Esther Bendahan (Tetuán, 1964) has just published the novel ‘Listen to the Silence’ (ed. Nagrela), in which she traces a great little family story that begins in Uruguay and passes through Madrid and a Galician village. Precisely there, the protagonist, who suffers from deafness, seeks the testimony of those who saved her grandmother when she was fleeing the Holocaust. A crime and the suffocating atmosphere of a lost town locked in mystery are the seasoning of this narrative that also reflects on the value of the testimony of those who did good in difficult times. Related News standard Yes The extreme left becomes the most anti-Semitic political family in France Juan Pedro Quiñonero According to a survey carried out by Ipsos, on behalf of the BFMTV network, 55% of the voters of La Francia Insumisa are today anti-Semitic – Why? What did you choose the salvation story of a survivor of the Shoah? -I have met survivors who have come to Spain to testify. Annette Cabelli recounted her mother’s excitement about traveling to Spain. They were Greek Sephardim, their mother died in the Shoah but Anette had the joy of obtaining a Spanish passport; also Isaac Revah, Jaime Vandor, Violeta Friedman or Eva Benatar, who tells her story in a book: ‘The Secret Papers of Pape’. In all of them I found the same desire to testify, but above all to discover the path of good, the forces that confront crime, discovering its mechanism is the only thing that can save us. -The search for the Righteous Among the Nations is current. ..-In the ABC there is an article about these heroes (should be the current attitude): Ángel Sanz-Briz, José Ruiz Santaella and his wife, Carmen Schrader, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, Concepción Faya Blásquez, Martín Aguirre and Otegui Sebastián de Romero Radigales, Spaniards who have been given the title of righteous of humanity. Many of the survivors I have had the privilege of listening to have been saved by these Spaniards. You can’t help but shudder. -Why continue in this endeavor? -We must know history, but also to discover the mechanisms that make totalitarianism possible. There are no alarm signals that warn us of danger, because there are no sensors or external organizations prepared to give the alarm signal. But it is as important as preventing cold weather or an earthquake. We need solid structures and citizens with vision and commitment. Besides, listening to the witness helps repair the damage. -In the village of the novel, a plot of dark, corporate interests dominate the public space. Is it a metaphor for our society? – Exactly. There is a shift from the public to the private sector that accumulates more power, power being understood as the ability to resolve issues of general interest. Isn’t it surprising that communications satellites are in the private sector? What risks does this situation entail? -The protagonist is deaf and this gives rise to many reflections, not just literary ones. I would like you to comment on what that narrative decision has brought you. – I wanted the word ‘listen’ to be in the title. Listen is one of the most important Jewish prayers. The book emphasizes the importance of listening. An illness caused the protagonist Mira to become partially deaf. At the direction of her grandmother, a survivor who fled France as a child, she studied sign language at Gallaudet University. I was interested in that territory. I read Oliver Sacks’ book ‘I See a Voice’ and was surprised to discover the awareness of a culture of its own. The character emerged like this, it is part of our reality. A young woman with hearing difficulties, however, who listens to her grandmother imposed itself on me as a story. -Disability allows us to underline the hostility of the world or our fragility. Do we live in a more dangerous world than we believe? -When I see the Valencia dana, for example, I realize that we live ignorant of our fragility, of how vulnerable we are. The surprising thing is to see how in a war one desperately needs to cling to the rites, to the customs. Buying flowers, for example, while missiles fall is an act of resistance. It tells us about the impulse to live. But it is also heroic when one is different in their abilities, they need a wheelchair for example. -What reflection do you propose as a writer for today’s Spanish society? -I would like to propose that we ask ourselves the questions again instead of having them already closed, packaged by others, the answers. And remember a quote from Lord Saks: courage is not necessary for optimism, but it is essential for hope. -The plot of the novel develops like a detective story. Why? -The detective story allows you to ask questions, worry the reader. Who is the murderer, I asked myself while reading a news story that aroused my curiosity, that’s how the novel came about. I just read an author that I was passionate about, Chaim Potok. In a scene about discussions of the Talmud, the protagonist says of a professor: “I like his questions, even if I don’t like his answers.” The novel, literature questions, observes from different angles. I have learned about the 20th century with the novel ‘Life and Destiny’, I believe in the power of the novel to maintain interest, to say what otherwise cannot. -And Spain lends itself to the genre? -In my case, at first I wanted to make a story like the ones my mother liked, when you told her something directly she didn’t believe you, she thought you were always hiding something. I also asked myself several questions, how is it possible that Violeta Friedman and León Degrelle were in Spain at the same time? How do Nazi criminals save themselves? There are very interesting historical books about the Spanish border crossings, which I have been able to consult, by Josep Calvet. But the novel is what it is, a fiction that is born and exists by itself and you can’t do anything but wait for it to stay alive. -The world changed on October 7, 2023. In the West, there is a wave of anti-Semitism in public opinion. How does it affect the lives of Jews in Spain, in Europe? -It represented a new collective trauma. Regardless of political positions, many young Jews have been singled out. The mere mention of Israel or being Jewish is a reason for exclusion. A young man told me that at his university, when he found out that he had family in Israel, a professor, instead of saying: I hope they are well, he asked him if he wasn’t ashamed. He didn’t know what to answer. I hope that Israeli democracy emerges in some way strengthened and that it finds new leaders who know how to lead peace. For Jews, at least in Europe, it has been a warning.
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