Survivor Transitional Narratives of Nazi-Era Destruction: The Second Liberation

289 Pages·2018·5.272 MB·English

by  Dennis B. Klein

Survivor Transitional Narratives
of Nazi-Era Destruction
A Modern History of Politics and Violence
Series Editor: Paul Jackson (University of Northampton, UK)
Editorial Board:
Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
Leonard Weinberg (University of Nevada, USA)
Ramon Spaaij (La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia)
Richard Steigmann-Gall (Kent State University, USA)
Aristotle Kallis (Lancaster University, UK)
Matthew Feldman (University of Teesside, UK)
Kathleen Blee (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
A Modern History of Politics and Violence is a new book series that scruti-
nizes the diverse history of political violence in the modern world. It
includes original studies, edited collections and reference works that explore
the cultural settings and key actors that have allowed violent solutions
to become seen as desirable somehow at certain points in history.
Published:
British Fascist Antisemitism and Jewish Responses, 1932–40, Daniel Tilles (2014)
A British Fascist in the Second World War, Claudia
Baldoli and Brendan Fleming (2014)
Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan, W. J. Berridge (2015)
Colin Jordan and Britain’s Neo-Nazi Social Movement, Paul Jackson (2016)
Transnational Fascism in the Twentieth Century, Matteo
Albanese and Pablo del Hierro (2016)
The Victims of Slavery, Colonization and the Holocaust, Kitty Millet (2017)
Forthcoming:
The Comparative History of Fascism in Eastern
Europe, Constantin Iordachi (2017)
The Image of the Soldier in German Culture, 1871–1933, Paul Fox (2018)
Survivor Transitional Narratives
of Nazi-Era Destruction
The Second Liberation
Dennis B. Klein
Bloomsbury Academic
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Bloomsbury Academic
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BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2018
© Dennis B. Klein, 2018
Dennis B. Klein has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as Author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-3714-4
ePDF: 978-1-3500-3716-8
eBook: 978-1-3500-3715-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Klein, Dennis B., author.
Title: Survivor transitional narratives of Nazi-era destruction : the second
liberation / Dennis B. Klein.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, [2018] | Series: A modern history of politics
and violence ; 9 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018348| ISBN 9781350037144 (hb) | ISBN 9781350037151 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Historiography. | Holocaust,
Jewish (1939-1945)--Moral and ethical aspects.
Classification: LCC D804.348 .K54 2017 | DDC 940.53/180922--dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018348
Series: A Modern History of Politics and Violence
Series design: Clare Turner.
Cover image: Women stand in line for food during the liberation of Guson Concentration
Camp, near Linz, Austria, 1945 (© CORBIS / Getty Images).
Epigraph reproduced from The Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University
of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
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Alongside justice there is wickedness,
Alongside righteousness there is wickedness.
Ecclesiastes 3:16
vi
Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction: Unseen 1
1 Traumatic Memories and Historical Memories 25
Witnesses’ accounts after atrocity 25
Counter-narratives: Omnipotent and impotent 31
The vocation of counter-narratives 42
2 Historical Emotions 55
Narratives of encounters 55
Ancestral memories 58
Shock of recognition 73
3 Narrative Disclosure: Jean Améry 79
Resentments 80
Narrative swerves 82
Possibilities 89
4 Betrayal and Its Vicissitudes 95
Mapping betrayal 95
Counter-narratives of betrayal 98
Afterlife 105
5 Critical Forgiveness 117
The riddle of disproportion 117
Semantic confusion 127
Non-ideal forgiveness 136
6 Deep Transitions: A Conclusion Resisting Finality 149
Future imperfect 149
Witnesses and transitions 153
Conceptual divergence 167
The negotiable society 177

