Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust (Praeger Series on Jewish and Israeli Studies)

Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

Recent Titles in Praeger Series on Jewish and Israeli Studies The Hope Fulfilled: The Rise of Modern Israel Leslie Stein Continuity, Commitment, and Survival: Jewish Communities in the Diaspora Sol Encel and Leslie Stein, editors Critical Issues in Israeli Society Alan Dowty, editor Israeli Identity in Transition Anita Shapira, editor A Never-Ending Conflict: A Guide to Israeli Military History Mordechai Bar-On, editor

Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

Edited by Konrad Kwiet and Jurgen Matthaus

Praeger Series on Jewish and Israeli Studies Leslie Stein, Series Editor

PRAEGER

Westport, Connecticut London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Contemporary responses to the Holocaust / edited by Konrad Kwiet and Jiirgen Matthaus. p. cm — (Praeger series on Jewish and Israeli studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-97466-9 (alk. paper) 1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Influence. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Memory—Social aspects. I. Kwiet, Konrad. II. Matthaus, Jiirgen, 1959- III. Series. D804.3.C68 2004 940.53'1814—dc22 2004011899 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2004 by Konrad Kwiet and Jiirgen Matthaus All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004011899 ISBN: 0-275-97466-9 ISSN: 1550-1159 First Published in 2004 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www. praeger. com Printed in the United States of America


Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction Konrad Kwiet and Jiirgen Matthaus

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PART I: CONSENSUS AND CONFRONTATION 1 Contemporary Research on the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer

3

2 Contemporary Responses to the Shoah in Germany and Eastern Europe Dieter Pohl

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3 'The Holocaust Industry"?: Reflections on a History of the Critique of Holocaust Representation Tim Cole

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PART II: BELIEFS AND IDENTITY 4 Changes in Christian-Jewish Relations since the Holocaust John S. Conway

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vi 5 Ultra-Orthodox Reflections on t h e Holocaust: 1945 to t h e Present GershonGreenberg 6 A "Third Partner" of World Jewry?: The Role of t h e Memory of t h e S h o a h in t h e S e a r c h for a New Present-Day E u r o p e a n J e w i s h Identity Dan Michman

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PART III: UNDOING THE PAST 7 T h e State of Holocaust Negation DannyBen-Moshe

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8

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Paying for t h e Past: G e r m a n y a n d t h e J e w i s h World Ronald W. Zweig

PART IV: EDUCATION, MEDIA, AND MEMORY 9 The Holocaust: Representing Lasting Images in Film a n d Literature FrankStern 10 Teaching t h e Holocaust Today Sophie Gelski and JennyWqjsenberg

193 219

11 Holocaust M u s e u m s in Germany, Poland, Israel, a n d t h e United S t a t e s James E. Young

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Index

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About t h e Editors a n d Contributors

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Acknowledgments

As the gestation period of this book has been unusually long, the editors would like to express their gratitude to all of the authors and to Leslie Stein, the series editor of the Praeger Series on Jewish and Israeli Studies, for their remarkable patience, as well as to Konstanze and J a n e Kwiet for their help in the prepublication process. Finally, Jiirgen Matthaus would like to thank the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's International Archival Programs Division and its Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies for allowing him to pursue this project outside his official functions as museum historian. The opinions voiced here are his and do not reflect the opinions of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Introduction Konrad Kwiet and Jiirgen Matthaus

If one accepts the notion that dealing with history is based on man's desire to find his place in the world, it follows that heightened interest in the past reflects increased crises in human orientation and self-perception. Our own current interests drive our understanding of history to the extent that the past "as it really was" will always stay out of reach. Since Leopold von Ranke established the craft of history as a scholarly discipline in the nineteenth century, historians are aware that their task is, at its best, one of approximation, that reality will always remain elusive and shaped by subjectivity. Few events in human history defy this approximation as does the Holocaust, yet at the same time it has prompted a vast array of attempts to find meaning in the past and to offer guidance for the future. This discrepancy between the nature of the historical events and the utilitarian element of ex post facto rationalizations seems inherent in Holocaust responses; no intellectual effort can overcome it, no interpretative model can provide definitive answers. This book combines a selection of chapters designed to convey an idea about the lasting and massive impact on our time of the murder of the European Jews. Yehuda Bauer, the preeminent historian of the Holocaust, points to the striking phenomenon that until the end of World War II only Nazi Germany was obsessed with the so-called Jewish Question and its Final Solution while the rest of the world stood by perceiving the fate of the Jews as a "minor irritant." It took some years before the prevailing code of silence was gradually broken and the Holocaust became a focal point of scholarly and public discourse within and across nations. Yet, as our frame of reference is rapidly shifting, the Final Solution

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might be relegated in the more or less distant future to a thing of the past with few, if any, links to the present. Of the many aspects of Holocaust representation, interpretation, and remembrance, only a selection, though we believe including the more significant responses, are covered in this volume. Some of the efforts in this direction have been going on for decades and have become institutionalized in the form of monuments, museums, interest groups, or organizations; others remain elusive owing to their very recent origins or for lack of concrete manifestations. It would be naive to claim that, almost sixty years after the events, our responses to the Holocaust reflect the most recent manifestations of a continuous if not linear progression in coming to grips with the murder of the European Jews. No doubt, significant achievements have been made in a number of areas, such as in the public perception of the scope of German crimes and their traumatic effect on the victims. However, the balance, as reflected in this book, points to as many insights as it shows major deficiencies in our understanding and appropriation of the past. Despite an immense, ever-increasing corpus of Holocaust literature, many areas and topics are still unexplored. The key question "Why?" remains unanswered. At the same time, the relationship between the murder of the European Jews and genocide persists as a contentious issue that, far beyond the narrow circle of historians, sociologists, and political scientists, affects our ability to grasp the meaning of past as well as current events. None of the models of description and interpretation, and none of the theories on the nature of Fascism or National Socialism, anti-Semitism or racism, and totalitarianism or modernity can, in our view, adequately explain the annihilation of European Jewry. The widening gap between history as a scholarly discipline (Geschichtswissenschqft) and history as collective memory (Geschichtsbewusstsein) attests to the fact that academic findings often fail to reach a wider audience. The further the Holocaust retreats into history and the more living memory is fading, the stronger the call for Holocaust awareness and remembrance, even to the extent that—as several of the contributions in this book show—the "Jewish Catastrophe" is utilized by both non-Jews and Jews for political and other purposes without regard to insights gained through research and analysis. While Holocaust scholarship has become highly specialized, fragmented, and divided by national and linguistic barriers, comparatively few efforts have been made to produce comprehensive syntheses. 1 To this day, the classic works of reference, written by Raul Hilberg in the early 1960s and by Yehuda Bauer in the 1980s, have not been superseded. 2 Most of the

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many publications that reflect the scope of scholarly undertakings—encyclopedias, multivolume series, essay collections, and, last but not least, a book such as this—rely heavily on empirical studies produced by specialists in many fields.3 This book and its component parts do not address historical issues of the Holocaust per se, but rather explore the development toward current understandings and perceptions about the Holocaust in various branches of scholarly and public discourse. This volume is not a history of the Holocaust nor is it a history of Holocaust historiography. Indeed, the editors, historians themselves, would argue that a fair share of the responsibility for current deficits can be laid at the door of historiography. The professional keepers of memory have for a long time failed to provide the basis on which others could build; many initial impulses came from those adapting historiographical tools for their purposes: political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, journalists, and artists, many of them survivors of Nazi atrocities. As past reality, the Holocaust was present in the minds of those who had lived through it already at a time when it had not yet taken shape as a distinct phenomenon with a place in the memory of larger entities—social and other groups, nations, supranational bodies. The "historicization" of the Holocaust by mainstream historiography is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Even after this became visible in Germany from the Historikerstreit (historians' quarrel) of the late 1980s, discourse on the subject often fails to question conventional wisdoms and selfserving assumptions—a hardly surprising fact given historiography's complex interrelation with society at large. 4 Yehuda Bauer leads u s into the world of Holocaust research by shedding light on recent trends and findings. He offers a model of defining and exploring various forms of mass destruction that, perpetrated in the last century, have resulted in the death of an estimated 169 million civilians. Within this "universal context" or "continuum of collective murderousness," the Holocaust is interpreted as an event unprecedented in history and emblematic for subsequent genocides. Bauer distinguishes four forms of mass destruction—genocides and genocidal murders, ethnic and national conflicts, political and class murders, and international terrorism—and points, like other authors in this volume, to the events of September 11, 2001, to support his argument that the terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, DC, are changing our perception and understanding of the Holocaust. Radical Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism, and genocidal campaigns alongside politically or racially motivated universal Utopias are posing a threat to humanity. As Bauer puts it, "We all are in the same

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boat. Hence, the crucial importance of research into genocide generally and the Holocaust specifically." The genocide of European Jewry was perpetrated by Nazi Germany with the help of an army of indigenous collaborators. Most murder and burial sites were located in Eastern Europe. The vast majority of victims were East European Jews. Dieter Pohl, an eminent historian based at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich and representing the younger generation of German Holocaust scholars, deals with the repercussions of the Holocaust on contemporary German politics, society, and culture. He also depicts the rapidly changing landscapes in Eastern Europe, outlining the various attempts to come to terms with the crimes committed and the issue of collaboration under the Nazis. The picture that emerges differs from the responses in Germany owing to disparate historical experiences and current interests; yet, a general trend seems to be the "nationalization" of the Holocaust reflected in its specific representation and remembrance. Pohl concludes with the expectation that Europe's political and social integration might have a homogenizing, indeed a globalizing, effect on memory. Another, more frightening, feature of the globalization of the Holocaust is the growth industry of Holocaust denial. The neverending, increasingly international denial campaigns point to the strong resistance against accepting not only the lessons of the Holocaust but its factuality. As shown by Danny Ben-Moshe, an expert in the fields of anti-Semitism and racism, shows that revisionism—once a term denoting an approach geared to critical, empirically grounded analysis of conventional wisdom—has become monopolized by the lunatic fringe in its attempt to replace intellectual notoriety with the semblance of scholarship. Holocaust denial closely ties in with anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist hate propaganda disseminated in the Arab world, adding another dimension to the genocidal climate in the Middle East. From this perspective, what little there is by way of basic consensus in interpreting the Holocaust is misconstrued as part of an opinion monopoly controlled by evil, highly familiar forces interchangeably referred to as "Zionism" or "the Jews," which—as "world enemies"—have to be destroyed. Sixty years after Auschwitz, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the safe season for Jews is nearing its end. Anti-Semitism and racism, reinvigorated by new stereotypes that go hand in hand with long-held prejudices, are on the rise again—almost everywhere. 5 In this current climate, heated up by dogmatic irrationalism and allegations of partisanship, legitimate—that is, rational, factually sound, and constructive—criticism against problematic manifestations of Holocaust memorialization faces fierce resis-

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tance. In addressing the populist charge against what came to be termed "Holocaust industry," Tim Cole, representing the new generation of British Holocaust historians, rightly stresses that questioning contemporary representations should not be mixed up with Holocaust denial; in fact, what he calls "inauthentic contemporary representations" seem to be playing into the hands of deniers. The ivory towers of scholarship have been and continue to be contested ground in the battle over how to read the past and its lessons, often as part of a campaign in the war of conflicting interpretations in society and politics. Given the different experiences, expectations, interests, and perspectives involved in dealing with the Holocaust after 1945, conflict is unavoidable. Consensus can only be achieved in some areas over a limited period of time while firm points of reference are hard to find. Gershon Greenberg, a leading American scholar in the fields of Jewish thought and history, shows that even within the theological framework of ultraorthodox Jewish belief with its roots in biblical tradition, different, often conflicting, interpretations abound. These interpretations are part of a wider debate about God's place in our understanding of the Holocaust that started before the Final Solution. During the German onslaught, strictly observant Jews sought refuge in the religious teachings and traditions of their forefathers. Incarcerated in ghettos and camps or driven to the execution sites and gas chambers, they interpreted their suffering and fate as "death to glorify God," an act of "sanctifying the name of God." Right to the end, they maintained an attitude of faith and sacrifice, practicing Kiddush Hashem. The debate resurfaced after the war in displaced persons camps when survivors asked the question "Where is God?" Today, most theologians agree that the suffering and annihilation of European Jewry transcends existing philosophical explanations including theodicy, a concept created in the eighteenth century by the enlightened German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in an attempt to justify the relationship between God, evil, and suffering. While there is a burgeoning literature on Holocaust theology by scholars such as Eliezer Berkowitz, Ignaz Maybaum, Emil Fackenheim, and Richard Rubenstein, 6 hardly any research has been carried out on the ultra-Orthodox responses. The experience of the Holocaust—the slaughter of 6 million men, women, and children and the indifference of Gentile societies—shattered the Jewish faith in the European Diaspora. Furthermore, after liberation, survivors were often treated with suspicion and hostility, especially those who attempted to retrieve property and assets stolen by Nazi authorities or rapacious neigh-

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bors. Many turned their backs on Europe, seeking a new home in Eretz Israel or overseas, primarily in North America. Strong support for Zionism and the establishment of the Jewish state and mass migration in the postwar Jewish world created two centers or nuclei of orientation: Israel and American Jewry. Dan Michman, professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University and chief historian of Yad Vashem, depicts the landscape of the Jewish world today. At the center of his illuminating chapter stands the emergence of a "third partner" between—and independent of—Israel and American Jewry. Since the 1990s, against the backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, the process of European unification and the deepening crisis in Israel, Jewish intellectuals in Europe have been searching for a new Jewish identity that reflects and emphasizes the continued Jewish existence on European soil. It is a type of "Jewishness," Michman writes, marked by three elements: "the acceptance of Jewish biological descent but with no inherent commitment to Halacha, tradition, or even communal life; by an identification of the 'Jewish heritage' with liberalism; and by the cataclysmic event of the Shoah." Indeed, this most recent and significant Jewish response to the Holocaust illustrates "the versatility of Jewishness and the centrality of the memory of the Shoah." J o h n S. Conway, a world authority on church history, analyzes the changes in Christian-Jewish relations since the Holocaust. He lays stress on the attitudes of the churches toward the State of Israel and the Jewish people as Christian attempts to come to terms with the role played by the churches during the Holocaust. Setting the agenda for the Christian-Jewish dialogue for the twenty-first century, he expresses the hope that both "Christians and Jews will find the community of faith and will be drawn together in collaboration for the future preservation of the world entrusted to them, in the spirit of righteousness, justice, and peace—tzedek, mishpat, and shalom." However, the more dealing with the Holocaust is tied, implicitly or explicitly, to the aim of legitimizing the actions of contemporary bystanders, the groups they represent or of society at large, the less it is suitable to serve as a basis for consensual discourse. In fact, attempts at collective memorialization, especially regarding national monuments as exemplified by James E. Young, pose the question whether consensus is even desirable as it involves negotiated compromise among different groups and produces a rounded, literally artificial image of the past with little room for its inherent nuances and contradictions. After the fact, as we all know, we are always smarter; yet, in our dealings with the past, we tend to ignore its specificity that leads different people to different courses of action with uncertain conse-

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quences. The greater the chronological distance, the more this rule applies and the heavier historical memory becomes submerged under layers of indirect representation through art, politics, and other activities that over time themselves become objects of analytical reflection. This growth of "aftermath studies," a phrase coined by Christopher Browning, 7 seems inevitable not only in what is called "Holocaust studies," but in all responses to the Holocaust. Here, the danger is that secondary insight, even if gained by sound methods, creates and perpetuates a static, monochromatic picture of the past that overlooks both the subjectivity of our own approach and the tentative, constantly shifting nature of our historical understanding. The past does not speak for itself; instead, it resonates via the questions we pose. As much as we will never be able to comprehend the full complexity of events, we are guided in our search for insight by a broad spectrum of influences and interests varying from intellectual via pedagogical to material, often in a complex mix. Ronald W. Zweig, a prominent Israeli historian, explores the Jewish experience of expropriation and expulsion followed by restitution, reparation, and the rehabilitation of survivors. Political, legal, and financial arrangements paved the way for a long and controversial, though largely successful, process that not only determined German-Israeli relations, but also affected decisively the complex interactions within the Jewish world. Zweig leaves open what impact the latest claims and payments will have against the background of previous settlements on the long-term process of "righting the collective and individual wrongs against the Jewish people." Political and legal norms and history and memory have shaped the long process of the legal reckoning with the murder of 6 million Jews. The majority of Nazi killers murdered with impunity. With few exceptions, those who did stand trial maintained their innocence and ignorance. Today, six decades after the murders, the last investigations and trials are drawing to a close, a handful might still end with a conviction. In most countries, the issue of adjudicating Nazi crimes debate is already a thing of the past and has given way to the problem of how to prosecute modern war criminals and genocidal killers. Horrific crimes against humanity have continued unabated since 1945. Neither the International Military Tribunals in Nuremberg and subsequent trials, declarations, or statutes nor extensive media coverage or "early warning systems," let alone academic discourse on the subject, have acted as a deterrent. Unlike during World War II, most atrocities today are carried out before the eyes of the world community. The perpetual bombardment with the images of these events and their consequences

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evoke spontaneous outrage and bewilderment, together with a sense of powerlessness, that all too swiftly gives way to indifference and silence—the basic pattern displayed by bystanders and bystander nations during the Holocaust. Ethical and legal frameworks have been established in recent years to investigate and prosecute war crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression, most notably by the UN War Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, but we have yet to see how successful these instruments are for enforcing the rule of law. The demand by the public for lessons to be gained from the Holocaust is overwhelming and unavoidable. As elaborated by the Australian educators Sophie Gelski and Jenny Wajsenberg, teachers are struggling to develop methods and guidelines for the integration of the Holocaust into existing educational programs. Mapping the minefield of Holocaust education, both authors offer a model oriented toward fostering civic virtues for a more enlightened society. Media representations of the Holocaust are usually less geared to clear-cut pedagogical aims, and more geared to subtle objectives, which makes it difficult to gauge how they affect their audience. Frank Stern, professor of German studies at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva, presents the provocative thesis that the "dimension of representing Holocaust themes can only be compared . . . to the representation of the Gospel in Western culture." Both experiences, he argues, have become central to self-understanding and self-reflection of Western society, as can be seen from the shaping of public knowledge by visual means: undoubtedly, more people will recall the specter of the girl in the red coat in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List than the arguments developed by scholars in weighty tomes. The danger of artificial imagery dominating our perception of historical reality is real; its most visible manifestations are distortions and mystifications. Historical legends abound, mostly driven by specific interests that include sensationalism and greed. For example, the controversies surrounding the books written by Binjamin Wilkomirski and Donald Watt exemplify this phenomenon and its symbiotic relationship with public expectations. 8 Both authors claimed to be survivors of the Holocaust: Wilkomirski, a Jewish orphan, recalling "fragments" of his wartime childhood spent in Nazi death camps; and Watt, a young Australian prisoner of war, telling the unbelievable story of having been a "stoker" in Auschwitz-Birkenau entrusted with the gruesome task performed by the Jewish Sonderkommando. Initially, the testimonies were classified as masterpieces setting new standards for Holocaust

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memoirs. Promoted by effective marketing strategies and bestowed with high awards, they attracted a considerable readership. However, once the dust had settled, the books were unmasked as fabrications; neither author was witness to the events he described. The emotional rigor of the critics following the news of the deception often mirrored their original enthusiasm, and affected how they regarded the effect of survivor memoirs on Holocaust denial. Less troubled by the issue of factual historical truth were those who accepted the accounts as literary renderings of the horrors of the Holocaust. A third group, largely health professionals, continued to praise the stories as therapeutic for survivors, as a means to achieve closure and reconstruct their lost or fragmented memories. 9 However we judge these examples of mythmaking, it seems obvious that there is public demand for them as well as for their subsequent debunking. Additional, yet no less problematic, aspects of selective or distorted representation can be found in the shape of national monuments and museums. As James E. Young, the preeminent scholar in the fields of Holocaust memory and memoralization, points out, the further the murder of Jews recedes in time, the more prominent memorial sites become; this is manifest in the recent establishment of hundreds of Holocaust museums around the world. Depicting the national memorial landscape in Germany, Poland, Israel, and the United States, Young argues that all museums and memorial sites have been built "according to a variety of national myths, ideals, and political needs." Past experiences and current expectations merge to form collective memory, yet remain "an empty exercise until . . . we . . . have grasped—and then responded to—current suffering in the world in light of a remembered past." The "art of memory," we would argue, is also open for a more sinister dimension. In the past, our perceptions of the Holocaust have been shaped by silence (that is, "out of sight, out of mind"), by words, by the media, or through the arts. Soon, another form of representation involves computer-generated images of the Holocaust, such as the impressive reconstruction of German synagogues razed during the November pogrom of 1938 or of the hiding place of Anne Frank in Amsterdam. The same medium could also be employed to re-create other episodes of the Holocaust— roundups, deportations, selections, mass executions, or gassings— or to develop "interactive plays" accessible to all types of users: from young children to curious adults to anti-Semites. Few other instances of dealing with the past provide more challenging if not ominous prospects for technological progress in the age of the media than the field of Holocaust representations.

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Introducing a book on Holocaust responses by highlighting deficiencies and dangers might seem inappropriate or as an u n d u e attempt at preempting criticism. Yet, the concept of failure is built in to the topic and should thus be addressed. If scholarly efforts to understand what happened during and after the Holocaust is aimed at approximating historical truth, our contemporary responses are oscillating—depending on the subject, discipline, approach, and time period—at an uneven distance from the events and their repercussions. The editors and authors of this book hope that they are sufficiently aware of the pitfalls of ex post facto knowledge to have avoided what look like final assessments. Some, perhaps many, of the conclusions provided here will remain; however, the way we interpret postwar appropriations of the Holocaust will as surely change with time as our understanding of the murderous past itself. As such, this book is anything but definitive; instead, it is designed as a temporary beacon of orientation in a shifting landscape of memory.

NOTES 1. To mention the most recent works: Wolfgang Benz, The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Martin Gilbert, Never Again: A History of the Holocaust (London: HarperCollins, 2000); David Engel, The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews (London: Longman, 2000); Robert Wistrich, Hitler and the Holocaust (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001); Deborah Dwork and Robert J a n van Pelt, The Holocaust: A History (London: Norton, 2002); and Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). 2. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. ed. (1961; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); and Yehuda Bauer, History of the Holocaust (New York: Watt, 1982; rev. ed., 2002). 3. Yisrael Gutman, ed., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990); Walter Laqueur, ed., The Holocaust Encyclopedia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); Robert Rozett and Shmuel Spector, eds., Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2000); and Wolfgang Benz, ed., Lexikon des Holocaust, (Munchen: Beck, 2002). Yad Vashem is in the process of publishing, in English, a multivolume edition entitled The Comprehensive History of the Holocaust, which will begin with Christopher R. Browning and Jiirgen Matthaus's The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). From among the vast number of anthologies, see Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

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1998); Ulrich Herbert, ed., National Socialist Extermination Policies: German Perspectives and Controversies (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000); Omer Bartov, ed., The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath (London: Routledge, 2000); John K. Roth and Elisabeth Maxwell, eds., Remembering the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, 3 vols. (London: Macmillian, 2001); Michael Morgan, ed., A Holocaust Reader: Responses to Nazi Extermination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and David Cesarani, ed., The Holocaust: Critical Concepts and Historical Studies (London: Routledge, 2004). 4. On Holocaust historiography, see Dan Stone, Constructing the Holocaust: A Study in Historiography (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003); Dan Stone, ed., The Historiography of the Holocaust (Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); and Dan Michman, Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective—Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches and Fundamental Issues (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003). 5. For the most recent studies on the rise of anti-Semitism in Western Europe, see Paul Iganski and Barry Kosmin, eds., A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st Century Britain (London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 2003); Werner Bergmann and Juliane Wetzel, Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the European Union, first semester, 2002, synthesis report (produced by the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin). As of 2003, this study had not yet been published. 6. Eliezer Berkowitz, Faith after the Holocaust (New York: KTAV, 1973); Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God after Auschwitz (Amsterdam: Polak and Van Gennep, 1965); Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (1982; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Richard L. Rubinstein, After Auschwitz: History, Theology and Contemporary Judaism (1966; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). For a broader context, see Josh Cohen, "Post-Holocaust Philosophy," in The Historiography of the Holocaust, ed. Dan Stone, 469-486 (Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 7. Christopher R. Browning, "Future Directions in Holocaust Studies," Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 55 (2000): 220-222. 8. Binjamin Wilkomirski, Bruchstilcke aus einer Kinderheit, 1939-1948, 5th ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Judischer Verlag, 1995); English edition: Fragments: Memories of a Childhood, 1939-1948 (New York: Schocken Books, 1996); and Donald Watt, Stoker: The Story of an Australian Soldier Who Survived Auschwitz-Birkenau (Sydney, Australia: Simon and Schuster, 1995). 9. See Stefan Maechler, The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth (New York: Schocken, 2001); Blake Eskin, A Life in Pieces: The Making and Unmaking ofBinjamin Wilkomirski (New York: Norton, 2002); and Konrad Kwiet, "Anzac and Auschwitz: The Unbelievable Story of Donald Watt," Patterns of Prejudice 31, no. 4 (1997): 53-60.

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Parti Consensus and Confrontation

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Chapter One Contemporary Research on the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer

Humans, obviously, are the only mammals that murder each other in huge numbers. They engage in something the American sociologist Rudolph J. Rummel termed "democide," that is, the mass murder of people. Rummel argues that between 1900 and 1987 alone, some 169 million civilians were murdered by governments and political organizations; out of these, some 38 million were the victims of genocide, as defined by the Genocide Convention of the United Nations in 1948, and of these, close to 6 million were murdered in the genocide of the Jews that we call, quite inaccurately, the Holocaust, or more accurately, Shoah, because that word simply means catastrophe. 1 Democide is the universal context of genocide, whereas what is now increasingly called "genocidal murders" are those tragedies in which mass murders are committed but a fullscale genocide does not take place, such as in Bosnia, Kosovo, or East Timor. The Holocaust has become the symbol of genocide, and the first question is "Why?" Why this particular genocide, and not other genocides or political murders, such as the genocide of the Armenians to the mass murders in the Soviet Union or China? It is not a matter of numbers of victims. Many more millions of people were murdered in China and the USSR than during the Holocaust, and the proportion of Armenians murdered as compared with their total numbers prior to their tragedy was higher than the parallel proportion of Jewish victims. Also, there can be no gradation of suffering, because it is immoral to say that one person or one group suffered more than the other—murder is murder, suffering is suffering, and all democides include torture and murders of chil-

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

dren and helpless adults. Hence, it is quite clear that the genocide of the Jews does not differ from other disasters of that kind in the amount of suffering of the victims. Why, then, do we deal with the Holocaust as the paradigmatic genocidal event? Why do non-Jews learn and teach it, from Russia to Argentina, and from J a p a n to Greece? The parallels between the Holocaust and other genocides are obvious. Are there also differences that would explain why it has become the symbol for all the others? The Holocaust, I think, has at least five, if not more, characteristics that had no precedent in human history, as far as I can tell. One is that the Nazis tried to find out and murder every single person they defined as being Jewish, whether that person considered himself or herself a Jew. Second, they were determined to achieve that goal all over the world, or in other words, their ideology was universalistic, in a perverted way. Third, the basic motivation was ideological but the ideology was essentially different from that of other genocidal ideologies, in that it was based on pure fantasy. They accused the Jews of planning what they themselves were planning, namely, to achieve control over the world through a conspiracy. It was the idea of an "international Jewish conspiracy," which had been developed by Christian anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages, and which exists today in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Nazism adopted anti-Semitism, but rejected Christianity, because they said it was a product of Judaism. Christianity, despite the violence against Jews in which it engaged, had never planned a genocide of the Jews. Basically, it tried to convert them, not exterminate them. The fantasy of a world conspiracy, the murderous fantasy of the accusation that Jews used the blood of children to bake Passover bread, the fantasy of Jewish corruption of non-Jewish civilizations, all these led to a nonpragmatic, antimodernistic, anti-cost-effective policy. The Nazis murdered their Jewish slaves when they needed them to produce armaments or build their roads. Never before had a genocide been committed that was based on pure hallucinations. Thus, the genocide of the Roma was based on the fact that the Roma were a wandering, supposedly asocial people that disturbed a well-ordered Aryan Reich. Poles were murdered because they had to be cowed into submission to serve as slaves to the Aryan German culture; and so on. In all of these events, there were elements of pragmatism. There was little or none of that in the Holocaust. Fourth, one has to say that National Socialism tried to create something very new: a world society based on the equally hallucinatory notion of race. We know that no such thing as a race exists; we all come originally from Africa. Pigmentation changed in different climates. But the Nazis wanted to establish a world racist society, with

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the Germanic peoples of the Aryan race on top, and everyone else under them in a hierarchic order. No such project had ever been undertaken before. It is, in part at least, the unprecedented character of the Nazi project that explains the unprecedented character of the Holocaust. And, fifth, Jewish civilization is one of the sources of modern civilization in general, it stands at the cradle of both Christianity and Islam. An attack on the Jews is symbolic for those who wanted—and still want—to destroy what most of us would consider to be the basis of humanistic life. All this was unprecedented, but now there is a precedent, the Holocaust itself, and we can see repetition of these elements, and in actual fact, we have seen some of them in recent decades. That danger, only half understood, I fear, may well be the main reason why the Holocaust has become the symbol that it is: it can be repeated, as the most extreme case of genocide, which itself is the extreme case of democide, which threatens humanity. We all are in the same boat. Hence, the crucial importance of research into genocide generally and the Holocaust specifically. Research on the Holocaust has advanced measurably in the past decade or so, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There has been an opening of archives, not only in Eastern Europe, but also in the United States and Britain, with the release of OSS, MI-6, and other intelligence branch information, while the appointment of historical commissions in a number of European countries has facilitated access to previously unknown sources. It is only natural that Holocaust research tended, until very recently, to reflect the intellectual, political, and social needs of the societies out of which the historians come. Thus, German historians concentrated on the perpetrators and the National Socialist regime generally; American scholars dealt first with the policies of the United States toward European Jewry and Nazi Germany generally, as well as with the attitudes of American Jews to the unraveling of the fate of European Jewry. In the United Kingdom, policies of the British government, and the attitudes of British Jewry, were central matters of concern; however, in both the United States and Britain, much attention was also devoted to the history of Germany in the first half of the twentieth century generally. The exception appears to be Israel, for rather obvious reasons: there, attempts to understand Nazi policies went hand in hand with examination of the dilemmas facing European Jewry in the face of the genocide. In French, Italian, Dutch, and other European contributions, local history predominated; however, this research made possible a future integration of findings for the whole of Europe. Quantitatively, it seems, German, American, and Israeli research predominates.

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What remained from the previous era in the world of research in the 1990s was the solid foundation of achievement of the intentionalist and functionalist schools. However, while these different perspectives can still, occasionally, be discovered in contemporary writings, they have been, it seems, largely superseded. The basis for a new understanding of the development of the genocidal policies lies in the detailed analysis of local situations. There, it becomes clear that initiatives for the radicalization of Nazi policies often (but by no means always) came from local commanders and officials, whether of the SS, the civil administration, or the Wehrmacht. However, these initiatives were taken on the basis of a quickly developing consensus that followed the radicalization process emanating from the center, with Hitler as a crucial factor that not only legitimized local initiatives, but pushed them forward. Ian Kershaw, in his masterly two-volume book on Hitler, called it "working toward the Fuhrer." 2 At the basis of these policies stood an ideology that saw the removal, and soon the murder, of the Jews as the focal point of National Socialism. What emerges from this research, for instance, from the crucially important publication of Heinrich Himmler's appointment diary for 1941-1942, 3 is, among other things, that these local initiators were sent to all corners of the expanding Reich precisely because they were deemed to be ideologically sound and willing to execute the policies of the regime, whether or not they were formulated at the center. They knew what was expected of them, and were sure of "moral" support and marks of approval from their superiors. Thus, the apparent dichotomy of local versus central guidance seems to have been resolved: when local radicalizing initiatives were expected and pushed by the center and approved by it, or when local objections to murderous policies for pragmatic reasons were overruled by the radicalizing center, as becomes clear in the cases of Bialystok, Lodz, and even Warsaw (discussed later), the dichotomy disappears. In the United States, too, detailed research, first and foremost by Christopher R. Browning, 4 on the German decision-making process that led to the genocide of the Jews led to increased clarification in roughly the same direction. Browning's volume on the years 1939 to 1942 is scheduled to appear before long with Yad Vashem, and will utilize the newer German research as well as original insights into the interplay between central and local initiatives in the genocidal process. It is worth stressing that the tremendous output of work on Nazi Germany and World War II tends, in the overwhelming majority of cases, to see the genocide of the Jews as the core of Nazi ideology and practice, and as the focal point of the Nazi project generally, even if it is not dealt with in detail. To my knowledge, there

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is hardly any major contribution on the Third Reich that does not discuss the Holocaust directly or indirectly. In that sense, the Holocaust is at the center of historians' concerns when they discuss what is here termed the "aspect of the perpetrator" or, simply, Nazi Germany. It must be noted that the centrality of the Holocaust in historical descriptions of the Nazi period stands in stark contradiction to the perceptions prevalent at the time these things happened. The fate of the Jews was centrally important, in a negative way, to the Germans; it was a minor irritant for everyone else. It is only from a historical perspective that the Holocaust came to be seen as a major event in the twentieth century. Israeli historians confront a technical problem: their work is often published in Hebrew, and not always translated. In their writings about Nazi policies, their emphasis was heavily intentionalist, but this has turned, in the last few years, into a more differentiated approach that, while still insisting on the basically ideological motivation of the genocide—this indeed is in line with much of recent German research—does take into account the insights of the functionalist historians. The emphasis on the individual, the family, and the community is increasingly strong. The critique heard by many Israeli historians of work done elsewhere is that there is not enough emphasis on the perspective of the victims. This is less marked as far as Western Jewry is concerned, as German historians have no language problem in reading German Jewish sources, and the same applies to France, Italy, and the Low Countries. In Germany, though, Jewish history is largely written today by nonJews unlike the other Western countries. 5 Non-Jews still find it difficult to understand the intricacies of inner-Jewish issues, and the cultural heritage that has arguably influenced Jewish responses even in Germany. As far as Jews outside of Germany are concerned, especially the masses of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe, very little has been done outside of Israel, and I will return to this central issue later. However, it must be said that there is a growing recognition by younger German scholars that this is a problem, and some efforts are now being made to access the necessary languages and penetrate into the internal life of these people and ask relevant questions regarding their responses to the threat to their very existence. After a fairly long hiatus, attempts are being made to provide a gestalt, an overarching view, of the genocide from a combination of perspectives. Two recent efforts stand out: Saul Friedlander's Nazi Germany and the Jews and Ian Kershaw's already mentioned monumental Hitler biography. 6 There is a difference between these two outstanding analyses: Kershaw integrates in his volumes most of

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the themes of historical research regarding National Socialist Germany, with the developing anti-Semitic genocidal policy as the core of Nazi ideology and practice. However, he does not claim to be dealing with the detailed process of the genocide, or the life and reactions of the victims, or indeed even the way Nazi Germany dealt with the territories it controlled, and their populations. He centers his study around the dictator, the ideology of the Nazi movement, and the way Germany was governed and led into the disaster of the war and the genocide, but he does not try to, and indeed cannot, deal with the Holocaust specifically. Friedlander takes a different approach. In his book, which deals with the fate of the Jews in Germany in the 1930s, he looks at the relationship of the state, the party, the central and local authorities, and society at large with the Jews. The Jewish population is treated in much the same way, from above and from below simultaneously, so to speak, though he de-emphasizes the role and the work of the Jewish organizations, which have been dealt with by others. He emphasizes the ideological motivation, and explains it brilliantly. In this way, he achieves a synthesis of the parallel stories of perpetrators, victims and (German) bystanders, something that up until now had not been done. This, of course, still excludes a global view of historical development—policies of the West and the USSR, of the international organizations, of the Jewish communities outside of Germany, of the churches, and of the European scene generally are not dealt with in any detail. Such an overview has been attempted only once: by Leni Yahil in her book that was published first in Israel and then in an English translation. 7 Yet, in many ways, it seems, Friedlander might well have been the harbinger of a new and more satisfactory methodology of presenting an immensely complicated subject matter. Yahil has gone even further, though, in her attempt to present an overall picture of the Holocaust, balancing the different viewpoints in an impressive overview. Unfortunately, her book is less well-known than those of the two other authors mentioned here. To come back to Friedlander's book, the main challenge is still before him, even if he stops at 1942, as Browning does in his latest analysis of the Nazi extermination policies. If he follows the admirable example of his treatment of the fate of the Jews in Germany in the 1930s when he comes to deal with the war period, he will have to extend his coverage over most of Europe, with its different populations, and the differences between the Jewish reaction patterns in different countries and within them. This is a formidable task indeed, and it is not made any easier by the fact that the history of the victims seems to lag far behind the treatment of the perpetrators and the bystanders.

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Of the probably close to 6 million victims ot the Shoah, the vast majority were East European Jews. Certain sociological and cultural patterns appear to have been common to the Jews in these areas. Apart from Israeli historians, survivors working in the West such as Philip Friedman, Josef Wulf, Isaiah Trunk, Leon Poliakov, and others, have studied these Jewish populations in the past. 8 Older Israeli authors, too, such as Ben-Zion Dinur, Marek Dworzetzky, and many others, made parallel early studies. Problems discussed concerned the role of the Judenrate, the armed and, partly, also unarmed resistance, and to some degree also issues of social structures and cultural and religious life in the death throes of Jewish life in those areas. Great emphasis was put on the large ghettos—Warsaw, Lodz, Vilno (Vilnius), Kovno (Kaunas), and later also Cracow and Lwow (Lviv)—in a volume by Israel Gutman. 9 Some of the volumes produced by Israeli historians dealing with these central problems in a monographic form were also translated, such as books on Vilno and Kovno, and the death camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka. 10 However, quite a number of such research is still unknown to non-Hebrew readers, such as the monographs on Bialystok, on Cracow, on Lwow, on the Jewish partisans in Belarus, on Slovakia, and others. 11 We will soon, hopefully, have Hebrew editions of volumes on Lodz and Romania (which will complement the parallel research published by the Washington Holocaust Museum). 12 It is unfortunately very difficult to have such Hebrew books translated into English—donors prefer brick and stone, statues, monuments, and museums to mere books. When they provide support for books, it is often to commemorate particular communities or individuals, often members of their own families. This is understandable, but of littie help to the clarification of the historical record in its proper context. It must be said that our knowledge and understanding—two different concepts—regarding East European Jews still leaves much to be desired. Israeli historians do engage in the study of overarching issues of Holocaust research; thus, Otto Dov Kulka and David Bankier have dealt intensively with German public opinion, and Kulka has made groundbreaking contributions to the history of German Jewry (including his publication, together with Eberhard Jackel, of a vast compilation of relevant sources). Renee Poznansky has published an equally groundbreaking volume on French Jews, in French and in Hebrew. My own work has also been, in part at least, in the general area of the overarching issues of Holocaust studies. 13 If one disregards for a moment the important contribution of Trunk, and the publication of the Czerniakow diary by Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kermisz, 14 it is hard to point to a concentration

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of effort on the history of the victims. It is as though they should be the concern of Jewish, mainly Israeli, historians, whereas others deal with the "really" important issues. But this is a misconception: in any mass catastrophe caused by humans to humans, there will always be more victims than perpetrators, so that all of us are, in the worst case scenario, more likely to find ourselves on the victim side than on the perpetrators'. And as far as the "bystanders" go, were we and are we not all just that, in the face of the Holocaust, the genocide of the Armenians, the Gypsies, the Tutsi, and today of the genocide in the Sudan, and the impending one in Burundi, to quote just a few of a number of examples? Hence, the imperative to deal with the background and the history of the victims, in order to find out more about some very vital issues: Who were they? What was their culture? What were their belief systems and their social and economic traditions? and Did these have any impact on their behavior and reactions to the tragedy they found themselves facing? What, indeed, were their reactions, as societies, as individuals, and as families? How did they see what was happening around them and to them? What were their relationships with their neighbors? Why were these neighbors' attitudes to them so different from one society or country to another, and what can we find out about the proportions of helpers and rescuers, as compared to all the others, among these neighbors? In many ways, it is both easier and more fascinating to deal with evil than with suffering. Also, it is undoubtedly, very important to deal with evil. But then, if one does not balance this with the other sides of this multidimensional reality, the picture becomes skewed, and in the end irrelevant. As far as the Jews are concerned, there still does not exist a single book that summarizes the life and death of Polish Jewry. Although a first attempt to do just that for the Jews in the Soviet Union in its 1941 borders will be published before long. There are some monographs on Bulgaria, but no real overall analysis as yet. A volume on Yugoslavia exists in Hebrew and awaits translation. A volume on Greece may be ready in a year or two. Important work, but no summary, exists for Italy. Several attempts have been made by Wolfgang Benz and others (as previously discussed) for instance, to analyze the fate of German Jewry, and, of course, Friedlander's volume deals with Germany in the 1930s. Important summaries have been made for the Netherlands, but for Belgium there are only beginnings. 15 Outside of these geographic and geopolitical parameters, substantive problems remain to be dealt with. A crucial study of the Judenrate in Poland by Aharon Weiss in the 1970s, 16 which tends to correct the somewhat stereotypical, because largely formal,

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analysis of Isaiah Trunk, has not yet been superseded, although much new material has come to light. The same can be said about social life and unarmed and armed Jewish reactions to Nazi actions in Eastern Europe. With one exception, no monograph exists on the many hundreds of small Jewish townships and towns in that area, although perhaps up to 40 percent of the Jews lived in them. 17 There have been important attempts to summarize and analyze Polish-Jewish relations before and during the war period, and afterward, but there is still very much to be done there. 18 As far as Jewish-Belorussian, Jewish-Ukrainian, or Jewish-Lithuanian relations are concerned, the material has been and is being collected, but no satisfactory analyses are available so far. There are a number of impressive works on what are inaccurately called the "bystanders." Policies of the Western powers have been discussed in important studies; equally so for the Jews in the so-called free world. No attempt has been made so far to summarize Soviet policies regarding Jews. The recent publication of the Bergier Commission's volumes on Switzerland are a model of what can be done in this regard for the neutrals. There is Leni Yahil's book on the rescue of Danish Jews, and there is some valuable work done for Sweden (but none for Turkey). 19 The fact that the Vatican archives are still closed is a scandal that prevents serious historical research into the role of one of the vitally important players in the drama. What, then, is the main desideratum? The answer, it appears to me, are histories that will combine the perspectives of perpetrators, victims, and so-called bystanders, and summarize the tremendous numbers of monographic studies. The library of Holocaust studies is vast, and there is no longer any possibility for one person to read everything that has been or is being published. One major problem needs to be considered here: what is the future of this past? Is research supported by major universities, and is the subject being taught there? On the face of it, a large number of universities all over the world teach and conduct research about the Holocaust. In the United States, there are many hundreds of courses offered that deal with Holocaust-related topics. In the United Kingdom, some universities do likewise. In Germany, practically every university deals with the Nazi period. There is the Center for the Study of Antisemitism (Zentrum fur Antisemitismusforschung) in Berlin, and a seminar on the Holocaust at Bochum. In Freiburg, the Holocaust is taught in the context of dealing with the Nazi period. In Warsaw, the Department for Jewish Studies deals with the Holocaust. In the Netherlands, all universities teach about World War II, based on the great archive of the RIOD, and within that about the fate of Dutch

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Jewry during the Holocaust. In Sweden, a course on the Holocaust is offered at Uppsala University, and related courses are offered in Lund. Similar situations can be found in many other countries. In Israel, every university has at least one department in which the Holocaust is being taught. However, appearances are misleading. In the United States, for instance, the teaching staff has had no proper grounding in Holocaust history, and research is concentrated on the perpetrators and the American bystanders. There are very few exceptions (at New York University [NYU] at the University of California-Los Angeles [UCLA], and a couple of other places). Yet at the same time, the Holocaust is taught at hundreds of universities and colleges. Here, a differentiation has to be made between the different disciplines: some people seem to think that it is possible to teach the Holocaust from a literary or theological perspective on an insightful level without knowing too much about the history. I would argue that without knowing more about the historical background, it is difficult to gain an understanding of the Holocaust in any disciplinary area. Yet, the historical approach is very definitely undersold in a culture in which the teachers gain their expertise in, say, American or general European history, but teach a topic on which whole libraries have been written by now but which they did not study in any depth. As far as research is concerned, I know of only three academics in the United States who can do independent research on East European Jewish history during the Holocaust, which to me is the central issue of the Holocaust altogether, because they know the languages and are trained in history or sociology, and, in addition, they have the will to do the research. A major problem in the United States in the past was the tendency to bury Holocaust studies in Jewish studies departments, where they very emphatically do not belong. It was a safe way to shove the issue away; almost only Jews took Jewish studies, the disciplinary departments—history, sociology, literature, and the like— were freed of that problem, and yet at the same time the institution got the money (from Jewish sources). Holocaust studies and genocide studies should be anchored in a discipline, and then taught on an interdisciplinary basis. This is rarely done. There are but two institutions in the United States that approach the problem from what I would consider a desirable viewpoint: the Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University, which is anchored in the Department of History and offers degrees in Holocaust studies and research on an interdisciplinary basis, and the Stockton College of New Jersey's M.A. program in Holocaust teaching. Both programs are new (two or three years old). It is absolutely futile to found chairs in Holocaust

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studies, because there are hardly any persons who could occupy them. Three chairs are active: at UCLA (Saul Friedlander), at Brandeis (Anthony Polonsky), and at NYU (David Engel). What is needed everywhere is a PhD program that will train experts who already have a good grounding in history/sociology, and who know the languages of Eastern European Jews: Yiddish, German, Polish, and Hebrew, at the very least. For the perpetrator side, there are plenty of excellent scholars, and no further effort is needed. The situation in Israel is not that much different. At the moment there are only three or four scholars at the university level who can research East European Jewry, and very few younger people who promise to be Nachwuchs (offsprings). I do not need to go into the situation in Germany, Poland, or other European countries because the situation is very similar. There is almost no scholar in Western or Northern Europe who can do independent research on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (there are two in the United Kingdom). The Holocaust is being taught there, insofar as it is being taught, on the basis of secondary literature. But there is a major problem, because there is a tremendous expansion of teaching about the Holocaust, and other genocides, all over Europe and the Americas, and it is penetrating into East Asia as well. Who will teach the teachers? Who will provide the necessary research for the teachers of the teachers? Teaching depends on research, and what we need is a globalization, if you will, of research on the Holocaust. Studies on the Holocaust should by no means exclude or push aside research on other genocides, their backgrounds, their perpetrators, and their victims. Every attack on a group of humans always targets a specific group, for specific reasons at specific times and places. J u s t as you cannot understand the Holocaust without knowing a great deal about the Jews, so you cannot deal with the genocide of the Roma without knowing something about Roma culture, traditions, and history. What the Nazis did to the Poles was clearly a genocidal attack, according to the definitions of the UN Convention of 1948. It is clear that one cannot write about the fate of Poland during the war without an intimate knowledge of Polish history, society, and culture. I do not plead for an exclusive preoccupation with the victims; but I do plead for a much more balanced research policy that will bring in the essential dimensions of the problem as faced by specific communities that have been, still are, and are likely to continue to be targets of mass destruction. There can be no doubt that research on the Holocaust will be affected by the events of September 11, 2001. The relevance of the

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Holocaust—and of genocide generally, of which, as I tried to point out, it is the most extreme case so far—to the post-9/11 world will become an issue. Of course, the attack on America did not begin with that event. The first attempt at blowing up the Twin Towers in 1993, the killing of U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, the blowing up of the American embassies in Africa, the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole, and, very significantly, the attacks in Buenos Aires on the Israeli embassy and, later, on the building of the Argentine Jewish community, all preceded September 11. The writing, some will say, was on the wall; and we are perhaps still too near in time to these events to have the appropriate perspective. Nevertheless, some hypotheses can be advanced even now. I would suggest that we differentiate between four main forms of mass destruction of humans at the hands of other humans: genocides and genocidal murders; ethnic or national conflicts, such as those in the Mideast, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, or Macedonia; political or class mass murders that take place within a state unit, such as the mass murders committed by Communist regimes; and international terrorism. These categorizations are abstractions from reality and should be taken more as indications, not as hard-and-fast separate phenomena. In fact, I would argue that one should see them as a continuum of collective human murderousness, and include all of them in Rudolph J. Rummel's definition of democide. It seems to me that, from a political point of view, genocide and genocidal murders become possible when potential perpetrators attain overwhelming power in relation to a relatively powerless targeted group. This was the case in all of the genocides (and genocidal murders) in the twentieth century: in the cases of the Herreros, the Armenians, the Jews, the Assyrians, the Kurds, the Roma, the Poles, the Tutsi, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Kosovars. The same principle applies to political or class murders on a large scale, as in the case of the mass murders in the USSR and China. On the other hand, ethnic or national conflicts arise when there is a balance of power between the contending parties (as in the cases discussed earlier), and neither side can overpower the other. However, in all such conflicts, both parties hope to gain victory; hence, compromise is impossible as long as the power balance persists. If one of the parties succeeds, the danger of genocide or genocidal murder can become imminent. International terrorism in its contemporary form is always quasi-religious: it promises a universal utopia that can, in the nature of things, only be attained by a universal victory, in other words by world domination. In the past one hundred years, there have been three such quasi-religious fundamentalist universal Utopias: German National Socialism, Soviet Communism, and rad-

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ical Islamic fundamentalism. The iron rule seems to be that universal Utopias kill; radical universal Utopias kill radically. The Utopias in all three cases led or lead to the probability of genocide or genocidal murders. The connection between Islamicist terrorism and genocide is open and clear. In his manifesto of 1998, Osama Bin Laden spoke of his relentless struggle against "crusaders and Jews"—by crusaders he meant the Western world; by Jews he meant all Jews, not just Israel. This is genocidal language, and people who use such language do not use it lightly: they mean it. The Holocaust, as the poet and fighter Abba Kovner said after World War II, showed these forces how easy it is to kill a people, how speedily it can be done. The Rwandan genocide of at least 800,000 people took only three months; people have learned how to do it. Fundamentalist terror, using ethnic/national conflict, engaging in political/class murder, leads to the possibility of genocide. The solutions, in principle, are obvious: genocide must be prevented before it starts, because after it has started it is too late. This is not a question of information, because in all potentially genocidal situations, all the information, in todays' world, is readily available. The solution to ethnic/national conflict is compromise, which can be achieved either after both sides are exhausted enough to try compromise, or outside powers force them to reduce the level of violence and negotiate. Fundamentalist terrorism must be fought also, but not exclusively, by force: without a concentrated, massive, propagandist attack on the fundamentalist ideology, and without addressing the socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and sociocultural problems that provide feeding grounds for these ideologies, there will be no success in this struggle. Political/class murders are, as in the other cases considered here, the product of nondemocratic regimes. In fact, Rummel has shown that democratic regimes do not fight wars with each other. The solutions are therefore as obvious as they are excruciatingly difficult to achieve. These are very contemporary issues, to which we should direct some of our research energies.

NOTES 1. Rudolph J. Rummel, Democide (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1992) and Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1995). 2. Ian Kershaw, Hitler (London: Lane, 1998) and Hitler, 1936-1945, Nemesis (New York: Norton, 2000).

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3. Michael Wildt et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers, 1941/1942 (Hamburg: Christians, 1999). 4. Christopher R. Browning, Fateful Months (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985), The Path to Genocide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), and (with Jiirgen Matthaus) The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). 5. See, for example, Wolfgang Benz, ed., Die Juden in Deutschland, 1933-1945 (Munchen: Beck, 1988). 6. Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews (New York: HarperCollins, 1997); and Kershaw, Hitler and Hitler, 1936-1945. 7. Leni Yahil, The Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 8. Philip Friedman, ed., Their Brother's Keepers (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978); Josef Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Vollstrecker (Berlin: Arani, 1961); Isaah Trunk, Judenrat (New York: Macmillan, 1973); and Leon Poliakov, The Harvest of Hate (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1959). 9. Israel Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). The Hebrew original was published in 1977. 10. Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1980); Dina Porat, The Kovno Diary ofAvraham Tory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); and Yitzak Arad, "Operation 'Reinhard,'" Yad Vashem Studies 16 (1984): 205-240. Extensive studies on these issues, with an emphasis on the story of the victims, have not been translated from the Hebrew. 11. Such as the studies by Sarah Bender, Yael Peled, Haim Jonas, Gila Fatran, Shalom Cholawsky. 12. Michael Unger on Lodz, and Jean Ancel on Romania. 13. Otto Dov Kulka, Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus (Tubingen, Germany: Mohr, 1997); and Public Opinion in Nazi Germany and the "Jewish Question" (Jerusalem: Middle East Institute, 1982); David Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1992); Renee Poznanski, Etre Jwf en France Pendant le Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Paris: Hachette, 1994); and Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001). 14. Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds., The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow (New York: Briarcliff Manor, 1979). 15. Apart from the older volumes by Jacques Presser and Louis de Jong, see Nanda van der Zee, Um Schlimmeres zu verhindern (Munchen: Hanser, 1999); and Dan Michman, ed., Belgium and the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998). 16. Aharon Weiss, "Jewish Leadership in Occupied Poland—Postures and Attitudes," Yad Vashem Studies 12 (1977): 335-366, and "The Relations between the Judenrat and the Jewish Police," in Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe, 201-218 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1979). Weiss's article on the Judenrate in Eastern Galicia was not translated. 17. Theo Richmond, Konin: A Quest (London: Cape, 1995).

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17

18. David Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); Yisrael Gutman, 'The Attitude of the Poles to the Mass Deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto in the Summer of 1942," in Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1977); John-Paul Himka, Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of Jews; Martin Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-1944, (London: Macmillan, 1999); and Anthony Polonsky, "Beyond Condemnation, Apologetics and Apologies," in The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945, Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13, ed. Jonathan Frankel, 170-224. For a contrary view representing the Polish perspective, see Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989); and J a n T. Gros, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernment, 1939-1944 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979). 19. Leni Yahil's book The Rescue of Danish Jewry (Philadelphia: JPS, 1969) has been criticized, but still is the authoritative analysis. For Sweden, see Steven Koblik, No Truck with Himmler (Los Angeles: MS, 1984); and Paul A. Levine, From Indifference to Activism (Uppsala, Sweden: Studia Historica Upsalensia, 1996).

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Chapter Two Contemporary Responses to the Shoah in Germany and Eastern Europe Dieter Pohl

It is almost impossible to outline the different contemporary responses to the Shoah. These include memorialization, compensation for the surviving victims, confronting anti-Semitism and historical research. The Shoah is also an issue in the arts, education, and public discourse. Public awareness of the murder of European Jews has changed dramatically since the 1980s. This should be seen as part of a worldwide process, which had an impact both on Germany, the country in which the genocide was initiated and organized, and on Eastern Europe, the region where most of the victims lived and where the majority of crimes took place. GERMANY AFTER 1945 The genocide of European Jews during World War II is a fundamental issue of contemporary German politics, society, and culture. This crime against humanity has been part of the German consciousness since 1945, albeit in different forms. From the end of the 1950s, a specific culture of commemoration emerged. The main memorials, in West Germany as in East Germany, were situated in former concentration camps, in particular Dachau in Bavaria and Buchenwald in Thuringia. The notion that the Nazi crimes were committed primarily in concentration camps on German soil was common until the 1980s. The major form of commemoration occurred on memorial days, in particular November 9, the anniversary of the Reichskristallnacht. Several cities organized exhibitions or financed books on the history of the local Jewish communities, which included chapters on the Nazi period.

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

At the political level, Nazi crimes surfaced in one of two ways: in consensual issues such as the German policy toward Israel or in public conflicts such as the Restitution question, political scandals, or in parliamentary debates. Press coverage of the Nazi careers of German politicians such as Globke and Oberlander instigated political discussions. After the heated debates on the amnesty proposals and Restitution laws during the early 1950s, the major discussions in the political arena concerned the statute of limitations, particularly in 1965 and 1969; the latter ending— unlike 1960—in an effort to continue legal investigations. In the German Democratic Republic, where history always remained the prerogative of the communist leadership, the official policy of anti-Fascism claimed that the Communist Party was the major opponent and the major victim of Nazism. The tragedy of the Jews was relegated to second or third place, or was ignored completely during the "anti-Zionist" campaigns. Only in the late 1980s did the government make a specific effort to commemorate the Jewish fate, in particular in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the Reichskristallnacht in 1988. The murder of European Jews has been a regular subject in the West German media since the early 1960s, especially in connection with the new wave of Nazi crimes trials such as the Adolf Eichmann and Auschwitz cases and local court proceedings. Prosecution of the perpetrators had started in 1945, but practically ceased after eight years. It intensified in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite the extensive efforts of the investigating bodies, only several hundreds of the perpetrators were sentenced in West Germany. The most significant forum for dealing with the Nazi crimes was the arts and culture. Countless novels and memoirs were published after the late 1940s; most of these did not focus directly on the history of the persecution, but at least included it. The subject was a constant fixture in the theater, starting with The Diary of Anne Frank in the mid-1950s to the highly disputed The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth and Investigation by Peter Weiss. A specific narrative of Shoah history prevailed both in the media and in public consciousness. Put simply, there was a chronological pattern: boycott, Nuremberg laws, Reichskristallnacht, the introduction of the Star of David for German Jews, and, finally, the deportations. Adolf Hitler and his entourage were seen as primarily responsible; the crimes were committed by primitive SS men; the majority of the victims were German like Anne Frank, and most of them were killed in concentration camps. The German war society was considered to have been completely unaware of the crimes, although contemporaries in the 1950s and 1960s knew better.

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21

Until the end of the 1970s, the murder of the Jews was never an issue considered and dealt with by all members of society. It was always restricted to certain sections of the population, for example, the so-called liberal public. But from the late 1950s, there was a general change of climate, as evident in opinion surveys from that time. The early respect for Hitler and outspoken anti-Semitic beliefs declined. Until the 1970s however, the history of Nazism was not fully included in school curricula. This change in consciousness was the result of institutional and personal initiatives, by the Jewish communities, by the labor unions, and by others. It is clear that this increase in awareness of the crimes against the Jews was connected to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany. An antitotalitarian consensus developed, at first directed primarily against Communism, but from the mid-1950s also against neo-Nazism. While interest in the past had increased approximately thirteen years after the war, it declined again during the heated debates of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The early 1980s saw another dramatic shift. There were specific and structural reasons for this development. The change in public opinion was due to the U.S. fictional television series Holocaust, which shocked the German public. On the other hand, thirty-five years after the war, a new generation was showing an increased interest in the local history of their communities under Nazism. This resulted in widespread exhibitions, local research projects, and broad media coverage. At the federal level, this coincided with the last parliamentary debate on the Statute of Limitations in 1979. Public awareness was further heightened by President Richard von Weizsacker's parliamentary speech on the fortieth anniversary of the war's end, which he now considered a liberation, rather than a defeat. The German unification process in 1989-1990 did not end this development, altering only its political basis. A negative consequence was the emergence of right-wing extremism in East Germany. And, similar to the Historikerstreit (historians' quarrel) of 1986, the debate on Nazi and Communist crimes in German history widened. This is especially evident in the debates concerning the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, which were used both before and after 1945. In general, however, interest in the history of the Shoah continued to gain momentum. CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES It is almost impossible to summarize the many forms of Shoah awareness in contemporary Germany, generally called Vergangen-

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

heitsbewaltigung (coming to terms with the past), a neologism. There is no doubt that the Third Reich and its crimes are situated at the center of German historical consciousness. This is evident primarily in the media and in education. Both press and television include Shoah subjects almost on a daily basis, 1 commemorating specific anniversaries, recounting local stories of persecutions, issuing new publications, or reporting on specific cultural and political events. There is an almost constant flow of television documentaries and feature stories in newspapers and journals, often based on original research. Similarly, the genocide is a fundamental subject in most spheres of education. It is included in all school curricula, sometimes even in early grades. World War II and the Nazi crimes play a central role in public education. They form the subject of seminars, lectures, exhibition programs, or organized travel to memorials and other sites of the genocide.2 The Shoah is not an obligatory subject at university, since there are no curricula for history, political sciences, or Jewish studies. The availability of courses depends on the abilities and interests of the university lecturers. Increasingly, genocide research is connected to the universities, in particular institutes attached to universities such as the Zentrum fur Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin. On the other hand, historical inquiry is still concentrated in research facilities such as the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich, the Topographie des Terrors in Berlin, or in regional institutes and memorial museums. 3 A wide variety of regional and local memorials exists in Germany, especially in connection with former concentration camps (and sometimes their branches), other "perpetrator places" such as former administration and Gestapo buildings, prisons, and execution sites, commemorating, for example, the death marches of 1945. 4 In general, most of these memorials were erected in the first decades after the war. In some memorials such as Dachau and Buchenwald, the exhibitions have been recently revised, in response to new research. 5 The most recent memorials relate overwhelmingly to the persecution of Jews. In 1988, a program to install a central Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe was initiated. In J u n e 1999, after a long public and political debate, the German Bundestag agreed to erect the memorial in the center of Berlin. This is expected to occur in May 2005. 6 Prior to this, in 1996, the German Parliament designated the liberation day of Auschwitz (January 27) Memorial Day for the Victims of National Socialism. Almost sixty years after the war and with the exception of such commemoration matters just discussed, the Shoah is not a constant subject in German politics. All institutions and democratic

Contemporary Responses to the Shoah

23

parties have accepted the responsibility of the German state for the genocide of the Jews. Certain issues, however, continue to bring this subject into the political arena, for example, the rise of rightwing extremism and anti-Semitic propaganda in Germany and on the Internet. Unlike most other European states, which have passed general laws against racist propaganda, in 1994, Germany included the denial of Nazi crimes as a specific offense in the penal code. 7 The judicial investigation of Nazi crimes has almost ceased. The last trial took place in 2001, fifty-six years after the crime. The last federal political decision concerning the Nazi past dealt with restitution for former forced laborers, including a minority of Jewish survivors. Of the survivors who stayed in Western Europe or emigrated overseas, most received financial compensation after the 1950s; additional support for survivors in Eastern Europe was agreed on in 1992. 8 On the other hand, the Shoah is still used as a political argument, evident for example in the discussion on the German military participation in the Kosovo conflict. A parliamentary session about the so-called Wehrmacht-Ausstellung (criticism of the Wehrmacht) is another clear example of the contemporary debate on how to deal with the past. Apart from the political parties, other organizations also concern themselves with the meaning of the Shoah today. The labor unions and the churches, especially the Protestant ones, periodically address the question of guilt during the Nazi period. Professional organizations have begun to investigate their past, as have universities since the 1960s. Media coverage of the U.S. lawsuits concerning "lost" Jewish assets have induced German enterprises to initiate and support historical research on their responsibility during the Third Reich. These enterprises include the postal services and railways. Even the German Football League financed a book on its brown past. Many other institutions have felt obliged to make a public statement of apology.9 A general culture of "apologizing" has evolved. It is little wonder that the Shoah has a central place in German culture, especially in the arts, and this has been so since the late 1950s. The renaissance of Jewish culture is one of its expressions, for example, the commemoration of persecuted Jewish artists. The fate of the Jews has been expressed and integrated in all forms of the arts in Germany. But despite successes such as the novel Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink, the published diaries of Victor Klemperer, or the memoirs of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, it is the overseas productions, in particular the Steven Spielberg movie Schindler's List, that have had the major impact.

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

This overview offers only an outline of the variety of responses in Germany. Obviously, there is no uniform discourse in a pluralistic society. A minority is not interested in Nazi history at all.10 The direct confrontation with the generation of perpetrators is losing its relevance, although the debate is now more public than it was immediately after the war. But today it is more a confrontation with individual involvement or guilt rather than the generational conflict witnessed in the late 1960s. The growth and influence of mass media on modern society has had the greatest impact on Shoah awareness. There is a constant flow of media coverage on the subject, moving beyond the scandal reports that dominated until the 1980s. Certain members of the elites, but also among the general population, have become very sensitive to this issue. This can be seen in the reaction to the speech, given in 1988, by Philipp Jenninger, president of the Federal Parliament, or to Martin Walser's prize speech in October 1998, in which the renowned author claimed that Auschwitz had become a moral weapon and one that was being used excessively. The major debates of the 1990s centered around Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners and on the exhibition Vernichtungskrieg by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Both dealt with the culpability of the "ordinary German" in Nazi crimes in general and the Shoah in particular. Both are evidence of the enormous impact of the media on this subject. 11 Most of the debates deal with a limited set of issues: 1. How much remembrance is necessary; how much is counterproductive? In the last years, the inflation and, in some cases, the trivialization of responses have been criticized. 2. The question of institutional and individual guilt: Is it possible to define individual responsibility in a totalitarian dictatorship? What latitude did Germans have in the Third Reich? 3. What is the relationship between the remembrance of the Shoah and that of crimes against other victims? This debate has developed in particular with regard to the Berlin memorial and the restitution for forced laborers. 4. How to deal with victims of Nazism on the one side and those of Communism on the other? There has been a tendency to weigh these issues against one another, but also to integrate both complexes in a general narrative. In recent years, additional facets have been added to the issue of victimhood, such as the debates on the German victims of Allied strategic bombing and of the expulsions from the East between 1945 and 1948.

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25

As the public discourse evolves, these questions produce different answers. Nonetheless, a new type of narrative about the Shoah has developed, indirectly influenced by the historiography of the past two decades. Now, a much higher involvement of the German elites and average Germans in the Nazi crimes is admitted. There is a broad awareness that Eastern Europe was the region most affected by occupation and mass murder. Other victim groups such as the Roma, the handicapped, forced laborers, or Soviet prisoners of war have been taken into consideration. And the notion that most Germans did not know anything about the mass murder during the war is no longer as common. A large proportion of the population is now willing to deal with crimes committed by their own nation. From a historical and global perspective, one could say that the greatest crime in history was followed by the greatest attempts to deal with it. EASTERN EUROPE The role of the Shoah in Eastern European identity is as complicated as the development of the East European states themselves. Only a few aspects can be addressed here. While Germany is perceived as the "perpetrator country," the Eastern Europeans consider themselves primarily to be victims of Nazism. The role of the state and society during the war differed from country to country—from open collaboration to institutional resistance. Thus, their Jewish communities were affected to different degrees. Immediately after the liberation, all Eastern European states installed investigation commissions, sometimes initiated by survivors' committees. Reports of Nazi crimes were widely publicized, especially in connection with the ongoing trials against German perpetrators and their collaborators. This public awareness changed drastically after 1947, following the takeover of the Communist regimes. The specific role of Jews as victims of the occupation was downplayed during the first anti-Zionist campaign and Nazi crimes became a mere tool to persecute the political opposition or to support propaganda against the West. Since the late 1950s, there has been a greater effort to publish on the Shoah. This came to an abrupt end with the second antiZionist campaign during the period 1967-1968, which terminated nearly all state-sponsored enterprises of commemoration, especially in Poland. During the 1970s, most activities ceased, but after that, in parallel with the West, there was a renaissance of interest in Jewish culture and history.

