Eternal Treblinka [Paperback]

Isaac Bashevis Singer first suggested that "for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka." Charles Patterson (Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond) expands on that risky analogy in his latest book, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. Patterson hypothesizes a risky causal relationship, too, when he writes, "since violence begets violence, the enslavement of animals injected a higher level of domination and coercion into human history by creating oppressive hierarchical societies and unleashing large-scale warfare never seen before." Was human "enslavement" of animals the first step on the road to the Holocaust? Patterson doesn't say as much, but it's clear that he feels our inhumanity to the nonhuman is one of our greatest evils.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Charles Patterson expands on Isaac Bashevis Singer's analogy that "for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka." -- Publishers Weekly, November 26, 2001

ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, by Charles Patterson, Ph.D., explores the similar attitudes and methods behind modern society's treatment of animals and the way humans have often treated each other, most notably during the Holocaust. The book's epigraph and title are from "The Letter Writer," a story by the Yiddish writer and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer: "In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

The first part of the book (Chapters 1-2) describes the emergence of human beings as the master species and their domination over the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. The second part (Chapters 3-5) examines the industrialization of slaughter (of both animals and humans) that took part in modern times. The last part of the book (Chapters 6-8) profiles Jewish and German animal advocates on both sides of the Holocaust, including Isaac Bashevis Singer himself.

The Foreword is by Lucy Rosen Kaplan, former attorney for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and daughter of Holocaust survivors.

I'm dedicating the book to the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91), the first major writer to focus on the "Nazi" way we treat animals. The first two parts of the book (Chapters 1-5) put the issue in historical perspective, while the last part (Chapters 6-8) profiles Jews and Germans whose animal advocacy has been, at least to some extent, shaped by the Holocaust.

The conviction of Albert Camus that "it is a writer's responsibility to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves" helped me persevere through the writing of this book. When it looked as if I might never find a publisher brave enough to publish it (some said the book was "too strong"), I took comfort from Franz Kafka's view: "I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So it can make us happy? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all....A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us."

If the issue of the exploitation and slaughter of animals moves to center stage in the twenty-first century the way the issue of human slavery did in America in the nineteenth century--and I think it will--my hope is that this book will be in the thick of the debate. --from Preface

ETERNAL TREBLINKA Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust Charles Patterson

The title of the book is from "The Letter Writer," a short story by the Yiddish writer and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91), to whom the book is dedicated: "In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

The book examines the origins of human supremacy, describes the emergence of industrialized slaughter of both animals and people in modern times, and concludes with profiles of Jewish and German animal advocates on both sides of the Holocaust, including Isaac Bashevis Singer himself.

"In Eternal Treblinka we are presented for the first time with extensive evidence of the profoundly troubling connections between animal exploitation in the United States and Hitler's Final Solution."--from the Foreword by Lucy Rosen Kaplan, Esq.

"Charles Patterson's book will go a long way towards righting the terrible wrongs that human beings, throughout history, have perpetrated on non-human animals. I urge you to read it and think deeply about its important message."--Dr. Jane Goodall

"...promises to be one of the most influential books of the 21st century."--Dr. Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns

"This book is going to change the world."--Albert Kaplan, Jesup & Lamont Securities, NYC

Charles Patterson, Ph.D., is the author of ANTI-SEMITISM: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond, FROM BUCHENWALD TO CARNEGIE HALL (co-author with Mr. Marian Filar), THE OXFORD 50th ANNIVERSARY BOOK OF THE UNITED NATIONS, THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, and other books. He lives in New York City.

Charles Patterson is a social historian, Holocaust educator, editor, and therapist. He is the author of Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond, The Oxford 50th Anniversary Book of the United Nations, The Civil Rights Movement, and From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall (co-authored with Marian Filar). He is a graduate of Amherst College, Columbia University (Ph.D.), and the Yad Vashem Institute for Holocaust Education in Jerusalem. Dr. Patterson now lives in New York City. He is a member of PEN, The Authors Guild, and the National Writers Union.

1: THE GREAT DIVIDE
Human Supremacy and the Exploitation of Animals

Sigmund Freud put the issue of human supremacy in perspective in 1917 when he wrote: "In the course of his development towards culture man acquired a dominating position over his fellow-creatures in the animal kingdom. Not content with this supremacy, however, he began to place a gulf between his nature and theirs. He denied the possession of reason to them, and to himself he attributed an immortal soul, and made claims to a divine descent which permitted him to annihilate the bond of community between him and the animal kingdom." Freud called man's self-appointed lordship over the other inhabitants of the earth "human meglomania."

Several centuries earlier the French writer Michel Montaigne (1533-92) had expressed similar thoughts about "these excessive prerogatives which [man] supposes himself to have over other existences." He believed that man's "natural and original disease" was presumption. "The most calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most arrogant....Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as that this pitiful, miserable creature, who is not even master of himself, should call itself master and lord of the universe?" His conclusion was: "It is apparent that it is not by a true judgment, but by foolish pride and stubbornness, that we set ourselves before other animals and sequester ourselves from their condition and society."

This chapter discusses the emergence of the great divide between man and other animals and man's might-makes-right attitude toward others--what Montaigne called human arrogance and Freud called human meglomania.