Role Reversa1 and Passing in Postwar German and Austrian Jewish Literature

Role Reversa1 and Passing in Postwar German and Austrian Jewish Literature

Robert Lawson

A thesis submitted to the Department of German in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada Decembei, 2ûûl

copyright O Robert Lawson, 2001 Acquisitions and AcquWions et Bib(iognphi Sewices senkes bibliographiques

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Role Reversal and Passim in Postwar Austrian and German Tetvish Literature

Robert Lawson

This dissertation examines role reversal and passing in poshar

Xushian and Cerman Jewish literahw. Role reversal is a strategy in which individuals or characters in a Literary text trawform their identities by assuming attributes commonly associated with their oppsites. This

transformation could involve a perpetrator posing as a victim or the victirn

turning into a perpetrator. Passing refers to the way in which individuals or

characters hide their identity in order to cross ethnic or social boundaries. For

example, an individual or a character might feel cornpelleci to conceal his or

her Jewishness or non-Jewishness.

This study examines a wide range of narratives by Austrian and

German Jewish writers. The ktchapter analyses role reversal and passing in

the texts of Edgar Hilsenrath and Jurek Ekcker, two ktgeneration Gennan

Jewish authors whose witing establishes certain patterns that second

generation writers have adopted in their prose. The subsequent three chapters

explore how second generation writers Maxim Biller, lrene Disdie, Esther iii

Dischereii, Anna Mitgutsdi, Doron Rabinovici, and Robert -del adapt these patterns for their own pufposes. 1 argue that role reversal and passing serve to counter anti-Semitic stereotypes, to highlight the identity problems of second generation Jews in Austria and in Germany, and to aiticize the way in rvhich non-Jewish Gemans and Austrians have dealt with the Holocaust.

I also argue that gender and nationality influence the way in which these authors use role reversal and passing.

In the final chapter, 1 compare and contrast two real Me cases of role reversa1 as documented in the memoù of Binjamin WilkomUski, a non-

Jewish Swiss posing as a Holocaust victim, and the wartime dironide of

Solomon Perel, a Geman Jew who disguised himself as a Hitler Youth to

survive the war. 1 would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Petra Fachinger for her tremendous guidance and support. Many thanks also to Dr. David Pugh for his mitical reading of the thesis draft.

1 would also like to thank Dr. Dagmar Lorenz and Dr. Sander L. Gilman from the University of Illinois at Chicago for their valuable suggestions.

Last but not least, I am indebted to my parents for their encouragement and support without which 1 would not have been able to complete this thesis. Table of Contents

1ntroduction

1. Cunivaiism versus Irony in Edgar Hilsenrath's Dei Nazi und der Friseur and Jurek Becker's Bronsteins Kinder

2. Passing as Cdhval Cross~Dressingin Irone Dische's and Maxim Bilier's Short Stones

3.The Austrian Jewish Identity Crisis: Doron Rabinovia's Sudie nach M, and Robert Schindel's Gebürtig

4. The Female Jewish Identity Crisis: Anna Mitgubch's Abschied von Tenasalem and Esther Disdiemit's JemisTisch

5. Victim venus Perpetrator: The Contrasting Narrative Sttategies of Binjamin Wilkomirski and Solomon Perel

Conclusion

Works Cited Introduction

Literary history is rife with examples of identity transformations. At hesthese have taken on an element of the fantastic as in Franz Ka£kafs

Verwandlung where Gregor Samsa awakes one moniing to the shocking realization that he has become an "insect."Kafka and another tutn of the century contemporarv, Bruno Schulz, employed human to animal

"metamorphoses" in part to express theu feelings of alienation as European

Jews (Stenberg, ~'Memories"289). Less spectacular than these zoomorphic mutations are instances in which individuals masquerade as representatives of a specifïc socio-economic class or pretend to belong to a certain ethnic group. A good example of the former is in Cari Zuckmayer's 1930 satire Der

Hauvtmann von Kibenidc, where a common aiminal disguised as an army captain is able to dupe the Prussian military elite. Regarding the latter, I have noticed the remarkable presence of identity transformations, specificaiiy role reversal and passing, in postwar Austnan and German Jewish literature. In this thesis 1 argue that role reversal and passing constitute a dominant trope in the works of fint generation wrîters who suMved the horrors of Nazi persecution, such as Jurek Becker and Edgar Hilsenrath, as weli as in those of the second generation, boni predorninantiy after 1945, including MaUm

Biller, Irene Dische, Esther Dischereit, Anna Mitgutsch, Doron Rabinovia, and Robert Sdiindel. A representative sample of these authors' novels and short stories will be the foundation for my analysis. In chapter five 1 present a rather unorthodox case which complements several of the issues presented within the Austrian and German comparative framework. Here 1 examine the Me of Binjamin Wilkomirski, a non-JewishSwiss passing as a Jew, and compare his fabricated Holocaust memoir with the autobiography of

Çolornon PereI, a Jew who disguised hirnself as a Hitler Youth in order to survive the war.

Many of the writers in this study have received relatively Little critical attention and so it is necessary to begin this introduction with a brief biographical overview.1 Since this is a comparative/contrastive study, I shall focus speaficaliy on the parameters of generational, national and gender differences. 1 then offer a more prease definition of the terms "mie reversal" and "passing" and briefly discuss the scholarly research in this area. Following a short ove~ewof the types of identity transformations encountered in the

texts considered in this study and the reasons why authors employ role

reversa1 and passing in their narratives, I conclude the introduction with a

chap ter breakdom.

As indicated, Jurek Becker and Edgar Hilsentath are ktgeneration

authors. Becker was bom in 1937 in Lodz, Poiand. mer the war, during

which he was intemed in Ravensbrück and later Sachsenhausen, Becker

se ttled wi th his father in East Berlin. He became one of East Germany's most

1 1 shall present the biographical details of Binjamin Wïlkomirski and Solomon Perel in the final chapter. celebrated writers although he had to leave the country for protesting the expatriation of Wolf Biermann in 1976. Becker lived in West Berlin from

1979 unol his death in 1997. Edgar Hilsenrath was boni in Leipzig in 1926, but, fleeing Nazi persecution, moved with his family to Rumania in 1938. Mer surviving the ghetto of Modhilev-Podolsk, Hilsenrath spent the in Palestine and later the United States before settling in Berlin in 1971.

The three second generation German authors included in this study

Vary greatly in tmof background and experience. Born in Prague in l%O,

Maxim Biller has been living in the Federal Republic since 1970. Sander L.

Gilman has characterized him as the "enfant terrible" of German Jewish

Literahire for his provocative essays and short stories (Jewç in Todav's 69).

Irene Dische was born in New York City in 1952 to Geman Jewish emigrant parents who raised her as a Catholic, a religious transformation highlighted in many of her stories. She moved to Berlin in 1980 where she now lives and writes. Esther Dischereit hds from Heppenheim (near Mannheim), where she was born in 1952. Although her mother was Jewish, Dischereit was raised in her father's Lutheran tradition. In addition to her writing career, Dischereit teaches Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam.

I have &O induded three Austrian writers in this study. Robert

Sdundel was born in 1944 near Linz. He suMved the war in hiding while his parents were sent to concentration camps. His father was murdered in

Dachau. After a variety of jobs in television, radio and film, he dedicated his talents to fictional prose, for which he has received great international acdaim. Anna Mitgutsch, born in 1948 in Linz, is an accomplished acadernic who has had a multi-faceted career. She hed for a short time on a kibbutz in

Israel and has taught in many countries, induding the USA and South Korea.

She currently lives in Leonding near Linz where she works as a freelance journdist, essayist and literq critic. Doron Rabinovici, born in Tel Aviv in

1961, is the only writer in this study who is of Israeli origin. However, in 1964 his family retumed to Vienna. Rabinovià is a peace activist for the Middle

East and a freelance historian, joumalist and ter of fiction.

Since the Holocaust marks such a fundamental caesura in German and

Aushian Jewishlnon-Jewishrelations, I have chosen to examine only poshvar iiterature in this shidy. I wiU employ a &O-historical rnethod of interpreta tion, an approach which requires, firs t of all, some familiarization with the history of anti-Semitism in the German and Austrian diaspora. A variety of anti-Jewish stereotypes have evolved over tirne to separate and isola te Jews from non-Jews. Medieval antitiSemitesassocia ted Jews with black magic and witchcraft and viewed their book of ad and canonical Law, the

Talmud, as a source of spells (Gilman, Self-Hatred 33). The Renaissance saw the depiction of Jews as "beggars, thieves, and wande~gmurderers"

(Cilman, Self-Hatred 68). Nineteenth century raaalists portrayeci Jews as physically defective and linguisticdy inferior in terms of their alleged inability to speak and write proper German (Gilman, Self-Hatred 209-308). 5

Jews were also açsociated at this time with mental illness, interbreeding and other deviant sexual practices (Gilman, Self-Hatred 286-97).

Ironically, as several writers induded in this thesis illustrate, many

Jews have absorbed and perpetuated this anti-Semitism, a phenornenon known as Jewish self-hatred. During the nineteenth cenhuy in partidar, rishg anti-Semitkm compelled many Jews to go to great lengths to moderate or erase their "Semitic traits" and assimilate (Hellige 48-49). Max Nordau describes this frenzy of Jewishself-hatred in the Zionistische-Sdiriften (1909):

Sie suditen mit agstlicher Beflissenhei t ihren christlichen

Nachbaren ahnlich zu werden. Sie ahmten einige ihrer

Tugenden, ganz besonders aber aile ihre Laster nach. Sie wurden

sogar htisemiten, die gif tigs ten, dil los es ten,

niedertrachtigsten Antisemiten, um nur voils tmdig ihren

jüdischen Ursprung vergessen zu machen. (230)

Shortly before the First World War, anti-Sernitism was particuiarly prominent amongst Viennese Jews like Otto Weininger whose self-loathing culminated in suicide (Hefige 63-64). Before his death Weininger detailed the femme characteristics of the Jew in his book Cesdiledit und Charakter

(19051, as, for example, in the following passage:

Milanner, die kuppeln, haben immer Judentum in si& und

damit ist der Punkt der starksten Gbereinstimmung zwisdien

Weiblichkeit und Judentum erreicht Der Jude kt stets liistemer, geiler, wenn auch merkwiirdigerweise, vielleicht im

Zusammenhange mit seiner nicht eigentlich antimoralischen

Natur, sexueli weniger potent, und sicherlich aller groBen Lust

weniger fahig als der aride Mann. (423)

Here Weinùiger repeats anti-Semitic stereotypes about the aberrant libido and iess than masculine nature of Jews. The aforernentioned Max Nordau, whose name change from Südfeld reflected his desire to disguise his Jewish origins

(van der Laarse 9), was one of the greatest proponents of physical change as a means for transforming the Jew's body. Nordau was concerned about his fellow Jews' physical state and consequently advocated a program of fitness training, incorporatirtg gymnastics and fencing to put them on par wi th the

"Aryan" (Zionistische-Schriften 387). His plea for physid transformation through exeràse was complemented by nineteenth-cent~uybreakthroughs in medical science such as rhinoplastie surgery, a new means for altering the

"Jewish nose" (Gilman, "Jewish Nose" 384).

In this thesis I will pay particular attention to generational, national and gender differences. The consideration of genera tionai differences is important for comparing first and second generation tex& and for examinhg how parent-child relationships are portrayed within individual narratives.

The majority of writers in this study experienced the trauma of the Holocaust indirectly. Often they grew up in households where fathers and mothers were rdudant to recount their paînful past. Second generation literature frequently thematizes this silence at home and the diffidty of the young in communicating and es tablishing emo tional bonds wi th the oider genera tion

(Nulden 92-93). Doron Rabinovià depictç this very situation in his novel

Suche nach M. where Moshe and Gitta Morgenthau are incapable of tehg their son Dani about the horrors they witnessed dwing the Third Reich. Dani

Morgenthau, like many second generation children, emerges psychologically wounded from his upbringing in a home where silence hinders relations between family members. Richard Chaim Schneider aptly sums up this inheritance of trauma: "Wir Kinder waren dort ohne dort gewesen zu sein"

(105). As indirect casualties of their ancestors' past, the second generation is a vocal group who is les likely to aspire to assimilate as many of its grandparents and parents did, or to accept any attempt to minimize the his toncal importance of the Holocaus t (Sdilant, Lanmiae 237-38).

The Holocaust is at the epicentre of Jewish and non-Jewish CO-existence in the Austrian and German diaspora. Dan Diner describes this "opposing mutuality" as the basis for a relationship which he diaraderizes as a

"negative symbiosis." Diner maintains that:

Für beide, für Deutsche wie für Juden, ist das Ergebnis der

Massenvemichhing zum Ausgangspunkt ihres

Selbstverstiindnisses geworden; eine Art gegensatzlicher

Gemeuisamkeit -- ob sie es wollen oder nicht. [...] Solch negative

Symbiose, von den Nazis konstihiiert, wird auf Generationen hinaus das VerhPtnis beider zu sich çelbst, vor ailern aber

zueinander, priigen. (Diner 9)

Symbiosis is defïned as "a mutually advantageous association or relationship between persons" (COD def. 2a). In the case of this negative symbiosis, however, Auschwitz is a common bond that has become a source of division in which Jews attempt to preserve remembrance of an event which a minority of Germans or Austrians wodd rather forget.

National differences between the authors whose texts 1 discuss correspond strongly with the way in which Germany and Austria have atternpted to cope with the Nazi past. In Gemany, the Adenauer govemment of the 1950s sought to corne to terms with the Hitler era by hediatelv adaiowledging responsibiüty for the Jewish genocide (Rabinbach 192). The diief symbol of this acknowledgment was the Reparations Agreement of

September 27,1951, which set out the conditions for addressing compensation

daims by Jewish victirns. This agreement was an expedient not oniy for

improving Germany's world image but for preempting any deeper

examination of German society as a whole (Rabinbach 192). Uncovering the

tnie nature and extent of support for National Sodism would have been

undesirable in the niidst of the Cold \Var when the United States needed a

rehabilitated Gemany as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism in Europe

(Rabinbach 194).

Konrad ,4denau&s strategy of addressing Jewish persecution ueated a philo-Semitic atmosphere in Germany as the ruling Christian Democratic

Party sought to enlist the support and approval of the Jewish community for their conciliatory initiatives (Rabinbach 193-94). Fos twar philo-Semi tism tended to stylize the Jews as mermenschen, a complete reversal of their

Untermenschen stahis dtuing the Third Reich (Seligmm, "Hohung" 130).

This image makeover led to what Rafael Seligmann cails the Unde Tom-like portrayai of the good Jew embodieci in Nathan, the protagonist of Gotthold

Ephraim Lessing's Nathan der Weise ("Hofhung" 118). Nathan promotes tolerance, and non-Jewish Germans came to exped absolution from their former victims. Jews were often fearful of comtering these philo-Semitic images and of expressing rage against non-Jewish Germans for the genocide in the beiief that vocalïzing their anger would invite retaliation (Seligmann,

"Hohung" 129).

The 1960s saw the coming of age of a new generation in Germany which had not witnessed the war. The so-callai I68erç, often associated with the New Left, sought to smtinize the past with a more criticai eye. They set out to examine why the Ttiird Reich had enjoyed such a high level of popuiar support (Rabinbach 196-99). The New Left's attacks on Israel, however, won alienated many Jews who had initially identified with the movement's more

Liberai agenda. The Six Day War of 1967 provided an opportunity for the children of Nazi war aiminals and collaborators to aileviate their burden of guiit by pointhg the hger at the perpetrator Israel. Support for the Palestinians was often stimulated by very selfish reasons. As Anson

Rabinbach explains: "The hyperidentification of the West German left with the Palestinian cause was motivated less by authentic solidarity with the oppressed, but rather by the 'giant exculpation' derived £rom a symbolic displacement of blame to the victim" (199). Thus the Israelis were the "new

Nazis," their treahnent of the Palestinians equivalent to the tactics once employed by the SS.

The election of Helmut Kohl in 1982 marked the beginning of a fundamental change in German politics. In what historians have termed the

Wende Kohl sought to normalize the past. Nomakation meant Gemans would no longer have to view the Holocaust as distinctive within the broad context of history, nor would they have to see Jews as the only victims of

National Socialism (Rabinbach 204-05). The goal of this strategy was to slowly move beyond the burden of gdt for Auschwitz and dow Gemans to attain a greater sense of national self-esteem. As weli, normalization would give

Germany a greater degree of sovereignty to exerase its power on the international stage (Markovits and Novedc 805). The Litmus test for normalization was Ronald Reagan's and Helmut Kohl's controvenial visit to the Bitburg cemetery, which contains the bodies of 49 SS soldiers (Rabinbach

203)-2

2 Ronald Reagan did his best to obscure the line between victim and perpetrator when he claimed of the German soldiers buried at Bitburg, They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps"(qtd. in 11

The Bitburg visit was followed by several other incidents which angered Germany's Jews. In the fall of 1985 the director of the Frankfurt

Schaus~ieihausattempted to stage a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder entitled Der MüiI. die Stadt und der Tod. Enraged by the proposed presentation of what they saw as a blatantly anti-Semitic work, members of the Jewish community dernonstrated at the theatre on October 31, 1985 and successhilly terminated the production. Reactions to the Jewish protest were symbolic of the normalization trend of bluning the Line of distinction between vidim and perpetrator. hiany in the media, particulariy in newspapen like the Frankfurter Rundschau and the TaeesZeihing

(Markovits and Novedc 808), portrayed the play's producers as victims for having to relinquish their right to free speech (Schneider 39-40).

The "Historians' Debate" in the sumrner of 1986 witnessed the continuation of what Richard Chah Schneider has called the aeeping equalization of perpetrator and victim (26). Essentially this historiographical dispute, carried out in some of Germany's major newspapers, revolved around three key issues: 1. the need of the Federd Repubüc to become a

"normal" nation, 2. the uniqueness of the Holocaust in history and 3. the determination of who was victim and who was perpetrator (Rabinbah 205).

Ernst Nolte, a consenrative historian, initiated the controversy with an article publiçhed by the Frankfurter Alieemeine Zeitung on June 6,1986. ûescriiing the Third Reich as the logical consequence of the Russian Revolution and

Stalin's gulags as the inspiration for Auschwitz, Nolte attempted to transfer

Germany's culpability for National Çoaalist genocide ont0 the Soviet Union

(Nolte 45).

h3any Jews feared that nomalization or rationalization of Nazi crimes would diminish their wartime suffering. The coilapse of the Berlin Wail in

1989, described by Sander Gilman as "the one Living monument to the Shoah and to German guilt for the murder of the Jews [...]" (Jewsin Todav's 64), further added to their anxiety. Certainly the new Berlin Republic seerns to be accelerating the pace of normalization. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has employed nationdistic rhetoric Like "SelbstbeWtsein" and "Nation" in his speeches (Mohr 41). His somewhat more nationalist tone has been accornpanied by a renewed debate over Holocaust remembrance. Symbolic of this new controversy was the public dispute between the novelist Martin

Walser and the late Ignatz Bubis, the former head of the Central Council of

Jews in Germany.

In a speech foilowing his acceptance of the Peace Prize for Geman literature on October 11, 1998, Walser criticized those intellechials who employ the "Morallceule" of Auschwitz to instrumentalue and exploit the

past for their own purposes (Klotz and Wiegel9-10). He condemned the

etemal presentation and monumentalization of Geman guilt as symbolized

by the planned Holocaust mernorial in Berlin, a commemorative structure he dubbed "FuBballfeld grof3er Alptraum" (Mohr 42). lnstead of the concrete memorializing of what Walser termed "unsere Mande," he advocated personalized remembrance in the fom of private acts of inner contemplation

(Wiegel43).

Ignatz Bubis referred to Walser's speech as "geistige Brandstikung" and accused him and his chief supporter, former Hamburg mayor Klaus von

Dohnanyi, of perpetuating anti-Semitism (32). Bubis felt that Walser's reputation gave a stamp of authentication to the opinions of the radical consewative Mnge and that this legitimation could further encourage the ideological whitewashing of history by the far right. As Bubis explained in an interview with the German news magazine Der S~ie@ ?Vas Walser gesagt hat, sagen auch çdionhuber, Fry und Deckert. B1oB die nirnmt keiner emt.

Walser liefert den Rech tsextrernis ten die blunition und wird ernst genommen" (54). Of equal concem to Germa.Jews was the polemic of Der

Spied editor Rudolf Augstein who waded into the debate with what joumalist Joachim Rohloff has termed one of the worst anti-Semitic pamphlets since the Second World War (qtd. in Wiegel31). Augstein defended Walser by attacking the exploitative "New Yorker Presse" and the

"Haifiçche im Anwaltsgewand (32)," both thinly veiled references to Jewish power (Wiegel32). In ail, the Walser-Bubis debate marked the emergence in the reunited Gemany of what many Jews perceiveci as being a more conspicuous public anti-Semi tism and renewed threa ts to obhscate the history of the Third Reich

If Geman Jews are often enraged about the treatment of the past in

Germany, the sihiation for Ausûian Jews is even more diffidt. Until very recently, the Austrian govemrnent refused to accept or acknowledge any responsibility for the Holocaust. Two fundamental reasons for Austria's state- sanctioned amnesia regarding its National Soaalist history are: 1. The Mies'

Moscow Dedaration of 1943 "exonerated Austria hmany complicity with the Nazi Reich" (Markovits 250). In actual fact it supported the concept that

Austria was "Germany's 'firçt victlln' of the war" (Markovits 250); 2. Postwar

Austrian leaders were anxious to avoid the poütical strife of the 1930s8 which witnessed the polarization of the country into National Socialists and their opponents (Pelinka 57-58). Conceaüng the past was a means to teconcile these two factions, a precondition for establishing a stable demoaatic state (Pelinka

62). The onset of the Cold War helped to perpetuate the myth of Austria's vidim status. The western powers, anxious to enlist Aushian support agallist

Soviet expansionist aims in Europe, were reluctant to press the country to scrutinize and acknowledge its wartime history (Pick 40).

Postwar Aushian leaders preserved the victim myth by downplaying the issue of Jewish persecution and emphasizing the universal nature of

Austrïan suffering during the war. Leopold Figl, the fust Chancellor of the

Second Republic, adarnantly refused to accord Jews any sort of special treatrnent. ui fact, Jews were often discouraged from resettling in Austria 15 because of their potential to make embarrassing daims which might discredit the country's self-image as a victim nation (Knight 221-22). Jewish Holocaust survivors who did rehini were grouped in with those who fought in Hitler's armed services and even at tirnes with those who oversaw the operation of the concentration camps as victims of an authoritanm govement. For many Austrians, the paragon of wartime suffering was not the concentration camp sunrivor but rather the soldier who had serveci in the German army on the Eastern Front and experienced the deplorable conditions of the Soviet gulag (Knight 22426).

Official silence about the past prevailed throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, despite the election of Bruno Kreisky as Austria's first Jewish

Chancellor in 1970 - his tenure wodd last untii 1983. Kreisky failed to initiate any new approach to deahg with Austria's history and, in fact, several of his cabinet ministers were ex-Nazis (Pi& 106). The socialist Kreisky even forged a cooperative alliance rvith the Freedom Party, whose leader, Friedrich Peter, was a former SS soldier suspecteci of actively parüapating in mas murder in

Rustia during World War Two (Pick 105-106). Because of his open association with former Nazis, Kreisky alienated many in the Jewish community, most notably Simon Wiesenthal.

The Waldheim Mair of 1986 was the 'Wauptzasur," the ktreal hirning point for Austria in opening up its past to doser scrutiny (Sdiindel,

"Es war" 48). During the course of Kurt Waldheim's campaign for the Austrian presidenq, the World Jewish Congress uncovered information which potentidy contradicted Waldheim's claims of non-compliaty in Nazi atrocities during the Second World War. The World Jewish Congress

produced documents showing tha t Y ugoslavian officiais had investigated

Waldheim for war crimes relating to his service as a German army officer in

the Balkans (Rck 160). The ensuing controversy surrounding Waldheim's

wartime activity contributed to an increase in Austnan anti-Semitkm (Pick

163). %me Austrians characterized Jewish opposition to Waldheim as a

conspiracy designed to defame the reputation of a man who had "erred" in

expressing some measure of support for the Pdestinians during his tenure in

the Kreisky cabinet (Pi& 1674). Many Jews have been womed about the

politicai fallout from the Waldheim Affair, particularly the increasing

popularity of the right wing Freedom Party (Pi& 163). The most famous narne

associated with the Freedom Party is that of Jorg Haider, who has consistently

shown his support for SS veterans and some of Hitler's policies.

Despite the remote spectre of a Freedom Party government in Austria,

there have been several positive signs indicating that the country is finally

coming to terms with its National Soaalist past. In 1991 Chancellor Franz

Vranitzky addressed Parliament to acknowledge and apologize for Austria's

role in the Holocaust, thus signifymg the final abandonment of the country's

vidim policy (Pi& 197-99). In the wake of Vranitzys momentous speech,

the Austnan govemment has taken hirther steps to rectify f&y years of denial 17 and silence, establishg a hind to compensate Holocaust survivors and their descendants and setting up a special commission to examine Austria's wartime history (Pick 216).

The repression of Austria's past has led to the emergence of a key feahve which distinpuishes the country's literature from that of its German neighbour: the emphasis on silence. However, despite its use as a means to convey the absence of dialogue surrounding Austria's World War Two history, silence as a Literq trope did not suddenly emerge in postwar

Austrian literahue. Throughout the twentieth century, fernale Austrian uniters in particdar have employed silence as a way of expressing their marginality in socie ty :

in den kbeiten os terreichischer Schrifstelierimen nimni t das

Thema der Sprachlosigkeit noch an spezifischem Gewicht zu:

Weibliches Schweigen oder Vershunmen wird in der erwahnten

paradoxen Weise laut gegen das "Redeverbotden

jahrhundertelangen AuschiuB von Frauen aus der kulturellen

Produktion; es spricht gegen die noch immer praktizierte

~larginalisieningsogemanter weiblicher Diskurse. (Fliedl 97)

Indeed, Anna Mitgutsch uses silence to depict misogyny and anti-Semitism in most of her texts. However, this trope is not gender specific and can be seen functioning iF. Doron Rabinovici's novel Suche nach LM.as a syrnbol of postwar Austrian repression of the past. Al though sharing some thema tic similarities, male and female

Austrian Jewish and German Jewish writers and their literature can more often than not be seen as compnsing hvo distinct paradigms. The reason for these differences is that Jewish women in both the German and AusLrian diaspora share the experience not only of anti-Semitism but also of misogyny.

For this reason they have tended to see themselves as a "çubculture within a subculhire" (Lorenz, Keepers xxi). This feeling of double oppression informs their choice of narrative strategy. Both Anna Mitgutsdi and Esther

Disdiereit, for exampie, associa te Jewishness with femaleness and Link maleness with the Christian "Other." Dagmar Lorenz sees this gende~gof

Jewishnessas female as a strategy for ''uncoveting [...] pardels between the persecution of Jews and the oppression of women"(Kemers 303).

Furthemore, a sense of tradition is very important to female authors.

Contemporary German and Austrian Jewish feminist writing often seeks to establish continuity with familial and literary predecessors (Nolden 87). At one point Esther ûischereit refers to two prominent female German Jewish writers of the nineteenth cenhiry - Rahel Varnhagen and He~etteHerz - in Joëmis Tisch (42). She prefaces this reference with the comment: "Ihr nicht gelebtes Leben SOUin mir lebenJ'(42). Although this quote by the narrator refers to her mother, the additionai association with female Jewish iiterary tradition is made dear by the subsequent reference to Vamhagen and Herz.

Heritage is *O important for women because Jewish religious law decrees that the mother's faith determines that of her Md. Despite being of mixed

parentage, both Dvorah in Anna Mitgutsch's Absdiied von lerusalem and

Hannah's daughter in Joëmis Tisch identify with their mothers' religion and

ethniaty.

Male Mters in the post-Holocaust era have maintained çomewhat less

of a co~ectionwith Geman Jewish literary tradition. Instead, role models

for writers like Maxim Biller and Rafael Seligmann indude Sad Bellow,

Joseph HeHer and Philip Roth. Nolden puts forth the idea that Jewish male

writers have a ciifficuit time relating to German predecessors who did not

experience the horrors of the Holocaust (84-85)J As well, he postdates that

the freedom of aesthetic expression obtained by not writing in the shadow of

eminent writers such as Franz Kafka is another reason why male rvriters do

not seek to emulate their forebears (85).

Both male and female contemporary rvriters use the Jewish body as a

signifier of difference between themselves and the "Other" (Gilman,Jews in

Today's 8). Circumcision is the central means of distinguishing the male

Jewish body, as evident in the stories of Maxim Biller, Rafael Seligmann and

Jurek Becker. Female authon represent circumasion metaphorically

(Gilman, Jews in Todav's 82). In Joëmis Tis& for example, Hannah's

daughter imagines herseif marked with a Jewish star of David, a sign that

3 Indeed, as I wiU demonstrate, many postwar writers, inciuding Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Edgar Hilsenrath, developed new aesthetic models to convey the monstrous nature of Nazi atrocities. 20 could betray her Jewishness during a border aossing. She refers to this as her mark of Cain, a symbol commonly associated with circumcision (Gilman,

Jews in Todav's 83). In other instances, the female body is employed to dispel the idea that the circumcised male body can be the sole marker of ciifference

(Rernmler, "En-gendr~g"191), as in what Karen Remmler calls genealogical pradice ("En-gende~g"188).