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

The political upheaval in Eastern Europe had a dramatic impact on the awareness of Nazi crimes in this region. First and foremost, censorship was abolished. Jewish institutions in particular were no longer restricted in their activities. At the same time, the media and the education sector played an important role in raising interest in the subject. Generally, this consciousness was state sponsored rather than rooted in society. Reasons for this are connected, on the one hand, to the relationship with Israel, the United States, and the European Union and, on the other hand, to the sensitive issue of collaboration. It is further complicated by the issue of Jewish assets, which could significantly affect some Eastern European countries. A more problematic phenomenon is the (re)awakening of right-wing movements in Eastern Europe, which has been accompanied by anti-Semitic propaganda and attempts to rehabilitate indigenous perpetrators (see the chapter written by Danny Ben-Moshe in this volume). The latter is not restricted to right-wing extremism, but part of a new nation-building process, which looks for usable traditions, especially in "new" states such as Ukraine, Slovakia, or the Baltic States. The developments regarding the treatment of the Shoah in the public sphere are conflicting and changing. But this may be part of the continuing transformation of the Eastern European countries. Poland Poland is the country most affected by the tragedy of the Jews. Every tenth inhabitant was killed during the Shoah; a complete cultural world vanished. While the Shoah has figured almost constantly in the arts, 12 most of the historical research and preservation tasks were undertaken by Jewish institutions such as the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. After the end of martial law and an almost fifteen-year break, these efforts were intensified, especially after the commemorations for the fortieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1983. 13 Because of the outstanding role played by Solidarity in the democratization process in Eastern Europe, public debates on the Shoah began as early as the 1980s. In 1987, the famous Catholic newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny initiated the first debate on the relationship between Gentiles and Jews during the war since 1947. 14 The heated discussion on Auschwitz as a place of Gentile or Jewish tragedy, centered on the Auschwitz Carmelite monastery, received much public attention, as did the more scholarly debate on the number of victims, which was reduced from the old Soviet commission figure of 4 million to approximately 1.2 million victims. 15

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The public debate was reinvigorated by J a n Tomasz Gross's book on the Jedwabne pogrom in July 1941. The notion of Poles killing Jews en masse sparked an outcry in the country. For certain parts of society, their identity as a "martyr nation" was heavily shaken. This discussion also illustrated that there is no clear demarcation between nationalist conservative attitudes and rightwing extremism. 16 Poland, however, represents the clearest example of a nation, which had been suppressed by German occupation, but is able to deal with the question of its own guilt. It is to be expected that, in the long run, a limited reformulation of the historical identity will take place. The Polish government has included the Shoah in schoolbooks and undertaken steps to dismiss officials who deny the Holocaust. 17 Furthermore, there are still efforts to bring collaborators of the genocide to justice. The question of restitution is extremely sensitive in Poland, because it affects a large part of the properly in the country and a high percentage of real estate. This is one of the reasons why, in 2002 and unlike all other East European states, there is still no law on individual restitution. In comparison, Poland has a highly institutionalized culture of commemoration. Examples include the Institute for National Remembrance, which includes the former (Main) Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish People, which was reestablished in 1998. The commission still investigates Nazi crimes and even assesses charges against Poles.18 Memorials exist at nearly all of the important sites of the occupation crimes against, primarily, non-Jews, but also against Jews. 19 Most of these were erected during the 1950s and 1960s, but new ones with special reference to the fate of the Jews have been installed, such as the Umschlagplatz in Warsaw, which was opened in 1988. 20 In general, there is an extensive culture of Shoah remembrance in Poland (see the chapter written by James E. Young in this volume) but interest in it is, by and large, restricted to parts of the liberal intelligentsia. On the other hand, anti-Semitic stereotypes still circulate among sections of the population, especially so-called zydokomuna, the notion that Jewry is connected to Communism. 21 The Baltic States Since 1990-1991, the reestablished Baltic States have based their identity largely on their experience as victims of Communism, and only to a lesser degree as victims of Nazism. In the early period of their independence, these countries were influenced by the

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Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust

right-wing exile communities. Their extreme nationalism even influenced major politicians and their public statements. 22 Almost all policies regarding the memory of German occupation have led to serious conflict. Examples include the rehabilitation of mass murderers, who had been tried by Soviet authorities, or the recognition of the Latvian SS inside the Riga War Museum. 23 On the other hand, the renewal of the Paneriai monument, remembering the murder of Vilnius Jews, was followed by a discussion whether the participation of local collaborators should be mentioned in the inscription. Further, there has been an official reluctance to bring collaborators of mass murder to justice. The situation changed toward the end of the 1990s, especially in Lithuania, partly because the Baltic States have applied to join the European Union. All three State Commissions, which had been installed to investigate the Soviet crimes primarily, now include substantial research on mass murder during the Nazi period. 24 Nevertheless, the Shoah represents only a minor aspect in the whole memorial culture of the Baltic States. Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus The "core successor states" of the Soviet Union had almost no culture of Shoah commemoration when they came into being in 1990-1991. There was, of course, a highly institutionalized and ritualized remembrance of the war, but the specific suffering of the Jews had been ignored. Therefore, it needed an outside impact— such as the 1991 visit of U.S. president George H. W. Bush to the memorial site of Babyn Yar in Kiev, or the overseas Landsmannschaften of former Jewish communities—to distinguish the memory of the Shoah from the general victim legacy of the war. Ukrainian politics have integrated Shoah remembrance with the rather traditional forms of war memory. Politicians have even apologized for the "Ukrainian part" in the murder of the Jews. Ukraine is divided into a western section, in which nationalism and, to a certain extent, anti-Semitism are prevalent, and the central and Eastern regions. Since most Ukrainian Jews were killed in the western part of the country, this directly affects the perception of the Shoah. To a certain extent, the memory of the Shoah competes with the memory of Stalinist persecution and the wartime nationalist underground. 2 5 Throughout the former Soviet Union, there exists an extensive network of traditional memorials, which did not originally mention the Jewish descent of most of the victims. During the last decade, many of these

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29

have been replaced or supplied with additional plates and inscriptions. 2 6 Small memorial sites such as Babyn Yar in Kiev and Drobitskii Yar in Kharkov attempt to uphold the memory of the Shoah. But they must overcome the financially precarious situation of the Jewish communities and the enormous loss brought about by emigration. Only the western parts of the Russian Federation were affected by the Shoah. That is one of the reasons why the Holocaust does not play a significant role in Russian public life.27 Nevertheless, Jewish institutions like the Jewish University or the Kholokost Centre in Moscow attempt to raise an awareness among the postwar generations. 28 On a regional level, the same applies to the western parts of the country, which were occupied during the war. As in Ukraine, these efforts have come up against a strong right-wing extremism, which is not generally concerned with the events of World War II (or their denial), but attacks people of Jewish origins directly and sometimes violently. Memory in Belarus, heavily affected by the mass murders during the war, is following a similar pattern to the old Soviet style. In this country, only the local institutions such as Jewish communities or universities deal specifically with the fate of the Jews. The Czech Republic and Slovakia The Czech Republic, like Poland, has a long tradition of commemoration, especially in connection with the Terezin memorial and the Prague Jewish community. Because of historians such as the late Miroslav Karny and the Terezin annual conferences, there has been significant research on the fate of Czech Jewry. Despite the fact that there were Czech Fascists under German occupation, there is no general debate on collaboration during the Nazi period. The Shoah does not form the subject of any broader public discussion, since most of these debates concentrate on the Communist postwar period. The Czech government has installed a commission on assets and passed a restitution law. The situation is different in independent Slovakia. The Slovak government and society are still on their way to establishing a national identity and rely heavily on the traditions of the Slovak State that existed from 1939 to 1945. One of the symbols of these traditions is Josef Tiso, the Slovak president, who was executed after a show trial in 1947. Unlike the case of the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu, Tiso's role in the murder of Slovak Jewry is still the subject of scholarly debate. 29

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SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE Hungary Unlike Slovakia, Hungary has a tradition of dealing with the Shoah. This is because the Shoah affected a section of the Hungarian elites and because the majority of Budapest Jews were able to survive. On the other hand, anti-Semitism, which had been very influential before and during the war, reemerged in Hungarian politics after the turnover of 1989. 30 However, it would appear that, with the exception of election campaigns, Hungary has developed a modern, democratic, and pluralistic discourse. A debate on the substantial Hungarian collaboration of 1944 has only just begun. The prevailing notion is still that, first, Hungarian institutions saved Jews. The officially sponsored transfer of Admiral Miklos Horthy's grave to Budapest is a symbolic representation of this interpretation, as is the commemoration of the notorious Hungarian gendarmerie (police force). Hungary has enacted a restitution law, but the location of Jewish assets, which had been transferred either to the Hungarian government or to other profiteers, has not been addressed. 31 Romania Romania is an exceptional case in Eastern Europe. As an ally in the German-Soviet War, it was the only sovereign state to participate in direct mass murder of Jews. Nonetheless, Romanian publications after 1947 often referred to the fate of the Romanian Jews, the majority of whom were spared from deportations or deported by the Germans and Hungarians who had annexed northern Transylvania. With its extreme national propaganda, the Communist Romanian leadership had laid the groundwork for the rehabilitation of Marshal Ion Antonescu, the man responsible for the massacres. During the early 1990s, an Antonescu cult spread throughout the country; this also included his Fascist opponents, the Iron Guard. Antonescu statues were erected in six towns. In 1991, the Parliament even held a minute of silence in tribute to the dictator. 32 Thus, there are serious obstacles in Romania to a critical approach to the Shoah, due in particular to the complicated democratization process in this country. Despite these problems, a small group of historians and journalists have tried to establish a more objective picture of the past. They do not appear to have made any

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significant impact on the Romanian public. In response to political change and the international opinion however, the government has recently adopted a more critical stance toward Antonescu. 33 Yugoslavia The former Yugoslavia represents a difficult case, not only because it is divided into four states. World War II, exclusively interpreted as the National Liberation War, became a divisive propaganda issue during the different conflicts of the 1990s. While there are some tendencies to downplay the Ustasha crimes in Croatia, Yugoslav (Serbian) official statements occasionally tend to do the opposite. One of the most sensitive cases concerns the number of victims of the Jasenovac camp. A consensus was reached on the number of Jewish victims, but apparently the different interpretations declined after the retreat of Franjo Tudjman from power.34 The debate continues. Bulgaria Finally, in Bulgaria, where the Jews are highly assimilated, part of the historical identity continues to be based on the memory of the rescue of Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin. In this respect, the crimes under Bulgarian occupation in Macedonia and Thrace are only rarely mentioned. CONCLUSION Public awareness of the Shoah in Eastern Europe depends, albeit indirectly, on the democratization of the political systems. The abolition of political persecution and censorship in the former Communist states has initiated a debate about attitudes vis-a-vis Jews, which bears some similarities to the interwar period. It has enabled a far more critical approach, but has also given rise to diverse right-wing and anti-Semitic movements. These have attempted to establish a new national identity, often relying on collaborationist traditions. In general, it has been the central and local state institutions organizing commemorative matters. In the early 1990s, remembrance efforts were restricted to the Jewish institutions, which had been revived and often supported from abroad. Much of the pressure behind commemoration came from

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overseas, especially from the United States, Israel, and Germany. In politics, the rise of populism, nationalism, and right-wing extremism represents serious obstacles to these efforts. Furthermore, because of structural problems such as unemployment, social inequality, and regional differences, it is also difficult to combat anti-Semitism as a cultural pattern in society. Much depends on the post-Communist generations and the democratic development in general and the pluralistic media and modern education in particular. The public discourse continues to be dominated by the experience of communism and a "heroic" World War II. Recently, the debate has been widened to include the issue of collaboration under the Nazis and thus Eastern European countries have to confront both their wartime and their postwar past. For the majority, it is a painful process to see their new national identity marred by the discussion of partial or individual participation in mass murder. The issue of restitution, which had been addressed in Eastern Europe immediately after the war, was more or less overshadowed by the general Communist expropriation policies. It resurfaced after 1990, leading to a wave of restitution laws, concerning both the war and postwar periods. In the case of Jewish property, these laws have been implemented only reluctantly. This no doubt represents a highly sensitive issue for society: in many areas, a large proportion of real estate and assets had been in Jewish ownership. On the political side, restitution laws are a precondition for membership in the European Union and NATO.35 It is difficult to compare the responses in Germany to those in Eastern Europe. As a perpetrator country, Germany has fundamentally different preconditions. The western part of Germany received the privilege of an enduring democratic system. Thus, remembrance of the Shoah has gained a central place in society; it is rooted in the institutions of the state, the churches, the education system, and so forth, and in the public discourse. By contrast, in Eastern Europe, this remembrance is considerably more state sponsored, the legacy of only a small number of liberal intellectuals and the Jewish institutions themselves. Furthermore, international groups still play an important role in the policy of commemoration. Considering that the former Axis and Allied countries have different bases for establishing their postwar identity, it is no wonder that there are a variety of responses, in some cases rather problematic ones, in these states. But the political and social integration of Europe, which in the long run should stabilize the region, may level out these differences, or, to use a more modern term, act to globalize memory. 36

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33

NOTES 1. The Internet service Nachrichtendienst fur Historiker links all German-language (Internet) newspaper coverage on historical subjects on a daily basis (http://www.nfhdata.de/premium/index.shtml). 2. The newsletter of the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt/Main includes a calendar of events. 3. For example Alte Synagoge in Essen, EL-DE-Haus in Cologne, Forschungsstelle fur Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, Gedenkstatte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz in Berlin, Hamburger Institut fur Sozialforschung in Hamburg, and Institut fur Zeit- und Regionalgeschichte in Flensburg. 4. Ulrike Puvogel, ed., Gedenkstatten fur die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus: Eine Dokumentation, 2 vols. (Bonn: Bundeszentrale fur politische Bildung, 1987 and 1999). 5. Isabelle Engelhardt, A Topography of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust at Dachau and Buchenwald in Comparison with Auschwitz (Washington, DC: Lang, 2002); and Harold Marcuse, Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 6. Hans-Georg Stavginski, Das Holocaust-Denkmal. Der Streit um das "Denkmalfur die ermordeten Juden Europas" in Berlin (1988-1999) (Paderborn: Schoningh, 2002); and Jan-Holger Kirsch, Nationaler Mythos oder historische Trauer? Der Streit um ein zentrales "Holocawst-Mahnmal" fur die Berliner Republik (Koln: Bohlau, 2003). 7. Thomas Wandres, Die Strafbarkeit des Auschwitz-Leugnens (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 2000). 8. Hans Gunter Hockerts, "Wiedergutmachung in Deutschland: Eine historische Bilanz, 1945-2000," Vierte\jahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 49 (2001): 167-214. 9. Sharp criticism of this can be found in Hermann Liibbe, "Ich entschuldige mich": Das neue politische Bw3ritual (Berlin: Siedler, 2001). 10. Compare the opinion surveys in Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and Renate Kocher, eds., Allensbacher Jahrbuch der Demoskopie, 1998-2002 (Munchen: Saur, 2002). 11. There is a broad literature on both debates now. For an overview, see Bill Niven, Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich (London: Routledge, 2002), 119-174. 12. Alina Brodzka-Wald, ed., Literaturapolska wobec zaglady: Praca zbiorowa (Warszawa: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2000). 13. Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 102 ff. 14. Anthony Polonsky, ed., "My Brother's Keeper?" Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 1990). 15. Nina Klein, Die polnische Erinnerung an Auschwitz: Am Beispiel des Staatlichen Museums Auschwitz-Birkenau (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre, 1999); and Manfred Wittmeier, Internationale Jugendbegegnungsstdtte Auschwitz: Zur Pddagogik der Erinnerung in der politischen Bildung (Frankfurt a.M.: Brandes und Apsel, 1997).

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16. J a n Tomasz Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); and William Brand, ed., Thou Shalt Not Kill: Poles on Jedwabne (Warsaw: Wiez, 2001). Also see Klaus-Peter Friedrich, "Kollaboration und Antisemitismus in Polen unter deutscher Besatzung (1939-1944/45): Zu verdrangten Aspekten eines schwierigen deutsch-polnisch-judischen Verhaltnisses," Zeitschriftfur Geschichtswissenschqft 45 (1997): 818-834. 17. Feliks Tych, "Problem Zaglady w polskich podrecznikach szkolnych do nauczania historii," in Dlugi cien Zaglady, 95-118. (Warszawa: Zydowski Instytut Histoyczny, 1999). 18. See the commission's home page: http://www.ipn.gov.pl. 19. See the guide Przewodnik po upamietnionych miejscach walk i meczenstwa lota wojny, 1939-1945, 4th ed. (Warszawa: Sport i Turystyka, 1988). 20. James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 119-208. 21. Ireneusz Krzeminski, ed., Czy Polacy sa antysemitami? Wyniki badania sondazowego (Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 1996); Alina Cala, Dariusz Libionka, and Stefan Zgliczynski, "Monitoring Anti-Semitsm in Poland, 1999-2001," in Kwartalnik historii Zydow (2002), 501-514; and Gabriele Lesser, "Die 'Jedwabne-Diskussion' in Antisemitischen und Rechtsextremen Medien," in Die "Jedwabne-Debatte" in polnischen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, ed. Ruth Henning, 363-379 (Potsdam: Deutsch-polnische Gesellschaft Brandenburg, 2002). 22. Dov Levin, "Disinformation and Antisemitism: Holocaust Denial in the Baltic States, 1945-1999," in Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, ed. Joseph K. Roth and Elisabeth Maxwell, vol. 1, 847-857 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2002). 23. Eva-Clarita Onken, Revisionismus schon vor der Geschichte: Aktuelle Kontroversen in Lettland um die Judenvernichtung und die lettische Kollaboration wdhrend der nationalsozialistischen Besatzung (Koln: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1998); and Margers Vestermanis, "Der Holocaust im offentlichen BewuJBtsein Lettlands," JahrbuchfwrAntisemitismusforschung 5 (1996). 24. See the home pages of the commissions and museums: h t t p : / / www.okupatsioon.ee; http://www.komisija.lt; and http://www.genocide.lt). 25. Liudmila Dymerskaya-Tsigelman and Leonid Finberg, Antisemitism of the Ukrainian Radical Nationalists: Ideology and Policy (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 1999); Semen Averbukh, Nasytilis' my prezreniem . . . (Kiev: Glavnaia Spetsializirovannaia Red. Literatury na Jazykach Natsionalnych Menshinstv Ukrainy, 2000); and R. Ya. Myrskyi and O. Ya. Nayman, Yudofobiia proty Ukrainy: Stari zabobony i moderni vyhadky, 2nd ed. (Ky'iv: Akademiia Istorii ta Kul'tury Yevre'iv Ukrainy imeni Symona Dubnova, 2000). 26. For overview of memorials, see Miriam Weiner, Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova (New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1999).

Contemporary Responses to the Shoah

35

27. Klas-Goran Karlsson, "The Holocaust in Russian Historical Culture," in Echoes of the Holocaust: Historical Cultures in Contemporary Europe, ed. Klas-Goran Karlsson and Ulf Zander, 201-222. Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press, 2003). 28. Mikhail Gefter, Ekho kholokosta i russkii evreiskii vopros (Moskva: Rossiiskaia Biblioteka Kholokosta, 1995); I. A. Al'tman, ed. Ten Kholokosta: Materialy II Mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma "Uroki Kholokosta i sovremennaia Rossii^" Moskva, 4-7 maia 1997g (Moskva: Fond Kholokost, 1998). 29. Tomas Sniegon, 'Their Genocide, or Ours? The Holocaust as a Litmus Test of Czech and Slovak Identities," in Echoes of the Holocaust: Historical Cultures in Contemporary Europe, ed. Klas-Goran Karlsson and Ulf Zander, 177-200 (Lund, Sweden: Norden Academic Press, 2003). Also see Pavel Mestan, Antisemitism in Slovak Politics, 1989-1999 (Bratislava: Slovenske Narodne Muzeum, Muzeum Zidovskej Kultury, 2000). 30. Andras Kovacs, Antisemitic Prejudices in Contemporary Hungary (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 1999). See also his opinion survey among Hungarian students in 1992: A kulonbseg koztilnk van: Az antiszemitizmus es afiatal elit (Budapest: CserepfaM, 1997). 31. Catherine Horel, La restitution des biensjuifs et le renouveaujuif en Europe centrale: Hongrie, Slovaquie, Republique Tcheque (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002), 122 ff. 32. Randolph R. Braham, ed., Romanian Nationalists and the Holocaust: The Political Exploitation of Unfounded Rescue Attempts (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1998); and Mariana Hausleitner, "War Antonescu ein Kriegsverbrecher? Zur aktuellen Diskussion iiber den Nationalismus in Rumanien," in Jahrbuch fur Antisemitismusforschung 8 (1999): 312-328. 33. Radu Ioanid, "Revisionism in Post-Communist Romanian Political Culture: Attempts to Rehabilitate the Perpetrators of the Holocaust," Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, vol. 1, ed. Joseph K. Roth and Elisabath Maxwell, 813-831 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2002). 34. Zivko Gruden, Peraci crnih kosulja: Kronika novopovijesti 1990-2000 (Zagreb: Zidovska Opcina, 2001). For Serbia, see Laslo Sekelj, Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Serbia after the 1991 Collapse of the Yugoslav State (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 1998). 35. See the official statements in Nazi Gold: The London Conference, 2-4 December 1997 (London: Stationery Office, 1998); J. D. Bindenagel, ed., Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, November 30-December 3, 1998: Proceedings (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999). For the current state of the affair, see the U.S. State Department paper Summary of Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe, July 16, 2002, available: http://www.usembassy.de/policy/holocaust/property. pdf. 36. The first political attempt was The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust: A Conference on Education, Remembrance and Research,

36

Stockholm, Sweden, Information, 2000).

Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust 26-28 January—Proceedings

(Stockholm: Svensk

ADDITIONAL READING Braham, Randolph L., ed. Anti-Semitism and the Treatment of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Eastern Europe. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Cohen, Susan S., ed. Holocaust Remembrance: A Selected Bibliography. Remembering for the Future 2000, an International Conference Convened in Oxford and London, 16-23 July 2000. Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 2000. Konig, Helmut. Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit: Der Nationalsozialismus im politischen Bewu3tsein der Bundesrepublik. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2003. Kranz, Tomasz. Die Verbrechen des Nationalsozialismus im GeschichtsbewwStsein und in der historischen Bildung in Deutschland und Polen. Lublin, Poland: Panstwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 1998. Niven, Bill. Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich. London: Routledge, 2002. Reichel, Peter. Vergangenheitsbewaltigung in Deutschland. Munchen: Beck, 2001. Shafir, Michael. Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 2002. Volovici, Leon, ed. Jews and Antisemitism in the Public Discourse of the Post-Communist European Countries. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press and the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, forthcoming. Wiedmer, Caroline. The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Wyman, David S. The World Reacts to the Holocaust. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Chapter Three "The Holocaust Industry"?: Reflections on a History of the Critique of Holocaust Representation Tim Cole

"Journalistic quick-books, money making operations" was the charge leveled against the Holocaust writings of one prominent Jewish journalist. 1 The journalist in question was Jeno Levai, who wrote a large number of influential documentary histories of the Holocaust in Hungary in the immediate aftermath of the war. By the end of 1948, he had written a half dozen books in Hungarian, one of which had already been translated into English. And the perception of at least one contemporary commentator was that he was simply out to make a quick buck from the tragic events of the recent past. Over a half century later, the nature of, and motivations behind, writing on the Holocaust were questioned in a similar tone. In his polemical The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Norman Finkelstein bemoaned "the shelves upon shelves of shlock that now line libraries and bookstores," 2 and claimed that "much of the literature on Hitler's Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud."3 However, while Finkelstein's criticism of contemporary writing on the Holocaust mirrored that leveled at Levai in the late 1940s in both nature and tone, his critique in The Holocaust Industry was ultimately much wider in scope. It was not simply writing on the Holocaust that Finkelstein saw to be fraudulent, but an entire "Holocaust industry" pushing this particular past on the present for both ideological and financial gain. Finkelstein's criticisms of what were perceived to be misuses of the Holocaust were neither the first word nor the last on this subject. As the accusations leveled at Levai suggest, right from the outset, questions were raised about the mixed motives behind representing this particular past. With the increasing prominence of the Holocaust

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in popular discourse since the 1960s, those dissenting voices have gotten louder, reaching a deafening crescendo in Finkelstein's damning critique of the Holocaust industry. But Finkelstein's claims of the existence of a Holocaust industry (a phrase reminiscent of "There is no business like Shoah business," which had been used by Jewish American critics of what they saw to be increasing Holocaust obsession since the 1970s) drew on a much longer tradition of critical reflection on the popularization of the Holocaust. In this chapter, I aim to trace that much longer history of the criticism of Holocaust representation, which can be seen developing alongside the history of that representation. There are, I think, two broad strands in this disparate literature. One strand has questioned what has been seen as an overemphasis on the Holocaust in general, and by Jews in particular. Another strand has not questioned all contemporary concerns with the Holocaust per se, but has critiqued specific representations of the Holocaust—movies, museum exhibits, and books—in large part on the grounds of inauthenticity. What unifies these two broad strands—and such diverse writers as Norman Finkelstein and Elie Wiesel—is a refusal to accept any cultural product that draws on the history of the Holocaust as by definition a good thing, simply because it makes this past known. Within the more restricted criticism of someone like Wiesel, there can be, and have been, inappropriate Holocaust representations. From the more radical perspective of Finkelstein, all the products of the Holocaust industry are rejected as little more than attempts at "Jewish aggrandizement." 4 While these two critical strands differ quite markedly, beneath both lies the deeper question of whether all the more recent talk about the Holocaust is a good thing in general, and whether it is a good thing for Jews and non-Jews in particular. However, such criticisms have recently been themselves subject to criticism. In the aftermath of the publication of Finkelstein's book in particular, voices were raised against the questioning of both specific Holocaust representations, and the perceived centrality of the Holocaust. In the second part of this chapter, I will explore that very recent backlash and assess the nature of the concerns that have been voiced. But before doing that, I start by sketching out a brief history of Holocaust representation and its critics. A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOLOCAUST REPRESENTATION AND ITS CRITICS

There can be little doubt that the Holocaust has emerged from a position of relative silence in the immediate postwar period to a

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position of some centrality in contemporary Israel, America, and Europe. I have always been struck by the story recounted by Dorothy Rabinowitz that was told to her by a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the United States. While at a dinner dance in San Francisco in the 1950s, this survivor recalled that she noticed one man in the room staring curiously at her from time to time; finally he came over, introduced himself, and confessed that he had seen the numbers on her arm. "I was wondering," he said, "why you were wearing your laundry numbers on your arm?" What were they really, he wanted to know, some sort of decoration? I told him "no, that's my telephone number." 5 It is hard to imagine such an exchange taking place today, let alone between a survivor and the dean of a law school, as was the case at this 1950s dinner dance. Not only have the sight of tattooed numbers emerged as emblematic of the Holocaust, but survivors have also been granted a privileged position in "bearing witness" to this past. Both the Holocaust, and Holocaust survivors, have assumed a central position in contemporary America. However, as this incident and the work of a number of historians shows, this centrality only really emerged from the 1960s onward. This was not simply the case in the United States. Within Israel there was also relatively little interest in the Holocaust in the immediate postwar period. It was not unknown in the 1950s for survivors in Israel to have corrective surgery to remove tattooed numbers from their arms, given the more general shame about nonheroic Holocaust survivors, and relative disinterest in the Holocaust. This silence was broken in Israel in particular with the placing of Adolf Eichmann on trial in a Jerusalem courtroom in 1961. Unlike the postwar Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial positioned the wartime murder of 6 million European Jews instead of more generic "crimes against humanity" at center stage. That it was the Holocaust rather than the broader events of World War II that were on trial was made clear in the opening speech of the Israeli attorney general, Gideon Hausner, who presented the case for the prosecution: When I stand before you, O Judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet and point their fingers at the man in the dock with the cry "J'accuse" on their lips. For they are now only ashes— ashes piled high on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka and strewn in the forests of Poland. Their graves are scattered throughout Europe. Their blood cries out, but their voice is stilled. Therefore will I be their spokesman. In their name will I unfold this terrible indictment.6

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While clearly assuming for himself, and for the Israeli State, the authority to speak on behalf of all of the silenced victims of the Holocaust, Hausner also encouraged Holocaust survivors living in Israel to speak out about their past. The most dramatic element of this televised trial was the verbal testimony of the tens of thousands of survivors who retold their stories of the Holocaust. It was their voices that dominated in what Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion dubbed "the year of the Eichmann trial," and their centrality served to mean that this event—the Holocaust—would be linked with the dominant means of its telling—through the voices of the survivors. In the aftermath of the Eichmann trial, historians have suggested that there was a more widespread speaking out on the part of survivors, and a listening to these stories in Israel and the United States. Although the Eichmann trial was reported widely outside of Israel, it would seem that at least in the American context, 1967 should be taken as a more significant marker than 1961 in the history of the emergence of the Holocaust as an iconic event. It is the Six Day War, rather than the Eichmann trial, that has been seen by many as instrumental in raising Jewish American awareness of the Holocaust as a distinct event. To some extent, parallels were drawn between Israeli vulnerability at the start of the war and Jewish vulnerability during World War II. More importantly however, it was the euphoria of Israeli victory that has been seen as provoking Jewish American memories of the Holocaust. The historian Deborah Lipstadt suggests that the end of the Six Day War shattered "the silence of the previous decades," because "now that the Holocaust was 'history' and not 'probability,' it could be confronted."7 Her claims were echoed by the Jewish theologian Jacob Neusner, for whom, the extermination of European Jewry could become the Holocaust only on 9 June [1967] when, in the aftermath of a remarkable victory, the State of Israel celebrated the return of the people of Israel to the ancient wall of the Temple of Jerusalem. On that day the extermination of European Jewry attained the—if not happy, at least viable—ending that served to transform events into a myth, and to endow a symbol with a single, ineluctable meaning.8 For Neusner, Israeli victory in 1967 provided the final element of a popular Judaism of "Holocaust and Redemption" that assumed a growing—and to Neusner's mind, misplaced—importance for an increasingly secular American Jewry. Six years later, Israel was once again at war. No less than the earlier Six Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War has also been seen

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as raising Holocaust consciousness in Jewish Americans. However, for Finkelstein the impact of this war lay not in its awakening of perceived Israeli—and hence by extension, Jewish—vulnerability, but in the need to justify Israeli aggression. Finkelstein's controversial claim is that the Holocaust past was increasingly utilized by Jewish Americans after 1973 as a means of garnering support for the State of Israel, and "to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and US support for these policies."9 It is this context of Israeli military engagement that Finkelstein sees as critical in explaining Jewish American engagement with the Holocaust. While Finkelstein makes much of what he sees to be the financial abuse of the Holocaust (on the question of restitution see Ronald W. Zweig's chapter in this volume), his stress is on the ideological abuse of the Holocaust as a tool of Zionism. There can be little doubt that at the time of the 1967 and 1973 wars, as well as subsequently, links were made between the Holocaust and support for Israel in Jewish American circles. However, I think that the historian Peter Novick is right to suggest that "there wasn't one unified discourse connecting the Holocaust to Israel— there were many, with different authors, taking different forms, addressed to different audiences, emphasizing different themes." 10 Although suggesting that concerns with events in Israel were not negligible, Novick argues that there were other reasons closer to home to explain why the Holocaust became a more significant marker in Jewish American life from the 1960s onward. For Novick, the relative silence over the Holocaust in the late 1940s and 1950s America, was not due to the self-suppression of memory by survivors, but the conscious decisions of Jewish American leaders with an eye to an internal assimilationist agenda and an external cold war agenda. In the context of the cold war, the Holocaust was quite simply the "wrong atrocity."11 By the 1960s, however, Novick points to the emergence of a "distinct thing called 'the Holocaust,'" 12 in large part as a result of a U-turn by Jewish American leaders, who now chose to focus attention on the Holocaust in response to changed circumstances. Central to the decision to focus on the Holocaust as an ethnic marker for Jewish America was what Novick describes as "an inward turn." 13 With growing concerns about the threats of a rising new anti-Semitism, intermarriage rates, and assimilation, Novick suggests that there was a shift to ethnic particularism. And within the context of secularism, the Holocaust became—during the late 1960s and increasingly in the 1970s and 1980s—of increasing importance in ethnic self-definition. Indeed, Novick suggests that the Holocaust, "as virtually the only common denominator of American

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Jewish identity in the late twentieth century, has filled a need for a consensual symbol."14 The attraction of this particular event as an ethnic marker was heightened in the broader context of an identity politics that stressed victimhood. For Novick, it is clear that power lay with Jewish American elites whose about-face from silencing talk of the Holocaust in the 1940s and 1950s to stressing it from the late 1960s onward led to much more widespread rising Holocaust consciousness. His problematic suggestion is that Jewish American elites got Jewish Americans talking about the Holocaust, and then these Jewish Americans got the rest of America talking about the Holocaust. Such a top-down explanation puts ordinary Jewish Americans and Americans in too passive a role. In addition, explaining rising Holocaust consciousness largely as a result of Jewish American particularism fails to take other factors into account. There can be little doubt that the Holocaust was adopted as a Jewish American marker, but there was more to the history of Holocaust consciousness in the United States, let alone elsewhere, than this. However, what I think is striking is that as the Holocaust did begin to assume a central place in Jewish American self-definition, such centrality came to be challenged. In the 1970s and 1980s, criticisms were leveled by a number of Jewish religious leaders and commentators over what they saw to be a worrying trend in contemporary Jewish identity—a shift away from Torah to Holocaust. In the broader context of increased secularization, the rise in interest in the Holocaust was bemoaned. Typical of such a position was Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf who complained in the late 1970s and early 1980s of what he perceived to be an overemphasis on the Holocaust by the Jews in his own community—New Haven, Connecticut: "It is a simple fact that in New Haven, the Jewish community of 22,000 spends about ten times as much money on the Holocaust memorial as it does on all the college students in New Haven. I think that is shocking. . . . The community is saying: 'We have money for Holocaust, and that's all'. . . . It seems to me the Holocaust is being sold."15 With his reference here to the selling of the Holocaust, Wolf was not reflecting in the way that Finkelstein has more recently done on the crass commercialization of the Holocaust. His words should be seen, I think, alongside the coining of the phrase "There is no business like Shoah business" at around the same time, not as a critique of financial exploitation of this past, but of what they saw to be the overemphasis on this event in Jewish America. Now, of course, that overemphasis was in part seen to be an overemphasis of resources, but the critique was one about the very

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nature of contemporary Jewish identity and community life. At the heart of the concerns being articulated in particular by religious Jews in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, was a questioning of the wisdom of centering Jewish American identity on the Holocaust. These concerns being echoed by Jewish religious leaders in particular in the 1970s and 1980s were also clearly at the heart of Peter Novick's influential The Holocaust in American Life, published in 1999. Novick does not simply explain the rise of Holocaust consciousness, but is also clearly critical of what he sees to be an overemphasis on the Holocaust within Jewish American life. His criticism is not rooted in the religious concerns of someone such as Rabbi Wolf, but the more secular liberal concerns of an overemphasis on ethnic particularity centered on this event. Although coming from radically different perspectives—one arguing for the primacy of a distinct religious identity, the other for a rejection of ethnic particularity in favor of more universal notions—both Wolf writing in the late 1970s and Novick writing in the late 1990s shared a united questioning of the wisdom of centering Jewish American identity on the Holocaust. Those broader criticisms of the centrality of the Holocaust to Jewish American identity have echoes of sorts with the questioning of the role of this past in Israeli politics and society that can most clearly be seen as emerging in the 1980s. In the aftermath of the Eichmann trial, the Holocaust assumed an increasingly central place within Israeli society. With the election of the first survivor prime minister, Menachem Begin, in 1977, the language of the Holocaust became increasingly central to Israeli political discourse. Thus, the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was justified, in part, on the grounds that, Begin claimed, "the alternative is Treblinka, and we have decided that there will be no more Treblinkas." 16 However, one opponent who went on a hunger strike at Yad Vashem—the Israeli Holocaust museum and memorial site—in protest of the invasion, drew on the Holocaust in markedly different ways. For this survivor, the connection between the Holocaust past and the Middle Eastern present was the very opposite of that presented by Begin: When I was a child often and was liberated from the concentration camp, I thought that we shall never suffer again. I did not dream that we would cause suffering to others. Today we are doing just that. The Germans in Buchenwald starved us to death. Today in Jerusalem, I starve myself and this hunger of mine is no less horrific. When I hear "filthy Arabs" I remember "filthy Jews." I see Beirut and I remember Warsaw.17

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During the 1980s, there was more to the criticism of the socalled doves on the Israeli left than simply that the hawks were drawing the wrong lessons from the Holocaust. The very centrality of the Shoah in Israeli political culture and consciousness came to be questioned. Writing after the start of the first Intifada, Yehuda Elkana controversially suggested in the pages of the leftist Israeli paper Ha'aretz that there was "no greater danger for Israel's future than a situation where the Holocaust penetrates the consciousness of the whole Israeli population," and that while the rest of the world should remember the Holocaust, Israel needed to forget it if peace in the Middle East was to be a possibility. 18 Such concerns were not simply voiced by Elkana. Writing a few years later, the respected Israeli historian Saul Friedlander reflected that significant progress toward peace between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states . . . will of necessity have an impact on the centrality of the Shoah in the narration of the Jewish past. The converse would be tragic: the possibility that the memory of catastrophes and particularly of the Holocaust will be so deeply ingrained in Jewish collective consciousness as to become an impediment to the progress toward peace.19 Within both American and Israeli society therefore, the 1970s and 1980s saw criticisms of what was perceived to be an overemphasis on the historical events of the Holocaust. This period also marked what I think can be seen as a second, and increasingly dominant, strand of criticism. From the late 1970s onward, the growing number of movies, books, and museums on Holocaustrelated themes marked the entry of this event into popular culture. However, these cultural products were heavily contested. Yet, in questioning the representations offered by such Holocaust products as the 1978 television miniseries Holocaust or the 1993 movie Schindler's List, critics were not arguing that the Holocaust had assumed too central a position in contemporary society. Rather, their concerns were more narrowly focused. In particular, concerns were expressed over what was seen to be the trivialization and oversimplification of this terrible and complex historical event once it was rendered by television producers and moviemakers. Within the United States, but also to a lesser extent within Europe, the showing of the television miniseries Holocaust in 1978 has been seen as another significant marker in the rise of Holocaust consciousness. First screened over four successive evenings in April 1978, the show attracted a massive total audience of some 120 million Americans. Such was the impact of the show on its opening night, that the day became dubbed "Holocaust Sunday."

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Praising the impact of Holocaust, the Anti-Defamation League Bulletin announced that these "four days in April saw greater awareness of the Holocaust, and its significance, than in three decades preceding." 20 When the soap-opera-style telling of the experience of the imaginary Weiss family was shown in West Germany in 1979, it attracted 14 million viewers and was seen as a cultural product that "practically introduced the Holocaust into the public discourse of modern Germany." 21 Despite, or perhaps precisely because of, the enormous impact of this nine and one-half hour long television miniseries in raising awareness of the Holocaust, it was also a television show that was heavily criticized. Most famously, Elie Wiesel, who by 1978 had attained a position of some authority in speaking on behalf of Holocaust survivors in the United States, weighed in in the pages of the New York Times. In an article published on Holocaust Sunday—the very first day on which the show was aired on U.S. television— Wiesel criticized what he saw to be the trivialization of the Holocaust. The show was, Wiesel claimed, "untrue, offensive, cheap" and "an insult to those who perished and to those who survived." Holocaust did little more than transform "an ontological event into soap opera" complete with fake blood, and yet, given the uniqueness of this event, such a transformation was deemed by Wiesel to be wholly inappropriate. 22 When the show was aired in Germany, similar sentiments were voiced. Such positions were countered by those who saw the engagement of audiences with this subject matter in both the United States and Germany as a positive result far outweighing whatever criticisms there were of the artistic merits of the television drama. What I think is striking is that the divergent responses that greeted Holocaust were, in many ways, echoed—albeit in a much more magnified form—some fifteen years later with the release of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List Issued in 1993, in the same year that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened just off the Mall in Washington, DC, the premiering of two major Holocaust cultural products had critics talking of 1993 as the "Year of the Holocaust" in the United States. While both the museum and Spielberg's movie were hailed as artistic and pedagogical triumphs, they were also heavily critiqued. There was much popular praise of Schindler's List, with Newsweek placing Spielberg's movie as its Movie of the Year. Not only was this particular movie seen by many to be a powerful cinematic telling of one story of the Holocaust, but the very act of making any movie about the Holocaust was also seen by some as something to be applauded. Such thinking came across in J o h n

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Gross's positive review of Schindler's List in t h e New York Review of Books, in w h i c h h e s u g g e s t e d t h a t "as a contribution to p o p u l a r culture, it c a n only do good." For Gross, "Holocaust denial m a y or m a y n o t b e a major p r o b l e m in t h e future, b u t Holocaust ignor a n c e , Holocaust forgetfulness, a n d Holocaust indifference a r e b o u n d to be, a n d Schindler's List is likely to do a s m u c h a s a n y single work c a n to dispel them." 2 3 Rather t h a n simply welcoming Schindler's List a s t h e latest in a line of "Holocaust p r o d u c t s for Holocaust consumers," 2 4 t h e Nobel Prize-winning a u t h o r a n d H u n g a r i a n Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz questioned t h e value of w h a t h e s a w to be a n i n a u t h e n t i c repr e s e n t a t i o n . Writing of h i s own experience of w a t c h i n g t h e movie, Kertesz argued t h a t the survivors watch helplessly as their only real possessions are done away with: authentic experiences. I know that many will not agree with me when I apply the term "kitsch" to Spielberg's Schindler's List. It is said that Spielberg has in fact done a great service, considering that his film lured millions into movie theaters, including many who otherwise would never have been interested in the subject of the Holocaust. That might be true. But why should I, as a Holocaust survivor and as one in possession of a broader experience of terror, be pleased when more and more people see these experiences reproduced on the big screen—and falsified at that? 25 T h a t Schindler's List falsified t h e p a s t w a s a s t a p l e of critical r e s p o n s e s to t h e movie by a c a d e m i c c o m m e n t a t o r s . These r a n g e d from criticisms of Spielberg's p o r t r a y a l s of Krakow's J e w s in t h e t r a d i t i o n a l "anti-Semitic stereotype of t h e crafty, c a n n y , wellc o n n e c t e d J e w s , a s p r o m u l g a t e d in t h e Protocols of the Elders of Zion,"26 to a t t a c k s on a movie telling a n exceptional tale in w h i c h all of t h e J e w s personalized survive b e c a u s e of t h e a c t i o n s of a good Nazi. B u t t h e r e were also b r o a d e r criticisms t h a t , like Wiesel's earlier c o n c e r n s a b o u t Holocaust, q u e s t i o n e d t h e very possibility of r e p r e s e n t i n g on celluloid w h a t w a s deemed u n r e p r e s e n t a b l e . In particular, m a n y a r g u e d t h a t Spielberg h a d simply gone too far in r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e central Holocaust site, Auschwitz B i r k e n a u . T h u s , t h e criticisms in effect were n o t simply of w h a t t h e movie contained (and did n o t contain), b u t of t h e very possibility of m a k i n g a movie (or for t h a t m a t t e r , a n y p r o d u c t of p o p u l a r culture) a b o u t t h e Holocaust. W h a t these disparate r e s p o n s e s to t h e s a m e movie afforded w a s a glimpse into a m u c h b r o a d e r set of positions over t h e possibility a n d desirability of r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e Holocaust in general, a n d in p o p u l a r culture in particular. These positions c a n be seen not only

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in the context of the release of Holocaust and Schindler's List, but also with the release in 1998 of Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful They represent two broadly differing sets of responses to popular representations of the Holocaust that are central to contemporary debates about the Holocaust industry. While these debates are narrower in focus than say the broad-brush damning critique of Holocaust consciousness by Finkelstein, they reflect what is perhaps a more influential disagreement over the value of the cultural products of the Holocaust industry. With the rise of Holocaust consciousness and in particular the rise of popular cultural engagement with the Holocaust, there have been both critics of such trends, and also more recently, criticisms of those critics. The attack on the Holocaust industry by Finkelstein and others has been challenged and critiqued, perhaps most importantly, in an essay written by Alvin Rosenfeld in the American Jewish Year Book for 2001. There, Rosenfeld argued that the criticism of what was perceived to be a contemporary overemphasis on the Holocaust amounted, explicitly or implicitly, to calls for forgetting. If the Holocaust was to be increasingly forgotten, as critics of the Holocaust industry advocated, the result would be, Rosenfeld suggested, that Jews would "return to the kind of vulnerability that preceded Auschwitz and helped bring it about." 27 However, before reflecting on the recent debate over the broader critique of the Holocaust industry, I want to examine the debate over the narrower criticisms of the specific products of the Holocaust industry. To some extent, the divergent responses generated by Holocaust and Schindler's List hint at the nature of that debate. But within the more recent writing of the literary scholars Alan Mintz and Hilene Flanzbaum, one can see a more coherent response to what has been perceived as misplaced criticism of cultural products that deal with the events of the Holocaust. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CRITICISM OF THE CRITICS OF HOLOCAUST REPRESENTATION With the growing entry of the Holocaust as a subject matter of mainstream popular culture, the authenticity of those products was questioned—as I have already noted—by those who Flanzbaum sees adopting for themselves a kind of policing role. Critics of Holocaust such as Wiesel, as well as the many academic critics of Schindler's List, myself included, have been dubbed as self-appointed "caretakers" of Holocaust representation and memory. 28 For Mintz, these critics are "exceptionalists" who assume the Holocaust to be "a

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radical r u p t u r e in h u m a n history t h a t goes well beyond notions of u n i q u e n e s s , " a n d t h u s d e m a n d a singularly unflinching telling of how it really was. 2 9 With every popular rendering of the Holocaust— from Holocaust t h r o u g h Schindler's List to Life Is Beautiful—the constantly voiced criticism of these exceptionalists is t h a t the h a r s h a n d terrible reality of the Holocaust h a s b e e n evaded. In contrast, "constructivLsts"—a position t h a t Mintz aligns himself with—do not view t h e Holocaust a s d e m a n d i n g a n exceptional telling, b u t r a t h e r suggest t h a t while t h e Holocaust "may in fact be a n u n p r e c e d e n t e d event in h u m a n history, . . . it is in t h e n a t u r e of individuals a n d institutions to perceive even unprecedented events t h r o u g h categories t h a t already exist." 30 From s u c h a position, multiple tellings of t h e Holocaust are not simply possible, b u t to be welcomed. Now for b o t h Mintz a n d F l a n z b a u m , t h e r e is t h e suggestion t h a t t h e exceptionalist c a r e t a k e r s of t h e Holocaust a r e a s k i n g t h e wrong questions. These policemen a n d w o m e n of Holocaust repres e n t a t i o n s are m i s t a k e n , F l a n z b a u m s u g g e s t s , in insisting "that verisimilitude be t h e u l t i m a t e goal of Holocaust representation." 3 1 B e c a u s e , a s F l a n z b a u m notes, The obvious point, too trite to be repeated in any venue other than Holocaust studies, is that art about the Holocaust is just art—it is not, and never can be, the actual thing. While the Holocaust itself might be, as an historical event, unique and incomparable (although this in itself is a widely controversial claim), Holocaust art is neither unique nor incomparable; it is just art, and has all the liabilities and privileges therein. 32 The implication, F l a n z b a u m argues, is that words like "truth," "verisimilitude," "reality" as the pre-eminent categories on which we make aesthetic judgements about the representations of the Holocaust need to fall by the wayside. Instead, for instance, we might heartily applaud those works that somehow compel viewers (and especially large numbers of them) to take another look—a deeper look, a more thoughtful look—at the event.33 And t h a t includes, F l a n z b a u m suggests, t h e heavily criticized Holoc a u s t comedy Life Is Beautiful, w h i c h like Schindler's List ultim a t e l y offers a redemptive tale (and also like Spielberg's movie achieved for itself b o t h O s c a r s a n d massive box-office success). For b o t h Mintz a n d F l a n z b a u m , there is a need to move beyond endless sterile d e b a t e s a b o u t w h e t h e r t h i s movie or t h a t m u s e u m really s h o w s t h e Holocaust "as it really w a s " (to a d o p t t h e R a n k e a n n o tion of t h e a i m of history). The (exceptionalist) critics of p o p u l a r c u l t u r e ' s r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h e Holocaust a r e criticized for being

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engaged in "the continual tracking of betrayals," which for Mintz is, at best, "an endeavour with limited possibilities."34 There is surely much wisdom in suggesting that movies and museums should be treated on their own terms, and not subjected to the demands of the discipline of history. However, there is also surely a need to examine a movie such as Schindler's List or a museum such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in the light of the kinds of truth claims that they make about themselves. With Spielberg's movie, the decision to shoot in black-andwhite and thus ape wartime documentary footage clearly suggested that this was a movie that was meant to be read more as Holocaust truth than art. Spielberg himself spoke of Schindler's List as a document rather than simply a movie, and his role as a witness rather than merely a movie director.35 Those kinds of claims are picked up on by Kertesz, who questioned why "the American Spielberg, who incidentally wasn't even born until after the war, has and can have no idea of the authentic reality of a Nazi concentration camp," so obviously "struggle[d] so hard to make his representation of a world he does not know seem authentic in every detail?" 36 It was the very claims of authenticity that meant that far from being a sterile question whether this movie offered a falsification of the Holocaust past was a perfectly valid question for anyone—and certainly a survivor like Kertesz—to ask. With Schindler's List, it was clear that this was not simply being offered as another movie, nor was it being received as simply another movie. Released to U.S. schools along with an education pack, this movie was clearly being seen by its producers as a historical source. And it was clearly being interpreted as such by at least some of its viewers. For one Californian congressman, watching this movie had reminded him that the problem faced by European Jews was one of not having the right to bear arms. He was clearly learning his lessons, not from the complex historical past, but from a streamlined movie that chose not to feature Jewish resistance (armed but ultimately unsuccessful) in the Warsaw Ghetto. 37 Given that Schindler's List was a movie that made claims of authenticity for itself, and was also being read in just such terms by its audience, it would seem perfectly acceptable—whatever Mintz or Flanzbaum's misgivings—to ask hard questions about how realistically the complex history of the Holocaust was represented in this movie. And those are also questions that I think the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum invites upon itself, given that it also makes claims for authenticity. In calling for artifacts for the museum display, it was the authenticity of these items that was stressed. As the museum's literature expressed it,

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"The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum needs your help to ensure that the permanent exhibition, which will be seen each year by as many as a million visitors to the National Mall, tells the story of the Holocaust accurately, authentically and powerfully."38 The suggestion was clear, I think, that the very power of the museum display was seen to depend on the historical provenance of the items on display. Given such claims on the part of the museum, it would seem entirely appropriate to ask the question of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that for Mintz and Flanzbaum is unnecessary. So, for example, it would seem entirely appropriate to ask why at the museum in Washington, DC, the majority of the identity cards handed to the visitor are of survivors rather than those killed during the Holocaust? Why is it that the person you are being asked to identify with is much more likely to make it out of the museum alive than any European Jew was? 39 And why is it that the famous words of Martin Niemoller ("First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist—so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat—so I did nothing. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew—so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me"40) have been cited at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with the Communists excluded? Novick gives numerous examples of the rewriting of these famous words in contemporary America. These range from Jews being given first, rather than last, place on the list to the inclusion of homosexuals and Catholics to the roll call of victims of Nazism. Now within Mintz's preferred approach of "constructivism," such changes make complete sense. Within a city such as Boston with a large Catholic population, the addition of Catholics to the words etched on the Holocaust memorial can be seen as meeting the needs of the intended audience. The same can be said for other additions and deletions. For Mintz, multiple tellings of the Holocaust are inevitable and should not be policed. However, I would tend to agree with Novick who sees such rewriting not as simply examples of multiple renderings for multiple audiences, but acts of "deliberate misrepresentation." 41 With his talk of deliberate misrepresentation, Novick invites us to examine contemporary representations of the Holocaust not simply as essentially neutral multiple tellings, but as ideologically laden narratives. Central to the broader criticism of the Holocaust industry in the work of writers such as Novick and Finkelstein is a highlighting and questioning of the ideological purposes to which

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the Holocaust past has been put in the present. For Finkelstein, the Holocaust has been used to garner support for Israel, and for Novick the Holocaust has been used to further Jewish American ethnic interests. Reading Finkelstein and Novick, it seems that both, to varying degrees, tend to see the instrumental use of the Holocaust in rather monolithic and conspiratorial terms. This is something noted by Rosenfeld in his 2001 attack on those, particularly Finkelstein, whom he sees as launching an assault on Holocaust memory. For Rosenfeld: One would never know, from the work of Finkelstein and some other critics of Holocaust consciousness, that people might feel compelled to think about the Jewish catastrophe under Hitler for other, less cynical reasons. One would never suspect that there might be historical, religious, moral, or ethical claims on consciousness as legitimate prods to remember the Nazi crimes.42 This highlights perhaps the major weakness in the work of Finkelstein and Novick. Both tend toward monolithic and top-down approaches, and yet to see a single overriding motive lying behind the remarkable upturn in interest in the Holocaust is overly simplistic. This is surely the case when the focus is on the United States, let alone when the focus is cast much wider to include Europe and Israel. There were multiple motives behind the increased centrality given to the Holocaust in the United States from the late 1960s onward. These no doubt included Jewish American concerns with ethnic identity and strengthening identification with, and support for, the State of Israel. However, writing autobiographically, Mintz suggests that of more significance for an American Jew like himself, growing up in the relative safety and affluence of postwar America, there was "a desire to touch the turbulence of modern Jewish history."43 For others, memorialization could be an act of religious duty, an expunging of survivor guilt, or nothing more and nothing less than a desire for social prominence. These very mixed motives can be amplified much more widely when it is the American public, and not just American Jews, who are considered. There were certainly multiple reasons, not all of which were cynical, behind the rise in Holocaust consciousness in the United States—as well as in Israel and Europe—from roughly the 1960s onward. And that same sense of multiple reasons underlying engagement with this past is true of individual Holocaust representations. In the case of the two major products of the Year of the Holocaust in the United States—Schindler's List and the United

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States Holocaust Memorial Museum—there were clearly multiple meanings being given to the events of the Holocaust. Both Schindler's List and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum can be seen as offering Zionist closure to the Holocaust. In the former, the movie closes with Schindler's Jews only ultimately finding safety in Israel. In the latter, our visit to the permanent exhibition ends as we sit in a theater whose walls are clad with Jerusalem stone watching the testimony of Holocaust survivors. However, there is more to the tellings offered by both than simply Finkelstein's notion of a Holocaust industry selling a Zionist agenda. Schindler's List also presents, in the person of Schindler, a humanist hero who makes a difference, and achieves some sort of redemption through his virtuous actions. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum also offers the Holocaust as the very antithesis of American values, and thus offers a national, and nationalist, rendering of this past. It is clear that both a movie such as Schindler's List and a museum such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum do not simply retell the history of the Holocaust, but offer meanings to their audience. However, those meanings are multiple rather than singular, and those who watch the movie or visit the museum bring their own meanings. So, while there are clearly ideological concerns at play in the tellings chosen for Schindler's List or the United States Holocaust Museum, those ideological concerns are negotiated by the audience. Such a sense of negotiation by the recipients of the products of the Holocaust industry tends to be lacking from critics who portray the Jewish and non-Jewish public as passively accepting the ideological lessons being asserted. The criticisms of Rosenfeld and Mintz—that monolithic ideological explanations for contemporary concerns with the Holocaust are overly simplistic—are telling. However, there is, I think, a need for such insights to be turned back on those such as Rosenfeld who have reacted to the perceived "assault on Holocaust memory." Alongside recognizing that a multiplicity of motives, mixed and otherwise, lies behind the reasons for the rise of Holocaust consciousness, there is also a need to recognize that there are multiple reasons behind the criticisms of that rise. Those engaged in the assault on Holocaust memory have done so for many reasons—some more and some less cynical. The tendency, however, has been for critics of those writing of the abuse of Holocaust representation and memory to dismiss these works as motivated by single, and somewhat cynical, concerns. In an article reflecting on my own work alongside that of Novick and Finkelstein, the British historian David Cesarani argued that behind the "impa-

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tience with Holocaust memorialization" lies a "continuing, stubborn resentment of Jewish difference."44 Specifically, he discerned that "behind Peter Novick's criticism of 'particularism' is an assimilationist agenda" and that "in Finkelstein's anti-Zionism this is quite explicit."45 No doubt, "continuing, stubborn resentment of Jewish difference" can be identified as one element among many in explaining some of the criticisms of Holocaust representations that have been leveled over the last half century. However, to see it behind all "impatience with Holocaust memorialization" seems to me to be as shortsighted as arguing that the rise in Holocaust consciousness is due to one reason alone. No doubt, assimilationism and antiZionism are elements of Novick's and Finkelstein's work, respectively, but there is also much more to their critiques. My sense of reading Novick is that he also writes very much as a historian, skeptical of what he sees to be the reducing of the complexity of a historical event as extreme as the Holocaust to "the sort of pithy lessons that fit on a bumper sticker."46 And in particular, Novick, and he is far from alone here, questions the desire and appropriateness of drawing redemptive lessons from this most unredemptive of pasts. I am reminded of the words of Holocaust survivor Sally Grubman whose satisfaction with seeing a greater interest in the Holocaust than when she first arrived in the United States after the war was tempered by uncertainty over the ways this past was being represented. Speaking in the 1970s, Grubman noted: There is a tremendous interest in the Holocaust that we didn't see when we came. . . . I see an awakening of consciousness, but also some confusion about the reality. American Jewish teachers invite me into their classrooms to speak, but they do not want me to make the Holocaust a sad experience. They want me to turn us into heroes and create a heroic experience for the survivors. There is this book they use, The Holocaust: A History of Courage and Resistance, but the Holocaust was never a history of courage and resistance. It was a destruction by fire of innocent people, and it's not right to make it something it never was. 47

Behind much of the questioning of the value of representations of, and concerns with, the Holocaust lies a deep unease about attempts to make this particular past something that it never was, as it is retold in the present for a variety of reasons. While there may be a degree of sterility to endless debates about whether this or that Holocaust representation is authentic enough or real enough, it would seem that refashioning this terrible past in redemptive ways can be legitimately challenged: even more so when those representations claim for themselves authenticity.

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However, there is surely not only a place for questioning the authenticity of individual tellings of the Holocaust that make claims of authenticity for themselves. There is also a place for questioning broader contemporary concerns with the Holocaust that reduce its complexity to a number of simplistic moral lessons. To do so is not to suggest that the Holocaust is unimportant, but rather that it is too important to be reduced to the sentimental and moralistic. It has become increasingly common of late to situate critics of the Holocaust industry alongside Holocaust deniers as threats to the memory of this event. Such a strategy can be seen in Rosenfeld's attack on critics of the contemporary centrality of the Holocaust, in which he suggests that the work of the Holocaust deniers, whose manifest malevolence and dishonesty . . . puts them beyond the pale, should be less a cause for concern than the work of the critics of what is coming to be called, pejoratively, "Holocaust consciousness." These are writers who question not the facts but the prominence of the Holocaust in public consciousness and the motives of those who seek to perpetuate its memory.48 To mention critics of "Holocaust consciousness" in the same breath as Holocaust deniers is to level the ultimate charge against those engaged in an "assault on Holocaust memory." However, as I have suggested elsewhere, 49 I would not see questioning contemporary representations as virtually akin to Holocaust denial. Rather, I would suggest that there is evidence of inauthentic contemporary representations playing into the hands of deniers. The reconstructed gas chamber at the museum at Auschwitz is a case in point. In retelling this past, the very least that can be asked by those claiming authenticity for their products is that they get their history right—or at least as right as they possibly can. If they do not, criticism is not so much the sterile policing of self-appointed guardians of memory, or a broader assault on Holocaust memory, but asking appropriate, indeed, vitally important, questions. In a particularly telling section of his book, Mintz argues that in the present climate of widespread acceptance of Holocaust memorialization and representation, self-awareness is lacking, as "most groups are stumbling along into the future under the cover of the convenient mystifications about the Holocaust and complacently vague banalities about the imperative never to forget."50 Such naivete he suggests, will be severely questioned when interest in the Holocaust falls, after the last few decades of rise. It seems to me that asking questions of how and why the Holocaust has been represented and assumed a position of such centrality may actually be

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a n i m p o r t a n t element of prompting j u s t s u c h self-reflection on t h e p a r t of t h o s e engaged in r e p r e s e n t i n g t h i s history. If t h a t is t h e case, t h e n t h e critics of b o t h t h e specific c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t s relaying t h e H o l o c a u s t within p o p u l a r c u l t u r e , a s well a s t h e critics of t h e b r o a d e r c o n t e m p o r a r y e m p h a s i s on t h e Holocaust, m a y b e offering a significant a n d timely corrective.

NOTES 1. Dr. Gyorgy Gergely cited in T. D. Kramer, From Emancipation to Catastrophe: The Rise and Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), 269n228. 2. Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000), 5. 3. Ibid., 55. See also the criticisms of Gabriel Schoenfeld of academic writing on the Holocaust in his "Auschwitz and the Professors," Commentary (June 1998) and the responses to his article in "Controversy: Holocaust Studies—Gabriel Schoenfeld and Critics," Commentary (August 1998). 4. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry, 8. 5. Dorothy Rabinowitz, New Lives: Survivors of the Holocaust Living in America (New York: Avon Books, 1976), 196. 6. Cited in M. Pearlman, The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), 146. 7. Deborah E. Lipstadt, 'The Holocaust: Symbol and 'Myth' in American Jewish Life," Forum 40 (1980-1981): 78. 8. Jacob Neusner, Death and Birth of Judaism: The Impact of Christianity, Secularism, and the Holocaust on Jewish Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 279. 9. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry, 7-8. 10. Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 155. 11. Ibid., 87. 12. Ibid., 144. 13. Ibid., 171. 14. Ibid., 7. 15. Cited in M. Berenbaum, After Tragedy and Triumph: Essays in Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 44-45. 16. Cited in T. Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 399. 17. Cited in G. Cromer, "Negotiating the Meaning of the Holocaust: An Observation on the Debate about Kahanism in Israeli Society," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2, no. 2 (1987): 290.

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18. Yehuda Elkana, "A Plea for Forgetting," Ha'aretz, March 2, 1988, cited in M. Z u c k e r m a n n , "The C u r s e of Forgetting: Israel a n d t h e Holocaust," Telos 7 8 (Winter 1988-1989), 4 3 . 19. S. Friedlander, Memory, History and the Extermination of the Jews of Europe (Bloomington: I n d i a n a University Press, 1993), xi-xii. 2 0 . Cited in J . Shandler, "Schindler's Discourse: America D i s c u s s e s t h e Holocaust a n d its Mediation, from NBC's Mini-Series to Spielberg's Film," in Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler's List, ed. Y. Loshitzky (Bloomington: I n d i a n a University Press, 1997), 154. 2 1 . 1 . Avisar, "Holocaust Movies a n d the Politics of Collective Memory," in Thinking about the Holocaust: After Haifa Century, ed. A. H. Rosenfeld (Bloomington: I n d i a n a University Press, 1997), 44. 2 2 . Elie Wiesel, "Trivializing t h e Holocaust," New York Times, April 16, 1978, cited in Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, 2 1 1 . 2 3 . J o h n Gross, "Hollywood a n d t h e Holocaust," New York Review of Books, F e b r u a r y 3, 1994, cited in Alan Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 1 3 1 . 24. Imre Kertesz, "Who Owns Auschwitz?" Yale Journal of Criticism 14, no. 1 (2001): 2 6 9 . 2 5 . Ibid. 2 6 . S. Horowitz, "But Is It Good for t h e J e w s ? Spielberg's S c h i n d l e r a n d t h e Aesthetics of Atrocity," in Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspection on Schindler's List, ed. Y. Loshitzky (Bloomington: I n d i a n a University Press, 1997), 1 2 5 - 1 2 6 . 27. Alvin H. Rosenfeld, "The Assault on Holocaust Memory," American Jewish Year Book, 101 (2001): 20. 2 8 . Hilene F l a n z b a u m , "'But Wasn't It Terrific?' A Defense of Life is Beautiful," Yale Journal of Criticism 14, no. 1 (2001): 274. 29. Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory, 3 9 . 30. Ibid. 3 1 . F l a n z b a u m , "'But Wasn't It Terrific?'" 2 7 4 . 32. Ibid., 2 8 3 . 3 3 . Ibid., 2 8 4 - 2 8 5 . 34. Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory, 8 3 . 3 5 . Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler—How History is Bought, Packaged and Sold (New York: Routledge, 1999), 7 5 . 36. Kertesz, "Who Owns Auschwitz?", 2 6 9 - 2 7 0 . 3 7 . For more on this, see Tim Cole's c o m m e n t s in t h e new i n t r o d u c tion to t h e p a p e r b a c k edition of his Selling the Holocaust (New York: Routledge, 2000), xi-xii. 3 8 . United S t a t e s Holocaust Memorial M u s e u m b r o c h u r e "You C a n Help S h a p e t h e United S t a t e s Holocaust Memorial M u s e u m : A Call for Artifacts" (1989), cited in A. Liss, Trespassing through Shadows. Memory: Photography and the Holocaust (Minneapolis: University of M i n n e s o t a Press, 1998), 8 1 - 8 2 . 39. Cole, Selling the Holocaust (1999), 161-164. 4 0 . Cited in Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, 2 2 1 .

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41. Ibid. 42. Rosenfeld, 'The Assault on Holocaust Memory," 20. 43. Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory, 170. 44. David Cesarani, "History on Trial," Guardian, January 18, 2000, sec. 2, p. 3. 45. Ibid. 46. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, 261. 47. Cited in H. Greenspan, On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Recounting and Life History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 44-45. 48. Rosenfeld, 'The Assault on Holocaust Memory," 3. 49. Cole, Selling the Holocaust (1999), 108-110, 187-188. 50. Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory, 174.

ADDITIONAL READING Rosenfeld, Alan H., ed. Thinking about the Holocaust: After Haifa Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

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Part II Beliefs and Identity

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Chapter Four Changes in Christian-Jewish Relations since the Holocaust John S. Conway

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Christian-Jewish relations are at a particularly significant stage. The conversations and debates conducted on various levels by representatives of both Jewish and Christian communities in many different parts of the world attest to the ongoing attempt to create a new understanding of each other's faith and practice. Yet, this engagement, while usually politely expressed, is also fraught with tension. The relationship is still, as has been the case for the past fifty years, burdened by the shadow of the Holocaust with its overwhelming horror and injustice. For a wide spectrum of Jewish opinion, which is now shared by many Christians as well, there is a deeply felt perception that the roots of this tragedy lie in the many previous centuries of Christian anti-Judaic prejudice and intolerance. And this factor is also believed to be chiefly responsible for the failure of the Christian churches, both institutionally and individually, during the 1930s and 1940s, to assist the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Coming to terms with this particular theological and political past has, in recent decades, been a top priority, without which no positive steps of reconciliation would be possible. It is both a compelling and a challenging undertaking. In the years since the overthrow of the Nazi regime and the revelations of the crimes committed by Germans against the Jewish people, the consciousness of these failures on the part of the churches has gradually, if intermittently, grown. As a result, over the past forty years, a profound change in the Christian approach to the Jewish people has taken place, again gradually and not without tensions and interruptions, particularly on the part of the

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Roman Catholics, the world's largest community of Christians, but also on the part of most European-led Protestant denominations. At the same time, new factors besides the legacy of the Holocaust have intruded to make the achievement of a new relationship more complex. The intermingling of political and national considerations, especially having to do with the State of Israel, has vastly complicated the task, but must necessarily be considered in the total picture of how Christian responses to the fortunes of the Jewish people have developed. The purpose of this chapter is to depict the various stages of this changing relationship in various geographical and denominational settings. Because it was to be several years after 1945 before the full dimensions of the Holocaust were realized, this new start in Christian-Jewish relations can be said to have begun with the momentous events of 1948, in particular the creation of the State of Israel on the territory of Palestine. It will be appropriate, therefore, to consider the impact of this new situation on the attitudes of the Christian churches, both politically and theologically, since these developments were a necessary prelude to the still greater changes of later years, brought about as the profound implications of the Holocaust were realized. The reappearance of a Jewish nation in world history, or as Yehuda Bauer described it, the Jewish emergence from powerlessness, was an unprecedented and profoundly challenging step to all of the churches. Politically, the success of the Zionist community in establishing their own statehood in Palestine was the achievement of a dream that had eluded Christian potentates over many centuries. This evidence of Jewish ability to overcome centuries of banishment and impotence, and the prospect that Judaism now had a territorial base and a future to look forward to, necessitated a whole new set of relations for Christians and the abandonment of long-held and often entrenched views. In the practical sphere, this realization of Jewish sovereignty had significant consequences for the Christian communities in Palestine. Since many of them were directly related to or supported by branches of the church elsewhere, the repercussions were quickly felt worldwide. Even though the "Holy Land" had for centuries, except for a brief period in 1917, been controlled by non-Christian powers, the prospect of it now falling under Jewish political control was not a welcome one for the Christian communities. These early reservations were to be the basis for the later and more virulent opposition from some Christian groups, who increasingly saw the policies of the new Israeli government to be damaging to their interests. Earlier in the century, the Zionist hopes and plans for reestablishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, with a view to eventual

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statehood, was regarded by Christians with mixed feelings. On the one hand, a small group of earnest Protestants had read their Bibles literally, and welcomed the Jewish predestined return to their original homeland. 1 It was in this tradition of Sunday school Bible teachings that, for example, in 1948 U.S. president Harry S. Truman could see himself as a latter-day Cyrus, the ancient king of Persia, who had restored the Jews to their own land so many centuries before. A more substantial group of Christians supported the Zionist plans on humanitarian grounds, as an effective means of combating the scandalous maltreatment of the European Jews by the Nazis. In the United States, the most prominent theologian of the 1930s, Reinhold Niebuhr, was the spokesman for the American Christian Palestine Committee that vigorously campaigned for a permanent political solution to the Jewish problem. In appealing to his fellow Christians, Niebuhr argued that "the homeless Jews must find a home, and Christians owe their Jewish brothers more than verbal sympathy." 2 On the other hand, a more hesitant stance was taken by the majority of Christian denominations. The Vatican, for instance, had long had reservations about the Zionists' plans, which it feared would give rise to grave international problems and upset the complex status quo surrounding the territorial claims for the numerous Christian shrines and monuments scattered throughout Palestine. Despite the shock of the Holocaust, even after 1945, the Vatican retained its long-held idee fixe that Christian claims to the Holy Land had a moral value superior to Jewish rights to their own homeland, Israel. For this reason, the Holy See did not move to grant diplomatic recognition to the new state in 1948. The Orthodox churches, the majority of whose followers were Arabs, were even less in favor, while the major Protestant denominations, both in Europe and North America, took an ambivalent stance. The newly established World Council of Churches, for example, meeting in Amsterdam, shortly after the State of Israel was proclaimed, stated, "The establishment of the state 'Israel" adds a political dimension to the Christian approach to the Jews and threatens to complicate anti-Semitism with political fears and animosities. On the political aspects of the Palestine problem and the complex conflict of 'rights' involved, we do not undertake to express a judgment." 3 This unwillingness to take sides, and the conflicting views within the various church bodies over the admixture of moral and political issues, pointed to an ongoing dilemma, which has in fact continued during the subsequent fifty years. Yet the establishment of the Jewish political entity in 1948 obliged all churches to come to terms with a significant theological issue, basic to their understanding of

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Judaism, because the successful Jewish claim to statehood destroyed the validity of one of Christianity's longest-held calumnies, that is, that the Jewish people's expulsion from their homeland was a sign of divine punishment. Even if the new Jewish state owed its existence primarily to secular forces, the evidence of Jewish revival contradicted the Christian theological myth of Jewish national demise. The whole idea of a "promised land," and to whom it had been promised, now had to be rethought. So too the notion that Christianity had superseded the long-displaced Jews in divine favor had to be abandoned. The revival of a Jewish state, which the Jewish people felt was the rightful recompense for the crimes committed against them over the centuries (culminating in the Holocaust), challenged the centuries-long supplantation of Christianity. So too it destroyed the more recent view adopted by some liberal Protestants, such as Adolf von Harnack and Arnold Toynbee, that Judaism was no more than a fossilized relic. It also raised potent questions about the validity of Christian missions to the Jews. The unreadiness of the churches to face these issues can be seen in the various evasive tactics displayed by the churches toward the new reality of Israel, the Jewish state. Many of the more universalistic Protestants had already "spiritualized" such terms as promised land, Zion, Jerusalem, and Israel, applying them metaphorically rather than geographically, and disconnecting them from any reference to the Middle East. Such adherents saw no need to come to terms with the actual reality of a revived J u d a i s m in its concrete geographical setting. Other Christians regarded Palestine purely as a historical museum, or as a place for religious pilgrimage to sites connected with the life and death of Jesus. Ecclesiastical tourism had the unfortunate effect of "freezing" the image of the Holy Land in static and pastoral terms, as inhabited solely by shepherds or fisher folk, sheep and goats, fig trees and vineyards. Political developments were irrelevant to such pietistic purposes. So too the opposition of most missionary bodies in Palestine can be seen in their strong support of the Arab churches, and, more widely, for the Arab cause. These undoubtedly humanitarian sympathies were, however, also often mixed with political partisanship, which effectively avoided facing the theological issues of Israel and its destiny. In effect, consciously or unconsciously, these various stances amounted to a denial of the central affirmation of Judaism that an indissoluble bond existed between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. Only a few prophetic voices in the Christian churches in the 1950s began to regard the restoration of Israel as a positive

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step forward, which eventually could become a source of theological renewal for Christians and Jews alike. Nevertheless, the new theological assessments forced by the reality of the State of Israel were to have significant impacts on other aspects of Christian-Jewish relations. J u s t because, after 1948, it was no longer credible to propagate doctrines of Christian supplantation or Christian imperialism over Palestine, these views had to be relegated to the unlamented past. But in so doing, the way was open for no less challenging reassessments of inherited theological views, especially on the role of Christian anti-Semitism as a formative cause of the Holocaust. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the need to search for the causes of this disaster was very apparent, particularly in Germany. As the enormity of the Nazi regime's crimes became well-known, the moral dimensions of the nation's defeat became a vital concern for most thinking churchmen. The result was the growth of remorse and shame for the church's complicity, as was expressed in the German Evangelical Church's notable Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in October 1945. But such a readiness to face these traumatic events was matched by a much larger refusal by many Christians in Germany to acknowledge their previous support for the Nazi state. Rather, they engaged in a widespread amnesia, and turned away from any detailed examination of their past conduct. As a result, the initial attempts by German church commentators to find an explanation for the disastrous course of their recent history gave only a passing reference to the sufferings of the Jews. The Stuttgart Declaration made no specific mention of the widespread failure of the German churches to support the Jews in their hour of need or to withstand the spread of antiSemitism. And although subsequently the Evangelical Church did recognize this deficiency, it was not until 1950 that this church called for complete dissociation from all forms of anti-Semitic thought and behavior. But such expressions of humanitarian sympathy were still predicated on the presupposition that the disasters of the Holocaust could be blamed on secular, not Christian, forces. The Nazi glorification of the state, the excessive nationalism and racism of large segments of the German population, and the sinister impact of global anti-Semitism were all seen as evidence of the apostasy of modern man. The nation had been misled by the deluded fanaticism of the so-called Fuhrer, and now needed to be brought back to the earlier moral certainties proclaimed by the church. In the minds of many churchmen, "re-Christianization" became the slogan of the day. But such a stance deterred any rethinking of basic

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Christian attitudes toward the Jews. On the contrary, the declarations of many German church bodies, as well as those of the World Council of Churches, were still dominated by the traditional triumphalism of earlier years. Alan Brockway remarked that "the otherwise laudable emphasis upon anti-Semitism as a violation of human rights became, therefore, a substitute for wrestling with the critical issue of the theological significance of the Jewish people for Christian self-understanding." 4 Nevertheless, during the 1950s, fresh winds were beginning to blow. For one thing, the age of imperialism had clearly come to an end, and with it went much of the triumphalism and belief in a natural superiority held by the European imperial and colonial powers, including many of their church representatives and missionaries. More specifically, these were the years in which the consciousness of the sufferings of Jews at the hands of the Nazis became worldwide in scope. Scholars such as Gerhard Reitlinger, Leon Poliakov, and, later, Raul Hilberg documented the scale of these events, demonstrating that the mass murder of the Jews was not just the product of wartime circumstances, or a blunder conducted by a few lower-level underlings. Rather, they showed the centrality of the anti-Semitic campaign in Nazi practice. By the end of the decade, the word Holocaust was coined and publicized in a very emotive manner as the ideological and nonrational nature of Adolf Hitler's program. At the same time, in seeking for the deeper roots of the Holocaust's unprecedented enormity, many of these scholars unsurprisingly traced the origins of twentieth-century anti-Semitic hatreds back to the age-old antagonisms and intolerance of the Christian churches of earlier centuries. According to this view, the Nazi genocide was only the culminating pinnacle of a long historical process, when religiously motivated and easily transferable prejudice could be seen in all parts of Christian Europe. Century after century, Jews had been forced to suffer at the h a n d s of Christian bigotry. Or to quote Hilberg's epigrammatic words, "The missionaries of Christianity had said in effect: you have no right to live among u s as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: you have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: you have no right to live."5 This "culmination" theory, seeing the Holocaust as the logical outcome of previous German and Christian history, was, of course, contested by Christian apologists. Several theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, attempted to argue that the Nazi revolution of nihilism was directed against Christianity as well as Judaism, and would have eventually led to the eradication of both faith communities. There was no place in the Nazi futuristic vision of a racially

