Kowalke vs. Antigone

Erwin Kowalke is described as a man who “collects the bones of soldier[s] who died” in World War II, believing that “the dead deserve a bit of honor”. In the article “ Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest”, Kowalke has a hobby of finding bones in the earth and preserving them for future generations. In relation, other ideologies would not agree with this act. For Antigone, the idea of digging up excavating bodies and preserving them for future generations would appeal as unjust. During this time period the symbolism of burying the dead was especially important because it brought honor and closure to the deceased person. This type of ideology follows an idea of religion and respect for one’s own family, an obligation to give them honor. As said in lecture, some people believed that your biggest obligation was to your parents and your siblings. Here we are able to see the differences of the ideologies, how some people may feel that bones may be simple objects or a symbol of religion and self worth. As said within the article “Bone have a feel at different ages”. This idea does not only comment on the actual feel of the age of bones however it may as well reflect the change in values of the body as time moves on, such as the modern idea of Kowalke and the thinking of Antigone. This is not to say that there is an abandonment in the value of the body is not still taken into account, but it hints that perhaps there may be less of a value emphasized on religion as there once was.

The Tyrant in Brecht's Legend

I found Bertolt Brecht's poem "The Antigone Legend" to be a very confusing but interesting read. One thing that grabbed me was Brecht's portrayal of Creon (spelled with a "K" in the poem) as a tyrant who was, above all, hungry for power. In lecture for Humanities Core, we have been learning about other possible motives for Creon's stubborn actions. For example, just as Antigone was sincerely standing up for her beliefs in the "laws of the gods," Creon was sincerely defending the laws of the State, which as the king, it was his responsibility to do anyway. He was , according to some scholars or commentators, merely doing his job and justly using his authority.

In the brief introduction before the text of the poem in our HCC readers, Judith Malina writes, "Brecht himself used [the poem] as a rehearsal device intended to develop objectivity in the actors' performances" (187). If I understand the word "objectivity" correctly, it involves a tone of neutrality. How can the poem be objective if it seems to uphold the image of Antigone as the moral one, the "legend," who mesmerizes (if not dissuades) the Elders and her uncle with her wise, self-assured comebacks. Brecht takes this image of Antigone and contrasts it starkly with Creon's hardheartedness. To illustrate the evil of Creon's consuming thirst for control, Brecht compares him to a "monster," in the thirteenth stanza (188). Apparently, even the Elders saw their king in this way. And yet they "looked at [Antigone] coldly and stood by the tyrant" (188). Much of the dialogue made little sense to me. Then again, I have only read the poem once. Perhaps more than one re-reading will help clear things up a bit.

Similarities and Differences between Kowalke and Antigone

In the Article “Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest,” a man named Erwin Kowalke buries the remains of lost Soldier’s bones from World War II. He does this voluntarily and without government or public aid. There is a big similarity between him and Antigone in this sense. Antigone buried her brother even though nobody is allowed to do it. Another similarity is that both of them sometimes perform rituals during the burial of the bodies/bones. However, there are major differences in the reasons for their respective burials. Kowalke buries the remains of anybody he finds. He believes all human life should be respected despite any differences or special relationships he has with them. He buries both Russian and German soldiers. Antigone believes she should bury her brother because he is family and she cares for him. Another difference between these two are the restrictions set upon them. Antigone was told by her Uncle Creon, she or anybody else is forbidden to bury or perform any ritual for her brother. Kowalke has almost no restrictions set on him; he only has people going against his idea of burying Russian soliders in addition to the German soldiers.

Death and Closure

Paralleling the emphasis on a proper burial, Fleishman’s article on Erwin Kowalke illuminates the universality and timelessness of closure. For example, Kowalke describes his experience: “We identified one soldier awhile back. His 92-year-old widow from Berlin came to the cemetery in Halbe…When I saw that old woman in a wheelchair holding the box of bones that were her husband and saying, 'Oh, Werner, I know where you are. Now, I can have peace,' I knew that what I do matters.” Going back to lecture, Hart explained that the Roman Catholics got closure from seeing the physical body of the deceased at the funeral. The physical embodiment of a person still holds its “substance” and importance even if only the remains are left. Because when deceased, the physical represents the concrete connection the mourning have with the dead, it’s important to show respect through whatever burial practices in order to gain closure. Transcending the human need to feel close to the departed, Antigone’s audacious act in offering her brother a proper burial is rooted in her desire to conform to the Greek gods and Greek morals. Although the 92-year-old widow’s priorities probably wasn’t to the Greek gods, being reunited with her husband was her way of rectifying with her beloved’s death. Both Antigone and the widow were presented a loss and, in a sense, relieved when closure was attained.