Genealogical practice describes the way in which female authors like

Esther Dischereit establish a link with their Jewish heritage. The fragmented narratives of Dischereit are characterized by frequent shifts in time between past and present and the use of ambiguous characters who are "neither compietely Jewish, nor completely fernale" (Remmler, "En-gendering" 189).

Often the locus for remembrance in these texts is the fernale body which also senres as an antidote to Geman "misremembrance" (Remmler, "En-

gendering" 190). The female body as a signifier of rnemory conveys the living

presence of Jews on German soil and thus undermines the association of

Jewish culture with iifeless "monuments" and "museums" (Remmler, "En-

gende~g"187). Karen Remmler cites the use of hands by Dischereit in

Joëmis Tisch as an example of how the female body conveys memory ("En-

gende~g"195-96). At one point Hannah's trembling hands, among other

things, recall the terrible past and the consequences of her suffering under

Nazi persecution (Remmler, "En-gendering"1%).

Having considered the parameters of generation, nation, and gender, I 21 wodd now lüce to define more precisely how 1 use the terms dereversal and pasing. Role reversal can be defined as a charaber's a~ropfiationof behaviour or attributes generally assoaated in a speafic context with b/her polar opposite. A good exampie can be found in Edgar ~ilse~awsnovel

Nazi und der Friseur where a former concentration camp gu#d war crimes prosecution by asdng the identity of his dead ~ewishneighbour and subsequently moving to Israel. Passing is a concept whid is at thes interchangeable with the term role reversal. The Oxfordfish Diction- cietines passing in the foliowing manner: "To be held or accepted as a member of a religious or ethnic group other than one's own" (def. 5d). 0th~critics passing as referring "to the crossing of any line that divides sdal grou~ç"

(Sollors 247). Werner Soilors describes instances where people of ''biracial'' ancestry, symboüzed as x and y, seek to hide an aspect of theif ehic background, either x or y, for a variety of different reasons, i..udingpersonal gain or the avoidance of social oppression (Soilors 248-49). Ln Nxhkd von

Jerusalem, for example, the protagonist Dvorah conceals or em~hasizes&her ber Jewishness or her Austrianness depending on the situation and ethic background of the person she is with. For the purposes of this study, 1

extend the dehinition of passing to indude assimilation, whereby Jewish diaraders attempt to integra te into mainstream society by disguishg mY trace of their Jewish heritage.

The scholariy work on passing, particuiarly within the context of the Afncan American experience, is extensive. This is not surprishg since passing was a dominant theme in African American fiction from the mid- nineteenth cenhuy to the 1930s (Sollors 283).4 Although my thesis is the kt systernatic study of role reversal and passing in Austrian/German Jewish literature, many critics have examined thk theme in relation to the works of individual authon Like Jurek Becker, Elfnede Jehek or Stefan Heym. Sander

Gilman and Dagmar Lorenz discuss role reversal and passing fleetingly in their critical sweys. The critic Peter Werres presents a brief swey of the works of what are predominantly firçt generation authors and " [their] frequent preoccupation with role play and role reversais" (1).

Werres relates the use of role reversal to the nahue of public discourse in Germany after 1945. Specifically, he focuses on the national myth that evolved in the decades following the war which absolved the majority of

Germans from any cdpabiiity for Auschwitz. This is the unten vs. oben constnict (Schmid 2), an explanatory mode1 which promoted the legend that an evil hierarchy from above had rnisled the average decent citizen in the

Third Reich. Consigning themselves to the un ten group alIowed many perpetrators to daim victirn status dong with those who had sufferea in the

4 During the same tirne, the noted Arnerican humorist Mark Twain also employed role reversai and passing as a means of social coaunentary and criticism in his narratives, including the Prinm and the Pauwr and Puddn'head Wilson, in which a mulatto slave named Roxana exdianges her baby with that of her master. 23 camps.5 The next step in the equation was, by way of reference to Israel and its aggressive military actions, to begin accusing the former victims of being equally @ty of moral transgressions (Werres 5). Werres also examines the façade of poçtwar Geman philo-Sernitism and how this was more a seif- interested means of national damage control and image-making than any genuine expression of affection for Jews. He points out how all of these ideological currents inform many of the role reversals employed by, among othen, Edgar Hilsenrath in Der Nazi und der Friseur and Jurek Becker in

Bronsteins Kinder.

Other critical literature on role reversal in Austrian and German

Jewish literature indude articles by Lisa Silverman and Susanne Klodcmann.

5 The postwar memoirs of Rudolf HM, the former camp commander of Auschwitz, offer an example of this perpetrator/victim role reversal. H6B portrays himself as a helpless pawn, not only at the hands of the Nazi hierarchy, specifically Hitler and Himmler, but also at the hands of his uncontroilable guards whose vitious behaviour led to the brutal nature of camp conditions: "One person is no match for the viciousness, depravity, and uuelty of a guard(l84). he writes of himself. He relativizes German atmcities by way of reference to allied war crimes, induding the Soviet gulags which "were annihilating entire nationalities"(l69) and the British and American bombing campaigns, to which he incidentally attributes a large proportion of the casualties in the concentration camps (170). HM describes himself as a soldier who, like the allied pilot, could not have refused orders: 1 am constantly fauited because 1 did not refuse to carry out the extermination order [...]. What would have happeneci to a squadron commander who would have refused to fly a bombing mission on a city [...]. 1 believe that both situations are comparable. 1 was just as mudi a çoldier and an officer as the squadron commander was [...]" (171). HM continues by detailing his Me of woe as the commander of Auschwitz, recounting his homble stniggles with depression as he carrieci out his inhumane orders and ends his book by daiming to be a basically decent guy who "also had a heart and [...] was not evil" (186). Silveman explores Dom Rabinovici's use of role reversal in his quest to establish a pattern of identity for Austrian Jews. She does so predominantly by way of reference to one of Rabinovici's short stories from Pavirnik, entitled

"Der richtige Riecher." Here a young Jewish boy assumes the aggressive tactics of the "Other" by hitting a friend who makes an anti-Semitic remark, a transformation which ul timately yields him negative results. By demonstrating the fallacy of such a role reversal, Silveman notes how

Rabinovki is seeking to overcome the binary opposition which enforces lixed notions of Austrianness or Jewishness (Silverman 261). She subsequently interprets his works as a cdfor a hybrid identity which serves to break down stereotypes (263). Findy, Susanne Klockmann explores Irene Dische's use of role reversal in "Eine Jüdh für Charles Men," drawing an analogy between the protagonist Esther Becker and Peter Grubbe, a former Nazi who concealed his past and became a liberal jounialist. Klohann describes ûische's use of role reversal as a mems to demonstrate how the values and beliefs which sustained Hitler remained widespread in Germany after 1945, in spite of the country's transition from dictatonhip to democracy.

The discussions by Werres, Silvermann and Klockmann reveal how passing and role reversa1 often function as vehides of social commentary and criticism. Some writers discussed in this thesis express this çocially mtical hinction by invoking the Medieval and Renaissance tradition of carnivalization. During medieval carnivals the common people could both escape and criticize the rigid political and religious hierarchies which govemed their lives. Mikhail Bakhtin desaibes the nature of carnival life as

"free, full of ambivalent iaughter, blasphemy, the profanation of ail that was holy, disparagement and obscenity, and familiar contact with everyone and everythg" (Bakhtin 107). In LiteratureI this carnival spirit talces the form of an "inside-out world," in which the author employs extensive use of masquerade, pdy,and contrasting pairs or reversed images (Bakhtin 103-

07). Ln many European narratives, camivalization appears in the fom of role reversal in which, for example, emperor becomes slave and vice versa

(Bakhtin 110).

Postwar European authors resorted to camivalization as a means to express the incomprehensible nature of twentieth cenhiry atrocities like the

Holocaust. One of the most prominent wrïters to embrace this caniivd spirit was the Swiss drarnatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt who feit that the aesthetic mode1 of ciassicai tragedies, which were set in a constmded world -

"gestaltete Welt" - that operated in accordance with a distinct set of values, was insuffiaent for capturing the chaos and horrors of the mid-twentieth century. As an alternative, Dürrenmatt advocated comedy as a means to depict the humoil of modem society and to refled the essence of our

"ungestaltete Welt." As he writes: "Die Tragodie, als die gestrengste

Kunstgattung, setzt eine gestaltete Welt voraus. Die Komodie - çofem sie nicht Gesellschaftskom~dieist wie bei Moliere - eine ungestaltete, im 26

Werden, im Umsturz begriffene, eine Welt, die am Zusammenpacken ist wie die unsrige" ("Theaterprobleme" 57-58). To emphasize the precariousness of the world we live in, where mas murder cmbe accomplished with the touch of a button, ûürrerunatt's cornedies, inciuding, for exarnple, Die Phvsiker, employ extensive use of the grotesque, shocking scenes and images often in the form of role reversal. Grotesque images prevent the reader from identifyuig with the plight of any of the characters, aeating a more objective forum for the author to present ideas aitical of soaety (Mueller 5).

h this thesis 1 will discuss a broad range of role reversal and passing strategies. Role reversal and passing are particularly effective, as in early twentieth-century Atrican-American novels, in subverting racial categories and distinctions (Soliors 263). While experiencing the "negative symbiosis," some authors employ role reversal and passing to reject the notion that Jews can be categorized by behaviod, racial and linguistic defects. One technique for exposing and deflating stereotypes is to invert these images. One can see such inversions in Edgar Hilçenrath's novel Der Nazi und der Friseur. The deged Aryan Max Schulz is bom with the physical characteristics befitong the anti-Semite's image of the Jew while his Jewish neighbour Itzig

Finkelstein is blond and blue-eyed. Other forms of role reversal and passing indude physical or psychological metamorphoses and assimilation. In Doron

Rabinovici's novel Suche nach M. one of the main characters, Meh

Scheinowiz, has the supernaturd ability to mutate into the people he is pursuing on behalf of the Israeli secret service. Examples of passing as assimilation can be found in Robert çdiindei's novel Gebürtig. Sdiindel presents figures who are les than forthcoming about their bue identity, hiding aspects of their persona which would distinguish them as Jewish. The theatre diredor Peter Adel, for example, refuses to reveal his Jewish heritage.

Role reversal and passing are often employed to indicate the ditficulties associated with being Germanl Austrian Jewish in the post-Holocaust diaspora.

The first four analytical chapters of this thesis are organized to compare two authors at a tirne. 1 have attempted to pair texts which display similarities because of their authors' gender, nation or generation. In diapter one I will focus on Edgar Hilsenrath's Der Nazi und der Friseur and Jurek Bedçer's

Bronsteins Kinder. In Hilsenrath's novel, the Nazi mass murderer Max

Sdiulz transforms himself into an ardent Israeli partisan. In Becker's novel roles are reversed as the victim becomes the perpetrator when a Holocaust sunrivor captures and tortures a former concentration camp guard. As these

ktgeneration authors are established writers, it will be interesthg to

demonstrate how they have infiuenced second generation writers.

The second chapter concentrates on four shorter worlcs by the authors

Irene Disdie and Maxim Biller. I will begin by focussing on Disdie's "Fromme

Lügen" and 4'EineJüdin für Charles Allen" and dose with an examination of

Biller's "Verrat" and "Aus Dresden ein Brief." Dische and Biller both live in Germany and their texts share thematic and aesthetic similarities. Dische's stones present role reversais in which a middle-aged Jewish emigrant to New

York masquerades as Hitler ("Fromrne Lügen") and the daughter of an SS man disguises herself as a Jew ('me Jüdin fiir Charles Allen''). Biller's

"Verrat" deals with a young man who, after discovering his mother's hidden

Jewish identity, decides to pass as a sell-haüng Jew and in doing so begins to ad out antitiSemiticstereotypes (Gilman, Jews in Todav's %). "Aus Dresden ein Brief" presents an interesting contrast to "Verrat" since it de& with the daughter of a former Nazi who attempts to overcome her father's past by passing herself off as a prominent Jewish writer.

Chapter three discusses two second generation Austrian writers, Doron

Rabinovici and Robert Schindel, the juxtaposition of whose texts facilitates a clearer cornparison with the Geman Jewish experience. As well, Rabinovici's and Sdundei's texts display thematic similarities, explo~gthe lives of

Viemese Jews stntggling to develop a sense of self in the wake of the

Holocaust. In Suche nach M. this identity crisis is reflected in the role reversais of hvo young Jews, kieh Scheinowiz and Dani Morgenthau, both of whom inherit as a result of their parents' sunrivor trauma special powers to dramatically alter their personalities. Robert Sdillidel's novel Gebürtig is an account of modem Jewish iife in Vienna, presenting a series of characters who adopt a variety of strategies for surviving in the Austrian diaspora.

Chapter four explores the works of two second generation female writers, the Austrian Anna Mitgutsch and the German Esther Dischereit

Despite these authors' different nationalities, their texts exhibit a strong

çimilarity in terms of "motifs and topics" and thus lend themselves to cornparison (Lorenz, Keepers 299). In Mitgutsch's novel Abschied von

Jerusalem a midde-aged academic named Dvorah is caught between a repressive Austrianness, represented by the male side of her family, and the matemal Jewish side with which she seeks to reunite in Israel. Disdiereit's

Joëmis Tisch is a fragmented and not easily accessible narrative which explores, among other things, the relationship between Holocaust survivor

Hannah and her daughter.

The fifth and final chapter compares and contrasts Binjamin

%VilkomirskifsHolocaust narrative Bruchstücke with Eurooa, Eurooa,

Solomon Perel's wartime chronicle. Whereas Wïkomirski claims to have been a chiid survivor of Auschwitz and later Majdanek, Perel avoided Nazi persecution during World .War Two by disguising his Jewishness and pretending to be a non-Jewish German. It is interesthg to note the similarities and differences between these two cases and how they both complement issues raised in other chap tem. 30

1. Cdvalism versus lrony in Edgar HiIsemath's Der Nazi und der Fnseur and Jurek Becker's Bronsteins Kinder

There was always the question - how could it be? How could people be so inhuman? The wcrld turned upside duwn, ail the values and principles OR which the world was based /el1 apart. lsrael Guhan, Holocaust sumivor (qtd. in Elena Lappin, "The Man with

TWUHeads" 46)

A central problem for many postwar writers wanüng to represent the horrors of the Holocaust in fiction has been to find adequate narrative strategies to convey the idea of a world tumed "upside down," in which civiiization and reaçon failed to prevent the mas extermination of human beings. In Der Nazi und der Friseur Edgar HiIsemath employs the grotesque to depid a morally vacuous landscape in which accepted nomand conventions are inverted. The protagonist Max çdiulz's role reversal from

Nazi mas murderer to Israeli nationaiist, helps to emphasize this absence of morality since he remauis unpunished for his homfic crimes. Using this grotesque aesthetic, Hilsenrath also undermines a series of anti-Semitic stereotypes, often by reversing those negative features which supposedy distinguish the Jew, including chch& about Jewish physical characteristics, linguistic incornpetence and corruption. 1 shall demonstrate how Hilseruath's 31 aes thetic, while effectively emphasizing the absurdity of anti-Sernitism, tends to preserve the notion of Gerrnan and Jew as binq opposites. Using role revmd, Hilsenrath also parodies the spirit of postwar German philo-

Semitism. As weii, his text criticizes the attempt of many former Hitler supporters to draw an analogy between the aggressive rnilitary poiicy of Israel and that of Nazi Gemany.

Following my analysis of Der Nazi und der Friseur 1 shd proceed with an examination of Jurek Becker's Bronsteins Kinder. ûecker's and

Hilsenrath's tex ts differ considerably in terms of narrative strategies.

Nevertheless, given the fact that both writers belong to the ktgeneration their texts constitute an excellent çtarüng point for any further investigation of role reversal and passing in postwar Geman Jewish literature. Both authors develop tropes and narrative strategies found in the texts of subsequent generations of Jewish writers. 1 hesitate to employ the term passing with respect to hoand Hans Bronstein, but bo th charaders do exhibit a strong tendency to deny their Jewishness and victim status in order

to integrate into GDR soaety. The difficulty which father and son exhibit in

their quest for integration, a fact made espe~allyclear through ho's role

reversal from vidim to perpetrator, undermines the offiaal narrative of the

East Geman commuNst party with respect to Holocaust survivors. The GDR governent promoted the idea that the state could overcome the divisions

between Jews and non-Jewsaeated by antitiSemitkmand the Holocaust by cultivahg a sense of soQalist solidarity amongst ali members of its populace.

Arno's transformation into perpetrator also sets up a senes of ironic situations and contrasts with other charaders, a technique which helps to highlight the fact that role reversal, specificdy becoming the violent "Other," is not empowering but rather self-destructive. Not only does Arno's act of revenge uitimately lead to his death, but he becomes even more alienated from his son Ham, who cannot fdy comprehend the horrifie experiences which cause his father to transfonn himself into a torturer almost thirty years after the war has ended.

In Der Nazi und der Friseur Hilsenrath presents the s tory of mass murderer Max Schulz in a relatively linear narrative. A former SS soldier,

Schulz escapes war crimes prosecution by assumirtg the name of his dead

Jewish neighbour Itzig Finkelstein, a man he murdered in the Laubwald concentration camp. Because of his prewar association with Itzig in the town of Wieshalle, Schulz not only has some familiarity with Jewish culture, but is a skilled barber as well, having apprenticed in the Finkelsteins' hair salon. His identity transformation is so convincing that Schulz/ Finkelstein is able to move to Israel, where he subsequently becomes a Zionist partisan and later the owner of a successful barbershop in Tel Aviv. As the plot might suggest,

Hilsenrath's text is a merdes satirical broadside, parodying a wide range of topics. For this reason Der Nazi und der Frisey represents one of the most carnivalesque Geman-Jewishnarratives. Hilsenrath's text is partidarly notable for its grotesque comedy aesthetic.6

By parodying conventional notions of morality and justice, Hilsenrath gives the faky tales of the brothers Grimai a grotesque twist (Fuchs 163-71). In a scene reminiscent of "Hiinsel und Gretei" the war crixninal Max Schulz, while escaping partisans in a Polish forest, seeks refuge with a witdi-like figure named Veronja. Veronja offers Schuiz sanctuary, but in remtortures him and coerces him into providing her with sexual favours. Later, in postwar Germany Schulz encounters Frau Holle. However, the woman who in the fairy tale generously rewards goodness and hard work becomes the racist wife of a Nazi and a seducer of chiidren ui Hilsemath's text. Generaiiy,

Grimms' stories are remarkable for re-establishing law and order, since good nonnaly vanquishes evil and the difference between the two is readily apparent. Ln Hilsenrath's narrative, however, evil triumphs. While the

Finkelsteins perish in a death camp and survivors like Hannah Lewiçohn and Mira Schmulevitch remain psychologically scarred from their warüme persecution, Max Schulz and other perpetrators remain at large, modcing those who would punish them: "Sie [die Tater] Ieben auf freiem FuB und

bThis grotesque treatment of the Holocaust is perhaps a major reason why the Der Nazi und der Friseur remained unpublished in Germany until 1977. Despite the critical and commercial success of the novel after its initiai publication in the United States in 1971 - it sold over one million copies intemationdy and received lavish praise from several European critics - many German publishing houses rejected the manuscript, ciüng its stylistic deficiencies (Wller 110). Susann Moller believes a more open atmosphere in cultural &cles during the mid to late seventies was the reason for the eventual publication of Hilsenrath's text in Germany (111). machen sich über Gott und die Welt lustig," says Max (315). Reversing the common fairy tale ending, Hilsenrath mates a topsy turvy world where good and evil become meaningless (Fuchs 164) and where the immense crimes of a

Nazi killer overwhelm the legal process. In a mock trial, Judge Wolfgang

Richter suggests hanging Max 10,000 times in accordance with the number of his victims. But even he must eventualiy concede that such atrocities iar exceed the dimensions of his judiciai powers (311-14).

The conclusion leaves the question open as to whether some higher mord authority exists which will pass judgement on Max as a wind carries him away to a rather ambiguous destination: "Irgendwohin. Dorthin! "(319).

In the American version of the novel, the narrative continues with Max ascending to heaven to meet God. On the way, he reverts to his former identity as the mass murderer Max Schulz and, as his foreskin grows badc and hiç SS tattoo reappears, there is the suggestion that he will receive divine retribution for his aimes. Lndeed, God pronounces Max grulty, but also admits that he remained cornplacent during the Holocaust. Incapable of rendering a decision on Max's fate, Cod proclaims his powerlessness: "And so we both wait! For a just sentence! But who is there who can pronounce it?"

(383). God's partial culpability for the destruction of the Jews and his inability to judge the mass murderer Max Sdiulz reinforce the idea that strict moral categories like good and evil have become irrelevant in iight of the faüure of any sort of ethics or authority to prevent the mas extermination of human beings.7

In addition to satirizing conventional conceptions of morality and justice, Hilsenrath uses the grotesque to undermine anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Ln HiIsemath's narrative, one can discem a sharp division between Jew and non-Jew, at least with respect to his male characters. In employing a binary opposition mode1 of Jew and non-Jew, however, Hilsenrath reverses and in the process disrupts the anti-Semitic paradigm Uiat associates the Jew with nega tive characteristics and the non-Jew with positive ones. Hilsenrath's male protagonists reflect the inversion of stereotypical images about Jews and non-Jews taken to their ex treme. Yet one must distinguiçh between

Hilsenrath's male and femaie characters since the majority of his female figures, Jemlsh and non-Jewish alike, display negative attributes. Hilsenrath portrays women as either excessively corpulent (Mira Sdunulevitch and

Minna Schulz), sexually perverted (Veronja and Frau Hoile), mentdy ill

(Hannah Lewisohn) or racist (Frau Schmulevitch 2nd Grafin Kriemhilde von

7 Hilsenrath daims he altered the ending of the German edition because he felt îhat Max Schulz's accusations against Cod for letting the Holocaust happen wodd absolve the former Nazi of responsibïtity for his crimes. As he exp1ains:"Als es dam in Deutschland geciruckt wurde, habe ich mir das nochmal durchgelesen und mit gedacht, nein, das rvürde ja den Max Sdiulz entschuldîgen Und den ganzen Holocaust in Frage steilen. Daraufhin habe ich die letzten zwei Seiten einfach weggestrichen. Das bleibt in Deutschland einfach offen. Jedenfallsist die deutsdie Ausgabe die riditige Ausgabel'(Hilseruath, "Gespradi" 2.24). Hohenhausen).a Beyond the gender stereotyping, Hilsenrath's strategy of reversal is problematic kause it tends to preserve essential differences between German Jewishness and non-Jewishness and the anti-Semitic stereotypes remain even if they are reversed. In this sense Hilsenrath's text is different from some second generation authors who attempt to explore the possibility of a hybrid identity, some amalgarn of Jewishness and non-

Jewishness.

One of the stereotypes which Hilsenrath reverses is that of Jewish physical defectiveness. ln the late nineteenth century, Soaal Dminist thinkers considered Jews to be a diseased race whose interbreeding and weak gene pool made t hem particularl y susceptible to neurodegenerative ailments

(Güman, Self-Hatred 287). The congregation of Jews in cities, the "locus of decadence," combhed with their excessive drive to overachieve in business and poiitia Meradded to their physical plight (Gilman, Self-Hatred 289-

90). The polar opposite to the urban Jew was the "Aryan" peasant, toiling at hard physical labour, at one with the land he oIled.

Without restraint, Hilsenrath parodies the idea that the Jewish body is inherently defective by portraying his Jews as king physicaily of a vastly superior nature to his non-Jewish charaders: "An meiner rein arischen

Herkunft ist nicht ni zweifeln [...]" (7), prodaims Max Schk proudly at the

8 For a more in-depth analysis of Hilsenrath's negative portrayal of women see Fuchs 172-76. beginning of the novel, despite the fact that he has by his own reckoning at least five different fathers. In contrast to his claims of ancestral "purity,"

Max's physical appearance corresponds with the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes while his Jewish hiend Itzig Finkelstein resembles the stereotypical man. As Max explains:

Mein Freund Itzig war blond und blauaugig, hatte eine gerade

Nase, feingeschwungene Lippen und gute ZWne. Ich dagegen,

Max Çchulz, uneheiicher, wenn auch rein arischer Sohn der

klinria Schuiz, hatte schwarze Haare, Froschaugen, eine

Hakennase, wulstige Lippen und sdilechte me.(24)

Itzig Finkelstein is not only the embodiment of nordic perfection, he is also an exceptional athlete, one of the leading scorers on his soccer team in

Wiesnaile. Itzig's father Chaim Finkelstein, the name of whose barbershop -

"der Herr von WeW- reflects his own superior nature, also possesses no disünctly "Jewish" attnâutes such as a hooked nose or Qat feet In fact, later in the novel, Hikenrat. dispels the notion that all Jews are flat-footed since this physical defect is a means of exdusion from combat se~cein Israel, a provision which accounts for the dismissal of the "Aryan" soldier Max

Schulz: "Ende Dezember 1948 wurde ich wegen meiner PlattHlBe zum

Nachschub versetzt," he daims (280).

One of Hilsenrath's most grotesque non-Jewish charaders is Max's stepfather Anton Slavitzki who is the quintessence of physical and moral depravity. Slavitzki's bizarre appearance is indicative of his sexual impropriety. As Max describes him: "Slavitzki? Ein langer, diirrer Kerl war das, mit buschigen Augenbrauen, Sauferaugen, die ein bikhen schielten, oligem Haar, knochiger Nase und einem Sdiwanz, so lang, daB er ihm, laut

Gerüchten, bis libers Knie hing [...IN (15). Throughout the ages, Jews have ken cast as sexual deviants. In this case, however, it is Slavitzki who exhibits an aberrant Libido with his paedophilia, a sexual preference which manifests itself in his habitual rape of the young Max Schulz.

Hilsenrath also uses animal imagery to convey the idea that the real subhumans are not the Jews, but rather those who would cast them as such

(Heberger 35). Max characterizes Itzig Finkeiçtein's ckcuncision as symbolic of the refinement of human nature, specifically a man's ability to repress his carnal urges (Hilsenrath 9). Those who remah uncircumcised, particularly the Nazis, appear animal-like throughout the novel, as incapable of restraining their base desires to fart, belch, masturbate, fight and pick their nose in excess (Heberger 53). Max describes the activities associated with being a member of the SA: "[wir] halfen dabei, prügelten mit, schwitzten, rüipsten, lachten, onanierten, furzten [...]" (Hilsenrath 44). Hilsenrath dso portrays the

SS, the supposed elite of the Asyan race, in a grotesque rnanner, partidarly with his depiction of Max's commanding officer Frank Sauer sitting in a bar

"Franz Sauer rülpste, besteilte mehr Bier, rülpste wieder, Li& Winde fahren, kratzte sich [...]" (50). Even the leader of the Nazi party Adolf Hitler resembles 39 a subhuman. The Wieshaile animal welfare group is an organization whose walls are adomed with a series of double-edged slogans - "Adolf Hitler liebt die Tiere, und die Tiere lieben ihn!" (33) - implying the animal-like nature of the dictator and his supporters. When Hitler arrives in Wieshalle, he exhibits zoomorphic traits: "ab der 'Führer' ankam, spitzte seine Ohren wie ein Tier

[...lm (37). Sdiulz's mother underpins the parailel between those who support the Nazi cause, or at least instnimentaiize it for their own purposes, and lower forms of life. As her family contemplates taking advantage of anti-

Jewish policies to evict the Finkelsteins from their coveted apartment, kha hints at the less than ethical nature of this move by referring to the image of a rat: "Es gibt auch nveibeinige Ratten," she prodaims (45).

In addition to dispeiiing myths about the flawed physical condition of the Jew, Hilsenrath employs his strategy of grotesque reversal to undennine other anti-Semitic s tereotypes. In doing so, he consistently juxtaposes an overwhelrningly positive Jewish image wi th its nega tive non-Jewish counterpart. One of his targets is the notion that Jews can be distinguished from non-Jews on the bais of language. In the German-speaking lands, anti-

Semites have associated Jews with the broken discourse of "mauscheln," diaracterized by "the use of altered syntax and bits of Hebrew vocabulary and a specific pattern of geslures" (Gilman, Self-Hatred 139). In Light of the great literary and philosophical works produced by Moses Mendelssohn or

Heinrich Heine, it seems impossible to imagine how Jews could be accused of produchg inept German prose. However, in the nineteenth cenhny in partidar, Jews were linked with gutter language, specifically the emergence of journalistic writing in that era (Gilrnan, Self-Hatred 146).

