Topic
Nine:Topic
Nine:Sixty million refugees were made homeless by the war. Millions of other civilians had been caught in the cross-fire of war, unintended victims. And there were an estimated eleven million intended civilian victims, murdered by the Nazis because of their race, religion, sexual preference, physical or mental handicap, ideological opposition, or resistance to Nazi genocide.
After the surrender of the Nazis, Germany was divided into four zones of occupation, controlled respectively by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Authority over Germany was vested in the Allied Control Commission, composed of representatives of those four victorious nations. The Allies liberated the camps, and what they found there left an indelible impression. The camps were littered with thousands of corpses. The German army had apparently tried to murder as many prisoners as possible one step ahead of the advance of the Allies. Many other thousands of prisoners were found, most of them clinging precariously to life. Most of these victims were literally skin and bones, having wasted away from years of hunger, starvation, and forced labor. Once healthy human beings who had weighed 160 pounds before their deportation now weighed less than 75 pounds.
Disease was so rampant that many of the camps had to be burned to the
ground to prevent epidemics. Thousands of these survivors
were in such poor condition that despite the offering of medical care and
sufficient food, they died within days of their liberation.
Administration. Among them were 50,000 Jews who had been liberated from the concentration camps. Many from Germany or Austria had no desire to return to their homes, and many from other countries had nothing to return to entire Jewish towns and villages had been wiped out. Many of these Jews were the sole survivors of large families. The DP camps were for the most part former military camps. Conditions were overcrowded and far from luxurious. Jews who escaped the Nazis by hiding or by fighting in partisan units made their way to the DP camps after the war.
In August of 1945, a report commissioned by President Truman to investigate
the status of stateless persons in Europe gave special recognition to the
plight of Jews. The President requested that the British grant 100,000
visas to Jews to enter Palestine, under the British Mandate. The British,
seeking to limit Jewish immigration, granted only 6,000 visas. But 40,000
other Jews, including 30,000 who had lived in the DP camps, emigrated to
Palestine illegally.
- Conspiracy - A common plan to commit a crime in the future.
- Crimes against peace - Launching a war of aggression.
- War crimes - Violations of international agreements governing the conduct of war, such as mistreatment of prisoners, murder, or forced labor of occupied civilian populations.
- Crimes against humanity - Committing crimes against people, such as murder, deportation, and religious persecution, regardless of whether the action violated domestic law at the time.
A Few Important Aspects of the Cases
Several basic issues were addressed in the course of the trial (not always to the satisfaction of all involved). These issues included: (1) the applicability of international law to the alleged offenses of the Germans during the war (i.e., the applicability of international agreements not signed by Germany, e.g., the Geneva Convention), (3) the responsibility of military and civilian superiors for acts of subordinates, (4) the responsibility of subordinates for acts carried out under their superior's orders, (many of the defendants for their legal defense argued that they were "only following orders" -- the judges rejected that justification), (5) the problematic use of evidence dating back to 1918, and (6) the extension of legal concepts alien to European law, namely conspiracy.
There also more difficult issues such as British planning for the invasion
of neutral Norway prior to Germany's attack in 1940, the massacre of Polish
officers at Katyn by the Soviet Union, the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
of August 1939, as well as the repatriation of former citizens of countries
under Soviet occupation after 1945.
Thousands of Nazi war criminals escaped the clutches of justice, settling in friendly countries and living under assumed identities. The United States government participated in several conspiracies to help war criminals elude justice. Many of these criminals were talented scientists and engineers, and the U.S. government at that time made a policy decision that it was in the interests of this nation to exploit that talent rather than see that justice was done. The U.S. rocket program in the 1950s and 1960s was heavily influenced by the work of German rocket scientists who had participated in war crimes.
Only about 20% of the 150,000 Nazi war criminals were ever put on trial.
Millions of others whose complicity was necessary in order to bring about
the "Final Solution" and to put the master plan into effect escaped punishment.
Today, a half century after some of these war crimes were committed, the
search continues to bring perpetrators to trial.
When the Jews declared the birth of Israel, six Arab nations who were
opposed to the creation of a new Jewish state invaded, hoping to drive
the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Although many Arabs stayed, hundreds
of thousands of them fled Palestine during the war. The invasion was repelled,
and a nation was born whose citizens consisted of many people whom the
Nazis had tried to murder.
On occasion, Neo-Nazis have been convicted of crimes ranging from murder,
vandalism of synagogues and churches, to the intimidation of Jews and other
minorities by threats of violence and actual physical attacks. Membership
in these organizations nationwide may be no more than several thousand.
Attention to the Nazi past in all its aspects -- Hitler's rise to power, the Nazi dictatorship, the abolition of the rule of law, political persecution, Germany's aggression, and Germany's racial persecution of the Jews culminating in mass extermination -- is compulsory teaching in all schools (Realschulen, Haupstchulen, Gymnasia), National Socialism is the centerpiece -- how it could come about, the impacts, what life was like. The Holocaust is treated as a central element of the account. Study of the Nazi era and the Holocaust is mandatory for one half year at the 9th-10th grade level, and is then taken up again in gymnasia at the 12-13 level. Aspects of the era are also explored in civics classes, religion or ethics classes, and contemporary literature classes. Schools often also arrange excursions and on site learning experiences at museums and memorials, documentation centers, and concentration camp sites. Teaching objectives are didactic -- to confront young Germans with the dark past of their ancestors and their own responsibilities, to counter tendencies among them to "normalization" of German historical consciousness, and to lead them to an appreciation of the values and institutions of democracy. Teaching emphasizes the relevance of the past to the present, the utility of knowing about the Nazi story to preventing its recurrence and to responding competently to contemporary manifestations of nationalism, Neo-fascism, and violence.
The above said, praxis differs from places to place. The above applies to the former West Germany -- all of it yet remains to be successfully extended to the former East Germany. Practice also varies by state and locality in the former West. In Bavaria, where Holocaust education is now well developed, where since 1982 the crimes of the Holocaust conceptualized as "historically unique" and "singular" have been stressed, and where the Land provides special programmatic support for visits to Dachau and special support for teachers in and around Dachau to work with student visitors, education in the Nazi era and the Holocaust is well developed. Similarly in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the fate of the Jewish people receive "exemplary treatment," special effort is placed in teacher training on the history and culture of German Jewry and their fate in the Holocaust. Special emphasis has also been placed on encouraging students "to bear the historical responsibility(of the Holocaust) and to oppose Neo-fascist strivings in a political competent manner." In other states, things are simply not so well developed or supported.
