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PARTISAN REVIEW
again and again what man is capable of doing to man? "Ignominy," not
only "Heroism." Complementary aspects of historical fate-a comple–
mentariness that ought to be unsettling, even now. Would it mean an end
to the "glorious" unity of the state, or would this state finally be com–
pelled to reconsider its role and aspire to the highest good, namely the
uncondi tional respect of the rights of the individual, regardless of whether
or not this individual lives in one's own or in some other society?
Young people in Germany should not have to bear the burden of a
guilt for which they were not responsible. Yet why should they surround
themselves with the aura of a heroism with which they have equally little
to do? How does a monument to an ignom.inious event (i.e., the
Holocaust) to which future generations have no direct relation, compare
with a monument to the heroism of who knows what Kaiser, whose
imposing statues can be seen in so many German cities? The young gen–
eration cannot relate to him, ei ther. In terms of the indirect,
difficult-to-define relationship to what one calls "history," "people," and
"fate," both monuments make sense. In terms of truth, both aspects should
be invoked at once-ignominy and pride, guilt and virtue.
Martin Walser seems suspicious of those German intellectuals who
never tire of accusatory rhetoric where the Holocaust is concerned, believ–
ing that they will be absolved of guilt if they labor in the service of
"memory"-even if it is only for a moment in which they find themselves
"closer
to
the victims than to the perpetrators." This is certainly no grounds
for irony. It is Walser's right to shield his eyes from the obsessively reiter–
ated nightmare, although he does not specify whether it is the horror itself
he is unable to bear or the manipulation of the horror to serve ends that
have nothing to do with the consciousness of guilt. Both are, in a sense,
understandable, and it is precisely this capacity of mine to understand
which saddens me. For what we should not forget is that the only ones who
no longer have a choice as to whether or not to shield their eyes are the
victims themselves, who vanished from this earth wi th no other grave or
memory than the increasingly turbulent controversies of posterity.
Germany's "shame" is also the shame of mankind. He who does not
see how the Holocaust calls into question the very fabric of humanity does
not, in my opinion, have any chance at all of understanding its true dimen–
sions and meaning.
Last year the Vatican-quite rightly-announced that it had no inten–
tion of declaring itself innocent of the consequences of the age-old
anti-Jewish propaganda campaign which has provided the impetus for
countless fanatical crimes. The barbaric crime of the Holocaust has a cer–
tain relation, albeit not a direct one, to this past. Christian iconography
functioned for centuries as more or less fanatic "mass-media" propaganda,