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purified Volk for any lingering remnants of what Hitler derisively called "superstitious rabble." The Nazi virulence against the Jews was therefore sui generis and had no connection to any previous Christian intolerance. Other theologians sought to show that the dividing line should be differently drawn. The distinction should be made between the undeniable Christian anti-Judaism of earlier centuries and the murderous anti-Semitism of the Nazis. For some Christian scholars such as Jacques Maritain and Henri Lubac in France, Krister Stendhal in Sweden, and Gregory Baum in Canada, the church's anti-Judaic measures were medieval deformations of the Gospel, which in practice had largely been abandoned. Authentic Christianity, purged of such blemishes, they claimed, was and is not anti-Judaic, let alone anti-Semitic. By contrast, the Nazis' systematic mobilization of all of the resources of the modern state to launch a campaign of eliminationist anti-Semitism was unique and unprecedented. Yet none of these arguments prevailed. To the majority of Jews, as well as to many Christians, such contentions seemed too self-serving and evasive of the moral responsibility for Christian complicity in the Holocaust. During the 1950s, more critical assessments were being made of the conduct of Christian communities toward the sufferings of the Jews, rejecting the apologias of the immediate postwar period. Even those church leaders in Germany, such as the Catholic bishop Galen of Munster and the Protestant pastor Martin Niemoller, who had staunchly resisted the Nazis' totalitarian attempts to subordinate the churches for their ideological purposes, were now shown to have maintained highly traditional and pejorative attitudes toward the Jews. So too the readiness of many Christians to support the Nazi state for nationalistic reasons precluded their adoption of any oppositional stance. The increasingly savage persecution of the Jews was at best regarded with confusion or an embarrassed silence. In addition, the skillful manner in which Nazi propaganda made use of the Christian vocabulary for their racial purposes and exploited a kind of "holy mania" in their gigantic rituals, such as the Nuremberg rallies, led to greater confusion, but also to compromises with this iniquity. For these reasons, the attempts to minimize Christian participation, even if only as bystanders, were not convincing. However, shortly after the end of the war in 1945, some farsighted theologians recognized the need to come to terms with this dolorous legacy by accepting the truth of Christian complicity, and repenting of the churches' failings. Only thus, they believed, could a new beginning in Christian-Jewish relations take shape. One of

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the significant international meetings dedicated to this quest took place in Switzerland in 1947 at the village of Seelisberg where sixty-five participants met under the leadership of the French scholar Jules Isaac. He had spent the war years in hiding while writing his book Jesus et Israel, which made a strong plea for a more positive estimation of the Jewish heritage and the abandonment of Christian negative stereotypes. The "Ten Points of Seelisberg" were especially addressed to the churches in order to correct false presentations of Christian doctrine, and at the same time to promote brotherly love toward the sorely tried people of the Old Covenant. For this reason, Christians were to avoid distorting or misrepresenting biblical or postbiblical Judaism with the object of extolling Christianity. At the same time, the noxious doctrine of Jewish responsibility for the Crucifixion, and the subsequent reprobation of the whole Jewish people, should be abandoned. 6 Similar responses to the Holocaust were also found in other European churches. In Holland, the Dutch Reformed Church decided in 1949 to establish a special Council for the Church and Israel. New guidelines were written by two church leaders who had been imprisoned with Jews in a Nazi concentration camp. In their view, Israel should be regarded as the elder brother of Christianity, from whose roots the latter had emerged and whose faithfulness set a pattern of witness that the church should now begin to admire and emulate. In Britain, strong support for this cause was given by a noted Anglican theologian, James Parkes, who contributed a large number of books presenting the history of the Jews and of Judaism in a more favorable light than heretofore. 7 Parkes accepted Christian responsibility for the origins of the Holocaust and attacked both the practice and the theology of Christian Mission to the Jews. He therefore sought to move his British audiences beyond the expressions of humanitarian sympathy that had led to their active measures on behalf of Jewish refugees. But he was a lone figure whose universalist and liberal views enjoyed little support from his clerical colleagues. To begin with, therefore, these idealistic sentiments were to find only a limited response in the wider church circles. In part this was due to the fact that such thinkers as Isaac or Parkes were isolated individuals. Before the end of the 1950s, the churches as institutions showed no great support, so that meetings such as Seelisberg were ineffective in reaching the wider constituency. Furthermore, in Europe, the survivors of the Jewish communities showed little interest in collaborating with Christians. And where institutions existed, such as the British or American Councils of Christians and Jews, which had strongly expressed their practical support for the

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victims of the Holocaust, they were at great pains to confine themselves to safe generalizations, deploring all intolerance, and preaching good citizenship. Controversial issues such as the need to combat the record of Christian anti-Semitism or the future of Palestine were resolutely avoided. Notably, in the 1950s, there was almost a complete silence on the question of Christian-Jewish relations on the part of the Vatican. None of the collections of official documents on ChristianJewish relations contains any statement issued by the Catholic Church before 1960. It was all the more remarkable, therefore, that, in that year, in preparation for the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII should have requested the preparation of a new statement on the Jews, which was later to culminate in the 1965 declaration on the relation of the church to the Jews, NostraAetate. This was to mark a highly significant Catholic contribution to the new relationship of later years. As we can now see, this striking move by the leaders of the largest Christian denomination was part of a larger program of aggiornamento, which was designed to renew the life of the whole church. And this also can be seen to have its parallels in the secular world. By the end of the 1950s, the sense of apocalyptic doom that had engulfed the world in 1945 had dispersed, following the revelations of the atrocities of the Holocaust, and subsequently the terror marked by the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. A new sense of optimism among church members led to a willingness to embrace new policies, and a readiness to alter old attitudes and traditional values, and hence the enthusiasm with which Pope John's announcement of the calling of the Second Vatican Council was greeted. The subsequent intense discussions during the council's deliberations opened a new and much more vibrant chapter in Christian-Jewish relations. In view of the Papacy's long-entrenched prejudice against the Jews, on both theological and historical grounds, the transformation in the attitudes of the Catholic Church was possibly the most striking achievement of the Second Vatican Council. The preparation of a new approach was entrusted to a German Jesuit cardinal, Augustin Bea, who recruited a remarkable team of experts. This move, however, quickly aroused vigorous opposition, not only from conservatives, but also from politically motivated sections of the church, especially those in Arab countries. They could not fail to believe that any new approach or sympathy for Judaism, and especially any pronouncement that gave theological justification to the Israeli claim to possession of the Holy Land, would have deleterious consequences for their congregations. Cardinal Bea was at

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pains to deny any political intent. The declaration was to be purely theological in scope. But even so, traditionalists objected to any alteration in the established patterns of thought regarding the Jewish people, merely to appease the contemporary Zeitgeist This opposition caused long delays, and finally the document had to be revised. All references to recent history, such as the Holocaust or the establishment of the State of Israel, were omitted. There was no question here of extending diplomatic recognition by the Holy See to the new state. Nor was there to be any contrition expressed for the centuries of Catholic oppression and discrimination. Another thirty-five years were to elapse before such repentance was xpressed by a later pope. But at the time, other and more positive factors appeared. NostraAetate, as part of the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions, received overwhelming support from the council's participants at its final session in 1965. Most strikingly, it broke new ground with an unprecedented stress on the bond between the Jewish people and the church. 'The Church cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant." Equally significant was the repudiation of one of the church's oldest calumnies, the charge of deicide. The death of J e s u s was due to certain individuals of the first century. No responsibility should be attributed to Jews of later centuries, let alone a collective and irremovable guilt. "The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." The consequence was that "in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone." 8 The most notable sentiment implicit in this declaration was the expressed desire for dialogue and reconciliation. The readiness of the Catholic Church, at the highest level, to encourage such unprecedented moves was widely welcomed in liberal circles, and resulted in new and constructive meetings between Catholics and Jews in numerous countries, especially in Western Europe and North America. Largely due to these conversations, but mindful of the pockets of conservative resistance in some staunchly Catholic countries, the Vatican authorities, in 1974, issued a series of guidelines that spelled out in more detail the expectations for such dialogue. In so doing, this new document went beyond the original formulations. Specifically, the 1974 guidelines pointed out the need

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to overcome the legacy of "two thousand years, too often marked by mutual ignorance and frequent confrontation." Real dialogue was called for that would necessitate the fostering of better mutual knowledge and respect for the partner's faith and religious convictions. More concretely, Christians were abjured to avoid any lingering or latent anti-Judaic sentiments. All forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination were explicitly condemned. Such sentiments seemed to confirm the prospects for a new and constructive relationship. Nor were the Protestants left behind. In the mainline Protestant churches of both Europe and North America, it was now realized that Christian complicity in the Holocaust demanded not only the abandonment of previous prejudices, but also a searching revision of Christian theology. Slowly, the realization grew that the Holocaust was not merely something that had happened to the Jews. It was, as the American scholar Franklin Littell called it, a Christian event and raised excruciating questions about Christian credibility.9 In 1960, in Germany, the Evangelical Church paid very close attention to the revelations of the Adolf Eichmann trail in Jerusalem. Its impact only strengthened a new readiness of the church leaders to accept the fateful role of the churches in at least preparing the ground for the Holocaust. From 1961 onward, a new Arbeitsgemeinschaft (collegiate) of the biennial German Protestant Church Rally began to organize public discussion of these issues, and published useful study guides. 10 The popularity of these sessions, repeated throughout subsequent years and led by such prominent theologians as Jiirgen Moltmann, Dorothea Solle, and J o h a n n Baptist Metz, marked a notable overcoming of the convenient amnesia of the past, and a belated acknowledgment of how far the German churches' previous silence and readiness to collaborate had contributed to the fate of the Nazis' primary victims. The priority was now given to a public admission of the church's guilt, and a readiness to repent for the past. This new approach was to be both practical and theological. On the one hand, the German Evangelical Church pioneered a specific youth project, Aktion Siihnezeichen (Deeds of Repentance), which was to make reparations for German crimes by organizing social service projects in Israel, Poland, and other occupied European countries. 11 Another example was the establishment in the 1960s, under the auspices of the German and Dutch Protestant churches, of a moshav in northern Israel, Nes Ammim, specifically to promote the cause of Christian-Jewish reconciliation. 12 On the theoretical level, German Protestant theologians began by realizing that one of the causes of the growth of anti-Semitism in their nation had been the lack of contact with Jewish thinkers who might have provided

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some antidote. To remedy this situation, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deliberately sought the cooperation of Jewish personalities, with a request for their help in preparing the basis for new relationships. Such a proposal, not surprisingly, met with difficulties. First, few Jewish scholars had survived in or had returned to Germany. More significantly, after the horrendous events of the Holocaust, could these new voices of a repentant Christianity be believed? Any Jewish participant in such an endeavor ran the risk, at least, of being misunderstood by his own community. It was greatly to the credit of such men as Rabbi Raphael Geiss, Pinchas Lapide, and Rabbi Peter Levinsohn that they were prepared to undertake the task of helping these German Protestants find a new basis for future relations, based on trust and mutual respect. Within the German Protestant context, this task was made easier by the fact that no one was ready to defend the theological stance adopted by the church's authorities during the Nazi years. Repudiation of the past necessitated a new formulation for the future. To this end, the German Evangelical Church established a special commission in 1967. Its 1975 report stressed, as the Catholics had done, the common bonds of the two faiths, and emphasized the debt Christians owed to the Jews in their scriptures and liturgy. It was fortunate that one of the most prominent Protestant theologians engaged in this task was Eberhard Bethge, the friend and biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had been murdered by the Nazis at the end of the war for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler. Bethge too had been imprisoned at the end of 1944 but had survived. Thanks to these qualifications, cooperation could take place. The most significant development was the 1980 declaration passed by the synod of the German Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. 13 This was the first statement to base its deliberations on an admission of Christian culpability for the crimes of the Holocaust, perpetrated by Germans. It also broke new ground in affirming the long-denied continuity of God's covenant with the Jewish people, and was further prepared to recognize that the return of the Jewish people to their promised land, and the erection of the new state, should be regarded as evidence of God's continuing providence. While these expressions of contrition received widespread approval, the consequences drawn aroused more controversy within the Protestant ranks. Not all were ready to grant that the political events in the Middle East could be regarded as part of God's divine plan. As will be considered, one result of the unresolved impasse over the policies of the Israeli authorities has been that the Rhineland synod's lead has not been followed up by other church bodies.

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Possibly the most challenging feature of the Rhineland synod's declaration was its statement that because "Jews and Christians are witnesses of God before the world and before each other, therefore we are convinced that the church may not express its witness towards the Jewish people as it does its mission to the peoples of the world."14 This seemed to infer an abdication of what for most Protestants, not only in Germany but also worldwide, had long been one of the strongest features of Protestantism, namely, the individual commitment to bring to others the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Suggesting that such a missionary obligation did not apply to members of the Jewish faith raised questions about its universal validity, and might have undermined the whole mission of the church. And, thus, it was a profoundly unsettling manifesto. Moreover, such a stance would mark a radical change from a century and a half of German Protestants actively propagating their missions to the Jews. In the early nineteenth century, German pietists and British nonconformists took advantage of the political dominance of the European powers to launch a period of enormous geographic expansion. The resurgence of missionary efforts toward the Jews was therefore part of the Protestant selfexpression, to be carried out with evangelical zeal. After the Napoleonic wars, German pietists from the Rhineland, Saxony, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Detmold established private societies with the intention of bringing the Gospel to Jews, who were newly liberated from the ghettos of earlier centuries. In 1841, the most spectacular instance of this drive was seen in the launching of a new project to set up an Anglo-Prussian bishopric in Jerusalem. This project enjoyed not only the warm support of the Prussian king but also of leading members of the Church of England. The instructions given to the first bishop, himself a convert from Judaism, was to convert the Jews, provide them with protection, and find them useful employment as an expression of the hope that such activity would eventually lead to all Israel being saved. Despite the meager results of this missionizing in the land of Jesus, and subsequent disruption of the Jerusalem bishopric on nationalist grounds, the German societies continued to be active in their missions to the Jews. But in Germany itself, the rise of a virulent anti-Semitic culture, which found political expression in the rise of National Socialism, placed such societies on the defensive. When Hitler came to power, it was not long before much of the work of these societies was forbidden. Indeed, a large section of the German Evangelical Church not only denied the validity of these endeavors, but actively supported the Nazi goals. It was left to the

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British and other foreign missionary societies to protest against this suppression of religious freedom, or to intervene on behalf of the Christian converts in Germany, who were now branded as "enemies of the people." But such remonstrances were pitifully inadequate and impotent to prevent the subsequent disasters that befell all of the Jewish people in Europe. The tragedy of the Holocaust did not, however, lead to any immediate or critical reevaluation of the missionary movement's goals. Instead, Nazi anti-Semitism and its subsequent crimes were attributed to excessive nationalism or racism, as essentially antiChristian forces. Nazism's defeat could therefore be regarded as an invitation to the missionary societies to begin again. For example, at the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948, resolute condemnations of anti-Semitism were combined with no less fervent support of the churches' continuing missionary responsibilities toward the Jewish people. The evangelization of the Jews was still an obligation, and indeed, in the immediate postwar years, we find the resuscitation of the Berlin Israel Mission and parallel organizations in other German Protestant churches. As before, they repeated the familiar themes of Christian mission to the Jews, as though the Holocaust had never happened. Or, if the terrible murder of 6 million Jews was mentioned, it was only as an inducement to renewed efforts: "Just this fact should compel us, out of our feelings of shame, to meet the Jews in the consciousness that we owe them our Christian witness, which alone can lead to Christ Himself. Only this vital witness of committed Christians can restore the true relationship between synagogue and church, between Christianity and Judaism." 15 It is impossible to believe that such zealous enthusiasts for Christian mission to the Jews after the Holocaust had ever consulted the intended recipients of these endeavors. Had they done so, they would surely have been obliged to shed many of the illusions they apparently still maintained. In 1945, for the majority of surviving Jews, Europe was a charnel house. They could not fail to know that both individually and institutionally Christians had failed to stand by them in their hour of danger. Their need now was to survive and to preserve the remnants of their Jewish identity. To embrace the offer of conversion to Christianity would therefore be a disastrous betrayal, nothing less than a completion of the Final Solution for the Jewish people. It was an impossible option. It was only when the churches at last began to face the significance of the Holocaust and to assess its impact that a thorough reappraisal of mission was undertaken. Even before 1980, individual German Protestants had called for replacing the term mission

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with mutual dialogue, which would, they felt, leave behind all traces of the earlier supplantation and would repudiate all overtones of anti-Semitism. The Rhineland synod's declaration was therefore the clearest statement to that date of this change. As Professor Rolf Rendtorf commented, "This declaration speaks of the addition of the gentiles to the people of God without annulling the election of the Jewish people and therefore shows the impossibility of the Christian mission to the Jews." 16 In practice, this call for the renunciation of mission, as a partial recognition of the church's failures during the Holocaust, was opposed only by the staunch traditionalists. On the larger church scene, it ran parallel to the widespread abandonment of the kind of missionary practices stemming from Europe and North America, whose alleged cultural imperialism was now discredited. Proselytism, or a zeal for converting others to one's own faith, was increasingly recognized in secular circles as an infringement of human rights. Understandably, many Jews supported this interpretation. But the promotion of dialogue also had its problematical aspects. Almost inevitably, those Christians who were involved in such encounters were those already convinced of the church's culpability during the Holocaust. They were, therefore, ready to discard any element of Christian doctrine that might seem to have fostered the earlier centuries-long hostility. Together with their evident willingness to be open to new insights drawn from other traditions, the one-sidedness of such discussions was obvious. To be sure, such well-meaning attempts were signs of the recognition that mutual trust and respect had first to be established, and could not be presumed in advance. But as Geoffrey Wigoder noted, dialogue is "a somewhat misleading term, as it means talking to one another, whereas the emphasis should be on listening to each other."17 A further problem has been the asymmetry of the relationship. With the destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the mass flight of the survivors to the safety of Israel after 1948, the numerical imbalance in Europe between Christians and Jews has only increased. By contrast, in Israel itself, the opposite is true. Only in North America, and in isolated pockets elsewhere, has a sufficient balance made possible the kind of dialogue in which the future of their respective communities is not in question. In recent years, these encounters have been marked by a variety of purposes. They work best when a common responsibility for service to humanity is stressed. But the complications that arise when the ethical demands, common to both faiths, for justice and peace are applied to the Middle East are readily enough apparent. On the theological level, there has been a considerable program of unlearning from

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earlier Christian agendas, removing many of the regrettable stereotypes of yesteryear. Today, one will not hear Christian preachers voicing the kind of stigmatization of the Jews that was frequently heard before the Holocaust. Similarly, Christian publications have been purged of anti-Judaic prejudices, and instead, one finds a deliberate consciousness of the continuity and authenticity of the Jewish faith. Cooperation between Christians and Jews in biblical scholarship has proved rewarding. In short, the overcoming of past distortions and misconceptions and the employment of a new vocabulary, has opened the way for a new beginning of mutual understanding and dialogue. In October 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, and the short reign of John Paul I, the first Polish pope was elected and took the name of John Paul II. As a young man Karol Wojtyla had experienced the horrors of the Nazi occupation and witnessed the inhumanities inflicted on the Jews. It is not too much to claim that John Paul II's long reign has been deeply marked by these events, resulting in his unprecedented leadership in the cause of improving Catholic-Jewish relations. As a young bishop, he took part in the Second Vatican Council and clearly shared the kind of reforming impulses shown in Nostra Aetate. At the same time, he could not fail to be aware of the stubbornly entrenched dogmatism of some of his own countrymen in Poland, where the combination of social and theological prejudices had long sharpened tensions between Catholics and Jews. He also became aware of the complexities of Vatican bureaucracy, which made any alterations in inherited positions the work of extended negotiations and often delays. Nevertheless, John Paul II has constantly urged his associates to move forward, both in repentance for the past and in the pursuit of a more positive future. However, controversies between the conservative and liberal wings of the church still continue, as can be seen in the series of documents issued in the past two decades. The conflicting, even contradictory, positions found in these statements demonstrate that not all Catholics are yet prepared to follow John Paul II's lead. These ambiguities remind us of the restrictions set on Catholic-Jewish encounters. From the point of view of the Jewish partners in such dialogue, progress in overcoming the legacy of the Holocaust has to be judged as only a partial success. Too often, Christian proclamations, especially those of the Vatican, have seemed to be the result of a balancing act, where positive recognition of what Christianity owes to Judaism is offset by regrettable omissions or lapses into backwardlooking aspects. Although all Christian statements now stress total opposition to anti-Semitism in general, the actual role of the church

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during the Holocaust is often bypassed. On the wider theological level, there is, as stated previously, a clear repudiation since Nostra Aetate, of the charge of deicide—that Jews put J e s u s to death—so often used earlier in anti-Jewish polemic. The teaching of contempt of Jews and Judaism, along with the related charges of deicide, collective bloodguilt, and the long-held theology of Jewish displacement by Christianity, has largely been purged from Christian liturgies and pulpits. But there is still an almost complete silence in Christian teachings of any reference to the events of Jewish history in the subsequent centuries of Jewish exile and Christian domination. No less vital is the necessity of formulating a more complete Christian theology of Judaism. Despite the many positive steps outlined herein, many Jews are still not convinced that the long history of the church's intolerance is finally at an end. Undoubtedly, however, the area in which Christian-Jewish dialogue has met with enormous and continuing difficulties lies in the churches' attitude toward the policies of the government of Israel. Many Jewish observers have expressed their disappointment that the theological advances in response to the Holocaust have not been matched with an equivalent approval of Israel's society and politics. Their criticisms of the churches' numerous utterances about the State of Israel over the past fifty years do not, perhaps, recognize that these issues have been the source of continued, but as yet unresolved, controversy both within and among the various Christian denominations. As mentioned previously, the rise of Israel to nationhood in 1948 profoundly affected the Christian churches' attitudes. But apart from a few Protestants who welcomed the return of the Jews to the promised land as a sign of the future millennium, no Christian denomination was ready to give a theological justification to this process. For centuries Christians regarded Palestine as the Holy Land, even though the church had not, in contrast to many Jews, ascribed sanctity to the whole territory. Indeed, many Christians assumed that, as the whole world was in God's hands, every part of it was equally spiritually significant. The Christian understanding of the Covenant regards this as a bond between God and his people, but does include a special relationship to the land. Furthermore, the universalistic aspirations of Christianity oppose any sacralization of a particular national cause. The dilemma for Christians is how to affirm this wider vision without falling back into the negative or supersessionary condemnation of Jewish particularism as "incomplete." But on the other hand, after the experience of seeing how many German Protestants fell into apostasy by giving fervent and uncritical support to their country and its leaders during

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the period of the Holocaust, the need to guard against such error is clear. Then again, all sections of the church could not fail to know that outspoken sympathy for the new State of Israel would be a divisive factor within their own congregations. For example, it was well-known that highly vocal pressures exerted by the Arab churches was responsible for the omission of any reference to this issue during the Second Vatican Council. For this reason, the Vatican delayed its diplomatic recognition of the State of Israel for many years. Not until 1993 was this step finally taken, thus removing a continuing grievance among many Jews, who still suspected the Catholic hierarchy of having lingering ambitions in the Holy Land, or of continuing anti-Semitism. Similarly, the World Council of Churches continued to refrain from any endorsement of Israel in its public pronouncements. It was only after the repeated insistence by Jewish representatives that the profound attachment to the Land of Israel was an integral, indeed essential, part of Jewish faith that the necessity of including this consideration in future dialogues was acknowledged. Already in the 1950s, the Christian churches, on mainly humanitarian grounds, were ready to support the various UN resolutions affirming the right of Israel to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries. But, at the same time, the plight of the Palestinians was also, for the same reasons, a matter of concern. After 1948, the principal focus of such concern lay in the need to care for the displaced refugees from the new state, now crowded into camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. But after 1967, equally strong concern was voiced for the plight of the inhabitants of the West Bank area. The ambivalence of Christian attitudes stems largely from the clash between these rival obligations. As a result, many Christians have been reluctant to endorse the Jewish position on the religious significance of the land, lest they be drawn into a political endorsement of specific Israeli policies. So too Christians are not alone in becoming increasingly skeptical of the Israeli claim that the state is still threatened with a repetition of the Holocaust, which justifies its policy of strength and its forcible suppression of the Palestinian minority. How to express their reservations about such claims without appearing to rehearse anti-Semitic attitudes is presently the Christians' dilemma that remains unresolved. The continuing and smoldering violence that has engulfed Israel and its neighbors without cessation in the past fifty years has defeated efforts by the parties involved or by the international community to find peace with justice. The seeming impossibility of reaching diplomatic and acceptable solutions, and the inevitable polarization of attitudes attributing blame for these continued fail-

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ures, has undoubtedly made the task of promoting better relations between Christians and Jews far more difficult. Many Christians are baffled and confused, sharing the view expressed by the Church of Scotland: "We are aware that in dealing with these issues we are entering a minefield of complexities across which is strung a barbed-wire entanglement of issues, theological, political and humanitarian." 18 It is clear that, as the twenty-first century begins, the political conflicts of the Middle East will continue to divide the loyalties and sympathies of the Christian churches. Paradoxically, in part, these tensions can be attributed to the longer-term impact of the Holocaust. Particularly in the churches of the Western world, the feelings of guilt over the fate of the Jews in their countries in the 1930s and 1940s, induced a commitment to give active support to victims of oppression, injustice, and exploitation. Furthermore, churches were now called on to be ready to take a much more militant stance in this cause. Instead of their passivity during the Holocaust, the churches were now invited to challenge the existing political structures, seeking to witness the cause of righteousness and justice for all peoples. The implications of this new perspective for the Middle East has proved to be no less contentious than before. The past decade has seen increasing international violence throughout the region, added demographic pressures competing for ever scarcer resources, and the alleged militancy of Islam. Religious convictions are readily used to support political programs and to arouse intolerance and antagonism. In such circumstances, the scope for the Christian churches to find means of espousing their ideals of reconciliation and reconstruction have steadily diminished. Nevertheless, the advocates of improved Christian-Jewish relations affirm the need to apply these principles even in the most intractable political conditions. They can readily agree with the distinguished Jewish scholar, Gerhard Riegner: "In the midst of a world torn apart by conflict, violence, poverty, exploitation and social injustice, a concerted effort of all spiritual forces is more necessary than ever if we want to overcome the calamities and suffering, the threats of dangers of the present. The organization of an ongoing collaboration in the field is a serious challenge."19 Such sincerely held appeals for cooperation between Christians and Jews, on humanitarian grounds, would undoubtedly be more effective if the churches, either individually or collectively, had been able to create an appropriate Christian response to the existing state and society of Israel. As in the purely theological discussions, the credibility of Christian pronouncements would be enhanced if

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the visible discordance of politically induced views, and the obvious tensions between more traditional and more liberal positions within the churches' ranks, were successfully resolved. The resulting frustrations and confusion are well illustrated in the fate of the most recent steps taken by the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism. In March 1998, under the leadership of Cardinal Cassidy, the then president of this pontifical commission, the Vatican issued a significant statement entitled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. This document was a further step in Pope J o h n Paul II's strategy to mark the arrival of the new millennium with a series of such declarations of repentance and reconciliation. In this case, the use of the term Shoah, which is preferred by many Jews, was a symbolic gesture of the statement's intent. And indeed the document states clearly that "[t]he Church approaches with deep regret and great compassion the experience of extermination in the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II." In its closing paragraph, the statement called on "all men and women of good will to reflect deeply on the significance of the Shoah." 20 But despite these expressions of genuine sympathy, many commentators found the statement to be defensive and self-exonerating. Attention was focused on one of the document's footnotes that defended the diplomatic moves taken by Pope Pius XII to assist the stricken Jewish communities. 21 Many Jewish commentators strongly objected. In their view, it was Pope Pius XII's failure to take more energetic and public steps to prevent the Holocaust's disasters that would have been a more appropriate topic about which the Vatican should express its remorse. These responses, in fact, rekindled the flames of controversy about the Catholic Church's wartime conduct, which had first been ignited in the 1960s. Since the issue was and remains highly inflamed, a short explanation is necessary. Five years after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, a young Swiss playwright, Rolf Hochhuth, published a drama entitled The Deputy in which he drew attention to what he saw as the coldhearted and calculating behavior of Pope Pius XII during World War II, suggesting his indifference to the sufferings of the Jews being transported to their deaths in Auschwitz. This inflammatory attack received support from those Catholics looking for a new style of leadership, which they hoped would follow the outcome of the Second Vatican Council. It was also supported by many Jews desperately looking for some graspable reasons as to why the Holocaust had been allowed to happen without visible resistance. The response of the Vatican authorities to these charges was to

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authorize the unprecedented publication of a series of documentary volumes, drawn from its own archives, to be edited by four Jesuits. The purpose was to provide the contemporary evidence, describing the papal policies of the war years, in particular to document Pope Pius XII's search for peace and the measures taken to assist the victims of the war. Between 1965 and 1981, eleven large volumes were produced—mostly in Italian. In part because of this language barrier, and in part because of the time taken to select, edit, and publish these collections, the impact among scholars and journalists was not striking. The result was that the widespread and often pejorative interpretations held about Pope Pius XII and his officials during the Holocaust, as launched originally by Hochhuth, were not revised. As we may now surmise, this critical judgment, held by many observers, was supported for a variety of nonhistorical reasons, reflecting an emotional engagement rather than a scholarly assessment. At the same time, a group of Vatican loyalists was equally impervious to historically based evaluations. So the debate continued. Later, in 1998, Cardinal Cassidy, who can be regarded as the principal champion of We Remember, sought to defuse this controversy in order to remove what seemed to be a stumbling block to the kind of improved relations now desired by the Vatican leaders. He took the quite unprecedented step of suggesting that a panel of historians, comprising an equal number of Jewish and Catholic scholars, should look at the published evidence again, and, if necessary, "pose questions about unresolved matters." Their authority could then be invoked against the latest round of uninformed but inflammatory criticism. To this end, three Catholic scholars from the United States were joined by three Jewish representatives to undertake this task. So far so good. Unfortunately, for such an irenic purpose, it would seem that there was a serious lack of clarity on both the Catholic and Jewish sides as to the exact scope of this panel's intended activities. Jewish commentators had long expressed their reservations about Pope Pius XII's stance during the Holocaust, and also about the contents of these documentary volumes produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Already at the time these volumes appeared, demands were put forward that the Vatican should allow access to its archives in order to establish beyond dispute that these volumes represented a complete record, or whether the documents had been carefully selected in order to present the most favorable picture of Pope Pius XII and his officials. These issues were highly sensitive. But the Vatican authorities steadfastly refused to grant access to its collections.

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These Vatican officials must have been extremely shortsighted if they believed the newly appointed panel of historians would not raise the demand once again, as they did. On the other hand, the unavailability of the wartime papers can be explained by the persistence of the Vatican's long-standing policy about the release of its archival materials. The shortage of staff had supposedly prevented the prompt or appropriate handling of this documentary collection. No promises were ever made to the panel that open access would be granted. The result was, therefore, a sad misunderstanding and rebuff, which led to the panel imploding in the summer of 2001, leaving its labors unfinished. In the eyes of some Jewish commentators, the Vatican's failure to open its archives could only be due to the fact that it had something to hide. The refusal to provide unfettered access was a sign of the Vatican's bad faith. Equally on the Catholic side, accusations were expressed about Jewish unwarranted attacks on the Vatican's integrity. This unfortunate incident may be taken as another example of the kind of misunderstandings that have arisen in the wake of the Holocaust. The angry exchanges between church officials and Jewish leaders have often reached a level of distressing intensity. For example, they erupted over the proposed building of a Carmelite convent on the grounds of the Auschwitz concentration camp, 22 over the canonization of the nun and Jewish convert, Edith Stein, 23 and, most particularly, over the proposed beatification of Pope Pius XII. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the American Hebrew Congregation noted that "the entire structure of Catholic-Jewish relations has seemed caught up in a morass of recriminations on Holocaust questions." 24 Sixty years have now passed since the mass murder of Jews in Nazi death camps began, which was the climax of the monstrous plan to eliminate altogether Europe's Jewish population. Despite the fact that the majority of those who survived these atrocities are no longer alive to bear testimony, interest and concern about these events and the implications of the Holocaust continues to grow. The moral, political, social, and theological questions that have been explored in depth during these past decades are still the subject of intense and passionate debate. Inevitably, perhaps, differing perspectives have emerged, particularly about the measures that might have prevented, or at least mitigated, the enormity of these crimes. Such deeply felt resentments in many Jewish quarters, which are also shared by numerous Christians, are not liable to be quickly overcome. They can only be offset by compelling evidence of a new approach. It is the contention of this chapter that in the past forty years a manifestly impressive change in Christian-Jewish relations has

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indeed taken place, despite the repeated and painful setbacks noted herein. More progress toward a positive relationship has evolved than was supposed possible in earlier years. The initiatives first taken by Pope John XXIII and implemented in the publication of Nostra Aetate during the Second Vatican Council have been followed closely by Protestant communities in many parts of the world. Highly significant doctrinal developments within both the Catholic and the Protestant churches—though not as yet among the Orthodox churches—have led to a major reversal of the longheld theological anti-Judaism of the church. Active steps at all levels of pastoral practice have been taken to eliminate this highly unfortunate legacy of the past. The leadership shown by Pope John Paul II in this cause is undeniable. His insistence that this cause was a priority of his papacy was reflected in his being the first pope to enter a synagogue, to pay tribute at a number of Holocaust sites, including Auschwitz and Mauthausen, and to visit officially the State of Israel. These gestures were designed to invoke a genuine repentance for the church's past misunderstandings and mistreatments of both Jews and Judaism, and to stress the need to adopt a wholly new attitude toward Christianity's "elder brother." Such powerful and effective advocacy by the leader of the world's largest Christian community has meant that his teachings and example have now become normative for the whole Catholic Church and, as such, can be regarded as irreversible. Broadly seen, this new understanding of Jews and Judaism has been part of the continuing process of late-twentieth-century modernization and liberalization, a striking aggiornamento within and among the Christian churches. The impetus for such changes can be attributed to both the legacy of the Holocaust and the reality of the State of Israel. The principal effect was the abandonment of the centuries-old tradition of triumphalism and exclusivism, and resulted in a new opening for a wider understanding of church and Christian discipleship. This process is, however, by no means complete, as can be seen in the continuing ambiguities found in church statements with regard to Christian attitudes toward J u daism, the Jewish people, and above all toward the Jewish state. 25 The task today is for both communities, Jewish and Christian, to discover ways in which their authentic faiths can be expressed and upheld in a post-Auschwitz setting. The catastrophe of the Holocaust forced a continuing and searching examination of its causes, with the explicit motive of preventing any repetition. The slogan "Never again" had a two-dimensional focus: On the one hand, it called for the abandonment of all forms of prejudice and intolerance, whether theologically based or of secular provenance.

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On t h e o t h e r h a n d , it p r o m o t e d a very active c o n c e r n for t h e victims of violence a n d persecution in t h e public c o n s c i o u s n e s s of m o s t c o u n t r i e s of t h e W e s t e r n world. This is a n a g e n d a for t h e twenty-first century, w h e n , it is to be hoped, b o t h C h r i s t i a n s a n d J e w s will find t h e c o m m u n i t y of faith a n d be d r a w n together in coll a b o r a t i o n for t h e future p r e s e r v a t i o n of t h e world e n t r u s t e d to t h e m , in t h e spirit of r i g h t e o u s n e s s , j u s t i c e , a n d peace—tzedek, mishpat, a n d shalom.

NOTES 1. For a comprehensive account, see Paul C. Merkley, The Politics of Christian Zionism, 1891-1948 (London: Cass, 1998). 2. Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Crisis, April 3, 1944. 3. World Council of Churches, The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches Official Report (New York: World Council of Churches, 1949), 160-164. 4. Alan Brockway, ed., The Theology of the Churches and the Jewish People: Statements by the World Council of Churches and Its Member Churches (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1988), 126. 5. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. ed., vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 1985), 8-9. 6. See Reports and Recommendations of the Emergency Committee on Anti-Semitism, Seelisberg 1947 (Geneva: International Council of Christians and Jews, n.d). For an English translation, see Jules Isaac, Has Anti-Semitism Roots in Christianity? (New York: National Conference of Christians and Jews, 1961). For subsequent declarations of this type, see Peggy Obrecht, "After the Shoah: Christian Statements of Contrition," in The Holocaust and the Christian World, ed. Carol Rittner, Stephen Smith, and Irena Steinfeldt, (London: Kuperad, 2000) 174-178. 7. James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (London, 1934), Judaism and Christianity (London, 1948), and Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine (London: Penguin Books, 1949). 8. Cited in Geoffrey Wigoder, Jewish-Christian Relations since the Second World War (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1988), 143-144. 9. Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifixion of the Jews (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 17. 10. See Dieter Goldschmidt and H. J. Kraus, eds., Der ungekundigte Bund: Neue Begegnungen von Juden und Christlichen Gemeinden, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1962). For the Catholics, a significant impact was made by the publication of the Freiburger Rundbriefe, a biennial collection of statements and articles on Christian-Jewish relations compiled by Gertrud Luckner.

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11. Ansgar Skriver, Aktion Siihnezeichen: Briicken uber Blut und Asche (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1962); and Konrad Weiss, Lothar Kreyssig: Prophet der Versohnung (Frankfurt, 1998). 12. Simon Schoon and Heinz Kremers, Nes Ammin: Ein christliches Experiment in Israel (Neukirchen: Neukirchner Verlag, 1978). 13. Brockway, The Theology of the Churches, 92-94. 14. Ibid. 93. For a critical commentary on this theology, see E. Lohse, Erneuern und Bewahren (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993), 305-307. 15. Allgemeine-Missions-Nachrichten 29 (1949), 2 ff, cited in Paul Arimg, Christliche Judenmission (Neukirchen: Neukirchner Verlag, 1980), 234. For a critical analysis of this whole trend in Germany, see Eva Fleischner, Judaism in German Christian Theology since 1945 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1972). 16. Rolf Rendtorf, "The Effect of the Holocaust on Church Mission to the Jews," SIDIC 14 (1981): 24. 17. Wigoder, Jewish-Christian Relations, 41 18. Brockway, The Theology of the Churches, 116. 19. Gerhard M. Riegner, "Nostra Aetate Twenty Years After," cited in Fifteen Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, 19 70-1985 (Vatican City, 1988), 285. 20. Cited in SIDIC 31 (1998): 22-26. 21. A week after We Remember appeared, the Canadian Jewish Congress noted, "We are disappointed that the declaration defends the inaction of Pope Pius XII. It is inconsistent to admit the failures of ordinary Christians to speak out against the Holocaust, but to ignore the deafening silence of the pope" (cited in Carol Rittner and John Roth, "Good News" after Auschwitz? Christian Faith in a Post-Holocaust World [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001], 15). For a comprehensive critical historical-political overview of this document, see the series of lectures in R. Braham, ed., The Vatican and the Holocaust: The Catholic Church and the Jews during the Nazi Era (New York: City University of New York, 2000). 22. See Isabel Wollaston, "Sharing Sacred Space? The Carmelite Controversy and the Politics of Communication," Patterns of Prejudice 28, no. 3/4 (1994): 19-27. 23. See W. Herbstrith, ed., Never Forget: Christian and Jewish Perspectives on Edith Stein (Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1998). 24. SIDIC 33 (2000): 25. 25. See, for example, Church of England, Sharing Our Hope? The Church of England and Christian-Jewish Relations (London: Church House, 2001).

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Chapter Five Ultra-Orthodox Reflections on the Holocaust: 1945 to the Present Gershon Greenberg

Postwar reflections on the Holocaust by ultra-Orthodox thinkers lend themselves to a variety of studies. 1 These include the analysis of epistemological boundaries, the significance of the hagiographical literature, and the impact of individual experience on theology;2 as well as responsa literature, relationship to non-ultra-Orthodox thought, and patterns of reactions to specific historical events (for example, the German retreat from North Africa,3 the establishment of the Jewish state, and the 1967 war). This chapter sets out to delineate a typology for post-1945 religious thinkers and to initiate the interpretation of the sources. Three salient categories emerge: the explanation of the catastrophe as the act of evil nations, which sometimes acted as instruments of God; the explanation of the catastrophe as the God-administered response to religious failures on the part of Israel; and the identification of the catastrophe as an act that sanctified God's name, a sacrifice to God carried out in love. THE EVIL NATIONS According to this view, the nations of the world were rooted in evil. The evil was set in place either at the point of creation or redemption, during the intervening metahistory (primarily with Adolf Hitler) or incarnated as Amalek.4 According to Shalom Noah Brazovsky (b. 1910), resh mesivta (Yeshivah head) of Yeshivat Beit Avraham (Jerusalem) and Admor (acronym for Adoneinu, Moreinu Verabeinu, the title for a Hasidic

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rabbi) of Slonim (Byelorussia), writing in the 1980s, when God created the universe He implanted both holiness (Kedushah) and unholiness-profanity (Tumah). Nazism was the inevitable outcome of Tumah: "This terrible [Holocaust] was set down in the calendar of events from the very beginning." The monstrosity of Hitler, a messenger of the other realm of evil being (Sitra ahra) belonged to the very evolution of the universe. Hitler's war was between Tumah and Kedushah, and as such had roots outside human comprehension. Citing Yisrael ben Shabbethai Hapstein of Kozienice of the early eighteenth century, Brazovsky wrote that God anticipated everything in advance. All events then unfolded according to God's arrangements during the six days of creation. For Hapstein, there was an inner dimension to all human conduct, a "wheel" within a "wheel." When the people of Israel chose according to God's commandment, the outer reality would follow their desire. The choice, however, belonged to the initial arrangements. Adam's sin, the raison d'etre for exile and suffering, belonged to an initial divine plan. Catastrophes were set in advance, as part of the order of the world. Indeed, without them, the world would return to precreation chaos. According to Hapstein, when Israel's choice provoked divine anger, the anger actualized itself gradually. The decree of destruction set for the era of Mordekhai and Esther, for example, was postponed until the time of Bogdan Chmielnitsky (seventeenth century). The expression of God's anger (Brazovsky did not cite a specific provocation) was also delayed until the Nazi destruction. 5 The view that evil was present since creation was brought forward in 1990 by Hayim Druckman, a student of Tsevi Yehudah Kook and dean of Yeshivat Etsiyon (Jerusalem). When God created the world, Druckman wrote, He included the opposing forces of darkness (chaos, lies, Tumah) and of light (order, truth, and messiah). The darkness surfaced in history in stages—at Sinai when the Torah was given (Shabbat 89a) and in Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome (as implied by the four terms Tohu, Bohu, Hoshekh, and Tehom in Gen. 1:2; see Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 2:5). Light surfaced with the binding of Isaac (Akeidah), Sinai, and the thread of life-risking, self-sacrificial acts (Mesirut nefesh) through the course of Jewish history. Hitler was the ultimate manifestation of the cosmic darkness. Acts of holiness within the catastrophe—for example, the outburst of the Boyaner Rav (Boyany, Ukraine) Mosheh Friedman in Auschwitz that Germany would be destroyed, before he recited the Shema (Hear O Israel; Deut. 6:4) and was killed— manifest the original light of creation, and also tied Israel to the final light of messianic redemption (as implied by the term spirit [Ruah] in Gen. 1:2).6

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Cosmic evil was also rooted in the apocalypse. Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap (1883-1951), the resh mesivta of Jerusalem's Yeshivah Merkaz Harav Kook, drew from the eighteenth-century Gaon of Vilna, Eliyahu ben Shlomoh. As the eschaton (final end to which our lives are ordained) began, the messiah son of Joseph entered the world within vessels of darkness—lest the messiah's sudden blazing light overwhelm the people of Israel. This darkness was the Holocaust. Outer darkness and guilt (or unworthiness, kulo hayav) battled inner light and worthiness (kulo zakai); the nations of the world, heirs of Amalek, assaulted the collective soul of Israel. Until this point, the nations had the choice to share in the holiness Israel brought to the world, a holiness that provided existence itself. They chose instead to impose their Tumah upon Israel. As redemption came closer, and with it the sanctification of the universe that brought death to all Tumah nations, they went on a crazed attack to destroy Israel and stop the process. Harlap believed that they were only destroying themselves—ever more depriving themselves of existence. The choice for self-destruction was, however, also inevitable, for redemption's light (and the messiah son of David) could only enter the world and be instilled in Israel if there was darkness, here in the form of destruction. 7 Several ultra-Orthodox thinkers placed evil in metahistory (that is, the mythic, covenantal relationship between God and Israel in the context of time-space history). Hitler was the primary vessel and chief expression. Yehudah Layb Gerst and Mosheh Prager (Mark) (adherents of the Hasidic community of Ger [Gora Kalwaria, Poland]), who were influenced by Danzig Senate president Herman Rauschning's account of Hitler's conversations, split human history between the mind of Israel and the mind of Hitler. Gerst, interned in the Lodz ghetto until August 1944, and in various camps until 1947 when he went to the Land of Israel to teach at the Beit Ya'akov Seminary in Jerusalem, identified the Holocaust as the culmination of post-Kantian philosophies of autonomous morality. By Hitler's time, that morality took the form of an unbridled human instinct out to destroy the heteronymous morality that originated at Mt. Sinai. Gerst recorded instances of Sinai morality in the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and Kaufering in the form of prayers and rituals. They displaced the Tumah of antimorality, to enact the metaphysical reality of Sinai while giving life to Sinai. 8 Prager escaped Warsaw in the spring of 1940 with Ger Hasidism's leader Avraham Mordekhai Alter, arrived in the Land of Israel in the spring of 1940, and became the leading Holocaust historian for the ultra-Orthodox. Hitler, Prager wrote, believed that Jews had a unique ability to survive, an ability that made them history's master. While doing so, they allegedly

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blemished the flesh of mankind with circumcision and the soul with moral conscience. In Hitler's mind there was a war underway between Israel with its God of spirit, chosen status and Scripture, and Germany with its God of instinct, barbarism, and its divinely chosen status. The continued existence of Israel was unbearable. Hitler's Germany would not be safe until every last Jew was removed from the earth. According to Prager, the Jew responded to the Sitra ahra of Hitler with acts of Mesirut nefesh that sanctified God's name (Kiddush Hashem) up and through death. In their highest form, these acts took place in moments of ecstatic trance in which the Jew transcended the physical and psychic self and material reality, becoming indifferent to the Sitra ahra and adhering to God.9 In the 1990s, a member of the Bobover (Bobowa, Poland) Hasidic community in New York, Hayim David Bakon, attributed the catastrophe to Hitler's hatred for the Jew as paradigmatic opponent of injustice. Hitler stood for murder and theft to gain power, while the people of Israel stood for "Do not murder" and "Do not steal." With the Holocaust, the universe moved through the preredemptive battle between Satanic Tumah (specifically the Kelippot of Kabbalah, the shards of vessels of cosmic light that shattered) and Kedushah. God's light penetrated into the darkness (Lev. 26:44) to become visible with specific acts of holiness within the catastrophe. 10 In Hebron, Mosheh Blaykher, resh mesivta of Yeshivat Shevi Hevron, wrote that Hitler brought the ongoing metaphysical, antagonistic dualism between divine eternity and morality (Israel), and the nations that hated them, to a climax. As it was, Hitler found it impossible to reside on the same planet as Israel. Once redemption became imminent and Israel's status became assured, he launched an all-out attack. 11 A number of ultra-Orthodox thinkers in the 1990s concentrated and incarnated the metahistorical and metaphysical evil into the personality of Amalek—of whom Hitler was the last and ultimate form. According to scriptural and rabbinic literature, Amalek's attack against Israel at Refidim was without justification, reason, or provocation. The assault also went beyond Israel itself to become an attack on God Himself. Accordingly, the people of Israel were never to forget the attack and God would remain at war with Amalek forever.12 Yeshayah Shtaynberger, resh mesivta of Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem, wrote that Amalek's essence was idolatrous. According to the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides (Rambam), idolatry meant that there could be no being higher than one's own; according to the medieval biblical commentator Rashi, it meant self-deification (Rashi to Esther 3:2). With Amalek, idolatry produced an unquenchable thirst to dominate everything (see

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Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah 13:3). When he was unable, he became intent upon genocide of those who resisted or who retained distinctiveness (Esther 3:6-8). The essence of Amalek assumed different forms over the course of history (notably Haman and Bogdan Chmielnitsky). As Hitler, Amalek worshiped himself and grafted the Teutonic myth of superiority on to modern Germany. Since the Jews could not fit into Germany and had a special power to survive, they had to be destroyed. This had to be done, even if it meant diverting military resources—a self-destructive characteristic of the original Amalek (Rashi to Deut. 26:18). 13 Yoel Shvarts of Yeshivat Devar Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) cited the nineteenth-century statement of Zadok Rabinowitch that Amalek was especially provoked when redemption appeared on the horizon. This was because redemption meant that his seed would be obliterated. This explained why Amalek attacked during the exodus from Egypt; and Haman attacked when the moment came for redemption from Babylon. Shvarts wrote that Amalek changed garments according to historical differences. The garment for World War II was Hitler. Like the original Amalek who threw the phalli of Israelites up toward heaven, saying "Here is what You delight in" (Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 13:3), Hitler sought to uproot the signs of Jewish identity. Both intended to destroy Israel and the God of Israel together (see Midrash Shemot Rabbah 51:5); both lied about Israel (Megillah 13b), were bastards (Rashi to Gen. 36:12), used magic (Rashi to Exod. 17:9) and attacked when Israel's faith was weak (Sanhedrin 106 a ). Citing the Hofets Hayim (Israel Meir Cohen of Radin, 1838-1933) about the imminence of redemption after World War I, Shvarts also spoke of the rage of Amalek-Hitler at the prospect of Israel's redemption. 14 Layb Minzberg, Resh Mesivta of Yeshivat Hamatmidim (Jerusalem), focused on the competitive aspect to the struggle. Amalek's grandfather was Esau (Rashi to Sanhedrin 99b), who struggled within the womb with Jacob for supremacy (Rashi to Gen. 25:22). Amalek inherited the characteristic and became agitated whenever Israel's superiority surfaced and when Israel's God demonstrated leadership. The agitation was self-destructive. According to the rabbinic sages, Amalek was like someone who jumped into a boiling bath, burning himself while cooling it down for others. Thus, when Israel left Egypt, the Egyptians drowned and all the nations of the world became afraid, Amalek still went on the attack (Midrash Tanhuma (Buber): Ki tetsei: 9). Hitler Amalek's superiority was threatened by Israel, standing for holy and righteous character as opposed to brute strength, Minzberg wrote, and the threat was total. With redemption, which was

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imminent, Israel's temple would be rebuilt and the sovereignty of Israel's God would become indisputable (Pesahim 5 a and Midrash Tehillim9:10). 1 5 The pattern of thought that traced the Holocaust to evil outside of Israel identified different roots. According to one, evil was inherent to creation and unfolded in time, or part of an apocalyptic drama set from eternity. Human choice remained, but it belonged to a higher inevitability. In another, evil originated upon the insertion of the Torah into metahistory at Mt. Sinai and the Torah's separation between good and evil. Or evil resided in Hitler, the conceptualizer and vessel of metahistorical evil. According to the third, evil was rooted in Amalek and his successive incarnations. The essence of Amalek (idolatrous, jealous of Israel's status) remained the same, while the form changed. Amalek's essence became explosive with Hitler, because now redemption (and with it, Amalek's absolute demise) was imminent. According to this first pattern, once God set the structure in place for the world and its history and metahistory, He remained distant. He did not intervene, for example, to administer punishment through an evil instrument. ISRAEL'S RELIGIOUS FAILURE The stream of thought according to which the Holocaust came about because of the evil other, whether the evil was rooted in creation/redemption, metahistory, metaphysics, or incarnated in Amalek, paralleled a stream where Israel's sin brought on catastrophe by evoking and provoking a punitive response by God. The former dwelled on the choice by the "other" to do evil (the evil that belonged to creation and the apocalypse was actualized by choice, even if the choice belonged to a higher inevitability). The latter invoked a triangular relationship, in which the endangered connection between God and Israel included the divine instrument of Nazism. The two streams touched, insofar as the divine reaction involved the use of the evil already present in the "other." For some, the sin of Israel was categorical and undefined. Others defined the sin in terms of Torah-failure or land-failure. Categorical Failure As the war ended and it was learned that 6 million Jews were murdered and that Hitler was burned to death, Isser Zalman

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Meltser (Jerusalem), the former resh mesivta of Yeshivat Slobodka (Kaunas-Slobodka, Lithuania), was concluding his classic interpretation of Rambam's legal code, and he decided to preface it with his thoughts about the catastrophe. The Holocaust was the apocalypse, he wrote, when the moon turned into blood and the sun turned dark (Joel 2:30-32). It consisted of premessianic sufferings (Hevlei mashiah) (see, for example, Isa. 66:2). Souls suffered unto death, enunciating the Shema (Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; Deut. 6:4) as they died with unrestrained love for God (Berakhot 61b) on the path to redemption. The suffering, Meltser wrote, was not unavoidable. It could have been diminished or even removed had the Torah, the water that extinguished the flame of evil traits (see Hullin 46a), been in effect. The Holocaust was totally ascribable to the perpetrators in whom the evil traits exploded. At the same time, Torah-failure allowed the evil flame to ignite while Torah-engagement could have extinguished it. Indeed, the life of Torah could have evoked the fire of God to burn the evil ones to death and obliterate them from the earth (Exod. 32:12). Even during war—the rabbinic sages explained how Joshua was obliged to study Torah even when there was no let up in fighting (Rashi to Erubin 63b)—Torah learning should have continued as the way to defeat evil.16 The correlation between Torah-failure and disaster was enunciated subsequently in the displaced persons' camp. In August 1947 in the American zone in Germany, Abraham G. Schiff told a rabbinical gathering in Munich—he appeared in place of Yekutiel Halberstamm, the Klausenberger Rav (Cluj, Romania)— that when modern Jews cast Torah away, the nations hurled stones at them and drenched them in blood (citing, "If a tree casts off its fruit, it is painted red and loaded with stones"; Shabbat 67a); and Shlomoh Diamant Yahalomi (from Stryszow, Poland) imagined that God responded to Jeremiah-like pleas from the gas chambers ("Wherefore is the land perished and laid waste like a wilderness?"; Jer. 9:11) with the declaration, "Because they have forsaken My Torah" (Nedarim 81 a ). 17 The principle of Israel's categorical sin reemerged in the 1970s. As a leader of Habad Hasidim and director of its wartime "Mahaneh Yisrael" eschatological campaign, Menahem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch (Lubovichi, USSR) subscribed to the view that sin was a matter of Teshuvah (penitent return)-failure. Israel was exiled in order to provoke Teshuvah for trespasses committed in the ancient land. Instead, the people trespassed further. By 1941, Israel faced redemption, but Teshuvah still had not taken place. So God confronted Israel with an either/or choice: radical Teshuvah or death (albeit not total, for there would

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certainly b e r e d e m p t i o n a n d therefore s o m e J e w s to s h a r e it). T h o s e w h o belonged to M a h a n e h Yisrael r e s p o n d e d properly. The c a t a s t r o p h e for S c h n e e r s o h n w a s n o t only t h e a l t e r n a t i v e to Teshuvah, b u t a force t h a t e n a b l e d Teshuvah. In 1972, h e wrote t h a t God a c t e d like a s u r g e o n w h o removed t h e d i s e a s e d p a r t of t h e body, less radical s t e p s to h e a l Israel's body having failed, so t h e r e s t of t h e body could recover. In r e s p o n s e to a challenge eight y e a r s later by t h e Socialist-Zionist (Mapam) Keneset m e m b e r H a y k a G r o s s m a n , h e confirmed t h a t "[w]ith r e g a r d to t h e m e t a p h o r (Dugmah) t h a t I c h o s e , I n e v e r h e a r d a n y o n e claim t h a t s u r g e r y performed o n a sick p e r s o n c o n s t i t u t e d p u n i s h m e n t . To t h e c o n t r a r y . . . it w a s for t h e p a t i e n t ' s own good." B u t h e s t r e s s e d t h a t t h e scalpel (Hitler) w a s n o t to be c o n s t r u e d a s anyt h i n g m o r e t h a n it was—namely, t h e s u r g e o n ' s (God's) tool (as in "Shall t h e axe b o a s t itself a g a i n s t h i m t h a t h e w e t h t h e r e w i t h ? " ; J e r . 25:9). The s u r g e o n Himself, h e a d d e d , operated only after t h e p a t i e n t (Israel) w a s given a choice to help itself. After considering for a m o m e n t t h a t n o Tikkun (mending) could ever justify s u c h suffering a s t h a t of t h e Holocaust, S c h n e e r s o h n justified h i s prim a r y s t a n c e in a context of life after d e a t h : As to the "task" of Hitler, may his name be erased: What I said [in 1972] was nothing new. It was drawn from the light of Torah with its light. Of the Hurban of the First Temple, with its murder, cruelty and exile, Jeremiah said: "Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof [Jer. 25:9]. Regarding Assyria, Isaiah said, "O Assyria the rod of Mine anger, and the staff in their hand is Mine indignation" [Isa. 10:5]. Still, there is a difference between the situations then and our generation. Then it was a matter of punishment following many warnings. Now it is a matter of surgery and Tikkun. The Tikkun, I emphasize, is intended to mend the patient. True, the suffering is out of proportion with the Tikkun. But [there is] life and [there is] its opposite. It is a principle of our faith as stated, in [Rambam's] Thirteen Articles, to believe unequivocally that the dead will be resurrected. S c h n e e r s o h n did c h a n g e h i s position in 1 9 9 1 , saying t h a t s u c h painful suffering could n o t be justified even by t h e s i n s of S a t a n , a n d t h a t it d e s e c r a t e d t h e victims to t h i n k so. He focused on t h e fact t h a t all t h e victims died in sanctification of God's n a m e . Apparently drawing from R a m b a m , h e said t h a t insofar a s they were m u r d e r e d b e c a u s e they were J e w s — a n d w h e t h e r or not they were observant—Kaddish w a s to be recited for them. 1 8 Israel's undefined sin w a s also p r e s e n t in Wisdom of Their Wise Men (Isa. 29:14) written in 1996 by B a r u k h Rabinowitch, son-

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in-law of the Munkaczer (Munkachevo, Ukraine) Rav Hayim Elazar Shapira, chief rabbi of Holon, and a survivor of the Holocaust in Poland and Hungary. Rabinowitch insisted that the Holocaust was God's doing. God was always involved with Israel's troubles (Shabbat 85b). The uniqueness of the tragedy could be traceable only to the infinite power of God, as could the fact that there were no human grounds (political, economic, religious, selfish) for it. The descent-ascent (catastrophe-Jewish state) followed Israel's experience over history, which was under God's aegis. Rabinowitch was sure that God was with him during his sufferings, and with all the victims—in the Umschlagplatz (the transport trains) in the camps, with the infants thrown into gas chambers, with the dying who cried out the Shema. Rabinowitch accepted the premise that there was no suffering or death without trespass (Shabbat 55a); and that when it came to the pious, even the slightest misdeed touched off pain (Berakhot 7a"7b). Hence, the catastrophe brought by God had to be attributed to sin. Punishment included God's hiding Himself (Isa. 59:1-2), His not responding to the prayers of the victims (Berakhot 32b), and the absence of any foreknowledge by Jews about the tragedy. 19 In some instances, the categorical sin was transgenerational. In 1947, Hayim Yisrael Tsimerman, leader of the Hasidic community in Tel Aviv from Sokolow, Poland, cited the Kabbalist Hayim Vital (1542-1620) and told his congregants that the Holocaust purified sinners from earlier generations. Israel, he said, had a basic population of 600,000. The sinners of Noah's generation were purified immediately with physical obliteration. Those who stoned the prophet Zechariah (2 Chron. 24:20) were reincarnated and purified later by destruction with the Hurban of the Second Temple. Observing the dramatic increase in Jewish population over the last generation, Tsimerman concluded that there was a massive reincarnation underway of sinful souls of earlier generations, and that the Holocaust was their purification. 20 This explanation resurfaced in 1990 when Elazar Menahem Man Shakh of Bnei Berak, Resh Mesivta of Yeshivat Poneveszh (Lithuania) averred that God had waited for there to be 6 million souls in need of purification and then reincarnated them for the Holocaust. 21 According to this line of thought, Israel's trespass was of a general nature (Torah-failure, absence of Teshuvah) and possibly transgenerational. It did not involve specific sorts of sin or accusations of certain Jews in particular. It unfolded within the metahistorical relationship between God and Israel as structured in scripture. The issues of how God could employ evil nations to serve the good or why the righteous suffered were not considered. 22

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In Kabbalistic thought, absence of the inner, mystical knowledge of Torah brought disaster. Its presence brought the messiah. Yehudah Layb Ashlag in Jerusalem (1886-1955) wrote that the neglect of the internal dimension of Torah brought the current ruin. Restoration thereof would lead to the recession of catastrophe and redemption. Historical reality itself—which was mixed with disaster (a motif shared by Harlap and Simhah Elberg)— would become sublimated into the transhistorical realm of redemption. Ashlag focused his life toward this end, and beginning in 1943 translated the Zohar into Hebrew to make it accessible to the masses. 2 3 In 1963/1964 Mordekhai Atiyah, a Kabbalist from Mexico City who had been living in the Land of Israel since at least 1948, cited Shimon bar Yohai of the mid-second century, the (mythical) author of the Zohar. Shimon bar Yohai attacked those who separated Kabbalistic wisdom from the written Torah (scripture) and the oral Torah (Halakhah), and who influenced others to do the same by alleging that their meaning was explicit and not esoteric. Such people, he said, removed the flow of wisdom's rivers into the garden of the world. With the flow of God's wisdom removed, world and Torah were left dry. It would have been better had such people never been created, he declared, let alone allowed to teach written or oral Torah. They were responsible for the poverty, slaughter, plunder, murder, and abandonment in the world. They impoverished the universe and in the end returned it to the chaos that prevailed before creation. They lengthened exile. By failing to go beyond the flesh and blood of life to the spirit of redemption, they created the conditions for the messiah to abandon the world without intention to return {"Tikkun 43" and "Tikkun 30," in Tikkunei Hazohar). Atiyah cited the eighteenth-century commentator to Tikkunei Hazohar, Shalom Buzaglo, that pious scholars were under obligation to God to study the Kabbalah, and would be punished severely if they did not. J u s t one hour of Kabbalah study, Buzaglo pointed out, taught as much as an entire month of learning external and explicit material (Buzaglo to "Tikkun 30," in Tikkunei Hazohar). Atiyah predicted that those who ignored Kabbalah would suffer for doing so. The messiah, he was convinced, could reveal himself only when the people of Israel, gathered together in the Land of Israel, promoted Kabbalah. He called for intense study of the Zohar and other mystical literature, adding from Hayim Vital that God would be present and help the student understand it. 24

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Assimilation Others have been convinced that the loss of Torah, in both its written and oral dimensions, which coincided with assimilation, was the specific cause. For proponents of this view, exposure to outside influence amounted to destruction of the self-enclosed entity of Judaism defined by Torah. In July 1947, Mordekhai Schlaperbersky of Kovno, displaced in the American zone in Germany, criticized Jews who wanted to sever their tie to Judaism and assimilate into the rest of mankind. God sought those Jews out and forced them to return: "I have trouble and sorrow, but I called upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. 116:3). The Holocaust, for Schlaperbersky, was a manifestation of divine punishment intended to shatter the bewilderment experienced by assimilated Jews without Torah, to touch their hearts and have them return to Torah. 25 In Tel Aviv, Tsimerman (also in 1947) identified the culpability of pious Jews. According to the rabbinic sages, whenever it was possible to stop a member of the household from sinning, a pious Jew had to try. The citizens of Ezekiel's Jerusalem were culpable because they had the power to protest against trespassers but did not (Shabbat 54 b -55 a ), and King Zedekiah sinned because he failed to protest when his contemporaries turned evil (Sanhedrin 103a). Tsimerman cited Orthodox Jews in Germany for not trying to stop family members from intermarrying, and those in Warsaw for not trying to stop publication of Jewish newspapers on the Sabbath. 26 The case against the assimilants gained focus when Avraham Weinfeld, then in Monsey, New York, wrote in 1953 about nonTorah literature. He began his introductory statement to a new edition of Yosef Ben Hayim Jabez's (d. 1507) Light of Life with a critical observation about pious Jews who suffered with him in the concentration camp. As the blood of Israel swamped them, they had pleaded: Where is God? How could He look upon His people Israel's troubles and not act? How could His ears remain deaf to the groans of those who were suffering? To Weinfeld, this meant that they had not taken scripture seriously during earlier, peaceful times. Scripture made it crystal clear that if God's statutes were despised He would appoint terror over His people (Lev. 26:15-16). Now that the statutes were violated and He acted, why were they asking questions? But then Weinfeld's entire family was slaughtered, in a single day. He himself asked, Why did God do this to His nation? His answer, he said, came when he was liberated and, by divine plan, read Light of Life: God punished Israel for the particular violation of exposure to wisdom outside of Torah. Jabez had maintained that the slaughter and starvation of

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Jews exiled from Spain in 1492 resulted from God's wrath over Jews who abandoned Torah (2 Kings 22:13 and Jer. 9:13). God was just, Jabez wrote. He delighted in His people when they were engaged in Torah and He punished them when they were not. Specifically, the very same Spanish Jews who filled the yeshivas proceeded to study external wisdom (that is, philosophy) when they left—an action that was even worse, in Jabez's mind, than the philosophical claim that God did not see man. This position, Weinfeld observed, was reiterated consistently over the centuries. Yair Hayim Bacharach (1638-1702) inveighed against scientific research. Eleazar Loew (1758-1837) warned against the contention that the way of the temporal world demanded acquaintance with external-to-Torah literature. It was worthy to embrace the "bosom" of Torah, b u t unworthy to embrace the bosom of a Christian woman (citing "Let her be as the lowing hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?"; Prov. 5:19-20). To embrace external wisdom, Loew continued, constituted a heresy of moral character that implied death (citing "For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins"; Prov. 5:21-22). Tsevi Elimelekh Shapira of Dynow (Poland, 1785-1841), the rabbi of Munkacz, commenting on Light of Life, denounced Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) with its alien concepts. According to the Hofets Hayim, to have external literature in the home was an abomination (Deut. 7:28). To actually read it precluded any place in the world to come (Sanhedrin 90 a ). Barukh Dov Laybovitch (1866-1939), resh mesivta of Yeshivat Keneset Beit Yitshak (Kovno-Slobodka, Lithuania) declared that sending Jewish children to a Gymnasium or university amounted to heresy. Bringing forward the position of the sixteenth-century legalist Mosheh Isserles, all outside wisdom was categorically forbidden, Laybovitch said that it pushed souls away from Israel and was not to be studied even if it somehow could mean saving a life in wartime. For Weinfeld, the exclusion of outside wisdom was a metaphysical-level principle. It brought about the Spanish expulsion, and now it brought about the Holocaust. He condemned a certain yeshivah that was requiring secular study to an extent above and beyond government requirements. The youthful minds were being polluted even before they had access to rabbinical literature and the awe for God (Yirat Hashem) it carried. 27

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In 1961, Menahem Artom (1916-1992), an Italian rabbi who came to Jerusalem in 1939, claimed that Emancipation-era Jews became so blinded by prospects of civil equality that they postponed return to the land until the end of history and committed themselves to German and French culture cum the "Mosaic" religion. God then used Germany as His rod of punishment (Isa. 10:5) to convince them to return to Torah. In the 1964 Hebrew translation of his book on Israel's Sabbath, Aharon Neuwirth from Mainz (who by then had been in the Land of Israel for over a decade) cited the rabbinic sages' view that Jerusalem was destroyed solely because the Sabbath was violated (Shabbat 119b). Hitler's reign, Neuwirth observed, began on a Sabbath (April 1, 1933), and his sentries blocked Jewish store that were opened to block sales. The reaction awakened even the liberal Jews, Neuwirth said, who began to flock to synagogues: "Would it not be justified to view this sequence of events as the finger of God in action, teaching us a lesson for all time?" That same year Hayim Kanevsky, author of The Congregation of Jacob, identified German destruction as God's measure-for-measure punishment of German Jewry's assimilation and Torah-violation. In 1970, the Musar (moralistic) movement leader Shlomoh Volbeh of the Mirrer yeshivah renewed Weinfeld's association between the Spanish expulsion and the Holocaust, in terms of their common cause of assimilation-Has/caiah as evoking divine, measure-for-measure punishment. 28 While the Kabbalists looked inward and attributed the Holocaust to the failure to learn the Torah of mystical experience, the antiassimilationists attributed the catastrophe to Jews who looked outward, immersed themselves in other cultures, and lost the Torah while doing so. The Kabbalists blamed other Jews for abandoning the ahistorical and transhistorical realm of the inner Torah, and the antiassimilationists blamed other Jews for abandoning the eternal Torah with its metahistorical character (or being co-opted into the process) to blend with historical realities of non-Jews. Both exonerated those Jews who were authentic according to their respective definitions. As their universe was a function of Israel's relationship to God exclusively, they had no grounds to blame the nations for the catastrophe. Resisting the Kets

hameguleh

Beginning in 1966/1967 with Tsevi Yehudah Kook, successor to his father Avraham Yitshak Kook (after Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap) as resh mesivta of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav (Jerusalem), a school of

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thought developed that coupled the Holocaust with the establishment of the Jewish state and identified the coupling as a divinely administered drama (citing "In your blood, live"; Ezek. 16:6). Tsevi Yehudah Kook identified the interwar era as that of the Kets hameguleh, the manifestation of the redemptive terminus to Israel's history (Sanhedrin 98b). It was the period (exemplified by the Balfour Declaration) designated by God for Israel's dry bones to be resurrected into life. Instead of joining in the process, however, grafting their history onto the metahistorical process underway, Diaspora Jews remained stuck in the "tar" of exile. To remove them, God had to perform surgery—that is, the Holocaust. According to Schneersohn's later Dugmah, surgery separated the Tumah portions of Israel's body to enable Teshuvah and thereby redemption—which was centered in the land of Israel. For Kook, the "hidden, internal [that is, surgical] procedure to purify the people" separated the people as a whole from the Diaspora—enabling them to go to the land and enhance the process of redemption. For the former, the land was an afterthought; for the latter, it was the essence of redemption. Kook viewed Hitler's persecution as a subjective (anthropological) dimension to the objective (ontological or metahistorical) reality. As Rauschning portrayed, Kook wrote, Hitler imagined that his Germany was chosen by God while Israel was chosen by Satan. Sensing Israel's return to the land and the redemption and universal sanctification that came with it, Hitler went on a frantic attack to destroy God's people, thereby desecrating God's name, bringing the process to a halt. But Hitler's actions were reflections of the greater reality of the divine surgical procedure. Kook's disciple, Eliyahu Bazak, spoke of the procedure in terms of Israel's consciousness. The Holocaust, Bazak wrote, broke the national identity that blended with exile, where memory was filled with horror, and produced instead a new and healthy national identity. 29 In 1984, Avraham Livni (1925-1986) of Jerusalem, a Parisian convert to Judaism, interpreted the Holocaust as a revelation through darkness, or as the darkness of a metaphysical revelation. It was a revelation, he wrote, because it was a shocking image, intolerable yet not dismissable. The revelation was "metahistorical" because it touched the collectivity of mankind. Livni drew from the biblical commentator Hayim Ibn Attar (1696-1743), who correlated Israel's God-rooted suffering with the refuge He provided in the land. God's anger brought Him to judge the nation for exile. But when the pious were killed, Ibn Attar continued, the nation had no strength to rescue itself or endure, and there were no visionary prophets to lead. God provided refuge. Stated differently, the suf-

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fering below, death in sanctification of His name, reverberated into His suffering above ("For the Lord shall judge His people and repent Himself for His servants"; Deut. 32:36), and when the people were totally powerless, despite their trespasses (Deut. 32:37), He provided the land. Livni also cited the 1943 work of Yissakhar Taykhtahl in Budapest, who comprehended the catastrophe as a divine declaration that the period of Diaspora had ended and that the time for massive ascent to the land had begun. In the land, collective Israel could receive divine providence in an immediately present way. Only God, Taykhtahl wrote, could account for the simultaneity between disaster (judgment = Din) and rebirth (consolation = Rahamirh) (citing "There is no God with Me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal"; Deut. 32:39). 30 In 1998/1999, Uri Sharki of Jerusalem divided Israel's metahistory into exile (sickness), redemption (health), and the in-between era of premessianic suffering [Hevlei mashiah; convalescence). Tragically, when the period of convalescence began (in the interwar period), instead of turning to the land the people looked away from it. In ancient times, Jacob sinned when he sojourned with Laban instead of ascending to Zion (Rashi to Gen. 32:4). Once the Hevlei mashiah began, Sharki wrote, any such delay meant disaster. He presented evidence from classical writers. The twelfth-century poet Yehudah Halevi wrote that the sluggishness of the people in returning diminished their holiness and, in turn, the presence of divine holiness ("Divinity only rests upon a person in accordance with a person's receptivity to it, be it great or small"). Ya'akov Emden (1697-1776) wrote that those with God in mind must rush to ascend to the land together and that it was dangerous to remain away (citing "And the land of your enemies shall eat you up"; Lev. 26:38). By not returning, by showing contempt for the land, Israel's forefathers in the desert generated tears for generations. As God stipulated, Emden went on, exile meant that nations would rise against Israel in every generation ("Bekhol dor vador omdim aleinu lekhaloteinu." "Vehi she'amdah," in Haggadah Shel Pessah). The dynamic reached the critical level with Hevlei mashiah. When the Gaon of Vilna realized that the Kets hameguleh was in place, he urged his students to ascend to the land and accelerate the onset of redemption. In the twentieth century, Sharki concluded, when Israel failed to deal properly with its convalescence by hastening to the land, God removed Himself and let Israel be devoured by the nations. Amid the chaos, all Jews, good and bad, suffered indiscriminately (Rashi to Gen. 6:13 and Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 26:5). He added the Kabbalist Mosheh Hayyim Luzzatto's (1707-1747) description of the eschaton. The higher gates for the world's blessings

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were shut when the temple was destroyed, but the windows below remained open to allow enough blessings to make it possible for Israel to survive in the Diaspora. With the Kets hameguleh, the windows below closed in anticipation of the opening of the gates above. The transitional moment was of great tension and tribulation (Deut. 4:30 and Jer. 30:7), God hid (Ps. 10:1) requiring great hope in God to be endured (Ps. 31:25). In Sharki's view, Israel failed to grab the moment and return to the land, whereupon the tension exploded with the Holocaust. 31 The writings of Shlomoh Hayim Aviner, dean of Ateret Kohanim Yeshivah (Jerusalem), provided dramatic expression to Tsevi Yehudah Kook's thought. He wrote in 1999/2000, "The Hurban is no accident, the building [of the state] is no accident, and their simultaneous manifestation is no accident." Everything in the world was a matter of divine action. By divine action, the simultaneous events belonged to the Kets hameguleh. Surely the Holocaust could have been prevented by God, had God wanted to do so. But God wanted the catastrophe. Aviner explained that Israel had been sent into the Tumah, the "swamp" of exile with enough "oxygen" for two thousand years. When the oxygen ran out and Israel was to return, it did not. Like a parent calling a recalcitrant child home from the forest when it got dark and when this did not work had to drag him or her home all bloodied, God had to drag His people home, severely injured. It already happened in Egypt, when those who could not drag themselves away from the country had to be destroyed in the darkness (Rashi to Exod. 13:18 and Mekhilta Beshallah: Hakdamah). With the Holocaust it happened again. 32 While the Kook school focused on the painful intervention of God during the Kets hameguleh, necessitated by Israel's delay in returning to the land, an associated line of thinking described God's categorical destruction of one generation to make it possible for a new and different one to arise. Drawing from a principle set down by the medieval biblical commentator Avraham Ibn Ezra, instead of removing the Tumah portion of Israel, according to this line of thought, God chose to obliterate the entire generation. In 1947, Tsimerman identified the restoration of the Land of Israel in the nineteenth and early twentieth century with the Kets hameguleh, citing, "But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are at hand to come" (Ezek. 36:8). The people remained oblivious to or resisted the metahistorical drama. During the Crusades pious Jews made terrible sacrifices to come to the land, Tsimerman pointed out, but now when there was relative calm they did not. This included the pious who made their holy lands in the Diaspora.