The generation of teachers from the 1960's and 1970's, who moved into German cultural and educational institutions, have done important work in making the history of the period central to German education, at least thus far in the West. This generation has learned increasingly how to move beyond moralistic, strident, didactic teaching, which sometimes backfired, to more process-oriented teaching emphasizing student investigation, on-site learning, and student reflection. Some in this generation have opposed a central Holocaust museum or memorial in Berlin, fearing that funds would hence become less available to local museums and memorials around the country, which they employ as places of ongoing teaching and learning. Many people in the United States would see many of these kinds of teachers as kindred souls.
On the other hand, the vogue of local history and social history in the schools has perhaps gone a bit far and abstracted a bit from the essential political and intentional aspects of Nazism and the Holocaust. The vogue of everyday history, participatory techniques, on site learning etc -- especially the emphasis on everyday life in Nazi Germany and German resistance -- tends to blur too much the distinction between Germans as victims of Nazi history and Jews as victims of Nazi history. This whole subject requires more careful attention.
The Secretariat of the Standing Conference of Culture Ministers of the
Lander in Bonn has a booklet entitled "On the Treatment of the Holocaust
at School," (1991), which people can request. Best person to whom to write
is:
Gisela Morel-Tiemann
Head of Division, International Relations
Sekretariat der Standigen Konferenz der Kultusminister
der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Nassestr. 8
D-53113 BONN 1
Stunned by Reaction
After the speech, Jenninger was stunned by the adverse reaction, declaring
he believed he had given a proper historical account of the mood of the
Germans during the rule of Adolf Hitler. But he said Saturday he discovered
that "one must learn that not everything can be called by its real name
in Germany." On Thursday, Jenninger described Hitler's early years in power
as "fascinating," saying that they "created an atmosphere of optimism and
self-confidence" for the German people.
The main accusation against Jenninger was that he did not make sufficiently
clear his own perspective in describing why Germans enthusiastically backed
Hitler in the 1930s. Jenninger's speech and the subsequent furor
that prompted his resignation raised again the perplexing question among
Germans as to how they should personally react to Hitler and his policies
that led to World War II and the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were
systematically exterminated in death camps.
And the controversy reflected a running argument in German intellectual circles about whether the Holocaust was a unique crime or just another form of genocide and mass murder. The dispute involves supporters of Prof. Ernst Nolte, an eminent historian, who in widely read books and articles argued that the world should stop judging Hitler's Third Reich and its atrocities in isolation from the rest of history's grimmer pages. Nolte, a professor at the Free University of Berlin, reasoned that Hitler's decision to make Europe's Jews his scapegoat was determined by his view that Soviet communism was the major menace and that the Jews had helped create it. "From this," Nolte wrote recently, "I developed my thesis that in the gulag archipelago (Soviet labor camps) lay the origins of Auschwitz, and that anti-Bolshevism was a far more compelling motive for Hitler than anti- Semitism. "He tried to explain Bolshevism in terms of its having been created by the Jews in their quest for international capitalism. This connection made the uniqueness of Auschwitz comprehensible."
Thesis Disputed
Nolte's thesis has been disputed by other historians, including Wolfgang Mommsen, a professor at Duesseldorf University and president of the West German Historical Assn. "The historical roots of Hitler's anti-Semitism are much older than Bolshevism itself," he replied. Further, Mommsen says that Nolte's listing of other mass murders in history --the European religious wars, Josef Stalin's massive purges, Turkey's campaign against the Armenians and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's killing of Cambodians--was "almost cynical." "These cases are enumerated in order to balance the atrocities of the National Socialist regime against similar atrocities committed by other nations, to present them in a milder light," he wrote. "Such comparisons are manifestly misleading because the Holocaust amounted to deliberate mass murder on an unprecedented scale." The sum total of Nolte's "half-truths," charged Mommsen, is to justify the view that "National Socialism was not so bad after all." Recently, Nolte was "disinvited" to lecture at Oxford University's Wolfson College once the full faculty learned of the invitation and his controversial views of modern history--an action which was criticized by other scholars as stifling free discussion.
Even Federal President Richard von Weizsaecker stepped into the debate in an address to an assembly of German historians last month, insisting that the Germans bore full responsibility for the Nazi era and warning against attempts to play down its horrors. "Nothing that historical science brings to light today can diminish the crimes of the Nazi era," said Von Weizsaecker. "Auschwitz is still singular. This is incontrovertible. And it won't be forgotten."
Some observers suggested Saturday that Jenninger might have been influenced by the historical debate and tried to reflect the feelings of Germans during the 1930s toward Hitler and toward the Jews--rather than giving a speech that simply emphasized remembrance and contrition. For instance, Chrisoph Bertram, foreign editor of the weekly Die Zeit, said that the speech was timely and not the "usual mea culpa ," but tried to explain why Germans supported Hitler. "Right speech, wrong occasion," commented one diplomatic official.
Often commentators, including a group of visiting Jews from Los Angeles, complain that Germans aren't "facing up to the past." The question is a troubling one, particularly among those too young to have participated in or experienced the Nazi period. "Everyone wrestles with it in his or her own way," said one analyst. "Sometimes it's not so much the generation involved as one's place in the political spectrum." In this view, many conservatives such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl tend to take the view that since they were just youngsters when the war ended, they bear no responsibility for the Nazi period. But this attitude led Kohl to misjudgments--for example, inducing President Reagan in a 1985 visit to accompany him to a military cemetery that included the graves of Hitler's elite SS combat troops. Other SS units ran Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.
Those on the political left, in contrast, tend to insist that the Nazi period be a constant reminder to Germans so that another dictatorship can never to come to power. "Nothing can ever wash away the blood," said an emotional Otto Schily, a leader of the environmentalist Greens party. Similar differences concerning the past occur among the young, who are now grandsons and granddaughters of those who lived during the Nazi years. Some of the young generation insist on learning about the times in school and from their elders. They try to grapple with how much--or little--sense of guilt they should assume.
