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David Meier on the Politics of Memory: the Journey of a Holocaust

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David Meier on the Politics of Memory: the Journey of a Holocaust Raul Hilberg. The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a Holocaust Historian. Chicago, Ill.: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1996. 208 pp. $22.50, cloth, ISBN 978-1-56663-116-7. Reviewed by David A. Meier Published on H-Holocaust (January, 1997) The Politics of Memory is Raul Hilberg's auto‐ Stabat Mater ... and Mozart's 'Italianate' Lau‐ biographical account of his life and his scholar‐ damus Dominum." Hilberg's most prized personal ship. First published in 1961, Hilberg's The De‐ possession, however, was his atlas (p. 37). The struction of European Jewry has remained the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938 brought this standard from which to judge all subsequent his‐ phase of Hilberg's life to a close. Integration and tories of the Holocaust. Subsequently, Hilberg military service in the First World War did not, edited Documents of Destruction: Germany and however, protect Hilberg's immediate and extend‐ Jewry, 1933-1945 (1971), co-edited The Warsaw Di‐ ed family from Nazi persecution and humiliation. ary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom (1979), Hilberg himself fed Germany with his mother in and published Perpetrators Victims Bystanders 1939, and other family members escaped annihi‐ (1992). Hilberg's position as the world's preemi‐ lation by emigrating (via Cuba) to the United nent Holocaust scholar did not, however, come States in 1940. without its costs. Hilberg was born in Vienna, A student at New York's Abraham Lincoln where his family found its limited niche in Austri‐ High School, Hilberg displayed little respect for an society. Hilberg's recollection of life in the Aus‐ the feld of history. When he became a student at tro-Hungarian capital included a rebellious re‐ Brooklyn College, Hilberg'sfrst interest was sentment of his forced attendance at the local syn‐ chemistry. Upon reaching draftable age, Hilberg agogue. Hilberg's vision of religion had been did his service in the United States Army. As the strongly influenced by his father's idol, Baruch war drew to a conclusion, Hilberg's unit stopped Spinoza. As Hilberg wrote, "The fact is that I have in Munich. The frst serious glimmer of Hilberg's had no God" (p. 36). Hilberg's own interests cast future calling, Hilberg recalled fnding "sixty doubt over the reality of that assertion. For exam‐ wooden cases ... Hitler's private library." When ple, Hilberg was "enraptured" by the liturgy of the Hilberg returned to Brooklyn College after the Russian Orthodox Church, "ensnared" by "Ben‐ war, history and political science became his new giamino Giglo in the Verdi Requiem ... Rossini's H-Net Reviews intellectual home. Under the guidance of Hans "Heydrich with organizing the Final Solution of Rosenberg (an expert on the Prussian bureaucra‐ the Jewish Question in Europe" (p. 78). Further cy), Hilberg's interest in public administration complementing these resources, Hilberg also sur‐ and its roll in the Nazi dictatorship grew (pp. veyed the testimony given during the trial of 57-58). Adolf Eichmann. The documentation thus feshed A graduate student in the Department of Pub‐ out Hilberg's initial assumptions about the Nazi lic Law and Government at Columbia University, killing process. Hilberg took a keen interest in a visiting profes‐ Hilberg's academic career then hit a few sor, Franz Neumann, the author of Behemoth. bumps. His dissertation advisor, Franz Neumann, Modeling his work after Neumann's, Hilberg di‐ died in a car accident. After getting his program vided Germany into four groups, namely, the civil back on track, Hilberg searched for a teaching po‐ service, the army, industry, and the party, "each sition. Hilberg faced three problems. First, war operating under a leadership principle, and each veterans had fooded the market. "A second prob‐ with legislative, administrative, and judicial pow‐ lem was discrimination against Jews, particularly ers of its own." A review of various secondary in private colleges." The topic of his dissertation sources moved Hilberg to two basic assumptions: became Hilberg's third problem. After his frst job First, "the destruction of the Jews was not central‐ at Hunter College and a second in Mayaguez, ized." Second, "Jews were destroyed in a progres‐ Puerto Rico, Hilberg found himself at the Univer‐ sion of steps and that everywhere the sequence sity of Vermont (pp. 93-104). was the same." With the assistance of Eric The remainder of Hilberg's work dwells on Marder, a close friend of Hilberg, Hilberg defined the publishing of his seminal work, The Destruc‐ a three-step process as beginning with defining tion of European Jewry, and the resonance it cre‐ the "concept of the 'Jew'" and physical isolation. ated in the academic community. Although well Second, Jews were removed from the economy received by Columbia University, Hilberg's manu‐ through dismissals and "special taxes." Third and script was incomplete when frst reviewed. Its