to feel outraged by what others are doing, neither by the

great nor by the smaller acts of violence and cruelty. But, I think, it is

high time to feel outraged by all the small and great acts of violence and

cruelty which we perform ourselves. And because it is much easier to win the

smaller battles than the big ones, I think we should try to get over first

our own trends towards smaller violence and cruelty, to avoid, or better, to

overcome them once and for all. Then the day will come when it will be easy

for us to fight and to overcome even the great cruelties. But we are still

sleeping, all of us, in habitudes and inherited attitudes. They are like a

fat, juicy sauce which helps us to swallow our own cruelties without tasting

their bitterness.

 

I have not the intention to point out with my finger at this and that, at

definite persons and definite situations. I think it is much more my duty to

stir up my own conscience in smaller matters, to try to understand other

people better, to get better and less selfish. Why should it be impossible

then to act accordingly with regard to more important issues?

 

That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law

grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns:

 

You Shall Love Each Other

 

Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz

 

 

About the author:

 

Edgar Kupfer was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp in 1940. His last 3

years in Dachau he obtained a clerical job in the concentration camp

storeroom. This position allowed him to keep a secret diary on stolen scraps

of papers and pieces of pencil. He would bury his writings and when Dachau

was liberated on April 29, 1945 he collected them again. The " Dachau

Diaries " were published in 1956. From his Dachau notes he wrote an essay on

vegetarianism which was translated into " immigrant " English. A carbon copy

of this 38 page essay is preserved with the original Dac hau Diaries in the

Special Collection of the Library of the University of Chicago. The

following are the excerpts from this essay that were reprinted in the

postscript of the book " Radical Vegetarianism " by Mark Mathew Braunstein

(1981 Panjandrum Books, Los Angeles, CA). The book is subtitled " A Dialectic

of Diet and Ethic " and is recommended to all vegetarians especially those

interested in natural hygiene.

 

 

 

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