But other young people take the view that the war was all a long time ago, that the past is behind them and that they should look toward the future. And opinion polls of young and old show that two out of three Germans favor drawing a Schlußstrich , or final line, through the Nazi period and the Holocaust, at least in terms of discussion and media stories--a view that deeply pains members of West Germany's Jewish community of 30,000. (2)
Ciechanowiec, Poland - Matilda Kadyuschewic Meisler, my grandmother, died here in 1921, but it is impossible to find her grave now. The Jewish cemeteries of this little crossroads town on the Norzec River in the farmlands of northeast Poland are not empty, but they have no tombstones. Stanislaw Krynski, the 30-year-old director of the local museum, has assembled a dozen or so Jewish tombstones neatly and prominently on the lawn alongside his museum, a former palace of the nobility. "The Germans ripped out all the stones and used them to make roads and walls," he said. "We found some of these stones last year when we knocked down the old post office building to build a new one. A farmhouse burned down not long ago, and, when the firemen came, they found a couple of tombstones in the ashes."
Last Jew's Death
Ciechanowiec was once a small center of lumbering and textile manufacturing. Before World War II, according to Krynski, it had a population of 5,000 to 6,000, of which 3,000 to 4,000 were Jews. Now, the population is 4,500, none Jewish. "It's a pity that you did not come before," Krynski said. "I knew an old Jew in this town who probably remembered your family. But he died last year. Now there is no Jew in Ciechanowiec." Krynski, a serious man with a faint smile, showed us the traces of the past. Some antique wooden houses of the 19th Century lend the town a genteel and calming air. The old town market dominated by Jewish shops that my grandmother knew before she moved to Bialystok and married life, has made way for a neat and sterile administrative and commercial center, with few things to buy. A synagogue, the only one in town still standing, is now used as furniture factory warehouse.
Pine-Covered Cemetery
A mass grave of executed Jews is marked by a low fence; another mass grave of executed Jews is unmarked and strewn with dead branches and refuse; a Jewish cemetery is now covered by young pine trees. "I can assure you that there is not a piece of stone there," Krynski said of the cemetery. "I have walked over every foot of the ground searching." Polish intellectuals are caught up these days in an anguished debate over guilt. The ancient Jewish culture of Poland was demolished under the Nazi German occupation of World War II. Before the war, 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland, 10% of the total population, a Jewish community larger than any other in the world except that of the United States.
The overwhelming majority were killed during the war. After the war, almost all the survivors fled--from their memories, from Polish pogroms and from official anti-Semitism. Perhaps 6,000 Poles practice Judaism now or identify themselves as Jews. No one accuses Poles of designing or operating the gas chambers of the Nazi camps such as Auschwitz, where several million Jews were exterminated on Polish soil. But the debate about guilt is going on nevertheless in the pages of Tygodnik Powzechny, the Roman Catholic weekly that is Poland's most influential newspaper. The debate began in January when Jan Blonski, a literary critic, commenting on two poems by Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, concluded that the Poles, many of whom were anti-Semitic, had a "co-responsibility" for the genocide that took place on their soil.
Distinction Drawn
"Nobody in his right senses can maintain that the Poles--as a people--took part in the genocide," Blonski wrote. But he then drew a distinction between participation and what he called co-responsibility. "You can be co-responsible," he said, "without actually lending your hand to a crime--first, by omission, or by failing to counteract firmly enough. Who can honestly say that counteraction was firm enough in Poland? " . . . Had we acted more wisely, more nobly, more like Christians, then the genocide would probably have been more inconceivable, more difficult to carry out, and would certainly have been opposed more boldly." Blonski called on Poles "to purify our land" by "acknowledging our past in the light of truth."
The article provoked a furious counterattack. Jerzy Turowicz, the editor, recently summed up the tenor of the letters of protest: "Not only Jews but also we Poles were murdered during the occupation; we first had to save ourselves; we saved the Jews and helped them whenever possible; we carry no blame. . . . "Some of our correspondents even claim that there was no anti-Semitism in Poland, and if it did exist, it was justified." An angry article of rebuttal to Blonski came from Wladyslaw Sila-Nowicki, a 74-year-old lawyer who was an adviser to Solidarity, the now-outlawed free trade union movement. "What could we do?" he said. "Attack the concentration camps with the forces we had? To suffer enormous losses and doom all those in the camps? Let no one lecture us about unfulfilled moral duties, and let not Mr. Blonski say, as he did in his extremely harmful and untrue piece, that we came close to the crime of genocide."
In Paris, Alexander Smolar, an exiled Polish scholar who has written a good deal recently about Polish-Jewish relations, said that romantic nationalism prevented most Polish people from examining their past attitudes and behavior toward Jews. "It is very difficult for the Poles, with all their historical ideas about their own moral purity," he said, "to absorb all this moral ambiguity." My father, who died in 1986, remembered his home town of Bialystok in eastern Poland, now barely 30 miles from the Soviet border, as a pleasant, vibrant city of band concerts and fireworks in a park, of horse-drawn trolleys in streets lit by electric lamps, of Turkish baths on Friday night followed by succulent dinners of duck, gefilte fish, chopped carrots and enormous loaves of bread. "It was a beautiful city, mostly with Jews," he once said. "The people were so nice there." When he arrived in the United States in 1913 at the age of 14, he found the dirty, crowded, hard and lonely city of New York a depressing disappointment.
With the help of old photographs, the taped memories of my father, and a good guide, I found it possible to imagine what Bialystok might have been like in those days. But it was necessary to concentrate very hard, for, in fact, only a glimmer is really left. One can see the reconstructed Town Hall with its clock tower, a few reconstructed houses nearby, an original, antique building here and there, the towering Roman Catholic cathedral, but little else. Almost all the city was destroyed in World War II.
Grimy Industrial City
Bialystok is now a grimy, sprawling, polluted, ugly industrial city scarred with large, dispiriting block apartment buildings for its rootless workers. The restaurant at the Hotel Cristal, the main hotel in town, serves very little food at night but turns into a dance hall for gyrating, drunken Polish workers. Henryk Crernicki, the 67-year-old former municipal controller, guided us around the city. Bialystok, according to Crernicki, is a city of 250,000 now. Before World War II, its population was 115,000, about 60% of it Jewish. The Jews owned most of the shops in town and all but two of the textile factories. During the war, the population swelled to 140,000 as the Germans rounded up Jews from outside and walled them into the Bialystok ghetto. Now, Crernicki estimated, the city may have 15 to 20 Jews. Only three ordered matzo from Warsaw for Passover this year.
One of the four Jewish cemeteries remains relatively intact and a synagogue building still stands. It is used as a city social center, for Bialystok now has little more than commemorative plaques to show for its Jewish past. One plaque, in Polish and Yiddish, marks the site of a synagogue burned down June 24, 1941, by the Germans after they herded 3,000 Jews into it. My mother's aunt and two cousins were among the dead. There is a hoary family joke that Bialystok gave the world three famous men: Ludwik Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto; Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet foreign minister before World War II and the Soviet ambassador to the United States during the war, and my father, Meyer Meisler, the second fastest paperhanger in New York (one Bronx colleague was always acknowledged by my father to be faster).