in‐ finally, ghettoization and forced labor set the creased length drove up publication costs. The stage for their eventual annihilation. With a manuscript moved from one publisher to another. working thesis in hand, Hilberg consulted the doc‐ Hilberg was forced to seek fnancial assistance in uments and recent research (pp. 63-65). a variety of forms. In the end, Hilberg's manu‐ Aware of the works of Leon Poliakov and Ger‐ script moved into the hands of the University of ald Reitlinger, Hilberg drew upon the still largely Chicago Press. untapped resources of the Nuremberg trial If publication meant the end of one battle, it records and, later, on the massive collection of also signaled the beginning of another. Hilberg re‐ materials housed at Alexandria, Virginia. Working ferred to this war as his "Thirty-Year War." with the War Documentation Project, Hilberg as‐ Hilberg anticipated that his basic thesis would sisted in the cataloguing of some 28,000 linear feet cause a stir. Hilberg maintained that "the process of Nazi documentation. Through exposure to of destruction was bureaucratic ... that a bureau‐ these materials, Hilberg pieced together the Nazis' crat became a perpetrator by virtue of his position incremental process of excluding Jews from Euro‐ and skills at the precise time when the process pean life. Hilberg, by his own admission, initially had reached a stage that required his involve‐ overlooked one key piece of apparent Nazi incre‐ ment, that he was a thinking individual, and that mentalism, namely, Hermann Goering's order of above all, he was available, neither evading his July 31, 1941, to Reinhardt Heydrich charging duty nor obstructing the administrative opera‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tion." In short, Hilberg described this process as a here "vaguely consoling words, [which] could be consequence of German history rather than as an easily clutched by all those who did not wish to aberration (p. 124). As for postwar Germans, look deeper." Recounting Henry Friedlander's Hilberg asserted that "the German of the Nazi era contribution to the American Historical Review in is different from the German that emerged after 1982, Hilberg listed twenty-three key authors the war" (p. 86). whose works Dawidowicz did not use in her own Although challenging accepted notions about work. Hilberg fnished Dawidowicz with the state‐ Hitler's Germany within German history, Hilberg ment: "To be sure, Dawidowicz has not been taken released a much more emotional and vociferous all that seriously by historians" (pp. 145-47). response to his integration of "Jewish institutions Hannah Arendt's works on totalitarianism as an extension of the German bureaucratic ma‐ and her accounts of the Eichmann trial were im‐ chine." Consistent with traditional Jewish trust of portant inspirations for Hilberg. Upon reviewing higher government authorities, "Jewish coopera‐ her work Eichmann in Jerusalem (1964), Hilberg tion" included "accommodation and precluded re‐ was startled to fnd no footnotes and only a minor sistance" (pp. 128-29). Criticized by survivors and acknowledgement of her use of his work and that scholars for his bureaucratic approach, Hilberg of Reitlinger's. Hilberg pointed out, furthermore, had violated prevailing efforts to describe Jewish that Arendt's "reliance upon my book had already victims as "heroic" and actively engaged in resis‐ been noticed by several reviewers." As for tance--irrespective of how small (p. 133). Hilberg Arendt's concept of the banality of evil, Hilberg acknowledged the psychological importance to stressed that Arendt never understood "the path‐ the Nazi killing process of defining Jews as adver‐ ways that Eichmann found in the thicket of the saries. Inflating the concept of Jewish resistance, German administrative machine for his unprece‐ however, would undermine the "accomplishment dented actions. ... There was no 'banality' in this of the few who took action." Additionally, ghetto 'evil.'" Furthermore, Arendt separated "Jewish and camp life could not be understood from the leaders from the Jewish populace" to account for perspective of resistance (pp. 134-37). A few pages Jewish cooperation in the destruction. However, later, Hilberg's commentary becomes more cut‐ Arendt's response to Hilberg's The Destruction of ting: "The manipulation of history is a kind of European Jewry was negative. Writing to Karl spoilage, and kitsch is debasement" (p. 141). Jaspers in 1964, Arendt wrote: "His book is really Hilberg saved his more scathing critiques for excellent, but only because it is a simple report. A Nora Levin, Lucy Dawidowicz, and Hannah more general, introductory chapter is beneath a Arendt. Nora Levin's The Holocaust (1968) bor‐ singed pig" (p. 155). Hilberg does not let Arendt off rowed heavily from both Gerald Reitlinger's work the hook. Hilberg stated that Arendt reestablished and Hilberg's (pp. 142-43). Lucy Dawidowicz's The ties with a lover from her days as a student, War Against the Jews (1975) builds "largely on namely Martin Heidegger, and sought to rehabili‐ secondary sources and conveying nothing what‐ tate him.
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