Jody - # 11 Marton

Marton, Kati. Wallenberg: Missing Hero [1982] (New York: Arcade, 1995)

 [Biographical account of Wallenberg through a journalistic overview and synthesis of his life and experiences base on secondary sources]

Summary of Argument:

Marton begins with Wallenberg's background, takes us through the Holocaust, and follows the mysterious disappearance through the Soviet system. Juxtaposing the two 'totalitarian' governments against one another. Marton exposes how an unofficial Swedish diplomat was able to forge numerous passports and save an estimated 100,000 Jews. Of course, he did not accomplish this on his own, in fact Marton emphasizes how much 'luck' played in the whole operation. Even when Wallenberg was in the thick of it - meeting with Horthy and Eichmann - he easily slipped through the cracks and met the right people at the right time. Unfortunately, after having saved numerous lives, his connections could not aid his release from the Soviet grasp. In fact, Marton states that Sweden's neutrality and procrastination paid the ultimate price, Wallenberg's life, by dragging its diplomatic feet in negotiating a release.  But then again the mystery continues, in the Afterward Marton suggests that this avatar of humanity (which explains the numerous personal 'sightings' and testimonies) may have overshadowed the reality of his liquidation in 1947 as the official Soviet statements suggested.  

Comment:

While Marton is a journalist and not a historian (typically I hate this argument due to Applebaum's GULAG monograph, but I must state that there are no footnotes or primary references to be found), I would recommend this for comps due to its great overview of the Holocaust in Hungary, which is much better and more understandable than Braham's complex and HUGE study. In addition, while I do not need to state its misgivings academically, this is a great work and easily accessible for undergraduate students to not only comprehend the possibility of rescue and negotiation during the end of the war but provides a sense of the Soviet regime postwar. My recommendation would be to utilize it for a lower-level course on Soviet terror.

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

Prologue

1. The Legacy
2. The Youth
3. The Slow Awakening
4. The Right man
5. The Journey Starts
6. An Admiral Without a Fleet
7. The Nazification of Hungary
8. Hungarian Jews: Down the Slippery Slope
9. The Provinces are Purified
10. The Summer Before the Fall
11. October 15
12. The Crucible
13. The Baroness
14. "I Want to Save a Nation"
15. Playing for Time
16. The Photographer
17. The Reign of Terror
18. Eichmann's Final Days
19. The Siege
20. Wallenberg on the Run
21. The New Masters
22. The Captive Guests
23. At Home
24. The Apprentice Inmate
25. The Silent Prisoner
26. Dead or Alive
27. "Now, Dear Colleague..."
28. The Tracks Reappear

Epilogue

Afterward

Notes:

• Alcohol reference = 151 & 162
• born 4 August 1912
• Wallenberg should symbolically stand for humanity and justice but now stands for indifference and injustice (7)
• Comes from wealthy family of capitalists (15)
• Wiesenthal looks for him in 1976 (13)
• Well-travelled and hitchhiked across US (21)
• Hitler and Horthy discussion -> invasion (55)
• Jewish nationalism to Hungary (69)
• Jews as outcasts but Hungary's problem (67)
• Divide between urban/country Hungarian Jews (68)
• Before Wallenberg - provincial Jews rounded up by Eichmann (70)
• Cross next to Jewish star for baptized Jews (75)
• Claiming Swedish territory in Pest (83)
• Horthy's son kidnapped and sent to Mauthausen (91)
• Cease-fire -> coup by German Regents (92)
• Nazi Occupation on 15 October 1944
• Then 2 Terrors: a) Arrow Cross; b) Einsatzgruppen (96)
• Baroness persuades husband to legitimize foreign passports (104)
• Wallenberg continues to fabricate Swedish passports
• He uses Arrow Cross against itself and utilized the Red Cross (122)
• Eichmann and Wallenberg meet (125-6)
• Jews that he protected in houses with Swedish flags are still killed (131)
• Soviets blame Hungarians for Nazi sympathizing (150)
• Looting - first gold watches then alcohol (151)
• Marton eludes to rape (151)
• Accused by Soviets of being a spy with the Red Cross (158)
• Shuffled through GULAG system (176)
• Official date of death by Soviets: 1947 (182)
• Possible psychiatric hospital stay - last information on him 1979 (208)
• Wallenberg was the price for Sweden's neutrality (214)

Jody - # 10 Case

Case, Holly. Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea During World War II (Stanford: Stanford, 2009)

Question:

By looking at the Transylvanian Question, how can 'Europe' be understood as a substantial entity to which interests and agency can be attributed? How and what battles played out in the outwardly 'minor' struggle for Transylvania amid the 'major' backdrop of World War II? And how did this shape local and international policy?

Method:

Interestingly, and one that I admire, she does not judge or become biased. Attempting to examine all levels, in essence, she lets the competitors argue it out themselves. Masterfully laying out and utilizing the material - seemingly equal by not focusing on one major political opponent - to establish the historical debate, Case  basically provides the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Sources:

Primary and Secondary sources, maps, census records, opinion polls, newspapers, political press and propaganda.

Summary of Argument:

In the first four chapters Case lays out the struggle between Hungary and Romania for control of the Transylvanian territory during World War II. The final chapters ponders this contestation against the questions/ideas of a "New Europe".  As the two nations volley for European favoritism, Case shows how this issue in turn shapes major European powers action and policy. While World War II is the focus, we must revert to the past and the significant events leading up to the fight. Case often returns to the pivotal post-WWI Treaty of Trianon, which territorially shifted Magyars into non-Hungarian nations. Case also explores the Jewish Question, but points out that it was not the primary policy preoccupation before or during the war - there were other disputes to settle. Though technically allies, Romania and Hungary continued to ethnically cleanse their areas before/after/during the shifts of Transylvania in the Second Vienna Award of 1940. Interestingly, and ironically, the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy set up the 'German-Italian Officers' Commission' to oversee and investigate claims of minority abuses on both sides. Outwardly, minorities mattered or at least they appeared to. In the end, however, the territorial dispute was settled postwar in 1947 by Stalin giving Romania control. In conclusion, Case states that nationalism was not isolated but transnational. In fact, "we can observe how these discussions are not so much a product of left-right conflict with these states, but are the legacy of a political consensus on issues like the Transylvanian Question that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, and within which the left and the right sought to stake out territory on the same field to gain legitimacy....[which shapes] an idea of what Europe does in this region, and 'Europe' has in turn become the object of a new consensus, on over which the right and left are fighting new battles to determine who is more 'European' and what that means" (223).