Bialystok celebrates neither Litvinov (who passed out of favor in the Soviet Union after the war) nor my father, but there is much glorification of Zamenhof these days. A street is named after the Jewish eye doctor who created the international language, and a new bust of him has been placed in the former ghetto. Posters in the town proclaim that Esperanto speakers will assemble in Warsaw and in Bialystok later this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of Zamenhof's book that first set down the rules of grammar and vocabulary of his language. For two days, I tried hard to find the park that delighted my father as a boy. There is a large park in the center of town, a little deserted and desolate, with a massive, monstrous monument to the dead of World War II. It seemed possible that, in bygone days, it could have served as the scene of band concerts and fireworks. But Crernicki told me I was wrong. "That was an old Jewish neighborhood," he said. "The Germans moved all the Jews from here into the ghetto during the war and destroyed all the houses they left behind. After the war, we created a park out of the land."
Despite the lack of a rabbi, a synagogue in Warsaw, preserved because it served as a stable during the war, still functions as a house of worship for the minuscule Jewish community in Poland. But Alexander Seidermann, its 75-year-old sexton, is pessimistic about the community's future. "The youngest Jew in Poland," he said, "is 58 years old." This was an exaggeration, but it is true that there are few younger Jews in Poland. The best known of these few is Stanislaw Krajewski, a 37-year-old mathematician who is looked on by many Poles and foreigners as an intellectual but unofficial spokesman for Polish Jews. The son of assimilated Polish Jews, Krajewski did not begin to delve into his Jewish identity and think about practicing Judaism until he was an 18-year-old student. He did so in reaction to a wave of official Polish government anti-Semitism in 1968. "Compared to the real problems of Poland, the question of Polish-Jewish relations is not significant," he said over dinner at his apartment in Warsaw. "It is a historical issue. Yet people get very emotional about it and talk about it a great deal. There are, after all, not many problems of Poland that are worth talking about."
Catholic Curiosity
Krajewski said that Polish attitudes toward Jews these days range from the traditional, rabid anti-Semitism preached by some extreme organizations to what he called a philo-Semitism emerging among some young Poles. The new admiration for Jews, much of it naive and based on ignorance, he said, stems from a growing Polish Catholic curiosity about the Jewish religion, an admiration for the anti-Soviet policies of Israel, and "a feeling that whatever happened in the past must be better than what is happening now." Krajewski said he believes that the impetus for the present discussion about guilt came from a conference on Polish-Jewish relations held at Oxford University in Britain in 1984. "It was the first time that Polish and Jewish scholars had sat down together to discuss the question," Krajewski said. "It is very hard for Poles to face the anti-Semitism in their past, just as it is very hard for many Jews to understand how much the Poles themselves suffered during World War II."
In 1905, the peace of Bialystok was shattered by a pogrom. Agents of the Russian Czar, who ruled that part of Poland in those days, provoked an uprising of Poles against the Jews, spreading the rumor that a Jew had thrown a rock at a statue of the Virgin Mary during a Holy Week procession. My father, then 6 years old, and his family, were warned by a Polish farmer. They hid in the basement of their home for two days while the killing raged in the streets above. Kosher butchers, with their meat cleavers, defended the Jews but still failed to prevent the massacre of 127 of them. The Jews of the city put up a small obelisk, with the chiseled names of the 127 victims, on a Bialystok street as a memorial a few years before my father left. The obelisk disappeared after World War II, but it suddenly reappeared last year and was placed in the Jewish cemetery. What happened is not clear. "Some politician took the monument away because he wanted it for himself," Crernicki, our guide in Bialystok, said. "But Jewish people finally pressured him to return it." That explanation is hard to accept.
"I'm not sure why it came back," a Western diplomat in Warsaw said, "but it was probably removed in the first place because it was a bad reminder to the descendants of the Poles who took part in the pogrom of 1905." On my last night in Warsaw, the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" appeared on Polish government television. Perhaps politics had a hand in the decision to show it. The government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, seeking international approval in times of economic crisis, is trying to open channels to Israel and to American Jews. The government had a much different political motivation in 1986 when it presented excerpts from Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah," the French-made, 9 1/2- hour documentary on the German extermination of several million Jews on Polish soil. The segments that put Poles in the worst light were shown on Polish television. The government was using the documentary as evidence that the West, despite all its professions of support for dissident Polish movements like Solidarity, really did not like the Polish people.
"Fiddler on the Roof," of course, is a far different movie from "Shoah"
and ought to be taken lightly. The musical is exaggerated and over-sentimental,
an idealized, almost Walt Disneyish version of what Jewish life was like
in Eastern Europe at the turn of the century. The characters are large
but one-dimensional. The musical's relationship to history is marginal.
Anyway, it is set in Russia rather than Poland. Nothing about seeing it
in Warsaw should have moved me. Yet all the sentimentality on the screen
engulfed me, and I could not prevent myself from feeling foolish and wrung.
I had seen too much in Poland, and too little.
His evidence is the reasons these "righteous" gave for saving Jews: "because it was the right thing to do"; "because I would have been ashamed if I had not done so"; "because I am a Christian"; "because the priest said we should," or "what would I have told my children?" "This is different from Otto Schindler," Halter said recently, referring to the central figure of Steven Spielberg's movie "Schindler's List." "In my view, Schindler was a hero, but he was not a righteous. He fought evil with the methods of evil, a bit like in a western. But the behavior of the righteous is one that denies evil." Halter's film - "tzedek" means "justice" or "charity" in Hebrew - is to be shown at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and has so far been sold to distributors in Italy, Canada and Britain.
Halter, who was born in Warsaw in 1936, had a personal interest in the question of "the righteous." His family escaped the Warsaw ghetto and fled to Russia in 1941 with the help of two Polish Catholics. But he has already discovered that the premise of his film is controversial. "After a special showing in Israel, some Jews said it was too early to talk about good when the debate about evil was not yet exhausted," the burly and bearded Halter said in an interview. In France, because he included eight French people who saved Jews, he heard complaints that he was somehow trying to rehabilitate the Vichy regime. He said he wanted to show good as a reaffirmation of his belief in humanity. And he wanted the testimonies to act as a mirror that would lead filmgoers to question themselves. Halter has long worked for human rights and justice in France and elsewhere. But the central theme of his books is memory: memory of his own family and of the Jewish people and also of the Holocaust. Although about 11,000 "righteous" are honored at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, for the film Halter wanted the spontaneity of those who had never been asked, "Why did you save Jews?"