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To Tsimerman, "On account of their trespass alone, not ascending to the Land of Israel, the people of Israel have suffered the calamitous annihilation of one third of their number." This provoked God to replace the generation. Avraham Ibn Ezra commented to Exod. 14:13 ("And Moses said unto the people, 'Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord'") that the children of Israel had so internalized their slavery in Egypt that they had no courage to take the land, leaving God to have them die in the desert so a new and unencumbered generation could arise. God did so again, Tsimerman wrote, with the generation of the Holocaust. 33 In 1948, Atiyah cited Hayim Ibn Attar's comment that God sold the land to the nations when Israel sinned, but would return it when Israel was pious and desired return. However, people allowed their spirits to become so enslaved that they could not even grasp what liberation meant. Avraham Ibn Ezra was struck by the fact that 600,000 people feared their pursuers, and were so unprepared to fight that they had to rely on the prayer of Moses and the intervention of God. This, Avraham Ibn Ezra concluded, was because they had been conditioned to think slavishly. The result was the death of the males of the generation who left Egypt to enable the rise of a generation that was not slavish and had the courage to fight the Canaanites. Meekness dominated the interwar Diaspora generation, Atiyah wrote. There was no belief in Israel's power, and fear about coming to the land. Had the exilic leaders loved truth and freedom enough, they would have used the opportunity thirty years earlier (presumably with the Balfour Declaration) to come. Instead, so many Jews fell into the hands of the enemy Hitler. The preacher Ya'akov Kranz (1740-1804) spoke of the loving father who merely removed his adopted son who became wayward from his home but punished his biological son who was wayward terribly. God punished Israel, Atiyah explained, out of love. The land awaited the people, but when they did not come, he let millions be killed so others would arise who would. 34 The motif was reiterated in 1957 in New York by Aharon Petshenik, the son of the Dombrovitcher Rav (Dabrowica, Poland) and nephew of the Belzer Rav (Beltz, Ukraine) Issakhar Dov, who coupled it with Yehudah Halevi's point that Israel's tragedies brought the people to purify themselves, allowing God to become present once again. 35 In 1971, in Jerusalem, Eliyahu Avihayil echoed the theme of ancient Israel's ingrained slavishness. God had the people take the longer path to the land because the shorter path would have meant an encounter with the Philistines, which they could never handle. The Jews before the world war resembled the ancient children of Israel who (as explained by the Gaon of Vilna's student

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Hillel Mishklov) could not comprehend that they were trapped into the sin of the spies who lied about the land. 36 For Kook's school the simultaneity of Holocaust and restored land pointed to God's presence. The Kets hameguleh was in place, but Israel's resistance to the metahistorical reality necessitated a forced and painful separation from exile. The people of Israel balked at the forces that God set into motion, and suffering was the only way to reconcile the events of history with the power of metahistory. While the people of Israel did not choose exile, they did choose to resist return. When the Kets hameguleh was in place, the choice was removed and God forced the people to return. According to those who drew from Avraham Ibn Ezra, the people were too enslaved to make the choice; their exile fated them to resist the implications of the Kets hameguleh—and so God destroyed the entire generation. For both groups, the Holocaust was a positive step taken by God for the benefit of His nation. Shattered Oaths Midway between the point when Avraham Ibn Ezra's commentary to Exodus (14:13) was applied to the catastrophe and when Tsevi Yehudah Kook's school took root, a radically antithetical position emerged, according to which the actuality of return to the land was enough to bring the catastrophe about. Instead of depicting divine intervention in history through the instrument of the persecutor, the antithetical position grounded itself on three oaths taken by Israel and God with power to transform the universe. Specifically, the people of Israel swore to God not to rebel against the nations that ruled them in exile and swore not to hasten the end of history, that is, the moment set by God for redemption, by ascending to the Land of Israel en masse. The nations swore to God not to overly oppress the people of Israel. Rabbi Eleazar explained that if the people of Israel abided by their oaths matters would go well and good for them. Otherwise (citing Song of Songs 3:5) God would allow Israel's flesh to be hunted down by the idolaters as the gazelles and hinds were hunted as prey in the fields (Ketuvot 11 l a ). Yoel Taytlboym (b. 1888), the Satmarer Rav (Satu Mare, Romania) who survived Bergen Belsen and escaped Europe aboard the train arranged by Rudolf Kazstner in July 1944 and settled in America (via the Land of Israel) in 1947, wrote in 1959 (And It Pleased Moses) and in 1981 (Treatise on Redemption and Change) that Zionism violated the oaths not to rebel against the rulers and not to hasten the end of history. This freed the nations to overly

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oppress Israel. Once the oaths collapsed, the long-term animosity toward Israel, ever since Esau, exploded—Taytlboym cited the precedent of the terrible slaughter with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135), surpassing even that of the temple destruction. Taytlboym condemned Zionism as a manifestation of Tumah, for it displaced divine providence with human initiative and was out to make the Land of Israel into a place like all others. Zionism, to him, constituted a violation that was worse than all other violations of the generation taken together. Further, the movement set out to destroy Jews who were pious and holy. Without discernible documentation, Taytlboym accused Zionist leaders of telling government leaders that they should expel Jews because they were dangerous, of inciting Germany by supporting England in the war, of helping to close gates of refuge in the war to force Jews to go to the land or be killed, and of excluding non-Zionists from the Kasztner train, leaving them to die in Germany. 37 Others of Taytlboym's convictions accused Zionists of being Kapos (Benyamin Mendelsohn), of undermining Mikhael Dov Weissmandel's rescue efforts in Slovakia and the Agudat Yisrael rabbinical organization's effort to send aid packages to Europe (Avraham Yeshayah Roter), and of attempting genocide of Israel's two thousand-year-old religious culture (Elazar Halevi Shulzinger, attacking Hayka Grossman). 38 The Naturei Karta movement, begun in 1935, took the next step and identified Zionists with Amalek and the Nazis, as depicted in wall posters that it publically placed within its Jerusalem quarters. 39 Atiyah objected. In 1963/1964, he cited the sixteenth-century Midrash commentator Shemuel Yaffe Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi pointed out that for rabbinic sages Rav Yohanan and Resh Lakish not to ascend en masse constituted a trespass. The sages had contempt for the Jews of Babylon because they did not ascend. When they saw exiled Jews gathering in a marketplace in the land, they objected: What right did they have to gather en masse in the land, having failed to bring others en masse to the land? Had Jews made the attempt to ascend en masse, the sages averred, God would have facilitated it—and that would have meant the coming of the messiah (Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah 8:3). Atiyah also cited Efrayim Luntshits' (1550-1619) statement that the ancient Israelites' attraction to the abominations of Egypt and desire to stay there forever were evil, as was their contempt for the holy land of Canaan and resistance to God's bringing them there. Mosheh Hagiz (1671-1750), Atiyah continued, attacked those who claimed that it profaned the land to settle in it; and that once God left, to settle the land was a trespass so serious that the perpetrators would be obliterated. These claimants, Hagiz wrote, were rotten to

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the core, they putrefied the scent of the holy of holies and prostituted the mind. God resided in Zion, past, present, and future, and He did not want the children of Israel settling in other lands, waiting for Him to gather them in. Those who cited the three oaths (Ketuvot 11 la) were, as he put it, whistling aimlessly. Atiyah added his own insights. First, the very Rabbi Eleazar who cited Song of Songs about Israel's becoming as the prey of the fields (Ketuvot 11 l a ) followed the mind-set of his teacher Rav Yohanan. It was Rav Yohanan who declared that before he entered the celestial Jerusalem (that is, redemption), he would have to enter the earthly Jerusalem (Ta'anit 5 a ; see Zohar: Vayikra 15b). (Atiyah cited Tikkunei Hazohar, where awakening went from below to above. ["Tikkun 52," citing Gen. 2:6 in Tikkunei Hazohar] and Hayim Vital's Eternal Burnt Offering where God above required action by men below.) Rabbi Eleazar did not oppose ascent. To the contrary, the people of Israel would be punished and become as the prey of the fields if they did not ascend en masse. Second, there was the issue of higher, Kabbalistic unity. Hayim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Hakavanot that the people of Israel were obliged to fulfill their covenant with God by unifying the letters of His name (yod, hay, vav, hay). The two hay letters stood for "the land" (ha9arets). Shalom Buzaglo wrote in Sanctuary of the King that as long as the congregation of Israel was exiled, unity was impossible. Unity required settlement in the land. Once there, higher realms of reality could unify, effectuating the unity of the nation below. Buzaglo explained further that the "I" in "If you abide by the oath it will be well and good for you. If not I will permit your flesh to be hunted by idolators as the hinds of the fields" (Ketuvot 11 la) referred to God's Shekhinah. The exiled people imprisoned the Shekhinah along with themselves, preventing unity above and bringing disaster below ("Tikkun 6," in Tikkunei Hazohar). Having failed to respond to God's voice to return, when the people called upon God in their distress, He did not listen (Zech. 7:13). For Atiyah, this explained why the exiled Jews who did not intentionally err also died—although their death constituted atonement and enabled them to have a place in the world to come. Outside the matter of Israel's destiny, Atiyah asserted that by violating the oath not to overly oppress Israel, the Nazis called even greater suffering upon themselves (Zech. 1:15). The nations that stood aside during the catastrophe would be punished as well for their indifference (Prov. 24:11-12); including those who closed their gates and prevented Jews from finding a way to ascend to the land and enable the unity of the higher realms (citing "Woe to the nation found there when God redeems His children. Because they placed a sheet between the lion and the lioness when

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they needed each other"; Sanhedrin 106a). The violation of the oath had implications for massive and rapid obliteration across the globe (Avraham Ibn Ezra to Dan. 7:11 ).40 The belief that the catastrophe was a function of the three-oath violation changed the terms of discourse. While failure in Torah, Teshuvah, internal wisdom or by assimilation was substantive, the failure here was formal and legalistic. And while the former involved God's active engagement, here God remained in the background. THE SACRIFICE The first response, centered on the evil other, explained the Holocaust in terms of either a metaphysical evil posited at creation or redemption, a metahistorical evil tied to the Sinai event or Hitler, or the incarnated evil (Amalek). The second brought forward explanations structured by Israel's relationship to God, whether on the historical, metahistorical, or transhistorical level. It found them in Israel's failure—whether overall, Torah-specific, land-specific, or tied to the three oaths. There was a third response, where Israel's relationship to God crystallized either at the edge of history or beyond metahistory, that of the nation's collective sacrificial tie to God. Here, the Holocaust was the sanctification of the people of Israel, where they transcended time-space to enter into a higher relationship to God. The primary source was the binding of Isaac (Akedah). Following a rabbinic tradition according to which Isaac was not only bound but actually killed (Midrash Vayikra Rabbah 36:5 and MekhiltaBo: Parashah 7), the Mt. Moriah event became a metahistorical precedent as well as an ontological source for death during the catastrophe. The identification of the Holocaust as a sacrificial act, one that blended with the Akedah, assumed three forms. In one, the Holocaust-sacrifice entered Israel's ongoing metahistory; in a second, it was removed from history and became transcendental; in a third, it became melded with redemption. In the 1970s, the theologian Eliezer Berkovits (b. 1908), then in Chicago, wrote that God's absence during the Holocaust (His "face" was hidden, "Hester panirr?) along with the apparent breaking of His covenant with Israel, created an opportunity for acts of pure, trusting faith (Emunah). Emunah had erupted around the Akedah, where Abraham persisted in the life of the covenant, as if saying to God, "In this situation I do not understand You. Your behavior violates our covenant; still, I trust You because it is You, because it is You and me, because it is us." The Akedah, SL Mitsvah (an action taken upon divine command) born of Emunah, was also realized

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during the Holocaust. The victims carried out different Mitsvot into and through the moment of death, making death into an act of sanctification of God's name (al Kiddush Hashem). The Mitsvah of the Akedah remained vital and suspended, carrying its own being, while history itself was descending into the depths. With the establishment of the Jewish state, history joined Mitsvah on the level of metahistory. 41 In a brief declaration in 1997, Elazar Shakh also directed the sacrifices to history-becoming-metahistory. He described fifty Jews being led by Germans into the gas chambers. They undressed. Aware that they were about to be killed, they suddenly remembered that it was the day of the holiday of Simhat Torah. This meant an obligation to rejoice. But they had neither Torah nor prayer book. God, however, was there, so they sang and danced with Him. They were killed, adhering to God, sacrificing the soul in sanctification of God. With this, Shakh continued, they brought the world to come into this life: "Is this to be called death? This is life!"42 The transcending act of sacrifice, absent messianic ramifications, was described in 1946 in the work of Simhah Elberg in Shanghai. Elberg escaped from Warsaw in 1939, where he had been a student of the Hasidic rabbi (Ger and Ostrovska, Poland schools) Natan Spigelglas. Elberg wrote that the Akedah was intrinsic to Jewish existence, beginning with Mt. Moriah and continuing through Treblinka. Mt. Moriah, he said, moved with Israel from land to land until it ultimately reached the death camp. In Treblinka, the Shema (Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One) of millions broke forth from out of the flames of death. Sanctifying the existence of Israel, the prayer ascended and split open the heavens. This was the ultimate Akedah. It was performed by the holiest Jews of Israel, those from Poland and Lithuania. With it, history, now irretrievably polluted by the Sitra ahra, fell into oblivion. The holy transcendental reality of Akedah remained, poised for God to create the world again through His Torah. Elberg did not speak of redemption. The Akedah and the Shema ascended out of history and metahistory. As a collective leap of faith they remained suspended until God would create the world again and make redemption possible. Four decades later, Elberg still saw a world of Treblinka before him. 43 In 1996, Barukh Rabinowitch also separated sacrifice from redemption. He described how [t]he Jews removed their clothing before entering the gas chambers. They were pushed one against the other into the chambers, to be sacrificed flesh united with flesh. And so they all were transformed into holy ones of Israel at one moment, in their cry of Shema Yisrael And they returned their pure

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souls to God in heaven. . . . Each paid the half with his soul." Citing Ya'akov Yosef of Polonnoye's (d. 1782) commentary to Exodus 30:12-13 (which stated that each man was to give a halfshekel ransom for his soul to God) that each Jew was equivalent to a half, which became whole by joining another Jew, Rabinowitch said that each Jew entering the chamber was half a coin, pressing together with the next to become a whole, sacred coin. At this turning point of divine visitation (Zeman pekudah), each Jew was like a half because of unresolved sin and a split between matter and form. By pressing together, each became whole, and matter sublimated into form. With this unity the people earned the coming of the savior. But the savior did not come. Rabinowitch recalled how his father-in-law, Elazar Hayim Shapiro, thought his grandfather (the Ropshitser Rav Naftali Tsevi [Ropczyce, Poland]) should have agreed with the statement attributed to Yisrael Hapstein that even if the generation had to walk on its knees in the blood of Israel, it would be worth it for the righteous redeemer to come. Then he declared, "But we have already walked up to our knees in Jewish blood and still the messiah has not come."44 Others melded the sacrifice with redemption. When Yehoshua Grinvald (b. 1904), a disciple of the Belzer Rav Aharon Rokeah who survived Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Ebensee, arrived in Paris in J u n e 1945, he associated his experience with Abraham's. As Ya'akov ben Asher (1269-1340) pointed out, Abraham cried only a little upon the death of Sarah (Gen. 23:2). He had just returned from Mt. Moriah, Grinvald told his audience (in the Hatam Sofer Shiur Shtibl, Shabbat Parashat Lekh Lekhah), and was overcome by the Akedah and filled with the slaughter he witnessed. He understood it to be a precious sacrifice. The smoke he saw from the ovens was the smoke of the incense of the men of God (see Yoma 19b), its smell a sweet savor to God (Gen. 8:21). It was the same scent that came from the fiery furnace into which Abraham was cast, and into which Hananiah, Michael, and Azariah were thrown (Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 34:9). A year and a half later in Brooklyn, New York, Grinvald said that all those who were killed were holy. He drew from Hayim ben Yitshak (the Or Zarua, thirteenth century), that anyone killed, crucified, or burned for the sake of the unity of God, whether or not the death came as a choice over idolatry, was to be mourned; and the Hatam Sofer (1762-1832) that when a person was killed solely because he was a Jew, he was to be considered holy (Sanhedrin 47 a ). In 1948, in "Weeping Eye" (Ein Dimah; Jer. 13:17), Grinvald tied the holy sacrifices of Auschwitz to the event at Sinai. At Sinai, God's voice came forth from amid flashes of fire, His holy words from out of thunder and lightning

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(Exod. 20:8; "Atah nigleita ba'anan kevodekha," in Seder Shofarot, MusqfLerosh Hashanah)—and (citing Yekutiel Yehudah Taytlboym, grandfather of Yoel Taytlboym) those standing at a distance heard the voice with their hearts; they understood it, and their understanding spread throughout all Israel. According to Grinvald, the pairing of flame and words of holiness at Sinai was implanted for all future generations (see Midrash Shemot Rabbah 28:6). It was also present in Auschwitz, where the Shema burst out of the flames. But this time redemption was on the horizon. Grinvald cited Genesis 24:63: "And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide; and he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold, the camels were coming." He identified "field" with future Zion. "Eventide" meant the premessianic sufferings (Ikvetah dimeshihah) at the end of exile, which sufferings constituted atonement for trespasses by the holy ones who were murdered as well as by those who "touched" the "altar" (Exod. 29:37) and miraculously escaped. The "camels" (Gemalim) was redemption itself, with its recompense (gemulim) for both victim and for perpetrator. Grinvald concluded: "May God help us to see the absolute fall of the evil murderers and the rise of the light of our nation." 45 Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap wrote that with the onset of the second eschatological stage (that of messiah son of David), the souls of those whose bodies were shattered in the Holocaust, ascending to God in love (Berakhot 61b), would be transported with the messiah the son of Joseph into the redeemed universe. Harlap believed that the Jews killed in the Holocaust broke the bonds of historical reality, pervaded by the Sitra ahra and its cosmic tension with the light of messiah son of Joseph. Each Jew was a new Akedah, which in the messianic onset (Ikveta dimeshiha) now underway shared in the collective actualization of the Mt. Moriah experience. This, Harlap added, was the intent of the rabbinic sages' theme that exiles would gather in, and Israel be redeemed, only by the merit of Isaac (Shabbat 89b).46 Brazovsky wrote that all those killed, both those who sacrificed themselves willingly and lovingly and those without intention of dying in sanctification of God's name but killed solely because they were Jews, died in holiness. Drawing from Abraham ben Shmuel of Slonim, he wrote that the two groups together, the first with thought and the second in action, joined into one entity to form the most sublime expression of sanctification of God's name. To make his point, Brazovsky observed that according to Shlomoh ben Adret (1235-1310) the very utterance of the Shema was a form of dying in sanctification of God's name. To recite the Shema meant readiness to die in that way, so that on the level of

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i n t e n t i o n t h e recital w a s , de facto, to b e killed in sanctification. For Brazovsky: The terrible number of six million holy ones who were bound upon the altar of sanctification of His name [that is, Akedah] sheds a bit of light on the wonderful phenomenon of our generation. . . . Suddenly there grew up a wonderful generation of Torah study and careful observance of Mitsvah. . . . And all of this by the merit of those holy ones. Every spiritual event contains something of eternity which is not lost. How much more so with such a great Akedah, where each of the holy ones left holiness in the world after him. Given the greatness of the sanctification of the name of six million holy ones, it cannot even be estimated how much [the world] creation has been uplifted and sanctified. Brazovsky believed t h a t t h e Holocaust era belonged to t h e Ikvetah dimeshihah. T h e d e a t h of t h e holy o n e s displaced t h e Tumah placed in t h e world with creation with Kedushah. It c o n s t i t u t e d a cosmic m e n d i n g (Tikkun) t h a t p r e p a r e d t h e universe for messianic redemption. 4 7 In 1985, Eliyahu Hayim Karlebakh of Newark, New J e r s e y (d. 1990), a Bobover (Bobowa, Poland) Hasid who w a s t h e s o n of Naftali K a r l e b a k h a n d b r o t h e r of Shlomoh, wrote t h a t w h e n Nimrod c a s t A b r a h a m into t h e fire, A b r a h a m w a s sanctified a n d rose to a t r a n s n a t u r a l reality (Midrash Bereshit R a b b a h 38:13). Ready a n d willing to b e b u r n e d for God, h e w a s t r a n s f o r m e d into a s a c r e d spiritual essence. Isaac, whose a s h e s were s p r e a d a c r o s s t h e altar, s h a r e d t h i s power. So w a s t h e Ba'al S h e m Tov, w h o led a life of Mesirut nefesh. W h e n Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk a n d N a h u m of Chernobyl w e n t to t h e Ba'al S h e m Tov's grave, t h e h e a v e n s opened a n d released a great fire, whose s p a r k s of T o r a h s p r e a d a c r o s s t h e e a r t h . The fire of h o l i n e s s w a s p r e s e n t again in Auschwitz, with t h o s e w h o sanctified t h e m s e l v e s a s they sanctified t h e n a m e of God. K a r l e b a k h observed how geography b r o u g h t h o l i n e s s a n d fiery sacrifice together. Auschwitz, Maidanek, a n d T r e b l i n k a were located w h e r e holy Hasidim lived. Elimelekh's s t u d e n t w a s Ya'akov Yitshak, t h e Seer of Lublin, w h o generated t h e d y n a s t i e s of Ger, Kotsk (Kock, Poland), a n d Alexander (Aleksandrow Lodzki, Poland). The d y n a s t i e s of T s a n t s (Nowy Sacz, Poland) a n d Bobov emerged from Naftali Tsevi, t h e Ropshitser Rav. For Karlebakh, sanctification of God's n a m e a n d a s c e n t to t h e higher realm coalesced with t h e Hevlei mashiah d u r i n g t h e Holocaust. The a s h e s of Isaac t h a t s p r e a d a c r o s s t h e a l t a r b e c a m e t h e a s h e s of t h o s e b u r n e d in t h e d e a t h c a m p s in sanctification of God's n a m e . These a s h e s were t h e e s s e n c e of t h e Hevlei mashiah. For Karlebakh, a s for H a r l a p , t h a t

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was the meaning of the rabbinic sages' point that Israel would be redeemed by the merit of Isaac (Shabbat 89b).48 The identification of the Holocaust with sacrifice moved religious thought away from the issue of evil nations and sinful Israel. Here, commitment to God in love at the moment of death sanctified the individual. With the utterance of the Shema, the Jew who was burned abandoned history and found refuge in God. For the proponents of this view, sanctification in death was inherent to Judaism, perhaps its very core, ever since Abraham. It crystallized the essence of the Jews' relationship with God. While the two other patterns spoke of Israel's choices, historical contingencies, actions of Israel, and responses by God, this pattern grasped onto Israel's eternal identity, that of the Akedah, and blended the death camp into it. CONCLUDING NOTE Hundreds of studies have been published about non-ultraOrthodox Jewish postwar responses to the Holocaust. This chapter is intended to stimulate barely begun research into the ultraOrthodox postwar sources. Beyond the areas suggested at the outset, there are also narrower themes, implied by the material presented here, that call for study. What internal commonalities flow through our three types of responses? In what ways are the ideas mutually exclusive? For example, while those who identified Israel's failure as assimilation believed that God intervened in history when modern Jews freely abandoned Torah, those who believed the evil was present in creation or redemption disregarded particular actions by Israel in history as a basis for divine action. For some, oath-violation consisted of en masse ascent to the land and for others it consisted of no ascending. Some attributed the Holocaust to the neglect of Kabbalah and others to the neglect of explicit Torah. For some, the metahistorical covenantal relationship prevailed through the Holocaust while for others the Holocaust reality belonged to the transmetahistorical Ikvetah dimeshihah. Next, the individual thinkers should be contextualized: How did Tsevi Yehudah Kook's school as delineated here relate to religious nationalism? How did Slonimer Hasidism influence Shalom Noah Brazovsky? How did postwar views of Amalek and messianic expectations/nonexpectations compare to wartime parallels? Lastly, comparisons need to be drawn with non-ultra-Orthodox thinkers. For example, How did the concept of Tikkun for our Hasidic thinkers differ with Emil Fackenheim's? From the perspective of the history of ideas, did Simhah Elberg and Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap set the stage for Richard

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Rubenstein's despair over the God of covenantal (meta)history? Did instances of asserting sanctity a n d morality against Tumah a n d Sitra ahra during t h e war, described by Mosheh Prager a n d Yehudah Layb Gerst, set the stage for Yitshak Greenberg's theology of the voluntary covenant?

NOTES I am grateful to the staff of the Library of Congress Hebraica Division for extraordinary help in gathering materials as well as for providing the posters mentioned in note 39. Several colleagues—Yehoshua Vider, Uriel Barak, Aviezer Ravitsky, Hayim Basok—Yohanan Silman, Mosheh Faierstein, Hayim Levi, and Allan Nadler—and my student Shelly Mendelovitch directed me to sources. The Mellon Fund of the American University offset a portion of my travel expenses. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my beloved father, Morris Greenberg. 1. The history of the postwar ultra-Orthodox response relation has been researched by Dan Michman, "Hashpa'ah Hashoah al Hayadut Hadatit," in TenuotYesodBe'amHayehudi Be'ikvot Hashoah, ed. Yisrael Gutman, 176-177 (Jerusalem, 1995-1996); Kimmy Caplan, "Have Many Lies Accumulated in History Books? The Holocaust in Ashkenazi Haredi Historical Consciousness in Israel," Yad Vashem Studies 29 (2001): 321-378, and "Hahevrah Hahareidit Be'yisrael Ve'yahasah Lashoah-Keriyah Hadashah," Alpayim 17 (1999): 176-177; Amos Goldberg, "Hashoah Be'itonut Haharedit Bein Zikaron Lehadhakah," Yahadut Zemanenu 11-12 (1997/1998): 155-206; and Ruth Ebenstein, "Remembered through Rejection: Yom Hashoah in the Ashkenazi Haredi Daily Press, 1950-2000," Israel Studies (forthcoming). 2. On epistemological boundaries, see Andre Neher, L'exile de la Parole, der silence biblique au silence d'auschwitz (Paris, 1970); Shalom Rosenberg, "Shoah: Lekah, Hesber, Mashma'ut," in The Impact of the Holocaust on Jewish Theology and Thought, ed. Steven T. Katz (Ashkelon, 2004), and "Hara Vehahashgahah Haperatit" and "Sinderelah," in Be'ikvot Hakuzari (Jerusalem, 1991): 298-313; and Sha'ar Yashuv Cohen, "Hester Panim Bashoah Mul Hanisim Hagiluyim Bedorenu," in Ets Avot (Jerusalem, 1992/1993): 15-28. 3. On the German retreat, see Shmuel Greiniman, Hofets Hayim al Hatorah (Benei Berak, 1953/1954), 72-73. 4. "Metahistory" refers to the reality of God's direct relationship with Israel articulated in time—as over-against Israel's historical existence in terms of laws of nature and social and religious institutions. See Yitshak Breuer, "Am Yisrael Bagolah," Moriah (1953/1954): 95-100, and Der neue Kusari: Ein Weg zumJudentum (Frankfurt am Main, 1934), 63-91; Andre Neher, Clefs pour lejudaisme (Paris, 1977), 126; and Tsevi Yehudah Kook, Sihot Harav Tsevi Yehudah: Asarah Betevet-Hashoah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 198?), 2.

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5. Yisrael ben Shabbethai Hakohen Hapstein of Kozienice, "Gam Zeh Shayakh Lebe'er Revi'i," in Be'er Hagolah, ed. Yehudah Loew Betsalel Jerusalem, 1970/1971, 154, and "Parashat Beshallah," in Nezer Yisrael (Yoseffof, 1870), 3 a ; and Shalom Noah Brazovsky, Kuntres Hahareigah Alekhah (Jerusalem, 1987/1988), and "Ma'amar Galut Vegeulah," in Netivot Shalom, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1982), 305-310. 6. Hayim Druckman, "Hashoah: Bitui Si Lenetsah Yisrael," Iturei Kohanim 58 (December 1989-January 1990): 11-15. On Friedman, see Esther Mark, "Arba Teudot Mi'auschwitz-Birkenau," Gated 1 (1973): 309-332. Throughout this chapter, scriptural and rabbinic sources used by the authors are identified in parentheses. 7. Eliyahu ben Shlomoh, "Beur," in Tikunei Hazohar: Im Tikunim Mizohar Hadash (Vilna, 1867), 27 a , and Beur Lesifra Ditseniuta (Vilna, 1820/1821), ch. 5; Hillel Mishklov, "Tikkun Het Hameraglim," in Kol Hator: Pirkei Geulah. Me'et Hagaon Hamekubal R. Hillel Mishklov . . . Bo Hazon Nifla Shel Rabo Ha'gra, cited in Menahem M. Kasher, Hatekufah Hagedolah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1968), 534 ff; Avraham Yitshak Hakohen Kook, "Zeronim," in Hatarbut Ha'yisraelit I (Jaffa, 1912/1913), 9-27; Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap, Mei Marom: Mima'ayenei Hayeshuah, vol. 6 (Jerusalem, 1981/82), "Halikhot Geulat Yisrael," Ateret (August-September 1947): 10-13, "Le'et Dodim," Sinai 11, nos. 4-5 (December 1947January 1948): 126-138, and "Ayom hu matsavam shel Yisrael [undated]," Letter 249, "Nahamu, nahamu ami [October 1946]," Letter 138 and Duvdevani [in St. Caesarea] to Harlap [12 September 1946] in Beit Zevul-Harlap Archives (Jerusalem). 8. Yehuda Layb Gerst, "Al Bergen Belsen," Haderekh 116, J u n e 5, 1947, 3; "Kelapei Hasha'ananim Betokheinu," Haderekh 123, July 24, 1947, 2; "Hamasoret Shel Sinat Yisrael," Dos Yiddishe Vort 13, October 24, 1947, 4; She'arim, September 14, 1947, 3-4; She'arim, October 15, 1947, 3; "Rosh Hashanah Bishenot Hamilhamah" Kol Yisrael 25, no. 48 (September 12, 1947): 45; "Bemahanot Hesger," Kol Yisrael 26, no. 29 (April 15, 1948): 2, 4; and Binetivot Hazeman Vehanetsah (Jerusalem, 1955). 9. Mosheh Prager, "Mahteret Hasidit Bagetaot Polin," Yediyot Yad Vashem 21-22 (December 1959): 7-10; Mordei Hageto (Jerusalem, 1945/1947); Eleh Shelo Nikhne'u (Benei Berak, 1963); "Beyamin Ha'afelim Halalu," She'arim, January 11, 1945, 2; and "Im She'erit Yehudei Polin," Davar, February 7, 1946. See Theodor Schieder, Hermann Rauschnings Gespraeche mit Hitler als Geschichtsquelle (Opladen, Germany, 1972). 10. Hayim David Bakon, Shtraln in der Finsternish (Brooklyn, NY, 1990). 11. Mosheh Blaykher, "Hashoah," in Megillot Litekumah (Hebron, 1996), 8-13. 12. See Exodus 17:8, 14; Numbers 24:20; Deuteronomy 25:17-19; 1 Samuel 15:2; Pesikta Rabbati 12:9-12, 13:1; Midrash Shemot Rabbah 51:5; and Midrash Eykhah Rabbah 5:6. 13. Rambam, "Hayesod Hahamishi," in "Hakdamah Leperek Helek, Sanhedrin," in Mishnah Im Perush Harambam (Jerusalem, 1969/1970), and "Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim Umazalot Vehukot Ha'akum," in Mishneh

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Torah (New York, 1975), ch. 1 Halakhah 1-2; Yeshayah Shtaynberger, "Hashoah Vetarbut Meholelehah: Hatakdim Ha'amaleki Lenatsizm Hagermani," Shanah Beshanah (1992/1993): 393-404, and "Aseret Betevet," ShanahBeshanah (1990/1991): 378-385 and (1991/1992): 311-320. 14. Zadok Rabinowitch, Yisrael Kedoshim (Benei Berak, 1966/1967), 48. See also Hofets Hayim, "Bo Yevuar She'inyan Metsukei Hazeman" and "Bo Yevuar Biat Hageulah" in Shem Olam, vol. 2 (Warsaw, 1897/1898), 12, 14, "Biat Hamashiah" and "Geulat Yisrael," in Mahaneh Yisrael (New York, 1973/74), 40-45, Tsipita Liyeshuah: Kol Kitvei Hafets-Hayim Hashalem (Brooklyn, NY, 1988/1989); Menahem Kasher, Hatekufah Hagedolah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1968), 20-21, 28-29, 88-91, 103-105; and Yoel Shvarts, Zakhor (Jerusalem, 1992/1993). 15. Layb Minzberg, "Milhamah Lashem Be'amalek," Torati Bekirvam 8 (February-March 2002): 12-20. 16. Isser Zalman Meltser, "Dam Va'esh," in Even Ha'azel: Mishpatim (Jerusalem, 1944/1945), "Hineh nigmar," in Even Ha'azel: Avodah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1970), i, and "Hineh zakhiti," in Even Ha'azel: Avodah, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1970), i. On Hevlei mashiah, see Eliyahu ben Shelomoh, "Be'inyanei Erev Rav Vehevlei Mashiah," in Even Shelemah (Vilna, 1873). 17. Abraham G. Schiff, "Neumo shel Yoshev Rosh Agudat Yisrael," Kol Yisrael Bagolah 11 (August 8, 1947): 2; and Shlomoh DiamantYahalomi, "Darkhei Tsiyon Aveilot," Yidishe Shtime 1 (July 25, 1945): 6. 18. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn, "Hashoah," in Emunah Umada (Kfar Habad, 1972); Hayka Grossman, "Harabi Milubavitch Vehashoah," Al Hamishmar, August 18, 1980; Schneersohn, letter to Grossman (September 28, 1980) provided by Grossman to the author; and "Devar Malkhut," Kfar Habad 457-459 (December 1990^January 1991): 1-7, as cited in Mosheh Verdiger, Hashoah Kinekudet Mifneh Teologit (Ramat Gan, 1997/1998). Wartime precedents for the surgery metaphor may be found in Eliahu Botschko, Der Born Israels, vol. 1 (Montreux, Switzerland, 1944), 19-20, and Efrayim Sokolover, Penei Efrayim (Tel Aviv, 1965/1966), 114-119. See also Yehudah Halevi, Kuzari 2:44. Rambam wrote: "A person to whom God has awarded the merit of rising to the great level of being killed in sanctification of God's name had a place in the world to come, even if the person's sins were like those of Jeroboam ben Nebat and his colleagues." See Rambam, "Hamin Hashlishi," in Igeret Hashemad, in Igrot Harambam, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1987), 51. On Habad interpretation of the Holocaust, see Gershon Greenberg, "Redemption after Holocaust according to Mahaneh Yisrael Lubavitch, 1940-1945," Modern Judaism 12, no. 1 (1992): 61-84. 19. Barukh Rabinowitch, Binat Nevonim (Erets Yisrael, 1996). On punishing the small sins of the pious, see also Rambam, "Hilkhot Teshuvah," in Mishneh Torah (New York, 1975), ch. 6. Halakhah 1. Weinfeld (citing Isa. 5:30) also addressed the absence of foreknowledge. Sharki spoke of the issue of the pious Jew's foreknowledge and ability to prevent the catastrophe (citing Moed Katan 16b). See Aviezer Ravitsky, "Der Einfluss der Holocaust auf das zeitgenossiche judische ortodokse Denken," Transit 22

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(2001/2002): 160-177; and Allan Nadler, "The War on Modernity of R. Hayim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz," Modern Judaism 14, no. 3 (October 1994): 233-664. 20. Hayim Vital, "Sha'ar Shishi," in Sha'ar Hakavanot, vol. 1 (Erets Yisrael, 1961/1962), 1; and Hayim Yisrael Tsimerman, TamimPa'alo (Tel Aviv, 1947). See also Gershon Greenberg, "TamimPa'alo: Tsimerman's Absolutistic Explanation of the Holocaust," in In God's Name: Religion and Genocide in the Twentieth Century, ed. Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack, 316-341 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001). 21. Elazar Menahem Man Shakh, in Yated Ne'eman (December 26, 1990): 4-6, as cited by Shmuel Koll, Kuntres Sho'at Yahadut Eiropah Uporaniyut Yisrael Bizemanenu (Jerusalem, 1996), Bakon attributed a quote of the Hafets Hayim to Elhanan Wasserman prior to the war, according to which idolatrous souls of Gideon's time (ca. 1200 BC; see Judg. 6) and the kingdoms of J u d a h and Israel reappeared after thousands of years and were subjected to severe testing for the sake of mending (Tikkun). The purification took place because the messiah was about to come. Bakon also attributed Mendele Rotenberg (resh mesivta of Yeshivat Bobov) with saying that during the war millions of souls of forced converts, who had cared for their bodies at the expense of their souls, were returning to undergo Tikkun of their bodies by the act of being murdered as Jews (Hayim David Bakon, Shtraln in der Finsternish [Brooklyn, NY, 1990], 26-27). According to Ovadiah Yosef, chief rabbi of the Shas Party, the 6 million killed were the souls of sinners reincarnated to rectify earlier sins (Ma'ariv, Internet edition [August 2000]). 22. Shmuel Koll put the matter of blame bluntly: Over the long years of exile, the terror described in Scripture has been realized. . . . The Shoah was depicted clearly in the Torah and we were warned about it in plenty of time [Deut. 28]. We have no objective excuse now to weaken belief. To the contrary, the Shoah provides strong grounds to affirm belief and for Israel to return in total Teshuvah. The Shoah could have been avoided had Israel returned with all its heart and soul in Teshuvah. Anyone who says or thinks that the Shoah is accidental is a heretic. God Himself acted, acts and will act with regard to all human events.

See his Kuntres Sho'at Yahadut Eiropah, 47, 67. 23. Sefer Hazohar: Al Hamishah Humshei Torah Mehatana Rabi Shimon ben Yohai. Im Haperush Derekh Emet Ve'im Habeurim . . . Hasulam . . . , 10 vols. (Jerusalem, 1964). Yehudah Ashlag, "Hakdamah Lesefer Hazohar," in Sefer Hahakdamot Lehakhmat Ha'emet (Jerusalem: 2000): nos. 65-70. See also Eliezer Schweid, "Hahitgalut Hago'elet: Hatsdakat Elohim Bemishnato Hakabalit Shel Harav Yehudah Ashlag," in Bein Hurban Liyeshuah (Tel Aviv, 1994), 193-215. 24. Shalom Buzaglo, Kise Melekh to "Tikkun 30," in Tikkunei Hazohar (Warsaw, 1883), 107a; Hayim Vital, Ets Hayim (Jerusalem, 1995), 15, col. 1; and Mordekhai Atiyah, Sod Hashevuah (Jerusalem, 1963/1964), 30-33. The tie between absence of inner knowledge and chaos (formulated concisely by Yudl Rozenberg, "Hakdamah," in Zohar Torah, vol. 1 [Montreal, QC, 1924], 10) was voiced again in 2001 by Meir Yannai (Jerusalem),

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who wrote that the absence of Kabbalah study before the war left the universe in scattered shards (Kelipot) of broken vessels of primordial light (Shevirat hakelim). God's Shekhinah (presence as light) disappeared to be replaced by divine judgment (Din). In the darkness, an evil messenger of God attacked Israel, and made no distinction between good and evil Jews. At the same time, the unity between God, Israel, and Torah (Zohar. Aharei mot 73a) broke, leaving catastrophe. I had difficulty verifying Yannai's sources. See Meir Yannai, Tamtsit Hashoah (Moshav Ben Shemen, 2001). Kabbalistic terminology has been used by others. See Eliyahu Meir Bloch, "Yesurim Shel Ahavah," in ShiureiDa'at (Jerusalem, 1971/1972), 121-127. In 1977, Yitshak Hutner, resh mesivta of Yeshivat Hayim Berlin (New York) wrote that the Holocaust, a rebuke (Tokhehah) for the sins, was intended to generate Teshuvah and restore the unity of God, Israel, and Torah ("Holocaust," Jewish Observer 12, no. 8 [October 1977]: 39). David Weiss-Halivni, who demonstrated the absence of scriptural/rabbinic basis for tying the Holocaust, as Keliyah (absolute obliteration), to Israel's sin, or as an explanation for Hester panim or God's nonintervention, was led to the Kabbalist (Lurianic) doctrine of Tsimtsum, whereby God contracted Himself to allow for human freewill and the Nazis chose ultimate evil. Weiss-Halivni prayed in the Wolfsberg camp on Rosh Hashanah for God to reign over the world again, and so completely that free choice would be taken from the persecutors ("Eloheinu ve'elohei avoteinu, melokh al kal ha'olam bikhevodekhah") ("Al Hashoah ve'al Tefilatah," in Mahzor Volfsberg [Jerusalem, 2001]). Compare Hans Jonas, "Der Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz: Eine jiidische Shtimme," in Reflexionen finsterer Zeit, ed. Otfried Hofius, 61-86 (Tubingen, 1984). 25. Mordekhai Schlaperbersky, "Eikhah Ayyekah," Yidishe Shtime 1 (July 25, 1947): 1, 6. 26. Tsimerman, Tamim Pa'alo; and Shakh, Yated Ne'eman (February 1, 1991), as cited by Koll, Kuntres Sho'at. 27. Yosef Bar Hayim Jabez, Or Hahayim (Lublin, Poland, 1911/ 1912), 4 a -4 b , 40 a . Yair Hayim Bacharach, "Siman 219," in She'elot UteshuvotHavat Yair, vol. 2 (Ramat Gan, 1996/1997), 623. Eleazar Loew, Shev Shema 'atata: Derush Sha'arei Yirah. Derush Revi'i, as cited in Lev Ha'ivri by Akivah Yehosef ben Yehiel, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1989/1990), 29-30. Yisrael Meir Hakohen (Hofets Hayim), Beit Yisrael (New York, 1934), 39-40. Tsevi Elimelekh Shapira of Dynow, "Mayan Ganim," in Or Hahayim (Lemberg, 1874), 2. Barukh Dov Laybowitch, "Siman 27," in Birkat Shemuel, vol. 1 (New York, 1946/1947). Mosheh Isserles, "Siman 246," in Darkhei Mosheh: Mitur Yoreh Deah (Sulzbach, 1692), 85. Avraham Weinfeld, "Ma'amar Be'inyan Hovat Hahitbolelut Bemashmaut Hurban Yahadut Eiropah," in Or Hahayim by Josef Ben Hayim Jabez, Or Hahayim (Monsey, NY, 1953). 28. Menahem Immanuel Artom, "Hirhurim Al Hashoah," De'ot 4, no. 18 (Winter 1961): 28-31; Aharon Neuwirth, "Hazon Hanevi'im Al Hashabbat Ki'yesod Levinyan Hamedinah," in Yisrael Veshabato (Jerusalem, 1964), 153-156. Hayim Kanevsky, "Ketsad Mefitsim Deot Kozevot," in Hayei Olam (Benei Berak, 1964), 36-37. Shlomoh Volbeh, "Al Ma'amakei

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Hashoah," in Bein Sheshet Le'asor (Jerusalem, 1970), 78-79. See further Ezriel Tauber, Mi'afelah Le'orah (Jerusalem, 1992), 144-155; and Bernard Maza, "Before the Sun Sets," in With Fury Poured Out: The Power of the Powerless During the Holocaust (New York, 1986), 13-120. 29. Kook cited Rauschning, Hitler M'a Dit (Paris, 1945), 269, Alfred Lehman's translation of Gesprache mit Hitler. Tsevi Yehudah Kook, "Hashoah," in Sihot Harav Tsevi Yehudah: Asarah Betevet Hashoah (Jerusalem, 198?) and Linetivot Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1966/1967): 35-37, 47, 53, 60, 64, 74-75. On Tsevi Yehudah Kook, see Dov Shvarts, "Seder Lenisim Veseder Ligeulah: Motivim Meshihi'im Bemishnat Harav Tsevi Yehudah Kook," in Etgar Umashber Behug Harav Kook (Tel Aviv, 2001), 15-138. Eliyahu Bazak, Medaber Bitsedakah (Eilat, 2000), 73. 30. Hayim Ibn Attar, Or Hahayim to Deuteronomy 32:36. Yissakhar Taykhtahl, Em Habanim Semehah (Budapest, 1943). Avraham Livni, "Hahitgalut Be'auschwitz," in Shivat Tsiyon Nes Le'amim (Jerusalem, 1995), 33-34, 40, 46 (translation of Le Retour D'israel et L'esperance du Monde [Monaco, 1984] by Uri Sharki). 31. Yehudah Halevi, Kuzari 2:24; Ya'akov Emden, "Hakdamah: Sulam Beit El," in SiddurBeit Ya'akov (Lemberg, 1904), 13. Eliyahu ben Shlomoh, Gaon of Vilna, as presented in Hillel Mishklov, Kol Hator, in Kasher, p. 535. Ramhal, Ma'amar Hageulah (Jerusalem, 1997/1998), 108-111. Sharki (as did Itamar Cohen, Kaddish Aharon [Jerusalem, 2001]) credited Yehudah Ashkenazi, "Vayehi Be'aharit Hayamim," Shoresh2 (1982/1983): 21-32. On Ramhal, see also Shalom Rosenberg. Uri Sharki, Shoah Veshe'elah: Le'asarah Betevet—Yom Hakadish Hakelali (Jerusalem, December 1998—January 1999). 32. Shlomoh Hayim Aviner, Mishbarekha Vegalekha Alei Avaru: Al Hashoah (Jerusalem, 2000). See also Aviezer Ravitsky, "Rishumah Shel Hashoah Behagut Ha'ortodoxit," Thirteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, forthcoming). The Land of Israel imperative in the aftermath of the Holocaust, rather than prior to or in conjunction with it, and without messianic categories, was probed in Joseph B. Soloveichik, "Kol Dodi Dofek [Yom Ha'atsmaut 1956]," in Fate and Destiny: From Holocaust to the State of Israel (New York: KTAV, 1992), 1-95. 33. Tsimerman, TamimPa'alo. 34. Hayim Ibn Attar, "Leviticus 25:25," in Or Hahayim (Jerusalem, 1988/1989), 111; Ya'akov Kranz, "Aharei Mot," in Ohel Ya'akov, vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1982), end. On return to the land as a Mitsvah, see Eleazar Azikri, "Mitsvat Yishuv Ha'arets," in Sefer Haredim (Jerusalem, 1990), ch. 59. Atiyah, Mahashavot Shalom (Jerusalem, 1948), 19-20. 35. Yehudah Halevi, Kwzari 2:44. Petshenik, "Onesh, Segulah, Veyi'ud," OrHamizrah3, nos. 3-4 (August-September 1957): 61-66. See also Petshenik, Sefer Mateh Aharon (Jerusalem, 1979/1980) and "Zakhra li Elohim letovah," Shanah Beshanah (1989/1990): 471-481; (1990/1991): 467-476, (1991/1992): 460-465. 36. Hillel Mishklov, "Tikkun Het Hameraglim," in Kol Hator. Avraham Avihayil, "Mashma'ut Hashoah," in Hazeman Hamekudashin (Jerusalem, 1971/192), 32-44.

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37. Yoel Taytlboym, "Hakdamah" and "Ma'amar Shalosh Shevuot," in Vayoel Mosheh (Brooklyn, NY, 2000): 5-18, sees. 81, 82, 88, 110-111, 139, and Kuntres al Hageulah Ve'al Hatemurah (Brooklyn, NY, 1981): 12, 17-18, 21, 79, 85. See also Shlomoh Hayim Aviner, "Berurim Be'inyan Shelo Ya'alu Kehomah," Noam 20 (1977/1978): 208-231. On Taytlboym, see Yitshak Kroyz, "Yahadut Vetsiyonut: Shnayim Shelo Yelkhu Yahdav. Mishnato Haradikalit Shel R. Yoel Taytlboym—Ha'admor Misatmar," Hatsiyonut 22 (2000): 37-60; Aviezer Ravitsky, "Facing the End: Radical AntiZionism," in Messianic Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago, 1996), 40-78; Amos Funkenstein, 'Theological Interpretations of the Holocaust: A Balance," in Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews, ed. Francois Furet, 275-303 (New York: Schocken Books, 1989); and Allan Nadler, "Piety and Politics: The Case of the Satmar Rebbe," Judaism3l, no. 2 (1982): 135-152. 38. Mosheh Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse, vol. 1 (New York, 1977). Benyamin Mendelssohn in Diglenu, as cited by Porat. Avraham Yeshayah Roter, Sha'arei Aharon (Benei Berak, 1981/1982). Elazar Halevi Shulzinger, "Mikhtav Gilui," in Al Mishkenot Hara'im (Benei Berak, 1987/1988): 155-160. The views of Yeshayahu Karelitz (the Hazon Ish) were ambiguous. See Karelitz, "Ahavat Yisrael shel Hahiloniyim," in Pe'er Hador, vol. 3, 123-127, and vol. 4, 245-247 (Benei Berak, 1970); and "Inyanei Hahalakhah," in Karelitz, Kovets Igerot (Jerusalem, 1954/195), 113-114. See also Mikhael Dov Weissmandel, Min Hametsar (New York, 1960); and Yehezkel Salmon, "Teshuvot Hatsiyonut Lashoah," in Shoah Mishamayim (Erets Yisrael, 1998), 219-239. See also Menahem Friedman, "Medinat Yisrael Kedilemah Datit," Alpayim 3 (1990): 24-68, and "The Haredim and the Holocaust," Jerusalem Quarterly 53 (Winter 1991): 86-114; and Dina Porat, "Amalek's Accomplices," Journal of Contemporary History 27, no. 4 (1992): 695-735. 39. The posters in question read: 1. "Remember what Amalek did unto thee" [Deut. 26:17]. The Zionist Amalek. Do not forget. 2. Let us pray to God that the trouble, the call of the Zionist state which arose against God and His messiah, provoked by the nations of the world, will be annulled, in mercy and compassion. / "Nor awake my love till he please" [Song of Songs 3:5]. "Make haste my beloved" [Song of Songs 8:14]. May there be mercy once again for our being destroyed. "For we are consumed" [Ps. 90:7]. / On account of the fathers the children will be rescued, and redemption will come to the children of their children. / "I charge you . . . by the hinds of the field, that he stay not up, nor awake my love, till he please" [Song of Songs 3:5]. / Rabbi Eleazar said, The Holy One Blessed be He said to Israel, If you keep the admonition which God adjured Israel not to go up by a wall with a strong hand, not to rebel against the nations of the world, so as not to accelerate the end—well and good. But if not I will permit your flesh to be a prey like that of the gazelles and the hinds of the fields [Ketuvot l l l a ] .

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40. Shemuel Yaffe Ashkenazi, "Beur Lemidrash Shir Hashirim 8:11-13," in Yefeh Kol Limegilat Shir Hashirim (Jerusalem, 1989): 187 a . Mosheh Hagiz, Sefat Emet (Vilna, 1775/1976), 10a, 44 a ; and Hayim Vital, Sha'ar Hakavanot 53, col. 4, as cited by Atiyah. Hayim Vital, Olat Tamid (Jerusalem, 1996/1997), 4, col. 2; and Efrayim Luntshits, "Leviticus 18:13," in Keli Yakar: Beur Al Hatorah (Jerusalem, 1987/1988), 378. Shalom Buzaglo, "Emor," in Mikdash Melekh (Benei Berak, 1973), 93 b . See also Hayim Ibn Attar, "Hakdamah," in Or Hahayim (Jerusalem, 1988/1989), 17-21; and Mordekhai Atiyah, Sod Hashevuah (Jerusalem, 1963/1964). Uri Sharki bridged the views of Taytlboym and Tsevi Yehudah Kook, saying that as long as God determined that the people of Israel should be exiled the nations were not to oppress them lest their exile become unbearable. Once the Kets hameguleh set in, the nations were free to overly oppress (Sharki, Shoah Veshe'elah). 41. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith after the Holocaust (New York, 1973), and With God in Hell (New York, 1979). 42. Elazar Menahem Man Shakh, "Hayim shel Mesirut Nefesh—Rikud Im Hakadosh Barukh Hu Beta'e Hagazim," in Bazot Ani Boteah (Benei Berak, 1997/1998), 34-38. 43. Simhah Elberg, Akaydas Treblinka (Shanghai, 1946), "Hagaon Harav Natan Spigelglas," in Sefer Einei Ha'edah (Brooklyn, NY, 1996): 355-435, and "Akedat Treblinka," Hamodiya, May 18, 1984. 44. Ya'akov Yosef of Polonnoye, "Parashat Ki Tissa," in Toldot Ya'akov Yosef (1975/1976), 65 b . Rabinowitch, Binat Nevonim, 166-167. 45. Hayim Yitshak Or Zarua, "Mispar 14," in She'elot Uteshuvot Maharah Or Zarua (Jerusalem, 1974/1975), 7. Ya'akov ben Asher, "Genesis 23:2," in Ba'al Haturim Hashalem, vol. 1 (Brooklyn, NY, 1999), 178-179. Yekutiel Yehudah Taytlboym, Yitav Panim, vol. 1 (Brooklyn, NY, 1962/ 1963), 108 a . Ha'tam Sofer, "Siman 333," in She'elot Uteshuvot: Helek Yoreh Deah, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1999/2000), 486; Yehoshua Grinvald, "Ein Dimah" and "Al Devar Ha'efer," in She'elot Uteshuvot Hesed Yehoshua (New York, 1948), 5-20, 9 a -9 b . Dov Rapaport, "Hakdamah," in Yehoshua Grinvald, Kuntres Ein Dimah [1948] (Brooklyn, NY, 1990): 1-29. 46. Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap, MeiMarom: Mi Ma'ayanei Hayeshua, vol. 6 (Jerusalem, 1981/1982). See Gershon Greenberg, "The Holocaust Apocalypse of Ya'akov Mosheh Harlap," Jewish Studies 41 (2002): 57-66. 47. Avraham ben Shemuel of Slonim, "Behar," in Beit Avraham (Jerusalem, 1968/1969), 143-144. Shlomoh ben Adret, "Helek 5. Siman 55," in She'elot Uteshuvot (Jerusalem, 2000), 31. Brazovsky also cited Rambam, "Hilkhot Yesodei Hatorah," in Mishneh Torah (New York, 1975), ch. 5, Halakhah 1-5. In the sixteenth century, Isaac Luria wrote, "In the recitation of the Shema . . . it is not enough that we surrender our souls through the mystery of death, but rather through that of Kiddush Hashem, this being the surrender of the soul to [the extent of actual] death." Hayim Vital, "Inyan Keriyat Shema," in Sha'ar Hakavanot, 137, as cited by Laurence Fine, "Contemplative Death in Jewish Mystical Tradition," in Sacrificing the Self ed. Margaret Cormack (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), 97. Shalom Noah Brazovsky, Kuntres Hahareigah Alekhah,

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"Ma'amar Galut Vegeulah," and "Besha'ar Hasefer," in Beit Avraham (Jerusalem, 1968/1969): i-vii. 48. I could not find the source for the story about Ba'al Shem Tov's death. See Eliyahu Hayim Karlebakh, ed., Shivhei Haba'al Shem Tov Hashalem (Jerusalem, 1990). Eliyahu Hayim Karlebakh, Kuntres Hevlei Mashiah (Hillside, NY, 1980).

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Chapter Six A "Third Partner" of World Jewiy?: The Role of the Memory of the Shoah in the Search for a New Present-Day European Jewish Identity Dan Michman

During the second half of the twentieth century, sociologists, historians, literary critics, and other observers of the Jewish world, as well as planners of schemes for the Jewish future, have tended to focus on two Jewish communities as being the nuclei of Jewish existence: Israel and North American Jewry. Other Jewish communities are usually perceived as either vanishing "leftovers" of the pre-Holocaust period (in continental Europe) 1 or as satellites of the two main centers. European Jewry as a whole—which before World War II was the most vibrant Jewish commonwealth, shaping political, spiritual, and social movements and ideas—has not been taken into account as suggesting any real Jewish future. 2 However, during the last decade an interesting, perhaps amazing, phenomenon has been emerging that I encounter on a regular basis in various settings throughout Europe. As the phenomenon is still in a process of crystallizing itself, the following observations will have to be based on personal impressions, both of myself and of others. I believe, however, that these impressions have accumulated into a picture, which should be analyzed and discussed.

BACKGROUND A set of developments throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transformed Jewry entirely and in every aspect. These developments included emancipation, secularization (skepticism, agnosticism, atheism), democratization, economic modernization, migration, modern national awareness, and modern anti-Semitism.

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Interacting, they radically changed the modes of Jewish self-organization, self-understanding, and cohesion. For our discussion, only some of these developments are important: (1) The emancipation of the Jews, a legal process set in motion late in the eighteenth century, gradually spread and became accepted everywhere in Europe and the Western world by the end of World War I. Even though the process differed radically from country to country depending largely on the extent of (2) secularization, the acceptance of the Jews into the given national society always meant that the community lost its status as an autonomous legal entity. The communal organization turned into a (largely or totally) voluntary one, and the grip of the Jewish leaders and rules over the individual Jew were markedly loosened. The paths to (3) acculturation and integration into the majority society now opened wide. In consequence, the Jews' interest in the well-being and fate of the dominant society and strata grew steadily; this fact tended to reduce what had been an almost exclusive involvement in the Jewish community. The shift of interest found expression, among other things, in the adoption of the dominant language in place of the Jewish one (usually Yiddish). The success of the entire process of emancipation and integration—often referred to by the vague term assimilation-—would define to what extent Jews developed faith in the good intentions of the local authorities. We know, of course, that there were many obstacles; that social emancipation did not proceed as fast as legal emancipation; and that even the path toward legal emancipation was "tortuous and thorny," as Reinhard Rurup once called it.3 Nevertheless, the Jews' identification with the society and state—and the influence of the majority culture on the Jews—grew everywhere. Consequently, Jews in large measure adopted the local characteristics and mentality. This chain of development brought with it (4) the emergence of varying "types" of Jews: first, of the well-known schism between Westjuden and Ostjuden (basically deriving from the differing pace of emancipation); and, second, of the even more specific subdivision between Jewish communities in different countries: "French," "German," "Dutch," "Hungarian" Jewry. (5) The democratization of European political life was another crucial factor in the transformation of Jewish life. As the Jews became increasingly interested in the life of the surrounding society—in Western Europe as part of the emancipation process and in Eastern Europe even before having achieved full legal emancipation—they adopted and internalized the emerging rules of political activity. In the Western European countries, Jews joined progressive parties that sought to apply the logic of integration to the fullest extent; in tsarist Russia before World War I, and even more so in Poland during the interwar

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period, a significant number of Jews tended to join left-wing revolutionary parties in order to achieve real emancipation in a just society of the future. 4 These were the developments in and hopes existing among European Jews before the Shoah. The event of the Shoah—both the aspect of the German extermination plan and the aspect of the behavior of the majority of European societies when "their" Jews were murdered—shattered this state of Jewish affairs: the communities were extremely decimated, and the faith in "Europe" and in the European home countries faded in the post-Holocaust years (the more so because in the immediate postwar period returning Jews encountered anti-Semitism everywhere, even in societies that had helped Jews during the Nazi period, such as Denmark). 5 This effected into two major paths of Jewish behavior: first, an immense support for Zionism and for the establishment of a Jewish state among almost all Jews (even among most ultra-Orthodox and "assimilationist" Jews); and, second, emigration abroad—to Israel and to many other destinations overseas (in the first place North America) that were not "contaminated" by European-style anti-Semitism. This state of affairs shaped a post-1945 Jewish world dominated by two major Jewish centers (or "nuclei")—Israel and American Jewry—and a Jewish discourse conducted primarily in two languages: Hebrew and English. 6 The languages in which modern Jewish culture in all its varieties had been acting in the century and a half before the Shoah—the languages of the countries of domicile and the Jewish languages (Yiddish and Ladino)—faded away as creative theaters (the Jewish languages remaining only a nostalgic feature). Consequently, much of the past Jewish wealth lost its natural continuity and fell into oblivion. True, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union still contained considerable Jewish communities. Yet, Britain remained—as it was also before World War II—a community apart from the continent with its singular characteristics; French Jewry was transformed in many ways through the immigration from North African countries; and free activity and development of Soviet Jewry was suppressed by the Communist regime and its Yiddishkeit crushed. The Jewish communities that remained in the Western European countries were too tiny to have a real impact on Jewish affairs.

"MA NISHTANAH"—WHAT HAS CHANGED? This situation, which reigned from the end of the 1940s through the beginning of the 1990s, influenced the activities of

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Israeli and American Jewry and fixed many forecasts of the Jewish future. The shlichim (emissaries) of the Zionist Youth movements and other Israeli envoys, not the least among them Israeli ambassadors, constantly invested efforts in driving the remnants of European Jewry to aliya: there was no future for Jews in Europe, so it was said, not only because of dormant anti-Semitism, but also, and perhaps mainly, because of the minuscule size of the communities. American Jewry on the other hand, thought itself to be a kind of guardian of the interests of Jews in Europe in material as well as spiritual affairs. American Jewish organizations took special interest in fighting for Jewish interests and interests of the Jews in Eastern European countries (among them the Memorial Foundation, the Joint [that is, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee], Chabad, and so on), but invested also a lot in Western Europe. 7 In this context, the assertive action carried out by the American-style World Jewish Congress in the field of reparations and the return of Jewish assets both in the 1950s and the 1990s is exemplary. 8 But also in the field of academic Jewish studies, this state of affairs was apparent: while since the invention of the Wissenschaft des J u d e n t u m s in the first half of the nineteenth century, European Jewish scholars had set the tone, now the scepter was taken over by Israeli and American Jewish scholars and institutions. 9 The last decade, however, has shattered again this seemingly constant situation. The major causes for that are the following: •

The downfall of Communism changed the general "cold war atmosphere" in Europe on the one hand, and left a certain identity vacuum of the Eastern European societies (with the exception of the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS]) on the other hand. In these countries, strong nationalist trends—in many cases accompanied by local traditional antiSemitism—have emerged. Yet alongside this nationalism and anti-Semitism a strong longing for "Westernization," that is, democratization and free economy, grew too. In this context, third- and fourth-generation Jews (some of them half Jews), lacking real knowledge of Judaism but having kept some Jewish awareness, have found themselves in a situation in which they had socially to confront and cope with popular antiSemitism on the one hand, but were (and are) allowed publicly and legally by the authorities to act as freely as in the liberal Western countries on the other hand. This mixture of components has led to a revival of Jewish life, which is only partially channeled into religious (such as Chabad) or Zionist (that is,

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•

•

•

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Israel-centered) directions, because of the complex background of these "reborn" Jews. 1 0 The developments in Eastern Europe also caused, as is wellknown, a wave of immigration. Again, a major portion of this wave went to Israel and North America. However, a part of this wave also settled in Germany and Austria, and became a considerable segment of the Jewish community. The need to support and provide them with education and cultural activities raises questions about the character of Jewish identity. The process of European unification (in the European Union), in the framework of which cooperation between citizens of all countries is encouraged, lowered the demand for "national" loyalty, as it had existed throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century (up until the 1960s/1970s). This atmosphere eased trans-European Jewish cooperation and interrelation. Moreover, a tendency toward multiculturalism supported by the intellectual elites (even though not always by the broad public) invested declarative "Jewishness" with a trendy look. 11 The unification also promoted the feeling of a new leading status of Europe in the world, counterbalancing the position of the United States as the sole superpower in world affairs. Israel started gradually to loose its appeal because of the deep crisis it underwent during the last decade. This crisis consists of two elements. On the one hand, there is gradual post-Zionization, individualization, the seeming strengthening of Orthodox power in political and social affairs, growing violence (including the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin), and a loss of social cohesion. On the other hand, there is the ongoing (and with no end in sight) conflict with the Palestinans with its resulting violence and feelings of personal insecurity. This has caused Israel to partially lose its status as the focus of Jewish interests and as setting the agenda for Jewish affairs abroad—as it had been for several decades. The central place the Shoah has acquired over the last two decades in European collective memory and culture as a major collective crime carried out within the context of Western civilization—by a European country with the aid of many other European collaborators. At the end of the twentieth century the Shoah marginalized and even replaced World War II as an event ingrained in collective memory; it stirred feelings and propelled constant and intensive "coping with the past," focusing on the behavior toward the Jews. 12

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THE "THIRD PARTNER" (OR "THIRD PILLAR") "IDEOLOGY" Only on t h e b a c k g r o u n d of t h e s e developments a n d factors, t h e emergence of t h e "third partner" (or "third pillar") "ideology," which c o n t a i n s a drive for reestablishing continuity with p r e - 1 9 3 3 J e w i s h integrationist tendencies, c a n b e u n d e r s t o o d . 1 3 W h a t is t h i s ideology a n d w h a t a r e its expressions? First, it should be emphasized t h a t this ideology c a n be sensed in m a n y e n c o u n t e r s with E u r o p e a n J e w s . It is a n a p p r o a c h emerging from certain g r a s s r o o t s groups, n o t something t h a t h a s b e e n s h a p e d by a n organization from above, or even by some avant-garde group. Some of its essentials were specified several y e a r s ago by Diana Pinto, a n intellectual historian a n d writer a n d the d a u g h t e r of Italian p a r e n t s , w h o w a s e d u c a t e d in t h e United S t a t e s a n d now lives in Paris. She h a s explicitly written a plea to foster s u c h a 'Third P a r t n e r [European] J e w i s h Identity" (TPJI). According to m y observations, some of t h e things s h e h a s pleaded for developed throughout Europe before a n d without people knowing her "tractate." Other elements to be found in t h i s ideology of J e w i s h identity were n o t mentioned by her, b u t are a n integral p a r t of the phenomenon. According to m y analysis, t h e h y p o t h e s e s , beliefs, a n d major ingredients of t h e TPJI c a n be s u m m a r i z e d a s follows: •

•

T h e S h o a h — t h e s y s t e m a t i c a n n i h i l a t i o n of t h e J e w s — i s t h e worst calamity in t h e history of Western civilization c a u s e d by l o n g - s t a n d i n g c u l t u r a l a n d social, n o t political, c a u s e s , a n d t h u s s h o u l d b e recognized a s a m o r a l b r e a k d o w n of t h i s civilization. This b r e a k d o w n h a p p e n e d b e c a u s e t h e Gentile intellectuals a n d moral leaders in p r e - 1 9 3 3 E u r o p e did n o t succeed in i m p l a n t i n g deeply t h e v a l u e s of liberalism in t h e E u r o p e a n mind. 1 4 T h u s , t h e age-old ingrained s e e d s of b a r b a r i s m could flourish in a time of economic a n d cultural crisis. Its expression w a s G e r m a n Nazism, s u p p o r t e d by m a n y other, collaborating, Europeans. The J e w i s h heritage before t h e Nazi period h a d b e e n central to liberalism a n d h u m a n i s m . J e w s , r e p r e s e n t i n g (through their religious a n d c u l t u r a l tradition) universalism a n d t h e value of t h e individual, were on t h e forefront of t h e struggle for morality a n d h u m a n i t y . As s u c h , t h e J e w s b e c a m e a symbol, which w a s a t t a c k e d in t h e Shoah. 1 5

T h e surviving J e w s in E u r o p e a r e t h u s t h e r e m n a n t s — a n d a s a g r o u p actually t h e sole remnant—of t h e l i b e r a l - h u m a n i t a r i a n tra-

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dition, living memorials and reminders to what had been erased in the European-made cataclysm. 16 The only way to not only politically or economically but also morally and spiritually reconstruct Europe—yes, the new Europe that is shaping now—is to constantly remind the Europeans of that cataclysm. The salvation of Europe's soul will be through the acceptance of human, not technical, liberalism, of multiculturalism and a stern adherence to democratic principles: "In a pluralist democracy with a strong civil society, individuals are not just abstract citizens plus a religion; they are infinitely complex beings with multiple identities." 17 This is a mission, and its implementation should be led by the victims-symbols of the catastrophe and their descendants, that is, the Jews: "What was given implicitly to Jews out of guilt [because of the Holocaust] should be given explicitly to all [of Europe's increasingly diverse citizens] as an inherent democratic right." 18 "Liberal salvation" is t h u s equivalent to "Jewishness." This is, of course, a type of Jewishness that is entirely different from that which forms the Jewish identities in the United States and Israel (and in other Diaspora settings outside Europe, such as South America and the new Jewish communities emerging in the CIS). It is based on three elements: the acceptance of Jewish biological descent but with no inherent commitment to Halacha, tradition, or even communal life; by an identification of "the Jewish heritage" with liberalism; and by the cataclysmic event of the Shoah. It emphasizes the essential importance of a continued salient Jewish existence on European soil, but it is "exhibitionist" in that it emphasizes the aspect of talking (and declaring) to the non-Jews and not being first and foremost interested in the aspect of daily communal work inside fully Jewish settings. Consequently, many of the adherents are indeed not active within the Jewish communities, even though the media often invite them to represent "the Jewish voice." Some of them invest efforts in creating new organizational frameworks in which Jewish tradition is taught as the source for toleration, equality, multiculturalism, and so forth. We can find many writers and intellectuals as spokesmen for this approach, such as writers Imre Kertesz and Gyorgi Konrad of Hungary, 19 philosopher George Steiner of Britain, historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet of France, 20 Fritz Bauer Institut's historian and activist Hanno Loewy and, in a certain way, historian Dan Diner (who lives both in Israel and in Germany) of Germany, and the writer Leon de Winter of the Netherlands. 21 Even Israeli/American historian Saul Friedlander can be considered as belonging, in a certain way, to this group. 22 But there are many more people

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adhering to this view, even though they are not as well-known. The expressions of their approach are multifaceted. Two examples will suffice. First, in recent meetings of the European Association of Jewish Studies, voices have been raised against the "excessive" participation of Israeli scholars; 23 the convening of this association in 2002 featured a discussion about the special European input in Jewish studies (a kind of Sonderweg). Second, in a meeting of directors of Jewish archives in Europe held in Potsdam, Germany (July 11-13, 1998), which convened under the title "Preserving Jewish Archives as Part of the European Heritage," the director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem encountered an "anti-Israel" attitude. This attitude was expressed not so much regarding political issues, but regarding the centrality of Israel and its status on the issue of the entitlement to assemble archival materials of Jewish communities and organizations in Europe. 24 The successful movie Sunshine by the veteran Hungarian Jewish producer Istvan Szabo translated this approach into a family story. This feature movie presents a history of four generations of a Hungarian Jewish family, from orthodoxy to assimilation to conversion to return to Jewishness after having experienced Hungarian nationalism, the Holocaust, and Communism. This return to demonstrated Jewishness in post-Communist Hungary—"the courage to be yourself," as Szabo explained the lesson of his movie25—does not even mention the options of Zionism (Israel) or emigration abroad as existing. The "reborn" Jew stays in Hungary but carries with him the memory of the unwillingness of the Gentiles—of all past generations and of all ideologies of the modern era—to really integrate the Jews. In Stockholm, a new center for Jewish studies called Paideia was recently established. The initiative was originated by Barbara Spectre, an American Jewess who made aliya several decades ago and thus has strong links to Israel; she now lives in Sweden because her husband serves as a local rabbi. The most generous funding for the institution has been provided by the government as part of Prime Minister Goran Person's agenda to combat racism and foster tolerance inside and outside Sweden. This context has impacted on the goals of the program. Some other local Jews are also involved. The (Greek!) name for this Jewish program is disclosing: it means integration through culture. The institution reaches out to students throughout Europe. 26 In the folder presenting the institution and its aims—the European Jewish approach, though not anti-Israel or dissociating itself from American Jewry—is nevertheless manifest:

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[T]he mandate of the Paideia . . . [is] to serve as a forum for nurturing Jewish intellectual and cultural expression, where text is open to interpretation and interpretation to text. . . . The purpose of the Paideia is to provide the intellectual foundations for the renaissance of European Jewish culture by establishing an encounter between the sources that have served as the wellsprings of Jewish civilization and European artists, students, and future leaders . . . establishing a model for future regional European Jewish identity and participation in the Israel-Diaspora community.