Comment:

Overall, this is a wonderful work that is methodically and systematically laid out. I would prefer a more chronologically 'dry' social history though. At times the work, or at least sections (especially 'New Europe'), seems pieced together and disjointed. The back and forth - time travel ala J.J. Abrams - is difficult to follow. Largely, though, it added to my knowledge of this area during the war, and I must admit I love the cartoon of mother Hitler with her two children (Hungary and Romania) fighting behind her rocking chair (159). One of the most problematic issues concerns the killing of Hungarians by Romanians and vice versa, which are treated as afterthoughts in this account. I found this the most interesting aspect of the book and one that should have been explored and highlighted. Labor camps for non-Jews should be spotlighted since it begs the question: how does this relate to the Holocaust? Continuity, ethnic cleansing, or genocide? Case just mentions "murder," - making me question was this focused on the 'military' (as we are led to believe) or civilians? Recall Case's discussion of Antonescu murdering Communist (110)! Not to mention - against supposed allies! Not that she is an HGS scholar but it is a cop out if you ask me. This issue should definitely be explored in SEGAL's dissertation!

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

Introduction: Between States

I. The "Transylvanian Question" and European Statehood

II. "Why We Fight"

III. People Between States

IV. A League of their Own

V. The "Jewish Question" Meets the Transylvanian Question

VI. A "New Europe"?

Conclusion

Notes:

• Struggle between Hungary/Romania for control of Transylvania (1)
• 1940 split: N -> Hungary S -> Romania
• Looking at smaller powers changes our understanding of European history (3)
• Attack or generalized A/S (6)
• "Questions"/"Ideas" about nations are about Europe not nation (11)
• ***Not about place but about bigger national/European issues (13)
• 1867 Hungarian autonomy 1878 Romanian independence (20-2)
• 1867 incorporated into Hungary (24)
• WWI to Romanian [Hungarian loss of power] (24)
• Jewish minority (33-35) Jews as other
• Maps used to show agreement for territory (40-4) (48)
• Transylvania becomes a "European Problem" - making it purposeful (62)
• Fighting for territorial rights and nationalism (74)
• More of a track race for territory - not boxing match (95)
• 1940 Hungarian support through demonstrations for Hungarian occupation (99)
• Efforts taken by Antonescu to murder Communists (110)
• Statistics to "prove" each sides majority population (125)
• Sorting legal issues - set by name, faith, and nationality: (130)

Hungarian - Roman Catholic or Protestant

Romanian - Greek Catholic or Easter Orthodox

• Changing semiotics and Nazis - vitally important (131)
• Cemetery claims - even Jewish cemetery missing on Hungarian map:

Romania-Jews as Jews (135)

Hungary-Jews as Hungarian (148)

• Linking territory to will of the people (148)
• Legitimizing political claims through documentation/perception (148)
• Labor camps for R/H who slander nation (153)
• German-Italian Officers' Commission to protect minority rights (153)
• Minorities mattered OR appeared to (174)
• Hungarian rule allowed Jews to sue Romania for interwar period but kept them out of public life (176)
• History overview of Jews in Hungary (177->)
• Jews were used as a way of watching the respective other (187)
• Territorial concern linked to treatment of Jews (194)
• August 1947 Transylvania to Romania due to Stalin (203)
• The Transylvania Question still relevant today (210)
• H/R Nationalism is transnational - not isolated nationalism (221/223)
• Both H/R competed for Axis powers - H/R perfect allies to Axis (225)
• Great Cartoon (159)

5 Main Points (thanks Bob):

• Not about place but about bigger national/European issues (13)
• More of a track race for territory - not boxing match (95) - H/R Nationalism is transnational - not isolated nationalism (221/223)
• Linking territory to will of the people and legitimizing political claims through documentation/perception (148)
• Though there were labor camps for R/H who slander nation (153) a (Fascist) German-Italian Officers' Commission to protect minority rights (153)
• August 1947 Transylvania to Romania due to Stalin (203) - while the Transylvania Question still relevant today (210)

Raz - Month # 4

The two memoirs in this month’s reading exemplify central issues in the intersection of history and memory – the subject of Rosen’s scholarship in Sister in Sorrow. The first memoir, Clara’s War, contributes greatly to Holocaust literature by turning readers’ attention not only to the evils and horrors so prevalent in this corpus (even though they make shocking appearances throughout the memoir, especially when various people describe to Beck they eagerness in murdering Jews – on pp. 271-272, for example) but mainly to the compassion and bravery easily lost in the ocean of mass violence. As issues related to rescue should stand at the center of Holocaust and genocide scholarship and education, this memoir could constitute a significant component in high-school and university curriculums.

            Based on a diary, Clara’s War raises questions about the reformulation of history into memory. For example, one could certainly ask why Clara Kramer chose to publish a memoir rather than some version of her original diary. However, the memoir touches on major issues in Holocaust scholarship.

            Most remarkable, Beck lived as a self-proclaimed antisemitic drunkard (p. 94), who took advantage of any opportunity to conduct sexual affairs (see also p. 235). Yet this person together with his wife and daughter hid 18 people under their house for two years. Putting themselves at great risk, this man and his family saved men, women, and children whom he had barely known before World War II. Even more amazing, the Becks made great efforts to ensure the emotional and spiritual well-being of the people they rescued; considering the circumstances, they succeeded beyond imagination (see, for instance, the gifts that the Becks gave to the Jews they were hiding on Christmas, 1942 – p. 90).