He and his wife, Clara, traced some 200 "saviors" and collected 40 hours of videotape and 1,000 pages of interviews. "After verifying their stories, we picked 42 people," Halter said. "But it was then that I remembered the Talmudic tradition that each generation must produce 36 'righteous' for the world to continue." In the film, which cost $4 million to make and took one year to shoot and another year to edit, Halter is both narrator and interviewer. Appropriately, he starts in Warsaw with his childhood memories of the Nazi occupation in September 1939 and his family's eventual flight.
Immediately, he moves to Sarajevo, as if to underline the topicality of his subject. There he met Zaneiba Hardaga, 74, a Muslim woman who helped save two Jewish families and whose father was executed by the Nazis for hiding another Jewish family. Asked if she was ever afraid, she replied: "Humanity does not know fear." IRENA Sendler, a social worker in Warsaw before the war, organized a network that saved some 2,500 Jewish children. She was arrested and condemned to death but was rescued by Resistance fighters. Today she claims no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death."
In France, Halter found farmers, priests and even two survivors of a
group of seven policemen in Nancy who variously hid Jews, helped them escape
to Switzerland or warned them of roundups. "This doesn't make Vichy look
good," the writer said. "The police in Nancy show that the rest of the
French police had no excuse for helping the Nazis." He noted that
if 450,000 to 500,000 Jews survived World War II in German-occupied Europe,
including 280,000 in France, "it was because in one way or other they were
protected by someone." Yet it is to the motivation of the protectors that
he constantly returns. At the age of 27, named by the Nazis to run
an oil company in Poland, Berthold Beitz hired 800 Jews who survived the
war. Beitz, who is now 81 and vice president of the Krupp Foundation, set
up by the German industrial conglomerate to benefit the arts, said he did
it "for humanity." And he added softly, "As I look back, I can now say
that I did something in my life."(3)
Levi died in the stairwell of the building in which he was born on July 31, 1919. Except during World War II when he was imprisoned, Levi had lived in his birthplace. It was there that he wrote numerous books, essays, poems and short stories. Many of Levi's books were autobiographical and drew upon the atrocities he witnessed in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was kept alive because the Nazis needed his chemistry skills. His first book, "If This Is a Man," was published in 1947, but popular recognition in the United States did not come until the 1980's, when many of his works were translated. The soft-spoken man with a snow-white beard was warmly greeted by American literary critics when he made a triumphant swing across the country in 1985 to talk about his books and the Holocaust. His books included The Truce, The Periodic Table and The Monkey's Wrench. Levi's writing style was simple and direct, but was enlivened with unexpected and felicitous turns of phrase.
On Saturday, some who knew him expressed doubt that Levi, whose books were infused with messages of hope amid human depravity, would kill himself. For them, he not only had survived the ghastly experience in Poland, he had conquered it. "He survived with his soul and psyche intact, where so many who survived were crippled physically and spiritually for the rest of their lives," said H. Stuart Hughes, a history professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. Hughes wrote about Levi and five other contemporary Italian Jewish authors in his 1983 book, Prisoners of Hope. After his concentration camp internment, Hughes said, Levi was "able to look back on the experience as something that he treasured, which may sound rather paradoxical. When I met him I understood it entirely. He had such a positive and hopeful view on life even with dreadful persecution and suffering."
In the introduction to one of Levi's book, the critic Irving Howe described Levi's ability to describe horrifying events with grace and even quiet humor as "moral poise." It was his year in Auschwitz that propelled Levi, a chemist, to write. Penned as a cathartic exercise in 1947, "If This Is a Man," became perhaps his best-known work. The book, which is assigned reading in many literature classes, has sold more than 500,000 copies and has been translated into at least nine languages.
Stayed Alive on a Fluke
As World War II drew to a close, Levi, who had fought with the Italian partisans, remained alive at Auschwitz on a fluke. With Soviet troops advancing, the Germans fled the camp with about 20,000 prisoners who could walk. Levi was left behind. He had caught scarlet fever by eating a dead man's soup. After being liberated by the Soviets, it took him 10 months to return home. That odyssey formed the basis for his second book, The Truce. Levi's memories of that time never paled. Years later, he observed, "It's as if memories of before and after are in black and white, while those of Auschwitz are in Technicolor." Throughout his literary career, Levi remained loyal to his original occupation. As a chemist, he ran a Turin paint and varnish factory until he retired. In an interview with Levi in the New York Times last year, novelist Philip Roth said he believed that only one other writer, Sherwood Anderson, drew a paycheck from a paint company. But unlike Levi, Anderson used writing as a way to escape the fumes.
'I Have No Regrets'
In response, Levi said: "I'd have feared the jump into the dark, and
I would have lost any right to a retirement allowance. . . . I have no
regrets. I don't believe I wasted my time in the factory. My factory militanza--
my compulsory and honorable service--there kept me in touch with the world
of real things." Those who mourned the author's death Saturday included
Tullia Zevi, a close friend and president of the Union of Italian Jewish
Communities. "He always said it was his duty for humanity to recall
the horrors and errors of the past so they might not be repeated," she
said. "He was not inspired by hatred or vengeance. He believed that whoever
forgets the past is condemned to live it again." The speaker of the Italian
Chamber of Deputies, Nilde Iotti, sent a telegram to Levi's widow that
read: "We must consider the tragic death of Primo Levi a sign of the endlesssness
of that episode against man and civilization that was the Nazi genocide.
We understand today how much his books and his words, full of faith in
man and in reason, were for Primo Levi a difficult and painful commitment,
a very human resistance that has not been interrupted today, but rather
is transformed in our sorrowful respect for this last message."
resulting
from the audience the Pope granted this summer to Austrian President Kurt
Waldheim. An outcry arose over that Vatican reception and the pontiff's
public silence on charges that Waldheim was implicated in Nazi crimes during
his World War II service in the German army.
The Pope's letter, released Wednesday, was addressed to St. Louis Archbishop John L. May, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, thanking May for sending him a book. The volume contained the pontiff's previous statements on Jews and Judaism. It was compiled by the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League and sent under the auspices of the Synagogue Council of America.
