but also to what was lost with their death, which is to say “we.” It was in Celan’s native tongue, German, that the Jews were first separated from the “we” of the language to become “they,” and subsequently, in the extermination camps, “it.” The Jews were deprived of their name; in the name lay not only their identity, but also their humanity; they became “it,” bodies with limbs that could be counted, but not named. They became no one. Then they became nothing. All that was left when they were gone was ash.