            Clara’s War also describes instances of Amida (see the mention of an underground school for Jewish children, organized by Clara’s mother – p. 48), humor in the service of survival (p. 189), and cooperation as well as tensions between different kinds of Jews in the dreadful situations of genocide (see the efforts of Clara’s mother to feed persecuted Jews [ p. 50], on the one hand, and the relations between the Steckels and the rest of the people in the bunker [p. 129], on the other hand). Finally, the book illuminates one case of a Volksdeutsche family in Poland that almost fell victim to Soviet revenge which would have constituted a horrible injustice.

            In several fascinating places, Clara’s War employs a religious-mystical tone and imagery. This phenomenon also speaks to meeting points between history and memory. Such descriptions appear most clearly on pp. 42-43 and 307-308, framing the narrative between the synagogue that the Germans failed to burn and a priest whose actions brought Clara’s mother back to life. These intriguing parts in the memoir deserve separate analysis.  

In contrast to Clara’s War, Inheriting the Holocaust misses the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of history and memory. Rather, this memoir presents itself at times as history. Especially in light of the inaccuracies and errors in such sections, such pretense largely fails. The author, Paula Fass, has stated the book’s goal quite clearly: “So many Jews disappeared this way [from life as well as from memory], but I had hoped to save at least my family from this common fate.” (p. 50). Striving to accomplish this task, Fass paid little attention to memory as memory, instead providing her readers with lengthy descriptions that seem no less marked by myths than the Poland she eventually decides that leave behind forever.    

As mentioned above, Rosen’s book deals mainly with “…the meeting point between history and story, and examines the ways in which one is expanded, enriched, or contradicted by the other.” (p. 131). Rosen therefore puts forward a strong argument concerning the need for multidisciplinary research in the field of Holocaust Studies (pp. 89-90). Indeed, she chose to employ literary-psychoanalytic and phenomenological-hermeneutic approaches.  

Rosen discusses the dream-like features in some of the oral histories she has collected, emphasizing the function of “free association” in survivors’ oral accounts (pp. 54 and 61-62): “Thus, under the veil of free association is a layer of painful issues whose expression needs camouflage and tempering.” (pp. 61-62; see also Rosen’s related interest in the reasons that led some Holocaust survivors from Hungary to remain in that country after World War II – pp. 63-64). For scholars, such implicit and hidden layers in survivors’ accounts hold valuable information and insights (see also pp. 125-126 regarding the “darker text” that many Holocaust survivors feel unable to reveal in their narratives). Rosen also treats instances of “displacement” as defense mechanisms used by interviews in order to bypass problematic issues (p. 65).  

Interestingly, Fass’s book demonstrates some of Rosen’s points, but refrains from diving into their complex contents and meanings in the case of her family. For example, she tells her readers about the many secrets that characterized her parents’ lives, only to connect them to an account of east European Jewish life full of generalizations (notwithstanding her criticism earlier in the book of tendencies to generalize regarding east European Jewry) and empty of possible insights that may confirm or challenge Rosen’s analysis (pp. 168-172). For Fass, her mother’s “knowledge” – no longer even memory! – and the secrets that her mother “shared with me” (p. 172) assume a central place in the narrative; Rosen, by contrast, trains her lens on the hidden layers, holding numerous memories and conflicting “truths.” Likewise, Fass uses the word “dreamlike” to describe her first trip to Poland: “That sense of experience and memories merging into a dreamlike reality was gone.” (p. 183). Her too, readers will search in vain to find in-depth elaboration of this issue throughout the book.

While these three books differ from each other in significant ways, they all exhibit personal tones burdened by a lingering sense of loss – loss of people, loss of places, and loss of memoires. In the face of irretrievable lives and geographies, they all struggle against the threat of an erased memory; and their efforts, while flawed to some extent, teach much about the possibilities and limits – the horizons and injustices – that emerge in the aftermath of genocide.  

Jody - # 9 Rosen

Title:

Rosen, Ilana. Sister in Sorrow: Life Histories of Female Holocaust Survivors from Hungary Translated and Edited by Sandy Bloom (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 2008)

[What is up with that title? "Sister" in Sorrow?!?!?!]

Question:

What was the experience of Hungarian-Jewish women in the Holocaust? Why did these women stay in Hungary postwar? More important, how should we as scholars analyze oral history?

Method:

After conducting oral histories she then picks through the thicket by utilizing her skills and training by looking through the literary-psychoanalytic and phenomenological-hermeneutic lens.

Summary of Argument:  

Approaching from a personal outlook, Rosen begins by illuminating her connection as a second-generation woman attempting to balance historical/personal research that ultimately culminated into a dissertation about the experience of Hungarian women during the Holocaust. While her interviews with a select fifteen Hungarian-Jewish women (condensed from her dissertation) are fully divulged in the last half of the book, Rosen chose to analyze her interviews from the perspective of diverse disciplines: literary-psychoanalytic and phenomenological- hermeneutic. Additionally, she follows gender-based research and explains that women channeled traditional domestic skills as well as the empathetic, communication, and listening abilities into coping with the Holocaust experience. More important, Rosen's expertise fills in the 'block' or vagueness of the interviewer by providing psycho-analytical offerings. She makes it clear that these 'missing' pieces/silences may never be understood - just approached - and these analytical glimpses are possibly just one of the many ways of attempting to understand these interviews. This work offers her attempt at unlocking underlying messages in survivor testimony. Most interesting, (most) survivors who stayed in Hungary postwar did so holding to hope that a missing loved one would return or that they were physically unable to leave [which then puts forth that all survivors would have left if they had the opportunity - ?!?!?]. Continuing this theme - Years later, through these interviews, Rosen shows that those who stayed are overwhelmed by guilt and more pessimistic than those who now live in Israel. And, of course, those 'stuck' in Hungary and not Israel seemingly had less of a chance to cope with Holocaust trauma through the many Israeli forms of release [what a crock].