Aimed at Clarification
The letter makes no mention of the Waldheim meeting, but a U.S. Catholic spokesman said it was aimed at "correcting the misperceptions and clarifying the confusion arising from the Waldheim controversy." "We Christians approach with immense respect the terrifying experience of the extermination, the Shoah , suffered by the Jews during the Second World War, and we seek to grasp its most authentic, specific and universal meaning," the Pope wrote. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League said in New York, "It is particularly gratifying to note that the Vatican is beginning to show sensitivity to the uniqueness of the Jewish experience during the Nazi years and why Jews are disturbed by attempts to universalize the Holocaust." Some Jewish spokesmen said they felt that the Jewish Holocaust experience was played down when the Pope failed during a visit to the Maidenek extermination camp in Poland to mention that the camp's victims were overwhelmingly Jewish and when the Pope beatified Edith Stein, a German Jew who became a nun and died at Auschwitz.
Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman, president of the Synagogue Council of America, noting the letter was "cast in such personal terms," said the Pope's attention to the significance of the Holocaust "encourages me to feel that the Vatican is on the verge of confronting directly the full implications of the efforts to exterminate my people." Klaperman is the only person scheduled to address the Pope at a meeting Sept. 11 in Miami of about 200 U.S. Jewish leaders--an event that was imperiled by the Waldheim incident. Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, director of international relations for the American Jewish Committee, who also applauded the papal letter, has said that a boycott of the Miami meeting is now unlikely unless something unforeseen occurs at the Vatican session. However, Burton Levinson of Los Angeles, national president of the Anti-Defamation League, said that each Jewish organization will make a decision independently after Sept. 1. "The Jewish committee is not monolithic," he said. He nevertheless indicated that the prospects are now good for dropping the boycott.
The strongest "wait-and-see" voice came from Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean
of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, the largest U.S. center
for the study of the Holocaust. "We hope these kind words (in the Pope's
letter) will be transferred to concrete deeds," Hier said. He said he hopes
that the Pope will establish a commission to study whether the Vatican
should establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, a long-standing
complaint of Jewish leaders. Also, Hier said, "lost in the shuffle is that
the Pope has accepted an invitation to visit Austria next year when there
is no question he will meet with Waldheim again." Told of Hier's remarks,
Levinson said the hope for improved Catholic-Jewish relations "should not
held hostage to the Pope's travel plans" or to what the Vatican says about
Holocaust -related issues. Most Los Angeles Jewish leaders have said that
they now plan to participate in an interfaith meeting with the Pope in
Los Angeles on Sept. 16. Hier said his center will wait until Sept. 1 to
decide. (4)
The Jewish Dimension
Representing Judaism's Orthodox community, Pessach Schindler, Professor of Rabbinical Studies at Hebrew University, began with a critique of the term "Holocaust." Schindler rejected the popular term in favor of "Shoah." The term Holocaust was associated with the offering made at the Temple -- a form of loving sacrifice. The "Holocaust" concept, Schindler asserted, evolved from Christian theology..though it has its parallels with Judaism (via the Abraham and Isaac story)...In short, Jews were not "a willing sacrifice of love." Thus, Schindler's advocated replacing the term "Holocaust" with "Shoah" meaning "a complete burning up." Another option, however, was the term hurban which has redemptive aspects.
Schindler appealed to two writings to illustrate his position: the Esh Kodesh (The Sacred Fire) and Em Habam S'meha (The Happy Mother of Children). Both were written during the war. The Esh Kodesh came from the pen of Rabbi Kalymnos Shapiro and composed between September 1939 and July 1942. A classic Hasidic Rabbi, Shapiro's community resided north of Warsaw, numbered no more than 1000, and had a generally mystical orientation. This isolated, self-contained community called Piazeno, moved then to Warsaw en masse. Shapiro tried to deal with theological issues in the context of the then emerging Second World War. Shapiro's questions moved beyond the physical trauma towards the theological. In his mind, the question of the nature of God -- the search for meaning -- becomes paramount. Shapiro's style leaves aside more systematic understanding for a series of questions. These times brought about an understanding, so Schindler believed, that he found lacking in post-Holocaust writings. Shapiro's questions included "What is God's role in suffering? the meaning of martyrdom? what were the themes of protest (direction from "the above"), what were the motives or nuances for raising the moral of the people to whom He spoke. The basic idea being the need to accept suffering with love "as formative or cleansing while acknowledging 'trying moments' as actually bringing people closer to God." "Suffering" within "theology of opportunity." Thus, Shapiro's starting point for the blending two concepts: the God of "mercy and compassion" with the "God of Justice." Simply put, we have a short glimpses of events. This is, consequently, not a simplistic notion of Shoah as response to the sins of the Jews.
What of the question of martyrdom? The tradition of Abraham and Isaac is, thus, projected onto the Jewish community under Nazi occupation. In this case, however, Abraham is not allowed to show God his full faithfulness because of "outside intervention" of an angel. Will the "job" now be completed? We may not have an angel to intervene this time? Or was the Abraham-Isaac tradition not a renunciation of child sacrifice so typical of earlier times?
What were the themes of protest? In the Winter of 1939/40 in the Warsaw ghetto, what of "Sarah" and the consequences of teaching? "Sarah" indicates the limits to suffering as well as the changing Hasidic theology of the late 19th century. Shapiro called upon God to stop the drama of suffering before it got any worse.
Within the post-1941/42 period, themes of encouragement and raising moral -- at odds with idea of martyrdom. One was to continue more than before to concentrate on "doing good things" in order not to "lose God" and become like those who opposed you. On July 4, 1942, Shapiro's diary cam to an abrupt conclusion: "Zion shall be justly redeemed." On September 1, 1943, at the age of 55, Shapiro died at Maidanek.
Another perspective is provided by the Em Habam S'meha. Composed in Budapest in 1943, it was a highly conservative Orthodox tract to the point of "commemorating death" of those who chose to leave the community. An extremely accusatory work, it is clear regarding who is responsible for bring the Shoah onto the Jewish people -- the Zionist movement and the abandonment of traditional faith. The same author, however, would retrospectively see the Balfour declaration of 1917 as a missed opportunity. As for the question of redemption, it was not part of our immediate consciousness but a partnership between those wishing to be redeemed and focusing on the need to look for opportunities; a very activitist point of view.