A "VANISHING WORLD"? Zvi Gitelman h a s recently emphasized "the multiplicity a n d variety of contemporary J e w i s h identities." 2 7 Yet, his basically acceptable analysis referred mainly to t h e major J e w i s h c o m m u n i t i e s in Israel, t h e United States, a n d t h e CIS. He overlooked developments in continental Europe, encompassing both Western Europe a n d the non-Soviet formerly C o m m u n i s t countries of E a s t e r n Europe. 2 8 Several years ago B e r n a r d Wasserstein called the Jewries of these countries, a s I m e n t i o n e d earlier, "a vanishing world." And indeed, a s compared to t h e pre-Nazi E u r o p e a n J e w i s h existence, present-day continental E u r o p e a n J e w r y s e e m s p e r h a p s to be bleak. Nevertheless, the new realities of a united Europe have created new options, a n d we are currently witnessing a European-wide effort to create a new kind of E u r o p e a n Jewry, a third pillar or third p a r t n e r between, a n d independent of, Israel a n d North American Jewry. Its identity is heavily leaning on the memory of the S h o a h a n d on its interpretation in a new way. The third pillar ideology is not inclined to t h e "tribal" m o d e s of J e w i s h u n i t y a s currently practiced by t h e J e w s of t h e other pillars. It views itself a s a n advanced form of J u d a i s m with a liberal mission on E u r o p e ' s soil. Shall this effort s u c c e e d ? T h a t is h a r d to say, b e c a u s e we have witnessed only some first expressions of this p h e n o m e n o n . Yet, historically, it shows the versatility of J e w i s h n e s s a n d t h e centrality of t h e memory of t h e S h o a h . And it u n doubtedly will enforce t h e repositioning of t h e s e g m e n t s of world J e w r y a n d their need to redefine their interrelations. 2 9

NOTES 1. Bernard Wasserstein, The Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945 (London: Penguin Books, 1995). 2. A most recent example is the special English issue of Gesher, the World Jewish Congress's Journal of Jewish Affairs, dedicated to the topic of "The Jewish People at the Threshold of the New Millenium" (October

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2001). Of the twenty-six contributors, there are only 2 Europeans: Michael Brenner from Germany and Shmuel Trigano from France. On this neglect of European (especially French) Jewry, see Trigano's article (96-97). 3. Reinhard Rurup, "The Tortuous and Thorny Path to Legal Equality—'Jews Laws' and Emancipatory Legislation in Germany from the Late Eighteenth Century," LeoBaeckInstitute YearBook3l (1986): 3-33. 4. For a more extensive description of and literature on this issue, see Dan Michman, Pour une historiographie de la Shoah: Conceptualisations, terminologie, definitions et problemes fondamenteaux (Paris: In press Editions, 2001), 72-83. English edition: Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective—Conceptualizations, Terminolgy, Approaches and Fundamental Issues (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003). 5. See Dan Michman and Yehiam Weitz, "Betom Hashoah" (Unit 12), Bimey Shoah Ufkuda (Tel Aviv: Open University of Israel, 1992), 19-29. 6. I am aware, of course, of the fact that there has been also an important Latin American, mainly Spanish-speaking, Jewish center; yet, in spite of its relatively nominal strength, its impact on shaping Jewish affairs during this period has been very limited. 7. A wealth of information on these issues can be found in the American Jewish Year Book series. On the problematic aspects of the involvement of Chabad in European Jewish communities, see Simon Schwarzfuchs, Harabbanut be-tzarefat baddorot ha-aharonim [The French Rabbinate in Recent Times], The Carl and Helen Klein Lectures on the History of the Rabbinate in Europe during the Modern Period 2 (RamatGan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University, 2000), 14; Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, Harabbanut be-Britania me-az 1845 [The British Rabbinate since 1845], The Carl and Helen Klein Lectures on the History of the Rabbinate in Europe during the Modern Period 3 (Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University, 2001), 13; and Michael Melchior, Harabbanut be-artzot Scandinavia baddorot ha-aharonim [The Scandinavian Rabbinate in Recent Times], The Carl and Helen Klein Lectures on the History of the Rabbinate in Europe during the Modern Period 4 (Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University, 2001), 12. 8. See Ron Zweig, German Reparations and the Jewish Wbrid: A History of the Claims Conference (London: Cass 2001). 9. For a short overview, see Evyatar Friesel, Atlas of Modern Jewish History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 62-63. 10. Dalia Karpel, "Hayehudim Ha-hadashim" [The New Jews], Mussaf Ha-aretz [Ha-aretz Supplement], August 17, 2001; and Mechtild Leidsman, "Vaderjoden in Conflict" [The Conflict of "Father-Jews"], NIW [Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad; Dutch Jewish Weekly], November 9, 2001, 7. 11. Thus, for instance, the encyclopedia of Jewish communities in the Netherlands, Pinkas, written by Jozeph Michman, Hartog Beem, and Dan Michman and published in Dutch in 1992 (it was originally a part of the Yad Vashem Series, Pinkas Hakehillot, and was published in Hebrew in 1985), has been taken by the Dutch Institute for Developing Curricula as a model for teaching multiculturalism; see Pinkas: Geschiedenis van de joodse gemeenschap in Nederland: Een handreiking voor het onderwijs

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(Enschede, Netherlands, Nederlands-Israelitisch Kerkgenootschap en Instituut voor Leerplanontwikkeling, 1994), esp. 7. 12. The strongest expression of this tendency can be found in the Stockholm Conference of January 2000—both in the causes leading to its convening and in the speeches delivered by heads of states; see The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust: A Conference on Education, Remembrance and Research, Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, January 26-28, 2000 (Stockholm: Svensk Information, July 2000). 13. Diana Pinto, A New Jewish Identity for Post-1989 Europe, JPR/Policy Paper 1 (London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research, J u n e 1996), 1. I wish to thank Tony Lerman of the Yad Hanadiv Foundation in London for drawing my attention to this important publication. I would like to state, however, that this publication was not known to me when I conceived of this chapter. 14. This interpretation of the Shoah is entirely opposed to the one (promoted by the Polish-English-Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and supported by several German historians such as Gotz Aly and Detlef Peukert) claiming that the Shoah is the result of "modernity," that is, of the modes of thought that were shaped by the Enlightenment; see Zymunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Gotz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1991); Detlef Peukert, "The Emergence of the 'Final Solution' from the Spirit of Science," in Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945, ed. David Crew (London, 1994), 274 ff. See also Jacques Ellul, "La Modernite et la Shoa," Pardes 9-10 (1989), Numero Special: Penser Auschwitz (ed. Shmuel Trigano), 189-195. 15. For this aspect, see Shmuel Trugano, L'Ideal democratique a Vepreuve de la Shoa (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1999), esp. ch. 5. 16. This point is compellingly expressed by Emmanuel Levinas; see Shmuel Trigano, "Levinas et le projet de la philosophie-juive," Rue Descartes 19 (PUF, Numero Special: "Emmanual Levinas"—College International de philosophic); for an English version of this article, see "Levinas and the Project of Jewish Philosophy," Jewish Studies Quarterly 8, no. 3 (2001); see also Shmuel Trigano, "The Jews and the Spirit of Europe: A Morphological Approach," in Thinking about the Holocaust after Haifa Century, ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld, 306-317 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). Trigano emphasizes the 1980s as the turning point of Jewish thinkers from looking inward the Jewish experience to a claim and accusation toward European society: "The Jews sought for European recognition of the Jewish specifity of Auschwitz. They no longer felt morally obligated by the Shoah. Europe now had to be" ('The Jews," 313). 17. Pinto, A New Jewish Identity, 9. 18. Ibid., 10. 19. See Kinga Frojimovics, "Hashoa batoda'a uvazehut shel intelectualim yehudim velo-yehudim be-Hungaria beyn ha-shanim 1994-1999" [The Shoah as a Factor of Consciousness and Identity of Jewish and NonJewish Intellectuals in Hungary in the Years 1994-1995], Gesher 144 (Winter 5762/2001-2002); 63-66.

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20. These two well-known Jewish intellectuals can perhaps be viewed as forerunners of the European-centered Jewish identity because they started to express some of its components thirty years ago, long before it became a social option; see, for instance, Pierce Vidal-Naquet's interesting foreword entitled "On Museums and People" to Richard Marienstras's Eire un peuple en diaspora (Paris: Maspero, 1975) (Hebrew version: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Rotzhey hazzikkaron [Les assassins de la memoire] [Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1991], 224-236. An interesting point is that precisely because of the different climate, which now legitimates a new kind of Jewish identity, these two intellectuals are less critical of Israel than they have been in the past; compare, for instance, George Steiner's views regarding Israel as expressed in his 1975 The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H. to those in his recent book Errata. With their intellectual roots Steiner and Vidal-Naquet can also be seen as linking pre-Holocaust liberal Jews and the current phenomenon. There is an extensive literature dealing with their publications and views. 21. Leon de Winters's book Serenade (1995), which was distributed to the broad public in the Netherlands as the official book of the book-week, deals with a Holocaust survivor confronted (among other issues) with the horrific events of the war in Yugoslavia. 22. For the ambivalent approach of Friedlander, see Yosef Gorny, Beyn Auschwitz lirushalayim [Between Auschwitz and Jerusalem] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1998), 175-176. 23. Personal communication, Dr. Resianne Smidt van GelderFontaine of the J u d a Palache Instituut, University of Amsterdam, January 25, 2000. 24. Personal communication, Mrs. Hadassah Assouline, January 16, 2002. She pointed especially to the role of Ruth Zilcha, then secretary of the European Council of Jewish Communities, in representing this stand. The meeting was organized under the auspices of the "Jewish Partnership for Europe" organization. 25. See Anthony Kauffman's 2000 interview with Szabo on the internet site "Indiewire" (http://www.indiewire.com/film/interviews/int_Szabo_ Istvan_00612.html). For the public debate unleashed in Hungary by Sunshine's message, see Frojimovics, "Hashoa batoda'a," 67-69. 26. Yair Sheleg, "Memshelet shwedia heykima machon lhafatzat hayahadut be-eyropa" [The Government of Sweden Established an Institute to Promote Judaism in Europe], Ha-aretz, February 10, 2002. 27. Zvi Gitelman, "The Decline of the Diapora Jewish Nation: Boundaries, Content, and Jewish Identity," Jewish Social Studies (New Series), 4, no. 2: 127. 28. Pinto emphasizes the inclusion of non-CIS Eastern European Jews, claiming that "they have in effect become 'western' Jews, confronting the same complexities and multiple loyalties as their far more established British or French cousins" (A New Jewish Identity, 10). 29. Without going into detail, it should be pointed out here that one can also observe the emergence of a "fourth" pillar (or partner) of world Jewry in the activities deployed by the reestablished Jewish communities

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in the European CIS (Russia and Ukraine). There too the memory of the Shoah fulfills an essential role. Yet, the general line as can be assessed by now—and resulting from the social and national contexts—resembles the Israeli and North American modes of Jewish identity much more than the third partner one. For a glimpse of this development, see Jerry Hochbaum, "Conference of Jewish Publishers and Editors in the CIS," in Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Board Briefings, February 7, 2002.

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Part III Undoing the Past

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Chapter Seven The State of Holocaust Negation Danny

Ben-Moshe

The inclusion of a chapter on Holocaust negation appearing in a book such as this is a concession to the fact that it can no longer be ignored. This was the motive that led Deborah Lipstadt to write her 1994 book Denying the Holocaust,1 but whether her book and other actions against negationists contributed to raising their profile remains a moot point. However, interest in the 2000 London court case in which Lipstadt was sued by David Irving for describing him in her book as a denier demonstrated that a phenomena that was once on the extreme fringe is now internationally recognized. I choose to use the word negation rather than denial because it more accurately reflects an anti-Semitic assault on the memory of the Holocaust of which explicit denial (hereafter denial), the argument that there was no killing of Jews in World War II, is just one part, albeit the most extreme part, and is thus a major focus in this chapter. The Holocaust is negated in many ways, including relativism, in which the suffering of Jews is acknowledged, but compared in relation to other events during World War II and subsequent genocides. While relativism does not deny the death of Jews, it does deny the specifically anti-Jewish character of the Nazi regime, its killing of Jews, and the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Relativism creates moral and false equivalences between killings and in the process turns persecutors into victims and reinforces negative images of the Jews whose version of history is being "revised." Relativism sows seeds of doubt, creates a climate of anti-Semitism, and exonerates Adolf Hitler and Nazis. It transforms Jewish victims into banal casualties, in which Michael Shafir observes there is no difference between them and the soldiers who

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died in battle. 2 The ensuing climate opens the way for more extreme forms of denial. As a notion with potential to win wider support than denial, relativism is also emphasized in this chapter. Relativism has a particular place in relation to contemporary forms of anti-Semitism that focus on Israel, an issue I will discuss in relation to left-wing anti-Zionism. Relativism can lead to minimalization, which reducing the number of victims, scope, sources, and reasons for the Holocaust incorporates deflective negationism, which I will also discuss. Another category is selective negation, which concedes that the Holocaust happened but not in specific places. 3 Terminology is central to this debate, which is why the negationists call themselves revisionists to give the impression of being a bona fide school of historical research that, as the Lipstadt trial showed, they are not. Portraying themselves as historians is part of a strategy designed to win support by replacing the jack boot for the jacket, the pub for the conference, and the leafleting of mailboxes for the writing of "journal" articles. 4 It is necessary for commentators on negation to get the terminology right not only because this is part of the negation arsenal, but failure to do so will leave the antidenial movement open to criticism, as seen by Norman Finkelstein's attempt to discredit the "Holocaust industry" for describing relativists as deniers. 5 There will always be inadequacies in defining negation because sometimes denial, relativisim, minimalization, and selective negation are espoused simultaneously, while some groups and individuals espouse some or all of them at different times. However, negation defines them as a whole because they are interrelated to and move between each other and usually have two factors in common. First, all forms of negation have similar outcomes, albeit with variances in scope and intent. They are designed to exculpate Hitler; to rehabilitate Nazism or other wartime leaders, or the reputation of countries and communities complicit in the Holocaust, including the Catholic Church; or to justify contemporary anti-Semitism. Second, all forms of negation are predicated on anti-Semitic stereotypes. Either Jews created the Holocaust "myth," which they are seen as doing through their control of the media—they are perceived as greedily exploiting the Holocaust for political and financial purposes—or they are believed to be pursuing it because they are vengeful. Often these various elements are represented in different degrees in the various forms of negation and in most cases there is a degree of Jewish responsibility for the Holocaust or other suffering, which is seen as "justified" in the historical context. In the anti-Semitic tradition negation represents, negationists portray

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themselves as the Jews' victim and as the champions who will save the world from their evildoing. This is illustrated by living's references throughout the trial to the Jewish international conspiracy to destroy his career. 6 The anti-Semitic consequences of negation will also be discussed. Negation is not a movement in the sense of formal membership in an association, but is about sharing the same ideals, methods, and beliefs to advance a political ideology. It is an ideology with various elements that different deniers have offered, with a mosaic of ideas and personalities making the whole. Englishman Irving is the "authority" on the absence of a direct order from Hitler to exterminate European Jewry, American Fredrick Leuchter on the nonexistence of gas chambers, and Frenchman Roger Garudy that the Holocaust was about creating the conditions for the formation of the State of Israel. These ideas, which are not exclusive to these particular individuals, influence, intersect, and complement each other. Formative in this process have been Western deniers, a major focus of this chapter because of their overall centrality and influence on the movement globally. The notion of negation in general and denial in particular is incredulous, but historically, logic has neither had a place in antiSemitism nor has it been a barrier to it. The nature and manifestations of Holocaust denial is spreading in new directions and requires a range of responses, the subject of this chapter.

THE GLOBAL NATURE OF DENIAL Denial is an international phenomena with deniers active across the globe. This is not an incidental occurance, but rather is the result of organized international networking. Organizations such as the California-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR) have played a pivotal role in this process by organizing regular international conferences since 1979 in America. The globalizing trend was witnessed by international conferences held in Australia (August 1998), Jordan (2001), Russia (January 2002), and Italy (May 2002). The international nature of denial has also increased because of two factors: the outlawing of denial and the Internet, both of which I address herein. As the writings of individuals in different countries continue to influence others, negation has become globalized with Western deniers being central to this global push, serving as mentors sowing the seeds for further denial groups. It is their literature, for example, that is relied on and that has been instrumental in the spread

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of negation in general and explicit denial in particular to new countries. For example, the first negationist book in Poland, Mit holocaustu (The Myth of the Holocaust), published in 1997 by the Warsaw-based National-Radical Institute included translations of Robert Faurisson, Richard Harwood, Mark Weber, and Fred Leuchter. 7 Translation has significantly advanced these globalizing trends. Web sites such as Radio Islam, run from Sweden by Ahmed Rami who fled Morocco after his involvement as a military officer in the failed 1972 coup, include French, English, Swedish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Finnish, Nordic, and Danish. An array of languages is now common on many denial sites. While Western deniers are central to this globalization, they are also clearly the beneficiaries of it. Global interest in denial creates not only a market for their writings, but also a sense of relevance as they are provided forums to present their work. The globalization of denial will thus serve to reinforce hard-core explicit denial in the West. The location in which denial will be manifest and the form that manifestation will take vary according to political agendas and local circumstance. For example, Latin America, home to active deniers, has a culture of conspiracies, whereas Japan has a culture of revisionism based on its own World War II history. Particular consideration, however, should be given to the Far Right in America and Europe, Germany, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Islamic communities, and small circles on the political Left. The Far Right While the roots of denial lie with the Nazis themselves, immediately followed by non-Jewish concentration camp survivor the French socialist Paul Rassiner, denial has been developed into its current form as a result of the activities of extreme-Right figures in the last quarter of the twentieth century. These include Willis Carto, who published The Myth of the Six Million in 1969 and founded the Institute of Historical Review in 1979, and Richard Verrall, the pseudonym for Richard Harwood, the editor of Britain's neo-Nazi National Front magazine Spearhead who authored Did Six Million Really Die? in 1974. The anti-Semitic basis of explicit denial means it has become a unifying belief in an otherwise ideologically disparate extreme Right, a testimony to the effectiveness of organizations such as the IHR whose conferences provide a framework for the Far Right to come together, and fig-

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ures such as Irving, who was shown in his libel trial to maintain ties to a range of Far Right groups. Denial resonates in racist groups because it explains the suppression of the white man whose supremacy, they contend, is subverted by a wave of multiculturalism, immigration, and liberalism that is advanced by the Jewish controlled media who are in a position to set this agenda because of the sympathy they solicit as a result of the Holocaust. This view was held by early deniers, such as Carto who argued that the Holocaust prevented America from dealing with its "overwhelming race problem" and Verrall who claimed the Holocaust myth threatened the "survival of the (White) Race itself" and is similarly held by racist groups today such as the U.S.based National Alliance or the World Church of the Creator. 8 The way denial has become a central belief to the extreme Right is seen in the case of former Ku Klux Klan leader and prominent neo-Nazi David Duke who relies on a range of denial figures, such as Rassinier, Faurisson, Weber, Irving, and Leuchter, to support his own stance on denial, which like Pierce and Hale provides an insight into the way denial fits his white supremacist agenda. The racist-Right's negation uses relativism to justify the movement's extreme political acts, as Duke illustrated when discussing crimes against humanity and the case of Nazis and the Allied bombing of Dresden. He said, An example of the media's morality of convenience is the treatment of the Oklahoma City bombing as compared to the tremendous civilian bombing in the Second World War. I still remember the refrain after the Oklahoma carriage, and the incredulity that echoed in the trial of Timothy McVeigh. In essence, it went, 'What kind of monster would bomb and burn to death children?' Is the burning alive of tens of thousands of innocent babies by intentional civilian bombing from planes any less morally wrong than the murder of two dozen children by Timothy McVeigh? Governments give one bomber of children medals, and another the death penalty. 9

While denial is likely to further develop as a core belief of the extreme Right, and, hence, has the potential to increase racially motivated violence against Jewish communities, levels of support for the extreme-Right groups is likely to remain small in size. However, far more significant is the minimalization and relativism espoused by populist Far-Right figures as has been seen in Europe. France's J e a n Marie Le Pen infamously dismissed the Holocaust as a "detail in history," while in 1998, National Front member and European Parliamentarian Bruno Gollnisch denied there were gas chambers. 1 0 In Belgium, when Vlaams Block vice president Roeland Raes was asked in 2001 if he doubted whether the

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gas chambers existed on a grand scale, he replied, "Yes I dare to doubt that. I think that what we've been given to believe on certain points has been very exaggerated. The persecution and the deportation of the Jews did take place in a systematic way. But whether it was planned that everyone was going to die—well that's another question." 11 While Raes was forced to resign as a result of his comments, they were indicative of an attitude of sympathy and nostalgia toward Nazi authoritarianism, and plain anti-Semitism, in Far-Right parties. The pattern of populist Far-Right figures flirting with negation is also seen in America, most notably with perennial Far-Right Republican presidential contender Pat Buchanan who, like many Western figures engaging in denial, has a German background, in his case on his mother's side. In a 1990 column in the New York Times, Buchanan claimed that diesel engines, which were used in the Treblinka gas chambers, "do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." Indicative of the effect of the hard-core deniers, it has been claimed that he made these statements based on information he got directly from them. 12 That Far-Right figures have made these remarks demonstrates the success of negationists in spreading their message to these groups and the way negation sits comfortably with their xenophobic worldview. With immigration set to remain an important political issue for the foreseeable future, this remains a fertile opportunity for the deniers, who, riding on the back of a xenophobic swing to the Far Right, have the potential to take their ideas from the fringe to the mainstream. This was illustrated in Australia with the rise in 1996 of the Far Right One Nation Party. Party leader Pauline Hanson did not personally espouse denial and made no explicitly anti-Semitic remarks. However, in campaigns against indigenous Australians and Asian immigrants, the party was opened up to the Far Right, with Paul Madigan, from the Holocaustdenying Australian Civil Liberties Union, nominated as a One Nation candidate; however, he was not preselected after the media reported his denial views. 13 Although deniers would clearly be the beneficiaries of any FarRight success, it is secondary to immigration, which remains their priority. However, the fact that Irving at one stage hoped to establish a Far-Right party based around the Focus Policy Group he established in 1980 shows how close denial is to Far-Right politics. Overall, the fate of denial will, to some extent, be linked to that of the Far Right whose successes will further the cause of negation but whose marginalization will equally affect negation.

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Germany and Austria Specific factors explain the status of negation in Germany and Austria. Wolfgang Benz of the Centre for Research of Antisemitism of the Berlin Technical University explains that a range of "political emotions are involved" in negation in Germany, which he lists as "a sense of guilt, shame, and a German patriotism which refuses to accept that the Nazi state organised monstrous crimesaccusations sometime felt by the post-1945 generation to be unjust and unreasonable." Although Benz was discussing Germany, the reasons he identifies also apply to Austria. He identifies "two basic motives for refusing to accept historical reality: wounded national pride, and nostalgia for National Socialist or German nationalist ideals along with old anti-Semitic stereotypes." The twofold response this leads to, according to Benz, is to blame the victim and deny the allegations. 14 These consequences and the extent of these factors have been evidenced by two major controversies in Germany. 15 The first is the historians' debate that culminated in 1987 when historian Ernst Nolte, internationally respected for his Three Faces of Fascism, joined a growing chorus of relativism in his book The European Civil War in which he argued Auschwitz was not unique, citing the Armenian genocide, and described the focus on Hitler's Final Solution as a barrier to the development of a German national self-confidence. Nolte did not deny the Holocaust but compared it with many other barbaric acts, arguing that the Nazis followed those acts in every respect except the technical killing of gassing crimes committed elsewhere. Nolte portrayed Nazism as a response to the Communist threat, which extended to the Final Solution being a technical response to the Soviet Gulag, with the Nazi persecution of the Jews explained as the transferring of their fear of the Soviets. In his 1989 critique of the historians' debate, In Hitler's Shadow, Richard Evans argued that Nolte sought "to provide the West Germans with an escape from Hitler's shadow, or at least, since he realizes this is too tall an order at the moment, to unburden themselves of the oppressive weight of the alleged uniqueness and gratuity of Hitler's crimes." 16 This helps explain that with the endorsement of a respected historian such as Nolte many other German historians began expounding a similar view, leading Lipstadt to describe German historians as having a "yes, but syndrome," that there was a Holocaust but Germany was trying to defend itself.17 While not engaging in explicit denial, historians were

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attempting to sanitize the German past, which entailed attributing greater responsibility to the Allies for crimes they committed in the war and refocusing away from the singling out of the Holocaust. The danger in this relativism, which is based on a stream of thought in some sections of German society that views Germans as victims of Western Allies, Soviets, and, of course, Jews, is that it makes the victims the perpetrator, with Nolte, for example, saying that Jews were interred in 1939 in response to Chaim Weizmann's call that Jews were going to war against Germany rather than because of the regime's anti-Semitism. In pursuing deflective negation, facts are twisted to suit arguments, such as the omission of the fact that internment started earlier than 1939. A further danger of relativism is that it reinforces the negative image of the Jews, who are surely the reason for the biased history the historians are countering, with Lipstadt observing, "These German historians have created a prototype that may prove useful for the deniers." Indeed, one of the first books in the historians' debate, Helmut Diwald's History of the Germans (1978), was cited along with Butz and Faurisson in Richard Verall's Did Six Million Really Die? The proximity between this relativism and denial becomes clear when Nolte described the deniers' arguments as not "without foundation" and their motives as "often honorable" and contends that the 1942 Wannsee Conference may not have happened. 18 The second incident dates back to 1991 when Gunther Deckert, leader of the Far-Right NDP (National Democratic Party), organized and translated a lecture by Leuchter. Two years later, Deckert was tried in the Mannheim regional court where he got a one-year suspended sentence and a fine. Public outcry at the leniency of the sentence led to a 1994 appeal to the Federal Court of Justice that overturned the ruling and ordered a retrial at which Deckert ultimately received a two-year sentence. However, further controversy ensued when the regional judgment was disclosed that found him to be a man of "strong character with a sense of responsibility and clear principles" whose actions and beliefs were "motivated through his striving to strengthen resistance among the German people to Jewish claims based on the Holocaust."19 The judgment revealed the sympathy with and defense of negation views, not just with skinheads in the street but at the level of the judiciary, indicating the prevalence of guilt, shame, national pride, and anti-Semitism that Benz refers to as among the most educated sectors of German society. As the judgment added, "The fact was also taken into consideration that today, some fifty years after the war, Germany is still subjected to far-reaching political, moral and financial claims growing out of the persecution of Jews,

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whereas the mass crimes of other nations remain unatoned which, at least from the political viewpoint of the defendant, is a heavy burden on the German people."20 The potential for the school of thought to have widespread support, as expressed by the historians and the Mannheim judge, was seen in neighboring Austria where in 2000 Jorg Haider's Freedom Party got nearly 30 percent of the vote. Haider was heavily influenced by and employed all of the relativist techniques seen in Germany: claiming the Allied bombing of Dresden and the East European expulsion of Germans were worse crimes than the Holocaust for which Germans should be compensated, and calling for compensating the Nazi soldiers who were Soviet prisoners of war and the Germans who were expelled from the border region of Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland). In 1991, he also engaged in the destigmatizing of Hitler, praising his "fair employment policy." While praising Hitler is not the same as negating the Holocaust, it is part of the same process, which opens the way for the denial objective of rehabilitating Nazism. The centrality of this thinking to the Freedom Party was seen when they came to power: they tried to neutralize those parts of the constitution that forbid the trivialization or denial of the Holocaust; and they praised or sympathized with National Socialists, demonstrating how a Far-Right party's success can facilitate denial. 21 The case of the Freedom Party illustrates the nexus between this relativist worldview and contemporary policy as Anat Peri explained in her booklet Jorg Haider's Antisemitism (2001). She describes how the word Umvolkung was used by the Nazis as a term to germanize Eastern Europe, which included replacing Jews with Germans, and thus is another term for extermination. In contemporary Austria, Freedom Party ideologist Andreas Molzer uses the term to describe current Austrian immigration policy, that is, German Austrians have to be moved to make room for non-German immigrants. This relativization, Peri argues, is used as a justification for xenophobic policies, with relativizing of the past part of a process that is xenophobic in the present. 22 The potential support for denial in general and relativism in particular in these two German-speaking countries should not be underestimated. Although the Nolte controversy occurred in 1986, its ongoing relevance was evident in 2000 when Nolte was awarded the Konrad Adenauer Prize. This triggered another controversy as it was presented by Horst Moller, director of the respected Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Elsewhere, in response to Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry (2000), 65 percent of Germans totally or partially agreed with his

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claim that "Jewish organisations make exaggerated compensation demands on Germany to enrich themselves." 23 Particular attention has to be paid to the situation in eastern Germany. Statistics reported in the German entry in the 2 0 0 0 / 2001 Antisemitism Worldwide report revealed that 47 percent of 14-25-year-old East Germans found something positive in Nazi ideology compared to 35 percent of young West Germans, 62 percent of East German high school students think that there was some good in Nazism and 15 percent that the Nazi ideology is "in itself a good idea." One out of ten East Germans favor right-wing ideologies.24 However, the problem extends to the west where a 2002 survey found greater anti-Semitic feeling than in the east. 25 With denial striking at the heart of issues of identity, it follows that it is a subject of political relevance, with two main Far-Right parties agitating with this agenda: the 17,000-member-strong DVU (German Peoples Union) led by millionaire publisher Dr. Gerhard Frey, and the NPD, which has 6,500 members. The DVU's activities are focused in the east. One thousand NPD members are from Saxony in the east where the party is represented in several local councils. 26 Clearly, the fate of the Far-Right parties will be tied to broader political issues, such as the economy and immigration, and with it the fate of negation. Today, Germany has one of the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world due to the massive influx of Russian Jewish refugees. At the same time, anti-Semitism is on the rise. Wolfgang Benz argues that Holocaust negation "serves as a code for a new antisemitism [sic] and for again excluding the Jewish minority from society."27 With then Jewish community leader Ignatz Bubis reflecting in 1994 that the Deckert judgment made anti-Semitism socially acceptable, 28 there are many conditions around which negation can grow further. These include Far-Right groups propagating that the Holocaust Memorial to be built in Berlin will only serve to degrade the Germans, 29 high levels of xenophobia corresponding to high levels of negation, and the passage of time since the Holocaust, which increases the justification for an end to a focus on German responsibility for the Holocaust. Eastern Europe The way the international nature of negation can lead to it spreading to new countries, and the way negation can increase its prospects by adapting to local circumstances, is seen in Eastern Europe. At the end of the twentieth century, it has become the new

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front for Holocaust negation. A 2000 report by the British anti-Fascist publication Searchlight stated, "In just five years 'historical revisionism' in Poland has come a long way, from the lunatic fringe to the right-wing academic establishment." 30 The growth of negation in Eastern Europe can be explained by a number of factors. First, the countries of Eastern Europe are where the majority of Holocaust victims originated and where many local collaborators offered their services to the Nazis. Second, these countries have long traditions of anti-Semitism where the Jew provides a ready scapegoat in areas of economic dislocation. Third, negation activity correlates to commemoration of the Holocaust, as seen in the West in relation to Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List (see the chapter by Frank Stern in this volume), and as Jewish communities seek to reorganize and revitalize themselves in the post-Communist era, such endeavors will include Holocaust commemoration. Fourth, decades of oppression in Eastern Europe, specifically under Stalin, provides scope for relativism. Fifth, just as there are particular circumstances that explain negation in German-speaking countries, so too there is in Eastern Europe. Michael Shafir points to the Communist legacy of "organized forgetting," and of "de-Judaising" Nazi crimes, which lowers the threshold for denial. 31 The major denial work in Russia, according to the Journal of Historical Review, was a 123-page booklet written by the Austrian denier Jiirgen Graf. Two hundred thousand copies were distributed between September 1996 and February 1997. Grafs pampflet introduced Russian readers to Faurisson, Butz, and Leuchter. The classics of Western deniers provided a basis for local deniers to advance their cause with Oleg Platonov, editor of the Encyclopedia of Russian Civilisation and a member of the IHR editorial committee, writing introductions for articles by Graf, which have been published in several Russian magazines. This pattern is to be followed with other works currently being translated into Russian, including Roger Garudy's The Founding Myths of Israel (1996).32 Western deniers have helped advance denial in Russia through personal visits, culminating in the first revisionist conference in Moscow in January 2001 organized by Platonov. The expansion of denial into Eastern Europe is contingent on Western support and is evidenced in the conference being organized in conjunction with the Barnes Review headed by Willis Carto. The conference and denial in Russia was made viable by the participation of deniers from America, Australia, and Europe. Western deniers also have an indirect impact, as their material is sent into Eastern Europe by exiled communities exposed to denial in the countries they live in. 33

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Despite the conference having taken place, it does not necessarily follow that its impact was significant, with Pravda reporting that it was largely "unnoticed" in Russia. 34 However, held in the Social Humanities Academy, participants included the controversial Igor Froyanov, head of the Russian History Department at St. Petersburg State University, and Igor Ilyinsky, rector of the Moscow Social Humanities Academy, 35 it provided an impetus for the movement to grow, although its future will depend on a range of issues, such as caucasophobia, with the denier's pro-Islamic position being a potential obstacle to popular support. The Russian scenario further illustrates that negation will evolve in such a way that its message relates to the local political and cultural context, thereby giving denial an audience and appeal it would not otherwise attract. According to Searchlight, Russian revisionism involves former high-ranking Communists and is thus a mix of "red-brown." The focus of its campaign is antiglobalization, or in their terms the struggle between Nationalists and Internationalists, the latter being a euphemism for Jews. Hence, negation will have a different emphasis in different countries, with antiglobalization a main item at the Moscow conference where Rami proclaimed that Russia is the only country that can stop the evil of globalization.36 The focus on globalization illustrates the way negation of the past is linked to the politics of the present. As the Journal of Historical Review put it, "How the public view the past, and especially 20th century history, is a crucial aspect of the current struggle between 'nationalists' and 'internationalists' for the future of Russia." Further, "In Russia, as in America and Western Europe, 'internationalists' promote a highly polemicised rendering of 'Holocaust' history, with its guilt-ridden lessons' for non-Jewish humanity, while 'nationalists' have an interest in fostering a truthful and impartial perspective on this chapter of history."37 The development of negation in Russia can help foster the denial campaigns elsewhere in Eastern Europe. An additional factor concerning negation in Eastern Europe is that many political parties are what Shafir calls "radical continuity" parties that relate to the pre-Communist rulers who were often anti-Semitic and complicit in the genocide of their country's Jewish population. As they seek political rehabilitation, they must sanitize the deeds of their wartime leaders such as Josef Tiso in Slovakia and Ion Antonescu in Romania. It is here that deflective negationism is invoked as it "transfers the guilt for the perpetration of crimes to members of other nations, or it minimizes own-nation participation in their perpetration to insignificant aberration" as is

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selective negationism, which says the Holocaust happened, but not on its soil. 38 The Middle East All forms of negation exist in the Middle East where it has the support of secular leftists, intellectual elites, and religious figures. However, more than anywhere else in the world, the most extreme element of negation, explicit denial, is mainstream, popular, and state sanctioned. This is not only in hard-line states such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, but is also in moderate Arab states such as Jordan and Egypt. In the Middle East, where a culture of conspiracies exists, denial confirms Arab beliefs about Jews, all of which are bound up with the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this regard denial serves two purposes. First, the Holocaust explains how a nonJewish entity was implanted in a pan-Islamic region and how the Jewish state, which in the Arab view lacks moral justification for its existence, uses the Holocaust to get support. As an article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Akhbar stated, the Holocaust myth was created "with the aim of motivating the Jews to emigrate to Israel. . . . Zionism based itself on this myth to establish the State of Israel."39 Second, while denying the Holocaust, Arabs and Muslims invoke it to accuse Israel of being guilty of the crimes the Nazis are accused of. This can be seen in a cartoon in the Syrian daily Tishreen (April 15, 1993) where a Nazi soldier holds a list of his crimes and an Israeli soldier holds an infinitely longer list.40 Hence, in the Middle East, the Holocaust is not a historical curiosity but a matter of daily political and military relevance. Central to the growth of denial in the Middle East too has been the works of Western deniers, foremost of which is Roger Garudy, a Frenchman who converted to Islam. He is married to a Palestinian and has more than a dozen books translated into Arabic. In his The Founding Myths of Israel, he argued that there was no Nazi program of genocide with the myth based on the Jewish pursuit of financial and political gain, that is, Israel. 41 When the book was translated into Arabic, it received extensive media coverage during Garudy's 1996 promotional book tour of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Eygpt, and Morocco. The Middle East has become central to the work of Western deniers and will increasingly be so. This was seen in 2001 when the IHR was scheduled to hold a Holocaust denial conference in Beirut promoted under the theme "Revisionism and Zionism," the first time the IHR had given one of their conferences a theme. This is a

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sign of the future direction of denial as part of a Western-Middle Eastern axis, with Goetz Nordbuch noting in his study on denial in Arab countries that "[t]his was the first time the extreme Right openly undertook to address the Arab-Islamic world."42 Figures such as German Far-Right leader Horst Mahler and William Pierce were reportedly scheduled to attend the Beirut conference. 43 This Middle Eastern connection is of practical benefit to Western deniers. As legal measures against negation have increased in the West, Western deniers have sought refuge in Iran. This includes Austrian engineer Wolfgang Frolich who sought refuge in May 2000 claiming his arrest by Austrian police was imminent after he testified about the impossibility of Zyklon-B gas killing humans in support of Jiirgen Graf, who was already in Iran. 44 Others are likely to follow their lead, with Fredrick Toben, in response to being prosecuted in Australia under local antiracism vilification laws, reporting that he might seek political asylum in Iran "if and when his condition of stay in Australia becomes insecure." 45 The common ground on denial provides a whole new market for Western deniers who have a mutually beneficial relationship with their Middle Eastern supporters. When, for example, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting interviews deniers such as Ernst Zundel, Mark Weber, and Fredrick Toben, the broadcaster has a team of people they use as "experts" to convey their message, hence while Western deniers are ignored by their local media in this context, they are given a sense of relevance. As more deniers take sanctuary in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, denial activity is likely to increase in the region and indeed globally as they have impunity to operate. This, then, has the effect of making anti-Zionism a more explicit objective of deniers everywhere. As will be shown in a later section, this is of strategic use as the anti-Zionist focus broadens the potential support base for deniers. A related consequence of the mainstreaming of denial in the Middle East is that funds could flow to Western deniers. When Zundel first approached the heads of several Middle Eastern governments in the late 1970s with his four-page pamphlet The West, War and Islam, which warned the Islamic world of the international Zionist enemy, he sought funds for his efforts to dispel the Holocaust myth. 46 While it is not known if he received funds, the late IHR founder David McCalden claimed that initial financial support for the IHR came from Arab sources. 4 7 With their common anti-Zionist agenda, Middle Eastern governments could be a source of funds for otherwise underresourced deniers across the world.

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Like Western negationists, those in the Middle East believe Jews deserved the anti-Semitic oppression they experienced throughout history in general and under the Nazis in particular. As Damascus Radio stated, "Whoever surveys these documents can understand the reasons for the Germans' hatred of the Jews." 48 They take the negation argument that Jews deserved their oppression, the continuum of which is that continued oppression is deserved. As columnist Ahmad Ragab wrote about Hitler in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Akhbar on April 20, 2001, "He took revenge on the Israelis in advance, on behalf of the Palestinians. Our one complaint against him was that his revenge was not complete enough." 49 It is here where the major difference between denial in the West and Middle East comes into focus, with the latter involving government support that has the potential to fulfill their genocidal desires. It is here we may ultimately see the true consequence of denial, not in the offense taken by Jewish communities in the West by the antics of fringe figures, but with the actions of governments or the groups they back that could threaten the lives of hundreds, if not millions, of Jews. Denial adds another important dimension to the anti-Semitic nature of anti-Zionism in the Islamic Middle East that contributes to the genocidal climate in the region. Regimes that sponsor and sanction denial are regimes that want the eradication of Israel. As a Simon Wiesenthal Centre report (2001) notes, "Though nothing in history is comparable to the Nazi genocide of Jews, there is a striking similarity between the PA's [Palestinian Authority's] portrayal of Jews as inherently inferior, and Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda prior to World War II." Poignantly, the report quotes Holocaust survivor and Knesset member Yosef Lapid, "There is another purpose (in the Arab depictions of Jews) and it is exactly the purpose the Nazis had, which is: to present the Jews as subhuman, as an animal, as a mouse, as a spider, to justify his destruction. This is how the Nazis prepared the path for the destruction of the Jews. First, they were depicted as animals, and afterwards, these dangerous animals had to be destroyed." 50 From the Middle East to the West The manner in which the extent of denial in the Middle East influences other Islamic communities, particularly in Asia where there are Islamic fundamentalist trends influenced by extremist groups in the Middle East, remains to be seen and should be closely

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watched. However, its impact is clearly seen in the West through expatriate Muslim communities, where militant Islamic organizations openly espouse denial, as the British experience highlights. Omar Bakri Muhammad, the leader in the United Kingdom of the Islamist Al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants) who are active on university campuses, said in 2000, "To say six million died in the Holocaust is a fallacy used to justify Zionism. We believe that the Nazis killed about 60,000 Jews during the war. The story of the Holocaust is full of myths and lies." Al-Muhajiroun promotional literature in 2001 described how a "talk will trace back the lie of the holocaust [sic] and show how it had been used to justify the on-going holocaust [sic] and genocide against the innocent Muslims in Palestine and to legitimize the existence of the terrorist state [sic] of Israel." 51 As in the Middle East itself, evidence suggests that ArabIslamic denial in the West is linked to the state of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with British Islamic denial increasing with the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000, but this itself has broader and more significant implications. 52 As a Jewish Policy Research (JPR) report noted, "The association of denial with Middle Eastern opposition to Israel brings it close to mainstream political debate." 53 There is also the potential for denial in non-Arab-Islamic communities, particularly in North America. This was starkly demonstrated in a 1994 speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, when then Nation of Islam lieutenant Khalid Muhammad invoked relativism by arguing that although 600 million died in the "Black African Holocaust," the "so-called Jew Holocaust" was responsible for 6 million, concluding his denial by adding "and we question that." 54 Expelled from the Nation of Islam because of a range of anti-Semitic remarks, Khalid in 1998, organized the Million Youth March, demonstrating the potential of someone with denial views winning support for his or her other activities. Khalid died in 2001 and was succeeded by Malid Zulu Shabazz, who at the time of this writing had not made any denial remarks. However, the potential for negation to occur in the black-Islamic community was seen in 1998 when the Nation of Islam opened its first mosque in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, under the leadership of Don Muhammad, who questioned whether 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. 55 Inevitably, the potential exists for collaboration between Western and Islamic deniers, seen in the United Kingdom where IHR material has been distributed in mosques and schools by Muslim teenagers. 56 Aware of the scope for support, Western deniers are likely to target Islamic groups, as was seen in 2002 when Audrey Jones, secretary to Bradley Smith's American-based Committee for

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Open Debate on the Holocaust, contacted Arab American organizations to ascertain their interest in denial and potential support. In this case, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the response was modest; one Virginia-based Arab organization placed a link to Smith's Web site. 57 However, the establishment of such connections remains a potential growth area in the West, especially in France where there is growing Islamic militancy, a tradition of antiZionism, and a well-established denial movement. The Left and Anti-Zionism The Middle Eastern dimension adds another potential source of support for deniers from the hard Left where anti-Zionism is a central belief. In her pioneering 1986 study The Holocaust Denial, Gill Seidel observed how for anti-Zionists such as Lenni Brenner, author of Zionism in the Age of Dictators, Zionism and Nazism are congruent and "that Zionism, by implication, bears responsibility for the Holocaust," a view shared by many Marxists and Left anarchists. 58 This rationale sits comfortably with denial, with Brenner's books, for example, advertised by the IHR. More recently, Norman Finkelstein's view of the Holocaust industry reflects his own antiZionism, with his thesis that Jews have created the Holocaust industry to forge Israeli power, a core negation argument. 59 It should be remembered that the origins of denial lie on the Far Left with Paul Rassiner whose works are published by the Paris-based Left anarchist publishing house La Vielle Taupe, who has also published Robert Faurisson and The Myth of Auschwitz by German Wilhelm Staglich. This is not an isolated case, with the Left magazine La Nete de Marx denying the Holocaust and calling on the Left not to leave this refutation to the Right, while in Italy, the left-wing publishing House Graphos translated Faurisson's Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine? and national Communists have also advocated denial. 60 The potential left-wing relationship with denial emerged when Noam Chomsky wrote a preface for Faurisson's Testimony in Defence: Against Those Who Accuse Me of Falsfying history: The Question of the Gas Chambers. While Chomsky refutes any support for denial, claiming his preface was based on the principle of free speech only, he did say "one may wonder whether Faurisson is really an anti-semite [sic] or a Nazi. . . . As I said before, I am not very familiar with his work . . . but I am in possession of no evidence which would support any such conclusions. . . . As far as I can judge Faurisson is a kind of relatively apolitical liberal."

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Chomsky is also on the record as saying, "I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust." 61 Chomsky's worldview is such that he regards denial not as anti-Semitic but "apolitical liberal," which is to be tolerated. Another factor explaining the potential resonance of relativism on the Far Left is their focus on the crimes of America: capitalism and globalization. When this Left relativism is combined with their extreme anti-Zionism, seen in figures such as Chomsky and Finkelstein, there are two bases for common ground with negationists. With reports of denial on Leon Trotsky Internet forums, 62 and the hardening of an anti-Semitic anti-Zionism by the Far Left, this is an area of potential development. The potential for denial to be accepted in other left-wing frameworks is seen by developments in the New Age movement that has a strong interest in theosophical ideas, UFOs, lost civilizations, and the Thule society—all beliefs held by the Nazi regime as well. Duncan Roads, the editor of the Australian-based New Age racist magazine Nexus, says he is "open-minded" about the Holocaust, 63 with his magazine embracing David Irving as "one of the western world's most acclaimed and respected researchers," stating that "his research is impeccable, and none dare challenge him on it." In a review of Irving's book Hitler's War, it was stated in Nexus that "[i]f you ever wanted an unbiased history of World War II, Hitler's War [sic] is a must-read book." Irving's video The Search for Truth in History is also reviewed: "It is high time to publicly debate some of the points raised in this video."64 Such publications expose an audience who would not ordinarily mix with the Far Right to Holocaust denial and reflects the potential for denial in conspiratorial and Left-leaning circles. Another way in which Holocaust denial is appearing on the Left is in relation to attacks on Israel that involve relativism by claiming Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Germans did to the Jews, which Jonathan Freedland of Britain's The Guardian observed is the equivalent of accusing the black civil rights movement of being like the slave traders of old.65 Anti-Zionism, particularly among elites and on the Left, has been identified as a new form of anti-Semitism with implications for Holocaust denial. 66 Evidence of the Israeli-Nazi equivalence in left-wing circles was readily provided following the outbreak of Israel-Palestinian fighting in September 2000. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the world carried banners equating the Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika; 67 Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago compared events in the Palestinian territories with Auschwitz; 68 a supporter

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of t h e a c a d e m i c boycott a g a i n s t Israeli professor M o n a B a k e r described Israeli operations a s "some kind of holocaust"; 6 9 a n d Oxford University English professor Tom Paulin spoke of t h e "Zionist SS" a n d s a y s of Brooklyn, New York, b o r n settlers, "I t h i n k they s h o u l d b e s h o t dead. I t h i n k they are Nazis, racists, I feel n o t h i n g b u t h a t r e d for them." 7 0 As Peter Pulzer observed w h e n writing a b o u t anti-Semitism a n d taboos, When every civilian death is a war crime that concept loses its significance, when every expulsion from a village is genocide we no longer know how to recognize genocide. When Auschwitz is everywhere it is nowhere, when every military occupation is a holocaust the real Holocaust becomes blurred and then erased from memory. Which is no doubt the intention of those who are convinced that in order to mobilize sympathy for Palestinians it is necessary to neutralize any sympathy that people may feel for Jews, whether in Israel or the diaspora [sic], because only thereby can Israel be denied its raison d'etre.71 British novelist a n d critic Howard J a c o b s o n c o n c l u d e s t h a t t h e c o n s t a n t c o m p a r i s o n of Israel with t h e Nazis despite t h e a b s e n c e of comparative c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s is b e c a u s e t h e anti-Zionist Left have "had enough" of t h e Holocaust a n d w a n t to expunge it from m e m ory. 72 On t h i s b a s i s , a n y s y m p a t h y J e w s deserve is gone a n d they go from victims to villains. This is a m a t t e r with s e r i o u s implications for world J e w r y a n d civil society, for Left political a t t a c k s on Israel have contributed to a rise in anti-Semitic incidents. H a t r e d for Israel on t h e Left, which involves b r e a k i n g down of t h e taboo of t h e Holocaust, could t h u s fuel anti-Semitic incidents a n d Holocaust relativism a n d lead to direct collaboration between anti-Zionists a n d Holocaust deniers. This w a s seen w h e n t h e Lond o n Evening Standard c o l u m n i s t A. N. Wilson wrote a n article in F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 3 a t t a c k i n g Israel a n d its policies a g a i n s t t h e Palest i n i a n s a n d referring r e a d e r s to "The Israeli Holocaust a g a i n s t t h e Palestinians" by M. Hoffman for m o r e information. W h e n it emerged t h a t Hoffman is a k n o w n white s u p r e m a c i s t a n d Holoc a u s t denier, t h e n e w s p a p e r w a s forced to apologize. 73 In 2 0 0 3 , t h e left-wing Melbourne U n d e r g r o u n d Film Festival in A u s t r a l i a offered s c r e e n i n g s on t h e Israeli o c c u p a t i o n from "a Palestinian perspective" together with screenings of films by Irving a n d F a u r i s s o n . This w a s a clear sign t h a t the relationship between t h e H o l o c a u s t relativism a n d denial a n d left-wing anti-Zionism, particularly in t h e antiglobalization a n d h u m a n rights movements, is one to be w a t c h e d closely.

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STRATEGIES The Internet has changed the nature of denial activity, seen by the very comprehensive and frequently updated sites maintained by most deniers, and will play a dominant role in the future. In addition to the many advantages the Internet offers, its embrace by deniers has been hastened by the legal limitations placed on their activities. This was seen in the case of Radio Islam that began broadcasting in 1987 but, after being shut down by a Swedish Court for incitement against Jews, reestablished itself as an Internet site with an American server. In contrast with the costs associated with annual conferences, quarterly journals, and publications, all of which will continue, the Internet offers low budget immediacy of access, seen, for example, through the way David Irving used his Action Report Online to provide his daily spin throughout his libel trial. The Internet broadens the deniers' potential reach with German Rudolf, for example, using the Internet to disseminate his pseudoscientific journal Vierteljahreshefte fur freie Geschichtsforschung to what the Antisemitism Worldwide annual report described as "an enormous public."74 Complementing the deceptive methods used by deniers, an impressive Internet site can be a facade behind which are tiny organizations, attracting to denial those who would otherwise not be. This potential also exists in chat rooms where denial is raised. While the hard core of denial leaders were traditionally in contact with each other, for example at IHR conferences, the Internet enables denial supporters to have direct contact with leading denial figures across the globe. This enables such figures to increase their influence and their supporters to be further influenced accordingly. When all a denier needs is a computer and a modem for cheap global communication, there is likely to be an increase in the number of one-man denial organizations, with cyberspace creating a place where they feel sanctioned. It is not only that technology provides deniers with low-cost global access, but deniers can also use methods so that their Web site can be listed more prominently in a Web search of Holocaustrelated matters. Such a scenario allows for school students doing homework to cite such material as a result of typing "Holocaust" into a search engine. In addition, technology provides the potential to distort pictures from World War II using digital imaging for publication on their Web sites. Whatever methods are employed, denying the existence of gas chambers and death camps will be the focus of denial activity. This is because gas chambers and death camps epitomize the Holocaust

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a n d a s s u c h are t h e biggest obstacle to t h e deniers' rehabilitation of Nazism. T h e i m p o r t a n c e of g a s c h a m b e r s w a s explained by Raul Hilberg, a u t h o r of t h e definitive The Destruction of European Jewry: People are shot or hacked to death in other countries, even after World War Two—Rwanda, for example. You built the gas chamber with a view to killing a mass of people. Once you have a gas chamber you have a vision, and the vision is total annihilation. In a gas chamber, you don't see the victim. So the gas chamber in that sense is more dangerous, the gas chamber is more criminal. The gas chamber has wider implications. So when you deny the gas chamber, you deny not just a part of the event, you deny one of the defining concepts. Auschwitz has become the synonym for the Holocaust. And of course you deny, apart from anything else, the death of several million people. 75 Deniers have long targeted t h e gas c h a m b e r s , b u t their "breakt h r o u g h " in t h i s effort c a m e with t h e 1998 Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Mqjdanek, prepared by Fredrick Leuchter a t t h e b e h e s t of E r n s t Z u n d e l w h e n h e w a s tried for denial activities in C a n a d a in 1988. W h a t w a s u n i q u e a b o u t t h e Leuchter Report c o m p a r e d to previous denials of t h e gas c h a m b e r s w a s t h a t it did so o n putatively scientific a n d technical g r o u n d s , a strategy denial is n o w following. A designer of American p r i s o n execution e q u i p m e n t , Leuchter illegally took s a m p l e s from g a s c h a m b e r s a n d o t h e r a r e a s in Auschwitz, B i r k e n a u , a n d Majdanek; gave t h e m to a laboratory in Boston w i t h o u t telling t h e m where they were from; a n d a s k e d for a r e p o r t on t h e levels of cyanide in t h e s a m p l e s . With t h e r e s u l t s showing t h a t t h e bricks from t h e delousing r o o m s h a d a large p r e s ence of cyanide while t h o s e from t h e g a s c h a m b e r s did not, t h e Leuchter Report w a s hailed by deniers a s proof t h a t t h e gas c h a m b e r s could finally be declared a myth. The Leuchter Report h a d a n i m p a c t on deniers everywhere, b u t its m o s t significant i m p a c t w a s by w i n n i n g Irving over to denial. Irving h a d previously b e e n regarded a s a "soft" denier, 7 6 a s s o m e one who did n o t deny t h e Holocaust b u t denied Hitler's knowledge of it a n d who engaged in relativism. However, indicative of the effect a n d s u c c e s s of t h e "hard" deniers, Irving, following Leuchter to t h e w i t n e s s s t a n d a t Zimdel's trial, said, "My m i n d h a s n o w c h a n g e d . . . b e c a u s e I u n d e r s t a n d t h a t t h e whole of t h e Holocaust mythology is, after all, open to doubt." 7 7 This w a s reflected in his description of Auschwitz a s "a m o n s t r o u s killing m a c h i n e " in h i s 1977 edition of Hitler's War being downgraded to "a slave l a b o u r c a m p " in t h e 1991 edition. Irving's role in u s i n g h i s credibility to t a k e

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these ideas further was seen in 1989 when he published and launched a glossy version of the Leuchter Report in Britain for which he wrote the foreword.78 At the Zundel trial, however, Leuchter, whose formal qualification is a BA in history, was prevented from giving expert testimony due to a lack of technical qualifications. In addition, the Leuchter Report was subsequently widely discredited. Leuchter, for example, pointed to the fact that there were more traces of cyanide in the delousing chambers than gas chamber to support his case; however, this is consistent with the genocide of European Jewry because more gas is needed to kill lice than humans. The laboratory that tested the samples also pointed out that their findings did not support Leuchter's conclusion because cyanide does not penetrate bricks and thus samples chiseled from walls as they were by Leuchter would have no cyanide residue. 79 This led the Leuchter Report to be ruled inadmissible evidence during Irving's libel trial. However, with deniers quintessentially undeterred by facts, the Leuchter Report has become, arguably, the most important document in the development of denial, turning Leuchter into a fettered hero of the denial movement. So crucial is the scientific disproving of the gas chambers to deniers that this model has inevitably been emulated. Wartime Nazi and post-1945 neo-Nazi protagonist Otto Ernst Remer employed a chemist to provide evidence to support his defense during his 1992 trial in Germany for denying the Holocaust. The chemist's paper, Expertise on the Formation and Provability of Cyanide Connections in the "Gas Chambers" of Auschwitz, was not accepted as evidence.80 Additionally, in 1997, the Warsaw-based National-Radical Institute conducted field work in Auschwitz-Birkenau and concluded that people could not be killed through gas chambers, a thesis that they illustrated through photos. 81 The Adelaide Institute's Richard Krege, an electronic engineer, similarly released a report in 2000 of his use, in Treblinka, of a ground penetration radar, reportedly worth $80,000, that found no evidence of mass graves. 82 Further pseudoscientific and technical endeavors have followed and more can be expected; hence, the joint efforts of scientists and technicians in addition to historians is needed in countering negation.

NEW DIRECTIONS: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, AND BEYOND The danger of denial is not just in its anti-Semitism and racism, but that it is a school of thought that transforms and applies itself to a range of other issues that deniers regard themselves

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as uniquely placed to respond to. This was seen in their response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in America. When referring to media cover-ups and Mossad information, American denier Russ Granta rhetorically asked, "Will not the method of Revisionism in the hands of researchers eventually shed more light on all this—absolutely!" 83 The methods used to propagate Holocaust denial were applied to 9 / 1 1 , from translating Bin Laden tapes 84 to relativism. 85 The Holocaust deniers' response to 9 / 1 1 demonstrates their ability to focus their activities on current events, thus giving denial the prospect of increased relevance. For several years, Irving has been running an annual "Real History" conference in America where the Holocaust is one of several subjects. The September 2002 conference was titled "September 11 and All T h a t . . ."As promotional literature stated, "Who was really behind them? Why did they do it? Come to that, why did the Twin Towers collapse so swiftly?"86 RESPONSES The future of negation will be subject to a range of variables, such as the success of the Far Right, but as we move away from the actual time of the Holocaust and as survivors pass away, the scope for the success of the negation movement may widen. Given the extent and nature of negation, the moment has passed from the early deliberations that confronted Deborah Lipstadt of whether to respond, with the issue now being how to respond. The response will vary according to the place and the type of negation occurring, but will entail four broad elements: legislation, education, political action, and intellectual sophistication and maturity. This is a responsibility for all members of civil society as negation's racist and antidemocratic character are not just a Jewish problem but a global one concerning all opposed to racism and fascism and should therefore be treated as such. Legal Since the mid-1980s, denial has been outlawed in several countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, and Israel, with other racial vilification laws effectively invoked against denial in Australia and Canada. With the Political Declaration signed by the member states of the Council of Europe

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at the European Conference Against Racism in advance of the 2001 UN Anti-Racism Conference suggesting that all member states make Holocaust denial a punishable offense, denial is likely to be outlawed in additional jurisdictions, leaving fewer places for deniers to find sanctuary, which may hasten their move to the Middle East. 87 Legislation is, however, unlikely to stop negation as new individuals emerge to replace those whose activities have been curtailed, with the few hard core committed enough to uproot themselves and move their operations as German Rudolf did by moving to England, where he now distributes denial literature after being sentenced in Germany in 1995 for Holocaust denial. 88 In light of the deniers' mobility, legislation clearly has its limitations, but there is no doubt it acts as a barrier for others who are not prepared to pay the price of bankruptcy and exile as David Irving has. Jiirgen Graf may choose to live in Iran, but this option may not appeal to all negationists. There are clearly risks for Jewish and other organizations bringing legal actions against negationists. In many respects, Holocaust denial received recognition when Ernst Zundel was tried in Canada under the offense of "spreading false news" after publishing Did Six Million Really Die? which he skillfully exploited to get unprecedented media coverage. The ultimate risk with a trial is that the deniers can win. Such victories are likely to be on legal rather than historical grounds, but they will exploit these wins as Zundel did, claiming victory after his conviction was overturned in 1992. Moreover, Irving's libel trial showed how although the case was about his character rather than the Holocaust, he succeeded in putting the Holocaust on trial, reflected in the defense's extensive efforts to confirm the history of the Holocaust. This poses a challenge to the judiciary who will have to adjudicate on legislation. To ensure that the denier rather than the Holocaust is put on trial, the JPR recommendation that "judicial notice is taken of the facts of the Holocaust at an early stage in court proceedings" offers useful guidance. 89 The effect of any legislation will depend on how denial is perceived within jurisdictions, as the Gunther Deckert case in Germany illustrated and there are signs that this problem may be emulated in Eastern Europe. In Poland, for example, historian and right-wing activist Dr. Dariusz Ratajczak was found guilty in 1999 of breaching the Institute of National Remembrance law that outlawed the denial of crimes against humanity committed by Nazi or Stalinist Communists in Poland. The judges agreed he was in breach of the law but found his crime was "specially harmless," leading Rafal Pankowski to reflect in a Searchlight report on Holo-

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caust denial in Poland that "it was just another example of the general indulgence by the Polish judicial system towards all crimes committed by the extreme right, [sic] be it Holocaust denial, the incitement of racial hatred or street violence."90 A similar situation arose in Australia in 2003 when a judge refused to support an injunction to stop the screening of a film by David Irving because while it might be offensive to Jews it was not vilification, finding that evidence from the film such as "traditional enemies" and "dining out on the Holocaust" was quite bland. The judge, therefore, based his decision on the absence of vilification and the need to defend "robust discussion." 91 The significance of further legislation will depend on its detail, but as the South African and Australian cases illustrate, it is important that, as JPR noted, it allows the incitement offense to encompass the more subtle and sophisticated manifestations of Holocaust denial, where anti-Semitism is implicit in what is said rather than is explicit in the nature of the language used. 92 Whatever legislation is invoked, to be effective it must extend to the Internet, with early case law suggesting it does. When the League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism sued American-based Yahoo! for breaching French law by providing access to a Nazi auction site, the defendants argued on jurisdictional not technical grounds that the French court could not issue an order against an American company. However, in a 2000 finding, Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez rejected Yahool's argument, later commenting, "For too long we've acted as if the Internet has been a place where nothing is forbidden. Not everything is permitted. Not everything is legal."93 Similarly, in 2001 in Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found the 1995 Racial Hatred Act applied to the Internet and ordered Fredrick Toben to remove material from his Internet site. Toben responded by switching to an overseas Internet service provider (ISP) but the federal court ruled that he had to remove the offending material and would be in contempt of court if he refused to do so, making him accountable under Australian law even if the material is hosted in another jurisdiction. 94 In a January 2002 ruling, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found that Zundel had contravened section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act through his Internet site, which he was subsequently ordered to close. Importantly, the court found him responsible for the site, even though it came out of America under his direction from Canada. The Internet means there is a constant game of cat and mouse, with technology providing deniers with the means to keep their material online even if they comply with a legal ruling. This was

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seen with the "Zundel site," which in the expectation that it may have been shut down encouraged people to set up mirror sites. 95 The legislative issue also relates to ISPs, but the case law to date from France is that ISPs have no legal responsibility for information on their server. However, online denial can be addressed without legislation if the ISPs make the exclusion of racism an inherent part of their own codes of conduct. This needs to be an area of corporate social responsibility, especially in America where the First Amendment prevents European-style legislation outlawing denial. As the legislative noose tightens, deniers will increasingly portray themselves as champions of freedom of speech. This has broader resonance than their denial message and has made for strange bedfellows as civil libertarians and Far-Right extremists find themselves on common ground, such as the Electronic Frontiers organization in Canada and Australia in relation to the Zundel and Toben cases, respectively. It is important that those who oppose outlawing denial on freedom of speech grounds do not extend this liberty to debating with them. Deniers crave debate because this confers upon them the status of legitimate discussants in the history of the Holocaust and, hence, gives them the recognition they so desperately desire. By the very nature of this beast, no debate with a Holocaust denier can be won. In fact, they win when they are part of the debate. Denial in cyberspace will be a permanent reality. Whether in response to judgments, filters, or other measures, chasing deniers on the Internet is like a game of cat and mouse. In whatever legal or other action is taken, both in its electronic and other forms, there is so much denial that not every case can be fought. The response must, therefore, be commensurate to the nature of the threat, with antidenial campaigners focusing on the most dangerous deniers and their sites on the big search engines. Educational Surveys reveal a large degree of ignorance about the Holocaust. 96 This is clearly advantageous to negationists and places an onus on Jewish organizations and national governments to initiate appropriate Holocaust education. There are positive signs this is happening, with Holocaust studies in schools taught in many countries, and with important government initiatives such as the Stockholm Conference. In considering educational initiatives, there is a dilemma about whether they should be specifically directed at negation itself or

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focused on educating about the Holocaust based on the rationale that the former attracts attention to the negationists. The reality is the former is happening with major Jewish organizations offering extensive resource material on denial, with The International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, for example, producing a guide for teachers on denial.97 In future years, further resources and intellectual capital will need to be invested in developing appropriate educational resources that balance pointing out the danger of denial without bringing unwarranted attention to it. One option that balances the two schools of thought is to ensure that Holocaust studies are taught in such a way that Holocaust education addresses the issues raised by denial without addressing denial itself. This means, for instance, teaching how the Final Solution of the Jewish Question was undertaken in a secretive manner because the Nazis recognized how different it was. This leads to a study of the euphemisms (see the chapter by Sophie Gelski and Jenny Wajsenberg in this volume) that were accordingly employed, such as gas chambers and crematoria known as Spezialeinrichtungen (special installations) or Badeanstalten (bathhouses), with the killing described as Sonderbehandlung (special treatment). Unfortunately the pedagogic agenda will, in part, be set by the negationists with the Leuchter Report, for example, making it necessary to teach that it takes less gas to kill humans than delouse clothes. It needs to be taught that the Nazis tried to destroy all evidence, and to explain how and why gas chambers were reconstructed after the war. Jewish involvement in Communism in Russia may also need to be explained in the context of the antiSemitic Tsarist regime that some Jews wished to see overthrown. Not least of all, it needs to be taught that research into the Holocaust is ongoing. In his expert witness testimony for the defense on Auschwitz in the David Irving trial, Professor Robert Van Pelt said, "The assumption that the discovery of one little crack will bring the whole building down is the whole fallacy of Holocaust Denial."98 It therefore follows that what needs to be taught is that there was no one order instigating the Holocaust, but we know about it from the convergence of information from various sources, including German documents, Jewish documents, the documents of other governments such as the Polish and the Soviet, and evidence from the trials of Nazis at the end of the war. The educational challenge faced by universities extends not only in relation to their Holocaust education courses, but in also ensuring that they are not used to legitimize negation, as was illustrated by

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two cases that arose in New Zealand in 2000. One case revolved around Joel Hayward's 1993 master's thesis at the University of Canterbury, which received a first-class pass despite its findings that the Nazis did not use gas chambers, there was no planned extermination of the Jews, and that far fewer than 6 million Jews died. Although Hayward has admitted that his thesis was filled with errors and apologized for those errors, his thesis cited Irving, the Journal of Historical Review, Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, and the Leuchter Report, demonstrating the potential "research" use that can be made of denial materials. 99 The attitude universities adopt will be important in addressing cases of this nature in the future. The true challenge of denial to both universities and historians is for them to continue to research new archival material on the Holocaust to add both to our body of knowledge about the Holocaust, as the Adolf Eichmann memoirs revealed for the Irving trial, and to prevent deniers from manipulating new sources of information. The way this can occur was demonstrated by evidence from the Irving trial in which Irving wrote the following to Mark Weber of the IHR in 1992: Working in the Public Record Office yesterday, I came across the 200 page handwritten memoirs . . . of an SS officer, Aumeier, who was virtually Hoss's deputy. . . . These manuscripts are going to be a problem for revisionists and need analysing now in advance of our enemies and answering. I attach my transcript of a few pages and you will see why. It becomes more lurid with each subsequent version. At first no gassings, then 50, then 15,000 total.100 Ultimately, universities are about innovative research and teaching, and in addition to the Holocaust being taught in history, the actual nature of negation can be taught in politics, just as other political ideologies are.

Political To ensure the containment of negation, governments must demonstrate the political will to counter this phenomona with responses ranging from legislation to education. In so doing, they must recognize the racist agenda of the negationists. A particular onus is on conservative and neoconservative governments in both Eastern and Western Europe to address this issue, but the subject of political will is not limited to governments, as I have noted in relation to ISPs and left-wing groups.