Notes 189
Bibliography 251
Index 269
Acknowledgments
This book began with a single conversation with a member of the Tavistock
Institute in London. I was interested in the phenomenon of forgiveness, though
at the time I wasn’t thinking about its relationships with mass violence or, for
that matter, its existence in any historical context. The idea just intrigued me:
I wondered about its discordant properties, its cautionary as well as generous
characteristics. Subsequently, I began the inquiry—the proto-stages of this
book—with Michael Rustin, who offered his time and invaluable erudition that
led me to think critically and theoretically about forgiveness. There are others
in London who I would like to thank for their warm hospitality and support, in
particular, Russell and Mandy Caller, and Leonard and Loren Loeb. During this
period, a decade ago, I was fortunate to meet up with Jill Scott, who was, herself,
working on a book dealing with the subject. She alerted me to a conference
scheduled to take place in Cape Town on the legacy of South Africa’s Truth and
Reconciliation Commission. Since the question of forgiveness figured promi-
nently in its proceedings, I submitted a proposal, which resulted in the first
“test” of my thoughts on the subject. There, I met Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela,
then at the University of Cape Town, who served as chair of the TRC’s public
hearings in the West Cape region. Her inspiration materialized in an article
I wrote for a volume she edited in 2009. Eventually, I caught up with Avishai
Margalit in Jerusalem, whose work on a project about the vicissitudes of betrayal
significantly supported my commitment to exploring this emotion. These were
exceptional experiences and exceptional encounters.
Back in the States, I benefited immensely from others on my way to
completing this book. Here, I want to invoke another concept, “affinity space.”
The idea refers to the way people are drawn to common concerns: We find
ourselves by finding each other mutually, not unlike Freud’s notion of uncanny,
“chance” encounters. The special magnetic pull of ideas on a circle of people
may have something to do with the formation of a cohort of colleagues and
friends around the themes of this book. It brought me into contact with
individuals whose inspiration is woven everywhere into this work. Eliezer
Diamond alerted me to biblical inquiries into forgiveness; Abraham Rubin
and Peter Banki convinced me of the significance of Vladimir Jankélévitch
Acknowledgments ix
and his relevance to my argument; Devin O. Pendas pointed me to the social
climate implicated in the West German state’s zeal, in the 1950s and 1960s,
for putting the sordid Nazi past behind, forever; Jeffrey Blustein, in his intel-
lectual commitment to fathoming forgiveness and memory, introduced me,
with his signature compassion, to the exciting nascent stages transitional justice
movement; Dominick LaCapra read an early version of my argument and
offered severe, extraordinary advice; Magdalena Zoklos showed an interest in
my work-in-progress and provided a welcome platform for it in her anthology
on Jean Améry. I owe a special debt to Kitty J. Millet, who invaluably supported
my interrogation of survivors’ subjectivity and historical specificity and, overall,
encouraged this project from beginning to end.
Home possesses a special meaning in this book: As a place or, rather, a state
of mind, that feels familiar, intimate, and reassuring, Améry pined for it, though
he confessed that it was, after the Nazi destruction, inaccessible. Fortunately,
the influence of my colleagues, friends, and family were not only unusually
accessible but also instrumental. I owe a special debt to my colleagues at Kean
University who, for some twenty years, provided the crucial scaffolding for
this book—in particular, to Dawood Farahi, the university’s president; Jeffrey
Toney, the academic provost; Suzanne Bousquet, my dean (and now associate
provost); Jonathan Mercantini, my department chair (and now acting dean);
Sue Gronewold, my fellow historian and interlocutor; and to all my history
department colleagues and students, my colleagues and students in the Masters
of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program and Jewish Studies
program, and my colleagues in the faculty seminar. It is impossible to imagine
this book without them. I am especially grateful to Brandon Moye, a recent MA
in Holocaust and Genocide Studies graduate, who assisted me immeasurably
and steadfastly with this book’s construction. During my 2014–15 sabbatical,
the Able Bakery in Maplewood, NJ, served as my satellite office, an environment
par excellence for easing my intellectual journey; to its staff, my thanks. I
want to thank Rob Handelman and Angela DeCandia as well. They facilitated
my emotional journey through some pretty challenging moments. Muriel
Jorgensen, Mildred Schwartz, and Jeffrey Tannenbaum, in reading portions
of the manuscript, somehow combined supportive friendship with pointed
criticism, a real talent.
The real homeland magic occurs ultimately in the presence of family. My
brothers, Roger and Richard, along with partner, Jacqi, and wife, Gail, joined
humor with interest to lift this enterprise often from its weighty moorings. My
children, now adults, are a constant source of special inspiration, as they surely