Protestant and Catholic Dimensions
Petra Heldet (Hebrew University, Christian/Protestant Theology) traced her roots back to Germany's Protestant Church. Speaking on post-Holocaust Christian/Protestant theology, Heldet gave listeners at Yad Vashem powerful points to ponder. Within the Protestant community, James Parkes works in the 1920's promoted the view of the Theodosian Codex as responsible for moving the Jews out of the realm of legal protection. Reinholt Niebuhr and Travis Herford, on the other hand, encouraged a better understanding of the linkage of Christianity with Judaism. Also Jewish author, Jules Isaac (French Jew residing in the late 1920's/early 1930's in Paris) wrote Jesus and Israel. Heldet revealed that even the Pope read it and then invited its author to the Vatican. During his meeting with the Pope, he encouraged a change in the Catholic liturgy for Good Friday -- a liturgy which had historically often caused pogroms.
It wasn't until 1946, however, that the first Jewish-Catholic-Protestant conference took place in Seelisberg, Switzerland. Conference participants made ten recommendations which would find partial implementation in modifications to the german "Passion Play" and in the 1965 Vatican II document Nostra Aetate. Complimenting these activities was Dominican Bruno Hussar, (born Jewish and raised Catholic) whose autobiography, When the Cloud Moves, established a quasi-ecumenical style, better known as Neue Shalom. Hussar perceived three challenged to creating a "new" theology": (1) the Shoah/Holocaust, (2) the state of Israel/archeological evidence, i.e., Massada, and (3) the Qumran scrolls/Dead Sea scrolls/revival of interest in roots.
(a) Special example: Ethics after the Shoah
Theoretical side ... important to have confession of guilt from the church. Bonhöffer (9 April 1945 murdered) demanded that recognition. In 1945 German churches accepted this call. But in Stuttgart in 1945 the statement proved very limited. In 1948, the World Council of Churches met in Amsterdam. They committed themselves to fighting anti-Semitism. Their decisions did trigger the creation of various workshops to study and compare Judaism with Christianity (not between theologians but lay-people).
Theologians had already taken up the challenge back in the early 1930's in the writings of individuals like Martin Buber and Ludwig Schmidt. These ideas were again taken up in the 1950's in Germany. In the wake of Nostra Aetate, the Protestant community worked to create it own version of the Vatican II document. The meeting's proceedings in the United States were published in 1974 by Eva Fleischner and their ideas were developed further in Germany. In 1980, the Declaration of the Rhineland (Protestant Synod), acknowledged its "co-responsibility" for Auschwitz. The declaration was published in Helga Croner's book Stepping Stones Towards Jewish-Christian Dialogue (two volumes). Of the twelve branches of the Protestant Church in Germany, as of 1994 only two had accepted the principle of co-responsibility.
(b) Special example: Super-Sessionism
Super-Sessionism, or "replacement theology," refers to the notion of replacing the old covenant with a new one. Turning to the ideas of Frank Littel, super-Sessionism is one cornerstone of Christian anti-Semitism. Super-Sessionism dominated (even in the mind of Karl Barth) until after 1945. In 1948, Barth wrote to Marquardt (Heldet's mentor) praising the existence of the state of Israel and expressed his willingness to rewrite his twelve volume Kirchliche Dogmatik. The basic question to be addressed was simple: Can a continuation of Christianity be accepted alongside an acceptance of Judaism? Was Jesus Christ the final word or not?
One important response to this challenge came from Elis and Roy Eckhardt in 1967. In their jointly penned paper, they maintained that Christ unites us and separates us. Christian and Jew are united together through a dialectical process. Their analytical tool rested with the interactive concepts continuity and discontinuity. Discontinuity focused on Christ in a more traditional sense (the old kind of theology practiced by Barth). Continuity recognized the continuation of the old covenant being extended (in Jesus Christ) to the whole world. Christ appears in this light as a partial fulfillment of Jewish messianism. Christ did not abrogate the covenant with Israel. Here we have the eschatological unification of all God's people ... focusing on the day of Judgement.
(c) Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965
Nostra Aetate, or the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," has set the stage for a more intense Catholic-Jewish dialogue. A rather unique component of Vatican II, the Catholic Church "rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions [namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and other religions]. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which her own enlightens all men....The Church, therefore, urges her sons to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions. Let Christian, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, also their social life and culture."
There is, however, a special historical and theological relations with Judaism, which in light of the Holocaust, deserved special attention. Supplementing Nostra Aetate is the document entitled "Guidelines on Religious Relations with the Jews" dated December 1, 1974. A call for a renewed dialogue, these Guidelines are intended to reinforce the "spiritual bonds and historical links binding the Church to Judaism" and denounces "all forms of Antisemitism and discrimination." "On the practical level in particular, Christians must therefore strive to acquire a better knowledge of the basic components of the religious tradition of Judaism; they must strive to learn by what essential traits the Jews define themselves in the light of their own religious experience." To that end, the Church advocates an revived and intense dialogue between Christians and Jews, changes in the Church liturgy, teaching, and education, which place the Jews in an unfavorable light.
John T. Pawlikowski interpreted Nostra Aetate as signaling a new stage in Jewish-Christian relations. In Thought (December 1992), Pawlikowski applauded the changes called for in Nostra Aetate. Pawlikowski, however, wants to go further. Concrete historical evidence, e.g., archeological evidence the Dead Sea and scrolls, combined with a "new theology of Christian-Jewish bonding" would generate a renewed appreciation for the teaching of the Old Testament -- as well as respect for Judaism. Pawlikowski's ideas are not his along but those of many (but by no means all) thinkers within the Catholic Church.
(d) Overview
These two elements can be found in both Protestant and Catholic Churches, for example, John Pawlikowski (Catholic) took Eckhardt's thesis to a higher level of development. Pawlikowski clarified the two covenant theory by explaining it as both two-covenants (as did Eva Fleischner) and a single-covenant (as did Paul von Buren). Heldet perceived both movements to have received greater definition in Norman Beck's Mature Christianity (1994).
The Rebirth or Death of Christianity?
The argument begins by proposing a return to our true roots, meaning the Jewish origins of Christianity. The impulse behind this notion is a sense of guilt: Christianity failed in the fight against evil, namely, the Nazis. But the end of Christianity is not limited to this failure alone, but find equally strong links with archeology and the Dead Sea scrolls. Blended with current more critical views of the New testament, we are witnessing an almost complete "destruction" of Christianity around its own evolution, i.e., acknowledging Paul as the oldest writer whose works became less "forceful" as time passed, recognizing Mark as the oldest of the Synopic Gospels, followed by Matthew and Luke who copied from Mark and another as yet unknown source referred to as "Q", and John being the last of the Gospels and the most anti-Semitic. Combined with the growing rejection of super-Sessionism and moving into a dual-covenant mode of thought are but the first steps towards the dismantling of Christianity. The only remaining obstacle is Jesus's "divinity." If or when that falls, so to will the notion of the Trinity and even the idea of Jesus as a prophet -- which is NOT accepted in Jewish circles. While the current intellectual climate may not accept this notion, it does signal several alarming trends: If Christianity falls, so to does a substantial piece of the American idea of religious freedom, its history, its sense of purpose, without there being any alternative to Christianity; this also signals the end of America as we know it today.