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Particular importance will be attached to the manner in which Western and other governments relate to denial in the Middle East, given that little protest to date has been registered about the proliferation and mainstreaming of denial in the region. If the spread of denial is to be contained and ultimately reversed, it must be made unequivocally clear to Middle Eastern governments that this anti-Semitism is unacceptable. The potential effect of such measures was seen when the Lebanese government cancelled the 2001 Holocaust Denial Conference scheduled for Beirut, with Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri stating, "Lebanon has more important things to do than holding conferences that hurt its international standing and smear its name." 101 Despite the measures taken by non-Middle Eastern governments, the solution ultimately lies with the Middle Eastern communities themselves. While the extent of denial in the region cannot be overstated, a few Arab intellectuals have shown a desire to counter denial, such as the fourteen who opposed the holding of the Beirut conference. Such protests are not an easy task for these intellectuals, with the fourteen apparently condemned by the Holocaust denial conference that was subsequently held in Jordan in 2001. 1 0 2 Enhancing Middle Eastern opposition to denial is not just a challenge for Arabs and Muslims. When it was proposed that Yasser Arafat visit the Washington, DC, Holocaust Museum in 1998, there were strong Jewish protests against him doing so. However emotionally difficult it is, particularly given the role of Arafat in attacks against Jews and the Palestinians in their alliance with the Nazis during the war, Jewish organizations will need to develop ways of engaging with Arab and Islamic leaders and communities on this issue. Ultimately, the issue of denial in the Middle East will be tied to the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the potential for Arabs to agree to view Holocaust exhibits if Jews agree to view exhibits of Israeli crimes against Palestinians. As al-Hayat editor Abd al-Wahab Badrakhan said, Arabs "do not deny this Holocaust but they put it in parentheses until the world (and Israel) acknowledge the other 'holocausts' which Israel perpetrated against the Arab world."103 Such equivalence cannot be accepted because its acknowledgment of denial takes place with conditions that deny the recognition it putatively offers. Western governments must stand with Israel and Jewish organizations to ensure this does not occur. The fact that in 2003 a first-ever visit to Auschwitz by Israel Arabs and Jews took place, joined by French Muslims and Jews, offers a glimmer of hope about what is possible. 104

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In addition to the practical legal, educational, and political response to denial, the intellectual issue of relativism must be addressed, especially as the Holocaust is succeeded by more recent genocides. This does not mean that the Holocaust cannot be discussed with other tragedies, but it is the nature and context of such comparisons that are fundamental. Recognizing the uniqueness of each genocide does not minimize the others. Colin Holmes, in an article for Searchlight, observed, "Recognition of the Holocaust as unique does not detract from other instances of suffering and mass extermination, such as the Armenian genocide or the Bosnian war. Each instance can be viewed within a framework of genocide. But each example is different and deserves to be treated as such. Relativism does not add to our understanding of these atrocities." 105 This demonstrates that the Holocaust can and should be discussed with other genocides, with Yehuda Bauer noting that "the very claim that a historical event is unprecedented can be made only when that event is compared with other events of a presumably similar nature with which it shares at least some qualities" 106 (see the chapter written by Yehuda Bauer in this volume). However, there is a difference between comparison and equivalence, or as Michael Shafir notes in relation to East European relativism, "when the comparison is made for the purpose of denying or belittling either of them (genocides), a n d / o r for that of obliterating that which is inherently unique to either the Holocaust or to the Gulag, then one has ceased to look for similarities and has entered the odious minefield of historical negation." 107 Bauer uses the term genocide "for the brutal process of group elimination accompanied by mass murder resulting in the partial annihilation of the victim population" a term applicable, for example, for what the Nazis did to the Poles, whereas Holocaust, which he defines as "an extreme form of genocide," is the appropriate term for total annihilation. In discussing the Holocaust in comparison with other genocides, he points out that "the Holocaust had elements that have not existed with any other form of genocide (whereas there are no major elements of other genocides that cannot be found in other genocides)." He identifies three elements in the extreme form of genocide that is the Holocaust: ideological, global, and total that help define its uniqueness and that concomitantly serve against relativism. 108 This intellectual debate is important because as Bauer stresses differentiating between genocides and the Holocaust helps identify

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and understand the different types of genocide in efforts to avoid them being repeated in the future, 109 with denial of the Holocaust opening the way for denial of other genocides. For Jewish communities, this means imparting the universal message of their particular experience. CONCLUSION In any discussion on denial, perspective must be kept on the scale of the problem, but it should not be underestimated, particularly in certain regions and among certain groups. Nor should the appeal of relativism to Western liberalism be underestimated, as was seen in Norman Finkelstein's 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, pertinent to Yehuda Bauer's observation that there has been a tendency throughout history of people to deny life-threatening events because they threaten our sense of security. 110 As the denier with the most mainstream standing, David Irving's loss against Deborah Lipstadt was a major blow not to Irving alone, whose work is now confined to Far-Right circles in America where his assets cannot be touched by the British courts, but to all deniers. This became clear when following his admission on the witness stand that his claim that Jews were gassed in trucks on an experimental basis was wrong and, in fact, tens of thousands were killed, Robert Faurisson admonished him for bringing the case as he was damaging the entire denial movement. 111 No finding, however, will deter the deniers, with Irving saying, "I can still hold my head up high, and nothing—nothing at all— will change the way I write history." 112 By their very nature, whatever obstacles negationists confront are explained as part of the Jewish conspiracy. The marginalization of denial in the West, symbolized by Irving's loss against Lipstadt, will not see an end to it. Denial will move and reconfigure, with issues relating to Islam and the Arab world in general increasingly becoming more central to their work. This is of broad relevance given the importance attached to Arab-Islamic extremism since 9 / 1 1 . Such relationships can turn the deniers against their own countries and civilizations, as was seen in response to 9/11 when Faurisson neither condemned the terrorists nor expressed empathy for the victims, using the word terrorist in inverted commas, describing them as brave. Indicative of the way deniers regard Islamic extremists, Faurisson compares Osama Bin Laden to Adolf Hitler as both were opposed by alliances whose interests they threatened. 113

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The anti-Zionist a n d antiglobalization p l a n k of denial b r o a d e n s t h e m o v e m e n t s ' appeal. It allows for s t r a n g e bedfellows, for example, t h e National Alliance saying t h a t t h e y work with Black M u s lims. 1 1 4 T h e potential for anti-Zionism a n d antiglobalization to b e t h e b r o a d e l e m e n t s of a coalition facilitated by negation w a s s e e n by t h e m being t h e two c e n t r a l t h e m e s a t t h e Moscow conference w h e r e A u s t r i a n G e r n o t h Reisegger called for u n i t y b e t w e e n t h e West, t h e Islamic World, a n d R u s s i a n Orthodoxy against t h e "comm o n threat" in t h e money m a r k e t s , a e u p h e m i s m for Jews. 1 1 5 Wherever Holocaust denial occurs a n d whatever form it t a k e s , it will c o n t i n u e to employ t h e discredited m e t h o d s it h a s employed to d a t e , namely, inventing information a n d p r e s e n t i n g it a s fact, quoting information again a n d again u n t i l it is n o longer checked a n d is accepted a s fact, a n d focusing on single claims to disprove t h e whole. As time from original claims a n d s o u r c e s lapses a n d t h e Holocaust survivors p a s s away, second- a n d third-generation s u r vivors will have a role in countering this trend. 1 1 6 While t h e fate of denial will vary in different times a n d places, it will always have one distinct advantage, its anti-Semitism. As t h e 2 0 0 1 World Anti-Racism Conference in D u r b a n , S o u t h Africa, showed, anti-Semitism r e m a i n s resilient with widespread s u p p o r t . Inevitably, with a n y t h i n g anti-Semitic, we will see J e w i s h self-hatred, a subject t h a t r e q u i r e s a c h a p t e r in its own right, which will b e u s e d to t h e full by t h e deniers, a s N o r m a n Finkelstein's book demonstrated. In t h e tradition of The Protocols of the Elders ofZion, t h e a n t i Semitic conspiracy t h a t denial is predicated on a n d negation exploits, negation will b e believed n o m a t t e r how discredited, disproved, a n d b a s e l e s s it is s h o w n to be. J u s t a s The Protocols have continued a c e n t u r y after they have b e e n disproved so too will H o l o c a u s t negation, w h i c h will b e for twenty-first-century a n t i S e m i t i s m w h a t The Protocols w a s for t h e twentieth. While t h e ext e n t of denial m u s t b e k e p t in perspective, t h e potential t h r e a t of negation should n o t b e u n d e r e s t i m a t e d . NOTES I wish to thank all those who assisted in providing information used in this chapter, especially Aryeh Tuchman of the Anti-Defamation League for his material on the activities of Holocaust negationists. 1. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (Plume, 1994). 2. Michael Shafir, "Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe, Analysis of

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Current Trends in Antisemitism, No. 19 (Jerusalem: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002), 64. 3. The terms deflective negation and selective negation come from Shafir, Between Denial. 4. This strategy dates back to Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Truth Seeker, 1976) in which this engineering professor at Chicago's Northwestern University employed footnotes and appendixes to give denial its pseudoacademic disguise, a trend most deniers now follow. 5. Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000). 6. Kate Taylor, ed., Holocaust Denial: The David Irving Trial and International Revisionism (London: Searchlight Educational Trust, 2000), 17. 7. Ibid., 76. 8. See Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, 106; and Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 89. 9. Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 401. 10. New YorkTimes, October 12, 1998. 11. The Guardian, March 9, 2001. 12. See Pat Buchanan's Skeleton Closet, http://www.realchange. org/Buchanan.htm (accessed June 19, 2002). 13. The Financial Review, August 17, 1998. 14. Wolfgang Benz, "The Motivations and Impact of Contemporary Holocaust Denial in Germany," in Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia, ed. Robert S. Wistrich. (Jerusalem: Harwood Academic Publishers for The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999), 340, 345. 15. Irving has played a pivotal role in this process through his 1963 book The Destruction of Dresden (London: Ballantine, 1963), his first and probably his most widely read book that described the tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths at the hands of the Allies in Dresden, although as Richard Evans showed in Lying about Hitler, many of the distorting and selective methods used in outright denial also applied to this relativization. 16. Richard Evans, In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (London: Tauris, 1989), 32. 17. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, 215. 18. Ibid., 210, 213, 214, 215. 19. Cited in Benz, 'The Motivations and Impact," 339. 20. Ibid. 21. Anat Peri, Jorg Haider's Antisemitism, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, No. 18 (Jerusalem: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001). 22. Ibid., 15. 23. "Germany," Antisemitism Worldwide (Tel Aviv: The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, 2000/2001), http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2000-l/germany. htm (accessed J u n e 9, 2002). 24. Ibid.

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25. The Sunday Age, September 8, 2002. 26. "Germany." 27. Benz, 'The Motivations and Impact," 340. 28. Voice of America, August 10, 1994. 29. Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 74. 30. Cited in ibid., 75. 31. Shafir, Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization," 3. 32. "A Major Revisionist Breakthrough in Russia," Journal of Historical Review, http://www.ihr.org/jhr/vl6/vl6n4p36_Weber.html (accessed J u n e 25, 2002). 33. Shafir, Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization," 14. 34. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/02/01/26146.html (accessed J u n e 25, 2002). 35. "Revisionists Gather in Moscow," Searchlight (March 2002). 36. Ibid. 37. "A Major Revisionist Breakthrough in Russia." 38. Shafir, Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization," 10, 23, 52. 39. Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Holocaust Denial in the Middle East: The Latest Anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic Propaganda Theme, Wysiwyg:// 68http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/in_own_words.asp (accessed J u n e 19, 2002). 40. See Robert S. Wistrich, Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 2002), 26. 41. Roger Garudy, The Founding Myths of Israel (1996). 42. Goetz Nordbruch, The Socio-Historical Background of Holocaust Denial in Arab Countries: Reactions to Roger Garudy's The Founding Myths of Israel, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, No. 17 (Jerusalem: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001), 27. 43. Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman, 'The Fight against Holocaust Denial," Midstream (April 2001): 2. 44. ADL, Holocaust Denial in the Middle East. 45. The Australian Jewish News, May 18, 2001. 46. See ADL, Wysiwyg://68http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/ default.asp (accessed June 19, 2002). 47. Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 94. 48. Esther Webman, Anti-Semitic Motifs in the Ideology of Hizballah and Hamis (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1994). 49. Cited in ADL, http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/hdme_ genocide_denial.asp (accessed June 19, 2002). 50. Itamar Marcus, In Their Own Words: Antisemitism and Racism as Policy in the Palestinian Authority (Simon Wiesenthal Center, September 2001), 2. 51. "United Kingdom," Antisemitism Worldwide (London: The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, 2000/2001), http:www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2000-l/ united_kingdom.htm (accessed July 23, 2002).

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52. Ibid. 53. "Combating Holocaust Denial through the Law in the United Kingdom," Jewish Policy Research Report 3 (2000), http:wwww.jpr.org. uk/Reports/CS%20Reports/no_3_2000/main.htm. 54. Cited in Uncommon Ground: The Nation of Islam and Holocaust Denial, http: / /www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/acommon-ground/noi-an-denial. html (accessed J u n e 27, 2002). 55. "Canada," Antisemitism Worldwide (London: The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, 1998/1999), http:www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw98-9/Canada.html (accessed July 24, 2002). 56. "Combating Holocaust Denial." 57. See ADL, Holocaust Denial in the Middle East, http://www.adl. org/holocaust/denial_ME/western_deniers.asp (accessed June 19, 2002). 58. Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial: Antisemitism, Racism and the New Right (Leeds, UK: Beyond the Pale Collective, 1986), 86, 91. 59. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry. 60. Werner Cohn, Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers (Cambridge, UK: Avukah Press, 1995), http://www.wernercohn. com/Chomsky.html (accessed August 27, 2002); and Dina Porat, in Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia, ed. Robert S. Wistrich (Jerusalem: Harwood Academic Publishers for The Vidal Sasson International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999), 327; and "Italy," Antisemitism Worldwide (2000/2001), http: www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2000-1 /italy.htm. 61. See Seidel, The Holocaust Denial, 103, 104; and Cohn, Partners in Hate. 62. See, for example, http://www.columbia.edu/~Inp3/mydocs/ jewish/holocaust_denial.htm (accessed July 4, 2002). 63. Cited in New Statesman and Society, June 23, 1995, 20. 64. Nexus (August-September 1993). 65. Paul Ignaski and Barry Kosmin, eds., A New Anti-Semitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st-century Britain (London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research/Profile Books, 2003), 191. 66. For more information on new forms of anti-Semitism, see ibid. 67. For broader analysis of post-September 2000 anti-Semitism in relation to Israel-Palestinian fighting, see Danny Ben-Moshe, 'The Impact of the Al-Aqsa 'Intifada' on Israel-Diaspora Relations," Israel Studies Forum (2004). 68. Ignaski and Kosmin, A New Anti-Semitism?, 95. 69. Ibid., 106. 70. Ibid., 156. 71. Ibid., 95. 72. Ibid., 110. 73. A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard, February 10 and 12, 2003. 74. "Germany." 75. Cited in D. D. Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial: History, Justice and the David Irving Libel Case (London: Granta Books, 2001), 303.

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76. Seidel, The Holocaust Denial, 121. 77. Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial, 54. 78. See http://www.ihr.org/other/authorbios.html (accessed July 17, 2002). 79. Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, JR., an Erol Morris film, Niche Pictures, and Siren Entertainment. 80. Benz, "The Motivations and Impact," 338. 81. Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 76. 82. The Canberra Times, January 24. 2000. 83. See http://russgranta.com/speech.html (accessed J u n e 25, 2002). 84. See http://www.rense.com/generall8/ckk.htm (accessed July 10, 2002). 85. "An Imaginary Holocaust May Lead to a Real Holocaust," Journal of Historical Review, http//www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n6p52_Faurisson. html (accessed July 3, 2002). 86. See http://w3ww.fpp.co.uk/cinc/2002/flierl/index.html (accessed July 10, 2002). 87. "Combating Holocaust Denial." 88. "Germany." 89. "Combating Holocaust Denial." 90. Cited in Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 78. 91. The Age, July 8, 2003. 92. "Combating Holocaust Denial." 93. Cited in Jon Silverman, "European Perspectivves on Anti-Semitism on the Internet," Justice (Autumn 2000): 22. 94. Australian Jewish News, September 20, 2002. 95. ZGram, April 25, 1997, Wysiwyg://http://www.zundelsite.org/ English/zgrams/zgl997/zg9704/970425.html (accessed June 19, 2002). 96. The American Jewish Committee has run a series of surveys around the world on the Holocaust. 97. Ephraim Kaye, Desecraters of Memory: Confronting Holocaust Denial (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1997). 98. Cited in ibid., 191. 99. Information on both New Zealand cases is drawn from Report by the Joel Hay ward Working Party (Canterbury, Australia: University of Canterbury, December 18, 2000), and the following issues of the Australian Jewish News: J u n e 30, 2000, July 7, 2000, July 14, 2000, August 18, 2000, and January 12, 2001. 100. Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial, 201. 101. Cooper, and Brackman, "The Fight against Holocaust Denial." 102. ADL, http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/banned_in_ beirut.asp (accessed J u n e 19, 2002). Several factors explain Arab intellectual opposition to Holocaust denial: (1) It is the wrong means to attack Israel; (2) It involves agreement with the European Far Right who are antiMuslim; (3) It does not serve the Arab cause; (4) It perpetuates ignorance in the Arab world; (5) It could lead to denial of the Palestinian cause; and (6) It undermines the danger of Zionism as the successor of Nazism, for

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how can Israelis be portrayed as being as bad as Nazis if the Nazis weren't so bad? 103. Cited in Webman, Anti-Semitic Motifs. 104. The Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2003. 105. Cited in Taylor, Holocaust Denial, 40. 106. Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Havin, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 39. 107. Shafir, Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization," 74-75. 108. Ibid., 39, 50, 56. 109. Ibid., 66-67. 110. Ibid., 40. 111. Silverman, "European Perspectives," 26. 112. See http//www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/RadDi/2002/210502. html (accessed July 10, 2002). 113. "An Imaginary Holocaust May Lead to a Real Holocaust." 114. Hilliard L. Robert and Michael C. Keith, Waves of Rancor: Turning in the Radical Right (New York: Sharpe, 1999), 170. 115. "Revisionists Gather in Moscow." The potential convergence of ideas was seen by cintiglobalization protesters denying Islamic backing of 9 / 1 1 , arguing that America instigated the attack because the economy was slowing and because it justified a Western campaign against Arabs. See The Ottawa Citizen, November 18, 2001, http://members.rogers. com/citizenspanel/Stearn_re_Protesters.htm (accessed July 4, 2002). 116. Referring to the children and grandchildren of survivors as second- and third-generation survivors is something negationists contest, but it is widely accepted and, in my view, appropriate.

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Chapter Eight Paying for the Past: Germany and the Jewish World Ronald W. Zweig

Although most instances of forced migration have been of impoverished communities, history is replete with cases in which victimized communities that have been forced to leave its homes have had to abandon accumulated communal and private assets. Examples of such migrations are the Palestinian refugees from Israel (1947-1948), the Jewish flight from Iraq (1950-1951), Asian refugees fleeing Uganda (1972), and boat people from Southeast Asia (1970s-1980). Clearly, not all of the refugees had property to leave behind. But there were cases in which very significant assets were abandoned. Assets of victimized communities play a dual role in forced immigration. A desire to seize assets, "spoliation," has often been a significant motive for the victimization of the community concerned and its eventual expulsion. It is arguable that in the pregenocidal phase of Nazi policy toward the Jews, the seizure of the communal and private assets of German Jewry was a motive for its persecution "no less than was the racial ideology of National Socialism. Similarly, the collapse of the Iraqi Jewish community in 1950-1951 and its mass transfer to Israel was related to an Iraqi attempt to asset-strip an ancient, well-established, and prosperous community. In the period following forced expulsion, the fate of refugee assets takes on a different significance. There have been very few cases in which it has been possible to enforce restitution of property and the payment of collective reparations and individual indemnification after forced emigration, yet where this has been done, the funds generated have allowed the rehabilitation and resettlement of the refugee population in question. The Jewish experience of forced

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emigration followed by restitution, reparations, and indemnification of the surviving population and their successful rehabilitation is the subject of this chapter. As the devastating extent of the Holocaust became apparent to the Jewish communal and organizational leadership outside of Europe, the issue of rehabilitation after the war was constantly debated. By 1942, postwar planning for the reconstruction of Jewish life in Europe (or resettling the survivors elsewhere) was already firmly on the Jewish public agenda. l The scale of the destruction meant that it would not be possible to restore the status quo ante, and that major resources would have to be mobilized for the task of reconstruction. Jewish claims for reparations and restitution were also discussed early on in the war, but largely in the context of the political campaign to allow the Jewish people as a whole to present a claim against Germany on the same basis as the Allied nations. 2 However, by late 1943 and early 1944, it became apparent that there would be considerable heirless private Jewish assets, as well as extensive communal assets owned by Jewish communities that had been destroyed by the Nazis. It was recognized that these assets, if realized, could be useful in financing the rehabilitation or resettlement of surviving Jews once Europe had been liberated. By the end of 1944, the idea was commonplace. It had been discussed at length by the U.S. State Department, and was a major resolution at the World Jewish Congress War Emergency Conference, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the end of November 1944. The conference proposed the creation of an "international Jewish reconstruction commission" that would be the direct collective benefactor of heirless private and communal assets. 3 By May 1945, the end of the war in Europe, the principle was well established that the assets of the victimized population, or at least those assets that could not be returned to their direct owners, would be used for the rehabilitation of the survivors. The Jewish world was deeply divided on other aspects of policy toward the survivors of the Holocaust (in particular, whether they should be resettled in Europe or in Palestine). But there was no significant argument about the need to press Jewry's material claims against Germany, and the purposes for which the restituted funds or assets should be used. The problems presented by the restitution of Jewish assets were more complex than most restitution claims against the Third Reich. Jews had been victims of Nazi persecution and material depredations since 1933, longer than any other group. Further, the murder of such a large percentage of European Jewry meant that many Jewish assets had no surviving heirs. The November 1944

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War Emergency Conference called for the restitution of individual assets, the payment of compensatory indemnification, and collective reparations to the Jewish people. The deliberations were supported by a detailed study of the extent of Nazi spoliation and looting of Jewish assets (estimated at $8 billion in 1945 values and excluding losses incurred in occupied Soviet territory), and by concrete proposals on how these assets could be restored. 4 In addition to demanding the return of assets to their rightful owners, Jewish groups called for reparations from Germany for Jewish losses during the war. This was unprecedented. Reparations are punitive and compensatory payments, usually made by one state to another. In the immediate postwar years, the Jews had no sovereign state of their own to press the claim for reparations. Nevertheless, when the major powers debated how they could obtain reparations from Germany, there was much sympathy for the Jewish claim. This sympathy was not so much an attempt to impose justice for the Jewish survivors, but rather a practical concern. Any Jewish share of the general allied reparations claim against the defeated German state would provide the funds both for looking after the Jewish displaced persons (DPs) in the camps throughout Germany, Austria, and Italy, and also for resettling and rehabilitating them. During 1945, when the Truman administration deliberated on the eventual Allied reparations claims against Germany, it became apparent that many of the Jewish survivors were technically stateless, and had no wish to resume their previous nationalities. As a result, they would not benefit from any reparations paid to Allied governments. As a means of solving this problem, and providing rehabilitation funds for the Jewish DPs, the American government proposed that although the Jews were not formally an "allied nation," they nevertheless should be allocated 2 percent of the general reparations pool. However, the British government refused to accept this approach. It would have elevated the Jews to the status of an allied nation—something that would have had immediate implications for the Jewish struggle for statehood in Palestine. Furthermore, it would have injected very large sums of money into the Jewish voluntary organizations that looked after the DPs, and would have financed both the illegal immigration into Palestine and also the purchase of arms for the Jewish underground there. In view of the British objections, the Americans agreed to a far more modest proposal. A compromise formula was reached whereby the nonrepayable victims of Nazism would receive: 1. All nonmonetary gold found in Germany (estimated to be worth $5 million);

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2. $25 million derived from German assets in neutral countries (this sum was just under 6 percent of the estimated German assets in Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal); 3. Heirless deposits in Swiss banks—that is, the bank accounts of Jews that had perished in the Holocaust. This money was to be spent for the benefit of the nonrepatriable victims who had been victims of Nazi persecution and their families. These principles were embodied in article 8 of the "Final Act of the Paris Conference on Reparations," signed in January 1946. 5 This was the legal beginning of the long and complex process by which the Jewish world was able to reclaim assets that had been looted and lost during the period of Nazi control in Europe. It was a very modest beginning. And it did nothing to advance the cause of restituting Jewish heirless assets that were scattered across Europe. Restoring to Jewish ownership the schools, synagogues, community centers, old-age homes, orphanages, hospitals, and other communal assets of vanished communities, together with the private assets of 6 million dead, became the focus of a widespread Jewish campaign. Within Germany, the American military government (OMGUS) took steps to restore Jewish property to the Jewish world. Ironically, OMGUS was spurred in its legislation by the actions of the Soviet occupation authorities. Under Russian tutelage, the land government of Thuringia debated a Weidergutmachungsgesetz (restitution law) as early as September 1945. This local legislation became law in October, making the Russian zone the first to promulgate restitution legislation. OMGUS accepted the idea that heirless assets be restituted to "international Jewish organizations," and in J u n e 1948, it authorized the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO) to take action to recover any unclaimed and presumably heirless property. By the end of 1948, JRSO had submitted 163,000 claims for the return of Jewish real estate within the American zone of occupation alone. In 1949, a similar organization was established in the British and French zones of occupation. Although JRSO had to defend its claim in local German courts, under the terms of the American military legislation, the current German occupier of Jewish property had to prove that the property had been acquired legally—that is, without the benefit of National Socialist law. By the beginning of the 1950s, the process of restituting heirless and communal Jewish assets in the western zones of Germany provided significant funds for the Jewish voluntary organizations that made up the JRSO. Two organizations in particular—the

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American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) and the Jewish Agency for Palestine—had been designated as the major "operating agencies." As they were the voluntary agencies most active on behalf of the survivors of the Holocaust, both inside the DPs' camps and in the tasks of resettlement in Palestine and elsewhere, most of the money raised by the Final Act on Reparations, and by the restitution of real assets in Germany, went to them. This was the second phase of the long and complex reparations process. Before discussing the third phase—the 1952 direct negotiations between the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Israel, and the Jewish organizations—a few observations should be made about the process. Between the end of the war in Europe and the dissolution of the vast majority of the DPs' camps in 1949 (following the creation of the State of Israel and the reform of American immigration law), almost 250,000 Jews that had either survived direct Nazi occupation or had fled the Nazis into the Soviet Union, had been sustained for years in camps, transported to places of resettlement, and "rehabilitated." This was achieved with money provided by Jewish philanthropy, the U.S. Army, and various international bodies. (An additional 250,000 Jewish refugees had been resettled between 1933 and 1940.) Funds that derived from the restoration of Jews' property did not play a significant role in this phase of the refugee rehabilitation process. The funds were too small and came too late. Furthermore, neither the "Final Act on Reparations" or the restitution of Jewish real estate in Germany would ever restore the billions that had been looted. Only the payment of genuine reparations for damage and suffering would begin to reverse the material damage done. The Jewish organizations faced another dilemma: how could Jews negotiate with Germans so soon after the crematoria and the gas chambers of Hitler's Third Reich? What recompense was possible for the murder of 6 million people and the destruction of communities hundreds of years old? Nevertheless, the question of reparations had to be confronted. Those who had survived the Holocaust were entitled to the restitution of assets taken from them. They were also entitled to indemnification for the loss of liberty, health, economic opportunities, and other intangible damages resulting from the destruction of their everyday lives. Accordingly, in September 1950, the decision was made to make two separate claims for reparations against Germany—one by the Israeli government and the other by the major Jewish organizations. For this purpose, negotiations would have to be conducted directly with Germany. There was to be full coordination between Israel and the organizations on this matter. Israel presented its

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claims in a series of diplomatic "Notes," which set out two approaches to calculating the size of the claim: one was based on the value of heirless Jewish assets outside of Germany that had been taken by the Nazis; the other was the "expenditure incurred and anticipated" for the resettlement of the Jewish immigrants from the countries formerly under Nazi control. As there were 500,000 such immigrants and the costs of transport, maintenance, and resettlement was calculated at $3,000 per person, the Israeli "Note" concluded with a claim of $1.5 billion. The reparations claim of the Jewish organizations was for an additional $500 million. Germany was willing to enter into negotiations, but there was a large discrepancy between what Israel and world Jewry demanded and what Germany was prepared to pay. Furthermore, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer insisted that reparations negotiations take place between the Federal Republic, on the one hand, and "jointly with representatives of Jewry and the State of Israel" on the other hand. This created a major practical problem for the interested parties. By its very nature, the Jewish world consists of autonomous geographical communities, ideological groups, and charitable organizations. And although several organizations had combined to draft the original claim against Germany, none of these, or any others, could claim to represent "Jewry." No "roof organization of the component parts of the Jewish world existed, and given the factious nature of Jewish communal life, it was seriously doubtful whether it was possible to create an organization with enough cohesiveness to conduct controversial and demanding negotiations. If such an organization was formed, and if the negotiations were concluded successfully, it would receive part of the reparations that Germany would eventually pay. It would then face the task of obtaining the consensus of its constituent organizations in deciding how to distribute these funds. Adenauer's demand to negotiate in this manner was a challenge to the Jewish organizations, which were still in the process of accommodating to the transformation of the Jewish world caused by the creation of the State of Israel three years previously. There were three central issues in this accommodation. Since the 1930s, the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) had been responsible for the political interests of Jewish minorities dispersed in countries whose governments discriminated against Jews. Each organization had its own modus operandi, each addressed itself to different governments and both were jealous of their domain. Israel's creation introduced an additional and more influential protector of Jewish interests, which ultimately made both the World Jewish Congress and the AJC reconsider their activities. One month after the German invitation had been publicly

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issued, twenty-three diverse Diaspora groups formed the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference) to conduct the negotiations with Germany, side by side with the Israeli-German negotiations held at the same time. The division of Jewish philanthropy between the needs of Israel, the needs of disadvantaged Diaspora communities, and the needs of local communities where the funds were raised was another area of potential discord. Finally, the general question of the relationship between the sovereign Jewish state and Jews who lived outside it was still being debated. 6 In principle, the Israeli global claim and the global claim of the Diaspora organizations were based on entirely different premises. Israel's claim was based on the cost of resettling and rehabilitating the 500,000 victims of Nazi persecution who had settled there since 1933. The claim was thus based on expenses actually incurred. Nevertheless, the Israeli claim also made reference to the heirless Jewish assets still in German hands as the moral basis for payments to Israel. Similarly, while the global claim of the Jewish organizations of $500 million was based primarily on heirless assets (and represented only a small proportion of those assets), in its explanation of the global claim the Claims Conference also referred to the past and anticipated future expenditures of the Jewish relief organizations. This latter point was of considerable interest to the German government. In 1950, the International Refugee Organization had transferred to the German government responsibility for the care of the 125,000 "hard-core" displaced persons still in German territory. These 125,000 were the remnant of the gigantic postwar refugee problem and were largely persons who could not be resettled because they represented problems of health, age, family composition, or occupational category. Some 46,000 to 50,000 were still in displaced persons camps. Although only a small proportion of the total number of DPs still in Germany were Jews, they represented a significant proportion of those still in camps, and in general the Jewish DPs presented particularly difficult social welfare problems. Two years after the West German government had been charged with responsibility for these people, the Diaspora organizations' global claim offered a prospect that the Jewish world itself would help resolve the most recalcitrant part of the problem of hard-core refugees. On the Jewish side, the needs of the aid organizations were massive. It was estimated in 1952 that there were up to 22,000 cases of serious mental or physical illness among the survivors of Nazism outside of Israel, with many more lived in Israel itself.

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Another 150,000 less serious cases would also need help. The magnitude of the human need that faced the Jewish organizations was no less than that which might have faced the ministries of health and social welfare in a small state. The conference's global claim would have to cover relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement expenditures not for one or two years but for more than a generation until the problem had been resolved. Given these facts, the global claim of $500 million was a victory for the "minimalists" and was considered to be significantly less than the real needs. The details of the negotiations between Germany and Israel, and between Germany and the Jewish Diaspora organizations, held in Wassenaar, Holland, during 1952, are well-known. In terms of direct reparations, none of the parties achieved everything that they wanted. Nevertheless, agreement was reached on the payment of approximately 50 percent of the original Israel claim (DM 3 billion), and 25 percent of the global claim of the Jewish organizations (DM 450 million). The Federal Republic refused to acknowledge any responsibility for East Germany's share of the reparations. In addition— and in money and human terms, vastly more important—agreement was reach for the payment of indemnification to individual survivors of the Holocaust for their suffering and loss of health and welfare. It was these individual payments that represented the vast bulk of money that Germany has subsequently repaid to the Jewish world since the Holocaust. In the years that have followed the 1952 Reparations Agreement, the terms of that agreement were expanded and improved. Since the end of World War II, large amounts of money have been paid to the Jewish world—to Israel, to the Jewish organizations, and especially to individual survivors—in the form of restitution, reparations, and indemnification. The process that started cautiously and controversially in 1945 has been a major source of funds for refugee resettlement and rehabilitation. However, money is not the only measure of the importance of this process. The fact that Germany made a serious and long-term effort to meet the material claims of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, despite the fears of all those involved in the negotiations on the Jewish side, has made possible the practical reconciliation between the Federal Republic and Israel, and, through Israel, with much of the Jewish world. Today's relations between Germans and Jews would be inconceivable if the material consequences of the Holocaust had not be resolved. Although the victims could not be brought back to life, their property ought not to have enriched the nation that murdered them. The reparations process also had a major impact on the complex fabric of relations within the Jewish world. The complexity of

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the legal, political, and diplomatic issues involved in the negotiations forced opposing organizations to work together. And the need to allocate the funds that began to flow into Jewish public-organizational budgets compelled the voluntary organizations to develop policies that replaced the ideological platforms that divided them. Decisions had to be made on how to use assets derived from one community (now destroyed) for the benefit of other communities that survived. It became necessary to debate objectives and priorities for the allocation of resources, which was unprecedented in Jewish history. Never before had the world of Diaspora Jewry been obliged to engage in such a collective and practical program for almost a half century. Similarly, the reparations process compelled voluntary Jewish organizations to work in close harmony with the State of Israel. This helped determine the nature of Israel Diaspora relations in the formative decade after Israel was founded. In the process of dealing with Jewish material claims resulting from World War II, the Jewish organizations together with the government of Israel evolved policies that made the material settlement program possible and effective. The Jewish world was seen as a whole and reparations and restitution funds deriving from the heirless or communal assets of one community were used for the benefit of all communities. Precedence was given to global, collective settlements rather than the time-consuming pursuit of specific property or individual claims. In addition, the Jewish organizations understood that the war had caused widespread destruction throughout Europe and that the Jews were not the only ones who had suffered materially. As a result, they could not demand the full restoration of the economic status quo ante and the restitution and reparations payments would not restore the original level of Jewish economic well-being. In other words, it was possible to compromise and to accept realistic material settlements rather than demand full compensation for Jewish losses. The success of the agreements reached between 1946 and 1952 also derived from the adoption of these principles by the Jewish world. Nevertheless, the coUectivist approach to restitution and reparations did leave many individual Holocaust survivors feeling that they personally had not received an equitable share of the payments, or that the Jewish organizations had disregarded the rights of individual survivors. In the agreements reached at Wassenaar in 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany undertook to make indemnification payments directly to survivors, in addition to the global payment to the Jewish organizations. This agreement was expressed in a series of Indemnification Laws passed by the German Bundestag, from 1956 with subsequent amendments and improvements. For

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the first two decades of the operation of the Indemnification Laws, Germany paid either lump-sum payments or pensions directly to those survivors who met the requirements of the German legislation. For many, this was a galling process during which the claimants had to prove to panels of German doctors and officials the disabilities and suffering incurred during the Holocaust. Although the process worked well on the whole, there were certainly many cases of indignities and the system was occasionally abused. Many survivors found the process intolerable. 7 But the direct German-survivor interaction did have one major advantage for the Jewish organizations: survivor dissatisfaction was directed against the German authorities, and the organizations themselves were only rarely the subject of public criticism. This changed in 1980. During the second half of the 1970s, increasing numbers of Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors, were able to leave Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Because these survivors had been unable to meet the filing deadlines for making indemnification claims while still behind the Iron Curtain, they were not able to benefit from any of the payments under the existing legislation. Beginning in 1975, the Claims Conference, the umbrella organization that had negotiated the original agreement in 1952 on behalf of the Diaspora organizations, began pressing the Federal Republic to extend the indemnification payments to the survivors that had recently come from the Eastern bloc. Although it took five years of unrelenting negotiations with Germany (Bonn originally refused to discuss the issue at all), by 1980 the Federal Republic agreed to establish a "Hardship Fund" of DM 400 million to make one-time grants of DM 5,000 to each of the survivors. Under the terms of this agreement, 80,000 survivors would have benefited. When first negotiated, in 1980, Germany required the Claims Conference to state that this would be a "final payment." But Jewish emigration from the Eastern bloc continued, and very soon it became clear that the original Hardship Fund would be totally inadequate, and the term final soon proved to be relative. The Federal Republic made a number of additional payments to the Hardship Fund, and by the end of 1999, over DM 1 billion had been dispersed to a total of 202,271 survivors. At the same time, Germany undertook to pay a further DM 343 million for the period 2002-2003 for subsequent new applications, in addition to the benefits paid to earlier claimants under the previous indemnification legislation. 8 The Hardship Fund greatly extended the survivor population that has benefited from the claims against Germany. But it also

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transformed the entire program. When the Federal Republic agreed, in 1980, to recognize its obligations to survivors from the Eastern bloc, it not only asked the Claims Conference to recognize the initial payment as a "final claims" (which they did, but it was not). The German authorities also insisted that they would no longer administer the program. Until 1980, the Claims Conference had monitored the implementation of the indemnification legislation from a distance, and administered a number of very small allocations programs of its own. But with the start of the Hardship Fund, the conference now undertook to replace the German social welfare system and to deal directly with the survivor-applicants themselves. This transformed the conference from a small organization operating out of a tiny office in New York into a major allocations authority with a staff of hundreds. More significantly, it replaced the German authorities as the object of survivor dissatisfaction with the process. For the past twenty years, the Claims Conference has been the target of much public criticism due to the bureaucracy and slow process of handling claims. Much of this criticism is characteristic of the relations between welfare agencies and their client populations and is ungrounded. However, the paternalistic policies of the Jewish organizations that provided the Claims Conference's leadership, soon became the object of public attention following the revival of Holocaust-related claims for reparations, restitution, and indemnification. During the 1990s, the widespread public interest in the events of the Holocaust, together with the feeling of many survivors that their personal property had not been fully restituted, provided the setting for the revival of claims that had not been fully resolved forty years earlier. It was a convenient issue, for Jewish political organizations found themselves without any practical agenda following the successful public campaigns for the release of Soviet Jewry and the ostracizing of Austrian president Kurt Waldheim. The World Jewish Congress adopted the Holocaust-era assets issues and with considerable political skill managed to integrate the issue of survivor rights to the U.S. domestic political agenda. The involvement of the State Department together with wide support of the American media created the circumstances for the settlement of a number of outstanding Jewish claims—against the Swiss banks, the insurance company, the German industry (for the use of Jewish and non-Jewish slave labor), and the residual restitution claims for Jewish-owned real estate in the territory of the previous East German state. The focus of these latest claims was on the rights of individual survivors, and the public drive to promote the latest demands

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assiduously avoided the fact that the agreements of 1945-1952 had already achieved very significant settlements of Jewish material claims. Attempts by contemporary European Jewish leadership to take this into account were brushed aside by the small Jewish leadership group in the United States that led the campaign. During the first stage of the reparations, restitution, and indemnification process, in the immediate postwar years, the material needs of the survivors were so great that the justice of Jewish material claims was very clear. Fifty years later, it is harder to make a claim on the basis of the unmet needs of the survivors, and it is proving difficult to establish the proprietary rights of survivors to specific equities so long after the events. Significant funds have been paid or promised, but their allocation to individual survivors on the basis of ownership will not be possible in very many cases. This was the situation anticipated by the Jewish organizations that were responsible for the 1945-1952 phase of the process, and explains the wisdom of the policy of the collective use of the funds derived. Furthermore, the representative mechanisms for distributing the funds that existed in the period 1950-1970 no longer exist. The Claims Conference is no longer the representative body that it once was, and there is no contemporary parallel to the annual board of directors meetings that once brought together a broad spectrum of leaders of Diaspora Jewry from around the world for the specific purpose of deciding policy and approving allocations. In addition, the conference is no longer the sole trustee of the funds. During this final phase of Holocaust-related material claims, the initiative was taken by different groupings, such as the World Jewish Congress, who now have an important role in deciding how the funds will be spent. It is not at all apparent to what extent the leadership of the current campaign is representative of Jewish communities, and whether a consensus will emerge as to the use of the funds. The large size of the settlements reached since 1995 have created a residual fund that may be more than $3 billion. In the absence of the factors that made the 1945-1952 agreements so successful, it is not yet clear what impact the latest payments will have on the long-term process of righting the collective and individual wrongs against the Jewish people.

NOTES 1. See Selig Brodetsky, president of the British Board of Deputies, to T. L. Dugdale, Member of Parliament, October 19, 1942, Records of the Board of Deputies, London Metropolitan Archives, Ace 3121/C11 /2/37/2.

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2. See Chaim Weizmann-Leonard Stein correspondence, December 1939, in Central Zionist Archives, Z4/15320. 3. World Jewish Congress, War Emergency Conference, Summary of Proceedings, Atlantic City, NJ, November 26-30, 1944. See also account of conference by the Foreign Nationalities Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, Report No. 229, January 18, 1945, Abraham Duker Papers, Weiner Library, Tel Aviv University. 4. Nehemiah Robinson, Indemnification and Reparations (New York, 1944). 5. See Ronald W. Zweig, "Restitution and the Problem of Jewish Displaced Persons in Anglo-American Relations," American Jewish History, 78, no. 1 (September 1988): 54-78. 6. Ronald W. Zweig, German Reparations and the Jewish World: A History of the Claims Conference, 2nd ed. (London: Perseus, 1987). 7. Christian Pross, Paying for the Past: The Struggle over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the Nazi Terror (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), passim. 8. Claims Conference Annual Report, 1999-2000.

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Part IV Education, Media, and Memory

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Chapter Nine The Holocaust: Representing Lasting Images in Film and Literature Frank Stern

The Holocaust has no analogy in other historical events or past ruptures that were reflected in the arts. Holocaust themes, decades after the event, belong to our understanding of Western art and aesthetic commemoration, be it in literary or visual form, in the performing arts or in architectural monuments of remembrance. The arts, the aesthetic representations, particularly in film have become a visual and often virtual place of memory. The screen is not just a space that comes to life once the lights in the movie theater are switched off, it is a constantly growing space for the creation and dissemination of memory. All copies of a film are originals and create the illusion of authenticity. Authentic, though, is only the audience, and the visual illusions come to life in their minds. It is there that the images combine with other places of memory that in itself has become a theme for fiction films. The dimension of representing Holocaust themes can only be compared, provocative as this may seem, to the representation of the Gospel in Western culture. Both experiences have been proven to be central for the self-understanding and self-reflection of Western society. Both refer to the Jewish-non-Jewish historical experiences and have been transformed into lasting works of art. An event, both real and imagined, documented and represented has been told and depicted in many forms giving it meaning or questioning its consensual interpretations. The historical event has changed the perception of the world, of history, of society, and of the moral and religious responsibility of the individual, and of generations to come. Both events are rooted in history, both events have changed the face of culture, both have created icons

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of representation, contributed to the dissemination of myths, and new frames of perception. Both have put individual responsibility into the very center of h u m a n fate, and both have led to new questions and answers concerning the Western concept of monotheism and our religious beliefs, concerning the modern assets of secular thought and the future of mankind. Obviously, both the Gospel and the Holocaust are not comparable, but the way their representations have had and will have an imprint on our understanding of history, of man, of God, and of individual responsibility, in fact, can be compared. The further we move away from the era of the Holocaust, the more we are able to see that many forms of documentation and personal recollections are substituted by aesthetic forms that depict these experiences and memories. Literary and visual styles deal with cultural legacies, stories, narratives, and myths, and are defined by the common denominator to "tell it" to new generations who, in turn, have cultural perceptions and expectations that are different from those generations who have witnessed the Holocaust. THREE DIMENSIONS OF REPRESENTING THE HOLOCAUST Before dealing with specific artistic works, a more general remark has to be made. Representing the Holocaust has at least three dimensions that always have to be reflected in all aesthetic, intellectual, and educational deliberations. First, the events, the recollections, the individual cases that are told or depicted in the work of art are rooted in history, in the period of the Holocaust, the 1930s and the 1940s, in Germany, and in those countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust is by no means a timeless event, a fate outside history, a mythical catastrophe. It is an event, an immense cultural rupture that was enacted by human beings, and that occurred in historical time and geographical space. The Holocaust has a chronology and a geography, and its history is as much related to World War II, as its end is related to the victory of the Allied armies over the German military forces. The German war against the Jews and the Gypsies was another theater of this war. However, it started long before the camps of annihilation were erected in occupied Poland, and, even more so, history did not end in May 1945. The liberation and the plight of the survivors led to many trials against perpetrators and collaborators culminating in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. The postwar generations began to question the war generation, Jews and non-

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Jews alike, and the development of the State of Israel always was related to the Holocaust. Anti-Semitic waves and historical revisionism that denied the singularity of the Holocaust influenced the perception of the Shoah. The European nations—and not just Germany and Austria—faced publicly their role in World War II and their responsibility in the Nazi politics of racist annihilation. In recent years, the resurfacing cultural Jewish life in Western Europe, particularly France and Germany, led to a new self-understanding of European Jewry, and to a new role of the Shoah in the evolving European Jewish identities. Literature and cinema became assets of this development, a young generation of writers and film directors, actors and artists of Jewish origin belonged to this creative change. Eventually, the cultural and intellectual confrontation with the Shoah will develop in parallel and also different ways in the three centers of world Jewry: North America, Europe, and Israel. Finally, the historical confrontation with the Shoah has its chronology and its geography as well. Second, a countless number of aesthetic representations of the Holocaust were produced during the years of the Holocaust. The drawings and poems of the children of Theresienstadt are famous to this day. The music of imprisoned Czech composers has survived, and so have paintings, diaries, and drafts for stories or memoirs or the songs of the Jewish partisans. Many of these works today are represented in local, regional, or national exhibitions in Europe, North America, Australia, and Latin America. The Nazis could murder but they could not kill the human spirit, sometimes only hidden in suitcases, manuscripts, compositions, and testimonies. Many of these works have been discovered, others will be found in the process of cultural archaeological work. These artifacts bear the weight of immediate responses, they reflect the horror of the environment of those who perceived and tried to grasp what was going on around them. Many of these works are integrated into contemporary culture. Today, these operas, musical pieces, poems, and plays are performed, can be heard on audio, and can be seen on video recordings. Actors, directors, and writers who survived contributed with their experience in the camps, in the underground, with their manifold ways of overcoming despair, persecution, and betrayal to postwar works of art. Some of those who perished, and many of those who survived, will forever speak to u s and to generations to come. The third representation is different from those works of art that were created after the event, in the immediate postwar period or the decades since then. Representations of Holocaust experiences and themes since 1945 reflect as much the Holocaust as the

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spirit of the time in which writers, poets, painters, actors, dancers, or filmmakers were turning to the past. The cultural context is twofold. It contains the recollections of the Holocaust, and it contains a conscious or unconscious reflection of the artistic, social, and intellectual climate at the time of production of the work. Paul Celan's postwar poems, Arthur Brauner's immediate cinematic response to the Shoah Morituri (1947, Germany); the novels of Primo Levi Is This a Man? (1958, Italy), Use Aichinger The Greater Hope/Herod's Children (1948, Austria), and Nico Rost Goethe in Dachau (1948, Netherlands); Alain Resnais's documentary Night and Fog (1955, France); Elie Wiesel's novel The Night (1958, France); George Steven's film The Diary of Anne Frank (1950, United States), Thorold Dickinson's film Hill 24 Does Not Answer (1955, Israel); Ka-Tzetnik/Yehiel Dinur's novel House of Dolls (1956, Israel); Peter Weiss's play The Investigation (1961, Germany); Yoram Kaniuk's novel Adam Son of a Dog (1969, Israel); Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel Enemies, a Love Story (1973, United States). R. W. Fassbinder's film LiliMarleen (Germany); Aharon Appelfeld's novel Badenheim 1939 (1975, Israel); Marvin Chomsky's television miniseries Holocaust (1978, United States); Louis Malle's Goodbye Children (1987, France); Cynthia Ozick's novella The Shawl (1988, United States); Orna Ben-Dor's film Because of That War (1988, Israel); Thomas Bernhard's play Heldenplatz/Plaza of Heroes (1988, Austria); Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985, France); Marcel Ophuls's documentary Hotel Terminus (1988, France); Imre Kertesz's Man without Fate (1975, Hungary; 1996, Germany); the diaries of Victor Klemperer (published since the 1990s); Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List (1993, United States); Istvan Szabo's Sunshine (1999, Canada, Germany, Hungary); and Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002, Canada, France, Germany, Poland) belong to different periods in the cultural confrontation with the Holocaust. All reflect different attitudes of artists, audience, and aesthetic climate. The culture of confronting both the memory of the Holocaust and its ongoing aesthetic representation is not static but a historical process in itself. The observation of difference holds true as well for the American, European, and Israeli perspectives on the Holocaust. Nothing shows this more clearly than fiction film that reaches out to a broad audience. Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker (1961) as a film that includes a confrontation with racism in America is very different from the East German Frank Beyer's Jakob the Liar (1974), which in turn is different from its Hollywood remake of 2001 or Francois Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), or Israeli productions such as Hill 24 Does Not Answer (1955) or The Summer ofAviya (1988). These differences can be seen in film Ian-

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guage, aesthetics, acting, and, even more important, narration and contextual messages of the films that refer to the cultural developments in each country. The films mentioned above and below are often based on novels, biographies, or told and untold stories. The literary and the visual genres mingle and intend to challenge our imagination. Hence, three general aspects should be considered when discussing, analyzing, or teaching cinematic, literary, or other aesthetic representations of the Holocaust: first, the historical context of the narratives in works of art; second, the presence of the voices both of the perished and the survivors; and third, the differences in style, time, and space of the representations. VIRTUAL PLACES OF MEMORY: TEXTS AND IMAGES The German Jewish writer Anna Seghers, who had fled Nazism and lived in Mexico until her return to postwar Germany, wrote at the end of her novel The Seventh Cross about those who were persecuted, and tried to resist: "We all felt how deeply and horribly the external forces could reach inside a person, into his very core, but we also felt that there was something in the innermost heart of humans that was unassailable and inviolable."1 Among emigres outside the European Nazi empire, this hope was the very core of a general sentiment to withstand, a feeling that even the worst and most horrible news from Germany could not be true. The first reports of the armies who liberated Europe proved something else. The worst nightmares of Western culture had come true. Nazi Germany had slaughtered millions of European citizens. Death mills had been working day and night, millions of fanatical believers and ordinary citizens had been involved in the organized mass annihilation. A historical rupture had swept Europe that had never been experienced by mankind. Years later it was called Holocaust. In 1945, there were no categories, no theories, no philosophical or psychological deliberations but there were tens of thousands of images. Photographs in black-and-white, and in color, filmed footage in black-and-white, and in color. The liberators never could forget the images they had seen when liberating the camps in the East and in the West. They wanted the world to see what they had seen, as did those survivors who wanted to tell, to speak out. When the writer Primo Levi was liberated, he had to experience an odyssey through Eastern Europe and Germany before he could reach his homeland of Italy. In later years, he recalled his feelings

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when the southbound train stopped in Munich, and he was walking through the streets of this German city, now in ruins. He could not understand why neither the Germans nor the world could perceive and realize what the surviving Jews and all those who had been alive at the time of liberation had experienced. 2 American soldiers tried to explain in letters to their families what they had seen when liberating Ohrdruf, Dachau, Buchenwald. The world did not seem to believe. The world had to face the images that were shown in newsreel shows in the movie theaters or in special screenings and documentaries all over the Western world. Survivors had kept diaries, and began to write memoirs, essays, poems, plays, novels, or newspaper articles. The world had been silent, and had turned its eyes away. Now, so it seemed to many survivors, the world should see, hear, and learn. This period is characterized by documentaries and documentary style in fiction films. Novels and biographical fictions depict the concentration camp universe, and the plight of the survivors. The immediate responses to the Holocaust in literature, and in the performing arts, particularly film, were defined by this twofold experience of liberator, liberated and the majority of the German and European population: they had seen many aspects of the truth, and they had heard things that reached from painful reminder to blunt distortion. In the first period after the liberation of the camps, nobody wanted to be left alone with his memory, only the perpetrators were hiding behind the mask of ordinary citizens. However, the shadow over Europe that the death mills had cast remained, although later voices claimed that the immediate response was silence and a visual blackout. This perception ignores the cultural and political realities of the early postwar period in Europe when the remnants of European Jewry, the survivors, the returnees, the images of hundreds of former concentration camps and camps of annihilation, and the public process of denazification and bringing Nazi criminals against humanity to trial created a visible and hearable environment. The victims of the Holocaust, and of World War II, were at the very center of public attention and rejection. In fact, the screens of the film theaters, which reopened in the spring and in the early summer of 1945, were full of documentary images, the newspapers and journals full of stories. By 1946 and 1947, the first feature films dealt with the Holocaust (Poland: The Last Station; Germany: The Murderers Are among Us, Marriage in the Shadows, The Path Is Long, and Morituri). The American writer Meyer Levin characterized the cultural and political developments in occupied Germany, and his observations as dealing with fatal questions inside the vicious heart. Given

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the desolate state of the German mind in the immediate postwar period, it is amazing to realize the following. Since 1946, no other film culture has produced as many films dealing with the Holocaust, Jewish issues, Nazism, and anti-Semitism as has Germany. Most astonishingly, this happened earlier than in France, the United States, and Israel. 3 There can be no doubt that the Holocaust poses one of the most fascinating challenges to creators of visual culture. How can the actor or director represent images of the Holocaust without offending survivors? Which images are necessary to convey the horror, the suffering, and the daily struggle to survive? Which cinematic elements are able to create a visual legacy that will convincingly tell generations to come about this immense rupture in European, German, and Jewish history and culture? Victor Klemperer, a German Jewish scholar who survived inside Germany, describes in his diary in 1945 that from a Jewish community numbering over five thousand in Dresden in 1933, just one hundred German Jews could be counted—and these people immediately became active in public functions. 4 The same happened in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, and other cities. Among those who had lived through the Third Reich were many public figures who had emigrated from Germany whenever one wave or another of anti-Semitism made it unbearable to live there. Among those who returned were many artists, actors, directors, writers, journalists, or German Jews who had been active in politics or anti-Nazi organizations. Others who had survived the Nazi period but were not allowed to work in their professions because of Nazi racial laws now tried to return to their work. In Berlin, Jewish directors, scriptwriters, and actors were involved in the making of films and theater productions from the beginning. There was, of course, no comparison with the legendary prewar German Jewish and Austrian Jewish film and theater scene, but it would be wrong to overlook the immediate impact of surviving and returning Jewish artists on postwar German cinema. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a series of films emerged from the newly founded Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft Studios in Babelsberg, which dealt in one way or another with questions of guilt, sin, ethics, and the German Jewish context. Emphasizing historical narrative as a means to explain the crimes of the recent German past, such films included Kurt Maetzig's Marriage in the Shadows (1947) and Council of the Gods (1950), Erich Engels's The Blum Affair (1948), Wolfgang Staudte's Rotation (1949), and The Kaiser's Lackey (1951) based on a novel by Heinrich Mann.

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Of this series, Marriage in the Shadows represents the most direct confrontation with German Jewish experience under the Nazi dictatorship. Already in 1945, members of the Berlin film community, among them artists of Jewish origin who had lived through the war in Berlin, decided to produce this film that would tell the truth about the German Jewish experience after 1933. It would show how non-Jewish Germans had failed to preserve their humanism, morality, and decency, and how German Jews had deceived themselves in dreaming of German decency. The film depicted the fate of the Gottschalk couple, both popular actors in the early 1930s, and showed in an almost semidocumentary manner the deterioration of the status of the Jews in Berlin and the opportunism of most Germans, who just turned their faces away. The film contains many details of daily life that are not emphasized or explained. There was no need for lengthy dialogue or explanation in 1947: the filmmakers could rightfully assume that everyone in the audience would understand because everybody had been witness to similar scenes in everyday life. The film premiered in all sectors of Berlin and within four years more than 12 million Germans had seen it. This is enormous for the time and can be explained by the public's need to reflect upon their own pasts, by their need for serious entertainment, by the popularity of the Gottschalks —and by the fact that a few thousand movie theaters had not been destroyed in the war. Until this day, this film remains as one of the few outstanding works of collective German remembrance. Immediately after the war, the writer Alfred Doblin returned in a French army uniform, and the writers Stefan Heym and Hans Habe returned with the U.S. Army. The writer Friedrich Wolf and his son Konrad, who later became one of the most outstanding German film directors, returned from Moscow; Anna Seghers from Mexico; Arnold Zweig and the painter Lea Grundig from Palestine; and Stephan Hermlin from Switzerland. 5 The writer Wolfgang Hildesheimer became an interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials. Actresses and actors such as Ida Ehre, Elisabeth Bergner, Lilli Palmer, Peter Lorre, Curt Bois, Ernst Deutsch; the director Fritz Kortner; and, for a period, even the famous director Fritz Lang tried to reenter professional life in postwar Germany. They and other returned exiles had an immense impact on the re-presentation and representation of Jewish topics within the emerging postwar culture. Hence, many of the early films are not just about Jews and the Holocaust but are produced with the participation of actors, directors, composers, or producers of Jewish origin. The problem is that most of these films were never brought to American or Israeli movie theaters. With the growing video and DVD market this be-

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gins to change, and films that were not at all available with English subtitles are now available and demand a reassessment of earlier judgments about German and Austrian postwar culture. One film, however, was also shown in North America and Israel. Israel Becker's movie Long Is the Path from 1948 depicted the fate of a Polish Jewish family from 1939 on, and focused on the postwar experience of the survivors, mother and son, as Jewish displaced persons in Germany. 6 It is a film produced by Jewish displaced persons so that a German and international audience would be confronted with the plight of the quarter of a million Jewish displaced persons in Germany at that time. The film revolves around the love story of the young hero and a German Jewish woman who has been liberated from a camp. In this respect, the film is exceptional because in most of the later films the gendered situations deal with Jewish-non-Jewish German relationships. Both survivors want to leave Germany because, as the young woman says: "Here I cannot forget." Around the same time, another Jewish survivor of Nazi persecution, the young Arthur Brauner, started his career as a film producer in Berlin. He wanted to produce a movie about the recent past that would reach out to millions and convey a democratic, antiracist, humanistic, and spiritual message. This film is almost forgotten. Its title is Morituri (Those Who Are Bound to Die; 1948, Germany; dir. Eugen York, based on an idea by Arthur Brauner), and it begins with a concentration camp scene. The film plays in occupied Poland. In the opening sequence of the 1948 film, the audience is confronted with a selection. This "selection," however, which drew on a common base of knowledge in the German population of 1948, had a different meaning than the deadly selections in the concentration camps. The doctor selects as not fit for work those men whom he believes are strong enough to escape the very same night to freedom. Images on the screen and connotations in the minds of the audience can have a very complicated relationship. Since the early postwar documentaries about the camps of annihilation, any image that refers to the Holocaust is drawing on a cultural blueprint that exists in the minds of millions. The images of discrimination, of isolation, of social death, and the ensuing deportation and murder are not cinematic imaginations but reflections of collective experiences—and thus collective memories—that invaded all strata of cultural creativity and social life.7 Films that face the past in the two German states have to be seen within their cultural and political contexts. Mainstream politics and ideologies also influenced film production. The cold war

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shaped the cinematic imagination not only in the East, but also in the West. While West German films in the 1950s and early 1960s grappled with the problem of how to establish the image of the decent German soldier, East German films turned to heroicizing the anti-Fascist and Communist resistance to Hitler. In both cases, however, one can find fascinating subversive elements whenever Jewish topics either propel a film or pass by like shadows of the past. In the late 1950s, works such as George StevenS's The Diary of Anne Frank (1950, United States), Elie Wiesel's The Night (1958, France), and Andre Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just (1958, France) were read by millions in Europe, Israel, and America. Beyond all other national recollections such as resistance and collaboration, being soldier or Nazi, victim or perpetrator, surviving hero or perished victim a central narrative evolved that dealt not just with the heroes of World War II but with the specific, unique, and singular annihilation of European Jewry. The cinematic shift to the Shoah outside Germany began in France with Alain Resnais's documentary Night and Fog (1955, France). However, it took decades before the documentation of Nazi extermination policies was extended to the similar fate of the Sinti and Roma, the Gypsies. Since the 1960s, however, aesthetic styles were probed that would help find a new film language to combine at once the unique and the universal of the Shoah. The Czech film Demanty noci (Diamonds at Night; 1963; dir. J a n Nemec, based on a novel by Arnost Lustig) is a convincing example of this development. The film shows the flight of two Jewish boys from a deportation train, and the hunt by ordinary citizens to catch them. It is a mise-en-scene of atmosphere, mentalities, and the behavior of ordinary citizens hunting down two innocent boys. In 1960, the Italian film Kapo (dir. Gillo Pontecarvo) showed the ethical problems of Jewish concentration camp inmates—in the case of this film, a young Jewish woman who gets involved with the persecutors, a topic that fascinated more and more Italian, French, and American filmmakers. The film, Nackt unter Wolfen (Naked among Wolves, 1963, Germany; dir. Frank Beyer, based on the novel by Bruno Apitz, which in 2004 is still a best seller), shows how inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp hide a child in the last few weeks before liberation. It is March 1945, and a death march from Auschwitz arrives in Buchenwald. Among the new prisoners is a Polish Jew carrying a suitcase. He has to leave the suitcase outside the barracks, and inmates of the camp discover a little boy inside. They take care of him. The father is deported, but the child lives, which, of course, is a basic constellation in recent films such as Life Is Beautiful (1998,

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Italy; dir. Roberto Benigni) or Je suis vivante etje vous aime (I'm Alive and I Love You; 1998, France; dir. Roger Kahane). The focus on children in hiding, their suffering, and their survival fascinated French filmmakers and can be seen in Claude Berri's The Old Man and the Boy (1967); Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien (1973) and Goodbye Children (1987); Pierre Sauvage's Weapons of the Spirit (1988) that fictionalizes the help of a small French Huguenotte village, Le Chambon, to secure the survival of more than five thousand Jewish children and teens; and, of course, Andrzej Wajda's Korczak (1991, France, Germany, Poland). 8 Another important film of the early 1960s contributed immensely to a new film language in the representation of the Holocaust. Camera work and historical research, sound and image, text and acting were admirably combined in Konrad Wolfs film Sterne (Stars; 1961, Germany). The film shows an episode in the deportation of Jews from Saloniki that implies the awakening of the moral consciousness of an ordinary German soldier. The opening sequence of the film creates images of deportation trains that can be traced forward and found, for instance, in Schindler's List The song by the murdered poet Mordechai Gebirtig is sung in a way that even a German audience which does not understand Yiddish will understand. Sterne is an impressive cinematic representation of the state of German historical consciousness at the time—a visual expression of responsibly working through the recent past. Films such as Professor Mamlock (1959, Germany; dir. Konrad Wolf) and Sterne, with their many images of Jews and persecution, established central Holocaust-related icons of collective memory. These films structured the perception of German Jewish relations. Thus, for many viewers, these representations of history sometimes became synonymous with the history itself. Nevertheless, there remained a strong element of ambivalence. The basic message of renewed national selfconfidence in a number of films—in both Germanies—was that millions had remained decent. This was an understandable reaction to the prior dominance of the concept of collective guilt, which had allowed for no nuanced interpretation of German crimes and German anti-Semitism. Exactly who these innocent millions were, though, differed across the cold war divide. The first Israeli fiction films, mostly with funding, directors, and production firms from abroad, that referred to the Holocaust such as Hill 24 Does Not Answer (1955), Jonathan and Tali (1953; dir. Henry Schneider), The Pillar of Fire (1959; dir. Larry Frisch), and The Basement (1963; dir. Nathan Gross) combine the stories of Holocaust survivors with Zionist resurrection. It is not always clear whether remembrance of the Shoah is more important than building the new Jewish state, or whether

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the Zionist rebirth is just another historical asset of collective Jewish recollections. These films are imbued with the danger of marginalizing the Shoah, which is a general characteristic of this period. But even in marginalized forms, such films succeeded in keeping the visual memory alive. A younger generation of authors and filmmakers had to develop new perspectives. The transition from the immediate postwar period to the 1960s influenced filmmaking and past related public discourse. Now that many stories had been told, deeper layers of individual and collective problems, of ethical and emotional attitudes, of ambiguities and doubt, of guilt and antagonistic memories demanded their adequate aesthetic representation. THE REPRESENTATION OF TRUTH—THE ATTRACTION OF BANALITY After the anti-Semitic wave that swept Europe in 1959-1960, academic and political debates about the social, intellectual, and political causes for the success, the terror, and the outcome of the politics of National Socialism led to a wave of remembering. This was enforced by the huge impact the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem had on the political cultures in Israel, the United States, and Europe. The trial became an international visual event, and Hannah Arendt's critical essay The Banality of Evil remains a controversial topic until this day. In the decades since the 1960s, public debates were often initiated by works of literature, theater plays, and, most important, films representing various facets of a world divided into victims, victimizers, and their respective bystanders. The theater play and film The Diary of Anne Frank has to be mentioned here, and theater plays of the early 1960s such as Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy that dealt with the role of the pope in the time of the Third Reich, Max Frisch's Andorra that illustrated the fatal impact of anti-Jewish prejudice, and Peter Weiss's docudrama The Investigation that dwelled on the crimes and psychologies of Nazi criminals. Such aesthetic works of the early 1960s provoked highly emotionalized public controversies, and contributed to a growing awareness of the singularity of the Holocaust, but such debates were usually followed by periods that focused on other aspects of public life and reflections of the past. In the 1960s in West Germany, a history book reform introduced relevant material on the Holocaust in the German school system. In the 1970s, the debate about a controversial play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Rich Jew, aroused public consciousness as did the historians' debate about

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the singularity of the Holocaust in the late 1980s, the debate about the crimes of the German Wehrmacht and the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin in the 1990s, and the resurfacing anti-Semitic sentiments in the early 2000s that have much to do with reactions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These debates are reflected in European, American, and Israeli film as was the Holocaust indirectly in the classic French film HiroshimaMon Amour (1959; dir. Alain Resnais). Such debates kept, and keep, issues related to the Holocaust on the agenda and were echoed in France and the United States as well as other countries. The growing publishing industry created an almost universal canon of novels, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, and scholarly works on the Shoah. The cultural transfer between Europe and North America was intensified the more literary and visual works were created by younger generations. Students in Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, and Berlin were reading the works of Primo Levi and the poems of Paul Celan, although much of German-language literature was confined to Europe. Very often, novels and films based on these works rescinded reading interests and discussions. In other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Holocaust was not such a focused issue, although some fascinating films were created. Beginning with the first postwar films produced in Germany, Austria, and Poland, filmmakers of a new generation faced the legacy of the past and created works that still should be seen and discussed. Films such as the Russian Komissar (1967/1987; dir. Aleksander Askoldow, based on a novel by Wassili Grossman) portray a Russian Communist woman at the time of the Russian Civil War. In 1967, the Jewish issues in this film that recast Russian remembrance of the Holocaust were central for the decision to censor and prevent the film from being screened until 1987. Other East European directors, such as Andrzej Wajda, included visual connotations of the Holocaust or Polish Jewish life in their films. The cinematic depictions in most European countries and North America increasingly began to cover all areas of Holocaust remembrance and representation. Cultural remembrance, scholarly debate, public discourse, and cinematic creativity became interwoven, although only film and novels reached out to a broader public and tried to combine the contradictions of serious commemoration and entertainment. The 1960s brought a growing awareness of ethnic diversity and problems. Sidney Lumet directed the outstanding film The Pawnbroker with Rod Steiger playing a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust; this film surpassed everything that the universalistic and simplistic 1959

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version of The Diary of Anne Frank could accomplish. The references to the Holocaust became at once universalized and Americanized. Woody Allen with his comedies, Paul Mazursky with Enemies a Love Story, and Mel Brooks with his humor running over the top were all striving for new territory where a Jewish cowboy could become a reality, albeit a funny one. Barbra Streisand proudly showed her nose and sang of the rise of a female Jewish singer. Decades after it really happened, the Jewish girlfriend and, later, wife of Wyatt Earp appeared on the screen, and in the Wild West the father of Cat Ballou greeted his Indian worker with the word Shalom. Increasingly, the ethnic reference to Jewish American life was becoming inseparable from representations that included the Holocaust and Israel. In Israel, particularly after the Israeli-Arab war of 1967, some films allow for parallels between Nazi Germany and the Arab States while others, in the 1970s and 1980s, discuss the role and problems of immigrants with reference to the European past. This was different from Europe where the historical dimension was at the very center of any reference to the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism, discrimination, deportation, collaboration, and the relationship of victim and perpetrator and survival were and still are historical dimensions of such films with different foci defined by national history, the state of historical consciousness, and remembrance. Holocaust films are replete with visual quotes, back- and foreshadowing of images that haunt our imaginations. Before we, the audience, analyze and discuss such films, these "cinematic memories" are already freely crossing borders in a virtual cinematic world between Europe, Israel, and North America. As images, they subtly construct our visual memory. In the future, the memory of the Holocaust will be defined less by the recollections of the survivors than by the representations of the filmmakers, scriptwriters, novelists, and playwriters. This is even happening to some extent today. With distance, in time, the virtual becomes increasingly the real. TO UNDERSTAND CAUSALITIES AND PSYCHOLOGIES Beyond issues of deportation and concentration camp horrors, beyond the relation between perpetrators and victims, many German and Austrian films also deal with the period before 1939. Some general differences can be mentioned. American filmmakers usually are more interested in the camp realities, the death mills, the Eastern European experience. French filmmakers deal with the French involvement under Nazi occupation, with collaboration and resistance, and include Shoah-related issues. Italian filmmakers focus

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on the context of Fascism and everyday life. Polish, Czech, and Hungarian filmmakers still have to grapple with the two periods of totalitarian rule and brutality, and other film cultures only began in recent years to turn to their history under Nazi occupation. In the coming decade, such differences will become less important because European film cultures develop more and more forms of cooperation and coproductions. The Shoah-related visual discourse will become more European while the literary discourse may still focus on the specific national experience. Works by a younger generation that freely commutes between Europe, Israel, the United States, and other countries indicate that the Shoah increasingly is not only perceived as a universal theme but that the creators of such works, be it literature or film, are much more mundane and cosmopolitan than the artists of the immediate postwar period. It was characteristic of German historical consciousness in the first three postwar decades after 1945 that the cultural discourse, including the cinematic discourse, centered on the prewar years, either the demise of Weimar democracy or the events surrounding the November pogrom of 1938, the so-called Crystal Night (Reichskristallnacht). A recurring topic, which sometimes unfolded from the perspective of children or youth, was the depiction of the help— or failure to help—of non-Jewish Germans, and of the horror that Jewish bourgeois life faced. These films portrayed growing up in Germany, desperation, loss, and emigration. With the increasing importance of television, many productions were initiated by German television stations, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Television became a central medium for imagining the so-called German Jewish symbiosis, for representing Jewish history in Germany, and particularly for depicting the fate of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Many of these fiction and nonfiction films incorporated images of exile and of Israel. Sometimes it seemed as if the German Jews had vanished one day in the late 1930s and reappeared in New York and Tel Aviv. Usually, this was a cinema of reconciliation, void of the terror of extermination, void of the individual faces of perpetrators. Films about Jewish suffering were almost a welcome salve for the living-room audience, as they often conveyed to the spectator the message that he or she could switch over and identify with the victim. In short, these films had a strong redemptive connotation, one of the reasons why the film EUROPA, EUROPA (1991, Germany; dir. Agnieszka Holland, based on the autobiography of Salomon Perel) about the Jewish Hitler Youth Salomon was not really successful in Germany. The character had spoiled the myth of the decent Wehrmacht soldier with the depiction of a homosexual soldier, and the idea of the innocent Jewish victim with scenes of

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sex, opportunism, and the ambiguities of a survival that was lacking in heroism but was nevertheless very real. 9 This film indicated that the depiction of concentration camp realities, of heroism, as for instance in the remarkable Uprising in Sobibor (1987, United States; dir. Jack Gold, based on the memories of survivors from the Sobibor camp) or problems of survivors that were characteristic for a number of American films such as The Pawnbroker (1960; dir. Sidney Lumet) or Enemies, a Love Story (1989; dir. Paul Mazursky, based on the novel by Israel Bashevis Singer), and the controversial Italian film The Nightporter (1973; dir. Luisa Caviani) switched to more detailed and individualized depictions. Gendered narratives became a focus, and sexual taboos that had been characteristic for Holocaust representations were questioned to reach a more sophisticated and less idealizing level of cinematic representation. Facing the perpetrators, though, became central for smaller productions, often documentaries or docudramas, for instance, by Erwin Leiser. Two outstanding docudramas that have to be mentioned are Theodor Kotulla's 1977 film about the SS commander of Auschwitz, Aus einem deutschen Leben (From a German Life) and The Wdnnsee Protocols (1987, Germany; dir. Heinz Schirk). The first depicts scenes outside the gas chambers and the visit to Auschwitz by Heinrich Himmler. The second film is a mise-en-scene of the infamous meeting of high-ranking Nazi officials in a Wannsee villa who discuss and decide on the Final Solution. The film focuses on the meeting's chairman, the SS leader and Gauleiter of the remaining territories of occupied Czechoslovakia Reinhard Heydrich. In 1943, Fritz Lang, in Hollywood, directed Hangmen also Die! that depicted the Czech resistance and the killing of Heydrich. This is an important film with references to the Holocaust that contributes to the discussion of problems related to anti-Nazi resistance. Films concentrating on the perpetrators are rare, though. It is often easier to depict the suffering of the victims than to individualize, to give name and identity to, the perpetrators. Music Box (1989, United States; dir. Costa-Gavras) is an exception since the film depicts convincingly how a Nazi perpetrator becomes an honorable member and beloved father in American postwar society until the truth about his criminal past is revealed. Since the 1980s, French films have confronted the myths of the French Resistance and dealt with collaboration while Israeli films react to the political shifts to the Right in Israeli politics. Zionist myths and problems of historical consciousness that refer to the ambivalence of instrumentalizing Holocaust remembrance are subtexts in such Israeli films as Link Gun (1979; dir. Ilan Moshensohn), Hide and Seek (1986; dir. Dani Wollman), The Summer ofAviya (1988; dirs. Eli Cohen and Gila

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Almagor), Because of That War (1989; Orna Ben-Dor), which portrays the popular singer Yehuda Poliker as a child of Holocaust survivors). German films, particularly television miniseries, focus on German everyday life under National Socialism or "bring to life" novels and memoirs. Since the quality of European and American television miniseries is fast eroding, it seems that not much of these series will remain for the video and DVD market, and, hence, for future artistic or educational needs. The serious fiction films of the decades after 1945 are much more helpful and show a higher narrative and aesthetic quality. In this context, it has to be mentioned that Holocaust topics also attract those who want to make fast money with this unique and universal event. Films of minor quality, pornographic movies, use the Holocaust as a background for their mise-en-scene. Of course, this is a phenomenon in itself that speaks for the place of the Holocaust in popular entertainment between kitsch, pornography, and high art. That this can be a burning topic was shown long ago in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Italy; based on the novel by the Marquis de Sade), a masterpiece that deals extensively and painfully with the context of Fascism and sexism. THE MOVING IMAGES OF THE HOLOCAUST AS MOVING SITES OF MEMORY Since the 1950s, the aesthetics of visually remembering on the screen were sometimes a hidden and sometimes an open discourse that transformed the Iron Curtain in Germany into a filter of cultural confrontation between the politics of memory in the East, and those in the West. One could observe two major tendencies: either the search for new cinematic ways to vary Holocaust narratives, or the imaginative use of elements of the Holocaust to come to terms with more recent social or political problems in postwar society. In one way or the other this also holds true for French, Israeli, and other film cultures. Some films tried to use Jewish characters to restore the image of the decent soldier or to stress images of the heroic anti-Fascist fighter. Others combined concepts of antiFascism and philo-Semitism with subplots that involved Jews, or mixed social critique with things Jewish. This was very often the case with directors of the so-called New German Film of the 1970s. There is almost no film by the directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Wim Wenders or Volker Schlondorff without such hidden and open references, usually leading to contextual problems. Certain

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elements, key words, or images became stock representations of the past in Germany, and very often the term memory became almost automatically loaded with meanings related either to the Holocaust or to the war. In the mid-1970s, the "high noon" of the postwar era, one of the more outstanding German films about the Holocaust was produced in East Germany. It captured many awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Today, Jacob the Liar (1974; dir. Frank Beyer) has not lost its power. The film was based on a best seller written by Jurek Becker, who as a child together with his father had survived the Lodz ghetto and then grew up in Berlin to become one of the most important German Jewish authors and scriptwriters of German postwar literature, film, and television. 10 Jacob the Liar was a watershed, and since then, films about the Holocaust have to be measured against this cinematic backdrop. Though full of humor and irony, the film does not indulge in false happy endings as does the peinliche (painful) Hollywood remake by Robin Williams (1999). In this respect, Beyer and Becker's film is a thoughtful product of European cinematic culture. It does not yield easy answers, but it does insist on humanity and hope. In the closing scene of the film, all of the protagonists are deported, and from inside the train, we see them remembering the distant past and imagining the unfulfilled future. Spielberg's Schindler's List already indicated with its final colorful scene in Israel that history, and Jewish history as well, goes on beyond the shadows of the Holocaust. Istvan Szabo's Sunshine (1999; Canada, Germany, Hungary) begins in nineteenth century Hungary and ends in post-Communist Budapest. Life stories of a bourgeois Jewish family show that despite anti-Semitic persecution and racist murder, some survived and guaranteed the continuity of European Jewish life. The same holds true for Roman Polanski's masterpiece The Pianist (2002; Canada, France, Germany, Poland) that begins with the German attack on Poland and ends with the first postwar concert of the polish-Jewish solist. The last two films are European coproductions and reflect this new tendency in European filmmaking. Israeli filmmakers and theater directors investigate the meaning of the past for the crisis of Zionism at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Akko Theater Groups's play Arbeit machtfrei (1991; dir. David Maayan) and the film about this play Don't Touch My Holocaust (1994; dir. Asher Tlalim) connect Holocaust remembrance with the experiences of Israelis of Oriental and Arab origin. These productions, thus, achieve universal and provocative meaning, and overcome another limit, an exclusive Jewish perspective that could be found in Israeli culture.