Kowalke as an counter-example of war

In Jeffrey Fleishman's "Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest," Erwin Kowalke is an counter-example of war. As Kowalke explains, "In these bones you see what war is like. I know war now. I'll tell you what it is. War is young men killing other young men they do not know on the orders of old men who know one another too well." By digging up the dead in Halbe near the Polish border, Kowalke does what many Germans would not do. Although others tell him to just let the fallen soldiers just rest in the forest, he continues his work. This is because he understands that he is where he is today, along with many other people because these soldiers put their life on the line. He not only digs up German soldiers, but Russians too. As Kowalke explains, "some Germans get mad at [him] for that." But, like Kowalke explained earlier, war is young people fighting an old men's war. These young men did not know each other. While society looks down upon him for digging up the "enemy" Kowalke continues his work to show respect to these young men, who he never knew or met, by digging them up. War is hatred among people which escalates to a larger scale. It is where young people who do not know each other kill each other people they are told to. Kowalke, on the other hand, does not show hatred to these young men, rather, he shows them the opposite: respect. By doing so, in Fleishman's article, Kowalke is portrayed as the counter-example of war by his action.

Response #2

Upon reading the article “Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest” by Jeffrey Fleishman, one is able to see the clear similarities between Erwin Kowalke and the title character in Sophocles’ Antigone. Kowalke, instead of interring the dead in order to achieve a cosmic balance to please the gods, unearths remains in order to provide peace for the loved ones who still grace the earth. Thus, the themes of peace and order are present in both stories. Both people face obstacles that prevent them from achieving their identical goal: to give the dead a proper burial. Kowalke is unable to bury the remains he finds properly because more often than not he is unable to identify them. Antigone faces the obstacle of her uncle, King Creon, who refuses to allow a traitor to be buried honorably. Furthermore, the two function as martyrs who are willing to do what others refuse to; Antigone faces opposition from her sister while Kowalke faces indifference from the leaders of East Germany (and the general population). There is also a similarity between the dead in both stories. The leaders in the stories all feel that the deceased in question were aggressive and traitorous instigators of death and hatred who deserve to remain anonymous and improperly buried. Finally, the theme that appears to be the most apparent in both these stories is that of the preservation of honor. Kowalke says that “the dead deserve a bit of honor” while Antigone refuses to ignore the laws that “the gods hold in honor” (91-92).

Observing the Now-Quiet Forest

When it comes to life, there are many things you do that determine who you are. Whether you are a good or a bad person depends on how you treat others and your contribution to society. Perhaps the most interesting question presented in the article by Fleishman is whether or not good or bad people deserve the same burial. According to Erwin Kowalke, he believes that the good and the bad need to have the proper burial. The dead need to be honored and with the honor comes a peace that can be felt by all who were affected by this person in their life. While I was reading this post, there was a definite and ominous feeling that the article was very much related to Antigone's defiance of the state. Antigone buried her brother because of her religious belief that a buried person would be able to go on to the next life in peace. With this peace, you can understand why some people like Kowalke are willing to disturb the resting places of unknown bodies. Some of his opponents challenge his views by asking why he chooses to uncover these old remnants of soldiers. The article describes of a situation where Kowalke found a body of a 92-year-old woman's husband. At the point where he gave this woman her husband's bones, he said that he knew what he was doing mattered to people.
Perhaps the most interesting quote I took from the article is, "War is young men killing other young men they do noto know on the orders of old men who know one another too well." (HCC Reader 235) This quote sums up a majority of the conflicts that are major plots to movies and pretty much situations and cases of war in the world today. There is a certain archetype about the son who gets revenge for his father's death in many novels. The chain of killing does not ever really end and causes even wars to break out.

Week Two: Assignments

Tuesday, April 8
Reading: Brecht, The Antigone Legend: Prologue (HCC Reader 187-195); Kowalke, "Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest" (HCC Reader 1235-237; or see PDF sent by Professor Hart); Gerhard Joseph, "The Antigone as Cultural Touchstone: Matthew Arnold, Hegel, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Drabble" (link to article on Discovery Task #5)
***also read and print out the prompt for essay #7
Writing: Blog post to this week's readings by 9 p.m. Sunday; Pre-Writing Grid essay #7

Thursday, April 10
Reading: continue and reread Antigone Materials, especially Joseph article; Heinrich von Kleist, Michael Kohlhaus
Writing: Discovery Task #5 due; ideas essay #7 & research ideas; respond to two posts

Antigone, take II

If you haven't sorted out the posting stuff yet, you can post your weekly response to the week Two readings here--these include Antigone, Brecht's Antigone, the Kowalki article, and the Johnson article from the list of discovery task articles.

Post #1 - Rites for the Forgotten

In the article, “Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest” by Fleishman, it tells of a man named Kowalke who finds the lost bones of fallen soldiers from World War II. His life work is similar to the efforts of Sophocles’ Antigone. Both make it their priority to give burial rites to and honor the bodies of fallen soldiers. Although Antigone’s focus was more on the burial of her brother-traitor, I see Kowalke as finding the bones of all these lost Russian and German soldiers so that he may cope with the loss of his own father in the war. The article states, “the bones [he] collects honor his father.” (p. 235) In a sense, by burying each soldier, Kowalke buries his lost father each time much like how Antigone was able to put Polynices to rest.