Perhaps a better question at this moment is "Why does this seem to bother
me
so much?" Haven't I always been inclined to criticize Christianity as a
form of anthropomorphism (or the deification of Christ/Man) and seeing
Christ as more a "social cynic" within the notion of the historical Jesus?
Haven't I often shouted "hypocrite" at the acts of Christians? Now when
I seem to have what I want, I am sickened by it. Perceiving my culture
and history to have been guided by a myth serves to jettison much of what
I felt by "purpose." I believe, however, that the same fate awaits Judaism.
It may take longer but it too will succumb to similar deconstructionisms.
At this moment, I perceive within the Holocaust a shadow which hangs over
Christianity. Yet, it was inevitable. The Holocaust and the State of Israel
have served only as catalysts. To survive, the Christian world needs a
new asceticism. Using Jesus Christ as the focal point, what will or should
the nature of this new asceticism be? A new romanticism? What shall we
seek? There is a spiritual sickness descending upon western civilization
of hitherto unheard of proportions. How shall we meet this crisis? Seeking
new myths in a "more distant past" will not meet the needs of the present
-- though it would by western civilization a bit more time by putting off
the ultimate consequences of the decline into spiritual depravity. I must
admit that the current lack of a responsible, substantial, and meaningful
response to a growing crisis scares me to death.
back
to see the flames?...the families?...To look is inevitable...dangerous
for others..a question mark for us." Who among the survivors wasn't afraid
of looking back? To look backward meant fear...fear of emptiness. Auschwitz
was a black-hole of history.
Psychologists say it's normal to suppress such memories, but for survivors it's the other way around. Survivors wanted to remember. Remembering came through more than wanting to speak of their memories. Not all experience could be expressed through speaking. Prisoners dreamt of a better life whole waking brought back a bitter cruel tragic reality. After the war, survivors had trouble speaking. Many wanted to share their memories but felt unworthy to the task and lacked the proper words. Wiesel said "I could not speak because people would not understand." He wrote Night for survivors.
Wiesel knew and respected those who now try to teach the lessons of the Holocaust. "Memory has always been for us a commitment...Problem is what to record...fate or despair"? "Which one deserved to enter history?...the classroom?" Ringelblum and other historians have attempted to provide answers to some of these questions. What of other witnesses...Zamosc...a baker who wrote poems on what he saw in the market place..What of those which were left without a single survivor?" "Testimonies? Documents?" Himmler's 1943 speech in Poznan "a page of glory that will never become known" --- the victims will be deprived of a history record as well as their "hunger, thirst, isolation ... agony and death."
What of the oppressors? The "killers saw themselves as gods...the SS was a kind of religious order...for them...we were not worthy of seeing their face...to look into their eyes." "One may grow weak by his humanity...humanity became an obstacle to life...Memory, if kept alive, will be stronger than the enemy." "We are to serve as its custodians...[but] not divert it from its noble mission." "The silent prayer of one dreamer" contains the substance of the truth in preserving the "memories of the dead." "How long does one share memories that lie beyond knowledge?" "When is memory of truth truthful?" "God alone remembers...everything."
The "enemy of memory is...apathy." "Why is history important for education?...It helps us/you sensitize your students...If the Holocaust doesn't, what will?" "Survivors not computers but human beings..Survivors begin to forget. "How can we know what is true fifty years later?" Nevertheless, why don't anti-Semites accept survivors words as true? In part because survivors tell different tales..not everyone had a [satiric intent] photographic memory."
Looking to the 1960's trials in Germany (though also during the Eichmann trials in Jerusalem), defendants came into court laughing!? What do you do with this laughter?...Nasty mean people" use their laughter to discredit the survivors."
Speaking with Primo Levi three days before his suicide...critic doubts Wiesel's memory of night when three prisoners were hung [Night]..."What do you do as witness?...Deniers say 'we don't believe you.'" This is an "assault on memory." "Deniers as 'morally deranged'"... Wiesel refuses to engage them in discussion or debate. He didn't know who supported them "but their goal is to destroy Jewish memory."
Disillusion and trivialization is dangerous as it brings on confusion. [Looking ahead to 1995], Wiesel reminded listeners of the coming 50th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation as well as the two Buchenwald camps -- the small one being for Jewish prisoners (where his father died) no special indication of activities at this moment [Oct. 94].
Wiesel was critical of monument at Buchenwald to victims of Russian occupation. The Holocaust, he said, was "a Jewish tragedy with universal implications." Furthermore, there could be no "comparison" of Auschwitz with events in Cambodia or Bosnia. As far as knowledge of the Holocaust, Wiesel held that "The more I [Wiesel] read [about the Holocaust] the less I understand." "Why" remains an open question.
In his closing comments, Wiesel reminds us that contemporary interest in the Second World War is linked with a continuing interest in the Holocaust. Within that context is the recognition that "The world is no longer the same ... [and] ... Humanity is no longer innocent." "If the ashes of the Holocaust are still so warm, imagine what the flame must have been." And God? Compassionate? "Did God weep...and humanity was not moved?...Will it be moved now?" Wiesel's words struck a deep cord in all present.
2. "Bonn Resignation Spotlights German Sensitivity Over Nazi Past" Los Angeles Times, (LT) - Sunday, November 13, 1988, by: William Tuohy; Times Staff Writer, Copyright Times Mirror Company 1988... Copyright 1993 Times Mirror Company
3. Fri, 6 Jan 1995 10:06:07 CST; Lucjan Feldman <ianf@eleet.mimuw.edu.pl> Subject: "Schindler a hero but not righteous" [From the International Herald Tribune of January 4, 1995] Marek Halter's Search for the 'Righteous' of Nazi Europe. . . by Alan Riding]
4. "Jews Welcome Pope's Remarks on Holocaust" Los Angeles Times (LT) - SATURDAY August 22, 1987 By: John Dart; Times Religion Writer Edition: Home Edition Section: Metro Page: 4 Pt. 2 Col. 1 Word Count: 692 Copyright Times Mirror Company 1987 Copyright 1993 Times Mirror Company.
© 2000 by David A. Meier