144
PAI~T I SAN
R.EVI EW
ti cipants and o ffi cial records and accounts. Th e lust for des tructi on was at its
peak. Th e Ameri ca n consul in Leipzig repo rted, o n N OVl'll1ber
13,
th at "the
in sa tiabl y sadi sti c perpetrators threw ll1 any o f the trell1bling inll1ates into a
small strea ll1 th at fl ows thro ugh the Zoological Park , cO ll1l1l anding the ho r–
rifi ed spectato rs to spit at th em , defil e them w ith mud ;lIl d j eer at their pli ght
... lAnd th at] the crowd was powe rless to do anything but turn horror–
stri cken eyes from the scene of abuse, o r leave the vicini
ty."
The day before,
G6 ring had decreed th at all o f it had been th e Jews'
f:1LI1
t and th at they woul d
have to pay one billio n reichsmarks to the R eich. And so o n.
For some time, Hitl er di scussed sending Europe's Jews to an ove rseas
co lo ny, such as Madagascar. But in hi s R.eichstag spcech ofJanuary
3(), 1939,
he also appears to have used the Jews (they all egedl y infl uenced the entire
capi ta li st wo rld) as pawns in hi s foreign po li cy, as
;1
means of wea kcning
oppositi o n to hi s impending takeover of Czechos lov:lki a. Befo re lo ng, they
set up the
R cicllSllcrcill (rzllll}!
o f all Jews, os tensibl y to further th eir ellli g rati o n,
but actually to better control th ell1 and to separate th em fi'om th e Arya n race.
Uy the time Hitl er celebrated hi s 5()th b irthday, o n April
:W,
1939,
" lIl any
ide ntifi ed...w ith the
1/c)lk\rz('lll eillscll(!/i..
.
were beguiled by th e es theti cs of th e
Nurell1berg ralli es and enraptured by the victo ri es of German athl etes at th e
Berlin Ol ympi cs."
In
a sho rt review, it is impossible to do justi ce to thi s book.
It
is steeped
in psychoanalyti c insights w itho ut diagnos ing or ascr ibin g guilt and d istin–
gui shes anti- liberal and antimode rni st racism fro ll1 its racist type. Whil e
reading it, I looked at, among oth ers, Wo lfga ng Sofsky's
The
Order (!fTi.'rror
and
Thc COllcclllmlioll Cc1IIIP,
w hi ch, despite painstakin g descripti o ns, does
not add anythin g new.
I read Jay Parini 's
BCll jc1lllill :' Cross
i
IIg,
a be:lLItiful novel abo ut Walter
Benjall1in 's days befo re committing sui cide in Port Bo u, the bo rd er between
Fra nce and Spain . Since I had crossed that fi'onti er just a few weeks before
then and [ still recall a mu ch mo re primitive and ugly village than th e o ne
Parini invented , I was put ofT by the fi cti o nali zati o n. Such tales, I beli eve, ulti–
mately will replace th e horribl e events: w ho does n't prefer readin g abo ut a
nos talgic death rath er th an a to rtured o ne) Thi s is th e ques ti o n Geoffrey
Hartman addresses in hi s essay in thi s issue.
Eva Ho ffman's
ShIell
takes yet ano th er app roach . N otin g that th ere were
three milli on Jews in Po land in
1931)
and between 24(),()()() and 3()() ,()()() at
its end, that mos t of the Nazi concentra ti o n camps wne in Poland , and th at
therefo re it is ass umed-erroneously-th at every Po le was imp li ca ted in
their exterminati o n, she set out to d iscove r what rea ll y happened, w hy recent
hi sto ry made fo r alllnesia and in creased po lari zati o n . Wi th the ass istance of
a yo un g Polish hi sto rian, she cri ss-crossed the country to find o ut abo ut pre–
Ho locaust Jewish li fe- visiting sites of fo rmer
shlells
th at used to be sca ttered