In Wieshalle, where the Finkelsteins live, only a small fraction of the tom's population speaks Yiddish since rnost Jews are of German and not

Eastern European origin. Nevertheless, Chaim Finkelstein reverses the idea that Yiddish is a rnongrel form of German when he desmies the relative purity of this dialect in cornparison with its high German cousin: "Jiddisch ist eine Art Mittelhochdeutsch, eine Sprache, die dem deutschen Wesen venvandter ist als unser Hochdeutsch, das ia im Grunde nur [...] 'eh verhunztes, zersetztes, hochgestochenes Jiddisch ist"' (23). Far from displaying any linguistic defects, the Jews in Hilsenrath's novel represent the cultural elite. Itzig Finkelstein is a taiented petwhose work is overwhelmingly superior to that of his dassmate Max Schulz: "Itzig

Finkelsteins Gedichte waren formvollendet, meine fodos, seine harmonisch, meine disharmonisch, seine vernünftig, rneine unverniid tig, seine reell und normal, meine absurd und pervers" (27). Also representative of their prowess in the German language and their cultural superiority is the fact that the majority of Wieshalle's Jews live on the Goethe and Schiller streets. The idea that the Jewish barber Chaim FinkeIstein is a threat to

German culture -"kulturzersetzend" (51) - dissolves in the wake of kistallnacht. Instead of eradicaüng some Jewish bacillus of cultural decay, the destruction of Finkelstein's house cornes to sigmfy the crumbling of

German Qvilization and not its regeneration (Heberger 67). As Hilsenrath describes it: "Die symbolische deutsche Kdturecke ... Edce Schiller- und

GoetheskaBe... efistierte nidit mehr. Dort gâhnte ein riesiges Loch. Ein

Kulhirloch" (52).

Hilsentath presents his Jews as practioners of honest hard work and his non-Jews as shrewd profiteers out to cheat and swindle. Chaim Finkelstein is an industrious barber practising a trade demanding manual labour, a realization made by Max Schulz: "der ist ein Friseurf" he says, "und der verdient sein Geld mit seiner Hiinde Arbeit [...]" (125). German peasants, on the other hand, are somewhat less scnipulous and their compt business deahgs on the bladc market in the years following the war prompt Frau

Holle to cast them as the embodiment of "Jewish" deceit: "Glaubst du, daB der

Führer ge4that, daB die deutschen Bauern Juden sind?" she asks in Light of the exorbitant prices king dernanded for food (67). Max's jaundiced opinions about Jewish economic exploitation dissolve with astonishing speed after he arrives in Israel. Here he meets a €armer who regards illegai commerce with disdain, a fact he does not try to conceal when Max discloses the origùis of the currency he has brought with him to the Holy Land:

"'Schwarze Dollars,' sagte Chawer Nathan kopschüttelnd...' also so einer bist du! Hier mdt du dich mdern, Chawer Itzig!"' (218-19). In the same episode

Max is astonished to see how a once arid and barren countryside has been transformed into a fertile productive landscape, a metamorphosis which required the removal of stones and the drymg out of swamplanû. Max is even more amazed to lem that the fanners at the Kibbutz Pardess Gideon perform the extremely exacting phymcal work without finanaal compensation

(Heberger 77):"Keui Mensch ist so blod und arbeite t umsonst!" exclaims Max,

"Und noch dam die Juden! Ob ich mich nicht geint hatte? Das wiïren gar keine Juden?... Doch. Das sind Juden" (216).

in addition to lampooning stereotypes about Jewish greed, Hilsenrath satVizes the myth that Jews are evil by parodyhg certain Christian images, symbols and terrninology. As the extraneous element of a Christian sdety who refused to accept St. Paul's u~versalizinggospel of conversion (Boyarin

697), Jews were often cast throughout history as the very antithesis of piety and sanctity. One of Hilsenrath's most creative means of dismisshg the idea that Jews are evil is his allegory of the Sermon on the Mount used in conjunction with Hitler's speech to the multitudes in Wieshalle. In a scene reminiscent of Jesus Chnst delivering his Sermon, Hitler ascends to the top of the "Olberg," in this case a hill named after a cooking oil Company by the name of Meyer, to address the German nation. The original intent of the

Sermon on the Mount was to soften the rigid "eye for an eye" and "tooth for a tooth" code of retriiution prornulgated by the Old Testament. In his address

Jesus called for the adherence to a perfect lifestyle that would value meekness and spurn the gospel of false prophets. In contrat, HiWs sennon is a 43 theology of evil, his anti-Christian rhetoric refleded by the demonic birds of death - 'Totenv6gei"- that accompany him to the podium (38). With reference to the austere way of life advocated in the Old Testament, Hitler tells the assembleci that God has medthem: 'Ver Herr hat sie vetflucht"

(40). He subsequently delivers his own version of Matthew 5-7, pemerting and twisting the original teachings of Christ and in the process radicalinng the "eye for an eye" postdate to the point where the original Old Testament scripture appears more humane (Heberger 103-04):"Ich aber sage euh: 2

Augen für ein Auge. Und 32 Zhefiir ei.nenff' says Hitler (40). Whereas

Jesus promoteâ love, understanding and gentleness -- "But 1 say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shaU be liable to judgement"

(Revised Standard Bible Matt. 5. 22) - Hitler invokes violent images advocating a mentality that sanctions murder in the name of the survivai of the fittest: "Selig sind die Starken, denn sie werden das Erdenreich besitzen"

(40)and "Wer den Volksfeind totet, der heiligt meinen Namen" (40), he prodaims.

The satanic Vreligiosity of Hitler and his henchmen reveals itself in two other episodes. In the killing fields of Poland Hiisenrath evokes the myth that the Jews were the slayers of Christ, but in this case he reverses the legend by depiding the SS as guilty of deicide. One day Max Sch& and his comrades assemble their intendeci victims for extermination in a Christian graveyard.

On one of the headstones an eftigy of Christ howls in protest against the 44 misinterpretation of his words and the genocide being perpetrated before his eyes. As Max notes: "Und an einem der Kreuze, am kleinsten, schlichtesten

Kreuz, da hing Jesus Christus. Und der heulte. Und sagte zu meinem

UntershumHihter: 'So hab ich das nicht gemeint! Ich hab sie zwar verflucht!

Aber ich wollte sie bloB eachrecken! Damit sie sich bekehred'" (53-54).

Schulz's commanding officer orders Max to shoot th& "false prophet:"

"Machen Sie den falschen Heiligen endlich mundtot" (54). Hilsenrath Mer underpins the saailege associated with the Nazis and their followers in Max's bizarre dream in whidi he urinates on the Wailing Wall as well as hallowed sites belonging to Muslirns and Christians (22126). in this strange vision it is the Jew Itzig Finkelstein who cleans up after his blasphemous neighbour.

In sharp contrast to their Nazi oppressors, many Jewish diaracters in

Der Nazi und der Friseur are the essence of religious piety and their persecution alludes to that of Christ's own sufferùig. Chah Finkelstein, for example, seems to radiate divine benevolence: "Aus Chah Fuike1stei.n~

Augen leuchteten die Buchstaben der Bibel und ein Herz, das seine

Mitmenschen verstand" (9). Hilsenrath compares the landing of se ttiers accompanying Max into the Holy Land with the resurrection of Christ, their boat having been renamed "Auferstehung" in symboiic reference to the rebvth of Jewish culture on the shores of Palestine (206). Hilsenrath builds on this analogy by employing the term cmcified - "gekreuzigt" - whenever he refers to the genocide of the Jews (137). Hilsenrath's reversal strategy, which tends to prame essential attributes, contradicts his use of scent to parody the idea that there are any inherent differences separating Jews from non-Jews. In postwar Gemany

Max Schulz encounters another Jewish survivor named Max Rosenfeld and wonders whether the two of them recognized each other as Jews because of their "Seelengeruch," some Jewish aura, to which Rosenfeld responds: "Nicht am Seelengenidi, Herr Finkelstein. BloB an Ihrer Fresse!" (158). Like others who encounter Max Schulz, Rosenfeld perceives the disguised Nazi's physical features as Jewish because of his own self-hatred. Following their encounter

Max gazes into a mirror searching for a "Vollcsseele," some essential ethnic spirit - Jewish or Geman - but must evenhially concede that his physical features, spdcally his frog eyes, are the only distinguishing characteristic that is readily apparent (158). The Jewish judge Wolfgang Richter's "beer soul," on the other hand, reveals his distindy German nature: "Die Seele des

Amtsgenditsrats Wolfgang Riditer riecht nach Bier. Ja, iieber Itzig: Bier,

Stammtisch, KartoffeMoBe und Sauerkraut" (189-90). Rejecting the idea that there are any racial dilferences between Jew and non-Jew, Hilsenrath employs scent to emphasize Wolfgang Richter's Germanness. In another episode

Hilsenrath uses sent to create the impression that Israeli terrorists are capable of atrocities, albeit on a vastly reduced scale, similar to those of the Nazis.

.Mter the Haganah kidnap him. Max Schulz is taken to the headquarters of

JankI Schwarz where he makes the followuig notation: "Hier rdes nach Keller" (256).9

Hilsenra th hvther emphasizes the anaiogy be tween Israeli terronsts like Jankl Schwarz and the SS in other parts of his text. During the course of his tenure with the Israeli underground, Max Sdiuiz becomes a fierce speaker, giving hypnotic speeches and sprinkling his phrases with Nazi

terminology, employing terms Iike "Volksfeind," 'Wihrerbeleidigung,"

"Defaitismus" (252) and calhg for '%ehemchung der Welt"(254).The use of

this laquage in assoaation with the Zionist cause is also a comic device for

revealing the superficial nature of Max's role reversal. In addition to Max's

Nazi vocabulary, the narrator describes Jankl Schwarz's army as king

subdivided according to the letter designations A, B or C, much like the

Einsatzpvven, the mobile killing squads which murdered thousands of

Jews on the Eastern Front in World War Two. When Max wishes to retreat

from his terrorist life, his superiors tell him to foilow orders in a scene that

conjures up images of the rationalkation proffered by the accused at the

Nuremburg trials: "Befehl ist Befehl!" Say Jankl Schwarzfs men to Max who

responds: "Das haben die damals auch gesagt!" (26869).

Certainly some Gemans have wanted to see a resemblance between

the actions of Hitler's troops and the cornportment of Israeli soldiers. One

reason for this is the need to develop a sense of affinity with the former

9 Throughout his narrative Hilmath assoaates the image of the cellar with the Nazis and their supporters (Heberger 26). 47 victims, a desire that has often culminated in a warped pro-Zionist sentiment guided by the precept "we love you if you are Lüce us" (Werres 8). This attitude was partidarly prominent during the philo-emiüc era of the 1950s and after the stunning success of the Tsraeii army in the 1967 War. At the tirne many West Gennan come~ativeswere anything but reluctant to express their enthusiasm and veneration for the military prowess of the fledgling

Jewish state. Israeli soldien were lauded as the "Prussians of the Orientf" their exploits and victones synonymous with and sound testament to the potency of "BLiWuieg" warfare (Stem, "Whitewashing" 430). The correlation of Israeli militarisrn with Nazi militarisrn also facilitates a role reversal that tums those who were once oppressed into the oppressors, a convenient means of relieving former perpehators and their descendants from their heavy burden of gdt(Werres 5). Lndeed, during the late 1%0s some in the German student movement and on the left of the political spectnim condemned Israelfs

Middle East poliq as king synonymous rvith Nazi practices, a cornparison encapsulated in the following statement: "Seht, die Juden sind genauso wie die Nazis, sie haben nichts geiemt aus Auschwitz" (Chaim-Schneider î34).

Thîs mode of thinking not only ignores the fact that, as Hilsenrath makes abundantly clear, not aiI Jews support Israel, it also exaggerates the scope of the country's aggressive policies. As Jankl Schwarz explains to Max Schuiz, in order to temper his zeal for the Zionist cause, the goals of the Haganah are somewhat less ambitious than those of Hitler since world domination - "Welthemchaft" - was never one of their objectives (257).

Hilsenrath criticizes other ways in whidi Germans have managed their

National Socialist past. He satirizes postwar German phileSernitism in the

"Hotel Vaterland" sequence, in which a hotel serves as an image of the

Federai Republic. Max Rosenfeld, a Jewish guest, explains to Max how the ho tel represents this new philo-Semitic spirit : "Sehen Sie, Hem Finkelstein.

Für mich ist das Hotel ,Vaterland

Deutsdilands, Herr Finkelstein, in seiner Beziehung zu seinen jüdischen

Gasten. - Was sich hier widerspiegelt, lieber Finkelstein oder lieber Hem

Finkels tein, .. .das ist: Zeitgeist" (159). Management and the nonJewish guests treat their Jewish couterparts with respect, and anti-Semitism is no longer apparent. A newspaper "Reuiges Vaterland," which hvesevery morning with "new GemanJ' non-punctualiîy (164), reflects the reversal of stereotypes traditionally associated with the Jews. Max notes how the newspaper inverts the rabidly anti-Semitic depictions found in magazines like Der Stürmer so that attributes that once defined the Aryan now corne to diaracterize the Jew:

"Mir fden zwei Bilder auf der ersten site ad das Bild eines blonden jüdischen Hünen; daneben, das Bild eines kleinen, schwarzhaarîgen, plattfiiBigen, knimmbeinigen Deutschen. Sdilagzeile: Die Juden - ein Volk von Adcerbauern, Pionieren Soldaten!" (164).Despi te the newspapef s seemingly positive stance, it is quite apparent that the old stereotypes about

Jews have not disappeared but have merely been reversed, a fact whidi, as 1 49 have demonstrated, characterizes Hilsenra th's narrative strategy in general.

Max Rosenfeld sees through postwar philo-Semitism and urges his friend to move to Israel before anti-Jewish hatred resurges: "Der neue Zeitgeist ist philosemitisch. Ein Schreckensgespenst mit nassen Augen, die eines Tages trocknen werden" (161). Indeed, many Jews viewed postwar philo-Semitism as a means of "national damage-control conceming the tarnished German ethical image" rather than any genuine desire on the part of non-Jews for reconaliation with the victims (Werres 6).

In marked contrast, Jurek Becker uses a far less satirical approach than

Edgar Hilsenrath to criticize the way Germans have ciealt with the past. As weli, Becker avoids the grotesque comedy aesthetic of Hilsenrath. Beckefs characters are not mere caricatures of Jewishness and non-Jewishness, and his text, although it contains considerable irony, is not carnivalesque but rather a realistic portrait of Jewish life in the German Demoaatic Republic. Given the horrific nature of his crimes, Max çdiulz's charader provokes little in the way of reader empathy. Mthough Arno Bronstein's decision to kidnap and torture Arnold Heppner is questionable, one cannot help but feel sympathy for a man whose family suffered so hom%ly du.gthe war.

Arno and his family are ~üzensof a country whose comrnunist govemment maintained that socialism had completely eliminated the roots of "Hitler fascism." In contrast, the Federal Republic, having failed to purge top Nazis from positions of power, was regarded as the successor state to Nazi 50

Germany (Herf 177). With respect to Jews, the GDR promoted the idea that a sense of socialist brotherhood would eliminate anti-Semitism, thus ailowing

Jewish citizens to attain a level of equality with other members of the populace (Werner 236-37). Becker's portrait of the GDR, in whkh a very real divide exists between Jews and non-Jews, contradicts the utopian tenets of the communist state. As Ham-Georg Werner writes:

Auf diejenigen, die dieses Bild vom Juden als einem

verschwindend geringen, unauffalligen, besonders gut

angepdten Element ihres Çozialwesens interiorisiert hatten,

mate Jurek Beckers Roman Bronsteins Kinder geradezu als

eine ungeheuerliche Provokation wirken. (238)

Through Arno's role reversa1 Becker clearly demonstra tes how the Holocaus t and the ensuuig "negative symbioçis" remains as much a divisive force between Jews and non-Jews in the East as in the West.

Hans encounters holdHeppner for the first time when he shunbles

upon his father, Gordon Kwart and Erik Rotstein beating the former camp

guard in the Bronsteins' family cottage. The Uthy conditions in which the

prisoner is kept are indicative of Heppner's victirn stahis since they aiiude to

anti-Semitic stereotypes about the uncleanly Jew: "Die Nazis werden durch

den alten, nach SdieiBe stinkenden Mann in der Hutte darges tellt (eine

ironische Umkehnuig des Foeter judaicus) [...If' (Gilman, "Verborgene

Sprache" 285). As a Nazi, Heppner is the essence of the "banality of evil" - 51

"Das Ungeheuerliche hatte sich im Gesicht des Aufsehers wunderbar getamt"

(24) - who, ironically, seems to regard himself as a victim of National

Soaaiism. As Hans notes during an encounter with the former concentration camp guard: "er [bat] mich m glauben, daB er die unseligen Ereignisse von darnals bereue, auch wenn er keine Verantwortung dafiir trage. [...] er [hg]zu erzahlen an, wie oft er nachtelmg wachlag, weil die Erlluiening an das Lager ihn nidit schiafen LieB [...]" (103). Similar to many perpetrators portrayed in the texts 1 ciiscuçs, Heppner refuses to take responsibility for his Nazi pet, while simultaneously complaining of his own postwar suffering.

Hans is shocked at what he witnesses in the cottage because Arno had always presented him with a faqade, as though he were well integrated into

GDR society . As Ham rernarks of his Cather and his friends: "Ich hatte geglaubt, na& dreiBig Jahren konnten sie wie normale Menschen leben, und pl6hlich dieses Zimmer [...]. Als hatten sie [...] nur eine Maske getragen" (27).

In particular, Ham had always seen his father as a man governed by reason

(Nabbe, "Wief' 258) - as a "besonnener Mensch" and "Logkfanatiker" (28) - who operated in accordance with the following motto: "eh kühler Verstand sei nützlicher als ein heiBes Herz" (28). That emotiort has replaced reason as ho's guiding prinQple becomes apparent when Heppner describes hoas the most violent of his Uuee captors: 'Tut mir leid, hendas sagen zu müssen," he tells Hans, 'lhr Hem Vater ist der Schhmste" (101). The zeal with which Arno exacts tevenge stands in stark contrast to his past attempts to diminish his victirn status. He previously refused to accept any advantage based on his wartime tonnent such as a state-sanctioned reduction in fees for a radio hookup, a discount available to all who suffered under fascisrn. He diastised his friend Gordon Kwart for doing so: "Er warf Kwart vor, kein

Gefühl für Peinlidikeit zu besitzen" (53). Ekyond his rejection of the victim label, Arno went as far as doubting the significance of Jewishness, dismissing it as an invention. As Hans explains:

Eine Theorie meines Vaters, die ich bei verschiedenen

Gelegenheiten geh6rt hatte, lautete: Es gebe überhaupt keine

Juden. Juden seien eine Erfindung, ob eine gute oder eine

schlechte, darüber lasse si& streiten, jedenfails eine erfolgreiche.

Die Erfinder hatten ihr Gerücht mit so vie1 nerzeugungskraft

und Hartniidagkeit verbreitet, da@selbst die Betroffenen und

Leid tragenden, die angeblichen Juden, darauf hereingefallen

seien und von sich behaupteten, Juden zu sein. (48)

Arno refutes his Jewish heritage as though it were rooted in a simple rumour which over time became a designation idenüfyïng a speahc group of people.

In contrast to his behaviour before the kidnapping, after his role reversai Arno begins to outwardly display several aspects of his repressed

Jewishness, huther revealing the fact that he was anything but weU integrated into GûR society . He demonstrates tremendous contempt for non-Jewish

GDR titizens. As Ham remarks: "er und Gordon Kwart und Rotstein [seien] sich darin einig, in einem minderwertigen Land zu leben, umgeben von würdelosen Menschen, die ein besseres nicht verdienten" (80). Arno doubts the sincerity of any potential state prosecution of Heppner, believing that the former guard would be punished only because the Soviet Union, which had politicai influence on its European satellite states, would order the GDR government to do so (80). As well, Hans is astonished to lem that his father is fluent in Yiddish. Listening through his bedroom wall, Hans hem his father and his CO-conspiratorsspeaking the language of Eastern European

Jews, an ability he never imagined ,hopossessed: "Er hatte es bisher nicht nur vermieden, in meiner Gegenwart Jiddisch zu sprechen," he thlliks, "er hatte auch nie angedeutet, dall er dam irnstande war" (221). In the same episode Anio also shows an enthusiasm for Kwart's and Rotstein's discussions about their experiences in the camps, stories for which he previously expre~~eddisinteres t (223).

ho's transformation into perpetrator also sets up a series of ironic situations and contrasts with other charaders, highlighting the seif- destructive nature of his role reversa1 into violent "ûther." Becker juxtaposes ho's torture of the prisoner with his daughter Elle's psychological affiiction, which causes her to assault aduits at random without provocation. Arno links these athcks, whidi are the reason for her confinement in a sanatorium, to her wartime suffering: "es [gab] fi Vater keinen Zweifel, dal3 sie die Leute, die sie anfiel, für soldie hielt, vor denen man sie damals hatte verstecken müssen" (129). Ironicaily, Elle, because of her intement, in one sense has more freedom than ho,who previousiy felt compelled to süfie his past in order to integrate, since it prevents her from seriously hanning anyone induding herself: "Die Ausgliedening aus der Gesellsdiaft erlaubt ihr [Elle],

Traumata der Vergangenheit unbeschadet auszureagieren [...]" (Werner 246).

The different ways in which father and daughter deal with their trauma also raise questions as to which character is less equipped to deal with reality.

Arno, although free, sees the unleashing of his suppressed hatred result in his rapid mental and phy sical de teriora tion and ultima tely his dea th.

ho's role reversal also heightens the animosity between father and son. The relationship between Ham and Arno was never partidarly dose.

As Hans says of ho:"Er redete nicht gem von si& und seinen

Angelegenheiten [...lm (35). A door separating Arno's and Ham's bedrooms and blodced by a doset on one side and a bookcase on the other is a chef symbol of this lack of contact behveen father and son (Heidelberger-Leonard

27). In fa&, Hmobtains more information from a pair of deaf mutes during a short visit to their apartment than he does from the man with whom he has lived his entire l.ife.10 While searching for Heppner after the former guard was released, Hans encounters the "Taubshunme" who express an eager

10 Çee Irene Heidelberger-Leowd. As she writes: "Diese Spirale des Verschweigens @xtweenfather and son], die mensdiches MiteMnder gar nicht erst aufkommen fat, erreicht ihren Hohepunkt in der Szene mit den Taubshunmen am Ende des Buches, von denen Hans mehr in Erfahrung bringt als von seinem angeblich spradim&htigen Vater" (27). wiUingess to communicate with hand gestures and in wriüng. As Hans says of the deaf woman: /'Die Frau is nicht nur hilfsbereit, sie plappert auch für ihr

Leben gem" (260). This scene contrasts with the silence that charaderizes relations bebveen father and son in the Bronstein household. The episode with the deaf mutes ahreminds one of the contrast between the mentally ill

Elle and her supposedly healthy father, in that both episodes heighten the irony in Becker's text and further emphasize the tremendous difficulty Arno has in dealing with the past.

As the the Heppner spends in captivity progresses, the relationship between Arno and Hans deteriorates dramatically. When Arno advises Ham not to interfere in the kidnapping, he does so by stressing their muhial estrangement: "Er sagte, ich solite lieber achtgeben, dai3 unsere Wohnung nicht verkomme," Hans says, "anstatt meine Nase in die Angelegenheiten fremder Leute ni stecken. Er sagte wahrhaftig: fremder Leute" (125). At another point Arno actually refers to his son as his enerny: Arno: "Wie sou ich dich nidit behandeln?"; Hm: "Wie einen Feind"; Amo: "Aber du bist mein Feind" (184). Eventually Arno's assumption of the perpetrator role becomes so complete that he begins to victimîze his son, as if thek relationship were that between a guard and a prisoner. Ham, angry with Arno for not providing him with enough money to buy groceries, imagines reproaching his father in the following manner: "Du verwechselst midi mit deinem Nazi, warum sonst gibst du mir nichts m essen? Oder: Glaubst du, 56 jeder Jude soute wenigstens einmal irn Leben anstadig hungem?" (243). The alienation betwem Hans and his father illustrates the conflict between

Holocaust survivors and their chüdren who are incapable of My comprehending theù parents' suffering and nevertheless inherit theu trauma. Arno chastises Hans for his ladc of empathy for what the Nazis have done to the family: "Warum macht es dich nidit btke," he asks his son,"wenn du an ihre [the Nazis'] Opfer denkst? Ich meine nicht nur die Toten, ich meine auch Leute wie rnich und Elle" (128). However, Hans did not lem about the Holocaust in school. For him the term Neuengamme represents li ttle more than a '%&es Wort," an abstract concept which he learns about while consulüng a lexicon detailing the nature of the Nazi concentration camps (32). Although he is clearly aware of his father's and his sister's pain, he is oblivious of the facts.

Ironically, as Hans becomes ho's enemy, the bond between perpetrator and victim strengthens, eventually evolving into a "symbio tic" relationship, in which Arno and Heppner become mutually dependent on one another for survïval. Ham dudes to the congruence between the two men when he inserts a picture of the captured Nazi Heppner into his father's collection of family photographs (Nabbe, 'Wie" 263). In the end it is Arno who begins to resemble a victim, a fact Hans notes one night after his father rehvns from the cottage: "Idt fand, daf3 er [ho]eher gequalt als frohlich aussah, und wenn er bei diesem Lachen fotografiert worden wae, hatte man ihn auf dem Bild bestimmt für einen Weinenden gehaiten" (270). Ham realizes that he must release the prisoner in order to Save his father: "Komte es nicht auch sein, daB Vater mir eines Tages dankbar war, wenn ich ihn von dem Gefangenen befreite? Nach all dem Zogern glaubte ich kst daran, daB er und der Aufseher nur gemeinsam erlost werden ko~ten"(293).

Unfortunately, Hans is unable to save Arno in the, but he does hee Heppner who, ironically, flees to the Feâeral RepublicJi

In spite of his inability to Mycomprehend his father's trauma, Hm,

Like ho,is also incapable of denying his Jewishness and integrating into

GDR society. He seeks to dimllUsh the importance of his status as the son of a sunrivor in a conversation with Hugo Lepschitz: Ichbin nicht der Çohn eines Opfers des Faschismus. [...] Als ich geboren wurde, war er [Amold]lwgst kein Opfer mehr," insists Hans (52). However, du~ga swim test for his

Abitur, in which he incidentally contradicts the notion that Jews are physically unfit, Hans has a run-in with another student, a conflict which rerninds him of his Jewish roots. The student points to a sign indicating that one must disrobe before showering. Ham suddenly senses that the student

11 It is interesthg that Heppner nees to the West, a move which could be interpreted as an attempt to avoid state prosecution in the GDR In this sense the narrator is aiticking the Federal Republids la& of .resolve, . at least frorn an East German standpoint, in pursuing former war cnmuials. Ham ailudes to the significance of the border as a demarcation point between the anü-fascist GDR and the supposedly more tolerant attitude towards ex-Nazis in the FRG when he says: "Es ist mir nie gelungen, ihn [Heppner] von Herzen zu hassen, ich wollte irnmer nur gr(indlich von ihm getremt sein. Das ist ja nun erreicht, er vor der Mauer, ich dahinter" (261). with his "aufseherhafter Blick" is representative of something more significant: "Pl6hiich hatte ich das Empfinden, daB er ein Schddiger war: einer von denen, die gem peinigen [...IN (42). Hans punches the student in the nose and is content to view the whole episode as an isolatecl incident with no implications. The student, however, after consulting with the gym teacher, indicates in an indirect manner to Hans tha t he would have guarded his comments had he known that Hans is Jewish. Hans subsequently imagines a conversation with his instructor in which he denies that his fear of king revealed as a Jew had anything to do with his failure to acknowledge the sign or his aggressive behaviour: "Ich hatte keine hoheren Motive, dem Kerl eine runterzuhauen, nur niedere" (49) and "ich bin, entgegen Ihrer Vermutung, nicht besduiitten" (4849), he thinks. Nevertheless, in punching the student

Ham displays his inheritance of Holocaust trauma. As Heidy Müller comments on the shower scene: "Hans glaubt einem potentieilen 'Aufseher' gegenüberzustehen und hit das, was sein Vater im Konzentrationslager irn

Interesse seines Uùerlebens hat unterlassen müssen: Er schlagt zu" (232).

Ham's sense that the student was one of the guilty ones confïrms this point.

Besides demonstrating the diffidty Hans has deahg with his

Jewishness, the shower scene in Bronsteins Kinder also shows how Becker, like Hilsenrath, focuses on circumcision as an identity marker for male

Jewishness. However, the fact that Hans is not circumcised points to an important difference between the two authors' texts. As 1 have indicated, Hilsenrath's grotesque reversais largeIy preserve essentialist differences between Jew and non-Jewand he portrays &cumcision as a key component of

Jewish identity. Becker, however, dissociates circumcision from Jewishness, leaving the question open as to what defines a Jew in GDR society.

