Problems Unique to the Holocaust PDF
Preview Problems Unique to the Holocaust
Problems Unique to the Holocaust Problems Unique to the Holocaust HARRY JAMES CARGAS Editor THE UNIVERsITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Problems unique to the Holocaust / Harry James Cargas, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-9048-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Concentration camps—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Cargas, Harry J. D804.3.P77 1999 940.53'18—dc21 98-41612 ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9048-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses Contents Preface V1! Can Betrayal Ever Be Legitimate? 1 STEVEN L. JACOBS The Moral Dilemma of Motherhood in the Nazi Death Camps 7 DAVID PATTERSON Holocaust Victims of Privilege 25 SUSAN L. PENTLIN Suicides or Murders? 43 CHARLOTTE GUTHMANN OPFERMANN Holocaust Suicides 51 JACK NUSAN PORTER Victims of Evil or Evil ofV ictims? 67 DIDIER POLLEFEYT Medicine in the Shadow of Nuremberg 83 DIANE M. PLOTKIN Is Objectivity Morally Defensible in Discussing the Holocaust? 98 ROBERT S. FREY Indifferent Accomplices 109 ERIC STERLING Intruding on Private Grief 122 ALASTAIR G. HUNTER Christians as Holocaust Scholars 135 LEON STEIN Art After Auschwitz 152 STEPHEN C. FEINSTEIN Reflections on Post-Holocaust Ethics 169 JOHNK.RoTH Afterword 182 HARRy JAMES CARGAS Contributors 190 Index 193 A Note on Harry James Cargas 197 Preface ~ I A MURDERERr, Calel Perechodnik's "confession" of how a Jew agreed to collaborate with the Nazis in exchange for the safety of his daughter and wife, gave me the impetus for this colloquy. In spite of the Nazis' promises, Perechodnik's Polish-Jewish family was murdered by the conquerors. I tried to reflect on the situation. Would I, under extreme circumstances, have done anything to save my family? I know of cases of parents, hiding behind fake walls or in fields, who smothered their own babies whose cries otherwise would have revealed their secret positions and those of others concealed with them. Such decisions had to be made almost instantaneously. What were the moral implications of these actions or inactions? What were some of the other moral problems faced by people who were being rounded up to die? Of the terrible drama faced in Am I a Murderer?, translator Frank Fox writes in the foreword: "Perechodnik and other policemen [help] eight thousand Otwock Jews into the town square, where they are loaded into boxcars. The police men are promised immunity for their own wives and children, but the German enemy deceives them. Perechodnik watches in horror as his wife and daughter are loaded into wagons headed for the Treblinka death camp." In my review of the book in Commonweall wrote: "Just before his own death during the war, probably by his own hand, Calel Perechodnik gave the document to a friend; it finally came into the hands of Fox, who prepared it for publication. Perechodnik begins by saying that, though he is not a man of faith, this memoir is his deathbed confession. Telling the story, he blames himself completely, never offering any mitigating circumstances. Pain fills every word of the record." Dare we throw stones at this man? Is there some value in considering questions about moral situations at Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor, VIl V111 Harry JAMES CARGAS and other death camps? My answer to the latter question is yes. So is the answer of other contributors to this anthology. The problem that each writer of a chapter of this book had to recognize was how to write sensibly about an indelicate subject. For Rabbi Steven Jacobs the answer to his question about the moral legitimacy of betraying someone to save others is steeped in ambiguity. David Patterson expresses a similar difficulty in the very first sentence of his essay on motherhood in the Nazi death camps, and he concludes that the only responses to the murder of babies may be in silence, and the birth of other Jewish babies. Susan Pentlin deals further with ambiguity, asking why some Holocaust survivors remain silent. Charlotte Guthmann Opfermann herself raises a dilemma of ambiguity by asking whether or not certain suicides ofJews were morally not suicides but murders by the conquerors. "Holocaust suicides" are also discussed by Jack Nusan Porter, who investigates the self-inflicted deaths ofJerzy Kosinski, Bruno Bettelheim, Terrence Des Pres, and others. Does the behavior of Holocaust victims reveal the true nature of human beings? The philosophical answer by Didier Pollefeyt is found in his concept of the "banality of the good." Issues regarding the value of life are considered by Diane Plotkin in her segment on medicine in the death camps: who shall live and who shall die. Science and its relationship to the human spirit come under scrutiny by Robert S. Frey as he relates his thinking to the Shoah. He also addresses the controversial question of the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Eric Sterling discusses the guilt of those who stood by and did or said nothing during the tragic Event. How responsible were the onlookers? The problem of the appropriateness of Christian scholars in Holocaust studies is examined by both the Reverend Alastair Hunter and Leon Stein. Is this his torical occurence to be analyzed only from within, from a Jewish perspective? Stephen Feinstein talks about art after Auschwitz. Is it "correct" or "neces sary" to have creation after distraction? John Roth, in what was intended to be the final chapter of this book, brings us back to the beginning, in a way, back to the death (and life) of Calel Perechodnik. But given the popularity and controversy surrounding Jonathan Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, I thought a brief discussion of that work should be included; hence the Afterword. I have met and talked over his work with Jonathan Goldhagen, and our meeting was a pleasant one. He is a gentleman and a man of strong convictions. I disagree with Goldhagen's thesis, but unlike some of his critics I do not attack him personally. I like him, he is wrong, and that is that. Can Betrayal Ever Be Legitimate? STEVEN L. JACOBS IN THE CRUCIBLE OF THE SHOAH (Holocaust), the act of betrayal, whether seemingly well-intentioned or misguided, becomes synonymous with that of slander of informing. In the Hebrew language one finds three terms: malshin (from the root lashone, speaking or language), mosair (from the root masar, transmitter), and delator (from the Latin, probably reflecting its origin during the period of Roman oppression). All such words are indicative of a reality with which the Jewish people would rather not deal directly: that of traitors or turncoats who, for self-advancement; would denounce their fellow Jews to the authorities, all too often with baseless calumnies and invented charges of religious lies or seditious fabrications. Such individuals may be further sub sumed under the general category of mishumaddim or "destroyers." Such "turncoatism" reached its high point during the Middle Ages in both the Germanic or Ashkenazic communities and the Spanish or Sephardic com munities. It continued beyond into Eastern and Central Europe in the controversies between the Hasidim and their opponents the misnagdim, the most famous example of which was the arrest and imprisonment of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyadi, the acknowledged leader of Habad Hasidism, in 1800. In the so-called modern period, under the Soviets, informing on both friends and family became a test of "good" citizenship for non-Jews as well as Jews. During the brutally intense years of the Shoah, specifically 1939-45, Jews were confronted with moral and ethical dilemmas unlike those with which they had previously and historically wrestled. In addition, even those who sought to ally themselves with the Nazi authorities, either to save themselves or their loved ones or to advance their own desire for personal wealth and 1
The list of books you might like
