Laughter in the Holocaust

    Dr. Chaya Ostrower is a professor at Tel-Aviv University in Israel and her Ph.D thesis focused on the varying functions of laughter during the Holocaust. The paper is based on interviews with hundreds of Israeli Holocaust survivors. She divides the main role of laughter into the following: defense mechanism, aggression, sexuality, intellectual and social interactions. Many people have treated the subject of laughter during the Holocaust as taboo, but I think examining this topic would be a great way of revealing the function and importance of laughter.
    On laughter's role as a defense mechanism, Ostrower points out the importance of laughing as a way to deal with the overall traumatic experience in the concentration camp. One interviewee said, "there were many people who died before their time was up because they did not know how to laugh at themselves." An important distinction must be drawn here. Laughter by the prisoners was not aimed at the experiences they were undergoing, after all, there is nothing funny about the concentration camps. Rather, their laughter is directed at themselves and others around them. It helps to divert attention away from the atrocities happening all around them. People who refused to laugh probably had a difficult time understanding why they were subjected to such terrible and inconceivable things. Humor provides insulation against trauma and helps people to cope with it. For the prisoners in Auschwitz, laughing gives them hope and the strength to keep going.
    The various other functions further prove that laughter is an integral part of human existence. It helps people to persevere through madness by reminding them of their humanity. One of the main goals during the Holocaust of the Nazis was to erase the humanity within the prisoners - by humiliating them, by subjecting them to brutal conditions. However, as Ostrower points out, laughter created a sense of community among those who laughed. We consider the capacity to laugh at a joke as a sign of someone being a complete and normal huma being and an integral part of a functioning society. In a sense, the humor and the jokes were perhaps the last connection many prisoners had with the world they once knew.
   Ostrower's paper makes similar arguments to Kessey's quote in the previous post. Both emphasizes the importance of laughter as a way of dealing with the madness and cruelty in the world. Kessey's point that those who could not laugh eventually succumbs to the pressure runs parallel with the point that many during Holocaust died because they were incapable of dealing with the stress.

We live in the cuckoo's nest

"You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy." - from Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    The above quote was from a narrative by Chief Bromden, who has been locked up in a mental asylum for years, during a fishing trip organized by a new patient, the rebellious Randle McMurphy. Prior to the arrival of McMurphy, the patients (as well as the staff) are intimidated into submissions by the domineering Nurse Ratched, who does not hesitate to deprive the patients of the most basic needs - food, medicine, etc. - and subjects them to electro-shock therapy and even lobotomy. In other words, she's willing to do anything to maintain her absolute control over the asylum. 

    However, McMurphy constantly undermines her authority with his antics and his ability to inspire the other patients. His most important and effective tool is his laughter. In a place constantly filled with chaos and madness - caused by patients and Ratched - McMurphy is able to maintain his sanity through laughter. The Chief implies that for many of those locked up in the asylum, social pressure and oppression drives people insane rather than their inner nature. Ratched and her staff's cruel treatments of the patients are constant reminders to those locked up that the world they live in is miserable and they have virtually no chance of escaping from it. Those who succumbs to the uncontrollable external factors eventually becomes "plumb crazy." I think that "crazy" here refers not only a loss in mental capacity but also inability to cope with reality. This is obvious in the case of the Chief, who pretends to be deaf and mute at the beginning of the novel. 

    McMurphy's roaring laughter reminds the patients that even in a chaotic world, misery doesn't necessarily have to be the only outcome of life. Eventually, the entire asylum follows his lead and helps to end Ratched's reign of terror (though this comes at the price of McMurphy's life). In a cruel and repressive world, people need laughter to give them the energy to keep going and hope for a better future. When Ratched robs the patients of their courage to laugh, they see the world as it is rather than how it should be. But McMurphy and his laughter gradually awaken the patients' desire for a life that they want but couldn't achieve. 

    I think that this is a great example to support my claim that laughter serves as a defense mechanism against physical and mental pains, especially those caused by circumstances beyond a person's control. For McMurphy and many people in the real world, laughter is the only way to cope with a society seemingly filled by madness and cruelty. "Laughing it off" seems like a flippant attitude toward difficulties life, but that kind of attitude might be best way to deal with it. Not doing so will slowly but surely deprive a person's strength and willingness to embrace reality. The change in the attitude and behavior of McMurphy's fellow patients points to this conclusion.

   So the next time life knocks you down, don't mope. Laugh it off and move on.