Ham's tendency to simultaneously deny and express sensitivity regarding his Jewish roots can also be seen in his relationship with Martha. It seems rather pedar that Hans has a girifrïend who openly expresses her

Jewishness (Rock 88), a fact which presumably explains why Arno seems to dislike her: "ich war sicher," says Ham, "daB er Martha nicht leiden ko~te

[...lm (16). Hans needs Martha, however, to reaffkm his Jewish roots, which he often accomplishes by provoking her, diminishing the importance of his

Jewishness. Denied service at a tea shop, Martha wonders whether she and

Haris are outsiders: "Dam fragte sie, ob ich nicht au& der Meinung sei, daf3 wir clraden stiknden" (166), an ob~e~ationHam aggressively resists to confirm: "Es war, als zwhge mich eh Übermachtiger, nidit auf ihre Worte zu aditen" (166). Later, Martha partiapates in a film entitled Die lahre vor dem Anfang. The film deals with a resistance group during World War Trvo, composed of Jews and non-Jews, who kidnap the chüd of a factory owner in order to extort rnonejr to finance their activities. Hans cannot understand why anyone wouid want to dredge up the past in such a film, asking Martha:

"Mate man diesen Dredc bejubeln, nur weil die Eltern im Lager gewesen sind?" (252). Mattha, however, can see that Hm's response to her acting debut is one of two approadies swivors and their descendants take in dealing with the Holocaust: express an overt sense of victimhood or deny their past. As Martha observes:

"Ich weiB [...If daf3 man über ein bestimmtes Thema mit dir nicht

reden kann," sagte sie. "hum fagt ein Wort mit Jot an, bricht

dir der SchweiB aus. Die wirklichen Opfer woilen andauernd

Gedenktage feiem und Mahnwachen aufsteilen, und du Wt,

dSgeschwiegen wird. Du bildest dir vieiieidit eh, das w&e das

Gegenteil, aber ich sage dir: es handelt sich urn dieselbe

Befangenheit." (251)

Despite his attempts to deny his heritage, Hans cannot help expressing his sensitivity regarding his Jewishness as the film production progresses. He accuses the non-Jewish producers of exploitation, of using Jewish acton to make money: '!i& [fand] es bitter," he thlliks, "eine jüdische Absiammung oder ein jüdisches Gesicht zu Geld zu machen" (213). He finds the enhancernent of one actor's "Jewishness" partidarly striking: "sein Gesicht war di& geschminkt. Ich betrachtete es ausgiebig und fand, daB es dem

Vonuteil von jüdischem Aussehen entspradi" (196). He even expresses a sense of self-consciousness about his own "Jewish features" when he feels the non-Jewishdirector is yearning to have someone like him appear in his film:

"mir war, als bemerkte ich in seinen Augen [...] ein Ekdauern dafiber, di& ein

Gesicht wie das meine nicht in dem Film vorkam (199). 61

Hans sees the cause of his eventual breakup with Martha in the sale of the Bronstein cottage, their former meeting place as Iovers. As he comments:

"Wenn ich es heute noch hatte, das Hauschen, sahe die Welt für Martha und mich anders aus" (14). More important than its utility as a love nest, however, the cottage, similar to the door that separates ho's and Hans's bedrooms, hints at a lack of communication, specifïcally Hm's reludance to openly express his Jewishness or acknowledge the significance of his family's past. Having witnessed the tome of the prisoner in the cottage, Ham is ultimately incapable of telling Martha what he saw, and his silence leads to the gradua1 erosion of their relationship. As Hans himself maintains after

Martha questions him about his strange behaviour in the days following his discovery of the kidnapping: "hstatt das Geheimnis zu lüften und adewig mit ihr verbunden zu sein. vershickte ich midi immer tiefer in mein

Schweigen und brachte sie von der richtigen Spur ab" (169). That silence makes it impossible to effectively deal with the pst is emphasized by the fact that Martha seems so much more mature than Ham. Whereas JbIartha appears to grow, developing her own style of dress and dating more mature men, Hans retains a somewhat childish appearance: "Mich agert, daB ich wie ein Jugendücher angezogen bin, nidit wie ein Mann [...]" (148). Reflecting on their relationship, Hans further points out h/IarthaOscomparatively more mature nature: "manche si& wunderten, wie eine so reife und erwadisene

Person sich mit einem Kindskopf wie mir abgeben ko~te.Heute kommt sie mir vor wle eine Creisin" (8).

In the narrative present, as Hans resides with Martha's parents, Hugo and Rachel Lepschitz, Becker intensifies the contrast between the Bronsteins and this opedy Jewish family. The fad that Hugo purchases matzos from a

Jewish shop, a store Hans's father had frequented only once or twice a year (9), indicates that the Lepschitz family abides by Jewish dietary des. When Hans makes it dear that he has few friends, Hugo attributes this to the difficdty

Jews have in building trusting relationships with non-Jews. Unlike Arno,

Hugo rnakes no attempt to deny any sense of difference kom non-Jews, nor any suspicions he might harbour for them. As Hmexplains: "Hugo

Lepschitz denkt in dieser Frage anders als mein Vater; vor ein paar Monaten

hat er gesagt, er ko~egut verstehen, warum meine Beziehung nach drauBen so schwach sei: weil unsereins besonders penibel zu prtifen habe,

mit wem er sich einlasse" (116-17).Ham feigns ignorance when Lepschitz

refers to "our kind," but the implication is obvious.

Nthough they pursue different survival strategies, the Bronsteins and

the Lepschitzs both expose the myth of Jewish integration into GDR society.

With his contrashg portrait of Jewishness, Becker portrays the "negative

symbiosis" as the chief dividing Iine between Jews and non-Jews. Ham,

although not bearing the traditional marker of male Jewishness - he remains

uncircumcised - nevertheless onnot escape Holocaust trauma. Unlike

Becker, Hilsenrath constructs his diaracters by simply reversing stereotypes of Jevviçhness and non-Jewishness. As I have demonstrated, male Jews in Der

Nazi und der Friseur often appear as the quintessence of s

These two texts that employ very different narrative strategies have been serving as models for second generation writers. Some second generation authors favow a carnival aesthetic which, while not as grotesque as Hiisenrath's, is nevertheless reminiscent of Der Nazi und der Friseur. .As well, since the publication of Bronsteins Kinder in 1986, the exploration of relations between generations of Jews, speaficaily Hoiocaust survivors and their diildren, has become a dominant subject in German and Ausûian

Jewish literature. 2 Passing as Cultunl Cross-Dressing in Irene Dische's and Maxim Billef s

Short Stories

Esther had not shewed her people nor her kindred: for Mordecai had changed her that she should not shew it

(Reaised Standard Bible, Esth. 2 -10)

In this chapter I shall compare and contrast the short prose of bene

Dische and Maxim Biller. These two writers share a preference for satire and black humour reminiscent of Edgar Hilsenrath. Irene Dische, like Hasemath, uses a camival aesthetic, partidarly with respect to her charaderizations, use of language and ailegory. However, instead of employing this narrative strategy to emphasize a world tumed upside down, Dische preserves the integrity of moral categories like good and evil. Like HiIserirath, Dische rejects the notion of an inherent difference between Jews and Gemans, while simultaneously constructing her charac ters in accordance wi th anti-Semitic stereotypes. Her texts are iüll of paradoxes and her comic effect is often achieved by juxtaposing the banal with the extreme. Using this technique,

Disdie creates absurd scenarios, induding the role reversal in "Fromme

Lügen," in which the Jewish Holocaust survivor Car1 Bauer disguises himseif as Adolf Hitler and setties with his family in the middle American suburb of

Fort Lee after the war. Equaily absurd is "Eine Jiidin für Charles Men," in 65 which the American son of Geman Jewish emigrants has difficulty passing as an American. In the story Charles Men arrives in Germany to collect his inheritance, a shop run by Esther Becker, a woman disguishg herself as a Jew.

In a reversal of the anti-Semitic trope of the compt Jew seducing the non-

Jew, it is Esther who exacts a steady seductive idluence on Charles. As well, one could view this story as a presentation of a victim/perpetrator role reversai in that Charles avenges his parents' wartime persecution by rapirtg

Esther at the end of the story. The rape, however, is figurative since Esthefs role reversal also acts as an ailegory for Germany and its postwar transformation from dicta torship to liberal democracy.

In Maxim Biller's "Verrat" Hugo Niehod, previously the mode1 of a humble, serious German youth (191), opts for a Jewish identity after king made aware of his mothef s Jewish roots, a personality change one could view as a role reversal satirizing the notion of German and Jew as binary opposites. However, like Charles Men, Hugo also passes in the traditional sense of the word as he emphasizes one aspect of his bicultural ancestry over the other. In contrast to Car1 Bauds expression of self-hatred in which he conceals every aspect of his Jewishness, Hugo NiehouB openly dispiays his

"Jewish" a thletic and linguis tic incompetence, w hile expressing his

unqualifieci support for Zionism. Biller takes a different approach to

Hilsenrath in exploring the issue of biological essentialism. Instead of çimply

reversing stereotypes, Biller presents Hugo's Jewishness not as some "genetic 66 reawakening," but rather as a mere reflection of his exposure to anti-Semitic discourse. Like Jurek Becker, Biller also examines the generational rift, contrasting Hugo's role reversal with his mother's need to pas as a Protestant

German. Compared to "Verrat," "Aus Dresden ein Brief'' is a rnuch more serious account of the relationship between a woman named Ida and her

Nazi father. Ida becomes a prominent Jewish writer and takes a Jewish lover in order to overcome her father's past. However, incapable of publidy acknowledging her true background, Ida's philo-Semitism reveals itself to be less of an attempt of genuinely working through her personal history than a means to both exculpate herself from any sense of responsibiliq for the past and, ironically, to b~gher doser to her abusive father. Ida's failed relationship with the narrator demonstrates the difficulty that second generation Jews and non-Jews have in achieving some sort of reconciliation.

Similar to &no Bronstein, Car1 Bauer in irene Disdie's "Fromme

Lügen" attempts to deny both his victim statu and his Jewishness. Instead of

lashing out at a former perpetrator or openly expressing disdain for hiç

.Austnan homeland, however, Cari directs his hatred inward. His Hitler

masquerade and exaggerated Catholic piety are a reflection of his self-loathuig.

Carl's daughter Comy further reveals this sense of shame when she describes

her complicity in helping her parents to disguise their Jewish background

after the war: "Wir wollten der ~chstenGeneration die Scharn des Wissens

ersparen" (294), she says, refeming to her family's discornfort with the stigma of persecution.

Cari's self-hatred leads him to despise all that reminds hirn of his

Jewishness and his wartime suffering. Since his wife Eva's death, Carl has become inaeasingly anti-Semitic. Once aware of his daughter's involvement

with Stanislav Reich, Car1 shows little restraint in expressing his hateful

feeiings for the Polish Jew. He chastises Comy incessantly for her marriage choice: "Alles hast du kaputtgemacht, was ich Hir euch getan habe. Heiratest

einen-" (167). Gerda, the family maid who had followed the family from

Europe, interrupts Car1 before he can cornpiete his sentence but it is obvious

he meant to say "einen Juden."At another point Carl is incensed when he

discovers books his wife Eva had concealed iliustrating Nazi atrocities: "Er

sah mit einem Blick das Foto eines riesigen Knochenbergs. Widerlicher

çdiund!" (209). He gathers the books together, places them in a wastebucket

in the middle of his lawn and sets them alight in a scene dearly reminiscent

of the Nazi book bumings. This attempt to destroy evidence indicative of his

own victimization, however, results in a post-traumatic reaction

characterized by nightmares and sleeplessness, leading to Carl's physical

deterioration and ultimately his death. Like Arno Bronstein's belated

revenge, Cari's self-hatred results in his own demise.

Carl's approach to deahg with his Holocaust trauma deprives his

descendants of any sense of their Jewish heritage. In fab, growing up in the

shadow of Carl's anti-Semitism, Didcy and Sally corne to fear ail that is 68 representative of Jewishness. "Wenn wir da nur einen Fui3 hineinsetzen, ist es eine Todscùide," says Di* to his sister as they stand before a synagogue

(226). In one sense, then, Cari's death is a positive event since it enables

Co~yto lift the mantle of repressive silence that shrouds her family history and dows her to reanimate a legacy once consigned to obscurity.

Representative of this rejuvenation are the ghosts of her dead and murdered relatives who appear in the family living room as Comy explains her Jewish mots. As the narrator explains: "Und sie erzahlte die Geschichte ihrer Familie

[...], so daB die Mherund Frauen, von denen sie sprach, wie Geister [...], sich

Un Wohnzimmer zu versammeln schienen" (291). Cari's dead father Peter rvaltzes through the living room and Eva's father Rabbi Breslauer rnaterializes as though addressing a congregation, thus signifying the end of the Bauer family's self-destructive denid of their past.

Throughout her narrative, Dische employs a carnival aesthetic, whose comic effect is achieved through the juxtaposition of the sensational with the band. While researdung the truth behind Carl's identity, for example,

Co~y'slover Ronald Hake employs standard medical procedures, diagnosing what he believes to be Carl's identity diange from Hitler impersonator to staunch Catholic as though he were describing a -or. In his final report he describes Carl's Catholic piety as a shield preventing his

"cancerous Hitler persona" from escaping: "Das Neoplasma [Hitler identity] ist von Fr6mmigkeit eingekapselt. Diese Pseudokapsel kann den Tumor vielieicht daran huidem, wieder invasiv zu werden" (262). Equally comic is the episode where a Catholic priest employs conventional Chur& ethics to explain the nature of Hitler's evil and in the process completely disregards the extermination of millions of people. As the priest says of Hitler: "Er war inkonsequent, schrecklich in-kon-se-quent! Sein Freund Dr. Goebbels, von

Haus aus katholisch, hat sich mit einer geschiedenen Frau protestantisch trauen lassen [...] vie1 ni lange, duldete et [Hitler] Rihn, &en notorisdien

HomosexueUen [.. -1" (257).

Dixhe's carnival aesthetic also employs comic laquage. In chapter one I discuss how Max Schulz's expression of pro-Zionist sentiment is sprinkled with Nazi rhetoric, a device that suggests the transparency of his

Jewish disguise. Carl Bauer ais0 articulates his support for the Catholic

Church with the use of vocabulary associated with the Third Reich. As he says: "Nur die Kirdie erreicht den chronischen Stinder mit ihrer sanften

Ermahnung zum Gehorsam. Wir haben es weit gebracht seit der Ausrottung der Ungliiubigen" (my emphasis 181). The narrator describes Carl's decision to place Saüy and Didcy in a pnvate Catholic school as more of a political manoeuvre than a scholastic decision: "Es war Carl Bauers erste

Xmtshandlung nach seiner Machtübernahme in der Familie [...IN (my emphasis 159). The use of vocabuiary reminiscent of the Nazi era helps to enhance Carl's role dwge and emphasize the extent of his self-hatred. The narrator's comic use of Ianguage indudes Hake's application of the term ''LebenslUge" in conjunction with Carl's hidden identity (221), a satirical play on an expression often used to describe the postwar myth of Austria's victim statuS.

One of the chief paradoxes in Dischefs cafnival aesthetic involves the contrast behveen her use of stereotypes and her rejection of biological essentiahm. Similar to Hüsenrath, Disdie employs stereotypes, but she reverses anti-Semitic stereotypes only in the case of her portrayai of Geman

Jews, a means to perhaps emphasize the traditional animosity between

German Jews and European Jews.12 The Aushian Eva and her mother possess

manfeatures with their blonde hair and blue eyes (292). The description of

the East European Stanislav Reich, on the other hand, conforms with the

Stiirmer image of the physically defective Jew - "klein, gebeugt, sdiabig wie

Galizien" (253). As well, Stanislav reflects the anti-Semitic conception of the

JeMsh Bolshevist wi th his strident anti-capitalism, while simultaneously

demonshating a conhadictory "Jewish"love of money and the stock market (252). His son Dicky - "eh unsportlicher aicker Btiche~rurm"(159) - shows

the stereotypical linguistic and physical limitations of the Jew wîth his

una thle tic appearance and his tremendous difficuity pronouncing English,

despite having spent his entire life in the United States (159).

Disdie's cornic use of stereotypes extends to her portrait of non-Jewsas

12 As 1 will show in chapter five, Solomon Perel, a German Jew, experienced tremendous prejudice from the East European Jews he encountered in Poland. well. Carrs pursuer Ronald Hake could be seen as representative of the

American upper class child. The son of a wealthy Cornecticut businessman,

Hake is an elitist snob, as exhiiited in his disdain for the old Jamaican woman

Blessed and her ceworker Alice, the hvo secretaries who work in the coroner's office. A strange dream, in whidi Hake imagines himself olrying a wooden cross on his back like Jesuç while surrounded by dark-skinned heathens who look upon him with obsequiousness, Merunderpins his feelings of superiority as well as his racism: "Er [Hake] sah sich selbst in ihren

Augen, und ihre Cesichter waren ihm unterwiilfig zugewandt" (220).

In spite of these stereotypical images, Dische's narrator attempts to reject the notion that there are any racial attributes dividing Jews and non-

Jews, an idea conveyed through Carlrs role reversal. While hvestigating

Carl's background, Hake, instead of discoverhg the existence of the Nazi dictator on knerican soil, uncovers his own &rty Little secret: Ta, von nun an hatte Dr. Hake sein eigenes kleines sdunutziges Geheimnis, das er, verpackt in mehrere Schichten Aberglauben, hüten mate: eine homme

Lüge" (294). He cornes to realize the extent of his fascist sympathies. As

Dagmar Lorenz explains: "Like the su~vors,the herican man also has a secret inner Ne, but his is tnily a dirty one, 'swaddled in layers of pity:' he could live with the daughter of Hitler, but not with the child of Jewish

Holocaust sunrivors" (Keepers 274). Earher Hake noted the strange correspondence between his affection for Comy and her supposed Nazi roots: "Warum hatte er sie eigentlich so gern? Diese Frage aufwerfen hieB mit sich selbst ins Gericht gehen. Er hatte sie gem, trot2 ihrer Vergangenheit [...IN (U9).

Duped by Carl, Hake perceives the hollowness of his prejudices, a fact which causes him to walk out on Comy in shame. His intolerance, instead of king based on any essentialist truths, reveals itself to be more a hinction of an innate human desire to exaggerate or constnict difference. As Conny explains:

"Die Menschen sind tiberall gleich. Toleranz langweilt sie" (292). Eva

Breslauer's own family expressed this sense of "botedom" before the war, regarding eastem Jews like the Bauers with contempt: "Sie blickten au€ die

Bauers henuiter [...], nahe Verwand te orthodoxer galizischer Juden [... 1" (292).

Dische shows how prejudice is a function of social conditioning (Lorenz,

Kee~ers274) and hou*people have a need to invent and perpetuate negative images about other ethnic groups.

The paradoxes which form the basis of Disdie's carnival aesthetic in

"Fromme Lügen" can also be seen in "Eine Jüdin für Charles .Uen," whi& is set in the author's adopted country - the Federal Republic. in "Eine Jiidin für

Charles Men" Dische kther displays her tendency to use anti-semitic stereotypes in constructing her characters. Charles Alen has a hooked nose, swatthy complexion and fiat feet, whereas Esther Becker, originally kfargret

Becker, is the blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter of an SS man3 Given his

- Whe name Esther is sigruficant since it alludes to the Old Testament heroine (quoted about at the beginning of this chapter) who hesitates to reveal her Jewishness to King Ahasverus. In enlisting the King's support she "Semitic" traits, Max Schuiz's impersonation of Itzig Finkelstein in Der Nazi und der Friseur does not rquire him to radically moduy his appearance.

Esther Becker, on the other hand, alters her "Aryan" features to conform with her conception of the Jew.She dyes her haV raven black, colours her face, wears a star of David neddace and professes her Jewishness at every diance, her hands fluttering about as she speaks (31).

in spite of her "Aryan" background, it is Esther who displays a "Jewish"

interest in materialism and profit, an attitude which Charles finds diffidt to

share: "[Er] versuchte ihr Interesse an Geld zu teilen" (27). Esther's ruthless

and immoral business pactises correspond with the S türmer portrait of the

Jetv. She removes labels from inexpensive Thai shoes only to seU them at a

much higher price and trades in stolen merchandise, notably reiigious

omaments and fur coats. Her greatest coup is to deceive Rabbi Schwarz, the

head of the Jewish community in Berlin, into believing that she has arranged

for an Israeli source to fiU his substantial order of candles for the

commemoration of Kristallnacht. She then issues a false cheque to the real

supplier, a GDR fim, shrewdly perceiving that political circumstances will

prevent them from enforcing coilection. Esther is well aware of the

communist govemment's regdation prohibiting GDR companies from

accepting western cheques.

managed to Save her people from Haman, who was organiPng a Jewish pogrom. 74

In another reversal of antitiSemiticstereotypes it is the non-Jew who exacts a cormpting influence on the Jew. Esther has a steady sedudive influence on Charles, and gradually, his initial conception of wornen changes from that of the mother figure - "f+eun&ch," "fraulich" and "fürsorglich"

(26) - to sexual objeb. This transformation is refleded in a senes of &or sequences, an interesting narrative device which Dische employs to expose identities and reflect role changes, in this case the erosion of Charles's cornmitment to chastity (Herzog 12). The more time Charles spends with

Esther, the more he becomes sexuaily aroused and a mirror betrays the taboos breaking in his sou1 every minute: "Er sah sein Gesicht schamrot werden"

(28). Later, Charles achiaüy imagines hirnself to be Esther's Jewish Lover, a sequence foreshadowing his eventual transformation into rapist: "Er sah im

Spiegel, wie sie sich zu ihm herunterbeugte und er, von dem Bild getrieben,

darauf einguig: ein jüdischer Liebhaber" (51).

in "Eine Jüdin fiir Charles Men," Disdie &O displays her comic use of

language, a means to suggest the transparency of Esthefs disguise. When

Charles first encounters her, she attacks him with a venornous anti-Semitic

dur: "Du verwohntes jiidisches Ami-Aas!" (13). She apologizes but even in

her apology she reiterates her prejudice: 'Wer ist dem heutzutage nicht

vewtjhnt? [...] Ich bin auch verwohnt. Eine vemohnte deutsche Jüdin" (13).

Esther peppers her speech with Nazi vocabulary as exemplified in her

reference to people gathered in a café as "Aryans," a term most Jews would be 75 reluctant to use: "Diese Mer sind einfach nidit imstande sich vorzustellen," she telis Charles, "was man als Jüdin in Deutschland zu leiden hat" (21).

Later, Esther suggests that her business partner BaruchI whom she refers to hyphticdy as a subhuman for his Machiavelhan approadi to busines, actuay deserved intenunent in a concentration camp: "Manduna1 hasse ich

Bani& sot d& i& denke, er hat sein KZ verdient. Er wiirde ftir einen

Grosdien sein eigenes Volk verkauten, er ist nuan Geld interessiert und vWig gefthllos - wenn der kein Untermensdi ist, wer dm?" (50). This outburst more than any other is indicative of Esthefs family background.

Language, which, as I show in chapter one, has traditionally contributed to isolating and iden- the Jew, is also a means for revealing

Charles Allen's Jewishness. In a reversal of the anti-Semitic stereotype, however, it is Charles's fluency in German which betrays his Jewishness as he attempts to rernain anonymous (the narrator portrays him as "unauffUg" upon arriva1 in Frankfurt airport) (5). Dagmar Lorenz desaibes language in this story as a barrier preventing Charles and his father from integrating into

German and herîcan socîety:

For both, the German language constitutes the ultimate prison: it

prevents Mr. Allerhand from making the transition into the

United States; his son Charles is recognizable by his Ceman

accent as the son of immigrants, whereas in Germany he is

identified by his fluent German as a Jew. (Keepers 270) 76

The mistrust Charles provokes during his initial encounters with Germans - some even want to rip him to shreds (6) - seems to support Lorenz's contention that he is unable to pas as a non-Jew.However, Charles's profiuency in the German language does not necessarily always expose his

Jewishness. The inhoductory episode condudes with the remark that not everyone could be fooled by Charles's "German" dispise - "Aber nicht aile lieBen si& etwas vonnachen" (6) - indicating that he has the ability at least some of the the to pass as a non-Jewish German.

Fearing further revelations concerning his Jewishness, Charles

resolves to hide his fluency in German and opt for the other aspect of his bi- cultural heritage - his Americanness. Passing as an American, he cautions

himself with the foilowing advice: "Bemlihe dich, ein akzentfreies Englisch zu spredien. Das gehort unter den Gaumen, nidit rasselnd in den

Rachen. Ladile oft. Wasch dich hinter den Ohren, putz deine Schuhe" (6).

Charles's adoption of these comic stereotypes (in the United States Charles's

mother was fired as a waitress for not smiling enough) creates an absurd

situation in which a man having grown up in the United States, appears

alienated from herican Me, incapable of mastering English and yet fully

fluent in German. This çcenario further attests to the paradoxes which fom

the basis of Disdie's carnival aesthetic. Dapar Lorenz's supposition that

Charles's American cover is as transparent as his German one (Keevers 271) is

refuted by the landlady at the "Pension Irene" in whom Charles kindles nostalgie memories of the youth and honesty she assoaates with John F.

Kennedy (27). "Disguised as an American, Charles proceeds to his father's soot-and rus t-blemished shop "SchUne Heimat."

"%ne Heimat" is an ironic narne. Johannes AUerhand's colleagues describe the store as a front for illegal activities: "Kerzen und Antiquitiiten seien eine dürftige Fassade für einen sündhaften, politisch brisanten Handel"

(41). The name therefore contrasts with the shop's illicit trade, espeaally after the compt Esther assumes control. As well, "Schone Heimat" is a satincal alias for the Federd Republic, a counw Dische generally depicts in a rather negative light, portraying it as a place where the political changes foilowing

World War Two mask the persistence of National Soaalist beliek amongst a large segment of the population. The store mirrors this continuity, since it existed during the darkest days of Geman history, was destroyed during the

Kristallnacht, only to be rebuilt in the postwar era.

h chapter one I demonstrate how Edgar Hilsenrath employs comic ailegory in the 'Wo tel Va terland" sequence, which sa tirizes postwar philo-

Semitism. In an allegorical reading of the story, Esther represents the Federd

Republic of Germany and her shdow disguise and her personal history highlight the alleged superfiaality of Gemany's transition from dictatorship

to liberal demoaacy. Susanne Klodcmann draws a pardel between Esther and Peter Gnibbe, "a left-liberal West Geman joumalist." whose name used

to be synonymous with the dernomatic enlightened values of the Federal Republic (118). Eventudy, the story emerged that Grubbe was redy Claus-

Peter Volkmann, a committed Nazi partly responsible for the murder of 5,500

Jews in Poland during the Gerrnan occupation (Klockmm 119).14 His transformation from devoted National Çocialist to liberal journalis t, however, reflects consistency rather than any real break with his pst. His dianges were only cosmetic because his postwar career produced works reminiscent of his Nazi past, albeit in a very subtle fashion (Klockmann 224-

28). Using Grubbe as a reference point, Klockmann sees Dische's story and

Esther's disguise as art attempt to demonstrate how the haticpoliticai changes in Gemany after 1945 Mymask the persistence of the deeply entrenched beiiefs and values which sustained Hitler.

Susanne ~ockmamlsinterpretation has ment in light of the numerous other characters and situations in the text refleduig the enduring hscist svmpathies underlying Esther's masquerade. Charles's Iandlady at the

"Pension Irene," for example, praises the former soldier Herr Nadler for fighting against "GroBkapital," a euphemim for Jewish power (8)P For her,

Nader is a comforting reminder of the past: "Ihn umgab so etwas

- 14 An equally famous and more recent example is the case of Hans Schwerte, a Cermanist and former rector of Aachen University. In 1995 Schwerte, known widely as a lefi-fiberal, was reveded to be Hauptshirmführer Emt-Hm Schneider, an SS officer involved in supplying medical equipment for experiments on inmates at Dachau concentration camp (BLom, saeen 3).

1s This is ironic because Nadler is a cornmon Jewish name. Bestandiges in einer sich wandelnden WeltJ' (1 1). As weU, Esther describes certain cafés as being full of ex-Nazis (Zl), and an informant with the alias

Mauer Schmidt spends his days reporthg escape attempts through the Berlin

Wall to the press while privately dreamùig of a remto the good old days of fascist dictatorship (69). The very fact that Esther's disguise goes largely unquestioned, even amongst Jewish characters, is indicative of the widespread acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes in Dische's narrative

(Lorenz, Keepen 271).

Like hoid Heppner, Dische's non-Jewishcharacters display Little in the way of remorse or responsibility for National Socialism, some seeing themselves as dupes of Nazi deception -- "wie uns dieser Hitler an der Nase herumgeführt hat," daims one woman (55). Ironically, Esther's mother paints a portrait of suffering which would almost correspond with that of a Jewish victim: "Mein Mann war so hilfios und ist nie darüber weggekommen. Man hat uns ja so gedemütigt," she says of her family's postwar stniggle (67). Such comments and the general depidion of Germans in Dische's narrative leave one with the impression that the entire Federai Republic is populated with incomgible ex-Nazis and their apologists who are simply waiting for the right moment to reestablish a raast authoritarian govemment.