Comment:

As usual, with most diaries or published oral histories (and maybe why I like non-analyzed Clara's War so much), the interviews should have been at the beginning of the book and the analysis at the end. Or the editor should lay out in the introduction that it would benefit the reader to develop their own view and then be wowed by Rosen's skill afterward. What is significant and distinctive to this work is that the narrative approach to analyze oral history is challenged by this new methodology.

At the same time, I am missing her thoughts on how these women feel being interviewed by a woman who is connected to their histories. Is she too close to her subject? Does this matter? Challenging survivor reluctance, Rosen also states that those interviewed are very "interested in telling me about their experiences (118)," which in my mind is doubtful - there is a plethora of reasons that survivors 'bear witness'. 

Most interesting for me is her argument concerning trauma: one must be careful with pointing to the usual 'trauma argument,' this  is not only refreshing but correct:

Concerning the ties between the Holocaust and trauma, then, while it is clear that the Holocaust entailed tremendous suffering for large portions of many populations and especially those destined for destruction, it is less clear that trauma is necessarily the central term in relating to the ways in which the survivors experienced their suffering in real time and process or relate to it in retrospect. In fact, we should be careful about automatically attaching trauma scholarship to Holocaust studies and narratives exactly because: (1) trauma originally relates to psychic processes and patterns of individuals, whereas the Holocaust - just like other twentieth-century mass-violence events and settings that are often examined through the prism of trauma -engulfed masses, and (2) trauma is caused by abrupt and short-term terrible experience, whereas the Holocaust lasted for years and entailed many repetitions of atrocities that would each count as traumatic in their own right in normal situations. The last point connect to Laura S. Brown's claim against viewing trauma as only an event outside of everyday life. In her feminist view of trauma, such a definition is relevant only to white upper-middle-class males, whereas minorities, the working class, and women are dehumanized by this definition, as it rules out their everyday, secret, or insidious suffering (29-30).

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

1. Brainstorming about the Life Histories of Women Holocaust Survivors
2. Mother-Daughter Discourse: A Literary-Psychoanalytical Analysis of Five Life Histories
3. The Holocaust Experience of Its Listeners and Readers: A Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Analysis of Ten Life Histories
4. A Journey without a Conclusion

Appendix: The Life Histories

Notes:

• 6->Hungary 9->Israel: Difference in narratives due to political approach (15)
• Silence postwar is true except within their own circles (15)
• Methodology: time period vs. literary-psychology (18)
• 5 examples that focus on postwar - told through mother-daughter views (24)
• Looking at the implied and covert (psycho-folklore) (25)
• Careful with pointing to trauma [AMEN!] (30)
• Continual [perceived ?] A/S (39)
• Holocaust brought home through oral history not history (51)
• Denial as survival (71)
• Depth of story dependent on survivors understanding of successful conveyance (122)
• Holocaust never fathomed (128)
• "New historicist reading" work (131)

Jody - # 8 Kramer

Title:

Kramer, Clara. With Stephen Glantz. Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival (New York: HarperCollins, 2009)

Question:

No real question to this memoir other than: what were gentile rescuers like, and  how did life play out for a young Polish-Jewish girl in occupied Poland.

Method:

Not a published diary, but a novel that mixes a personal diary with historical events.

Summary:

A true account of a Jewish family (one family [of sixty individuals to survive] of the estimated five thousand Jewish families from the South Eastern Galician town Zolkiew, Poland) hidden in Poland during World War II. Sadly, no Jews live in Zolkiew today. The Holocaust started for 15-year-old Clara Schwartz (now Kramer), her family, and the other Jews in Zolkiew, in eastern Poland with Barbarossa. This memoir, which draws largely from a diary kept by Clara, describes how she and her family and a few other Jews are taken in by the Becks - the family’s former housekeeper and her husband Valentin. Told through Clara's eyes, the Holocaust of Zolkiew is both familiar and freshly horrifying. One of the most poignant and rewarding gifts is its absence of analysis. Relentlessly emotional and gripping this story spotlights the most unlikely of heroes: Valentin Beck, the manipulative, reckless, ethnically German Pole locally famous for his drunkenness, philandering, and virulent A/S, who repeatedly risks his life to succor the family concealed in a makeshift bunker beneath his house. Simultaneously, he puts his hidden group in danger by carrying on an affair with one of those hiding and through his socializing almost nightly with the most dangerous of Nazis [He alone is reason enough to read this book]. Throughout their time in the bunker Clara and her family ponder: How could God let this happen? Why did gentile Poles who lived peacefully with their Jewish neighbors cheerfully betray them? How could so many Germans kill and then later go to the opera? It does not attempt to UNDERSTAND the Holocaust - it just lays out daily life...thank goodness.

Comment:

Most comments in the summary above. This should be required reading! Is this an attempt to be a better Anne Frank story? While this book is more about the Becks than Clara, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book! It is a riveting poignant work that will definitely be used by Professor Manning as a pedagogical tool for undergraduates. THIS work should replace ANY and ALL Wiesel books!!!!