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Widely received films such as Marriage in the Shadows, Night and Fog, Jacob the Liar, Shoah, Schindler's List, Life Is Beautiful, Sunshine, and The Pianist establish lasting cinematic images of memories and remembrance that are quoted again and again. They resist tendencies of amnesia and intentional forgetting. Within this context of amnesia and memory, cinematic references to the Holocaust are not at all limited to a specific type of narrative or film genre. Two lesser-known films, in particular, have to be mentioned. These deal with the public German discourse on remembering and representing the Holocaust and "things Jewish" in contemporary Germany. The first is the already mentioned film by Thomas Brasch, cowritten by Jurek Becker, The Passenger—Welcome to Germany. This, in fact, is an extraordinary cinematic work on film as a medium of memory, and, at the same time, a fundamental critique of Nazi cinema. A Nazi filmmaker, supposedly a fictional mixture of Veit Harlan and Leni Riefenstahl, selects Jewish inmates of a concentration camp as extras for an anti-Semitic movie. The audience does not really know whether this is a memory or the realistic depiction of past events, because the whole film is about making a movie about a movie about perishing in the Holocaust, and about survival, and about the eventual memory of these past events. Through these obscuring layers, the film, in fact, questions our whole concept of memory—and memory on a public level. Tony Curtis plays the leading role as an American film director who comes to Berlin to rediscover his Jewish past and his moral responsibility. Thomas Brasch, the director, and J u r e k Becker, the scriptwriter, are both of Jewish origin. Jurek Becker published another novel, Bronstein's Children that was transformed into a movie for German television in 1990 (dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz). The film tells the story of Jewish families in East Berlin in the 1970s. Through the eyes of an eighteen-yearold boy and his girlfriend, both Jewish, past and present are interwoven. The narration is unpretentious, the story familiar to every Jew who has lived or has grown up in postwar Germany. The film plays in 1970s East Berlin. In one scene, the two young Jewish heroes of the movie meet on a film set where she is playing the role of a deported Jewish girl. As they leave the set together, he tells her that she should only have agreed to play a Jewish woman if the SS men were played by real SS men. The whole dilemma of depicting Jews in German and Austrian cinema is given its visual and verbal denouement. She plays a dark-eyed and dark-haired beauty. But when wig and makeup are removed, we see a blond-haired, bright-eyed girl who has been "deconstructed." The imagined, abstract Jew has become a real Jew,

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who lives in Germany before and after unification. The film indicates the new self-consciousness of a younger generation of German Jews—and quashes any residual stereotyping that might occur on the public level. The Austrian film Gebilrtig (2002; dir. and author of the script, based on his novel, Robert Schindel) takes up the ambiguities of growing up Jewish in Vienna after 1945 and can be compared to the Berlin film. Both films deal with the culture of antagonistic memories and with the relevance of the Shoah for the contemporary Jewish-non-Jewish dialogue. Together with a relevant number of other cinematic representations, most films that I have mentioned thus far inform an ongoing cultural debate about two crucial problems: the generational dimension of memory, and the pitfalls of constantly surpassing the limits of representing the Holocaust and Jewish themes on the screen. The 1980s culturally set the stage for what has become the renewed German Jewish or Austrian Jewish experience since the early 1990s. Since then, we have increasingly to deal with cinematic and literary images of German Jewish and Austrian Jewish self-understanding in a German civil society. Authors such as Robert Schindel, Robert Menasse, Doron Rabinovici, and Elfried Jelinek in Vienna and the later Thomas Brasch, Jurek Becker, Stefan Heym, and Esther Dischereit in Berlin open new dimensions in their aesthetic references to the Shoah. The Jewish perspective is not just focused on Germany from the outside, either from America or Israel, but it is increasingly a perspective from inside Germany. As they face the past in their own cultural productions, Austrian or German Jews do not need deputies anymore, a fact that could already be seen in France or Hungary. The debates of the 1980s and 1990s about the limits of the representation of the Shoah seem to be over. Although scholars have debated for many years whether there can or should be limits to the representation of the Holocaust, we come to understand that these limits are only defined by the limits of the cultural consensus of a given period. Often, the term limits seems to be another word for taboo or the feeling of uneasiness when specific touchy topics of the Holocaust are the subject of aesthetic representation. For many years, such subjects were, for example, the gas chambers, the Sonderkommandos, the role of sexuality and sexual abuse in the camps, the role of Kapos, cannibalism, and collaboration of persecuted Jews with Nazi perpetrators. Looking back at more than fifty years of artistic preoccupation with the Holocaust, it becomes obvious that even such problematic subjects have been dealt with before. The writer George Tabori has already dealt with cannibalism in his theater play The Cannibals

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(1969). Sexuality and sexual abuse have been topics in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies—A Love Story (1989; United States), in Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker (1961; United States), or in Luisa Caviani's Nightporter (1974; Italy). The view through the eyeholes of the gas chambers has been the subject in such films as Kotulla's A German Life (1987; Germany) and Gosta-Gavras's Amen—The Deputy (2001; France, Germany). The Sonderkommandos, annihilation camp inmates who had to work at the gas chambers and crematoria, are the exclusive subject of a Hollywood film under production in 2003. Other films that are preoccupied with problematic or marginal aspects of the Shoah will doubtlessly follow in the coming years. Beyond all questionable and purely marketoriented film productions, this development indicates a shift in cinematic culture. The Shoah as a historical event and all its repercussions have been established on the screen. The focus is not that the story has to be told but how it has to be told to achieve the cultural ambition—to "tell it." Filmmakers in many countries have overcome imagined boundaries and self-imposed limitations that contradict their cinematic project. The images of the Shoah produced today are by no means authentic reproductions but they are authentic insofar as they represent the artistic challenges to tell it to new generations. The outstanding films produced between 1946 and 1948, and this cannot be stressed enough, could also be revived through serious and thoughtful remakes. In twenty-first century Western culture there are no limits to the aesthetic representation of the Shoah, though, this does not mean that financial or thematic aspects of film production cannot interfere with content. The general problem, though, that is characteristic for popular culture remains on the agenda: the balance between historical narrative and contemporary needs for good entertainment is not always easy to master. Results of historical research and public debates on problems relating to the culture of remembrance and the Shoah interfere with aesthetic representations in film, literature, or architecture as the international debates on Schindler's List and the architecture of the Jewish museum in Berlin indicate. The necessary balance, though, can also be disregarded when pure entertainment becomes more relevant than historical accuracy. Joseph Vilsmaier's 1998 film of the famous a capella band Comedian Harmonists is an example of a convenient representation of the past. The immense conflicts between the Jewish and nonJewish members of this group at the time of the Nazi's rise to power are smoothed down and polished for the sake of an idealized German Jewish past. Films of this ilk, as entertaining as they

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may be, always flirt with the danger that the aesthetically brilliant and pleasing representation of a bygone world may turn out to be a one-way road out of history, where remembering becomes a means to forget. Among widely read novels, this phenomenon occurs as well. Bernhard Schlink's novel The Reader that describes the sexual relation between a young postwar German man and a female former concentration camp guard is full of cliches and historical voids that characterize the gaps of "working through the past" in Germany. A further illustration of this wave of entertaining by obmission is the widely debated film Aimee and Jaguar (1998, Germany; dir. Max Farberbock, based on the biographical fiction by Erika Fischer), which won two prizes at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival for the leading female actresses. The film is based on the memoir of a young German woman, married to a Nazi, and mother of four. She falls in love with a beautiful Jewish woman who lives illegally in Berlin, works for a newspaper, helps the underground, and is the strong personality in a group of lesbians. 11 It is 1943-1944 in Berlin, time for love, time for Gotterdammerung, time for the last Jews of Berlin to survive the Nazi ambitions to transform Berlin into an Aryan city. It is a film of strong emotions, of eroticism and sex. In fact, after the memoirs of Gad Beck and others, the time has come for films that show love and sexuality as means of survival, and therewith overcome the tendency to look with voyeurism and sexism at the Holocaust and issues of sexuality. 12 The contribution of Aimee and Jaguar lies in the fact that it shows the life of young secular Berlin Jews who, except for the Jewishness forced on them, do not seem to be different from others of their age. In this sense, the film comes from the insider's perspective. However it is not a docudrama, and both book and film have been discussed in German media in terms of historical accuracy where the two heroines and their story are concerned. The Jewish woman is caught, deported to Theresienstadt, and perishes. In one of the central scenes, the young Jewish woman has her "coming out" as a Jew. The reaction of her non-Jewish lover, though, is affection, not rejection. "Do not leave me alone"—uttered by the German side in this German Jewish relationship has, of course, highly symbolic meaning, ambiguous meaning. Even today we have to ask who, in fact, has left whom in the overall tragic German Jewish love story behind this microtragedy. Such debates are not limited to German films. In the past, there have been many debates on Mel Brooks's sharp satirical comedy The Producers/Springtime for Hitler (1969; United States) that refer back to discussions on Charles Chaplin's The Great Die-

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tator (1938; United States) and on Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be (1942; United States), and resound in the critique of Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful (1998; Italy) or in the discussions about the French-Rumanian coproduction Train of Life (1998). All of these films try, more or less successfully, to tell their stories with humor, music, and a satirical edge. The fact that all of them are well represented in the video market, and that some of them have become classic or even cult movies, illustrates their impact on the visual consciousness of generations. Many of these entertainment films doubtlessly trivialize the Jewish experience, but we should never forget that there are many other movies on the subject that do not trivialize, and that do not reach the American or Israeli movie theaters. German films about the Holocaust are part of a cinematic and broader cultural discourse. Many are referential and self-critical. There can be no doubt that most films are, in a broad sense, cinematic contributions to the serious debate on Holocaust remembrance and on film as one of the aesthetic sites of the Shoah in Western culture—as ambiguous as some of them may be. Such ambiguities highlight the very existence of ongoing productive endeavors to remember the pain and the feeling of loss. Remembering always implies a process of forgetting, and we have to be conscious of the fact that we do not know all the time what to remember and what to forget. To raise didactic fingers whenever works of art provoke an audience is a general problem of culture. In the case of aesthetic representations of the Shoah it figures as a byproduct of public discourse. Concerning Europe, though, we should never forget that images of Jewish women, men, and children on the screens fill a real void that exists in European society as different from North America. Such films revitalize images of the past for popular imagination. They create a whole world of imagined Jews that may perhaps not always live up to historical research or to our knowledge of Jewish social life and culture. Younger European generations, however, may find here sources for learning about their own families and emotional resources for the development of their identities. We know that neither the grandparents of the generation of younger non-Jews nor elementary or higher education can provide what all of these films, regardless of their educational or entertainment value, try to establish—images of something that today's Europe can never be part of, namely, the European Jewish experience of the past. These films fill a cultural and social void. They are the visual representation of a cultural longing, and of remembrance. It might seem base that films facing the past actually serve this sort

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of purpose. But, in fact, that is the essence of art, cinematic aesthetics, and movies about the Holocaust. There can be no doubt that in the years to come more stories will be told about the Holocaust. At the same time, we will witness a newer and younger generation of authors and filmmakers. Kurt Maetzig's Marriage in the Shadows, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, Istvan Szabo's Sunshine, and Roman Polanski's The Pianist are films that can be seen as four outstanding contributions to the visual confrontation with the Shoah and related issues since 1947. They highlight the transition from the mid-twentieth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century. They focus on specific personal narratives and pose questions of guilt and responsibility while avoiding cliches of good and evil and stressing the ambivalences imbued in the experience of the Shoah. The 2003 production by Arthur Brauner, BabijJar (2003, Germany; dir. Jeff Kanew) about the mass killing of 33,000 Jews in 1941 by Nazi soldiers, is a very emotional and personal narrative that does not shy away from images of brutal mass shootings or from the complicated relationship of Jews and Ukrainians. Another German film by a filmmaker of the younger generation may illustrate this tendency. Meschugge (The Giraffe; 1998, Germany; dir. Dani Levy, script Dani Levy and Maria Schrader) constructs a brilliant metaphor for the ambivalence of this renewed German Jewish experience. Toward the end of the film, the young Jewish lovers have to discover that the woman is not Jewish at all but that her grandfather was a brutal SS man. Her identity has vanished with this growing knowledge about the role of her family in the Holocaust. She climbs the tree of her childhood, a symbol of lost innocence, and a reminder that this postwar generation has lost its innocence too. David, the Jewish hero of the film, follows her. She hands him her necklace with the Star of David, and he starts to tell her a riddle: "Dog is standing on one side of a pond, and wants to get to the other side. But he is not allowed to swim and to walk around it. So, how does he reach the other side?" She looks at him and says, "I don't know." "Very simple," he says, "he swims." "But he is not allowed to swim." He looks at her and says: "Well, he swims anyway." And that is where we are more than a half century after everything, maybe only on the screen, in the movies, but maybe in real life as well. Cinema is always the mind's eye, seeing beyond the mirrors of reality. It might force an encounter with a painful past; it might serve a redemptive function; it might trivialize; it might deconstruct stereotypes. But through cinema, no matter what its purpose, we start to swim again. We face the past. But then, we

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h e a r in t h i s s c e n e of Meschugge, after t h e lovers kiss, a s h o t from t h e family's n e a r b y h o u s e . The Nazi perpetrator h a s committed suicide. The s h a d o w of t h e Holocaust e x t e n d s far into t h e future, far beyond t h e screen.

NOTES 1. Anna Seghers, Das Siebte Kreuz (Berlin, 1976), 410. 2. See Primo Levi, If Not Now, When? (London: Penguin Books, 1987). 3. A general overview of the first decades can be found in Annette Insdorf, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (Cambridge, UK: Continuum, 1983); and on literature in Andrea Reiter, Narrating the Holocaust (London, 2000). 4. Victor Klemperer, So sitze ich denn zwischen alien Stuhlen: Tagebucher, 1945-1949 (Berlin, 1999). 5. See Frank Stern, "And When I Returned—I Didn't Return": German-Jewish Writers after 1945," in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096-1996, ed. Sander L. Gilman and Jack Zipes (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 634 f, and "The Return to the Disowned Home—German Jews and the Other Germany," New German Critique 67 (1996): 57 f. 6. Lang ist der Weg (1948), directed by Herbert F. Fredersdorf and Marek Goldstein, and based on ideas by Israel Becker, who later emigrated to Palestine and became a prominent actor at the Habima Theater. 7. Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 8. On French films, see Andre Pierre Colombat, The Holocaust in French Film (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993). 9. See the memoir by Salomon Perel, Europa, Europa: A Memoir of World War II (New York, 1997). 10. Jurek Becker, Jacob the Liar: A Novel (New York, 1975). 11. Erica Fischer, Aimee and Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 (London, 1996). 12. Gad Beck, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Madison, WI, 1999); and Larry Orbach and Vivien Orbach-Smith, Soaring Underground: A Young Fugitive's Life in Nazi Berlin (Washington, DC, 1996).

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Chapter Ten Teaching the Holocaust Today Sophie Gelski and Jenny Wajsenberg

The study of the Holocaust encompasses many interconnected issues: historical, ethical, sociopolitical, civil, legal, philosophical, psychological, and religious. It is precisely this complexity that provides the rationale to include the Holocaust and its lessons into the mainstream of the curriculum. From the historian's perspective, we study the past to better understand where we are in the present. Much of the second half of the twentieth century has shifted the focus from society locating itself in a continuum and has pushed it toward a "here-and-now" epistemology. But even for a world preoccupied only with the present, the lessons of the Holocaust hold relevance. Irrespective of interpretation, the Holocaust formed part of a transformational event in the twentieth century: World War II. Like the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution—major events of modern history—the Holocaust not only shaped its own time but also the times that have come after it. Many teachers lack not only adequate historical knowledge but also the necessary professional background and training to teach the Holocaust. Consequently, teachers who do take up the challenge need to be mindful of the academic debates that now proliferate among scholar-specialists in the field of Holocaust studies. They need to acquaint their students with multiple perspectives, and prepare and encourage them to be critically reflective. Naturally, this makes it imperative for teachers to understand the substance of these historical debates and the politics that underpin each author's interpretation.

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THE UNIQUENESS OF THE HOLOCAUST The "uniqueness question," one of the many conundrums of Holocaust scholarship, generates the most vitriolic, partisan and divisive positions (see the chapters written by Yehuda Bauer and Danny Ben-Moshe in this volume). When we examine the Holocaust, we are presented with the following dilemma. If the events of the Holocaust, exceed the reach of rational historical and sociological inquiry and comprehension, and are therefore declared unique and unprecedented (as they frequently are), then they must lie beyond the possibility of human understanding. However, if it is not a historically unique event—if it is only one, be it the worst, of a range of episodes along our long road of inhumanity—then it is imperative that we not only understand it but that we also learn from its lessons. Indeed, insistence upon its historical uniqueness may render the Holocaust irrelevant except as a specifically Jewish tragedy. If what happens to the Jews is unique, then by definition it doesn't concern us, beyond our pity and commiseration for the victims. If the Holocaust is not a universal problem, then why should a public school in New York or Timbuktu teach it? Well, the answer is that there is no uniqueness, not even of a unique event. Anything that happens once, can happen again: not quite in the same way perhaps, but in an equivalent form.1 It becomes central to this discussion that we develop a framework that will explain the claim of "uniqueness." Alan Rosenberg claims that this entails "unpacking" the "uniqueness question." 2 The Jewish community insisted that the Holocaust must be viewed as unique; they themselves chose the word Holocaust to denote their particular fate during World War II.3 As the horrifying facts became known, the diabolic dimensions of the Holocaust appeared incomprehensible and unprecedented—making the resultant trauma the central tenet of the claim to uniqueness. What, precisely, do we mean when we claim an event to be unique? The Macquarie Dictionary provides three definitions for the word unique: (1) of which there is only one, (2) having no like or equal, and (3) rare or unusual. Accordingly, every event can be considered unique, for no historical event is ever literally repeated or is the exact copy of any other event. To describe the Holocaust as "rare" or "unusual" would undeniably diminish, if not seriously trivialize, its importance. If we intend to avoid the pitfall of such trivialization, we must critically examine the intentions/politics of those who are adamant about making this claim. Upon deliberation, it becomes clear that the claim of uniqueness is to bracket the Holocaust from other historical events. If the French Revolution, for example, is

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considered a unique event in Western history, it is because it radically transformed Western culture, that is, altered its codes, narratives, and values. It became a world historic event in the sense that its appearance on the world stage threatened or promised to change the fundamental course of the world.4 By adopting such a definition, it is possible to claim that the Holocaust and events such as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima can be categorized as unique. Scholars and educators are deeply divided over this question of uniqueness. Rosenberg believes that they can be classified into three main groups: trivialists, absolutists and relativists/contextualists. 5 The first, the trivialists, interpret the Holocaust as unique in the sense that all historical events are singular and different from any other historical event. They argue that as history never repeats itself the uniqueness of the Holocaust is confirmed. Diametrically opposed to this group are the absolutists, who are emphatic that the Holocaust is unprecedented in modern times. 6 Its particularity is such that it has to be radically set apart from all previous traumatizing events. Its horror so enormous that it is inexplicable in ordinary rational terms—defying description, understanding, and appraisal. The third group represents an amalgam of the first two positions and argues that the Holocaust is "relatively" unique. (We will ignore the fact that linguistically this is an oxymoron.) Proponents of this position acknowledge that the Holocaust has singular features that bracket it as a historic event, but they also claim that it shares elements that are common to other genocides. 7 Posited this way, the Holocaust is neither ahistorical (as claimed by the absolutists) nor merely another atrocity (as the trivialists advocate). The relativists /contextualists maintain that the Holocaust needs to be interpreted contextually. Therefore, it is plausible to consider the Holocaust as historically unprecedented: never before in the history of the modern Western world had an event of such magnitude occurred. However, even this radically transformational tragedy must be viewed within the framework of history and therefore must be compared to genocides and traumas with which it shares some qualities. The relativists consider it imperative that the language we use to describe and analyze the Holocaust be clear and unambiguous and that we do not claim the causes of the Holocaust to be beyond the scope of historical and sociological scholarship. They warn that if our historic understanding is incapable of explaining such events, we risk the occurrence of similar catastrophes in the future. These three positions are further developed by the work of sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander when he postulates that the Holocaust— the quintessential "trauma drama" of the twentieth century—has become:

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the archetypical radical evil of our time. Yet it was this very status—as a unique event—that eventually compelled it to become generalized and departicularized. For as a metaphor for radical evil, the Holocaust provided a standard of evaluation for judging the evility of other threatening acts. By providing such a standard of judgement [sic] the Holocaust became a norm, initiating a succession of metonymic, analogical and legal evaluations that deprived it of "uniqueness" by establishing its degrees of likeness or unlikeness to other possible manifestations of evility. . . . The Holocaust is unique and not unique at the same time. This insoluble dilemma marks the life history of the Holocaust since it became a tragic archetype and a central component of moral judgement [sic] in our time. 8 Rosenberg, like Alexander, believes that: we should not accept any one approach to the "uniqueness question" as true—and the others as false—but . . . we should try to discover which of these approaches yields the most coherent and intelligible results; which framework elucidate[s] the problems of understanding the Holocaust most clearly and is the most promising for understanding its historical and moral significance.9 B u t above all, it is i m p o r t a n t for t e a c h e r s to u n d e r s t a n d t h a t t h e u n i q u e n e s s q u e s t i o n is a d e b a t e t h a t m a y even d e t r a c t from their s t u d e n t s " ability to seriously reflect on t h e weight a n d significance of t h e events.

DOES THE HOLOCAUST HOLD RELEVANCE FOR ALL OF US OR ONLY FOR THE JEWS? Often t h e context within w h i c h t h e Holocaust is t a u g h t is det e r m i n e d by a combination of political a n d pragmatic decisions. It h a s yet to e a r n a discrete place in m o s t school curricula. School b o a r d s a n d senior a d m i n i s t r a t o r s are responsible to p a r e n t bodies a n d c o m m u n i t y g r o u p s : e a c h with their own p a r t i c u l a r a g e n d a s . D u e to t h e dictates or compromises of t h e syllabus, t h e Holocaust is often t a u g h t by t e a c h e r s w h o a r e u n p r e p a r e d by professional b a c k g r o u n d a n d training to t e a c h it. They do so either, in a cursory fashion, t h r o u g h t h e r u b r i c of racism, stereotyping, a n d s t u d i e s of power or in t h e context of a national study—twentieth-century Germ a n y . In denominational schools, t h e Holocaust is often relegated to or h i d d e n in religious e d u c a t i o n or t a u g h t a s a topic in J e w i s h history in J e w i s h s t u d i e s d e p a r t m e n t s , divorced from its place in t h e history c u r r i c u l u m . Many t e a c h e r s firmly believe t h a t t h e Holocaust w a s a tragedy t h a t befell t h e J e w s a n d t h e J e w s alone. Undeniably, t h e Holocaust

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is a Jewish tragedy—but not exclusively. The implications as well as the universal lessons of this man-made catastrophe should be of major importance to teachers across a range of subject disciplines. Zygmunt Bauman addresses this very issue when he says that "the Holocaust was not simply a Jewish problem, and not an event in Jewish history alone. . . . The Holocaust was born and executed in our modern rational society, at the high stage of our civilization and at the peak of human cultural achievement, and for this reason it is a problem of that society, civilization and culture." 10 He argues that the discoveries and the crucially important work of specialists become particularized and marginalized by segmenting the study of the Holocaust into specialist areas or by bracketing it into history. He maintains that to examine the Holocaust this way has two outcomes—both negative: first, that these discoveries rarely become integrated into the core canon of the various disciplines; and, second, that they absolve mainstream teaching and scholarship from further preoccupation with them. n One of the most compelling lessons of the Holocaust is Hannah Arendt's recognition of the "ordinariness" or the "banality" of evil.12 The proposition that evil deeds are not necessarily committed by evil people—they can be perpetrated by anyone and in any society— is terrifying. In the early 1970s, Stanley Milgram an American psychologist demonstrated that ordinary, well-educated college students would follow the "voice of authority" even to the point of inflicting serious levels of pain on innocent individuals. These findings as well as raising grave questions about the "good" nature of human beings also question what it means to be a human being. 13 In Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (2001), Christopher Browning discusses his empirical findings, which simultaneously reinforce Milgram's experiment and lend weight both to the ordinariness of the evil argument and to the imperative of universalizing the moral implications of Nazi crimes: What allowed the Nazis to mobilize and harness the rest of society to the mass murder of European Jewry? Here I think that we historians need to turn to the insights of social psychology—the study of psychological reactions to social situations. . . . We must ask, what really is a human being? We must give up the comforting and distancing notions that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were fundamentally a different kind of people because they were products of a radically different culture.14 The Holocaust and the Nazi euthanasia program raise many significant questions about the ethics, the mores, and the norms

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of society not only during the Nazi regime but also before and after it. Some of these concern the very fabric of law and order, the power of the state and its role in crimes against humanity, and the role of God and religion in the Holocaust. As a significant event that highlights the bankruptcy of "normal values" in a modern society, the study of the Holocaust is integral to society's values and civics education. LANGUAGE AND THE HOLOCAUST Like all significant historical events, the Holocaust has generated its particular literary genre: Elie Wiesel is one of its bestknown literary exponents, and Sylvia Plath, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Alexandra Voisnesensky are some of the poets who explore this difficult subject. There has also been a proliferation of autobiographies by people who otherwise would have never contemplated putting pen to paper. Interestingly, while film, the visual arts, and literature have responded strongly to this event, music has remained mute. This could be because musicians, like some literary critics, argue that the Holocaust is the literature of "silence" and the "grey pall."15 Some Holocaust survivors, 16 eminent scholars, 17 and philosophers 18 have argued that the Holocaust was a trauma of such magnitude that language lacks the resources to authentically represent it. Obviously devastated by his experience, Wiesel said, "I know we must speak. I do not know how. Since this crime is absolute, all language is imperfect." 19 Saul Friedlander and Theodor Adorno also expressed their frustration with the inadequacies of language. Friedland wrote that "culminating in Auschwitz, reality became so extreme as to outstrip language's capacity to represent it altogether" 20 and Adorno declared that "after Auschwitz to write a poem is barbaric." 21 But literature does have the ability to penetrate the very depth of our souls and evoke the myriad shades of our experiences and teachers are therefore encouraged to direct their students to the many fine tomes that constitute Holocaust literature. They need to discuss with their students whether these works are indeed able to translate for us, who are so removed from the experience—the "extremity," its anguish, and horror—a life lived in the constant shadow of death. Does "the experience of atrocity . . . remain hermetically sealed in a private universe of torture and suffering that cannot escape into the realm of ideas?" 22 Would students agree with Charlotte Delbo, when, by emphasizing the imaginary chasm

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that the experience of atrocity creates between actual and indirect survivors, she distinguishes between those who know and those who "think" they know? 23 In contrast to the view that trauma defeats the capacity of language to represent it, Ruth Wajnryb in The Silence—How Tragedy Shapes Talk (2001) argues that: while people perceive this to be a linguistic problem or more specifically a linguistic lack, in fact this is to locate the problem in the wrong place. Language can do what its speakers want it to do. It has the resources to capture complex, dissonant and immensely painful events. We need look no further than works of great literature—drama, epic tales, poetry—to find verbal representations of extreme and distended experiences, instances replete with pulsating emotion. . . . But not all victims of trauma are great writers or speakers and therein lies the problem. Holocaust survivors were "ordinary individuals rendered extraordinary only by what had been done to them. . . . What is experienced by the individual as the inability of language to express something is in fact the user's own lack of facility with the language. It is not language per se that lacks the resources but rather the individual experiencing an extremity that outstrips his or her own linguistic ability."24 Wajnryb does concede that the incommunicability of survivors" trauma is also due to a complex amalgam of internal and external factors that inhibit the survivors" ability to communicate their personal versions of hell—the pain, deprivation, abuse, humiliation, loss, and guilt of having survived—to someone who encounters it indirectly, the outsider, the one who was not there. This internal psychological barrier, preventing the communication of trauma, is erected because the process of telling involves reliving the event. This is often compounded by an associated external psychological factor—the survivors" relationships with their children. For many survivors, having children was renewal— "Children, more than all else, offered a chance of healing." 25 To protect them provided a strong reason for not telling—not transmitting the pain and anguish. Wajnryb's third factor for the incommunicability of trauma is social. In the immediate postwar years, the silence of the survivors or their reticence to talk of their experiences was due to the general aversion within the public to listening to accounts of Holocaust atrocity. In addition to these three constrains, Wajnryb argues that language itself is governed by context: "Language venues are places where certain kinds of language work and others don't; where certain kinds of talk are appropriate and others aren't." The central tenet of this argument being that social situations are such that,

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often, some topics are taboo and to speak of them would be deemed anything from "socially inappropriate to socially uncouth to deviant," 26 thereby silencing a survivor, sometimes, forever. Wajnryb acknowledges that there are some linguistic limitations 27 and a number of other contributing factors 28 to explain the incommunicability of trauma. She is convinced, however, that predominantly the problem does reside in the failure of survivors to find the language that articulates, authentically and adequately, their horror. Considering Wajnryb's arguments, teachers need to encourage students to read the works of great writers, and note how, often, their themes highlight, explore, and illustrate humankind's inability to truly understand another's experience, that is, until they stand in the other's shoes and walk around in them." 29 A PARADIGM FOR TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Given the reality that the Holocaust is taught under a number of rubrics and at different levels in the school curriculum, it would be fatuous to suggest that it be taught according to any one model. Instead, what is proposed here is that a skeleton of the "mustcover" elements of the Holocaust be integrated into the already crowded curriculum. The Holocaust poses a particular and distinctive complexity; in itself, it is such a large topic, with so many possible methodological approaches, that it is daunting to find a mode to harness and contain it.30 Add to this the secondary educational reality that, in most instances, the syllabi offer a range of lessons (1-3) and three weeks to cover this immense, multidimensional subject. In this time frame, the teacher is expected to explore and impart the facts of the Holocaust as well as discuss the accompanying issues. Accomplishing this demands an in-depth study of the vast range of sources and a thoughtful debate of the "bigger" educational questions that were sparked by the events of the Holocaust. A study of the Holocaust could easily be located in any of the following learning/subject areas: history which is the foundational discipline; English literature; studies of society; ethics, civics, and citizenship; religious education; genocide studies; media studies; psychology, and, perhaps even, biology. As with the range of possible learning areas, the pedagogical base and the repertoire of strategies for teaching the Holocaust are also complex: collaborative learning, focused individual research, multimedia presentation, oral history, and more. Teachers can easily approach the

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study of the Holocaust from a constructivist perspective and spend a semester on doing so. This approach is based far more on students discovering, interacting, and grappling with problems to gain a deep understanding than on acquiring detailed knowledge. By contrast, the Holocaust in some countries (notably, Israel and Germany) is taught through focusing on the mastery of the "facts" and the chronology in an attempt to reach an understanding of the era—the "traditional" methodology and perspective. The focus being predominantly on concrete, irrefutable details, rather than on a range of perspectives and interpretations—the postmodern paradigm of historical enquiry. From a pedagogical and learning theory perspective, this topic, distinctively, if not uniquely, touches on many of the core issues in contemporary education. It is, therefore, quite seductive in the sense that one can draw on it to explore pedagogy, educational theoretical constructs, and a wide range of strategies and approaches. However, the tables prsented in the next section are proposed for a narrow time frame: one that cannot hope to do justice to the extent of the subject matter. It presents teachers with a frame; if they wish, it can comprise the total experience for their students in studying the Holocaust. Alternatively, the tables can be built on or drawn from to go either more broadly or more deeply into an exploration of the Holocaust. Ultimately, both the methodology and the framework that teachers select will depend on their aims and objectives in teaching the Holocaust. We suggest that, as a minimum, any authentic study of the Holocaust within a school context should contain certain "must covers." Obviously, in the elementary school situation, these will be covered in a less complex way than the outlines provided in the next section. But, nonetheless, we contend that these elements must be included. KEY ELEMENTS OF A MODEL FOR TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST We believe that the aims and objectives of the course are to give students: •

knowledge of the events of the Holocaust, as a historical event (any study of the Holocaust, no matter how cursory, must be grounded in history, even if only as a simple chronological backdrop to an interdisciplinary study or to a study of representation);

228 • •

Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust a grasp of a twentieth-century seminal events in the Western world; insight into the way in which events shape and influence attitudes and behaviors;

and to encourage students to: • • • • •

understand the Holocaust for its own sake as well as for problem solving and debating the democratic values and foundations of our society; engage in the rigors of learning a discipline, whether that be history, English, religious education, civics and citizenship, politics, genetics, and so forth; explore interdisciplinary studies through a study of the Holocaust; develop an empathic understanding of others, including victims, perpetrators, and bystanders; develop reflective and critical thinking.

A model for teaching the Holocaust must begin with some basic chronology. This provides both the framework and the setting needed to develop an understanding of the background and the main events. Having accomplished this, the schema should address the big educational questions mentioned. Depending on the fundamental purpose of a particular course, these "big" questions need to be prioritized. Furthermore, the depth and scope of these questions need to be related to the age of the students and the length of time available for the study. Finally, another important issue for schools is whether or not, or the extent to which, Holocaust denial should form part of a study of the Holocaust. Unless a course is long enough to allow students to substantively explore this issue, our models presume that it is more important to give students the tools with which to understand history and to explore a historical problem than to focus on denial per se (other than in relation to propaganda and racial incitement). So, what can be taught, so that it will not be too superficial to lose meaning and yet will integrate into a regular school curriculum? Tables 1 and 2 suggest one approach. Though they may not reach the very deep understanding that Howard Gardner refers to, nonetheless, they provide a sufficient starting point for students to at least acknowledge the dimensions of the topic and to commence grappling with some of the broader issues they raise.

Table 1 Junior and Middle School: Years 6-9 Week/ Lesson

Content/Issues

Learning Areas

Outcomes

Methodology

HSIE

Understand: causation and context Summarize in written and visual form the effects of World War I on Germany Identify German grievances as well as groups or individuals who were blamed Suggest solutions that the Germans sought to fix their problems

Notes Maps

2

Role of Germany in World War I Treaty of Versailles Germany in trouble

3

Hitler takes power

D m ra a. English, HSIE

1

HSIE

Analyze how events in Germany were changing people's lives

Group work: each group to represent a political party in Germany Determine where they will apportion blame and (1) write their party platform or (2) produce a poster of their solution to the particular problem they are addressing Imagine being foreign correspondents: decide which newspaper to represent and for which country and write a front-page (continued)

Table 1 (continued) Junior and Middle School: Years 6-9 Week/ Lesson

4

5

Content/Issues

Creating a designer culture

Prewar Jewish life and culture

Learning Areas

Art, Drama, English, HSIE, IT. RE, Science Art, English, HSIE, Music

Outcomes

Identify use of propaganda, indoctrination, and other cultural mediums

Appreciate the diversity and vibrancy of prewar Jewish life and culture Realize that one legacy of the Holocaust is the almost total loss or destruction of this culture

Methodology news report about developments in Germany Create own piece of propaganda Hold a class exhibition—good art versus bad art Make a propaganda film Map the diverse aspects of Jewish life under: Locality (Germany and Eastern Europe), beliefs and values, language, occupations, leisure activities Visual Collection: Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World Audiovisual: The Way We Lived

6

Cultural Purity Anti-Semitism

Art, English, HSIE

7

Holocaust chronology: 1933-1939, 1939-1941, 1941-1945 Developments in Germany: Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, and camps

Drama, English, HSIE, Science

Resisters Perpetrators Righteous Bystanders

Civics, HSIE

8

9

Civics, HSIE

Sensitize students to the effects of prejudice and stereotyping Understand development to gain an overview Establish concepts of rights and freedoms by understanding the rights and freedoms students enjoy today Help develop an appreciation of the importance of individual rights and freedoms Develop awareness in students that "we are all part of the possibilities"

Glossary of Terms: Orthodox, rabbi, Shabbat, shtetl, synagogue, Yiddish, and so on Create identity cards View film Brown Eyes I Blue Eyes Time line Audiovisual: World at War Survivor in the classroom Primary and secondary sources Visit a museum Primary and secondary sources Research Time line Racism in Action: Nazi Assault on the Rights and Freedoms of German Jews, 19331943 Visit a museum Survivors in the classroom Primary and secondary (continued)

Table 1 (continued) Junior and Middle School: Years 6-9 Week Lesson

Content/Issues

Learning Areas

Outcomes

10-11

Life in ghettos and camps

Drama, English, HSIE, Music

Examine and discuss: aspects of social life, forms of cultural expression, and empathy

12

German Resistance White Rose

Civics, HSIE

13

Jewish Resistance Ghetto Camps

Civics, HSIE

14

Heroes

English, HSIE, RE

Establish the definition of the term resistance Analyze nature and extent of the German resistance Establish the definition of the term resistance Analyze the nature and extent of the Jewish resistance Establish the definition of the term hero Assess the validity of

Methodology documents Videos Jigsaw/research Biography/diaries/ poetry Primary and secondary sources, for example, Adelson and Lapides, Lodz Ghetto—Inside a Community under Siege Debate Group work Audiovisual: Reunion Research Group work Videos: Uprising and Escape from Sobibor Visit a museum Research

15

Where does responsibility lie?

Civics, HSIE

16

How to secure the future

Art, English, HSIE, IT,

Music, Science

that definition during the Holocaust Define the term as it is used today Help students develop concern for the welfare, rights, and dignity of all people Develop / evaluate student decisionmaking skills by evaluating the responsibility of the: Nazi Party, individuals, God, man, people, and nations in the Holocaust Make students realize they can make a difference to the future, but only if they choose to do so

Select representatives of various groups and place them on trial to determine their responsibility, complicty, or guilt in the Holocaust

Discuss: individuals do make a difference— Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela Research Construct action table

Note: EL = English Literature; GS = Genocide Studies; IT = Information Technology; MS = Media Studies; RE = Religious Education

Table 2 Senior School: Years 9-12 Week/ Lesson

Content/ Issues

Learning Areas

1

World War I and Germany's place in the conflict Consequences of Germany's loss and the Treaty of Versailles

2

Explore the historiographical hypotheses explaining Nazi rise to power Discuss and analyze interview responses Explore the theory that the German people had a fatal attraction to Hitler Explore the following hypotheses for Nazi rise to power:

3

4

Outcomes

Methodology

History, Politics, SOSE

Analyze and explain the development and impact of a political crisis and conflict in the period 1918-1933

Economics, History, Politics, SOSE

Analyze and discuss the patterns of social life in the first half of twentieth century and the factors that changed these patterns

Discussion task: interview two generations about their knowledge of Hitler and Nazi Germany Notes on interview Techniques and task Notes Lectures Analysis of sources

EL,

Understand the factors that shape collective historical knowledge

Videos Lecture Notes

Analyze and explain the development and impact of a political crisis and

Video Notes Lecture Discussion

History, MS

Civics, History, MS,

Politics

5

6

economic, Military, Political Why didn't more Germans protest during the 1930s?

Civics, Ethics, History

Listening to and talking with Holocaust survivors

Civics, English, History,

Analysis, synthesis, and draw comparisons

EL,

Appreciate the vibrancy and diversity of prewar Jewish life and culture and contrast this diversity with the myths and

MS, RE

7

Prewar Jewish Life

History RE

conflict in the period 1918-1933 Develop decision making within the context of the time Explore such issues as Why were people willing to give up their democratic rights?

Work sheets on the effects of the Great Depression Graphs on unemployment time line on Nazi intimidation and elimination of opponents Listen to survivors or view videotapes of survfvors's stories such as the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Project, "Yale Oral Testimonies," and "Yad Vashem Oral Histories" or visit a locol Holocaust museum Visual collection: Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World Audiovisual: The Way We Lived (continued)

Table 2 (continued) Senior School: Years 9-12 Week Lesson

Content Issues

8-9

Background to the development of anti-Semitism in Europe Links to the beliefs and activities of the Christian churches Church as victim bystander, resister

10-11

Overview of the Holocaust Chronology: 1933-1939 1939-1941 1941-1945 (pre-ghettos, Nuremberg Laws, concentration camps, death camps, resistance,

Learning Areas

Civics, Ethics GS Studies History, Literature, Psychology, RE

Civics SOSE

Outcomes distortions of antiSemitism Analyze the development of anti-Semitism in Germany and its impact on German society in the period 1918-1935 Evaluate the position of the Christian churches in the period 1933-1945 Understand the scope of the Holocaust Develop knowledge of its various aspects

Methodology

Historical texts primary and secondary sources

Texts Notes Lecture

12-13

14-15

perpertrators, righteous bystanders) Cultural representations of the Holocaust: close study of one or two sources (film, autobiography, diary, documents, and so on) Visit a Holocaust museum and analyze its particular representation of the Holocaust Social life in the ghettos and camps

Art,

EL, MS,

SOSE

Civics, EL, GS,

History, MS

Psychology, SOSE

16

Responsibility: Where was God?

Civics, History,

Develop a critical appreciation of the Holocaust through the various genres

Introduce a range of genres representing experiences/aspects of the Holocaust

Analyze and discuss the patterns of social life n the first half of the twentieth century and factors that changed these patterns Develop empathy for displaced people Develop decisionmaking skills

Visit a Holocuat museum Visual representations of life in the ghettos and camps; films, autobiographies Brainstorm and evaluate the (continued)

Table 2 (continued) Senior School: Years 9-12 Week Lesson

17

Content Issues

Learning Areas

Outcomes

Methodology

Where was Man?

RE

Attribute responsibility

What we can do secure the future

Art, Civics, English, GS, History MS Music RE

Make students realize that they can make a difference, but only, if they choose to do so

responsibility of Hitler, Himmler, the Nazi party, the SS, German industry, bureaucracy, Christian churches, Allies, German people, people in occupied territories, and so on Place these individuals or groups on trial Research and discuss: individuals do make a difference— Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu, Kyi Nelson Mandela

EL = English Literature: GS = Genocide Studies; MS = Media Studies;

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The two tables present a historical underpinning to the study of the Holocaust at the upper primary/junior secondary and the secondary school levels. They can be manipulated to focus on a range of perspectives. For example, if the Holocaust is being studied as part of a diaries unit for younger students (years 6-9), the historical emphasis may only come into play (1) as the setting (some brief discussion of the rise of anti-Semitism) and (2) as an overview of the chronology of the Holocaust. The main emphasis may well come from the Holocaust as a representation, and the "facts" will provide the background to an increased understanding of the text. For example, if the Holocaust is being studied as part of religious studies, then there could be far greater emphasis placed on units 6 and 15 (Junior-Middle School) and 8 and 16 (Senior) than on some of the other units. What we are suggesting is that any move into the terrain of the Holocaust should refer to all of the areas outlined, but the emphases and priorities should depend on the purpose of studying the Holocaust, the age of the students, and the learning area/subject/discipline/rubric in which the topic is being studied. To have an authentic exploration of the Holocaust as a topic, the key elements must be included, regardless of the specific strategies, learning area, or length of time available for the study. The chosen schema might be covered in three to five lessons (including handout materials) or across a semester. It does not matter if a teacher can only allocate three lessons; however, what is imperative is that within these lessons some time be given to the "big" questions. Anything less would mean a trivialization and perversion of the study and it could be argued that it would have been better not to have entered the terrain at all. Finally, we need to discuss methodology. The best way to approach a study of the Holocaust may be to utilize Howard Gardner's 8+ intelligences. Apart from its appropriateness in engaging student interest, the choice of methodology—traditional or constructivist—is not critical. The Holocaust can be taught just as legitimately through Anne Frank's diary as through Martin Gilbert's text, through poetry and visual representation as through diaries and secondary sources preserved during or after the war. The principal aim of any study is to ensure that the key elements are covered. To achieve this, the methodology must be informed by the purpose for studying the topic, the age of the students, the time available, and, to a lesser extent, the rubric. As long as the teacher explores the fundamental causes and events of the Holocaust and maintains its integrity by situating it in time, place, and context, the result will be authentic.

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CONCLUSION Although incorporating a study of the Holocaust into existing disciplines within the school curriculum is being accomplished to varying degrees, in a variety of ways, and in a diverse range of settings, it has yet to earn a full place in most school curricula. 31 Since teaching the Holocaust does open doors to many interconnected disciplines—history, legal studies, psychology, ethics, mathematics, science, philosophy, religion, and civics—its study does have a great capacity to affect the way in which we think about individual and group responsibility. Its lessons, if used to promote compassion, respect, and acceptance, are invaluable to all societies. Therefore, helping students to see the Holocaust as immediate to, instead of distant from, their own lives is essential if they are to question the past, in order to interpret the present, and meet the future. Good teaching is an art. Good teachers have the opportunity to touch their students" hearts, liberate their minds, and instill critical, personal reflection. Not only do teachers need to encourage students to think for themselves—to be informed rather than obedient citizens—speak in their own voices, and dream the impossible, but they also need to remind their students of Alexander Pope's well-known couplet—"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan / The proper study of mankind is man." 32 —an endeavor essential for those who are willing to grapple with a question that has baffled many generations: 33 "Why is it that societies so frequently and so readily embrace violence and amorality?" For Gita Sereny, the answer lies in "both idealism and the capacity of tyranny to pervert h u m a n instincts from 'good' to 'bad' . . . the fatal combination of the two . . . led to . . . the German trauma." 34 It is imperative that caution be exercised in answering such questions. Teachers need to guide their students toward seeking complex, multidimensional answers—simplification must be avoided. Perhaps, Primo Levi and Tadeusz Borowski both committed suicide because they found the monocausal, reductionist explanations to be too profoundly depressing and overwhelming. 35 Simple answers will often belie the truth. Bolkosky goes as far as to say: We may never find satisfactory answers to the questions the Holocaust poses. The very least we can do is not accept falsely complete ones that placate our anger and our need to know. They mitigate a need for a simple and quick answer to questions that may be unanswerable about a subject that, as Socrates said about justice, demands the long road rather than the short one.36

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The following poem, while making a salient point about education, may help u s discover how to combat the "evil" that was the Holocaust and continues to manifest itself in the horrors of successive genocides and unremitting terrorist attacks. Dear Teacher, I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers children poisoned by educated physicians infants killed by trained nurses women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. My request is: help your pupils become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane. 3 7 Clearly, the Holocaust should not be included in any curriculum merely for the purpose of "teaching students to be moral." It must only be used within legitimate, pedagogical concepts. The appeal of the Holocaust as "moral" education, seductive and valid as it may be, cannot serve as its sole purpose. In the wake of September 11, 2001, there has been a rethinking of the kind of education that is important for our youth. Understanding and knowing about the Holocaust certainly fits into, and has a proper place in, the paradigm of global education. But it must be remembered that this is not an exclusive slot and such exclusivity should never be implied. Rather, the study of the Holocaust should contribute to the development of a greater sense of world citizenship. According to Nancy Bacon and Gerrit Kirschner: The goal of a new global curriculum for the 21st century must be to broaden students" perspective. Broadening perspectives enables young people to engage meaningfully in a complex world. . . . Helping students develop a knowledge and skill base that has relevance to understanding and engaging in such a complex world requires three elements: content knowledge, exposure to diverse cultures and experiences, and authentic application.38 We hope that the model outlined in this chapter and the issues raised—the "big questions"—encompass, in an educationally sound way, the three elements referred to by Bacon and Kirschner.

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RESOURCES

Basic Background Reading for Teachers Bauer, Y. History of the Holocaust. Danbury, CT: Watts, 2002. Clendinnen, I. Reading the Holocaust. Melbourne, Australia: Text Publishing, 2000. Engel, D. The Holocaust, The Third Reich and the Jews. London: Longman, 2000. Gilbert, M. The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy. London: Fontana, 2000. Gilbert, M. The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust. London: Routledge, 2002. Stone, D., ed. The Historiography of the Holocaust. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Wistrich, R. Hitler and the Holocaust. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.

Supplementary Further Reading Jewish Life during the Interwar

Years

Hoffman, E. Shtetl: The History of a Small Town and an Extinguished World. London: Vinatge, 1999. Richmond, T. Konin: A Quest. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995. Vishniac, R. A Vanished World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

Holocaust

Denial

Evans, R. J. Lying about Hitler, History, Holocaust and the David Irving Trial New York: Basic Books, 2001. Guttenplan, D. D. The Holocaust on Trial. London: Granta Books, 2001. Lipstadt, D. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. London: Penguin Books, 1994.

Perpetrators

Browning, C. R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperPerennial, 2001. Klee, E. Dressen, W. Riess, and V. Riess, eds. The Good Old Days. New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1991. Sereny, G. The German Trauma, Experiences and Reflections, 1938-2001. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Righteous

among the

Nations

Block, G., and M. Drucker. Rescuers. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992. Cohen, S. State of Denial. Oxford, UK: Polity Press, 2000. Gilbert, M. The Righteous: The Unsung Heros of the Holocaust. Reading: Black Swan, 2000.

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Religion/Philosophy/Values/EducationforSenior SchoolStudents

Kolitz, Z. Ybsei Rakover Talks to God. London: Vintage, 2000. Wiesenthal, S. The Sunflower. New York: Schocken Books, 1998.

Kits and Resources for Teachers Adelson, A., and R. Lapides. Lodz Ghetto—A Community under Siege (1989). A collection of diaries, notebooks, poems, and sketches. Authors range from an astute schoolboy to respected European intellectuals. Through their words, we enter the horror that was the reality of their daily lives. Includes more than 140 photographs from the ghetto, some in color and some never previously published. Ellias, B., and D. Harris. A Holocaust Curriculum: Life Unworthy of Life. Farmington, MI: Glencoe Press, and Centre for the Study of the Child, 1992. Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behaviour (www.facing.org). Gelski, S. Teaching the Holocaust: Junior and Middle School, Years 6-9. Syndey, Australia: Sydney Jewish Museum, 2003. Gelski, S. Teaching the Holocaust: Senior Students, Years 9-12. Sydney, Australia: Sydney Jewish Museum, 2003. Landau, R. S. Studying the Holocaust: Issues, Readings and Documents. London: Routledge, 1998. Langer, L. Art from the Ashes—A Holocaust Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A wide collection of art, drama, poetry, and prose about the Holocaust. Writers such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Ahron Appelfeld, Tadeusz Borowski, and Ida Fink, as well as an extensive selection from six poets: Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs, Abraham Sutzkever, Dan Pagis, Jacob Glatstein, and Miklos Radnoti. Also Joshua Sobol's controversial drama Ghetto. Totten, S., and S. Feinberg. Teaching and Studying the Holocaust. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. Wide range of ideas on historiography, using primary documents; incorporating first-person accounts; choosing Holocaust literature for early adolescents; incorporating fiction, poetry, film, the Internet, and the Holocaust; drama activities; and music, as well as an extensive, selected annotated bibliography. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Teaching about the Holocaust—A Resource Book for Educators. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Museum, 2001. Includes guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust; suggested topic areas for a course of study; chronology of the Holocaust; Museum online (www.ushmm.org) and annotated bibliography and annotated videography.

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Wajsenberg, J. The Sun Shines for Me: A Resource Kitfor Teaching the Holocaust for Middle and Senior School Students. Perth: Holocaust Institute of Western Australia, 1998.

Works of Fiction and Nonfiction for Teachers and Students Fiction for Middle School Students

French, J. Hitler's Daughter. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson, 1999. Holliday, L., ed., Children's Wartime Diaries. London: Piatkus, 1995.

Fiction for Senior School Students

Amis, A. Time's Arrow. London: Penguin Books, 1991. Appelfeld, A. Badenheim. London: Dent, 1980. Biderman, A. H. The World of My Past. London: Vintage, 1998. Chabon, M. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. London: Fourth Estate, 2000. Hegi, U. Stones from the River. New York Simon and Schuster, 1995. Hofman, E. Lost in Translation. London: Minerva, 1991. Goldschmidt, G. A. World's of Difference. London: Quartet Books, 1993. Goldsworthy, P. Maestro. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Roberson, 1996. Kosinski, J. The Painted Bird. London: Arrow Books, 1982. Levi, P. If This Is a Man. London: Abacus, 1988. Michaels, A. Fugitive Pieces. London: Bloomsbury, 1997. Potok, C. My Name Is Asher Lev. London: Penguin Books, 1979. Powers, C. T. In the Memory of the Forest. London: Anchor, 1998. Schlink, B. The Reader. London: Phoenix House, 1997. Seiffert, R. The Dark Room. London: Vintage, 2002. Spiegelman, A. Maus. London: Penguin Books, 1997. Uhlman, F. Reunion. London: Fontana, 1990. Wiesel, E. Night. London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Poetry for Junior and Middle School Students

Volavkova, H. (1993), I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. New York: Schocken Books, 1993.

Poetrtyfor Senior School Students

Delbo, C. Auschwitz 1995.

Short Stories

and After. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

Borowski, T. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman. London: Penguin Books, 1976. Fink, I. A Scrap of Time. London; Owen, 1987. Ozick, C. The Shaw. New York: Knopf, 1980.

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Films Ambulance Au Revior Les Enfants Divided We Fall Europam Europa Father Garden of the Finzi Continis The Hiding Place Korczak Life Is Beautiful Nowhere in Africa Reunion Schindler's List Shoah Sunshine Taking Sides The Wave The Way We Were (Jewish life in the interwar years) World at War (BBC series)

NOTES 1. Yehuda Bauer, cited in Alan Rosenberg, "Was the Holocaust Unique? A Peculiar Question?" in Genocide and the Modern Age, ed. Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowoski, 146 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 146. See also Shmuel Almog, ed., The Holocaust: The Unique and the Universal—Essays Presented in Honor of Yehuda Bauer (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2001). 2. Rosenberg, "Was the Holocaust Unique?", 147. 3. Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975), xv. 4. See Jeffrey C. Alexander, "On the Social Construction of Moral Universals—The 'Holocaust' from War Crime to Trauma Drama," European Journal of Social History 5 (2002): 27; and Emil Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 279. 5. Rosenberg, "Was the Holocaust Unique?", 150-151. 6. Menachem Rosensaft claims that the "Holocaust stands alone in time as an aberration within history" ("The Holocaust: History as Aberration," Midstream 28, no. 5 [May 1977]: 55). Elie Wiesel argues that "the universe of concentration camps, by its design, lies outside if beyond history. Its vocabulary belongs to it alone" ("Now We Know," in Genocide in Paraguay, ed. Richard Arens [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976], 165). 7. See, for instance: Steven T. Katz, 'The 'Unique' Intentionality of the Holocaust," Modern Judaism 1, no. 2 (1981): 161-183; Saul Friedlander "On the Possibility of the Holocaust," 1-6; and Richard Rubinstein, The

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Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 6-7, 22-35. 8. Alexander, "On the Social Construction," 51-52. 9. Rosenberg, "Was the Holocaust Unique?" 152. 10. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), x. 11. Ibid., ix, xi. 12. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York: Viking Press, 1963). 13. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (London: Tavistock, 1974). 14. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperPerennial, 2001). 15. Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). 16. Among the most eminent are Elie Wiesel, From the Kingdom of Memory (New York: Summit Books, 1995); and Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and After (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995). 17. See Langer, Holocaust Testimonies, 1-13, as well as Lawrence L. Langer, The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976); and Saul Friedlander, ed., Probing the Limits of Representation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 18. Theodor Adorno, quoted in J. Felstiner, "Translating Paul Celan's Todesfuge': Rhythm and Repetition as Metaphor," in Probing the Limits of Representation, ed. Saul Friedlander (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 242. 19. Wiesel, From the Kingdom of Memory, 86. 20. Saul Friedlander, cited in J. E. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 16. 21. Adorno, cited in Felstiner, "Translating Paul Celan's Todesfuge.'" Adorno "revisited" Auschwitz again and again, redefining his original statement, struggling but never entirely resolving the contradictions of whether or how to represent aesthetically the Nazi Holocaust. 22. Lawrence L. Langer, The Age of Atrocity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), 203. 23. Delbo, Auschwitz and After. 24. Ruth Wajnryb, The Silence—How Tragedy Shapes Talk (Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2001): 85-86. 25. Ibid., 88. 26. Ibid., 95. 27. Words derive their absolute meaning through their context and, therefore, to use words such as starving, hungry, or thirsty to describe physical states in the Nazi concentration camps, though "true," are not true enough because they do not adequately translate the reality they intend to represent. Though they suggest a level of suffering from lack of nourishment, they cannot mirror the anguish or deprivation that the survivors knew, experienced, and, indeed, survived (H. R. Huttenbach, cited in ibid., 85).

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28. For a complete elucidation of these factors, see ibid., 86-116. 29. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (London: Vintage, 1998), 308. 30. See Howard Gardner's address to the 14th National Council of Independent Schools Association Conference, Fremantle, Western Australia, October 4, 2002 [interactive videoconferencing], Gardner suggests that a study of the Holocaust is one of three critically important topics for students to experience in their secondary education: it gives the opportunity to teach for understanding and is a "vast" topic. He uses the example of the Wannsee Conference and how the 8+ intelligences can be applied to an analysis of Wannsee to facilitate students' deep understanding. See particularly, Howard Gardner, The Disciplined Mind: What All Students Should Understand (New York: Penguin Books, 2000). 31. The only exceptions are Israel, Great Britain, Germany, and some of the states in the United States. 32. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Essay on Man, Epistle ii.l. 33. For example, Browning, Ordinary Men; Rubenstein, The Cunning of History; and Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners (New York: Knopf, 1996). 34. Gita Sereny, The German Trauma (London: Penguin Books, 2001), xii. 35. Sid Bolkosky, Searching for Meaning in the Holocaust (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 104 36. Ibid., 51 37. Cited in Ian Davies, ed., Teaching the Holocaust—Educational Dimensions, Principles and Practices (London: Continuum), 147-148. 38. Nancy A. Bacon and Gerrit A. Kirschner, "Shaping Global Classrooms," Educational Leadership (October 2002): 48.

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Chapter 11 Holocaust Museums in Germany, Poland, Israel, and the United States James E. Young

The further events of World War II and the Holocaust recede into time, the more prominent their museums and memorials become. Indeed, there has been a veritable "Holocaust museums boom" over the past twenty years, culminating in the establishment around the world of hundreds of museums and institutions dedicated to remembering and telling the history of Nazi Germany's destruction of the European Jews during World War II. But depending on where these museums are built, and by whom, they remember this past according to a variety of national myths, ideals, and political needs. Some recall war dead, others resistance, and still others mass murder. All reflect both the past experiences and the current lives of their communities, as well as the state's memory of itself. At a more specific level, these museums also reflect the temper of the memory-artists' time, their architects' schools of design, and their physical locations in national memorial landscapes. Public memory of the Holocaust, as found in these museums, is never shaped in a vacuum, its motives never pure. Both the reasons given for Holocaust memorial museums and the kinds of memory they generate are as various as the sites themselves. Some are built in response to traditional Jewish injunctions to remember, others according to a government's need to explain a nation's past to itself. While the aim of some museums is to educate the next generation and to inculcate in it a sense of shared experience and destiny, others are conceived as expiations of guilt or as selfaggrandizement. Still others are intended to attract tourists. In addition to traditional Jewish memorial iconography, every state has its own institutional forms of remembrance. As a result, Holocaust

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museums inevitably mix national and Jewish figures, political and religious imagery. In Germany, for example, museums and memorials to this time often recall Jews by their absence, German victims by their political resistance. In Poland, museums in former death camps and across the countryside commemorate the whole of Polish destruction through the figure of its murdered Jewish part. In Israel's museums, martyrs and heroes are remembered side by side, both redeemed by the birth of the state. As the shape Holocaust memory takes in Europe and Israel is determined by political, aesthetic, and religious coordinates, that in America is guided no less by distinctly American ideals and experiences—such as liberty, pluralism, and immigration. The aim of this inquiry into Holocaust museums, therefore, will not just be to survey the many faces of public memory. But it will be to examine precisely how and why public memory of this era is being shaped by the museums and monuments created to remember events. Instead of concentrating on finished or monolithic memory, we might look at the process by which public memory of the Holocaust is constructed. We ask who creates this memory, under what circumstances, for which audience? Which events are remembered, which forgotten, and how are they explained? What are these museums' places in national and religious commemorative cycles? What is the contemporary architect's role in shaping public memory? Finally, we ask what the aims and consequences of these Holocaust museums, are why memory as found in these national institutions matters at all. As part of a nation's rites or as the destination of a people's national pilgrimage, these museums are invested with national soul and memory. For traditionally, the state-sponsored memory of a national past aims to affirm the righteousness of a nation's birth, even its divine election. The matrix of a nation's monuments plots the story of ennobling events, of triumphs over barbarism, and recalls the martyrdom of those who gave their lives in the struggle for national existence—who, in the martyrological refrain, died so that a country might live. In assuming the idealized forms and meanings assigned this era by the state, museums tend to concretize particular historical interpretations. They suggest themselves as indigeneous, even geological outcroppings in a national landscape; in time, such idealized memory grows as natural to the eye as the landscape in which it stands. The relationship between a state and its memorial museums is not one-sided, however. On the one hand, official agencies are in a position to shape memory explicitly as they see fit, memory that best

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serves a national interest. On the other hand, once created, these institutions often take on lives of their own, stubbornly resistant to the state's original intentions. In some cases, museums created in the image of a state's ideals actually turn around to recast these ideals in the museums' own terms. New generations visit these museums under new circumstances and invest them with new meanings. The result is an evolution in their significance, generated in the new times and company in which they find themselves. With these thoughts in mind, we might compare, for example, museums erected at the sites of destruction with those built at geographical remove. In addition, we can examine their place in contemporary aesthetic and political discourse, the meanings they take under new regimes, how materials and location influence a museum's design and conception. We ask how such institutions blend traditional religious and national iconography with more contemporary forms such as deconstructive architecture and conceptual art, how architects balance the needs of viewers against the occasionally obscure sensibilities of contemporary design—all of it framed by contemporary political issues preoccupying curators and museum directors. These questions may lead us, in turn, to refine the distinctions between high and low, public and popular art in our evaluation of Holocaust museums. It may no longer be sufficient, for example, merely to identify the traditions and forms out of which memory is constructed; or to ask whether these monuments reflect past history; or whether they do so accurately or fashionably. This is not to make Holocaust museums immune to aesthetic judgment or historical critique, but to suggest that other criteria now be considered as well. Rather than dismissing a museum for its mass appeal, for example, or dismissing it for historical inaccuracies, we examine all parts of its performance as it reflects the larger culture, the many ways its narrative and design suggests themselves as the bases for political, religious, and communal action. For neither a purely formal nor historicist approach accommodates the many other dimensions at play in public memorial institutions. Rather than merely identifying the movements and forms on which public memory is borne, or asking whether these memorials reflect past history accurately or fashionably, I pursue what Peter Burger has called a "functional analysis of art," adapted here to examine the social effects of public memorial spaces. 1 This is to suggest that the "art of public memory" encompasses not just these memorials' aesthetic contours, or their places in contemporary artistic discourse. It also includes the activity that brought them into being, the constant give and take between memorials and

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viewers, and, finally, the responses of viewers to their own world in light of a memorialized past. Indeed, we remind ourselves here that it is the visitors to monuments that necessarily complete the memorial act, who animate the memorial in their visits. In this way, we might keep in mind the fundamentally dialogical, interactive nature of all museums and their exhibitions. By reinvesting these museums with the memory of their own origins, we might highlight the process of public Holocaust memory over its often static result, the ever-changing life of memory over its seemingly frozen face in the landscape. GERMANY Holocaust memorial work in Germany today remains a tortured, self-reflective, even paralyzing preoccupation. Every memorial and museum, at every turn, is endlessly scrutinized, explicated, and debated. Artistic, ethical, and historical questions occupy design juries to an extent unknown in other countries. Germany's ongoing Denkmal-Arbeit (monument work) simultaneously displaces and constitutes the object of memory. Though some might see such absorption in the process of memorial building as an evasion of memory, it may also be true that the surest engagement with memory lies in its perpetual irresolution. In fact, the best German memorial to the Fascist era and its victims may not be a single memorial at all—but simply the never to be resolved debate over which kind of memory to preserve, how to do it, in whose name, and to what end. Instead of a fixed figure for memory, the debate itself—perpetually unresolved amid ever-changing conditions— might be enshrined. Given the state-sponsored museum's traditional function as self-aggrandizing locus for national memory, the essential, nearly paralyzing ambiguity of German memory comes as no surprise. While the victors of history have long erected monuments to remember their triumphs, and victims have built memorials to recall their martyrdom, only rarely does a nation call upon itself to remember the victims of crimes it has perpetrated. Where are the national monuments to the genocide of American Indians, to the millions of Africans enslaved and murdered, to the Kulaks and peasants starved to death by the millions? They barely exist.2 Likewise, a new monument by Maya Lin to the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama—inscribed with the names of those who died for the cause—was commissioned and constructed by the Southern Poverty Law Center there, which had chronicled and

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prosecuted civil rights cases. In neither the Soviet nor American case did the state initiate the monument, but in both instances, representatives of the state later endorsed these memorials—a move by which both current governments sought to create an official distance between themselves and past, guilty regimes. What then of Germany, a nation justly forced to remember the suffering and devastation it once caused in the name of its people? How does a state incorporate its crimes against others into its national memorial landscape? How does a state recite, much less commemorate, the litany of its misdeeds, making them part of its reason for being? Under what memorial aegis, whose rules, does a nation remember its own barbarity? Where is the tradition for memorial mea culpa, when combined remembrance and selfindictment seem so hopelessly at odds? Unlike state-sponsored memorials and museums built by victimized nations and peoples to themselves in Poland, Holland, or Israel, those in Germany are necessarily those of the persecutor remembering its victims. In the face of this necessary breach in the conventional "memorial code," it is little wonder that German national memory remains so torn and convoluted: it is that of a nation tortured by its conflicted desire to build a new and just state on the bedrock memory of its horrendous crimes. Ethically certain of their duty to remember, but aesthetically skeptical of the assumptions underpinning traditional memorial forms, a new generation of contemporary artists and monument makers in Germany is probing the limits of both their artistic media and the very notion of a memorial museum. They are heirs to a double-edged postwar legacy: a deep distrust of monumental forms in light of their systematic exploitation by the Nazis and a profound desire to distinguish their generation from that of the killers through memory. 3 Germany's struggle with memory of its Nazi past is reflected in nearly every aspect of its national being: from its deliberations over the government's return to Berlin to its ambivalence over a national holiday; from the meticulously conceived museums on the former sites of concentration camps to a new generation of artists' repudiation of monumental forms, still redolent of Nazi art. Since reunification, Germany has struggled to unite the formerly conflicting national narratives dividing West Germany from Communist East Germany. The museum now rising on the former ruins of the Gestapo-Gelande, or the Topography of Terror, will tell the national story of the persecutors and the Nazi bureaucracy of mass murder. The Orte der Information now being built beneath the new Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin will tell the

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national story of Jewish victims themselves, including their prewar lives and the aftermath of the Holocaust. Public memorialization of the war era began in Germany, as it did elsewhere, with every group remembering its own fate: as victims, heroes, or bystanders. Within days of their liberation, former concentration camp inmates at Dachau, Buchenwald, and BergenBelsen had fashioned makeshift memorial towers from the bric-abrac of their dismantled prisons. Soviet, American, and British soldiers erected stone markers throughout Germany's battlescarred landscape, inscribed to the memory of their fallen comrades. Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant clergy gathered around their own specially designated spaces to mourn their respective dead—and to begin organizing their return to life. Memory of terror at the hands of the Nazis both energized and constituted the very raison d'etre for Social Democrats, Communists, and other formerly persecuted parties, whose memorial ceremonies and political rallies immediately after the war often became one and the same. As the first concentration camp in Germany, Dachau came to epitomize the German memorialization of their KZ-Zeit Built in 1933 for political enemies of the Reich, Dachau housed and thereby created German victims, many of whom were also Jews. As horrifying as the conditions were at Dachau, its gas chamber was never used, so the crematoria burned "only" the remains of those who died of shootings, beatings, or, most often, disease. Of the Dachau survivors still living in Germany, most are Christians, many of them clergymen and Social Democrats, whose own memories constitute the core of these memorial projects. There are, therefore, three religious memorials in the camp: one each for the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, and the Jewish community. As the name "The Trustees for the Monument of Atonement at the Concentration Camp Dachau" suggests, however, the reasons for the museum and memorials at Dachau differ for each group of victims. It was not to mourn the loss of a Jewish population that either of the Christian memorials was established, but rather to atone for Nazi sins against humanity. Stylized and cerebral, all of the monuments within the grounds of the camp tend to emphasize the great gulf between past and present. From well-scrubbed barracks floors to the swept gravel walks outside to the crematorium (open, a sign tells us, from 9-5), cleanliness and order now govern the "remembrance" of filth and chaos. Where the seemingly unadorned ruins of memorial camps in the East compel visitors to take them literally as the physical artifacts of the Nazi era, the freshly painted, efficiently organized icons at Dachau openly invite metaphysical speculation.