Susanne Klockrnann further maintains that five episodes detailing

Esther's life in sequentidy reverse order under the title "Esther eine riitselhafte Landsdiaft" reflect certain phases in the Federal Republic's history 80

(128). The correlation of Esther's biography, which details her ascension £rom

East German refugee to manager of "-ne Heimat," with West Gemany's past requires a bit of imagination but is nevertheless plausible. A photograph associated with the first episode displays Esther's "rebirth" - her escape from

East Gemany to the West in 1965 aaoss the "Prinz-Albredit-Gelade," the former location of Gestapo headquarters (Klockmann 121). The pidure showing Esther's emergence in the West adomed with the elements of her

"Jewish" persona and taken in an area once notorious for its association with the Third Reich, dudes to the metamorphosis of Nazi Germany into Cold

War West Germany. As JClockmann writes:

Dieses Foto bezeiduiet den eigentlichen Kern des

Identitatswedwls Esthers. Auf ihm sinà zentrale Ereignisse des

Nationalsozialismus in ihr Gegenteil verkehrt. Die Mauer durch

Berlin wird darauf zur Umziiunung eines Ghettos. Das "jüdische

Miidchen" wird nicht bei einer Aktion im Ghetto erschossen,

sondern bei einer nuchta k t io n errette t. (123)

Thus Klockmann extrapolates images of a Nazi Jewish ghetto from Esther's

escape through the Berlin Wall and Mher suggests that the signihcance of

Esthefs East German identity stems from the fact that Eastern Europe was the

most prominent location for the death camps. When Esther crosses through

the wall she leaves behind an area associated with the worst of Nazi atrocities

in the same way the Federal Republic began anew alter "zero hour" in 1945. 81

As Klodcmann says of Germany's division foilowing the Second World \Var:

"Durch den Verlust der Ostlichen Landesteile und die Abtrennung der sowjetisch bese tz ten Zone schienen diese Verbrechen abgegolten. Verlorenes

Land hi& verlorene Schuld" (123).

in particda., one should see Esther's diaracter in conjunction with the trend of normalization in Gemany durllig the 1980s, a process of overcoming the past which Dische refleds in her depiction of a Kris tallnadit commemoration ceremony (Lorenz, Keepers 268-69). November 9th no t only marks the anniversary of the Nazi pogrom but is also the date by which

Charles Men has to decide whether or not to keep his father's shop. At one point Esther remarks about the caliousness of the German government in giving a Jewish heir a deadline coinading with the night of Nazi terror: 'Vas

Zusammentreffen regte Esther ad, und immerzu giftete sie über die Beamten am NachlaBgericht, die historisch wensibel genug waren, einem Juden den

9. November als Termin Hir eine Entscheidung über seinen Besitz zuzumuten" (63). This tactless move emphasizes the superficiality of and the ukerior motive behind the Kristallnach t commemoration. Frank Stem describes the 1988 memorialization of Kristallnacht as one that was less about non-Jewish/Jewish rapprochement and more of an attempt on the part of the

Geman government to distance itself h.om the pst (421). Jews were expected to "engage in [such] acts of reconciliation" and in doing so provide çociety at large with a "dean bill of historical health" (Stem 421). In Dische's story the victimç are the only ones absent from the procession commemorating Kns tallnadit. They are too frightened to appear and indeed the presence of a contingent of men distributhg pamphlets denouncing the "Auschwitz Lie" and police sharpshooters guarding the head of the Jewish community tes* to the danger of a potential attadc from anti-

Çemiüc groups (68). in the absence of the victims, various German interest groups remember their persecution for hem:

Es war eine beeindmckende Menge emotionçgeladener

Menschen, nur nicht viele Juden darunter, denn die waren vor

hgst zu Hause geblieben. Dafür waren ganze Schulklassen mit

ihren Lehrem gekommen, Studentengnippen, diverse SPD-

Urtsvereine und die gesamte christ-demokratische

Fühnuigsriege, ein jeder mit einer didcen weiBen, hell

brennenden Kerze in der Hand. (68)

The one-sided nature of the commemoration corresponds with Stem's rather cynical description of an event instnrmentalized by non-Jews for their own particular reasons (421). In spite of Stern's and Dischefs negative portraits of the Kristallnacht ceremony, one can imagine that there were several German partiapants who genuuiely wished to express their sense of gdt and hop for some sort of reconciliation with the Jewish comrnunity.

When Charles rapes Esther at the end of the story, he is attempting to

take back the past from those who would appropriate and misuse it for their 83 own purposes. The pivotal event whkh compels Charles to rape Esther cornes after he refuses to accept his share of money for the Knstallnacht candle swindle, a deid representative of the self-interes ted exploitation of his tory: 'Tr lie@seinen Anteil sichtbar auf dem antiken Tisch liegen [...]. Charles mate noch einiges in Erfahrung bringen" (66-67).At this point Charles has become suspicious of Esthef s disguise and he proceeds surreptitiously to seek confirmation of her identity in a meeting with her mother. This visit becomes the catalyst for Mrs. Becker's subsequent appearance at Esther's apartment and the revelation of her daughter's ethnic heritage. In assaulting Esther for her deception, Charles also avenges the perseeution suffered by his parents

(Lorenz, Kee~ers268), an interpretation which is plausible if one reads Esther allegorically as representing the Federal Republic. Earlier Esther told Charles:

"Es gibt zwei Sorten Juden auf der Welt [...]. Die aggressiven wie mich und die passiven, inteiligenten, die nur auf die Prügel warten. Wie Sie" (15). In the end, perpe tra tor and victim switch places.

Other interpretations of the rape scene place it within the context of the stereotype of the male Jew violahg the German female. Because of this stereotypical image Karen Remmier sees Dische's narrative as one which ulhately "mirror [s] antitiSemitic stereotypes, instead of addressing and pro testing agains t them" ("En-genderuig" 203). Sander Gilman also views this episode as indicative of the "antitiSemitictrope of the Jewish male desiring to pssess the body of the non-Jewish woman [...]" Uews in Todav's 84), while Todd Herzog delineates two essentid role reversais in the story: one of ethniaty and more figuratively of gender (13). Herzog sees the rape scene as reflectîng not only the remof the "repressed" Jew but the transformation of

Charles from passive effeminate virgin to aggressive male (13). There is evidence to support the notion that Charles undergoes a figurative gender transformation since he removes his apron - the accoutrement of the stereotypid housewife - shortly before the assault (72). Nevertheless, although this and the above interpretations have sorne validity, to fully comprehend the rape scene one needs to place it within the wider "historical context" of Dische's narrative (Lorenz, Keepers 268).

Disdie's text concludes with a section, aptly-titled "Charles wird erkannt" - an Vonic reference to the prior exposure of Esther's tme identity.

Here Charles reveals his fragmented personality, a consequence of his parents' deasion to conceal their Jewish roots. Earlier Charies draws an analogy between himself and the nursery rhyme figure Humpty Dumpty: "Ich glaube,

mit geht es genau wie Humpty. Mich kriegt auch keiner mehr zusammen"

(37). in the end Charles appears in a place associated with his religious

upbringing in the United States carrying a white skull cap as an expression of

his Jewishness. He leaves behind a letter reiïnquîshing his inheritance daim,

and as he departs, he places the skdcap on his head only to remove it a few

moments later, an act demonstrating both his confused sense of self and his

realization of the anti-Sernitism he would have to face if he remained in Germany . Charles's despair prompts one to speculate on strategies for reconciling Germanness and Jewiçhness, including the possibility of developing a hybrid identity, that is to say an identity which w accommodate a variety of ethnic characteristics

Certainly the protagonist of Maxim Biiier's "Verrat" displays a workable hy brid identity, at ieast unlil, ironicdy enough, he becornes aware of his

Jewishness. Hugo Niehod, while unaware of his mother's Jewishness, displays an uncanny knack for things Jewish. He refuses to join the

Bundeswehr after his final year of Gvrnnasium, opting for a kibbutz in Israel as a member of the Federal Republic's reconciliation programme "Aktion

Sühnezeichen" Upon his rem, Hugo expresses his philo-Semitism in other ways. He brings home Jewish hiends and books, wears a large gold Star of

David necklace, develops an inclination for matzos and begins to attend a synagogue. The narrator suggests that these activities arouse suspicion in the

NiehouB f&yf who single out Leal Andrea as a iikely source of Jewish subversion. Doubting the sincerity of his wife's identity diange, Johannes-

Georg resolves to explain to Hugo his mother's origins. Informed of

Lea's/ Andrea's history, Hugo undergoes his own metamorphosis while simultaneously disdssing his mother as an opportunistic traitor.

Having been inadvertently exposed to anti-Semitic discourse, Hugo, ladang any other reference point for Jewish identity, bases his self- identification on a series of anti-Semitic stereotypes. In contrast to his mother's bid for invisibility, Hugo adopts the persona of an overly conspicuous Jewish caricature or, as Henog puts it, he transforms himseif into a stereotype (14). Hugo's newly adopted name Yoram means idiot and weakiing in Hebrew - a fact of which he is unaware (191). Hugo Niehod reflects a number of stereotypes about "Jewish"athletic and linguistic incompe tence, while expressing his unqualified support for Zionism:

Prompt gab er bei den somtaglichen Makkabi-FuBbaflspielen im

Stadtpark den wehleidigsten und tollpatschigsten Jeschiwe-

Bocher ab, den die Hamburger jridische Jugend aufniweisen

hatte. Er spuckte auf das Selbstbestimmungsredit der

Pal& tinenser [...]. Und auBerdem jiddelte Hugo »Yoram«

NiehouB schreckiich gem, er machte es sehr geübt und mit vie1

Tarn. (Biüer 191-92)

Of equal signihcance is the change in his career. Hugo terminates his studies

in Germanisük at the University of Hamburg and moves to Munich where

he engages in joumalism, which is a profession stereotypically iinked with

Jews.

At one point Hugo's identity change cornes to reflect the literary mode1

of the parvenu, the upstart who passes by repressing an aspect of his or her

ancestry in order to adiieve a higher socio-economic status (Soilors 258-59). tn

a reversal of convention, in which the person passing normaJly conceals their

rninority status, Hugo appears to take advantage of his Jewish ethnitity when 87 he is chosen as successor to the "German Literary Jed' Jurai Liegler, as head of the literary section of the magazine Polis. Soon after his appointment, an anonymous hate letter arrives denomcing NiehouB's promotion as a historical scandal, accusing his boss of Jewish nepotism at the expense of

Ceman Merature and chastisuig both for encouraging the type of anti-

Semitic sentiment that led to Auschwitz (195). Niehoas self-hatred leads him to buy into this belief, conceding that the accusers were not enürely incorrect (1%).

In my discussion of Irene Disdie's stories 1 have dernonstrated how she presents a relatively negative portrait of Jewishlnon-Jewish relations in the

Federal Republic. In a reversal of Disdie's narrative, in which Esther Becker reflects the fascist sympathies of her fellow Germans, it is the Jew Hugo

NiehouB, his thoughts focalized through an omniscient narrator, who actively enforces and perceives the division between Jews and non-Jewsin

Gemwny. While NiehouB basks in the sympathy and support of prominent

German journalists, he views their philo-Semitism as nothing other than a façade: "Natürlich wdte Hugo um die Lüge, die in ihrer nostalgischen

Begeisterung für ihn verborgen waf (193). For the teachers at the journalism school he becomes the "Gute-Kluge-Jüdische-Tote," the token Jew, less the embodiment of a Living presence than an object of historical fascination (194).

In the cafés of Munich, Hugo is the focal point for anti-Semites. He enjoys arguing with opponents about issues ranging from Jewish control of the New York Stock Exchange to the aggressive policies of Israel: 'Tote Araber und andere betmgene Gojim gingen ailesami auf sein Konto, der Neojude

Niehod war für sie ein groBes, stolzes Zahnrad in der Mythosmaschine

>> Jüdische Weltverschw6rung~~[... 1" (Biiier 193-94).Pursuing a dogmatic partisanship on ad matters Jewish, Hugo reluiquishes his previously more complex approach to contentious issues. In dohg so, he reduces German

Jewishness and non-Jewishness to a mode1 of binary opposition in which he actuaily enjoys provoking anti-Semi tic stereo types: "hatten die judenfressenden Hysteriker gewuBt, wieviel Vergnügen ihm ihre

Konspirationstheorien insgeheim machten, waren sie ganz um den Verstand gekommen" (194).Ironically then, Hugo's phil&emitism gives way to the

"Jew" who promotes essentialist ciifferences.

Hugo's philo-Semi tism previous to the adoption of his exaggerated

Jewish persona could lead one to beiieve that there is some validity to biological essentialism, that some latent sense of Jewishness was waiting for the opportuni ty to Myemerge (Herzog 14). Johannes Georg refleds these sentiments when he interprets his son's identity transformation as the awakening of genetic tendenaes (Herzog 14): "Es war, als habe das frisdie

Wissen um die jüdische Herkunft plotzlich seine aschkenasischen Enzyme

und Gene in Bewegung gebracht: Hugos Denken und Fühien begann sich zu

wandeln" (191). Hugo hirnseif shares these feelings as demonstrateci when he

recounts a partidar incident during his adolescence: a homosexual liaison he had with a man possessing "Aryanesque" features. During the encounter

Hugo is surprised to notice that the "SSRecken" is circumcised and contrary

to his expectations not a Jew, a fact which further demonstrates the randomness of "Jewish" identity markers in the text (Herzog 14). Looking back on the incident years later and recaüing the feeiings of inferiority he had at the time, Hugo wonders if he sensed his hidden Jewishness in his partner

(189). However, Hugo's shame as well as his earlier fondness for things

Jewish reflect a sense of @t for the Holocaust, comrnon amongst his own generation, and not any congenital diçposition for Jewishness. As Sander

Gilman daims: "al1 of these [the star of David etc. 1 are signs of intense identification that grow out of a German guüt for the Shoah" (jews in Todav's

93-16

Ln assuming the personality of a Jewish caricature - ironicdy

desmbed as a retum to his roots - "Rückkehr ni seinen Wurzeln" (192).

Hugo not only promotes stereotypes but conspires against the one person

who biologically links him to his Jewishness: his mother (Gilrnan, Jews in

Today's 96). Biller's portrait of the generational rift separating mother and son

16 tn fad, the Geman-Jewish historian Julius çchoeps describes a recent trend in Germany amongst non-Jews to pas thernselves as Jewish: "[Es] ist in Deutschland anscheinend heute donfast eine Mode geworden, sich als Jude oder Jüdin auszugeben. [...] Vergleichsweise normal ist es audi, den Kindern jiidische Nameq wie Rachel, Lea, Sara oder David zu geben. Beides kann man als Sympathiebekundungen für ehgeschundenes und verfolgtes Volk werten, vielleicht auch als geheimen Wunsch, etwas wiedergutzumachenf' (screen 2). 90 appears as unbridgeable as that between Arno and Hans Bronstein. The title of the story 'Verrat" reflects this hostility (Nolden 84). Hugo sees Lea as betraying her heritage, conceaihg her background in exchange for a cornfortable life. However, his own identity transformation could be seen as equaily iil conceived. As the narrator comments: "[Vielleicht] habe [er] mit der gleichen Leichtsinnigkeit und Chuzpe wie sie [his mother] ein neues

Gewand ubergestreift" (192).

An opporhuiity for reconciliation between mother and son cornes at

the end of the story as Hugo waiks through the streets of Munich. He catches a glimpse of someone exhibiting a familia body movement and moments later, while gazhg into a bookstore window, he is shocked by what he sees:

"im Schaufenster der Buchandlung tauchte p16tziich das Çpiegelbild einer

veriingstigten und trawigen Jüdh auf" (197). The sad anxious Jew is his

mother, and her reflection is superimposed on a display of books on the

Holocaust This scene expresses the diffïculty younger Jews have in coping

with the honific experiences of the fkst generation. As Thomas Nolden

explains: 'The mirror-image of the Jewish mother in the window of a

bookstore displaying books of the Holocaust condenses the enterprise of

contemporary German Jewish literature that cannot approach its subject

diredy" (84). This bookstore episode in "Verrat" is also strongly reminiscent

of the sequence in Bronsteins Kinder, where Hans, not having heard the

word "Neuengamme," consults a lexicon. After failing to initiate contact with 91 her son, Lea Somenson emphasizes the sense of alienation between different generations of Jews when she expresses the reaiization that Hugo would never understand the Holocaust anci her reasons for assimilatirtg after the war: "Nie wiirde er verstehen, was die Vemichtung war, er wurde in eine andere Zeit hineingeboren, und in dieser Zeit konnte man es sich leisten, ein frecher, selbs tbedter Jude zu sein [...]" (198). Lea passes as a Protestant Jew because of her mernories of another era when any overt display of

Jewishness, such as that performed by her son Hugo, would have resdted in death.

Whereas "Verrat" explores the strained relationship be tween a

Holocaust survivor and her son, "Aus Dresden ein BrieP examines the

diffidty the daughter of an infamous Nazi doctor has in coming to terms

with her father's past. Like Lea Somenson, Ida's father disguises his identity

after the war, in this case by assuming the name of one of his victims and

moving to New York City. His role reversal is so successful that his Jewish

patients are convinced that he is one of their own: "[sie hatten] ihn Hit einen

der ihren gehal ten [...]" (287). In this sense Ida's father pursues the same

survival strategy as Max Schulz, hiding in a Jewish community. Weil aware

of her father's history, Ida nevertheles does not reveai his identity and

pretends to be the daughter of Jewish emigrants. Told from the perspective of

Ida's Jewish lover, reflecting on t.past relationship, the tone of "Aus

Dresden ein Bnef" is less sarcastic than that of "Verrat." The title of the story is taken from a letter Ida wrote shortly before her death in Dresden, in which she pleads with her former boyfriend not to reveal her fathefs dark past.

"Aw Dresden ein Briefff presents a microcosrn of postwar German intergenerational and Jewish/non-Jewish relations. Ida's problema tic relationship with her Nazi father reflects the situation of many members of the 1%8 generation, several of whom portray their experiences growing up in postwar Gennany in the so-called father books wterliteratur] of the mid

1970s and 1980s.17 These authors describe harrowing physical or emotional abuse of the chiidren by their fathers or, les frequently, by their mothers, which they equate with the crimes of the Nazi Reich: "In many cases, the parents' breathtakingly barbarous Md-rearing methods were coupled in the minds of the authors with the Nazi pasr (çdilant, 85). In fact, these authors often display a greater concern with this domestic abuse than with the war crimes their parents might have committed (Schlant, Lanimage 92).

These narratives are also distinctive for their depiction of a "love-hate relationship" between the perpetrator generation and the sons or daughters, faced with the dilemma of caring for someone who may have aided directly

or indirectiy in the commission of genocide (Sdilant, Lanmage 91).

Stniggling for a means to corne to temwith their parents' past, some of

these writers attempted to trace their descent badc to a Jewish ancestor. Just as

17 Srne of these authors indude Peter Henisch, Elisabeth Plessen, Sigfned Gauch, Peter Harllùig and Brigitte Schwaiger (Schiant, Laneyae 85). their parents saw themselves as helpless pawns at the hands of an evil dictator, so too does the younger generation seek victim status by idenmg with the Jewish experience. As Emestine çchlant explains:

They establish an identity with the realization, even fantasy, that

they are partly of Jewiçh descent But this fantq has nothing to

do with an attempt to understand what it means to be (or to

have ken) a Jew in Germany; rather it instrumentalizes and

idealizes king Jewish. for altogether personal purposes. [.. .] i t

attempts to establish a bond with Jews that excises the parents as

perpetrators and allows the duidren a false relief from their

historic responsibility since they, iike the Jews, are the victirns of

the same generation of perpetrators. (Lanaas94)

The context of the father books illustrates how Ida relates to her father and

her Jewish lover.

Ida has tremendous dilficulty reconoling her father's affection for her

with his war crimes and his physicai abuse. He describes to her the horrîfic

effects of freezing experiments on rwins in the concentration camp: "Sie [the

victims] wurden fast wea, ihre blauweiBe Haut strahlte Überd, und ihre

Gesiditer erinnerten midi an die Frostblumen, die im Winter an unseren

Fenstern bliihenrf (281-82). As well, his tendency to cuff Ida on the ear leaves

her partially deaf and she lemto Ioathe his compulsive need to constantly

evaluate her physical condition On the other hand, Ida has fond mernories of 94 the way in which her father genuinely cared for her: "Er war doch immer nu in Sorge um sie gewesen, dachte sie, kein Frankenstein, kein

Mensdienschlachter, wohl eher so eine Art jüdische Mutter" (283). Ida's association of her father's love with that of a Jewish mother points to the phildkmitism which, as 1 wül demonstrate, is a means for her to simultaneously overcome her father's past and bring her doser to him. The contrast between the sadistic dodor and the loving father is Mer emphasized by the former Nazi's tendency to narrate his past to his daughter as though it were a fairy tale. As the wrator writes: "er [Ida's father] [gab] sich immer als Zauberer aus, und die Welt der Lager war bloB eh Mardienland"

(281). Whereas Hugo Niehod is ody able to comprehend the Holocaust in abstract book forrn, Ida, on the other hand, wishes her father's medicd experiments and the stories of Poland were fiction (284).

Ida adopts a Jewish identity in order to distance herseif from her father's past Upon her return to Germany, she becomes a prominent "Jewish writer," her works held to be on par with Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig and Jakob

Wassermann In taking a Jewish lover, Ida seeks someone to whom she can unburden her guiity consaence and confess her father's monstrous behaviour. As the narrator writes: "[sie]erzahlte mir &on baid alles über

Daddy und sich, sie erzahlte rnir, um genau ni sein, das gro& Geheimnis gleich m ûeginn, noch vor dmersten KuB und der ersten Umarmung"

(286). Ironically, however, Ida's desire to seek exculpation by associating with 95 a Jewish man also serves as a perverse means to bring her closer to the father she despises, a fact made expliat when she addresses her lover with 'Vaddy:"

"sie [meinte] vollig unvermittek, da@sie es noch nie mit einem beschnittenen Mann gemacht habe [...] und als wir in dieser Nacht miteinander zum ersten Mal sdiliefen, nannte sie mich Daddy [...j" (287-88).

The narrator is perceptive enough to realize that he is king used by Ida. Mter their relationship fails8Ida herseIf makes it dear that she was seeking absolution through her Jewish boyfriend: "sie sduieb, sie wisse, daB sie etwas von mir gefordert habe, was ihr keiner jemals geben k6~e[...]" (291).

That Ida is seeking to instrumentalize her Jewish lover becomes most apparent &ter she decides to reveal her true story to the rest of the world. Ida desires to expose her father's past as a form of personal exorcism and iç less concemed with seeing hirn atone for his sins: "ihr ging es dabei dein um sich selbst - und vie1 weniger dam, daB der Mann, den die Wel t seit fast einem halben Jahrhundert jagte, endlich seine Strafe bekam" (28889). The narrator in contrast wants to bring Ida's father to justice in order to punish him for his crimes (288). Shortly before a public reading of her novel, which inddentdy is about a Jewish Holocaust survivor who believes that he is

Adolf Hitler and is put in a mental hospital, Ida plans to disclose her dark secret. However, once cognîzant of the fact that the wrator intends to marry another woman, Ida feels betrayed and rehises to go ahead with her plan of disdosing the truth of her personal history (291). Unable to sever her bond with the Nazi father she both loves and hates, Ida in a final ironic twist, is murdered by neo-Nazis who believe her to be a Jew.

Not only does "Aus Dresden eh Brief" portray the difficulty perpetrator chiidren have in coming to terms with their past, it also highlights the "negative symbiosis" between second-generation non-Jewish

Gemans and Jewish Germans. The narrator attempts to love Ida: Ich habe immer versucht, Ida ni Lieben [...IN (288). However, he rem- horrifieci by her portrait of an abusive father, particularly after she desaibes her final farewell from the man. Before Ida cm walk out the door her father strikes her with an umbrela, a move which provokes her to defend herseü. As Ida leaves, she hem her father whimpering and crying like a child, an image which the narrator describes as a "bedtlose spastische Liebeserklaning"

(294). Reflecting on this incident, the narrator seems to suspect that the auel and abusive behaviour may have been internalized by the daughter, a fact

which causes him to realize that he cannot love her: "dies war er also

gewesen, der dererste Moment, in dem ich dachte, daB ich jemanden wie sie

einfach nicht lieben kann" (294). Instead, the narrator dedares his preference

for a "real" Jewish woman as demonstra ted by his reference to his lover

Ilana's "original Jewishness": "ich küûte ihren editen origînaijüdischen

Bauch, der mir schon bald mein erstes echtes origïnaijüdisdies Kind gebiiren

soute [...]" (290). Like so many of her generation, Ida attempts to overcome her

personal history by adopting a different identity. That she has not really worked through her past is dernonstratecl not only by her desire to perpehiate the concealment of her fathefs aimes, but also by her own prodivity towards unnecessary violence. Ultimately, the relationship between the narrator and

Ida is a depiction of the diffidt nature of reconciliation between survivor and perpetratot children.

The rather pessimistic condusions to "Verrat" and "Aus ûresden ein

Brief" reveals the consequences of many of the identity transformations found in the texts I discuss. Often these identity changes have negative resul ts, leading to self-destruction, the perpetuation of Jewish self-ha tred and generational confiict. SuMvors Ne Lea Somenson, the Merhands and the

Bauers often feel the need to pas or use role reversal to deny their

victimhood and Jewish heritage. This is not necessarily tme of the second generation characters, who often have fewer inhibitions about asserting their

Jewishness, although this bid for visibili ty sorne times occurs as caricature as

in the portrayal of Hugo NiehouB. It iç interesthg to contrat Hugo's

expression of self-hatred with that of Car1 Bauer since one becomes Adolf

Hitler, the other a Jewish stereotype. Similar to Arno Bronstein, Charles

Men gïves up his attempt to pass and acknowledges his victim statuç when

he avenges his parents' perçecution by raping Esther Becker.

In addition to generational conflict, these identity transfomations,

partïdarly in "Aus Dresden ein Brief," refled the strain in contemporary

Jewish / non-Jewish relations, promp ting one to speculate on possible options for Jews and non-Jews in the Federal Repubhc to achieve some form of reconciliation. In Dische's narrative, one has the impression that maintahhg a visible Jewish presence in Germany wouid be diffidt, given her dark portraya1 of a country teemïng with ex-Nazis and their descendants, who appear unwilling to adequately deal with the past konically, as a "German,"

Hugo NiehouB displays more toierance and respect for Jewishness than he does as "Yoram." In doing so he possibly demonstrates a suitable means for

CO-existingwith non-Jews in the midst of the "negative symbiosis": that of the hybrid, some amalgam of "Gerrnanness" and Jewishness. Whether a succesful Jewish hybrid identity is possible in the Germari/ Austrian diaspora remains open to question.

I have demonstrated how "Eine Jüdh für Charles Allen," "Fromme

Liigen," "Verrat and "Aus Dresden eh Brief," while sometimes exhibiting similarities with Hilsenrath's text - particularly irene Dische's texts with their extensive use of allegory and stereotypical images - do not emphasize the theme of an upside down world devoid of justice and morality. However,

Biller's "Verrat" is reminiscent of Becker's text with its focus on the genera tional confiict and its portrayai of circumcision as being not necessarily associateci with the male Jewish body. 99

3. The Austnan Jewish Identity Crisis: Doron Rabinovici's Sache nach M, and

Robert Sdiindel's Gebürtig

Wenn du du bist, weil du du bist, und ich ich bin, weil ich ich bin, dann bist du du, und ich bin ich; wenn aber du du bist, weil ich ich bin, und ich ich bin, weil du du bist, dann bist du nicht du, und ich bin nicht ich. (Rabinmici,

Suche nach M. 189)

My analysis of first and second generation Ceman narratives Iends itself to a comparison with the texts of Doron Rabinovici and Robert

Schindel, two contemporary Viemese writers. Pairing Rabinovici and

Sdiindel provides a dearer picture of the contrasting historical circums tances facing Austrian Jews and German Jews.

The texts of Doron Rabinovici and Robert çdiindel are distinctive for their use of f-ragmented characters and fractureci narratives, a technique for emphasizing the Jewish identity crisis. Sdllndel's narrative appears even more fragmented than Rabinovici's, hcorporating frequent shifts in tirne and voice. Employing diaracters Like Dani Morgenthau and Arieh Sdieinowiz who fkquently alter their identity, Rabinovia emphasizes the harrnful effects of Holocaust trauma on the children of survivors. Whereas Rabinovici expresses the Jewish identity aisis through role reversal, Schindel favours p"ng to emphasize the identity problems of Austrian Jews. %me pass by disguishg th& Jewishness, while others seek to assimilate by associating with non-Jewish Austnans and Germans. Like Hilsenrath and Disdie,

Schindel constnicts his charaders in accordance with antitiSemiticstereotypes, presening the image of blonde-haired and blue-eyed non-Jews and short, dark-haired Jews. Since çdiindel's text concentra tes heavily on the portrayal of relationships between Jews and non-Jews, one can assume his use of stereotypes is a comic device for portraying the "negative symbiosis."

Schindei's non-Jews reflect the perpetrator/victim role reversais 1 have found in other texts. One non-Jewish charader, Konrad Sachs, passes as a Liberal journalist, a means to disguise his father's Nazi past. Both Rabinovici and

Schindel ultimately emphasize tha t the key to Jewish identity does not Lie in role reversal or becoming like the "Other." Role reversal and passing are, as they often were in the Germa. texts, ulümately selfdestructive, aeating a sense of rootiessness and obliterating any continuity with a Jewish past.