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

1. My Grandfather
2. A Place to Hide
3. The Housekeeper
4. A Gift from Mr. Beck
5. I Go to the Ghetto
6. The Final Solution
7. The Arrival
8. 18 April
9. The Love Affair
10. Days of Awe and Atonement
11. A Year Underground
12. Valentine's Day
13. The SS Move In
14.  We Are Just Starting to Suffer
15. I'm Losing Hope
16. The Exodus
17. Zolkiew without Mania
18. The Diary

Epilogue: Life Goes On

Notes:

• Family did NOT leave town with Soviet occupation (8)
• Grandfather, Dzadzio, was captured by Soviets and sent to Gulag in war (11)
• Russian hatred due to communism, Nazi hatred due to religion (32)
• Grandfather could have been saved if her mother didn't try to get him released (39)
• Rumors of Belzec (49) [Was it a death camp at this point? Doubtful]
• Knowledge of Auschwitz [Oswiecim] (51)
• Beck's (housekeeper's family) as rescuers - Valetin was A/S drunk (65) Had a reputation of being A/S but was nothing but charming and kind to Clara (85)
• 11 People hiding
• Frau Melman had an obsession with H2O pitcher (later leak shows obsession with small things in hiding) (76)
• Rules for living in hiding (78-9)
• Mother returns (111)
• Beck sent soup to the ghetto everyday (112)
• Nazi visit (114)
• Beck and Klara have an affair (123)
• Children Zygush & Zosia arrive (137)
• Sister Mania flees from the fire (157) Later she is denounced and murdered (164)
• A/S Christmas carolers (215)
• 2 Nazis to live with them (217)
• Suicide (220)
• SS move in for 6 days since their car broke down (38)
• Jewish revenge killing (239)
• Snoring as a major problem for hiding (240)
• Trainman (who live with Becks) sees one of the hiding (244-5)
• Nazi SS men knew of the Jews hiding the entire time (296)
• Catholic priest says last rights over Mother [?!>!>!] (308) Very comical!
• Only 50 of 50,000 Jews survived from Zolkiew (324)
• No Zolkiew Jews today (335)

Jody # 7- Fass

Title:

Fass, Paula S. Inhereting the Holocaust: A Second-Generation Memoir (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009)

Question:

How does the Holocaust affect the second generation? What understanding and/or memories are brought about by returning to the homeland of parents? What role does the past play in the lives of those not directly affected by traumatic events of the past?

Method:

Justification comes through the claim of "preserving those remnants and shreds of memory from the dwindling reservoir of the human experiences of those people and times" (4). [Supposedly] Fass approaches the subject of memory through historical training, which in turn she uses to state that she is less biased than others [a bit self-righteous too].

Summary of Argument: 

Claiming not to speak for all children of Holocaust survivors, Fass feels her experiences resonate with those who feel that they are part of a historical generation that had to engage in creating a new postwar world. Focused on her own immediate family, Fass begins with a return to Poland in 2000 "to try to coax memory forward so that the link between my mother's memories and my daughter's history could be made" (11). The bulk of chapters outline her family history through a genealogical web of past and present detailing their Holocaust experiences [not hers per se]. She explores her own past [naively and under-prepared/researched] as the daughter of Holocaust survivors to reflect on the nature of history and memory. Through her parents' experiences and the stories they recounted, Fass defined her engagement as a historian and used these skills to better understand her parents lives. She travels to Poland to locate birth certificates of murdered siblings and any remnants left behind. That journey to recover her family's story provides her with more evidence for the perplexing reliability of memory and its winding path toward historical reconstruction. In the end, Fass does recover remnants of family history only to ponder and question how Poland continues to rapidly re-imagine the role Jews played in their past.

Comment:

What is the importance of this book? Who is the audience? Why is she writing this? [I wrote these comments several times in my notes while reading] While I must state my own bias: I wanted this work to divulge "her" experience and not her family's [then again maybe her family is the only thing in her life!], it does however [when focused on the author] provide a profound journey, at times very naively, which presents a contemporary view through a second-generation individual removed from this entity called the Holocaust [experience].

The greatest contribution to scholarly knowledge of memory/history is the 'Afterword' where Fass [finally] steps back and contemplates how these dialectic entities [of history/memory] play out. Her revelation is revealed when she returned once again to Poland in 2007 [While I must counteract the misgivings of this work - her realization fits beautifully into my dissertation!!!!]: "Part of the Lodz and Poland I had found seven years earlier was surely the romantic haze I brought to the experience, and that haze was gone with familiarity. It was familiar to me now, not as the source of my mother's stories, but as a site I had explored as a tourist. There were no more wonderful discoveries in turning the corner of a street or looking into a dark courtyard. That sense of experience and memories merging into a dreamlike reality was gone" (183). 

It also provides views/perceptions of those who assume knowledge of this history and tout their expertise - though being completely removed - while clinging to judgments that blanket contemporary life, and in turn adds to the shadow of the past. Additionally, while I am happy that Ms. Fass was able to connect her genealogical dots, this work should have gone deeper to provide a systematic dissection of how memory/history play off one another through her second-generational experience. If I was editor/advisor I would have scrapped the whole middle section: chapters 2-7. Her discussion of the 're-emerging' Poland, or how Poland is dealing with its past, could have - if she had done her research - been found in numerous volumes on the subject. Instead Fass seems to believe that she is 'discovering' newly found territory. This author should have stuck with 'her' experience and left out all the Bull Shit - especially those comments about taking taxis all over Poland (depicting her as a very well-off snob who does not take time to get-in-touch with culture or surroundings), which actually pushes the argument that this "return to the past" is one that seeks to find connection while being utterly disengaged and distant!

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

Introduction: Inheriting Memory

I. Going to Poland: May 2000

II. I Never Had Grandparents

III. One Uncle

IV. The Complexity of Aunts

V. First Families

VI. My Parents

VII. My Mother/Myself

Afterword: Poland, Again

Notes:

• "memories are so profound, so much part of the bone and marrow that they are inheritable (2)".
• Father hated Poland and vowed never to return (7)
• Fass finds no "active A/S" participation today, instead she witnesses reflection (14)
• Resentment is inherited (93)
• Physical effects (99)
• Aunt's delusion of Nazis in mid-50s (104)
• Survivor guilt (120)
• Parents married in Hannover, Germany 1946 (121)
• German, Jews, and Allies collaborate [see Grossman] (136)
• What! Indulgent! Childhood suicide attempt??? (139)
• Father stops her from going to Germany to study [Prejudice is learned and passed on] (158)
• Father controls and dominates her mother (160)
• Ashamed of her Yiddish (175)
• Not trusting Polish archives - especially for Jews [!?!?!?!?!] (180) WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Poles see "Jews" and then decide that they won't open archives??? IS THIS ANTI-POLISHISM????
• Re-absorption of past in Poland (185)
• Poles are not 'missing' Jews but looking forward to the future (188)
• Looking for generational past in present (189)
• Family's past has no place in Poland's future (190)

Raz - Month # 3

The two books for March differ in significant ways. While Allen’s The Business of Genocide puts much emphasis on the ideological dimensions related to German (mis)management of genocide in Nazi-dominated Europe, Dean’s Robbing the Jews explores the economic side of the Holocaust. Whereas Dean strives to portray a rational mechanism that worked, Allen argues that even when Nazi fixations involved fascinations with modern rationality, underlying ideological goals and consensus doomed the major Nazi economic initiatives to failure and self-destruction.   

