38
PARTISAN R.EVIEW
broadened to embrace what Terrence des Pres and Lawrence Lange r name
"secondary w itness"-a concept w ith o ut generati o nal limit. It in cl udes all
who could be ca ll ed witn esses beca use th ey are still in touch with th e first
ge nerati on o r who look at th e Sh oa h no t as somethin g encl osed in the pas t
but as a co ntempo rary issue requirin g an intensity of representati o n close
to eyewitn ess repo rt. 13ut sho ul d th e term "witn ess" still appl y, three ge n–
erations and over fifty yea rs fi'om th e even t? And why substitute
" intell ectual" fo r "secondary" to ch3rac teri ze those who po rtr3Y the Shoah
w ith a spec ial sense o f obliga ti o n?
Th e first qu es ti on is somewhat e3s ier to answe r than the second. Th e
Ho locaust refu ses to d isappea r into time's "dark b3ckw3rd and ;lbys m ." It
has created a magneti c fi eld stronge r than that of th e First Wo rl d War.
("Th e Grea t War is a magn et," Wyndham Lewi s wro te in th e 1930s, " th e
'pos twar' its magneti c fi eld .") In 19R5 , o n th e fo rti eth anni versa ry o f the
end o f th e wa r and th e liberati on o f the camps, ji-irge n Habermas declared,
" Th e presence o f th e pas t remains un ca nnil y re3 l and preoccupi es di scus–
sion mo re fo rcefull y today than in the 19S0s and ea rl y 60s." N azi hi sto ry,
Amos Elon wro te in 1997, "seellls mo re 'ali ve' now than it did 30 o r 40
yea rs ago. Few peopl e th en would have fo reseen that it woul d still weigh
so heav il y in th e publi c life and culture o f Germany.... It is a shadow that
not o nl y length ens but also darkens as time goes by."
There is no thing m ys teri o us abo ut thi s. Th e Ge rmans were unabl e
to
mourn , accordin g to th e Mitscherli chs, who publi shed a fa mo us book on
th at subj ect. A relu ctance to confi'ont wh at happened, bo th in publi c life
(where many N azis remain ed in th e gove rnment) and in the intimacy of
th e fa mil y, no t onl y pos tpo ned th e reckonin g but Jlldde it mo re pa inful
when publi c memo ry refocused o n the pe rpetrato rs in the 60s and 70s. The
del ayed impac t made Helmut Ko hl' s remark abo ut a later ge nerati o n's
" luck"
(die C llade del'spdfell Cc!Jll rt)
parti cul arly in ep t. In France, th e ro le
of th e po li ce as enfo rce rs in the roundup and depo rtati o n of j ews was
occulted into th e eighti es and in Po land, where th e Shoah had been an
open and dail y rea li ty, full ac kn owledgment has still no t come. A battl e
ove r the conscience of that nati o n conti nues to thi s day beca use many
Po les were bo th victims and o nl oo kers. Fo r them th e hi sto ri ca l traulll a is
th e war itself, th e doubl e aggress io n o f Hitl er and Stalin . Sometimes co l–
labo rato rs in the H o locaust, mo re often powerl ess o r unw illin g to
interve ne, th ey did no t face th e mo ral issue until Lanzmann 's
S/lOah
appea red and in th e wa ke o f a co urageous articl e by j an 13lo nski .
Eve ntuall y th e " memo ry-wave" surged everywh ere and indi vidual tes–
timoni es ga in ed new li fe . The survivo rs began to speak and w rite once
mo re, espec iall y after th e Eichmann tri al, and th e claim of the second gen–
erati o n to famil y memo ri es of w hi ch th ey had been depri ved by th e