Rabinovici employs a carnival aesthetic, but he avoids the signature stereotypes of Hilsenrath and Dische. Instead of using role reversai to explore essentialism, Rabinovici employs the camivaiesque to reveal the difference between "Schein" and "Sein," a means of exposing, arnong other things, the covenip of Austria's Nazi past. This function is dearly defined in the role reversai of Dani Morgenthau, the son of Holocaust survivors, who becomes the inversion of the Wandering Jew. htead of acting as the locus of blame like the rnythrcal Ahasverus, Dani reflects the guilt of various perpetrators 101 who cross his pak Rabinovia also uses Moshe Morgenthau's role reversd from Holocaust survivor to Holocaust denier to emphasize the absence of state recognition and support for those persecuted under the Nazi regime.

Sudie nach M. consists of twelve related episodes exarnining the Ples of various members of the Viennese Jewish community and theV struggie to overcome horrific mernories of Nazi persecution. Rabinovici focuses on first generation survîvors Moshe and Gitta Mqenthau and Jakov Scheinowiz, w hose descendants Dani Morgenthau and Arieh Scheinowiz grapple with their parentsf trauma. M. in the title of Rabinovids narrative is short for

Muilemann, a mysterious figure who roams the streets of Vienna exposing the guilty, including serial killers and former Nazis.

The silence and alienation that defines the dysfunctional relationship between Hans and Arno Bronstein characterizes Rabinovici's world in general. The word silence, which frequently appears throughout the narrative, alludes to the strained relations not only within Jewish families but amongst non-Jews as well. Characters like the seriai killer Helmuth

Keysser are indicative of this atmosphere of estrangement. Expressing

irritation at his office coUeaguesf habitua1 misspelhg of his name,

simultaneously with an "ai" or a "Gf" Keysser not ody reveals the distance between himself and his fellow workers but also his sense of alienation hm

his own wife: "Namen sind doch Schall und Rauch, Liebster," she reassures

him; 'miner vielleicht; Aber wir haben doch denselben, Helmuth!" (132). 102

Wal interaction between Jews and non-Jews is equally problematic. Fearhil

that she may have SU~CO~S~~OUS~~absorbed the anti-Semitism of her father,

the art critic Sina Mohn has tremendous diffidty initiahg contact with

Jews. The narrator expresses her lack of codidence prior to a conversation

with fieh Scheinowiz's wife Navah Bein: "Im Gesprach mit Juden wahlte

sie jedes Wort mit Bedacht, unterdrückte sie manch eines, schluckte

hinunter, was ihr adder Zunge lag [... 1. Solch ein Treffen war ein

Rendezvous auf dem Minenfeld" (206). Alarmed by and embarrassed about

their country's Nazi past, many non-Jews like Sina Mohn find dialogue with

Jews awkward. Choosing every word carefdiy, they are understandab@

terrified of giving offense.

Wde working for the Mossad, Arieh Scheinowiz purchases a

"Flummi bd" for the daughter of what is presumably a Palesthian terrorist

in the hopes of establishing contact and obtaining information from her. The

toy reverses appearances to reveal art alternative reality: "Die ganze Welt

steht Kopf,"Arieh tells the chiid as he gazes into the bail (152). This "Hummi

bd," an emblem of innocence which aids in the potential commission of a

contract killing, encapsulates the irony inherent in Rabinovici's narrative

strategy.

One of the Fundions of irony in Rabhovia's text is tû uncover the

Merence between appearance and reality. In partidar, Dani Morgenthau, in

the guise of Mullemann, displays supemahual powers of revelation, a result of the repressive nature of his upbringing. Moshe Morgenthau rarely disdoses any detail of his homfic wKtune suffering: "Die Vergangenheit des

Vaters lag irn ûunkel seines Schweigens" (29). The absence of responsive parents and the tenuous comection with Jewish tradition, which is limited to attending synagogue on reiigious holidays, creates a void in Dani and he struggles to discover who he redy is. While his classrnates and their parents forget their country's uncomfortable hiçtory, Dani is unable to do so in a house haunted by the ghosts of the past. He perceives and absorbs the survivor guilt of his parents, a sense of self-reproach for living while so many othen died: "AU ihre GeHihle der Schuld - er sog sie ad" (83). This burden of giult leads Dani to develop a peculiar complex which compels him to assume responsibility for every infraction he witnesses. As a child Dani accepts culpability for the pranks of his friends, although he himseif never directly partiapates in their activities. "Ich war's. Ich bin schuld. Ich hab's getan" (33), becomes his catch-phrase, one which he later employs as Mdemann. Dani's ability to interpret non-verbal signals, a consequence of his upb~gingin a home where there was Little verbal communication. enables him to foreteil his friends' misduek "er sah im Schatted wortloser Auslassungen ihre

Plane, denn Schweigen war Teil der mündlichen Überlieferung seiner

Familie" (34-35). Eventudy a mysterious rash accornpanies the use of these perceptive abilities and, as the rash consumes his entire body, Dani wraps himself in bandages. These dressings - the signature of his Mullemann 104 persona - have a twofold connotation, implying both sickness and healing.

As Meh Scheinowiz remarks: "Sie suid die Bekemlnisse aller

Verletzungen, die Offenlegung von Versagen und Makel, doch ebenfalls der

Genesung" (216). With respect to Austria they allude to the silence and coverup which envelops the country's past but alço point to the cure: confession and atonement. They ais0 represent the ability to conceal and reveal - if they are stnpped away, both functions indicative of Mrillemann's capacity to uncover that which is kept secret while he himself rem& disguised.ie

Similar to Hilçenrath, Rabinovia parodies Christian symbols and images, as weli as the myth of the Wandering Jew, Ahasverus, who allegedly insdted Jesus on his way to the cross, a transgression which condemned him

to roam the earth until the second coming of Christ. Muilemann's

rootlessness and his resemblance to the artist Otto Toot's self-portrait, entitled

"Ahasver," irnply Dani's kinship with the Wande~gJew. Through the ages

the story of Ahasverus has corne to syrnbolize the etemal damnation and gdt of Jews in the eyes of many Chtistians. Leon Fischer is referring to this

traditional positioning of Jews as the scapegoats of history, when he makes

the following statement about Mullemann: "Wer immer er kt, die anderen

18 Mdemann's revelatory powers remùid one to some extent of Bonaventura's Rornantic classic Nachtwachen (18042 which is notable for its extensive w of irony to unmask and criticize and its pro tagonist, Kreuzgang who becomes the shadowy "Nachtwachter." werden aus ihm einen Juden machen. Merk dir, der Schuldige ist immer der

Jude" (187). Lnstead of functionllig as the locus of blame, Rabinovici's

Wandering Jew, Mullemann, like TooYs portrait in the novel, ha:; the power to minor gdt. As Sha Mohn explains, while regarding the artist's work:

"Das Bild rührt an das eigene Gewissen, an aile Schuld und Scham, die ad uns lasten, denen wir uns stellen müssen, an alI das Verleugnete, das wir verschweigen und umlügen" (202-03). Indeed, as a killer threatens to stab the defenceless Toot, a glimpse of the painting becomes his downfall as he withers under the reflection of his own guilt.

As the inversion of the rnythical Wandering ~ew,Mullemam assumes the psychological identity of various perpetrators, prodaiming his responsibility for their misdeeds while simultaneously revealing their guilt.

At one point a police detective investigating a horniade dismisses the polite affectations of a Bulgarian assassin with the following insight: "Die Herren mit den ausgewahltes ten Manieren [...] sind die gr6iSten Verbrecher, merken

Sie sich das!" (180). This remark certainly applies to the aforementioned respected family man Helmuth Keysser, whose deHilde and daughter Petra are oblivious to his murderous tendencies. As Mullemann publicly dedares his culpability for each of the killings, he causes Keysser to become flustered and careless enough to expose hk Ntto the psychoanaiyst Caro Sandner.

This encounter between Keysser and Sandner merernphasizes the carnival ahnosphere of Rabinovici's narrative. Sandner suffers from a psychological blockage which prevents her £rom effectively relating to her patients, as reflected in her compulsive misspelling of their names. Similar to one of her patients she suifers from the delusion of king pursued, a fact that becornes most apparent when someone chooses her as their therapist: "in der

Einsamkeit mit einer Person, die Caro Sandner aufgesucht hatte, versagte sie

nicht se!tent' (120). Ironicdy, she transforms herself into the therapist she

would like to be when she meets the man with murderous urges pmuing

her on the street, Helmuth Keysser. She remains calm, spells his name

correctîy and manages to communicate with him.

hhdlemann's exposure of the darker side of Austrian society extends to

revela tions conceming the country's problems with racism and in coming to

terms wi th its National Socialist past In spite of the success of the Freedom

Party, Austria has recently made tremendous strides in acknowledging its

historical responsibüity, induding arrangements for compensating victims and returning confïscated Jewish property . These conciliatory gestures are

largely absent from Rabinovici's narrative: "Niemand ha t te hier die

Vertriebenen zurückgerufen," writes the narrator, ''keine Partei für eine

Entschadigung der Beraubten, keine Regierung für die Verurteilung der

Morder gefoditen" (84). However, Mullemann's public crusade to expose the

past and promote national healing offers some hope for recondiation

between Jews and non-Jews. He admonishes non-Jewish Austrians to end the

deniai of th& histoj during a public address in Vienna: "Genug mit dem 107

Lügen und Leugnen dieses Landes. Wui3 mit dem Schweigen. Wir müssen

Zeugnis ablegen, müssen künden: Ich war's. Ich bin's gewesen. Ich hab's getan" (252). h order to end the silence, Mullemann brings about the downfall of ex-Nazis like the double agent Rudi Kreuz, who merdessly exposed opponents of the Third Reich and retains stolen Jewish property without the slightest twinge of consaence. As well, Mdemann reveals the war crimes of rninisterial adviser Anton Weilisch, who perpetrated atrocities in the LTkraine duruig the Second World War. Homfic descriptions of babies' heads king srnashed, of corpses piled high, and of women being raped spew

from the mouth of Mullemann, as he encounters the un-repentant Weilisch

(236). Such revelations soon make Dani an enemy of those old enough to

rernernber or who have perpetrated such crimes.

Participating as a juror in a murder trial, Dani's unique perceptive

ability betrays the raâst sentiment present in Rabinovici's portrayal of the

Austrian judiaal process. Yiimaz Akan is accused of an honour kihg, a

supposed act of revenge for the molestation of his wife by a bar owner. The

judge, although unfamiliar with Turkîsh custorns, insists that he is not

prejudiced, despite flippantly dismissing the hial as king nothing other than

a Turkish matter (70). As weii, the Christian oath swom by the jury and the

large cross hanging behind the judge indicate a parochial atmosphere

exclusive of minorities. The judge's behaviour with respect to Dani, towards

whom he presents a fapde of tolerance, is particularly enlightening: "[Er] 108 wollte Morgenthau gegenüber besonders einHihlsam erscheinen, zwinlcerte ihrn gar ni, dem der Fdschien anstrengend genug"(69-70). %on, however, the judge lets down his guard and reveals his anti-Semitism, cracking a

Jewish joke that incorporates stereotypical hand gestures and linguistic clidi&s,exposing his disingenuousness in the process: "Er jiddelte in

Synkopen, feixte, verschraubte den Kopf, rang und rieb die Hiinde, seifte ein und schlug Schaum, bis de, auBer Dani Morgenthau, lachten" (72). The judge reflects the speafic rhythm of speech, intonation and extensive hand motions that supposedly dis tinguish Jewish discourse. He further insul ts the language ability of the accused, asking if he requires a translater in spite of the man's perfect high German: "Sein Deutsch war ohne Fehler"(73). Ironically, some of those acting on behalf of the judicial system, such as the woman involved in the interrogation of Yilmaz's wife Gülgün, do not display the same linguistic prowess. Dani is ovejoyed to hear the policewoman's faulty

German: "Dani freute sich, da so ein Fehler nicht Yilmaz, sondern einer bodenstandigen Beamtin unterlief" (81). The policewoman also reveals her own prejudices with her presumptuous pronouncements concerning the probable ignorance of Gülgün with respect to the bar ownefs slaying: "die

Gattin des Angeklagten habe sicheriich nichts von dem Mordplan gewdt, solche Frauen wiirden in die Angelegenheiten der Mhner nicht eingeweiht"

(82). This is ironic since Giilgün is the murderer, a fact Dani perceives by way of his peculiar inhiition which allows hîxn not only to access the thoughts of 109 the accused but those of the perpetrator as well. Dani, however, remains powerless in the face of a discriminatory judiaal system, an uninterested defence tearn and the aversion of witnesses to becoming involved in a

"Turkish matter," to prevent the conviction of Yilmaz.

Dani's father Moshe Morgenthau appears to reverse role and become a

Holocaust denier in order to emphasize the Austrian govermnenfs refusal to acknowledge his persecution during the war. Whereas Arno Bronstein refuses to accept any state-sanctioned recognition of his victimhood, Moshe sees all of his efforts.to receive offiaal acknowledgement of his suffe~g, finanaal compensation being of secondary importance, circumvented through misidormation, denial or delay. Gitta Morgenthau, responding to this treatment of her husband and other Holocaust suvivors, casts iight on who the tnte swindlers are: "Die [the govemment] meinen doch immer noch, ein Jude will nichts als Geld. Aber glauben Sie mir, kein Jude kann so put handeln wie die" (244). Moshe suffers severe physicai and psychologicai impairment as a result of having had to remain immobile and dent for long periods of time in close confinement to evade the Nazis: "tagelang reglw dichtgedriingt, an andere Korper geschnùegt, liegen, sitzen [...]" (28). This torture resuits in a severe spinal deformity, daustrophobia and a speech impediment, brought on by his mernories and aggravateci by official la& of recognition of his suffering. His wife Gitta explains the nature of his linpuistic defect "JedeBehauptung krümmt er zur Frage, jede Frage glattet er zur Fests tehg!" (241-42). In addition, a rhythmic Mection, s tereotypicdy assigned to Jewish intonation, characterizes his discourse: "Auch die Sprache des Vaters anderte sich, seine Stimme zerfaserte, verblidi mit seinen

Emartungen und bog in einen Singsong abf der von manchen als jiddisch dgedeutet wurde, doch in Wahrheit dem Zweifel an der eigenen Existenz entsprang" (38). At times his broken speech has comical resdts as in the case where he dispatches a letter to a business supplier with the foilowing comment: "Sie verlangen fÜr 1 Tome 6,7?" (38). The recipient misinterprets the statement as questioning the validity of the price and subsequently lowers it. Moshe's iinguistic idiosyncrasies, however, also give the suMvor the appearance of king a Holocaust denier: "Aber Gaskammer hat es keine gegeben. Es wurden keine Juden umgebracht," he prodaims (240). These statements, which are of course inverteci "questions," arise not from doubt on the part of Moshe as to what he has persondy experienced but rather are an expression of his bewilderment over the state's steadfast rehrsal to

aduiowledge his dering.

The aura of silence that characterizes Moshe Morgenthau's household

applies to Jakov Scheinowiz's family as well. Jakov Scheinowiz's identity

transformations and impersonations, while enabhg his survival bo th

during and after the war, also ensure the conceaiment of his past Of the years

he spent trying to evade the Nazi machinery of death Scheinowiz says: "Mein

ganzes überleben war eine VemrechsIung" (101). He avoided the gas 111 chambers because of his resemblance to a publisher named Adam Knizki whose services were required by the SS. Hiç masquerade is so successful that

Tonja Kruzki mistakes him for her husband when the war is over. Later,

Jakov's demands for the restitution of his wife's art works, which the vengeful Rudi Kreuz con€iscated during the war, prompt him to change his name to Jakob Fandler to avoid any possible rehibution for his actions. These identity changes have an adverse effect on his son Arieh Scheinowiz since each time Jakov changes his name he deletes an aspect of his previous existence. As Jakob Fandler he severs his contact with the Jewish community of Viema and refuses to reveal the past to his son Arieh: "Der Vater bewahrte das Dunkel seiner Vergangenheit, hellte die Schatten, in denen er

Arieh erzog, nicht auf" (49). Arieh also grows up with the feelings of survivor guilt that burden Dani Morgenthau.

Being raised in a repressive home hmishes Arieh Scheinowiz with the capaaty to assume the physical characteristics of various offenders who cross his path. In school Arieh stalks a boy with a speech impediment who broke his caldator and during the course of his pursuit notes that he develops the same linguistic defect. As an adolescent he uncovers his gi'lfriend's disloyalty by transforming hirnself into her secret lover: "Der

Zwang, einen bestimmten Duft ni kaden, die Frisur zu adem und die

Kleidung, war unbeziihmbar, bis er erkannte, daB er Aqas Tanzpartner nachahmte, mit dem sie den Schulball eroffnet hatte" (52-53). Arieh's most extreme role reversal occurs after he resolves to avenge the neo-Nazi

Wemherr Herwig's viaous assault on a black man in a bar. h order to ha&

Herwig, Arieh assumes the name Volker and outfits himseif in the manner of his target by having his hair shorn, donning boots, leather gloves and jacket, and reading racist fiterature, prompting his father to pose a question which might well describe the nature of his own existence: "Suchst du didi in anderen?" (56) Indeed, Arieh becomes the violent "Other" since he inadvertently causes Herwig's death in a botched attempt to Mehim for a jewellery store robbery. Later, while tracking a Palestinian for the Israeli government, Arieh further displays his tendency for role reversal as he undergoes a series of physical alterations - his beard thidcens and his skin darkens - to the point where the man's wife actuaily mistakes him for her

husband.

Although Edgar Hilsenrath presents a relatively positive portrait of

Israel, praising the country's achievements, induding its agridtural reforms,

he does offer some critiasm of the Haganah's ruthless tactics. Likewise, Doron

Rabinovici expresses his disdain for the brutality perpetrated on behalf of the

Israeli govermnent. Following Henvig's murder, kieh flees to Israel where

he becomes bound to a violent existence after the Mossad, the Israeli secret

police, extort his unique talents by threatening disdosure of hk crime. Like

Hilsenrath, Rabinovia rehws to equate Israel with Nazi Germany but he

does portray the Mossad as an organization whose reptation for harçhness recalls the brutality of the SS: "Sie war zum Markenzeichen für Harte und

Unnachgiebigkeit geworden" (148).

In becoming a "bloodhound for the Mossad, for whom he traces the enemies of Zionism and prepares the way for their execution, Arieh reflects the identity crisis of his father. Like Jakov Scheinowiz, Arieh conceals his true self behind a series of pseudonymns, including his wife's name Bein, ail the while deceiving himself into thinking that he has moved beyond his father's endless masquerades: "Nun hi& er Arieh Arthur Bein, meinte, die Farce w&e damit überwunden, und merkte nicht, daB er mit dieser Entscheidung der Verwechslungskomodie des Vaters die Krone aufçetzte" (140). The narrator emphasizes this common bond between father and son - their tendency for role change and role reversal - in a shared dream sequence indicative of their identity crises. Two key events help to expedite this strange vision: for Jakov it is the alamillig revelation that his mother Lea had survived the war but had been unable to locate him because of his name change from Scheinowiz to Fandler, while for Arieh it is the apprehension he feels about a contract killing in Italy. Both men experience the illusion of sitting in a café where a loudspeaker announces narnes and where those who respond proceed to a telephone cabinet whidi they subsequently leave, paying

the waiter a sum of money on their way out The randomness of responses becomes clear in the drearn whm two men respond to the same name. When

Arieh or Jakov react, a voice on a telephone instructs them to pick up 114 documents and a resumé, their new identity, and to pay the waiter eight and a

W thousand, the CuTTency mpecified. Both father and son awake deeply startled by this nightmare insisting they are not the perçons whose identity they assume in the vision.

As the dream sequence rnight indicate, role reversai in Rabinovici's narrative is ultimately self-destructive. Arieh's wife condemns her husband's charneleon-like existence: "Du kaMst dich nicht in anderen finden, Arieh.

[...] Du bist wie Jakov Scheinowiz, dein Vater, als lebtest du irn Untergrund, verstecktest dich vor der Vernichtung. Auf ewiger Fludit. Unter falschem

Namen" (153). Leon Fischer also notes this sense of self-alienation, drawing a parallel between Arieh and Dani Morgenthau: "Mullemann ist dir nicht unahnlich [...]," he says, "wie dieser Mullemann glaubst du, du komtest dich in anderen finden" (167). This realization causes Arieh to replicate his dream sequence in a letter he contemplates sending to Dani Morgenthau advising him to relinquish hiç Mullemann persona: "Es ist, als sal3est Du in einem

Café unserer Geburtsstadt. Du wahlst Dir Identitiiten aus dem Menu" (260).

He tells Dani that fear has comipted his sense of self - "Du fürchtest nur eines: Dich, Dei.Sein, Dani Morgenthau" (260) - and promises to end the theatrical charades that have characterized his own life: "Ich werde die

Maskeraden und die Tamung hinter mir lassen" (259).

Marty of the narratives I discuss in this thesis probe the dilemma of reconciüng Jewishness and Germanness/Austrianness.Rabinovia does not 115 necessarily supply an altema tive survival strategy for living in the Austrian diaspora, but he does emphasize the importance of maintainhg a link with one's Jewish heritage. Having relinquished his need to discover himseif in others, Arieh rneets with Leon Fischer who offers a partial solution to his identity crisis. He adviçes Arieh to follow hun to Cracow to seek out his true

Polish origins to avoid becoming a lost soul like Mullemann. "Der einzige

Weg aus der Vergangenheit in die eigene Zukunlt führt über die

Erinnerung," says Fixher to Arieh (188). Whether this advice is helphd to

Arieh remains uncertain. However, having realized the nature of their identity crises, Rabinovici's Jews cmat least move towards developing strategies for coping with their trauma.

Like Rabinovia, Robert Schindel provides little in the way of a solution for resolving the Jewish identity crisis. Instead, his text Gebürtig depicts a plethora of survival tactics for living in what Schindel has termed the world capital of anti-Semitism (208) - Vienna. He traces an may of personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews like that between Danny

Demant and Christiane Kaiteisen or that between Emanuel Katz and Kathe

Richter. hother subplot revolves around the Gennan Konrad Sachs, the son of an infamous Nazi war criminal in Poland, and his attempts to corne to

terms with his father's past. The title of çdiindei's text aiiudes to the protagonist of Emanuel Katz's novel, the renowned playwright Herrmann

Gebirtig, a kt generation victim of Nazi persecution Gebirtig reluctantiy retums to Vienna from his adopted New York home to testify in the war crimes triai of a former gwrd at "Ebensee" concentration camp.

Sdiindel's text is particuiarly notable for its self-reflexivity . Like

Rabinovici, he employs fragmentation to ernphasize the Jewish identity crisis.

His narrative oscillates between several levels of discourse, induding one detailing the "fictional" account of Hemann Gebirtig's retum to Viema, and another focussing on the iives of, amongst others, Danny Demant and

Konrad Sadis. These stories are occasionally interrupted with flashbacks, sometirnes with no prior indication of the time shift In one scene, for example, Herrmann Gebirtig briefly revisits a Viemese tobacconist as a teenager and in another analeptic episode Danny's uncle Joçef suddenly appears in Theresienstadt. As narrator, Danny Demant occasionally assumes the identity of his "hyin brothef alter ego, Sascha Graffita, altemately known as Alexander Demant, to reflect on events and relationships in the text.

Frequently narration switches from third to ktperson, embracing not only the perspective of Danny Demant but that of others Like Herrmann Geburig and Konrad Sachs as weil. Self-reflexive narration also occurs in the form of diary entry and epistolary sequences, mat notably Konrad Sachs's letters detailing his attempt to corne to terms with his father's past. The split nature of Danny's personality characterizes that of other Jews struggling to estabiish an identity, including Ma& Singer who daims "to exists in pieces" (15).

These fractureci identities are referred to in the ktchapter title "Doppelliiumer," a play on the axiomatic lamb motif often used in association with Jewish victimhood. Similar to Hilsenrath and Dische,

Schindel employs stereotypical charactem. Jews like Emanuel Katz and Paul

Hirschfeld possess the signature feahws of curly hair and large noses, whereas non-Jews Ne Kathe Richter and Erich Stiglitz are stereotypically blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

Like Rabinovia, Schindel portrays Austria as a country that has yet to corne to terms with its pst. Schindel conveys this fact in two ways: ktly, through Emanuel Katz's fictional narrative of Herrmann Gebirtig and, secondly, through the attempt on the part of perpetrators and their descendants to daim victim status. Herrmann Gebirtig is a successful New

York playwright, who vows never to set fmt again in his native Austria after his parents were murdered in Auschwitz and he is forced to slave in the mineshafts of Ebensee concentration camp. His attitude soon changes, however, foilowing an encounter with the daughter of a former Ebensee inmate named Susanne Ressel. She petsuades him to retum to Viema and tes* against a war criminal, the infamous "skd crackex-" Oberscharführer

Anton Egger. Once back in his native land, Gebirtig's feelings of bittemess for his place of birth tum to nostalgia for his youth. He reenters Viemese Me and is surprised at his sudden desire to speak German, an urge that seems at odds with his contempt for his native land and its language. As he reflects on the positive changes and warm reception he receives ftom aty offiaals, 118

Gebirtig reconsiders his attitude towards his native Vienna and the country he once dismisseci as "Naziland" (170). Despite the Nazi hunter David

Lebensart's wamings that Vienna rem- the same old Vienna (319),

Gebirtig thuiks the trial has Wyenabled his emotional release from

Ebensee and that he could spend the rest of his life in the Qty: "Wien hier ist doch ein netter Platz um ni sterben" (319), he declares after only a week ui his hometown and subsequently begins searching for an apartment. However, the skdcracker's acquittai shocks Gebirtig and confirms LebenMs clairn that the city has not changeci, a fact which causes the playwright to retm to

Arnerica.

Gebirtig's childhood neighbour, the former SA man Heiruich

Hofstatter, mirrors the attempt of perpetrators like Arnold Heppner in

Bronsteins Kinder to deny responsibiiity for the past and seek victim status dong with Holocaus t survivors. Hofstiitter defends his confiscation of the Jew

Rosenstraudi's apartment with the justification that the man had emigrated to England, a rationaikation which overlooks the persecution which forced hirn into exile: "Der kt doch ordnungsgemaB nach England ausgewandert

[...]," he tells Gebirtig (306). Hofstatter denies the animosity he once showed

Hermann's father, portraying his support for Hitler's racist cause as an abstract degiance with no bearing on his personal relationships with Jews:

Hofstattec Du wdt, da@ich ihn gemocht hab, den Papa. [...]

Gebirtig: Pd3 auf, du. Ich hab andere Erinnerungen. 119

Hofstatter: Sicher. Ich war ja damals fTu den Adolf. Aber das war

nidit gegen euch persOnlich. (307)

The former SA man attempts to become a victim by shifting the burden of responsibility for his past behaviour to the Nazi leadership and in the process identifying with Gebirtig, as though both men were helpless pawns at the hands of an elite group: "Ach, ich sag dir, Herrmann," Hofstatter tells his former neighbour, "Die oben machen immer, was sie wollen. Unsereiner hat ailes ausnil6ffeln"(306). Further, Hofstiitter expands at great length on his own suffering during the Third Reich: "Wei& du, wir waren doch damais radilcal, verbittert. Hunger, Kalte [...]. Den meisten kt es wirklich mies gegangen.[ ...] Auch bei mir, ich geb's m. No, was hat's mir bitte eingebracht?

Ostfront. Verwundet bei Kursk. Fiid Jahre Kriegsgefangenschaft, kein

Honigledcenf' (306). Realizing that Hemnann had been forced to perform slave labour - "Dich haben sie im kgwerk arbeiten lassen?" (306) - he affects an attitude of camaraderie as if they had both endured equally harsh conditions. As Sigrid Schmid daims:

Vemdung Knegsgefangenshcaft [sic] werden aufgerechnet

gegen planmaBige Verfolgung und Vernichtung, gegen

"arbeiten lassen im Bergwerk," ni dem das Konzentrationslager

verniedlicht wird, wobei die Formuliemg "arbeiten lassen" auf

dem Hintergrund der vorher mgesprochenen Arbeitslosigkeit

noch einen besonders psitiven touch [sic] erhalt (10-1 1) Thus Hofstatter, in portraying his own suffering, goes as far as hinting that slave labour in a concentration camp had some positive aspects in light of prewar unemployment.

Hofstatter's mle reversal is similar to that of Konrad Sachs's childhood friend Hermann Eggenberger. Both Sachs and Eggenberger are the ctiildren of high-ranking Nazis, with Sachs's father having been the infamous head of the Generalrrouvernment in Poland during World War Two.19 Eggenberger stiil expresses National Çoaalist sympathies, denying the existence of the gas chamben and portraying the German army on the Russian Front as victims.