But another aspect that truly relates Kowalke to Antigone is that he excavates both Russian and German soldiers near the town of Halbe despite the protests of locals. In this area outside of Berlin, thousands of soldiers from both nations died when the Russians attacked the Germans on this former battlefield. Thus, many Germans see the Russians as traitors. Regardless of this, Kowalke declares that “‘It doesn’t matter whether they’re Russian or German to [him]. The dead deserve a bit of honor.’” (p. 236) Therefore, according to Kowalke, honoring the dead has more priority over past politics. Now, he alone takes on the mission of speaking for the forgotten soldiers lost long ago and giving them and the loved ones they left behind peace.

Blog #1

Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest
Jeffrey Fleishman

As I read this passage, all I could think in my mind was, Antigone. Yet Erwin Kowalke’s story compelled me more than Sophocles’ Antigone. What Kowalke was doing for the dead Russians and Germans who were killed and left without an improper burial was more heart wrenching for me than Antigone’s struggle for her brother. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy Sophocles’ version of Antigone – the boundaries between “family versus state” were often blurred and contested throughout the play; the end result a tragedy. But in Kowalke’s story, he is not fighting for a “proper burial” of someone he knows and loves. It is true, his father was a soldier who fought in the war and was killed in France only after returning home on “June 3 and three days later it was D-Day in Normandy and they called [his father] back” (HCC Reader, 235).

Kowalke was taking action not for any gratification from the state or divine, but merely to honor those whose lives were taken in the war. By digging up the bones of these Russian and German soldiers, Kowalke is often criticized. Kowalke stated that, “Some Germans get mad at me”, since he also excavates Russian soldiers, but Kowalke realizes that al those who have passed away, despite whether they are Russian or German, deserve a proper burial (HCC Reader, 236). Oftentimes, Kowalke is unable to identify who was once the living person that is left behind only by what could stand the test of 60 years – the bones.

Kowalke is similar to Antigone – striving for the proper burial of young men who passed before them. Kowalke, however, struggles not only for young men that he is related to or knows personally, rather he digs into the cold earth for those who came before him, those who influenced his generation and his time. To Kowalke, it does not matter whether the bones belonged to a Russian or German, just that “the dead deserve a bit of honor” ((HCC Reader, 236).

Blog Assignment #1 by Cheryl Suba

My blog is about the Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest and Berlin, April 1945.

As I was reading this passage, it was very hard for me to differentiate between whether Erwin Kowalke, the man digging up the bones of fallen German and Russian soldiers, was a morbid, disturbing man or an honorable, respect-worthy human being. However, after reading some of his quotes, such as “…no matter what this generation did, without them you wouldn’t be here” it was apparent to me that Kowalke had good intentions to the deeds he was doing (HCC reader, 235). To me, he acted like a modern day Antigone. Antigone too believed, as quoted by Kowalke, that “the dead deserve a bit of honor” (HCC reader, 236). He seemed like a man who knew that no matter what life a person lived, when they die, their death should be honored because their life was not meaningless. Kowalke even dug up the bodies of Russian soldiers, something that the German people became upset about because the Russian soldiers had murdered many Germans (and vice versa, as well). However, Kowalke explained to them that it was the Germans who started the war, and that the Germans should not “forget history” (HCC reader, 236). This can be paralleled to Antigone’s brother, Polyneices. He was a man who people believed did not deserve a proper burial. Antigone went against this, and stood firm that his death must be respected because he too, is a man worthy of such honor.

This passage can also be comparable to the “Prologue: Berlin, April 1945”. It is a story about two sisters who witness their brother being hung. These two sisters can be mirrored to Ismene and Antigone. This part of the passage most intrigued me:

First Sister: “Then I looked at my sister./ Would she now under the penalty of death/try to free her brother? If only he had not died” (HCC reader, 195).

This makes me relate it to Ismene, being the First Sister, to Antigone, being the Second Sister. The First Sister/Ismene were more concerned with not breaking the law, and in all denying any relations to their brother. The First Sister even states, “Please sir, don’t arrest us./ We don’t know this person at all” (HCC reader, 195). Here, the sister acts like a coward. This attribute is something that I connect to Ismene. I believe that because she did not primarily help Antigone bury Polyneices because of her fear of breaking the law, she acted cowardly and gutlessly.

All in all, I believe that people in today’s society should have more character, such as those of Kowalke and Antigone. I think that those who act like the First Sister and Ismene take the easy way out of difficult situations. I once heard the quote, “Land of the Free, Because of the Brave”, which reminds me of the Kowalke passage, because he understood that whether the soldier was Russian or German, both groups fought for what they believed in, and who is he to not respect the other’s life.

Antigone

Please post a reading response to any of the Antigone material--the Sophocles text itself, the material on the blog links, and the variations excerpted in class. The response should be 200-250 words long.

Week One: Assignments

Tuesday, April 1
Reading: Sophocles, Antigone
Writing: inclass diagnostic

Thursday, April 3
Reading: Sophocles, Antigone (focus on keywords) & print out Pre-Writing Grid
Writing: post reading response to Antigone

picture: Antigone at her brother's grave, vase