            Allen’s analysis combines meticulous research in previously unutilized primary sources with a deep understanding of modern management theories and practices. He skillfully criticizes past assertions in scholarly accounts that rested on little more than theoretical musings detached from specific data and contexts (i.e., Weber, Sofsky [see p. 260], and Bauman [see p. 127], among others). He refutes the notion of a faceless Nazi bureaucracy, characterized at times by endless infighting. (Oxymoronic formulations at any rate, for how could faceless figures engage in struggles that in effect required various faces?) Instead, he demonstrates the principal agreements among the many Germans involved in the planning and implementation of mass murder. Indeed, “[t]his book argues that ideology is embedded in the quotidian tasks of bureaucratic operations because it lies at the root of collective identity and consensus” (p. 11). Allen has provided numerous examples that show beyond doubt that in Nazi Germany “…the state is not there for the economy, but the economy is there for the state.” (Quoted on p. 32, and see also quote before fn. 57 on p. 81 and before fn. 16 on p. 101) Therefore, “…ideology and organization became one and the same thing.” (p. 49, and see also pp. 159, 189), creating an irrationality that stood at the heart of Nazi fundamentalism’s “productivism.” This state of affairs eventually brought about financial ruin on most SS business endeavors.

            In conclusion, criticizing the idea that “[m]any would have us believe that not only did the Holocaust’s victims come like sheep to the slaughter, but their Nazi butchers did so as well” (p. 260), Allen has shown the consensus that ensured the success of mass murder over and above economic considerations.

            Dean’s focus on the theft of money, valuables, and property of Jews before, during, and after their murder provides a useful overview, some intriguing glimpses into archival documents that researchers have yet to examine thoroughly, and a few spotlights on issues marginalized in current scholarship (such as the German method of blocking bank accounts owned by Jews). However, his use of primary sources gives a somewhat anecdotal impression, and the data he provides fails to convince that assets of Jews contributed significantly to the financial state of Nazi Germany – a central thesis of the book.     

Nevertheless, Dean has contributed several important insights that deserve attention and further research. He has noted the dehumanizing effect of German economic persecution (p. 8); he has also briefly mentioned comparisons between such measures aimed at different groups (p. 13); he has posited that mass robbery reinforced genocide by reducing victims’ chances of survival (p. 221) and by spreading complicity across Europe (pp. 15, 357, 389); and he asserted that “…postwar communist expropriations served to consolidate the theft of Jewish property conducted during the war.” (p. 357).

In addition, Dean has corroborated some of Allen’s arguments, even if only in passing. He pointed out the cooperation rather than contentious struggles among German agencies involved in genocide (p. 255). He has also stated explicitly that in the Occupied East the destruction of Jewish communities occurred because of “…ideological reasons,” not economic gains (p. 174, and see, related to this point, p. 36). And finally, he has, as mentioned above, unintentionally shown that the material benefits of robbing the Jews were actually quite small (See the figures and information on pp. 57-58, 168, 255, 392). Indeed, Allen’s conclusions about the gold taken from east European Jews during “Operation Reinhard” (p. 249) illuminates the conceptual problem that plagues Dean’s account – the value of the gold was minuscule in comparison to the needs of the German war economy at the time, and, moreover, that gold ended up supporting imaginary SS initiatives concerned with future visions that in 1943 seemed extremely absurd.

It is telling that an account meant to stress the economic aspects of the Holocaust eventually proves that this unprecedented genocide happened not because human beings are for the most part greedy but because many people at the time sincerely believed – albeit in various ways – or found an anchor in what Allen has termed Nazi fundamentalism.

Jody - # 6 Martin

Title:

Dean, Martin. Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Question:

How did Nazi confiscation of Jewish property factor into genocide? What and how much was seized? Who was involved? And, how did this process play out? (11)

Method:

Archival documents, testimonies, trial documents (especially Nuremberg sources) and secondary sources are utilized to place more stress implementation of Nazi actions by bureaucracy and the impact upon Jewish lives. Numerous sources allow for them to "talk to each other" and therefore opens analysis from several perspectives. (7)

Summary of Argument:  

Dean attempts to reveal the mechanisms by which the Nazis (and their collaborators) seized and utilized Jewish property during their rule. This developed through steps and did not come in one swoop. Both top/bottom are revealed to compete for Jewish possessions. Generally [which is always problematic]: W.E. experienced decrees against Jews through legal and administrative measures; whereas E.E. saw authoritarian/nationalistic state governments (and therefore collaborationist) adopt the Nazi program and thus excluding Jews from economic (and social) life. Then in turn they were able to seize their property. Afterward, stolen possessions were typically sent to Berlin, especially from annihilation sites. At the same time, lesser valued items were handed to local allies as financial support or for reward. Thus, in the end, Dean concludes that theft was a catalyst for genocide that pushed the progression from pogrom to mass murder.