In this sense he brushes over the Nazis' deliberate policy of rounding up and exterminating the Jews, and instead portrays hem, iîke the German soldiers, as casualties of the war in the East: "Der Kampf im Osten war kein

Honiglekken [sic]," he teils Sachs, "Ausgerechnet die Juden hatten wir verschonen sollen, wo wir uns selbst nidit geschont haben?" (54). Sadis, however, opposes such attempts to blur the line of distinction between vich and perpetrator, a phenomenon many Jews feel characterizes the postwar process of "normalization" in Germany: "Die Deutschen sind dodi schon wieder so frech und grdrniiulig, reden des weg, hm so, als w&e Auschwitz nidits anderes als Dresden oder Hiroshima," he tells Demant (127). Similar to

Esther Becker in Irene Dischefs "Eine Jüdin Für Charles Allen" and Ida in

W5i.s story is loosely based on the real life case of Hans Frank and his son Niklas (Freeman 119). 121

Maxim Billefs "Aus Dresden ehBrief," Sachs deals with his homile legacy by becoming the antithesis of his father after the war, pursuing a career as a liberal journaüst and smunding himself with leftist friends. In contrast to

Disdie's and BiUer's protagonists, however, Sachs displays a genuine desire to overcome his guilty feelings and initiate some sort of reconaliation with

Jews.20

Even second generation non-Jewish Austrians in the novel are envious of the Jews' victim statu. Erich Stiglitz, who was bom in

Mauthausen, feels Like a stranger in Viema, exduded from the sophisticated

Meshe associates with the city's Jews:

Es kommt ihm [Stiglitz]in der Tat andrerseits iacherlich vor,

sich nach zehn Jahren Wien noch immer als mühlviertier

Aufsteiger zu Men [...]. Man modite dodi annehmen, dall

gerade die Juden einen Sinn f3.r Diskriminierung entwickelt

haben, aber statt sich mit ihm zu verbinden [...] piustern sie sich

zum Inbegriff urbaner Intelligenz ad. (13)

Ironically, Stiglitz, the son of an antitiSemite,cornes to see himseE as a victim of Jewish discrimination. In pursuing a relationship Mth the Jew Mascha

Singer, Stiglitz not only attempts to overcome his provinaai roots but also seeks to shake off his burden of gdtfor the past. For this reason he

20 The fact that Sachs's father is long dead is certainly an advantage to conftonting the past whkh someone like Ida does not have. Revealing her identity would mean hirning in her father to the authorïties for prosecution. deliberately provokes her by denying the historical significance of

Mauthausen, site of a concentration camp during the war "Mauthausen ist eine sch6ne Gegend" and the former camp a "Superspielplatz" for children he tells her (IO). Minimizing the signihcance of Mauthausen, Stigiitz expresses his feelings of "Opferneid whereby "he sees himself as a victim of the favouritism accorded the Jews" (Freeman 120). Stiglitz's attitude prompts

Singer to make the bllowing comment emphasizing this role reversal: "Die

Vater haben die Unsem in die Ofen geschoben, die Mütter haben den

Rosenkranz gebetet, und die Sohne woilen uns grdzugig eingemeinden, setzen sich darüber hinweg, wollen unbefangen selber die Opfer sein" (15).

Like Stiglitz, Danny Demant's non-Jewish lover Chris tiane Ka1 teisen minimizes the enormity of Nazi atroaties when she compares the crimes of a local serial killer with those of Adolf Eichmann (263). This analogy, which

Demant diaraderizes as "barder Opferneid" (263), temporarily terminates his association wi th her (Freeman 120).

While Eggenberger, Stiglitz and others engage in role reversai,

Schindel's Jewish charaders come to tenns with their ethnic heritage in a

variety of different ways. Hama Lowenstein and Masdia Singer, for example,

display an overt consciousness of their Jewishness with Mascha aiticizing

fellow Jews Like Danny Demant for hiding their ethnicity. As he points out:

"SdieBlich wirft sie mir vor, daB ich sein mochte, wie aile andern, meine

Jüdischkeit verstecke und so fort" (337). Interestingly, in contrast to Hugo 123

Niehoul3 in BiUer's "Verrat," Mascha has a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. Her decision to pas in accordance with her paternal mots contradicts

Jewish hereditary law .

Many Jewish figures in Schindel's text reflect the self-hatred of their tum of the century forebears by repeating anti-Jewish stereotypes and denying aspects of their heritage (Freeman 117-18). The following dialogue between

Emanuel Katz and Hanna Lowenstein illustrates this point: Emanuel Katz:

"Du redest, ais Hihltest du dich wie eine Schmuddeljüdin;"2~Hanna

Lowenstein: "Ich bin eine Sdunuddeljüdin und du ehSdunuddeljude" (29).

ûuring the course of his participation in the Holocaust film project, Danny

Demant reveals the sharne he associates with his past when he tries to hide the Jewish star on his costume kom a hotel maid (Kemmayer 181). Danny's

£riend, the poet Paul Hirschfeld, makes a consaous effort to avoid recognizing the impact of National Sotialist genocide on contemporary Jewish / non-

Jewish relations, an attitude which provokes Demant to comment cynically:

"Glücklich, dem die Geschichte ein ScheiBhaufen ist" (264). While other charaders reflect on the constancy of anti-Semitic attitudes in Vienna since the end of the war, Hirschfeid chooses to dismiss such fears as Jewish paranoia (265). He regards anti-Semitism as a Jewish invention, believing in

the primacy of his affiliation with the human community at large over his

Jewishness: "'Jud ist Jud,' sagte Hanna [Ulwenstein]. 'SO ein Unsinn,' argerte

-- -- " Roughly equivalent to "duty Jew" in English. 124 sich Hirschfe1d. Vas kt unsere selbstgebaute Verrücktheit. In erster Linie bin ich eh Mensdi [...jO"(142). Ironically, HirscMeld's attempts to assimilate and deny the si@cance of his Jewishness stand in marked contrast to the pet's literary efforts, a fact that does not pas unnoticed by Danny Demant

(Freernan 118):

Demant: Dein Verhaltnis zur Sprache hat was Jüdisches.[ ... 1

Hirschfeld: Was heiBt, hat was Jüdixhes? Ich schreibe ein

tadelloses Deutsch.

Demant: Schon damit unterscheidest du dich von den

Deutschen. h Untershied ni denen mdt du es beweisen. (275)

The theatre director Peter Adel makes the most strenuous efforts of ail to hide

his Jewish heritage. As the son of Holocaust survivors he resolves in a

manner similar to his friend Konrad Sachs to conceal any hint of his family's

history :

Auch Peter Adel hatte ein Geheirnnis. Niemand &te, daB er

Jude war, ader Hitler und dessen Helferiingen [...] Er mte

sich durchaus nidit als Jude, er stellte irn Cegenteil in sich die

verlorene Wiirde seines Vaters wieder her, denn da sein Vater

als Jude das Land verlassen hatte, beschioB er, es als Deutscher

wieder zu betreten, und dabei blieb es. Doch komte er sich

schwer verhehlen, daB etwas Dunkles in ihm standig prasent

blieb. (71) Adel decides to reverse the humiliation suffered by his parents, who incidentally had converted to Protestantism before the war, by rehirning as a

"normal" German. Nevertheless, he has diffidty repressing his Jewishneçs, and only manages to preserve his sanity by staging outrageous theatrical productions or ones reminiscent of his ethnic heritage such as Peter Weiss's

Die Vermittlung, a dramatic portrayal of the Auschwitz trial. At the end of the novel, Adel foilows the example of Sachs and reveals his secret to the world. As Sachs relates it: "[Er habe] dreiBig Jahre vor der Welt verschwiegen, aber durdi mein Coming out kame es ihm jetzt auch nicht mehr darauf an"

(335)

The need to assimilate is often the motivation for Jews to associate with non-Jews. As Thomas Freernan writes: "A number of characters move towards assimilation by entering into relationships with non-Jews who tend to be stereo typically 'Germanid - tall, blond, blue-eyed [.. -1'' (117). Nowhere is the attempt to assimilate by choosing a non-Jewish sexual partner more apparent than with the figure of Emanuel Katz. This effort contradicts Katz's masochistic need to dedare his Jewishness at every opportunity, as demonstrated during his vimt with Konrad Sachs and other Gerrnans on the

North Sea island of Borkum: "Ernanuel Katz spürte einen aberwitzigen

GenuB, hier auf der Nordseeinsel gegenüber diesen fünf Deutschen sich den

Judenstemanniheften [...]" (114). In spite of his need to express his

Jewishness, however, Katz covets the prototypical German woman, the ta11 126 blonde "Aryan" like his girlfriend Kathe Richter, the daughter of a former SS man: ''Je deutscher desto Lieber" is his motto (27). Katz's preference for his opposite, he himself is short and round (27), leads Hanna Lowenstein to accuse him of wanting to assimilate through dating, a charge he adamantly denies: 4'Katz stellte in Abrede, daf3 er sich mit solchen Frauen sebt blondieren wolie" (29). For her part Kathe is drawn to Katz because of his

Jewish nose. When she mentions that some special Jewish feahue attraded her to him, Katz UUnks of his cllcumcised penis (137), whidi as I have demonstrated in previous chapters is often the focus of Jewish identity for male authors. Katz's attempt to integrate through choice of sexud partner cornes to an abrupt end, however, when he meets Kathe Richtefs "blond monster" brothers Hans and Hoiger. They treat Katz as if he were simultaneousl y invisible and visible, excluding hun from conversation while casting occasional contemptuous glances in his direction: "Die Brüder taten jedenfails so, als sei er kaum vorhanden der schon immer da gewesen"

(134).Once aware that Katz is a banker, the two brothers reveal their anti-

Sernitism, provoking him with comments about Jewish control of financial institutions (135). Rejected by Kathe for starting an argument with her brothers, Katz leaves in disguçt and as he travels badc home from Hamburg, he has a dream which dudes to his attempt to pas: "Im Nachhug traumte er prompt von Hardy Krüger und Robert Redford, die sich mit schwarzer

Schuhpasta anschmierten, damit sie ihn bei der Besichtigung von Harlem 127 besser schützen konntentf (138). Like the protagonist of his novel, Hermann

Gebir tig, Emanuel Katz ul timately sees his a ttemp t at assimilation fail.

The experiences of Jews like Katz leave one with a pessimistic impression of Austnan Jewish/ non-Jewish relations. Indeed, Schindel's portrait of life in the Austrian diaspora is one which tends to emphasize the shah between Jews and non-Jews. However, there are some optimistic moments in the text as well, induding the tumultuous relationship between

Danny Demant and Christiane Kalteisen. in spite of their frequent misunderstandings, one could not describe their association as a complete failtue. Indeed, towards the end of the narrative Christiane, following a discussion with Masdia Singer, seems capable of embracing a Jewish perspective (337). An equdy positive sign for the future of Ceman

Jewishlnon-Jewish relations in Schindel's text is the attitude of Konrad Sachs, a character whose openness conceming his past provides a role mode1 for

Austnans interes ted in reconcihg Jewishness and non-Jewishness.

Konrad Sadis's willingness to communicate is a rare trait in many of the narratives 1 have discussed. The analysis of German and Austrian texts reveals a variety of dysfunctional family relationships and widespread mistrust between German and Austrian Jews and non-Jews. Rabinovici's

Aus tria offers the mos t extreme portrait of this communication breakdown.

Suche nach M. dearly displays the emphasis on silence which, as 1 shall also demonstrate with regard to Anna Mitgutsch's text, is a domiflant trope in Austrian Merature. The way in which Austria has dedt with the past is also the reason for the more tevelatory function of Rabinovici's use of role rwersal as compared with hir German counterparts. As 1 have shown, Dani

Morgenthau and his father Moshe reverse roles, and in the process, expose aspects of Austria's past. Rabinovici's and çdùndel's texts exhibit some similarities in te- of narrative strategy with those of their German counterparts, Uiduding the use of the carnivalesque in Suche nach M. and the use of stereotypical characters in Gebürtig. SdllndeYs portrayal of unrepentant petpetrators who see themselves as victims also recails the depiction of former Nazis in Dischefs "Eine Jiidin fiir Charles Men," as weil as that of Arnold Heppner in Bronsteins KUider. 4. The Femde Jewish Identity Crisis: Amta Mitgutsch's Absdiied von

Jerusalemand Esther DischereiYs Joëmis Tisch

In Zwischenwelten leben, dm ist mein Zuhause.

(Richard Chaim Schneider, Zwische nwelten 255)

In this chapter 1 explore the texts of two female Jewish writers, the

Austrian Anna Mitgutsch's Abschied von lerusalem and the German Esther

Disdiereit's Joëmis Tisch In spite of these authors' different nationalities, the texts of Mitgutsch and Dischereit are suitable for cornparison because of theu similar themes and narrative strategies. Mi tgutsch's and DisdiereiPs female protagonists grapple with their societies' patriarchal structures and discrimination on the bais of both gender and religion. In order to emphasize male chauvinism, both authors support essentialist gender conceptions, a strategy which conttasts sharply with some authors' attempts to undermine biologicai essentiaiism. Male figures, who often are linked with non-Jewishness in these authors' texts, invariably display negative attributes, king physically or verbally abusive or associated in some way with National

Soaalism and racism. In this sense, Mitgutsch and Dischereit reverse Edgar

Hilsenrath's gender portraits, which, as I demonstrated in chapter one, cast women in an overwhelmuigly negative lîght. Abschied von lemalem and

Joëmis Tisch trace the lives of different generations of female charaders seeking to assert their Jewishness, a quest analogous with their struggle for emancipation Whereas in O ther texts discussed in this thesis the generational rift seems unbridgeable, as in the case of Hugo Nieho& and Ham Bronstein, there is a great deal of affinity between older and younger women in

Discherrit's and Mitgutsch's texts, a common bond forged in overcoming male oppression. In Abschied von lerusalem Dvorah's grandrno ther and mother felt compeiled to disguise their Jewishness. As she struggles to achieve a sense of independence, Dvorah, caught between her Jewishness and her non-Jewishness, also displays a tendency to pass as Jewish or non-Jewish . depending in whose Company she is. in Joëmis Tisch, Holocaust su~vor

Hannah also has tremendous diffidty expressing her Jewishnessf although her daughter is eventually able to rediscover her Jewish roots after a failed attempt to assimilate by assodating with the socialist movement in Gemany .

Like Robert çdiindel, Anna Mitgutsch employs role reversal to portray the way in which first and second generation non-Jewish Austrians seek victim status. Esther Dischereit's use of role reversal is reminiscent of the narrative strategy employed by Edgar Hilsenrath in Der Nazi und der Friseur, in the sense that she too inverts the stereotype of the Jew as abnormal

"Other" by highlighting the deviant mentality of non-Jewish charaders, particularly theh xenophobia, misogyny and "misremembrancef' of the past.

In contrast to theîr extensive use of binary oppositions, both Mitgutsch and

Dischereit employ narrative fragmentation to enhance their depiction of the fernale Jewish identity crisis. Whereas Mi tgutsch emphasizes this iden tity

crisis by way of an unreliable narrator, Disdiemit uses kquent shifts in time and voice as her main narrative strategy. While Mitgutsch's text eciploys

identifiable characters and settings, Joëmis Tisch indudes sequences where

the speaker and the location are ambiguous.

Abschied von lemsalem revolves around the Me of a middle-aged academic named Dvorah who is stniggling to corne to terms with her

Jewishness. Dvorah is tom between the different aspects of her ethnic

heritage, a fad reflected in her two names: Hildegard, which means battle

maid in Geman, is indicative of the aggressive, paternal non-Jewish side of

her family, while the Hebrew name Dvorah means "honeyed words" and

stems from her materna1 grandmother's nickname for her - "Bienchen"

(Stone 170). Mitgutxh presents Dvorah's story altemating between the

narrative past and the present, encompassing Dvorah's youth in Aushia, her

previous visits to Jerusalem and her current Me in Israel. Dvorah's hequent

sojoums to Jenisalem are to a large extent prompted by her need to discover

who she is, as welI as by her desire to attain the sense of freedom she

associates with Martha, her Jewish grandmother's cousin who disappeared in

194û.

Dvorah's narration mates an atmosphere of uncerfainty in the text,

and one is never quite able to trust her statements. She reflects on a pend of

her Me at a kibbutz where she fell in love with a Frenchman, but at other 132 times doubts the verauty of these mernories: "Manchmal denke id, was ich erlebte, hatte nidits mit der Wirklichkeit zu hm, vielleidit hat es auch den

Kibbuz nicht ~.rirklichgegeben" (38). Dvorah imagines seeing Sivan's coileague Yassin in Old Jenisalem after her lover's disappearance, but then cornments: "VieUeicht wu es wieder nur die Sehnsucht, die mir an den

Randzonen der Wirklichkeit Trugbiider vorgaukelt" (181). In addition to her

"hallucj~tions,"Dvorah exhibits paranoia as she imagines a police interrogation about Sivan and expresses leam that somebody has been taping her conversations and filming her because of her association with him. As she is walking through the streets of Jerusalem, she desaibes king foliowed:

"Und mandunal spüre ich eine lautlose Pribenz in meinem Rûdcen, die mir

imrner folgt und keine Spur hinterlat. Aber wenn ich mich umdrehe, um

GewiBheit zu haben, ist natürlich niemand hinter mir [...IN (57). Her fear of king followed has as much to do with Sivan as it does with her own anxiety

that somebody will piece together the shards of her fragmenteci persona and

discover her identity. For the same reason, however, she seems on other

occasions to rehh the thought of being under surveillance, hoping there is

someobody who will help her establish who she is: "Ich brauche ihn, meinen

Spitzel, faes ihn gibt, auch dam, endlich die richtige von den vielen

moglichen Wahrheiten herauszufinden, die anscheinend aile nebeneinander

bestehen ben,selbst wenn sie einander widersprechen" (245). The

arnbiguity and confusion of Dvorah's narration emphasize her identity crisis. 133

In addition to the atmosphere of uncertainty and paranoia, Mitgutsdi, like fellow Aushian Doron Rabinovia, uses silence as a metaphor for repression, partidarly in association with the concealment of e thnic identities, the stifhg of female independence and Austria's refusai to acknowledge its World War Two history. One of Dvorah's fnends explainç the way in whidi süence cmad as a debilitating and oppressive force: "Und durch das Verschweigen wachst sie ins Oberdimensionale und drückt den

Schweiger an die Wand, bis er nichts mehr ist als sein eigenes Schweigen"

(150). Dvorah experienced this aippling silence growùig up in a home in which the details of her mother's Jewish heritage and her father's National

Socialkt past were left unspoken. As she explains:

Meine Kindheit war voll von Unsicherheit, Geheimnissen und

Tod. Das Schweigen war nidit nur die Schweigsamkeit alter

Menschen, es hatte einen doppelten Boden, es klang hohl, und

sein verzerrtes Echo konnte ich in Andeuhuigen und Blid

finden, in den Gesprachen der Verwandten, in Fotos, die ich

nicht gesehen haben durfte. (69)

The absence of communication about the past in Dvorah's family hds its reflection in certain looks and coded expressions. This siience also mirrors the concealment of Jewish persecution and Austria's National Socialist past, remnants of whidi emerge from time to time in places like flea markets:

"AdFlohmiirkten findet man von Zeit ni Zeit Spuren dieser untersdilagenen Geschichten, die Bessamimbehiilter und Kidduschbecher, und keiner weiB mehr, woksie gut sind, sie Liegen neben den

Ledermiinteln und Orden derer, denen aus ganz anderen Gründen am

Schweigen lag" (150-51). Items representative of an alrnost extinguished

Jewish culture appear alongside symbols of National Soaalisrn, the two aspects of Austria's history ewnared in a web of silence.

Thus far 1 have demonstrated that many Jewish writers explore the discrepancy between appearance and reaiity, in several instances rejecting the notion that there are any inherent differences separating

Germanness / Aushianness and Jewishness. In contrast, Mtgutsch in one sense promo tes essen tialism with her aimost universally nega tive portrayal of men - a means to highlight the oppression of women. Living in a patnarchal &eV, the women in Dvorah's famüy feel compelled to hide their Jewishness. After marrying a non-Jew, Dvorah's grandmother Beatrice, for example, conceals the Jewish half of her ethnicity, represented by her

Hebrew name Rivlca. She converts to Catholicism and has all of her children bap tized:

Ein halbes Leben lang hatte sie [BeatricelRivka] als eine andere

gegolten, war selten zwar, doch ohne Widerspruch an der Site

ihres Mannes in der Kirchenbank gesessen, hatte versprochen,

ihre Kinder in seiner Religion m untenveisen, so gut sie konnte,

und hatte ihre eigene Herkunft verheimlicht, sie in jeder 135

Antwort, jeder Geste unterdi.ücktf am Anfang WON,weil sie

ununterçcheidbar dazugehoren wollte, spiiter aus Angs t vor der

Verfolgung, die sie bis mm Ende ihrer Tage nicht mehr loslieB.

(70-71)

The only aspects of her Jewishness that Beatrice/Rivka preserves are a few dietary customs and songs. It is interesthg to note the sidarity between katrice/ Rivka and Lea Somenson in Mawim Biller's "Verrat," since both women demonstrate a tendency to disguise their Jewishneçs once mked to a non-Jew. At the end of her life, however, Beatrice/Rivka attempts to break the oppressive silence of her marriage and adcnowledge her Jewish ancestry.

As Dvorah explains: "Sie soil sich kurz vor ihrem Tod, als man den Priester ho1te, gegen ihr lebenslanges Sdiweigen aufgelehnt haben, sie wolle [... ] ein jüdisches Begrabnis [...] und jemanden, der Hit sie Kaddisch sagr (70).

Although Beahïcefs/Rivka's request for a Jewish funeral was not granteci, her daughter Wilma concedes to her desire to return to her mots by attempting to remove a aoss from her hands as she lies on her deathbed (73). Like

Ekatnce/Rivka, ûvorah's mother also made great efforts to pas as a non-Jew, carefully controlling her appearance and behaviour so that it will not correspond wi th antitiSemitics tereotypes. She self-consaously res trains her hand movements and guards her speech while simultaneously expressing admiration for some of her supposedly Jewish feahues:

...bis ins Alter hat sie sich ihr Haar zu einem matten Rotblond aufgehelit, ha t vornehme Zurückhaltung zu ihrer zwei ten

Natur gemacht, nie laut gelacht, beim Reden streng darauf

geachtet, daB sie nicht mit den Handen gestikulierte. Aber wenn

jemand etwas über ihre Augen sagte, erzahlte sie davon voll

Stolz ni Hause: Meine jüdisdien Augen haben ihm gefallen,

sagte sie dann lachend. (126)

In addition to het attempts to conceal her Jewishness, Dvorah's mother also keeps the tmth from her daughter. She mets Dvorah's repeated questions concerning her Jewish heritage with silence or the generic response that she is

Austrian.

The binary opposition between kmaleness/ Jewishness and malenes/ non-Jewishness becomes dearer when one examines Dvorah's

paternai roots. Dvorah learns about Jewishness from her father's relatives in

a negative context in whïch they use the same language of classification for

Jews the Nazis employed:

Von Juden, Halbjuden, Vierteljuden und jüdisch Versippten

erfuhr ich bei den Verwandten meines Vaters und begnff erst im

Lauf der Zeit, daB auch von mir die Rede war, und aus den

BLicken und abfalligen Bemerkungen sdoB ich, daB es sich um

ein schmutziges Geheimnis handeln mate, eine ratselhafte

Schande, Hir die ich selbst nichts k~~te,die rnich jedodi von

den Gleidialtrigen aus der Familie rneines Vaters trennte. (72) 137

Further, Dvoah learns from her fathefs family to associate Jewishness with foreignness and even after her baptism, she perceives their hatefui feelings for her Jewish ancestry. Like Beatrice/Rivka, the patemai side of Dvorah's family seeks to repress history, in this case their association with National

Soaalism. Dvorah's father was a German soldier on the Eastern Front, an experience he refuses to talk about. Kis brother Kari's wartime activity is even more sinister. Karl partiapated in a failed Nazi Putsch before the Germans arrived in Austria. Later, he became a member of the SS and was distinguished for his work in the Nazi party newspaper Der vi3llcische

Beobachter. Despite the fact that nobody in the family knew what he did at the front, Uncle Karl becomes a victim in the eyes of the farnily: "keiner steilte ihm je die Frage, was er dort an der Front getan habe, sie bedauerten ihn und sein schlimmes Los. Ein kleiner Mitlaufer sei er gewesen, hi& es, jung und begeisterungsfahig, das masse man verstehen" (121). The attitude of Kari's relatives is reminiscent of Robert Sdllndel's perpetrators and indeed several others 1 have examinecl, as they deny any sense of gdt, putting forward youth and bad leadership as an excuse for the participation in Nazi atrocities.

Mitgutsch &O demonstrates the way in which second generation

Austrians seek victim status. At one point Dvorah becomes involved in a bad

relationship with an Austrian anti-Semite named Alvin, the son of a minor

Nazi official. Alvin is representative of a minority of the 1%8 generation,

whose pro-Palestinian platform was a means for the perpetuation of anti- 138

Semitism in the form of anti-Zionism. During a trip to Israel, Alvin can barely conceal his anti-Zionist/ anti-Semitic sentiments, a fact refleded in his need to count his change carefully after every transaction in accordance with his belief in the stereotype of the greedy and unsc~pulousJew. He also reminds Dvorah of the Israeli government's destruction of Arab neighbourhoods. His self-righteous exhortations againçt Israeli transgressions aiiow Aivin to indulge in a perverse form of victimhood while castigating

ûvorah, because of her Jewishness, as a perpetrator. As Dvorah explains:

Indem er adder Seite ihrer [the Israeii's] Opfer kampfte, wurde

er selber Opfer, um so tapferer, als er sich um der Gerechtigkeit

willen den Vorwurf des Antisemitismus gefallen lieB. Und ich

stand auf der Seite der Unterdrücker, er zahlte mir die

geschleiften arabischen Dorfer ad, warf mir erbittert

Landenteignung vor, zeigte mu zornig die weiBen

Festungsstadte der Westbank, sieh dir das an, ein Verbrechen,

ein Vergehen gegen das Vtlkerrecht, nein, dafür k6me es keine

Erklihng geben, ich solle zugeben, dail das, was hier geschahe,

rassistisch sei, faschistisch. (156)

Alvin portrays the Israeli govemment's policy in the West Bank as though it

were guided by a rackm similar to that which governeci the adions of

German troops in the temtories they oceupied during World War Two.

Ln many ways the relationship between Alvin and Dvorah reminds 139 one of the association of Erich Stiglitz and Masdia Singer in Gebiirtig. In both instances there is friction between the rural provincial and the cosmopolitan urbanite, a conflict with gender implications since "Heimat" is often assoaated in literary texts with maleness, "Fremdheit" with femaleness

(Günther 184-85). Alvin's love for pastoral landscapes contradids Dvorah's need for the exotic strangeness of the city, a fact which further emphasizes the essentialist divide between men and women in Mitgutsch's narrative.

Mitgutsdi also represents the incompatibility between the two iinguisticaily, illustrating how Alvin consistently interrupts Dvorah's attempts at Hebrew with an exaggerated provincial Austrian German diaiect.

Escaping repressive relationships with men like Alvin and the sense

that she must conceal her Jewishness, Dvorah seeks to emulate Martha, who was an emancipated and rebeilious woman: "Martha trieb sich als rebelkche, emanzipierte Frau ohne festes Einkommen und ohne dauerhafte Bindung in

der Wiener Boheme henim" (127). Martha disappeared, however, at sorne

point during the war and in all likelihood the Nazis murdered her. Yet

Dvorah refuses to check wartime concentration camp deportation lïsts and

clings to the remote hope that her distant relative is living somewhere in

Jenwlem: "Ich gab meine Hoffnung und meine Suche auch dam nicht ad,

als es sinnlos wurde, weil eben dodi nichts dafür sprach, dai3 sie nodi lebte"

(130). Dvorah's hesitance to accept Martha's death emphasizes the fa& that her

search is more of a symbolic nature, indicative of her own desire for 140 emancipation One other woman who serves as a role mode1 for Dvorah is

Channa, an Aushian Jewish woman of her grandmothefs generation who lives in Jenisalem. Dvorah praises Channa's independence which contrasts strongly wi th her grandmother's submissiveness: "BeatnceRivka hatte nie adeigenen FliBen gestanden wie diese robuste Endsechzigetin, die es gewohnt war, Entscheidungen allein zu treffen und für sie geradezustehenW(l32).