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Today, according to museum director Barbara Distel, over 900,000 visitors a year tour Dachau and its excellent museum. Most are Germans, but hundreds of thousands come from abroad on a pilgrimage to what has become one of the most notorious tourist stops in Germany. What may not be apparent to many of the memory-tourists, however, is that Dachau's notoriety stems less from its having been one of the deadliest concentration camps (it was not) than from the widespread media coverage of its liberation, the on-site war trials, its proximity to Munich, and the accessible and concise narratives of its museum exhibitions. Dachau has come to serve as a Holocaust icon in the eyes of Western tourists, taking on a life of its own in the culture of travel. In the former West Germany, memory-work was often regarded as a punitive, if self-inflicted kind of penance for crimes of a past regime. But in its single-minded charge to rebuild after the war, the western sector not only absorbed itself in reconstruction but also effaced a number of remnants from the Nazi period that might have been left behind as reminders. With the encouragement of its Allied occupiers, the Federal Republic strove to begin anew, to put its Nazi past behind it. In former East Germany, however, the Soviet occupiers ensured that as much of the debris of Germany's destruction as possible remained before the eyes of East Germans for decades to come. On the one hand, what was officially regarded in the West as Germany's disastrous defeat was recalled in the East as East Germany's victory, its seeming self-liberation. At the behest of the Soviet liberators, East Germans came to recall primarily the Communist victory over Fascism, the great redemption of Socialist martyrs in the founding of the German Democratic Republic. On the other hand, bullet-pocked facades, weedy no-man's-land, even the destroyed Reichstag would serve to remind a vanquished nation precisely how it arrived at the present moment. From the end of the war to the present day, sites of persecution and resistance have been assiduously marked and preserved in the East. It was not only the Soviets who had am interest in preserving a few well-placed ruins, but so too did the German Communist Party, politically vindicated by its ordeal under Nazi rule and now propped up by the Soviet Army. Because of its role during the war as Germany's only coherent resistance organization, the Communist Party could define itself afterward as the premier anti-Fascist party, Adolf Hitler's first victim. If in the West, wartime resistance was recalled largely in the images of the July 20 officers' plot against Hitler, or in the "white rose" students' campaign, in the East resistance was recalled primarily in the figure and deeds of

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the German Communist Party, in the martyrdom of its leaders. When the party, with the help of its Soviet comrades, took control of the East, the new state proclaimed itself the primary symbol of resistance to the Nazis. A whole German nation self-defined as an anti-Fascist state was born, thereby self-absolved of responsibility for Fascist crimes. Once thus defined, the German Democratic Republic needed to make only a small step to commemorate itself as a victim-state, as well. In this sense, the national identity of the German Democratic Republic was thus rooted in the political memory of the Nazis as an occupying power, from which the German people would have to be self-liberated. This self-idealization was enacted to great effect in both the plastic monuments and museum narrative at Buchenwald, which we were told, was not liberated by American soldiers, but was instead selbst befreit, or self-liberated, by the camp underground, comprised mostly of German Communists. Of all the camps in Soviet-occupied Germany, only Buchenwald became a truly national East German memorial to the Nazi period. Indeed, as both place and idea, Buchenwald played a fundamental, nearly mythological role in the German Democratic Republic's selfconceptualization. First, as an internment center for young German Communists, the camp served as an enforced gathering site for debate and political formulation, a place where plans were drawn for the future, where leaders were being chosen to create the new order. As a remembered site, Buchenwald became an idea: a place in the mind, where character, courage, and Communist identity were forged. It played such a formative part in young German Communists' coming of age that later visits were often characterized as returns to the very wellsprings of their being, the roots of their identity. As a site of suffering and resistance, as the seedbed of the German Communist Party, Buchenwald became hallowed, sacred ground. Little wonder, then, that German Democratic Republic officer cadets were awarded their bars at Buchenwald— where their political forebears had symbolically earned their own stripes as enemies of the Third Reich. With the fall of the Communist regime, however, Holocaust memory itself at Buchenwald had become a kind of embarrassing relic. Shortly after Germany's reunification on October 3, 1990, the museum at Buchenwald closed as it underwent both physical and ideological renovation. It is now recalled, for example, that shortly after the war, some 130,000 Germans—some Nazis, some SS, some Social Democrats regarded as enemies by the Soviets—passed through eleven Soviet-run camps near Buchenwald, of whom 50,000 died. While many, perhaps hundreds, of these had been

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taken out and shot, then thrown into mass graves, most of the dead probably succumbed to hunger, disease, and a neglect that was general to the immediate postwar era of shortages and famine. Within two years, its museum was reconfigured to efface what was regarded as the self-aggrandizing version of events as told by the Communist Party. Within two more years, a new and brilliant director, Volkhard Knigge, was appointed, and his first accomplishment was to show the evolution of official memory itself in ESuchenwald's museum, from the Communist to a post-Communist era. But in recalling the forgotten Soviet takeover of the Nazi camps at Buchenwald and other places, the new German government has created a new order of memorial as well. Now when the chancellor lays flowers at Buchenwald to the victims of Nazi terror, he saves a wreath for the six new memorial crosses there marking an estimated 8,000 to 13,000 Germans who died at Buchenwald during Joseph Stalin's reign here. The accretion of memory at Buchenwald now includes Stalin's terror, as well as Hitler's; it is becoming a place where Germans were victimized by both sides. With further updating, Buchenwald may begin to serve as a national memorial for the New Germany, as well as it did for the German Democratic Republic. With the introduction of further German victims into its memorial landscape, Germany's normalization is becoming ever more complete. POLAND As do the Holocaust museums and memorials of other lands, those in Poland reflect both the past experiences and the current lives of their communities, as well as the state's memory of itself. But in a land until recently shared by Poles and Jews, such institutions also remain bitterly contested. Before turning to the terribly complex interpenetration of Jewish and Polish memory of the Holocaust, therefore, we might first consider a particularly emblematic moment for the Poles. Within days of the German invasion and occupation of Poland in September 1939, whole Polish towns and communities were obliterated. Polish professionals and intellegentsia were rounded up, imprisoned, and often executed—solely as Poles. The treatment of Poles was so brutal at the outset of the war that many of the especially desperate members of the intelligentsia actually donned the Jewish star as a means of protection from the Nazis.4 At this point, even the so-called special-handling of the Jews seemed preferable to summary deportation and execution. Later, when the Jews were

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singled out, non-Jewish Poles grasped the deportation and murder of Jews in light of their own recent suffering. In Polish eyes during and immediately after the war, before the full measure of the Jews' loss became clear, both groups seemed persecuted equally. The significant place of national martyrdom in the histories and identities of both Poles and Jews further complicates the delicate memorial equation in Poland. For ironically, Poland's identity as a nation perpetually under siege may actually compete with the Jews' own traditional sense of themselves as the primary victims of history. As self-perceived "Christ among the nations," Poland has exalted its martyrdom to an extent that rivals the place of catastrophe in Jewish memory. As Iwona Irwin-Zarecka makes clear, Polish Romanticism extolled the memory of national martyrs so effectively as to turn their memory into a central pillar around which national identity would be built and defined. 5 Not so unlike the Jews, Poland had become a nation whose destructions would occupy as central a role in national memory and identity as its relatively few triumphs. Between 1939 and 1945, some 3.2 million of Poland's 3.5 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. During the same period, nearly 3 million non-Jewish Poles died as a result of concentration camp internment, slave labor, mass executions, and military action. This means that some 6 million Poles died during World War II, half of them Polish Jews murdered solely for having been Jews. In the Polish mind, however, the perceived symmetry of numbers (though not proportions) also suggested a certain equivalency of suffering. Moreover, with the mass exit of Poland's surviving Jewish remnant after the Kielce and other pogroms in 1946, Jewish memory also departed: memory of a thousand-year Jewish past, memory of good and bad relations with their Polish neighbors, memory of the Holocaust, and, finally, memory of Poland's own post-Holocaust pogroms. When Jewish Holocaust survivors next remembered, it was often to themselves in their new communities abroad—and to their new compatriots. It was not to the Poles who were left alone with their own, now uncontested memory of events, which was not to be challenged again until the survivors' return to Poland years later as tourists with their children in tow. As a result, all remaining memory of this past would now be left in Polish hands and would thus reflect a characteristically Polish grasp of events, Polish ambivalence, and eventually even a Polish need for a Jewish past. As widespread as the tendency is in Poland to balance Jewish and Polish suffering during the war, therefore, the reasons are more complex than mere appropriation of the Jews' experience—or

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effacement of it altogether. That the death camps were located on Polish soil is not viewed by the Poles as evidence of local antiSemitism or collaboration, but as a sign of the Germans' ultimate plans for the Polish people. In the Polish view, the killing centers in Poland were to have begun with the Jews and ended with the Poles. The mass murder of Jews becomes significant in Polish memory only insofar as it is perceived as precursor to the Poles' own, narrowly averted genocide. Indeed, the very first Holocaust memorials anywhere were the places of destruction themselves. Liberated by the Red Army in July 1944, the intact remains of the concentration camp at Majdanek, just outside Lublin, were turned into the first memorial and museum of its kind. Early the next year, the Polish Committee of National Liberation conferred similar status on the ruins of Stutthof, the earliest camp in Poland, and on the gargantuan complex at Auschwitz-Birkenau, commonly regarded as the "epicenter" of the Holocaust. All these camps had been evacuated and abandoned, but not destroyed by the Germans in their hasty retreat. When we recall that the Germans had rounded up 250 local Jews from Oswiecim to build the camp there, we also realize that the memorial at Auschwitz was, in effect, built by the victims it would later commemorate. One's first visit to the memorials at Majdanek and Auschwitz can come as a shock: not because of the bloody horror conveyed, but for the unexpected, even unseemly beauty of these places. Saplings planted along the perimeters of these camps, intended to screen the Germans' crimes from view, now sway and toss in the wind. Local farmers, shouldering scythes, lead their families through waist-deep fields to cut and gather grass into great sheaves. Beyond their pastoral facade, however, the memorials at Majdanek and Auschwitz are devastating in their impact: for they compel the visitor to accept the horrible fact that what they show is real. In both cases, the camps seem to have been preserved almost exactly as the Russians found them forty years ago. Guard towers, barbed wire, barracks, and crematoria—mythologized elsewhere— here stand palpably intact. In contrast to museums and memorials located away from the sites of destruction, the remnants here tend to collapse the distinction between themselves and what they evoke. In the rhetoric of their ruins, these memorial sites seem not merely to gesture toward past events but would now suggest themselves as fragments of events, inviting u s to mistake the debris of history for history itself. In the words of the Communist-era guidebook of the State Museum at Majdanek, for example, the aim of the museum was

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threefold: to preserve these buildings as material evidence of the crimes committed here; to analyze the facts of these crimes; and to present analyzed facts to the public. 6 As became clear, however, the ruins here were material evidence not only of these crimes but also of a state's reasons for remembering them. Indeed, there was little reason for preserving these ruins outside of the meanings such preservation imputed to them. At Majdanek, such objects thus "told" the story of the camp's Soviet liberators, configured in a reflexively economic interpretation of the war and its victims. As a result, the Jewish victims of Majdanek are assimilated twice over: once to the memory of Polish national suffering, and again to a stridently economic critique of the camp blind to the ethnic identity of its victims. At Majdanek, where Jews accounted for more than four-fifths of the 350,000 murdered victims, the memorial recalls Jews primarily as part of other persecuted groups, including Poles, Communists, and Soviet prisoners of war. The barracks here have been converted to house individual exhibitions explicating the text of these preserved ruins. What the ruins remember here depends on accompanying inscriptions. As we enter the first barrack, devoted to an exhibition entitled "Hitlerism in the Years 1933-1942," we stop to read a large black wall panel with white print: With the help of German industrialists, on January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler became chancellor of the German Reich. The coming into power of the fascists marked the beginning of a period of brutal and ruthless dictatorship. The arson of the Reichstag served as an excuse for granting the government extraordinary plenipotentiaries and for endowing Hitler with unlimited power. Mass persecution of Communists, Socialists, and Jews followed.

As handmaiden to German industrialists, Hitler merely did the dirty work of big business, and Fascism was only a form of monopoly capitalism run amok. By extension, the camp itself is represented as a kind of factory, fueled literally by the blood of its worker-inmates. The barracks next door now function as exhibition storerooms, housing bins piled high with the victims' shoes, hats, and clothes—material evidence of the economic theft and plundering of victims by German Nazi industrialists, according to explanatory notes inside. More specifically, what do we understand of the killers and victims through the figure of their remains? In one way, all we see here can be construed as remnants of the killers and their deeds. The dynamited ruins of gas chambers at Birkenau, for example, recall not only the fact of the gas chambers, but also the German attempt to

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destroy evidence of this fact: a monument both to events and to the guilt of the killers. But in a perversely ironic twist, these artifacts also force us to recall the victims as the Germans have remembered them to us: in the collected debris of a destroyed civilization. For by themselves, these remnants rise in a macabre dance of memorial ghosts. Armless sleeves, eyeless lenses, headless caps, footless shoes: victims are known only by their absence, by the moment of their destruction. In great loose piles, these remnants remind u s not of the lives once animating them, so much as the brokenness of lives, now scattered in pieces. For when the memory of a people and its past are reduced to the broken bits and rags of their belongings, memory of life itself is lost. What of the relationships and families sundered? What of the scholarship and education? The community and its traditions? Nowhere among this debris do we find traces of what bound these people together into a civilization, a nation, a culture. Heaps of scattered artifacts belie the interconnectedness of lives that actually made these victims a people, a collective whole. The sum of these dismembered fragments can never approach the whole of what was lost. For years at Auschwitz-Birkenau, memory was a mix of ruins, museums, and sculpted art. Surrounded by a seemingly endless field of countless barracks' chimneys and piles of dynamited crematoria, a long row of blocklike sarcaphogi mark the end of the rail line, the beginning of the death zone. In concert with the relics nearby, this monument remembers and provides material evidence for the simple message that used to be inscribed on twenty stone tablets in twenty different languages, including Yiddish and Hebrew: "Four million people suffered and died here at the hands of the Nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945." With Poland's change in regime in 1989, these inscriptions were removed from the tablets, memory's slate wiped clean and corrected. While historians agree that the exact number of people murdered here will never be known, they believe the most accurate count is closer to 1.3 million, of whom about 1.1 million were Jews. The remaining 200,000 victims were comprised of Polish Catholics, Gypsies, and Russian prisoners of war.7 The figure of 4 million was as wrong as it was round, arrived at by a combination of the camp commandant's self-aggrandizing exaggerations, Polish perceptions of their great losses, and the Soviet occupiers' desire to create Socialist martyrs. It is also a number that may have diminished Stalin's own crimes, even as it created millions of Polish and Soviet martyrs at Auschwitz. The questions for the post-Communist museum at Auschwitz became, "How then to create a commemorative space large enough

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to accommodate the plural memories and symbols of disparate, occasionally competing groups? How are the correct proportions of space and significance allotted? Is this, or should this be, the function of the museum? How to tell Polish and Jewish narratives of the Holocaust together, side by side?" By dint of its location, Auschwitz will be a Polish memorial to both Polish and Jewish victims, a shared shrine to both Jewish and Polish catastrophes. In 1990 meetings of the International Auschwitz Council (on which I served), convened by the post-Communist-era prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, members debated whether to conserve the artifacts as historical evidence or as remnants of the past, meant to evoke in visitors the sense of having been there. When one member asked whether we ought to restore the remnants of Auschwitz to their historically accurate, original forms to convey the full horror of the Holocaust, I answered that it would be better to let the ruins age gracefully in order to show the ever-widening gulf of time between ourselves and the past terror. Indeed, given the overwhelming proportion of Polish and Christian visitors to Auschwitz, we had to recognize that AuschwitzBirkenau would necessarily function as a shared memorial space, where Polish Catholics will remember as Polish Catholics, even when they remember Jewish victims. As Jews, we do not locate the victims in a Polish Catholic martyrological tradition. But neither can we expect Polish Catholics to recite the mourners' Kaddish. As Jews recall events in the forms of our tradition, so will Poles remember in the images of their faith. The problem may not be that the Poles deliberately displace Jewish memory of Auschwitz with their own, but that in a country bereft of its Jews, these memorials can do little but cultivate Polish memory. In this light, we realize that Auschwitz is part of a national landscape of suffering, one coordinate among others by which both Jews and Poles continue to grasp their present lives in light of a remembered past. With all this in mind, it became clear to council members that any prescription for institutional memory at Auschwitz would be, like memorials themselves, provisional. Most of the council's proposals toward restoring the site's historical integrity and the museum's own historical accuracy have already been adopted. Indeed, the process itself reminds us that as much as we desire it, no memorial is really everlasting: each is shaped and understood in the context of its time and place, its meanings contingent on evolving political realities. Perhaps the wisest course, therefore, will be to build into the memorial at Auschwitz a capacity for change in new times and circumstances, to make explicit the kinds of meanings these terrible historical facts hold for us now, even as we make

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room for the new meanings this site will surely hold for the next generation. For once, it is made clear how many people died here, for what reasons, and at whose hands, it will be up to future commemorators to find their own significance in this past. 8 ISRAEL Like any state, Israel also remembers the past according to its national myths and ideals, its current political needs. And like the Holocaust memorials of other lands, those in Israel reflect both the past experiences and current lives of their communities, as well as the state's memory of itself. At times ambivalent, at times shrill, the official approach to Holocaust memory in Israel has long been torn between the simultaneous need to remember and to forget, between the early founders' enormous state-building task and the reasons why such a state was necessary, between the survivors' memory of victims and the fighters' memory of resistance. On the one hand, early statists such as David Ben-Gurion regarded the Holocaust as the ultimate fruit of Jewish life in exile; as such, it represented a Diaspora that deserved not only to be destroyed, but also forgotten. On the other hand, the statists also recognized their perverse debt to the Holocaust: it had, after all, seemed to prove the Zionist dictum that without a state and the power to defend themselves, Jews in exile would always be vulnerable to just this kind of destruction. 9 As a result, the early leaders found little reason to recall the Holocaust beyond its direct link to the new state. Ironically, however, by linking the state's raison d'etre to the Holocaust, the early founders also located the Shoah at the center of national identity: Israel would be a nation condemned to defining itself in opposition to that very event that makes it necessary. The question for the early state became: How to negate the Diaspora and put it behind the "new Jews" of Israel while basing the need for new Jews in the memory of the Shoah? How to remember the Holocaust in Israel without allowing it to constitute the center of one's Jewish identity? In part, the answer has been a forced distinction between the Israeli and the "galut (or exilic) Jew." According to this distinction, the Jew in exile has known only defenselessness and destruction, the Israeli has known fighting and self-preservation. Such a stereotype negates, of course, the early reality of Israel as an immigrant nation whose population in 1948 was over 50 percent survivors. 10 To some extent, this dichotomy is expressed in Israel by the ubiquitous twinning of martyrs and heroes in Israel's memorial

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iconography. In this mixed figure, the victims are memorable primarily for the ways they demonstrate the need for fighters, who, in turn, are remembered for their part in the state's founding. When placed against the traditional paradigmatic backdrop of destruction and redemption, the memorial message in this dialectic comes into sharp relief: as destruction of the martyrs is redeemed by those who fought, the Shoah itself is redeemed by the founding of the state. The martyrs are not forgotten here but are recollected heroically as the first to fall in defense of the state itself. On the one hand, the very existence of a museum in Tel Aviv— Beit Hatfutsot—dedicated to the Diaspora seems to epitomize the official Israeli view of dispersed Jewry as a dead and withered civilization. As museum object, life in the Diaspora is addressed in the past tense. At the same time, however, where memorials and museums in Europe, especially those located at the sites of destruction, focus relentlessly on the annihilation of Jews and almost totally neglect the millenium of Jewish life in Europe before the war, those in Israel locate events in a historical continuum that includes Jewish life before and after the destruction. In Israeli museums at kibbutzim such as Lohamei Hageta'ot, Tel Yitzchak, Givat Chaim, and Yad Mordechai, Jewish life before and during the Holocaust is emphasized over the killing itself—and Jewish life after the Holocaust is to be found primarily in Israel. Over the years, the museums at these kibbutzim have changed little, continuing to reflect their early attachment to a strong Zionist ideology underlying their very genesis. As a result, a new generation of Israelis often tends to see these (and almost all kibbutzim) as museums to both an actual historical past and to a past way of understanding the present. Such kibbutz museums often end up speaking more to tourists who come to see Israel itself as a museum to satisy their now archaic and nostalgic longing for Israel's pioneering days. Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta'ot (literally Fighters of the Ghettos) was thus founded by survivors of the camps and ghettos, many of them partisans and members of the Jewish Fighting Organization, as a living monument to what they had seen. Although the museum is now dedicated to the memory of poet Yitzchak Katzenelson, in both its name and memorial configuration, the kibbutz commemorates less the dying of Jews during the war and more their fighting during the war and surviving after the war. Of the twelve halls of the museum there, only two are devoted to the ghettos, concentration camps, and exterminations. In the narrative constructed in this museum, one arrives at these halls only after visiting graphic reconstructions of Vilna, "the Jerusalem of Lithuania," and "The

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Shtetl, Olkieniki." If in this lay-out the path to Holocaust winds through the centers and shtetls of Diaspora life, then the road from Holocaust leads through resistance to survival, to the kibbutz itself and to the vibrant new self-sufficiency of Jews in their own land. In this way, not only is the Holocaust contextualized to include aspects of life in exile, but also to remind us that Jewish life preceded and will now follow it. In its conception and design, the theme at Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies at Lohamei Hageta'ot is always the same: "From Destruction to Redemption." In its original configuration, the permanent exhibition at Yad Vashem similarly suggested that the Holocaust marks not so much the end of Jewish life as it does the end of viable life in exile. Indeed, as the Ba'al Shem Tov's words reminded visitors on their exit from the museum, "Forgetting lengthens the period of exile. In remembrance lies the secret of deliverance." Of all the memorial centers in Israel, only Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority bears the explicit imprimature of the state. Conceived in the throes of the state's birth and building, Yad Vashem would be regarded from the outset as an integral part of Israel's civic infrastructure. As one of the state's foundational cornerstones, Yad Vashem would both share and buttress the state's ideals and self-definition. In its eclectic amalgamation of outdoor monuments, exhibition halls, and massive archives, Yad Vashem functions as a national shrine to both Israeli pride in heroism and shame in victimization. As if trying to keep pace with the state's own growth, Yad Vashem has continued to expand its reservoir of images, sculptures, and exhibitions: as the state and its official memory of the Holocaust evolve, so too will the shape of memory at Yad Vashem. Unlike memorials that attempt to remove their national origins and interests from view, Yad Vashem's mission as simultaneous custodian and creator of national memory was explicitly mandated in its law. The function of memory here is precisely what it has always been for the Jewish nation; that is, in addition to bringing home the "national lessons" of the Holocaust, memory would work to bind present and past generations, to unify a world outlook, to create a vicariously shared national experience. These are the implied functions of every national memorial, of course, merely made visible in Israel's legislation of such memory. At the same time, however, Yad Vashem was also conceived by the state's founders as an explicit tearing away from the religious continuum and its meanings—another kind of counter memorial. This would be the beginning of a new, civic religion whose genesis would coincide with the creation of the state itself, whose new

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infrastructure would include Yad Vashem. Toward this end, a new historical space would be created, in which events of the Holocaust and the state's founding would quite literally be recalled side by side. The foundation stone for Yad Vashem was therefore laid into the hillside just west of the national military cemetery at Har Herzl on July 29, 1954, in a ceremony that turned this entire area into Har Hazikaron (Memorial Hill).11 In this way, Yad Vashem could be regarded as a topographical extension of the national cemetery, where Israel's ideological founder, Theodore Herzl, lies alongside Israel's fallen soldiers, including Hannah Senesh, Israel's martyred heroine ideal of the Holocaust. 12 From the beginning, almost every year has witnessed another unveiling at Yad Vashem of a new memorial sculpture or gardens placed around the grounds, including reproductions of memorial sculptures from the Warsaw Ghetto and Dachau. A monument and plaza commemorating Jewish soldiers in the Allied forces was added in 1985, a children's memorial in 1988. A memorial sculpture commemorating four martyred women, heroines of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando uprising, was dedicated in 1991. A huge project, 'The Valley to the Destroyed Communities," was completed in 1992. In all cases, however, Yad Vashem concerned itself with only the destruction of Jews during the war—not with other groups murdered en masse by the Nazis. Even so, the construction of memory at Yad Vashem has spanned the entire history of the state itself, paralleling the state's self-construction. For this reason, it seems clear that the building of memorials and new spaces will never be officially completed, that as the state grows, so too will its memorial undergirding. Indeed, as the state has begun to recognize the fact of its plural and multiethnic society, and as it recognizes its own debt to globalization, its perception of the Holocaust has also begun to evolve to include other than Jewish victims of the Nazis. With a new generation's mandate in mind, Yad Vashem has thus completely revamped its historical exhibition to reflect a new generation's reasons for remembering such history in the first place. The most significant of the many changes now underway in Yad Vashem's new historical museum, therefore, will be a narrative that includes not just Jewish victims of the Nazis but also the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners, homosexuals, and even Polish clergy and German victims of the Nazis' early T-4 (euthanasia) program for the mass murder of the disabled and the handicapped. In a land of immigrants—including Christian Russian spouses of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopian Jews— and in a time when young people are increasingly looking outward

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at other groups of contemporary victims in the world around them, Yad Vashem also now sees the need to tell the stories of victims other than Jews. With a newfound grasp of itself as a plural, immigrant nation, Israel's national institutions have begun to negate the traditional Zionist negation of the diaspora. AMERICA Where European memorials located in situ often suggest themselves rhetorically as the extension of events they would commemorate, those in America gesture abstractly to a past removed in both time and space. If memorials in Germany and Poland composed of camp ruins invite visitors to mistake themselves for the events they represent, those in America inevitably call attention to the great gulf between themselves and the destruction. The "meaning" in American Holocaust museums is not always as self-evident as those constructed at the camps, places of deportation, or destroyed synagogues. In this sense, American museums seem not to be anchored in history so much as in the ideals that generated them in the first place. In America, the motives for Holocaust memory are as mixed as the population at large, variously lofty and cynical, practical and aesthetic. Moreover, in an immigrant nation such as America, with its many competing constituencies, it is nearly impossible to decide on a single memorial shape for the Holocaust. Some communities build memorials to remember lost brethren, others to remember themselves. Some build memorials as community centers, others as tourist attractions. Some survivors remember strictly according to religious tradition, while others recall the political roots of their resistance. Veterans' organizations sponsor memorials to recall their role as liberators. Congressmen propose monuments to secure votes among their Jewish constituency. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, was proposed by President Jimmy Carter to placate Jewish supporters angered by his sale of F15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia. All such memorial decisions are made in political time, contingent on political realities. 13 In this context, therefore, we might explore not only the pluralistic definitions of the Holocaust in America (Which Holocaust? Whose Holocaust?) but also the ways other American ideals—such as liberty and immigration—constitute the central memorial motifs here. At the same time, we must ask, What role does the Holocaust play in American thought and culture, in American religious and political life, in relations between Jewish Americans and other

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e t h n i c g r o u p s ? To w h a t extent will it necessarily be universalized in a society defined by pluralist a n d egalitarian ideals? To w h a t ext e n t h a s it become a defining preoccupation for J e w i s h Americans, a l o c u s of m e m o r y a n d identity? T h e a n s w e r s to t h e s e q u e s t i o n s a r e complicated a n d ever changing. Of all t h e Holocaust m e m o r i a l s in America, n o n e c a n begin to m a t c h in scope or a m b i t i o n t h e n a t i o n a l memorial a n d m u s e u m complex t h a t opened in April 1993 in t h e h e a r t of t h e nation's c a p ital. S i t u a t e d adjacent to t h e National Mall a n d within view of t h e W a s h i n g t o n M o n u m e n t to t h e right a n d t h e Jefferson Memorial a c r o s s t h e Tidal Basin to t h e left, t h e U.S. Holocaust Memorial Mus e u m is a neighbor to t h e National M u s e u m of American History a n d t h e S m i t h s o n i a n I n s t i t u t e . It h a s e n s h r i n e d , by d i n t of its placement, n o t j u s t t h e history of t h e Holocaust, b u t American democratic a n d egalitarian ideals a s they counterpoint t h e Holocaust. T h a t is, by r e m e m b e r i n g t h e crimes of a n o t h e r people in a n o t h e r land, it e n c o u r a g e s A m e r i c a n s to recall their n a t i o n ' s own, idealized r e a s o n for being. "What is t h e role of [this] m u s e u m in a country, s u c h a s t h e United S t a t e s , far from t h e site of t h e Holocaust?" C h a r l e s Maier h a s asked. "Is it to rally t h e people who suffered or to i n s t r u c t n o n J e w s ? Is it s u p p o s e d to serve a s a r e m i n d e r t h a t 'it c a n h a p p e n h e r e ? ' Or is it a s t a t e m e n t t h a t s o m e special consideration is deserved? U n d e r w h a t c i r c u m s t a n c e s c a n a private sorrow serve sim u l t a n e o u s l y a s a public grief?" 14 Before s u c h a m u s e u m could be b u i l t o n t h e mall in Washington, DC, explicitly American r e a s o n s would have to be found for it. T h e official American justification for a n a t i o n a l m e m o r i a l in t h e n a t i o n ' s capital w a s provided by President Carter in h i s add r e s s to t h e first Days of R e m e m b r a n c e c o m m e m o r a t i o n in t h e Capitol R o t u n d a on April 14, 1979: Although the Holocaust took place in Europe, the event is of fundamental significance to Americans for three reasons. First, it was American troops who liberated many of the death camps, and who helped to expose the horrible truth of what had been done there. Also, the United States became a homeland for many of those who were able to survive. Secondly, however, we must share the responsibility for not being willing to acknowledge forty years ago that this horrible event was occurring. Finally, because we are humane people, concerned with the human rights of all peoples, we feel compelled to study the systematic destruction of the Jews so that we may seek to learn how to prevent such enormities from occurring in the future. 15 Not only would t h i s m u s e u m depict t h e lives of "new Americans," b u t it would reinforce America's self-idealization a s a h a v e n for t h e

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world's oppressed. It would serve as a universal warning against the bigotry and antidemocratic forces underpinning such a catastrophe and call attention to the potential in all other totalitarian systems for such slaughter. For as a national landmark, the national Holocaust museum would necessarily plot the Holocaust according to the nation's own ideals, its pluralist tenets. In the words of the memorial council, therefore, the Holocaust began before a shot was fired, with persecution of Jews, dissenters, blacks, Gypsies, and the handicapped. The Holocaust gathered force as the Nazis excluded groups of people from the human family, denying them freedom to work, to study, to travel, to practice a religion, claim a theory, or teach a value. This Museum will illustrate that the loss of life itself was but the last stage in the loss of all rights.16 In being defined as the ultimate violation of America's Bill of Rights and as the persecution of plural groups, the Holocaust encompasses all the reasons immigrants—past, present, and future—ever had for seeking refuge in America. Yet other levels of meaning can be found in the very design of the museum itself. "It is my view," the museum's architect, James Ingo Freed, has said, "that the Holocaust defines a radical break with the optimistic conception of continuous social and political improvement underlying the material culture of the West."17 This view led, in turn, to a fundamental architectural dilemma: how to represent the Holocaust as an irreparable breach in the Western mind without violating the strictly enforced architectural harmony of the nation's capital? Freed's answer was an exterior that conformed to the Fine Arts Commission's strict guidelines and an interior that metaphorically removes visitors from the capital. In an echo of the brokenness already recalled in traditonal Jewish mourning motifs, Freed's design includes skewed angles, exposed steel trusses, and broken walls—all to suggest an architectural discotinuity, rawness, and an absence of reassuring forms. 18 The discontinuity and fragmentation preserved in the museum's interior architectural space cannot, however, be similarly conveyed in the exhibition narrative itself. For like all narrative, that created in the exhibition necessarily depends on the continuous sequence of its telling, the integrative coherence of history's plotting. Though housed in a structure reverberating brokenness and the impossibility of repair, the exhibition itself exists solely on the strength of its internal logic, the linear sequence by which events of the Holocaust are ordered in their telling.

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Because the American experience of Nazi Germany in the 1930s was necessarily mediated by newsreels, papers, and radio broadcasts, the media experience itself is re-created in the next section. Visitors enter a typical American living room in 1939, complete with a radio broadcasting news reports, and newspapers and magazines lying on the coffee table that discuss the time. This was the American experience, in all of its limited and necessarily mediated ways. To reach the next section on ghettoization, visitors traverse a narrow bridge like the ones that once linked the outside world to the ghettos. Then they walk on authentic cobblestones from the Warsaw Ghetto and view other artifacts, such as a sewing machine, a baby carriage, a policeman's bicycle, and other items showing the range of life in the ghetto: each artifact a metonymic reminder of the actual life once animating it. Though this museum also shows images of Jewish life before and after the Holocaust (for example, a moving temporary exhibition that depicts the full and textured life of a young Jewish boy before the war), it also features many of the artifacts of destruction—such as victims' shoes and photographs of mounds of hair—brought from various concentration camps around Europe. After the ghetto experience in this museum narrative comes mass murder, beginning with the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units of the SS responsible for murdering some 1.5 million Jews in the Soviet Union. Film images of these killings are simultaneously presented and hidden: a four-foot high tin wall keeps young children from looking into the abyss, visible only to their elder siblings and parents. A section on concentration camps follows, replete with half an actual barrack imported from Birkenau. Again, according to Michael Berenbaum, this and other artifacts are used to refute the lies of Holocaust negationists. Once inside the barrack, visitors view a scale model of the gas chambers designed after a similar model on view at Auschwitz. Cannisters of Zyklon-B, long de-activated, attend this section along with contracts of the construction companies who built the gas chamber and crematorium complexes, guaranteeing a longevity of twenty-five years. "Issues of corporate behavior—with all their ethical ramifications—must be confronted squarely in this tower," Berenbaum writes. 19 After the death exhibits, visitors find both respite and some sense of vindication in sections on resistance and "the courage to care." Here the stories of ghetto fighters and partisans are told alongside those of other heroes, such as Raoul Wallenberg (who saved 100,000 Jews in Budapest) and the French village of Chambon, where Jewish children were hidden and protected.

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Finally, like the museum narratives in Israel, where lives were rebuilt after the Holocaust, this exhibit also ends with the "return to life." For this is the story of an ideal shared by America and Israel: both see themselves as lands of refuge and freedom. What follows is then a story of immigration, the long journey from "old world" displaced persons camps, ravaged towns and anti-Semitism to the "new worlds" of Jewish statehood and American egalitarianism. It is the story of America's absorption of both immigrants and their memories, the gradual integration of Holocaust memory into American civic culture. For at the end, the museum suggests itself as the ultimate triumph of America's absorption of immigrants, the integration of immigrant memory into the topograhical heart of American memory. A similar appreciation for the richness of Jewish life in America is found in New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, located on the Battery in downtown Manhattan, within sight of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Though it opened only in the mid-1990s, the Museum of Jewish Heritage is the culmination of what was to be America's first Holocaust memorial. Years of city and state debates over where and how to commemorate the Holocaust in New York combined with numerous competing fund-raising agendas to delay the building of what is now one of the city's most important memorial institutions. As its name suggests, the Museum of Jewish Heritage integrates the Holocaust into a Jewish past, present, and future, locating it in a long continuum of Jewish life in Europe before the war and then after the war in Israel and America. Looking out over the harbor from the exhibition halls, visitors are able to hold in mind both the time of destruction in Europe and the safety of refuge in America, life before and after the catastrophe. Other Holocaust museums in America are no less accountable to a broad cross section of American civic groups. In keeping with its memorial mandate, but now answerable to the large black, Hispanic, and Asian communities nearby, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit HaShoah—Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles thus broadened its mission of Holocaust education and commemoration. It is now designed to educate the diverse population of Los Angeles about the dangers of race hatred and bigotry by teaching about its most extreme form, the Holocaust. In its high-tech dioramas, state-of-the-art design, and sophisticated multimedia presentations, Beit HaShoah (Hebrew for House of the Holocaust) also reflects the ethos of its community, its place in the center of America's entertainment capital. As reflected in the two parts of its name, Beit HaShoah—Museum of Tolerance hopes to provide an

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American model for tolerance education based on the memory of a particular people's suffering. Indeed, in America's culture of assimilation, where explicitly religious differences are tolerated and de-emphasized, it is almost always the memory of extreme experience that serves to distinguish the identity of minority groups from the majority population. On the one hand, with the rise of a newfound ethnic pride among African Americans, Jewish Americans, and Native Americans during the 1960s, the power of a vicariously remembered past to bind otherwise alienated groups grew increasingly attractive. As African Americans recalled their enslavement and Native Americans their genocide, Jewish Americans began to recall the Holocaust as the crux of their common heritage. But even as the memory of mass suffering was binding together the members of these communities, it also set the stage for an implicit competition between the various cults of victimization. Two-dimensional identities constructed solely around the memory of past suffering began to clash as groups asserted the primacy of their tragic pasts over that of others. One of the results has been a narrowing of each group's experience, a dividing of these groups' histories from one another. Instead of learning about the Holocaust through the larger study of Jewish history, many Jews and non-Jews in America now learn the whole of Jewish history through the lens of the Holocaust. Likewise, all many Americans know about African Americans is their degraded condition as slaves, or about Native American history its grisly end. In each case, entire centuries of rich life and culture are reduced to the detritus of destroyed civilizations. Today, the Holocaust continues to occupy a central place in both Jewish and non-Jewish consciousness. In a plural and diverse society, it has also entered a universal realm, becoming a standard and currency by which many disparate groups measure their pasts, even as they come to know a part of Jewish history. Over time, however, Holocaust memorials and museums in America will also be asked to invite many different, occasionally competing groups of Americans into their spaces. At the same time, such museums will inspire other persecuted minorities to demand national museums commemorating their catastrophes, as well. In the most ideal of American visions, the memory of competing "holocausts" will not continue to divide Americans from one another but may lead each community to recall its past in light of another group's historical memory. In this way, each group might also come to know more about their compatriots' experiences in light of their own remembered past.

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Finally, we m u s t recognize t h a t t h e "art of memory" neither begins in a memorial's g r o u n d b r e a k i n g , n o r e n d s in t h e ceremonies c o n d u c t e d in its halls. Rather, t h i s a r t consists in t h e ongoing activity of memory, in t h e d e b a t e s s u r r o u n d i n g t h e s e m e m o r i a l s , in o u r own participation in t h e memorial's p e r f o r m a n c e . For in t h e end, we m u s t also realize t h a t t h e a r t of m e m o r y r e m a i n s incomplete, a n e m p t y exercise, until we w h o r e m e m b e r t h e Holocaust h a v e g r a s p e d — a n d t h e n r e s p o n d e d t o — c u r r e n t suffering in t h e world in light of a r e m e m b e r e d p a s t .

NOTES 1. See Peter Burger, The Theory oftheAvant Garde, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). Burger defines the "functionalist analysis of art" as an examination of the artworks "social effect (function), which is the result of the coming together of stimuli emanating from within the work itself and a sociologically definable public" (87). 2. In the rare event when a state does commemorate its crimes, it is nearly always at the behest of formerly victimized citizens. The memorial unveiled on October 30, 1990, in Moscow, for example, to "the millions of victims of a totalitarian regime" was instigated by a group calling itself "Memorial," composed of scholars, cultural figures, dissidents, and former victims of Joseph Stalin's terror. 3. For a full-length discussion of Germany's "countermonuments," see James E. Young, "The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today," Critical Inquiry 18 (Winter 1992): 267-296. 4. See J a n Tomasz Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgovernment, 1939-1944 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 185-186. 5. I am indebted here to Iwona Irwin-Zarecka's fine discussion of Poland's martyrological tradition in Neutralizing Memory: The Jews in Contemporary Poland (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1989), 27. 6. Jozef Marszalek and Anna Wisniewska, eds., Majdanek (Lublin, Poland: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1983), 3. 7. See Georges Wellers, "Essai de Determination du Nombre de Morts au Camp d'Auschwitz," Le Monde Juif (Fall 1983): 127-159; and Yehuda Bauer, "Fighting the Distortions," The Jerusalem Post, international ed., September 9, 1989, 6. 8. For more on the process of deciding the fate of memory at Auschwitz, see James E. Young, "The Future of Auschwitz," Tikkun 7 (November/December 1992): 31-33, 37. 9. In a bulletin prepared for army commanders on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the meaning of Holocaust memory is made explicit: "The Zionist solution establishing the State of Israel was intended

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to provide an answer to the problem of the existence of the Jewish people, in view of the fact that all other solutions had failed. The Holocaust proved, in all its horror, that in the twentieth century, the survival of the Jews is not assured as long as they are not masters of their fate and as long as they do not have the power to defend their survival." See "Informational Guidelines to the Commander," as cited in Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 184. 10. For further discussion of the complicated relations between Holocaust memory and Israeli identity, see Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel, 100-107, 151-158; Saul Friedlander, "Die Shoah als Element in der Konstruktion israelischer Erinnerung," Babylon 2 (1987); and Sidra Ezrahi, "Revisioning the Past: The Changing Legacy of the Holocaust in Hebrew Literature," Salmagundi (Fall 1985/Winter 1986): 245-270. 11. In the words of former prime minister Levi Eschkol, "The very struggle against the adversary (during the Holocaust) and the victory that followed (Israel's War of Independence) laid the foundations for the revival of our national independence. Seen in this light the Jewish fight against the Nazis and the War of Independence were, in fact, a single protracted battle. The geographical proximity between Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl thus expresses far more than mere physical closeness" (Yad Vashem Bulletin 16 [1965]: 62). 12. For further details, see Hannah Senesh: Her Life and Diary, introduction by Abba Eban (New York: Schocken Books, 1973). 13. For further details on the controversy surrounding the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Commission, see Judith Miller, One by One: Facing the Holocaust (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 255-266. For more on the Americanization of Holocaust memory, see Michael Berenbaum, After Tragedy and Triumph: Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3-16. 14. Charles Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 165. 15. From an undated press release of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. 16. The Campaign for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, n.d.), 4. 17. James Ingo Freed, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: What Can It Be? (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.). 18. For a full-length study of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, see Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (New York: Viking, 1995). 19. Berenbaum, After Tragedy and Triumph.

Index

Adenauer, Konrad, 182 Adorno, Theodor, 224 Agudat Yisrael, 105 Alexander, Jeffrey, 221 Allen, Woody, 206 Alter, Avraham, 89 Amalek, 87, 90, 91, 92, 105, 107, 112 America. See United States American Jewish Committee, 182 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint), 181 American Jewry, xiv, 5, 40-43, 51, 126, 131, 272 American military government (OMGUS), 180 American research, 5 Anglo-Prussian bishopric, 73 anti-Semites, xvii, 155 anti-Semitism, xii, 4, 8, 21, 23, 27, 30-32, 41, 46, 63, 65-67, 69-71, 73-78, 123, 125-126, 139-142, 144-146, 148-150, 153-157, 160, 163, 165, 167, 170, 195, 199, 203-206, 239, 271 anti-Zionism, xii, 20, 25, 53, 140, 152-53, 155-57, 170 Antonescu, Ion, 29-31, 150 Arabic, 142, 151 Arabs, 151, 167, 169 Arafat, Yasser, 167

Arendt, Hannah, 204, 223 Argentina, 4 Armenians, 3, 10, 14, 145, 168 Artom, Menahem, 99 Aryans, 4-5 Ashkenazi, Shemuel, 105 Ashlag, Yehuda, 96 Assyrians, 14 Atiyah, Mordekhai, 96, 103, 105-106 Auschwitz, xii, xvi, 22, 24, 26, 39, 46-47, 54, 80, 82, 83, 88-89, 109-111, 145-157, 159-160, 165, 167, 202, 208, 259, 261-262, 270 Australia, 141, 144, 149, 152, 157, 161, 163-195 Australian Civil Liberties Union, 144 Austria, 127, 145, 147, 161, 179, 195, 205 Avihayilm Eliyahu, 103 Avineri, Shlomoh Hayim, 102 Ba'al Shem Tov, 111, 265 Bacharach, Yair, 98 Bacon, Nancy, 241 Badrakhan, Abd al-Wahab, 167 Baker, Mona, 157 Bakon, Hayim, 90 Balfour Declaration, 103 Baltic States, 26-28

276

Bankier, David, 9 Bar Kokhba, 105 Bar Yohai, Shimon, 96 Bauer, Yehuda, ix-xi, 62, 168-169 Baum, Gregory, 67 Bauman, Zygmunt, 223 Bazak, Eliyahu, 100 Bea, Augustin, 69 Becker, Jurek, 211-212 Begin, Menachem, 43 Beirut, 151-152 Beit HaShoah, 271 Beit Hatfutsot, 264 Belarus, 28-29 Belgium, 10, 143, 161 Belzec, 9 Ben-Gurion, David, 40, 263 Benigni, Roberto, 47 Ben-Moshe, Danny, xii, 26 Ben Shlomoh, Eliyahu, 89 Ben Yitshak, Hayim, 109 Benz, Wolfgang, 10, 145-146, 148 Berenbaum, Michael, 270 Bergen-Belsen, 254 Berkovitz, Eliezer, xiii, 107 Berlin, 11, 199-200 Bethge, Eberhard, 72 Beyer, Frank, 210 Bialystok, 6, 9 Bin Laden, Osama, 15, 161, 169 Birkenau, 159, 260, 270 Blaykher, Mosheh, 90 Bochum, 11 Bolsky, Sid, 240 Bonheffer, Dietrich, 72 Borowski, Tadeusz, 240 Bosnia, 3, 14, 168 Brauner, Arthur, 201 Brazovsky, Shalom, 87-88, 110-112 Brenner, Lenni, 155 Britain, 5, 125 British government, 5 British Jewry, 5 Brockway, Alan, 66 Brooks, Mel, 206, 214 Browning, Christopher, xv, 6, 8, 223 Bubis, Ignatz, 148 Buchanan, Pat, 144 Buchenwald, 19, 21-22, 43, 198, 202, 254, 256-257 Budapest, 30, 270

Index Buenos Aires, 14 Bulgaria, 10, 31 Bundestag, 22, 185 Burger, Peter, 251 Burundi, 10 Bush, George H. W., 28 Butz, Arthur, 166 Buzaglo, Shalom, 96, 106 Canada, 154, 159, 161, 163-164 Cardinal Cassidy, 81 Carter, Jimmy, 267-168 Carto, Willis, 142-143, 149 Catholics, 50, 62, 66, 70, 72, 76, 78, 81, 83, 140, 254, 261-162 Celan, Paul, 205 Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 11 Cesarani, David, 52 Chabad. See Habad Chambon, 270 China, 4, 14 Chmielnitsky, Bogdan, 88, 91 Chomsky, Noam, 155-156 Christian-Jewish relations, xiv, 61-84, Church of Scotland, 79 CIS, 131 Clark University, 12 Cole, Tim, xiii, Communism, 126, 130, 165, 202, Communists, 50, 149-150, 155, 254-257, 260 Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, 183, 186-188 contemporary responses to the Shoah in Germany and East Europe, 19-32 Conway, John, xiv Council of Europe, 161 Cracow, 9 Croatia, 31 Crusaders, 15 Czech Jewry, 29 Czechoslovakia, 147 Czech Republic, 29 Dachau, 19, 22, 198, 254-255, 266 Damascus Radio, 153 Danish, 142 Danish Jews, 11 De Winter, Leon, 129

Index Deckert, Gunther, 146, 162 Delbo, Charlotte, 224 democide, 3, 14 Denmark, 125 Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft, 199 Dinur, Ben-Zion, 9 Displaced Persons (DPs), 179, 181, 183 Distel, Barbara, 255 Diwald, Helmut, 146 Doblin, Alfred, 200 Dresden, 143, 147, 199 Druckman, Hayim, 88 Duke, David, 143 Durban, 170 Dutch Jews, 12 Dutch Reform Church, 68 DVU, 148 Dworzetzky, Marek, 9 Eastern Europe, 5, 7, 11, 19, 23, 25-27, 31-32, 127, 142, 148-151, 186, 205 East Germany. See German Democratic Republic East Timor, 3 Egypt, 151 Eichmann, Adolf, 20, 39-40, 43, 71, 166, 194, 204 Einsatzgruppen, 270 Elberg, Simhah, 108, 112 Elkana, Yehuda, 44 emancipation, 124 Emden, Ya'akov, 101 Engel, David, 13 England, 105 English, 125, 142 Ethiopian Jews, 266 Europe, xiv, 39, 51, 71, 75, 126, 129, 142-143, 149, 178, 185, 195, 197, 202, 204-207, 215, 250, 264, 271 European Jews, ix, x, xii, xiii, 5, 9, 12-13, 19, 49, 63, 123-131, 141, 178, 188, 198, 202, 223, 249 European Union, 26, 32 Evangelical Church, 71-73 Evans, Richard, 145 Fackenheim, Emil, xiii, 112 Fassbinder, Rainer, 204, 209

277

Faurisson, Robert, 142-143, 146, 149, 155, 157, 169 Federal Republic of Germany. See West Germany Final Solution, ix, xiii, 37 Finnish, 142 Finkelstein, Norman, 37, 41-42, 47, 50-53, 140, 147, 155-156, 169-170 Flanzbaum, Hilene, 47-50 Focus Policy Group, 144 France, 7, 125, 155, 161, 164, 195, 199, 205 Frank, Anne, xvii, 20, 204, 206, 239 Frankfurt, 199 Freed, James, 269 Freedland, Jonathan, 156 Freedom Party, 147 French, 142 French Jews, 9 French Revolution, 219-220 Frey, Gerhard, 148 Frieburg, 11 Friedlander, Saul, 7-8, 13, 44, 129,224 Friedman, Mosheh, 88 Friedman, Philip, 9 Frisch, Max, 204 Frolich, Wolfgang, 152 Froyanov, Igor, 150 Galen, Bishop, 67, Gardner, Howard, 228, 239 Garudy, Roger, 141, 149, 151 Geiss, Rabbi Raphael, 72 Gelski, Sophie, xvi Genocide, 168-169, 252 Genocide Convention of the United Nations, 3 Gentiles, 26, 130 German, 13, 142 German Democratic Republic, 20-21, 184, 187, 210, 256 German Historians, 145-146 German Jewry, 10, 177, 199, 200, 207, 212 German research, 5, 7 Germans, 24-25, 43, 65, 72, 145-147, 153, 156, 181, 198, 200, 261 Germany, xvii, 7-8, 11, 13, 19, 21, 23-24, 32, 65, 71, 73-74, 88,

278

Index

Germany [continued), 90-91, 99, 105, 127, 142, 145-148, 160-162, 178-179, 181-184, 186, 194-195, 201, 205, 209-212, 214, 222, 227, 250, 252-267 Gerst, Yehuda, 89, 113 Gilbert, Martin, 239 Gitelman, Zvi, 131 Givat Chaim, 264 Goldhagen, Daniel, 24 Gollnisch, Bruno, 143 Gospel, 193-94 Graf, Jurgen, 149, 152, 162 Granta, Russ, 161 Greece, 4, 10 Greenberg, Gershon, xiii Greenberg, Yitshak, 113 Grinvald, Yehoshua, 109-110 Gross, J a n 27 Gross, John, 46 Grossman, Hayka, 94, 105 Grubman, Sally, 53 Gutman, Israel, 9 Gypsies, 10, 194, 202, 261, 266, 269. See also Roma

Hilberg, Raul, x, 9, 66 Himmler, Heinrich, 6, 208 Hiroshima, 221 Hitler, Adolf, 6, 20-21, 37, 51, 66-67, 87-92, 94, 99-100, 103, 107, 139, 140, 141, 145, 147, 153, 159, 169, 181, 202, 255, 257, 260 Hochhuth, Rolf, 20, 80-81, 204 Hoffman, M, 157 Holland see Netherlands Holmes, Colin, 168 Holocaust denial, xii, xvi, 139-70 Holocaust education, xvi, 219-241 Holocaust industry, xiii, 37-55 Holocaust in films and literature, 193-217 Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, 204 Holocaust memorialization, xvii, 249-273 Holocaust Remembrance Day, 265 Holocaust research, 3-32 Holocaust TV Series, 44-48 Horthy, Admiral Miklos, 30 Hungarian Jews, 30 Hungary, 30, 37, 130

Ha'aretz, 44 Habad, 93, 126 Habe, Hans, 200 Hagiz, Mosheh, 105 Haider, Jorg, 147 Halevi, Yehuda, 103 Haman, 91 Hamburg, 199 Hanson, Pauline, 144 Hapstein, Yisrael, 88 Hardship Fund, 186-187 Har Hazikaron, 266 Har Herzl, 266 Hariri, Rafiq, 167 Harlap, Ya'akov, 89, 110-112 Harnack, Adolf von, 64 Harwood, Richard. See Richard Verrall Hatam Sofer, 109 Hausner, Gideon, 39-40 Hayward, Joel, 166 Hebrew, 7, 13, 125, 261 Herreros, 14 Herzl, Theodore, 266 Heydrich, Reinhard, 208 Heym, Stefan, 200

Ibn Attar, Hayim, 100 Ibn Ezra, Avraham, 103-104 Ilyinsky, Igor, 150 Institute for Historical Research, (IHR) 141-42, 151-152, 154-155, 158 integration, 124, 166 International Auschwitz Council, 262 International Criminal Court, xvi International Military Tribunals, xv Internet, 158, 163 Iran, 151, 152 Iraq, 151, 177 Irving, David, 139, 141-144, 156-159, 161-163, 165-166, 169 Irwin-Zarecka, Iwona, 258 Isaac, Jules, 68 Islam, 5, 79, 152-53, 169 Islamic fundalmentalism, xi, 14, 155 Islamist Al-Muhajiroun, 154 Israel, xiv, xvii, 5, 7, 12-13, 15, 20, 26, 32, 39,40-41, 43-44, 51-52, 62, 70-72, 77-79, 83,

Index 100, 123, 125, 127, 129-131, 140-141, 151, 153-154, 156-157, 161, 167, 177, 181-185, 195, 199, 201-203, 205-207, 212, 227, 250, 253, 263-267, 271 Israeli research, 5, 7 Israelis, 126, 130 Italy, 7, 10, 141, 155, 179 Jabez, Yosef, 97-98 Jackel, Eberhard, 9 Jacobson, Howard, 157 Japan, 4, 142 Jasenovac camp, 31 Jehovah's Witnesses, 266 Jenninger, Philipp, 24 Jerusalem, 43, 73, 105 Jesus, 64, 70, 73, 77 Jewish Agency, 181 Jewish Historical Institute, 26 Jewish Question, ix, Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO), 180 Jews, 8, 14-15, 20-21, 23, 26-27, 29-31, 46, 50, 52, 67-68, 70-71, 73-74, 76-77, 79, 81-83, 90-91, 99, 102-103, 105-106, 108-109, 112, 123-131, 139, 141, 146, 149, 150-151, 153, 156-158, 166-167, 169-170, 177, 179, 183, 185-186, 188, 194, 198, 203, 209, 211, 214, 220, 222, 250, 254, 257-263, 260-266, 268, 270 Jones, Audrey, 154 Jordan, 78, 141, 151, 167 Judaism, 4, 64, 69, 76-77, 80, 83 Judenrate, 9-10 Kabbalah, 96, 99, 101, 106, 112 Kanevsky, Hayim, 99 Karlebakh, Eliyahu, 111 Kashmir, 14 Katzenelson, Yitzchak, 264 Kaufering, 89 Kazstner, Rudolph, 104-105 Kermisz, Josef, 9 Kershaw, Ian, 6-7 Kertesz, Imre, 46, 49, 129 Kharkov, 28 kibbutzim, 264

279

Kiddush Hashem, xiii Kiev, 28-29 Kirschner, Gerrit, 241 Klemperer, Victor, 23, 199 Knigge, Volkhard, 257 Konrad, Gyorgi, 129 Kook, Ttsevi, 99-100, 102, 104, 112 Kosovo, 3, 14, 23 Kovner, Abba, 15 Kovno, 9 Kranz, Ya'akov, 103 Krege, Richard, 160 Kristelnacht, 19, 20, 207 Kulka, Otto, 9 Kurds, 14 Ladino, 125 Lapid, Pinchas, 72 Lapid, Yosef, 153 Latin America. See South America Latvian SS, 28 Laybovitch, Barukh, 98 League Against Racism and antiSemitism, 163 Lebanon, 43, 78, 151, 167 Leibniz, Gottfried, xiii Le Pen, Jean, 143 Leuchter, Fredrick, 141-43, 149, 159 Leuchter Report, 159-160, 165-166 Levai, Jeno, 37 Levi, Primo, 197, 205, 240 Levin, Meyer, 198 Levinsohn, Peter, 72 Libya, 151 Life is Beautiful, 47-48, 202, 211, 215 Lin, Maya, 252 Lipstadt, Deborah, 40, 139, 145-146, 161, 169 Lithuania, 28, 108 Littell, Franklin, 71 Livni, Avraham, 100-101 Lodz, 6, 9 Lodz Ghetto, 89 Loew, Eleazar, 98 Loewy, Hanno, 129 Lohamei Hageta'ot, 264-265 Los Angeles, 271 Lubac, Henri, 67 Lund, 12

Index

280

Lunet, Sidney, 205 Luntshits, Efrayim, 105 Lwow, 9 Macedonia, 14, 31 Madigan, Paul, 144 Mahler, Horst, 152 Maidanek, 111, 159, 259-260 Maier, Charles, 268 Maimonides, 90, 93 Maritain, Jacques, 67 Mauthausen, 83 Maybaum, Ignaz, xiii Mazowiecki, Tadeusz, 262 McCalden, David, 152 Meltser, Isser, 93 Memorial Day for the Victims of National Socialism, 22 Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, 253 Metz, Johann Baptist, 71 Michman, Dan, xiv Middle East, xii, 44, 64, 72, 75, 79, 142, 151-154, 167 Milgram, Stanley, 223 Mintz, Alan, 47-50, 52, 54 Minzberg, Layb, 91 Mishklov, Hillel, 104 Moller, Horst, 147 Moltmann, Jurgen, 71 Molzer, Andreas, 147 Morocco, 151 Muhammad, Khalid, 154 Muhammad, Omar, Bakri, 154 Muhammand, Don, 154 Munich, 199 Museum of Jewish Heritage (New York), 271 Muslims, 151, 153-54, 167 National Alliance, 143, 170 National Radical Institute, 142 National Socialism, 6, 14, 73 Nation of Islam, 154 NATO, 32 Naturei Karta, 105 Nazi crimes, 22-27, 51, 65 Nazi Germany, ix, xii, 5-8, 61, 128, 145, 197, 207, 249, 270 Nazis, xii, xiii, xv, 4, 6, 11, 13, 20, 24, 32, 63, 67, 72, 105, 106, 139, 142, 144-145, 151, 154-155, 157, 165-166, 168,

178, 182, 195, 211, 223, 253-254, 256, 260, 266, 269 Nazism, 21, 27, 50, 88, 92, 140, 147-148, 155, 159, 179, 183, 199 neo-Nazism, 21 Nes Ammim, 71 Netherlands, 10-11, 68, 184, 253 Neusner, Jacob, 40 Neuwirth, Aharon, 99 New Age movement, 156 New Haven, 42 Newsweek, 45 New York, xi, 271 New York Times, 45 New Zealand, 166 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 63 Niemoller, Martin, 50, 67 Nolte, Ernst, 145-147 Norbuch, Goetz, 152 Nordic, 142 North America, xiv, 70-71, 75, 123, 125, 127, 195, 206, 215 Nostra Aetate, 69-70, 76-77, 83 Novick, Peter, 41-43, 50-51, 53 NPD, 148 Nuremberg, xv, 39 Nuremberg rallies, 67 Ohrdruf, 198 Olkieniki, 264 One Nation Party, 144 Oswiecim, 259 Paideia, 130-31 Palestine, 62-65, 69, 154, 178, 181 Palestinian Authority, 153 Palestinians, 78, 127, 153, 156-157, 167, 177 Palonov, Oleg, 149 Pankowski, Rafal, 162 Parkes, James, 68 Paulin, Tom, 157 Peri, Anat, 147 Person, Goran, 130 Petshenik, Aharon, 103 Pierce, William, 152 Pinto, Diana, 128 Plath, Sylvia, 224 Pohl, Dieter, xii Poland, xvii, 10, 13, 25-27, 39, 71, 76, 108, 124, 142, 149,

Index 161-162, 194, 205, 250. 253, 257-263, 267 Polanski, Roman, 210, 216 Poles, 4, 13-14, 257 Poliakov, Leon, 9, 66 Polish, 13 Polish Jewry, 10 Polonsky, Anthony, 13 Pope, Alexander, 240 Pope John Paul I, 76 Pope John Paul II, 76, 80, 83 Pope John XXIII, 69, 83 Pope Paul VI, 76 Pope Pius XII, 80-82 Portugal, 180 Portugeuse, 142 post-Zionism, 127 Poznansky, Renee, 9 Prager, Mosheh, 89, 90, 113 Prague, 29 Protestants, 62-64, 66, 71-74, 77, 83, 254 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 40, 170 Pulzer, Peter, 157 Rabin, Yitzhak, 127 Rabinowitch, Barukh, 94-95, 108-109 Rabinowitch, Zadok, 91 Rabinowitz, Dorothy, 39 Radio Islam, 142, 158 Raes, Roeland, 143, 144 Ragab, Ahmad, 153 Rambam. See Maimonides Rami, Ahmed, 142, 150 Rashi, 90 Rassiner, Paul, 142-143, 155 Ratajczak, Dariusz, 162 Rauschning, Herman, 89, 100 Reichstag, 260 Reisegger, Gernoth, 170 Reitlinger, Gerhard, 66 relativism, 139-140, 143, 145, 147, 149, 154, 156, 159, 161, 168-169 Remer, Otto, 160 restitution, 20, 177-188 Rhineland Synod, 72-73, 75 Riefenstahl, Leni, 211 Riegner, Gerhard, 79 Road, Duncan, 156 Roma, 4, 13-14, 25, 202

281

Romania, 9, 30, 150 Rosenberg, Alan, 220-222 Rosenfeld, Alvin, 47, 51-52, 54 Rubenstein, Richard, xiii, 113 Rudolph, German, 158, 162 Rummel, Rudolph, 3, 14-15 Rurup, Reinhard, 124 Russia, 4, 28-29, 124, 149, 150, 165 Russian, 142 Rwanda, xvi Rwandan genocide, 15, 159 Sachsenhausen 21 Saramago, Jose, 156 Saudi Arabia, 14, 267 Schiff, Abraham, 93 Schindler's List, 23-44, 45-49, 51-52, 149, 203, 210-211, 213, 216 Schlaperbersky, Mordekhai, 97 Schlink, Bernhard, 23 Schlondorff, Volker, 209 Schneersohn, Menahem, 93-94, 100 Searchlight, 149-150 secularization, 124 Seelisberg, 68 Segher, Anna, 197 Seidal, Gill, 155 Sereny, Gita, 340 Shabazz, Mailid, 154 Shafir, Michael, 139, 150, 168 Shakh, Elazar, 95, 108 Shapira, Tsevi, 98 Sharki, Uri, 101-102 Shtaynberger, Yeshayah, 90 Shulzinger, Elazar, 105 Shvarts, Yoel, 91 Simon Wiesenthal Centre, 153 Six Day War, 40, 206 Slovakia, 26, 29-30, 150 Slovak Jewry, 29 Sobibor, 9, 208 Solle, Dorothea, 71 Sonderkommandos, xvi, 212-213, 266 South Africa, 170 South America, 129, 142, 195 Soviet Communism, 14 Soviet Union, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 28, 125, 146, 186, 253, 266, 270

282

Spain, 161 Spanish, 142 Spearhead, 142 Spectre, Barbara, 130 Spielberg, Steven, xvi, 23, 45-46, 48-49, 216 Sri Lanka, 14 Staglich, Wilhem, 155 Stalin, 149, 257, 261 Staron, Stanislaw, 9 Statute of Limitations, 21 Stein, Edith, 82 Steiner, George, 129 Stendhal, Krister, 67 Stern, Frank, xvi Stockholm, 130 Stockton College, 12 Stuttgart Declaration, 65 Stutthof, 259 Sudan, 10 Sunshine (movie), 130, 210 Sweden, 11-12, 142, 158, 180 Swedish, 142 Swiss banks, 187 Switzerland, 11, 161, 180 Syria, 78, 151 Szabo, Istvan, 130 Taykhtahl, Yissakhar, 101 Taytlboym, Yoel, 104, 105 Tel Yitzchak, 264 Terezin, 29, 195, 214 terrorism, xi, 14-15 Third Reich, 6-7, 22-24, 178, 181, 199, 204, 256, 260 Thrace, 31 Tiso, Josef, 29, 150 Toben, Fredrick, 152, 163, 164 Torah, 42,92-93, 95-99, 107-108, 111-112 Toronto, 154 Toynbee, Arnold, 64 Treblinka, 9, 39, 43, 108, 111, 144, 160 Trotsky, Leon, 156 Truman, Harry S., 63 Trunk, Isaiah, 9 , 1 1 Tsimerman, Hayim, 95, 97, 102, 103 Tudjman, Franjo, 31 Turkey, 11 Tutsi, 10, 14 Tygodnik Powszechny, 26

Index Uganda, 170 Ukraine, 26, 28-29 Ukrainian Jews, 28 Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Holocaust, 87-113 UN Anti-Racism Conference, 162 United Kingdom, 5, 11, 154. See also Britain United States, xvii, 5, 6, 11-12, 14, 26, 32, 39-40, 42-45, 49, 51, 53, 81, 127, 131, 141-144, 149-150, 154-156, 164, 169, 187-188, 199, 201-202, 204-206, 212, 250, 253, 267-273 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 45, 49-52 UN War Crimes Tribunals, xvi Uppsala, 12 U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC), 267, 269 USSR see Soviet Union Ustasha, 31 Van Pelt, Robert, 165 Vatican, 11, 63, 69-70, 76, 78, 80-82 Verrall, Richard (pseudonym of Richard Harwood), 142-43, 146 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, 129 Vilna, 9, 28, 264 Vital, Hayim, 106 Voisnesensky, Alexandra, 224 Volbeh, Shlomoh, 99 Von Ranke, Leopald, ix Von Weizsacker, Richard, 21 Wajda, Andrzej, Wajda, 205 Wajnryb, Ruth, 225-226 Wajsenberg, Jenny, xvi Waldheim, 187 Wallenberg, Raoul, 270 Walser, Martin, 24 Wannsee Conference, 146, 208 Warsaw, 6, 9, 11, 26-27 Warsaw Ghetto, 26, 49, 266, 270 Washington, xi, 50 Wassenaar, 184, 185 Wasserstein, Bernard, 131 Watt, Donald, xvi Weber, Mark, 142-43, 152, 166 Wehrmacht, 6

Index Weinfeld, Avraham, 97-99 Weiss, Aharon, 10 Weiss, Peter, 20, 204 Weissmandel, Dov, 105 Weizmann, Chaim, 146 Wenders, Wim, 209 West Bank, 78 Western Europe, 70, 124, 150, 195 Western Jewry, 7 Western world, 84, 198 West Germany, 20-21, 45, 184-185, 187 Wiesel, Eli, 38, 45-47, 224 Wigoder, Geoffrey, 75 Wilkomiriski, Binjamin, xvi Wilson, A. N. 157 Wolf, Konrad, 203 Wolf, Rabbi Arnold, 42-43 World Church of the Creator, 143 World Council of Churches, 63, 66, 74, 78 World Jewish Congress, 182, 187-188 World Jewish Congress War Emergency Conference, 178-179 World War II, ix, xv, 6, 19, 22, 31-32, 40, 65, 80, 91, 123,

283

127, 139, 142, 153, 156, 158, 185, 194, 198, 202, 219, 220, 249, 258 Wulf, Josef, 9 Yad Mordechai, 264 Yad Vashem 6, 43, 165, 265-267 Yahalomi, Shlomoh, 93 Yahil, Leni, 8, 11 Yahoo, 163 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, 224 Yiddish, 13, 124, 125, 203, 261 Yoffie, Eric, 82 Yom Kippur War, 40 Young, James, xiv, xvii, 27 Yugoslavia, xvi, 10, 31 Zionism, xii, xiv, 41, 52, 62, 63, 104-105, 125, 130, 151, 153, 155, 203-204, 208, 210, 263 Zionist Youth Movements, 126 Zionists, 105 Zohar, 96 Zundel, Ernst, 152, 159-160, 162-64 Zweig, Ronald, xv, 41

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About the Editors and Contributors

Yehuda Bauer is professor emeritus at the Hebrew UniversityJerusalem. He was previously director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, where he is currently an academic adviser. Among his many publications are Jews for Sale: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945 (1996), History of the Holocaust (2002), and Rethinking the Holocaust (2002). Danny Ben-Moshe is an associate professor and director of the Key Research Area into Social Diversity at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He has recently concluded an extensive study on Holocaust denial in Australia for the Vidal Sassoon Center in Jerusalem. Tim Cole teaches history at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, where he is the coordinator of an MA program in contemporary history. He is the author of Selling the Holocaust (1999) and the Making of a Jewish Ghetto (2003). He is currently writing a history of the Holocaust in Hungary. John S. Conway is professor emeritus of history and international relations at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945 (1968) and of numerous articles dealing with the role of the churches during the Holocaust. Sophie Gelski is an educator and historian, living in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Teaching the Holocaust, a senior and

286

About the Editors and Contributors

junior interdisciplinary kit for teachers, published by the Sydney Jewish Museum in 2003. Gershon Greenberg is professor of religion and philosophy at the American University, Washington, DC. He has written extensively in the area of Jewish religious thought during the Holocaust and has compiled a three-volume bibliography of the subject, published by the Institute for Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Konrad Kwiet teaches as an adjunct professor for Jewish studies and Roth lecturer in Holocaust studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is also resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He was previously the chief historian of the Australian War Crimes Commission. Among his publications are Reichskommissariat Niederland (1968), Selbstbehauptung und Widerstand: Deutsche Juden im Kampf um Existenz und Menschenwilrde, 1933-1945 (1986, with Helmut Eschwege), and Einsatz im "Reichskommissariat Ostland" (1998, ed. with Wolfgang Benz and Jurgen Matthaus). Jurgen Matthaus, a historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, has held guest professorships in Germany, Australia, and the United States. His numerous publications on the Holocaust and German Jewish history include AusbildungszielJudenmord? "Weltanschauliche Erziehung" von SS. Polizei und Wqffen-SS im Rahmen der "Endlosung" (2003), and The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (2004, with Christopher R. Browning). Dan Michman is professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and chief historian at Yad Vashem. Among his numerous publications are Belgium and the Holocaust: Jews, Belgians, Germans (1998) and Holocaust Research (2003). Currently, he is writing a history of the Jewish councils under Nazi rule. Dieter Pohl is a historian at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, Germany. He has published widely on the history of the Nazi regime, the Holocaust, and postwar Germany. He is the author of Holocaust: die Ursachen, das Geschehen, die Folgen (2000) and Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 1941-1944 (1996). Frank Stern is a professor at the Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna, Austria. Among his many publications are The

About the Editors and Contributors

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Whitewashing of the Yellow Badge: Antisemitism and Philosemitism in Postwar Germany (1992) and Dann bin ich um den Schlqf gebracht EinJahrtausendjudisch-deutscheKulturgeschichte(2002). Jenny Wajsenberg is an educator and historian, living in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of various teaching and resource materials on the Holocaust and was formerly principal of Wesley College in Melbourne. James E. Young is a professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Among his many publications are The Texture of Memory (1993) and At Memory's Edge (2000). Ronald W. Zweig is professor of history at the University of Tel-Aviv, Israel. His numerous publications cover German reparations and the Jewish world. He has written A History of the Claims Conference (2001) and The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Second World War's Most Terrible Robbery (2003).