Comment:

If "confiscation leads to genocide (8)," how is confiscation of "enemies of the state" (non-Jewish) property then not lead to genocide [of course, rhetorical]? Clearly, robbery can be (and is) a process in genocide, but to push the old argument that greed is a catalyst for mass murder is difficult since genocide (at least in this case) is typically determined BEFORE confiscation. Does Dean's argument seem to say that those seen (or perceived) as rich would naturally be killed? Where does that leave Roma/Sinti or Poles? Or is this exclusively a Jewish issue for the Nazis, which would then mean ideology was the factor, not greed. Intent is important - is Dean saying that the Nazis did not allow businesses to be liquidated by Jews because they wanted to murder Jews OR because they wanted the $? Thus, the argument would go that the Nazis enacted economic decrees to KEEP Jews since they "knew" that they would not leave and thus be ripe and at disposal for killing. [?!?!?] Then the question arises: how could 25,000 German Jews leave? It may be that I am missing some major point here.  Generalization for Dean is highly problematic as well - E/W Europe [what is that?] and "history of Romanian A/S dates back centuries (325)" mixes A/S & A/J, and does not separate or differentiate government or social A/S. Overall, however, this work does a great job in laying out the confiscation process historically.

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

PART I - Economic Persecution inside the Third Reich, 1933-1941

1. The Nazis' Initial Confiscation Measures
2. Mounting Obstacles to Jewish Emigration, 1933-1939
3. The Anschluss and Kristallnacht: Acceleration Aryanization and Confiscation in Austria and Germany, 1938-1939
4. Blocking Jewish Bank Accounts and Preparation for Mass Confiscation, 1939-1941

PART II - Jewish Property and the European Holocaust, 1939-1945

5. Destruction and Plunder in the Occupied East: Poland, the Soviet Union, and Serbia
6. Settling Accounts in the Wake of the Deportations
7. "Plunder by Decree": The Confiscation of Jewish Property in German-Occupied Western Europe
8. Sovereign Imitations: Confiscation Conducted by States Allied to Nazi Germany
9. Receiving Stolen Property: Neutral States and Private Companies
10. Seizure of Property and the Social Dynamics of the Holocaust

Notes:

• April-June '38: Göring orders the registration of Jewish property in the Reich (1)
• Collaborative countries : V.France, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia and Hungary.
• Confiscation and economic gain is a necessary facilitating step in genocide (8)
• Comparison reinforces that confiscation leads to genocide (15)
• Confiscation from State began against "enemies" of State (24)
• Denaturalization in '33 was a major step (33) - usually enemies though, not about property at this time
• '37 -> link to race/confiscation (39)
• Initially from "enemies of the state" to Jews, then strip them from emigration for confiscation (53)
• Jewish bodies to leave but $ stays (54)
• Offices in Germany = decentralized Austrian - central (61)
• 295,000/525,000 Jews emigrated from Germany to 1939 (79)
• Most stayed because  business not able to be liquidated (82)
• Noose tightens with Kristallnacht - Quicker and more harsh in Austria
• Jewish businesses were mainly liquidated rather than Aryanized in Austria (96)
• All Austrian Jews to be concentrated in Vienna May '39 (105)
• "Austrian Model" not so much planned as steered by state/party (108)
• Aug '39 - limit of 300RM: Point of loss for German Jews (133)
• Sept '39 - Oct '41: 25,000 Jews emigrated from Germany (142)
• RV (156) 11th Decree (161) Oct '41 - Large Deportations (165)
• Blocking measures Aug '39 -> Denaturalization for revenue (168)
• Reich confiscation of New Polish area [Including Oswiecim] (183)
• Most seized property used locally -> most valuable to Berlin (142)
• Glebokie case study example / locals receive valuables (205-6)
• Latvia local consumption (207) incentive for local collaboration (212)
• Most property confiscated "legally" (229)
• Deportation waves -> destination/periods (237) Same for Roma/Sinti (243)
• West - occupied - Aryanization  measures (258)
• Netherlands - emigration for businesses (279) overall local views (283)
• European cases - similar but different [same, same, but different] (chpt 7)
• Local complicity for inflation and social policy (317)
• Similar but different in other countries - all varies (355)
• E. E. - part of assertion of soveriegnty (357) (386)
• plunder as catalyst for genocide (379)
• Vienna "Austrian model" (381)
• (Collaborating) Countries may not have killed Jews but definitely took their $ (389)
• "Insuring" camps/ghettos [always stunning!] (373)

5 Main Points:

• Jewish bodies to leave but $ stays (54)
• Jewish businesses were mainly liquidated rather than Aryanized in Austria (96)
• Most seized property used locally -> most valuable to Berlin (142)
• (Collaborating) Countries may not have killed Jews but definitely took their $ (389)

• Seizure and Confiscation: W.E. - through laws and decrees / E.E. - collaborative actions of authoritative/nationalistic governments [what does E.E. mean to Dean? -> problematic for Poland]

Jody - # 5 Thad

Title:

Allen, Michael Thad. The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)

 Question:

What made up the WVHA and what were the motivations of mid-level managers and engineers? How did perpetrators endow their institutions with personal significance? Why did Nazis think this management was the right thing to do? [My question is: Why do historians have to prove that Nazi ideology or ordinary men would be driven to commit murder like it is an alien act OR maybe, more important: why it is SO DIFFERENT than our belief system? Obviously, it is the same through a variant lens]

 Method:

See focus in Argument, 2nd paragraph.

Summary of Argument:  

Presenting a crucial history of the WVHA, or SS Business and Administration Main Office, MTA presents a comprehensive study akin to Wildt's monograph on RSHA. During Nazism WVHA assumed different roles and tasks to manifest new institutions. Pohl established this office to administer the SS and watched over financial aspects of CC and Death Head's units. The SS manager's lack of technical expertise, however,  proved to be non-profitable except for the textile company using female slave-labor. All departments put forth their ideology of modern technology, but Office Group C - headed by Kammler (along with its SS engineers) - believed in German supremacy above all. And with this they cleansed the Germanic East, built workshops in mountains, and developed the machinery of murder at the expense of numerous lives, both Jewish AND non-Jewish.  [OH! - Wiesel, damn it!!! (pg. 15) wrong again! Why quote him anymore!!!???]

