MARK KURLANSKY
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Bariloche, liked to joke with the funny German man, but his mother
would tell him to stay away from the Nazi. Tomas Buch, a Jewish
refugee, who like Priebke is from Berlin, patronized the Vienna Deli.
The Buch family used to joke, "Let's go buy some ham from the Nazi."
The Italians also knew of his affiliation with the Nazi party. One promi–
nent Italian in Bariloche kept a bust of Mussolini.
By the time of his arrest in 1994 Priebke was the long-standing presi–
dent of the town's leading German institution, the German Argentine
Cultural Association. After his arrest, his resignation was at first rejected
by the board. Three days later it was accepted. Even without Priebke at
least six out of thirteen members of the board of the German Argentine
Cultural Association either have Nazi pasts or current Nazi associations,
or are the children or spouses of people with Nazi pasts. The mainstream
of the German community has followed Priebke's lead in simply avoiding
public discussion about Nazism. Asked about his feelings about the
Priebke case, German-born Horst Golisch, 'who replaced Priebke as
president, responded, "Weare not political."
Asked if he was not concerned that it was now widely believed that
they had a Nazi in their midst, he answered, "I don' t know what is
meant by the word
Nazi."
Nor have the Argentines known exactly how to react to the specta–
cle of this German pleading that he had merely obeyed orders. When
Priebke was arrested the town counsel rejected a measure to condemn
Nazism and express solidarity with the families of victims of the massacre.
Councilman Norberto Simon argued, "We can't protect some and un–
protect others." After two weeks of debate a modified version of the
measure was passed.
The local Italian consul was so enthusiastic in his defense of his old
friend Erich that the Italian government fired him. Many of the Italians
and Croats, and even Spaniards, were never comfortable speaking about
the past. Jews like Tomas Buch are subdued by the guilt of survival.
There is too much guilt in this town for anyone to start shouting.
Priebke always talked freely about the massacre. Did he too feel the
need for confession? On rare occasions he even told Italian friends about
the one Italian he had killed in the cave - under orders, of course. When
held by the British in 1946 he confessed to having killed two, but he
never again talked about the second because it is not clear that he had
orders for that one. He told everybody about the deeds for which he
had orders. He described the massacre to reporters from the ABC televi–
sion network, "It was a very harsh but justified reprisal." He added," My
conscience is clean."