Allen's focus, nonetheless, is not on a history of the WVHA, its organization, or those lives involved in its path, but on the motivations of mid-level managers, engineers, and functionaries within the bureaucracy. Not to blame mono-causes, he mentions throughout: A/S, racism, as well as thought pertaining to technological, economic, and German supremacy. These common belief made up (and motivated) the bureaucracy. He puts forth that these men were following concepts of modernism - that is modern machinery not management - for they rarely, if ever, understood this technology that they oversaw. In essence, these were men of their time. Thus, his monograph discounts and debunks Arendt's "banal," or the arguments of "cogs in the machine," as well as the common "technocrat" motivation and against Sofsky "power" by focusing on logical ideology. In other words, "This book argues that ideology is embedded in the quotidian tasks of bureaucratic operations because it lies at the root of collective identity and consensus. The function of consensus is best understood by considering the nature of modern management, whose techniques transform local, particular experiences and artifacts into fungible information amenable to collation, interchangeability, and abstract transfer" (11). 

Comment:

Unfortunately, I do not know much about the WVHA except for the top leaders and their functions within the Nazi government but I understand that this is a major work by an authoritative figure that I can utilize pedagogically. Additionally, I would of course agree with Allen since I do not mystify Nazis as evil or un-happy - they seem to me to be normal men who reflect their global peers (except for that genocidal ideology). My one critique, as usual, concerns generalization - not all felt this way and while he seems to focus on mid-level men his thesis wants to blanket all organizations and Nazis - which is always dangerous territory for a historian. I must admit I am rather tired of the "why"/"motivation" question. Who cares? It happened - let's focus on the how and give a proper history of a vital Nazi organization.

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

Introduction

I: Origins of the SS: The Ideology Is the Modern Organization

            Modern Men: The New Administrative Officers of the SS

            The Führer Principle

            Heinrich Himmler's Favored Industrial Projects

            "We Are No Pencil Pushers!": Theodor Eicke's Total Institution and the Primacy     of Policing

            Origins of the SS Construction Corps

II. A Political Economy of Misery: The SS "Führer" Corporation

            The German Earth and Stone Works

            Profits from Women's Work

            Opportunistic Idealists and the Shady Legality of SS Industry

            The "Organic Corporation"

III. Manufacturing a New Order

            The "Final Form" of the German Commercial Operations

            The Venality of Evil: Modern Mismanagement of Slave Labor

IV. Engineering a New Order

            A High Degree of Order?

            Odilo Globocnik: Handcrafting the New Order

            Hans Kammler: Modern Engineering in the SS

            The "Great Industrial Tasks" of the SS

            Engineering Ideology

V. My Newly Erected House: Slavery in the Modern War Economy

            Industry and Ideology

            The Rise of Albert Speer

            Putting the SS's House in Order for Total War

            The Armaments Ministry's First Pilot Projects

VI. The Hour of the Engineer

            Rehearsals

            The SS and the Rocket Team

            Mittelwerk and Dora-Mittelbau

            Less than Slaves: Labor at Dora-Mittelbau

            The Fighter Staff

VII. Total War and the End in Rubble

            Modern Management and Its Discontents

            The End

Notes:

• Focus on WVHA (SS Business Adm) and the climax of effort in Spring '44 (2)
• Anti - Arendt (4-5) Not Cogs but Big Fish in control (158)
• WVHA men came from white-collar workers (7)
• Ideological motivation for harsh CC conditions (9)
• Actors: 1. WVHA managers, 2. Commandants, 3. State planners and individuals (12)
• Goals: 1. Remake European image, 2. Führer principle, 2. Emphasis on Soc of Nat. Soc. (12-13)
• Productivist ideology: Not so much make products but make Germanness and Germans (13)
• Early SS: 1. Pohl administration, 2. Himmler industrial ventures, 3. Eicke's CC = all together with slave labor they all agreed prisoners must be punished (19-20)
• Dachau - old powder factory (36)
• Eicke - "we are not guards but political soldiers" (38)
• Death Heads training - honor and empowerment (40) no civilian clothes even on holiday
• '36-'38: 1. government support to CC, and 2. prisoners-> laborers (57)
• message clear - Germany must radicalize against Weimar (64)
• "Arbeit Macht Frei" reality - early (66)
• Modernization turns to radicalization through Nazi cultural goals (79)
• Always acting within Nazi ideology - (96) [of course for SS]
• New order/Germanization strategy brings them together
• Soldiers receive military and business training ( 112)
• 14f13 - unfit for work (125)
• "All or nothing" in East -> Genocide during victory '41-'42 (129)
• SS based on modernity of productivism and racial supremacy over rational capitalism (137)
• Keep some Jews for labor since there was none other (151)
• Crux of war economy: human labor (166)
• IG Farben in Auschwitz = Henkel works in Orienenberg (168)
• Never forced companies to use slave labor (170)
• Most control in CC -> Commandants (with subordinates) and Kapos (178)
• Not Sofsky "power" but logical ideology (190)
• Office group C builds death camp machinery (202)
• Nazism as "modern" (273)
• Nazis as human! (276)
• Not silence but action (284)
• Nazi historians most disturbing to him (283)

 5 Main Points:

1. WVHA men were following concepts of modernism - that is modern machinery not management - for they rarely, if ever, understood this technology that they oversaw. In essence, these were men of their time.
2. WVHA mid-level ideology included A/S, racism, and Germanic technological and economic supremacy that motivated bureaucrats.
3. Nazis were human, and mid-level WVHA managers were not silent but very active in building the system.
4. Ideology proved to elide prisoner (both J and non) well-being for German supremacy, especially showing that they must actually be punished.
5. With their supremacy they cleansed the Germanic East, built workshops in mountains, and developed the machinery of murder at the expense of numerous lives, both Jewish AND non-Jewish.