Mitgutsdi portrays Dvorah's quest for independence as a long and arduous process, illustrahg her inabiiity, Like her &randmother's and

mothefs, to fully assert her Jewishness. At school, for example, she remained passive while a teacher contemptuously singied out a fellow pupil for her

Jewish heritage: "Edelstein, sagte ein Deutschiehrer und ging zwischen den

Bankreihen au.€eine Schülerin ni, du hast gewii3 jiidisdie Vorfahren Es war

Jahre nach dem Krieg, aber ich spürte die Bedrohung, und auch sie reagierte

sofort mit verstorter Abwehr [...]" (116). Her failure to assist her feilow student

makes Dvorah feel like a traitor: "Ich schaute in mein Heft, als ginge es mich

nichts an, ich war inkognito und voilig sicher, aber ich sdiamte mich, ais

hatte ich einen Verrat begangen" (116). Later, as an au pair girl in

Pennsylvania, Dvorah conceals her Jewishness once again after she uncovers

the dark secrets of a German emigrant, Her house mother presents herself as

an ordinary emigré who has successfully integrated into American society:

"Die Knegsbraut aus Bayem war gr& dunkel und selbstsicher, sie hatte si& 141 in allem assimiliert, bis auf ihren Akzent" (176-77). However, one day

Dvorah destroys this carefully guarded façade when she mistakenly enters a room with a cabinet containing photographs depicting the woman's ignoble

Nazi past. In spite of her aversion to what she has seen, Dvorah remains dent as she did at school. She becomes an accomplice in preserving her house rnother's veneer of respectability, refusing to disclose to anyone what she witnessed in the secret room.

In Jerusalem Dvorah's stniggle for emancipation rem- complicated by the inner conflict between her Jewishness and non-Jewishness. Most of

Dvorah's Israeli fnends reflect an inclination to think in binary terms, espeaally Channa who emphasizes the opposition between Arab and Jew

with her dramatic prophecy of another genocide: "Eines Tages werden sie [the

Arabs] uns [the lsraelis] alle niedemetzeln [...]" (24). Jakov, Nuit, and Eli &O

maintain a respectful distance to Arabs and East Jerusalem, expecting that

Dvorah is on their side: "sie vertrauten mir, daB ich auf ihrer Seite stand"

(91). At one point Dvorah explains her mixed heritage to her hiend Eli who

tells her: "Es gabe in diesem Fall dodi eine klare Trennungslinie zwischen

Recht und Unrecht, Opfer und Tater" (148), to which Dvorah responds: 'Ta,

aber ich hatte an beiden meinen Anteil, und sich als Opfer und Tdter mgleich

zu menist ein unwürdiger, ein verlogener Zustand" (148). Dvorah's sense

of rootlessness leaves her in a li.mi.mil space - between Jew and non- Jew:

"[Ich] bin Vgendwo im Niemandsland hihgengeblieben [...IN (62), she says. For 142 this reason she passes herself as either Jewish or non-Jewish depending on the situation and the person she associates with, induding her hiend Niva and the Austrian tour guide Irene Wittrich. As she explains: "Ich bruige es nicht fertig, Niva zu gestehen, daB ich katholisdi getauft und eaogen wurde

[...]," she says, "und es gelingt mir nicht, Irene Wittrich heute nachmittag zu erkiiiren, da13 ich Jüdin bin [...]" (117). Dvorah is incapable of revealing both the Jewish and non-Jewish aspects of her identity at once to any one person:

"Ich habe no& niemandem beide Teile zugleich enthuen oder erkliiren kamen: indem ich den einen zur Schau stelle, verleugne ich den andem [...]"

(117). Dvorah even conceals her full identity fiom her Palestinian lover

Sivan, refwing to disdose her Me as Hildegard to him, feeling this would

have a dehimental effect on her identity as Dvorah: "Dvorah komte es nur ohne diese Geschichte geben" (85).

For his part, Sivan passes as an Armenian Christian, a group not

directly involved in the conflict between the Palesanians and the Israelis. He

also daims to be an interpreter working on a film projed for UNICEF.

However, Dvorah's questions as to what his job entailç and why the film

project appears to have no hed schedule remain unanswered, making her

suspicious about his true identity. Other signs and dues point to the fact that

Sivan is lying. He admits to having travelled extensively in Arab-speaking

countries, accompanying his father on business trips to Syria, Iraq and Egypt -

the traditional enemies of Israel. He also cracks anti-Semitic jokes and abstains £rom alcohol. Whenever the couple meet in a Jewish-dominated section of the city, Sivan becornes agitated and, al though he daims to be

Christian, he disappears during times of the day when one would expect a biusiim to be at prayer. During an encounter with one of Sivan's friends,

Dvorah notes the man's sarcasrn when he refers to Sivan as a good henian: "Er verhohnte mich und gab mir zugleich einen Wink [...IN (104).

Liiter, as they cast stones into the sea, Dvorah cannot help but notice the

intensity with which Sivan does so and she subsequently imagines him to be one of the Palestinians she has seen on TV hurling rocks (141).

In spite of her suspicions about his identity, Dvorah never confronts

Sivan about his past. Evenhidy her association with him cornes to

undennine her independence. This is ironic since her spirit of emancipation

is what initially drew Sivan to her. "Eine Frau, die allein unterwegs ist [...] am

Anfang war er stolz auf mich gewesen, schockiert und mit unverhohlener

Bewundening hatte er inich oft von der Site behaditet [...]" (97-98). Later,

however, Sivan cm barely conceal his male chauvinism. While expressing jealousy at any hint that Dvorah might have been seeing other men, Sivan

flirts openly with other women The greatest blow to Dvorah's sense of

heedom comes during a probable smuggling operation to the West Bank.

Sivan offers to help ûvorah repair her "damaged" car, with which he hirnself

iïkdy tampered, by bringing it to his "mechanic" hiend in Ramallah. The

entire trip, however, appears to be a convenient pretext for bringing degd aminto Israel. A vehide with Israeli plates as well as Dvorah's Austrian passport are the perfect foil for avoiding potential problems at the border.

Dvorah senses that something is wrong and as she walks through the streets of Ramallah she feels alienated from herself, as though she is an actress participating in a play: 'Wie in einem inszeniertert SM&, in dem alle

Schauspieler die Fortse tzung der Handlung berei ts kannten, nur mich ha tten sie ni informieren vergessen [...]" (228). She becomes a conspirator in the operation in the sense that she refuses to press Sivan to reveal any details as to the real purpose of the trip. As she says: "[Wu]sdiwiegen angestrengt über

Ramaiiah" (189).

I have demonstrated how Irene Dische employs mirror sequences to emphasize identity changes, induding Esther's seductive influence on

Charles Ailen. This narrative device can also be found in Mitgutçdi's text

(Fliedl 10û-Ol), showing Dvorah's metamorphosis from bystander to accomplice during and aker the Ramallah inadent. On the remtrip hem

Ramallah one of Sivanrs friends commandeers üvorah's car and as she meets the man's eyes in the reamiew *or she has the feeling of being a hostage

(223). Later, a mirror in a hotel room reveals Dvorah's guilt for her cornpliance in allowing her vehicle to be used in a smuggling operation which likely precipitated a bomb attack As she gazes into the mirror she sees the face of an assassin staring back at her

Für alle Fae setze ich meine Sonnenbrille auf und schaue mit 145

dem Res t rneines Gesichts entschlossen drein, wahrscheinlich

sehe idi wie eine politische Attentaterin aus. Es hat ja jeder

etwas ni verbergen, nicht nur ich. Alle schweigen in den

entscheidenden Augenbiicken und lassen geschehen, fast de,

und sch-en sich dmund sdiweigen weiter. (176)

The trip to Ramailah forces Dvorah back into the repressive silence that characterizes her Austrian upbringing and inhibits her sense of independence.

The exaggerated emphasis on silence which distinguishes Mitgutsch's narrative is absent in Joëmis Tisch As well, whereas Abschied von

Jenisalem, despite the narratofs unreiiability, is relatively easy to foUow, the same cannot be said for Esther Dischereit's text, whose fragmentation makes it an extremely challenging read. Joëmis Tisch recollects the life of Hannah, a

German Holocaust survivoif and that of her daughter, in a story that is not linear but rather presented around speafic "characters" and "themes"

(Lorenz, Keepers 301). Dkhereit contrasts a series of Jewish and non-Jewish voices to express concems about the memory of the Holocaust, misogyny and anti-Serni tism.

Dischereit's use of role reversal involves inverting the stereotype of the Jew as abnormal "Other." Karen Remmler describes the nature of these role reversais as follows:

To disrnantie the designation of Jews as "Auch-Menschen," the 146

narratot reverses the desand takes her German conterparts to

task. She investigates their psyches, their reminiscences, theh

çorrows, their diseases and differences, in order to disrupt the

hierarchicai didiotomy that makes Jews others. Why not make

the Gemans the "other"? ("En-gendering" 200)

The term "Auch-Menschen'' is used in an episode where a father explains to his son how a Jew is also human: "Papa, was ist das, Jude?: [...] Ein Jude ist doch au& ein Mensch, genauso wie du und ich; 'Nein,' sagt das Kind, 'ich nicht. Ich bin ja deutsch"' (23). The irony implicit in the chiid's staternent, that he is not a "Mensch" but rather "deutsch," underpins Dischereit's intention of portraying the German as abnomal "Other." Severai episodes in the text demonstrate this non-Jewish "Othemess." A man makes repellent statements about his viaous dog whose tendency to sniff out and attack foreignerç more than likely reflects his master's raasm: "'Wissen Sie,' sagt der Mann, 'gegen

Kinder hat er wirkiich nidits. Nur Ausliinder, das ist seltsam'" (19). In ano ther sequence, Hannah's daughter experiences anti-Semitism at school when another student carves swastikas into her desk, actions which the teacher and the parents refuse to take seriously: 'Wicht daB ich sie verteidigen wollte... das Kind hat sich doch nichts dabei gedachî" (65); in mponse to which the narrator sarcastidy makes reference to the persecution of Jews in Nazi

Germany and the German profession of ignorance of the Holocaust: 'Wnd schlief3lic.h auch die Eltem [...]" (65). The narrator expresses the belief that the only reason more German anti-Semites do not openly express their bigotry is their fear of world opinion. As Hannah's daughter puts it: "Vom Bürgertum bleiben wir geduldet. Die Kollekîivschuidthese zwingt einen vorsichtigen

Umgang mit uns ad" (42).

hother way in which Dischereit emphasizes non-Jewish "Othemess" is by highlighting the way in which non-Jewish Germans "misremember" the pas t (Reder, "En-gendering" 193). This "misremembrance" occurs w hen non-Jewish Germans hivialize or rela tivize their responsibility for the

Holocaust. One man, a former Hitler Youth and U-boat sailor, makes it dear that everyone knew what was happening to the Jews during the Second

World War: "Wer da heute sagt, er Mtte nichts gewuBt. Das stimmt do& gar nidit. Nicht in dem AusmaB, natürlich nicht. Aber trotzdem - wir haben das gedt" (55). Some Germans, however, prefer not to confront thek history, a fact the same man makes dear when he describes the negative reactions of his fomer dasrnates to his suggestion that they ail make a @grimage to

Auschwitz: "Wie die über mich hergefallen sind - ich war richtig ersdiüttert.

Nein, daB die immer nodi nichts gelernt haben" (55). In another sequence a young soldier admits that the Holocaust happened but refuses to acknowledge any responsiblity for it since he personally had nothing to do with this homfic event: "Schon in Ordnung, das Leid und so. Aber das geht mich nidits an. Ich war net dabei" (73). Instead, he relativizes Gefman guilt by way of reference to the Americans' and Russians' war crimes, partidarly their degecl rape and 148 murder of defenceless women (71-72).In fact, for him it is no longer Germany who initiated the Second World War but rather the mes: '"Churchill - natürlich Churchill.' 1.. .] "[Er] eniildt davon, wer den Krieg, den zwei ten, begomen habe"(70). He goes on to portray the Germans as victims when he details the experiences of Wehrmacht soldiers in Russian captivity in World

War Two: "In der russischen Gefangenschaft war's auch nidit lustig" (71). in another sequence Dischereit refers to 1986, the year of the Historians' Debate, where many joumalists and historians sought to relativize and thus lessen the burden of Geman gdt. Here a non-Jew also avoids responsibility for the

Holocaust by claiming victim status, as though Germans were helpless pawns in the hands of a repressive regime: "wir mdten das hilflos Ciber uns ergehen lassen [...IFw he daims of the persecution of the Jews (81). Directly contradicting this daim of helplessness to prevent the deportation and murder of the Jews

is the fad that a protest of German bishops managed to halt Hitler's T-4 euthanasia program in the early 1940s (80). The same man uisists that the

Hitler regime was much more dictatorial than its Soviet counterpart: "Ich glaube, der Griff des Nationalsoziaüsmus war noch vie1 Mer und vie1

scharfer ais heute der Bolsdiewismus, der Kommunismus" (81). During the

Historians' Debate compiViSOns with Soviet Russia were often a way for

conserva tive intellechiais to relativize Germany's war guil t.

Esther Dischereit undermines non-Jewish Germans' daims of victim

status by directly contrasting their wartime "suffering" with that of Jews. A Jewish woman named Ruth compares her relatives' fate with Martha

Elisabeth Steder's husband, an SS soldier killed in France during the war.

After Martha ELisabeth asks her to honor the grave of her husband on a trip to

France, Ruth reflects on the way in which her father and brother perished in the Holocaust during the war: "Ruths Vater ist nidit gefden. Der ist verbrannt und dam verascht. Der Bruder hat audi kein wtirdiges

Soldatengrab - immer ÜbereMnder -, er ist auf Tote draufgestiegen, nackt, weii die Kleider lebendig besser abgehenJ' (108). Ruth's brother dies the homfic death of those in the gas Chambers who often dimbed on top of one another as they stmggled to find a breathing space. Compa~gthe treatment of Ruth's relatives and Martha Elisabeth's husband, Karen Remmler writes:

"The ritualized re-creation of a soldiefs bunal contrasts sharply with the understated bnitaiity with which Ruth's brother and father are denied not only proper bunal but a place in memory" ("En-genderingJf195). hdeed, with bitter irony Ruth wonders how Martha Elisabeth would feel if she invited her to visit her relatives' mass graves: "Stell dir vor, sie wiirde Frau Steder bitten, mit ihr an ihres Vaters, Bmders Massengrab zu kommen [...If' (109).

Often the narrator juxtaposes a Geman's statements in quotation marks with the interior monologue of the narrator to illustrate German

"misremembrance" (Remmler, "En-gendering" 294). This narrative technique is partidady forceful in a sequence where a Sudeten German recalls being forced to leave his homeland at the end of the war. His description of his 150 relatively miid dering, characterized to a large extent by the loss of property, stands in marked contrast to the persecution and suffe~gof the Jews detailed in FIannah's daughter's unspoken intejections:

"- Ja - es gab auch einen Lastenausgleich"

Wiedergutmachung, nicht wahr.

"Die meisten hatten zu Hause ja Landwirtschaft, groBe

LandwirtsdiaCt. Dementsprediend fiel der Ausgleich aus."

GroBe Schmerzen, eingeritzte Nummem in den hen,

dementsprechend fiel die Summe aus. (61)

Cornplaints about insufficient financial compensation pale when set agains t

the temble sucferhg associateci with Nazi concentration camps. The Sudeten

Geman's "suffering" appears particularly mild in cornparison with that of

Hannah, who lost ali of her fdy,her ability to work and whose wartime experiences have left her with trembling hands:

Der HauswVt aus den Sudeten hat jetzt zwei Hauser - mit seiner

Hande Arbeit - und Lastenausgleich, wie ich spater h6re. Bei

uns ist niemand mit seiner Hiinde Arbeit, weil die Hiinde

meiner Mu tter zittern. Ganz unsinnig zittern sie [...] Für dieses

Zittem bekommt sie Wiedergutmachung. im Gegenzug kann sie

sagen, habe sie keinen Benif, keinen SchulabschIuB, keine

Eltem, keine GeScttwister - ihr Leben und dieses Zittern. (57)

This episode demonstra tes wha t Karen Remmler terms "genealogical practise," the narrative device Dischereit employs to trace relationshipç between different generations of Jewish women. 1 have shown how

Mitgutsch's protagonist Dvorah establishes a link with her past by idenhfying with role models like Martha. Using genealogical practise, Dischereit's narrator recounts missing bodies of memory through the symbolic use of female body parts: "Hannah's mother's [sic] story is personifid in the affective remnants of the past embodied in her huisand those of possible perpetrators

[Le. the Sudeten Geman]" (Remder, "En-gendering" 195). In the above scene, Hannah's hands become the chief symbol of her Holocaust trauma as they shake uncontroilably while those of the Sudeten German appear healthy and productive, capable of bdding houses. Using the female body as a means of remembrance not only conveys the mernory of the Holocaust but reminds one of "the living presence of Jews in Gennany today" (Remmler, "En- gendering" 187). The use of the fernale body as a locus of remembrance contradicts the notion that Jewish cuiture is a dead culture, whose remnants can only be found in iifeless monuments and museums. Another component of "misremernbrance" revolves around non-

Jewish Germans' attitudes towards Israel. As 1 have shown in previous chapters, one means of displacing Holocaust guilt is to point the finger at

Israel, the new "perpe tra tor'' nation. The previously mentioned y oung soldier disapproves of providing Israel with any sort of financial compensation: "Mit dem vielen Geld, Wiedergutmachung, an Israel - das findet er Quatsch" (70). He goes on to list the crimes of the Israeli army and how it has used this money to inflict suffering on the Arabs: "Und was machen die mit dem Geld, Libanon und so [...IN (70). Another non-Jew, on the other hand, ciisplays a strange attraction for the Zionist state: "Richtig mgesprochen Meer sich dort - vielleicht nidit das richtige Wort. Oh - dies Gelobte Land. Zu seiner Zeit waren die gelobten Menschen biaB und schwindsiiditig" (52). He alludes to the transformation of the image of the Jew frorn siddy degenerate - '%la13 und schwindsüchtig" - ulto 'Werrenmensch" of the Middle East, a role reversal which some cornervatives in Gemany welcomed. The man feels at home in Israel not because he possesses any sort of pro-Jewish sentiment, but rather because he cm relate to the country's aggressive military policies.

Dischereit herself, like Rabinovia, is critical of Israeli aggression. One sequence in her text presents the boastful Ietter of an Israeli pilot: "Roni schreibt, er sei ein Flieger wie andere auch - in Vietnam, ban, Irak" (102) to which the narrator responds: "Zu welchem Gott jetzt betest du, dessen Mund speit Steine?"(102). Ln the same episode the narrator writes: "Ein Land ist kein Land. Sand, Dürre, Steine - dem PalasLina vor die Tür geschüttet, mit

Bulldozern eingeebnet, das Wasser abgegraben Hauser in die Luft gesprengt.

Bist du verrückt geworden, das Leiden dir den Verstand geraub t [...]" (102). The

Israeli govemment, in establishing an ethnicdy exdusive country, is desmias having uprooted the Palestinians with bulldozers and dynamite. Dischereit's stance toward what she perceives as the hegemonic conduct of the

Israeli state is similar to that of David and Jonathan Boyarin, two critics who see Israel as the "subversion of Jewish culture and not its culminationf' (712).

The Boyaruis postdate that over time diaspora Jews developed a unique culture which aIlowed them to coexist with other ethnic groups. In some parts of Europe, Jews lemed to relinquish any aspirations for political power and ins tead developed exdusive tightiy-kni t cornmuni ties within a greater national administrative framework, a strategy which helped them to better cope with persecution. This diaspora mentality of ethnic exdusivity had disastrous consequences for groups like the Palestinians once it was combined wiih Jewish political sovereignty over a speafic geographic area. As the

Boyarins describe it: "Inçistence on ethnic speciality, when it is extended over a particular piece of land, will produce a discouse not unlike the Inquisition in many of its effects" (712). Nthough criticai of Germans who point to Israel's

Middle East policy as a means of deflecting gdt for the Holocaust, Dischereit also condemns the country's militarism, viewing it as the antithesis of

Jewishness. Despite the fact that Mitgutsch's text is set in Jenisalem, it is Esther

Dischereit who offers the most scathing portait of Israel.

The Holocaust and its "misremembrance" by some Germans make

Jewish integration in postwar Germany problematic. For survivors Like

Hannah becorning visible as a Jew is difficult not oniy in iight of her experience of persecution but also because, unlike her daughter, she "had known and identified with pre-Nazi Gennany" (Lorenz, .- 300).

Hannah had grown up during a time when many Jews, although not free kom disaimination, held out the hope that they could integrate into German society. In the postwar era, Hannah cannot enter a Jewish shop, sending her children to purchase items for her: '"Meine Marna IaBt schon fragen, ob ich die Mazzes kaufen kann' Mame fragt nicht selbst. Sie hat die Kinder taufen

lassen, ihnen für allezeit einen zweiten Ariernamen ausgesucht" (101). My after she leaves her non-Jewish husband does Hannah begin to exhibit signs of

her Jewishness: "Als Hannah vom Dorf in die Stadt, von ihrem Mann, dem

Goj, gesdueden ist, wagt sie, den Mogen Dovid wieder zu tragen, nicht über dem Unterrock, natürlich nicht. Aber trotzdem" (57). Like Beahice in

Abschied von lerusalem, Hannah's relationship with a non-Jew encouraged

her to conceal her Jewishness. DischereiYs narrator emphasizes the misogyny

of Hannah's husband by portraying his horrific tendency to physicdy abuse

his wife. Hannah's daughter descri'bes the nature of these beatings: "Er hat sie

oft geschlagen, Kissen auf das Gesidit, den Rohrstock aus der Kammer, die

SchnUre des Rasierapparats" (89). Eventually, Hannah manages to leave this

relationship, but she does so without any support from the police who are

undgto believe any of her daims regardhg her mistreatment (89).

At the beginning of the text, Hannah's daughter makes dear her

intention to return to her Jewish roots after a lifetime spent trying to remain

invisible: "Nach zwanzig Jahren Unjude will ich wieder Jude werdenf' (9), she prdaims. Integration had always proven to be diffidt for HmMh's daughter. While in school, she attempted to conceal her Jewishness from her classrnates, claiming to be Protestant. One day, after a class on religion during which the teacher discussed Judas, a student exposes hm attempt to paçs as a

Rotestant: "Du lügst, du lügst, Jude is'se, ich weiB es genauN(21).As an adult,

Hannah's daughter joins the socialist movement, hoping that a sense of

Marxist camaraderie will faalitate her integration with non-Jews.Slowly, however, Hannah's daughter cornes to reaiize that she cannot escape the legacy of the Holocaust which shattered her mothefs life and possibly contributed to her suiade. During a comrnunist party lecture on World War

Twot Hannah's daughter becomes aware of the incompatibility of her socialist leanings with her Jewish heritage when the speaker glosses over the

Holocaust and fails to mention the six million victims: "Von diesen sechs

Millionen sagt er nichts. Das rührt mich seltsam an - wenn rnich schon sonst nichts rührt. Das riihrt midi seltsam an" (99). She desaibes her eventual alienation hmthe socialist movement and her remto her Jewish roots:

"Das Kains-Mal der Geburt, vergessen unter Wassem von Çozialismus, schimmert es durch auf meiner Haut" (9). This mark of Cain comes to symbolize Hannah's daughter's sense of difference as a Jew, a feeling which becomes readüy apparent when she attempts to cross the border from

Germany into France. Hannah's daughter womes that astoms officials will detain her, certain that some aspect of her body will reveal her Jewishness: 156

Aber wenn sie verlangten, ich soue mich ausziehen - warum soilen sie das veriangen - wenn sie verlangten, idi soile mich

ausziehen, und ich zoge midi aus. Und man sahe den Stem,

durdi die Kleider hindwch - sieht man ihn nicht - durch die Kleider hidurch auf meine Haut gebrannt - ist nicht gebrannt, bin niemals dort gewesen - admeine Haut gebrannt, und die Hunde Wmen heran. (35)

Sander Gilman sees this scene as indicative of the Jewish internalization of difference whereby circumcision, the traditional signifier of male Jewishness, is replaced wîth the postwar metaphor of Jewishness - the Star of David (Tews in Today's 83). Hannah's daughter's feelings of anxiety and apprehension while crossing the border conhm for her the "negative symbiosis."

Like Dvorah, the remof Hannah's daughter to her Jewishness is a slow process, marked by fiequent attempts to deny her background. In spite of their national differences, Dischereit's and Mitgutsdi's protagonists are quite similar. In both Abschied von lerusalem and Joërnis Tisch one notes a strong resemblance between the older generation of women, who are reiuctant to display aspects of their Jeewisshness, and their descendants, who are more wilhg to openly acknowledge their ethnic heritage. As 1 show, the bond between generations of women in Mitgutsch's and ûisdiereifs narratives contrasts sharply with the generational confiict portrayed in Bronsteins Kinder and "Verrat." Earlier 1 speculated on the possiiility of overcoming the binq opposition between Germanness/Austrianneçs and Jewishness. As I have demonstrated, essentialism in Absdiied von Terusalem and Joëmis Tisch is useful for highhghting the oppression of women. One wonders, however, about the eventuai outcome of Dvorah's and Hannah's daughtefs quest for independence and whether there is a potentid literary representation which could reconde the gender divide. 5. Victim vernus Petpetrator: The Contrashg Nvntive Strakgies of

Binjamin Wikomirski and Solomon Perd

The painted bird circled from one end of the flock to the other, vainly trying to conaince its &in thnt it was one of them. But, dazzled by its brilliant colors, they flew around it unconvinced.

([erzy bsinski, The Painted Bird 51)

In this chapter 1 compare and contrast Binjamin Wilkomirski's

Holocaust memoir Bruchstücke and Solomon Perel's autobiography Europa,

Eu.ova.22 Both men have wri tten narratives detailing their experiences as

Jews during the Second World War. Willcomirski daims to have been in

Majdanek and later Auschwitz as a smd Mdand then after the war to have been adopted by a wealthy Swiçs family. Perel, on the other hand, was a

German Jew who avoided Nazi persecution by disguising himseif as a Hitler

Youth. Recently, historians and critics have presented convincing evidence that Wilkomirski fabficated his story. In this sense one could describe the

Holocaus t autobiographies of Buijamin Wiikomirski and Solomon Perel as representing opposing scenarïos, since one reflects the attempt of a non-Jewish

-- Whe title Euro~a.Eurova is taken from Elia Kazan's book and film America. Amerira, in which "he recounts Voltaire's dassic story of Candide, a sailor who finds himself cast ashore among amnibals in South America" (Perel xii). Perel identifiecl with Candide and named his book after the continent where his own life amongst the enemy took place. Swiss to construct a Jewish identity, the 0th- details the Me of a Jew who pupsely disguised his ethniaty in order to survive.

1 wili begin my analysis with an overview of the "Wilkomirski Affair," demonstraüng how WiIkomirski constnided his narrative and his Jewish identity by àrawing on a variety of different sources, including his personal experiences as a Swiss orphan. I then briefly discuss çome of the implications of his Jewish masquerade, including the way in whidi his autobiography revealed the irnproper screening methods of the publishing industry and how his case has been seized on by right wing groups as evidence that it is possible

to fabricate a successful Holocaust testimonial. I then proceed with an examination of Solomon Perel's autobiography. The two texts differ considerably in tems of their narrative strategies. Whereas Wilkomirski's narraior eliats reader sympathy by portraying a bmtai world defined in tems of binq opposites, for example victim and perpetrator, Perel presents a complex portrait of warüme Gennany in which the differences between good and evil are not so dearly evident. As well, the violent and graphic images whidi Wilkomirski borrowed from Jeny Kosinski's novel The Painted Bird are not as apparent in Eurova. Europa. These differences can be attributed to the fact that Wilkomirski is seeking to maximize the expression of his traumatic chiidhood as a Swiss orphan by placing his suffering within the context of the twentieth century's worst atrocity. Not having suffered in the concentration camps of Nazi Europe and havïng lived amongst the perpekators, Solomon Perel, on the other hmd, estabMd sbong bonds of findship with many of bis feilow Hitler Youth comrades. WilkoIIlVski's conshucted identity perpetuates a number of Jewish stereotypes, similar to

Esther Becker's or Hugo NiehouB's comic role reversais. Perel's disguise, on the other hand, revealed the hoilowness of Nazi ideology since he was consistently lauded by his inçtnictors and commanders for his courage under

fire and upheld as the epitome of the Eastern Baltic Aryan race. In terms of

their reception, Wilkomirski won universal sympathy and praise for his text,

while German critics were less enthusiastic about Perel's story than theh American counterparts. Wilkomirski's memoir, in which the narrator describes Swiss anti-Semitism and associates the Swiss hem Wilhelm Tell

with an SS man, and ih positive reception reflect some of the recent debates surrounding Switzerland's role in supporting Nazi Germany du~gWorld

War Two. Whereas some have questioned Solomon Perel's çtrategy of

"collaboration," other critics, some perhaps conscious of Switzerland's

warüme past, found it much more difficdt to aiticize the stoq of a srnail

Jewish diild who had suffered so hombly in Majdanek and Auschwitz.

Mter its publication, Bruchstücke was quickiy translateci into nine different languages and, although the book itseif was never a bestseuer, it did receive lavish critical praise (Mader 119). Moved by the powerful taie of a child sunrivor, Paul Bailey wrote in the Dailv Teleera~h:

1 had to read it slowiy, taking silent wak between chapters, so 161

raw and powerful are the feelings it contains and inspires. No

childhood should be denied and obliterated, espeaally one as

benighted and terriile as Wilkomirski lived through The

bravery of his undertaking cannot be exaggerated, nor the sense

of human dignity it leaves with the reader. (saeen 2)

Other reviewers were equdy impressed: "Bruno Bettelheim, Primo Levi and others have written of their experiences Ui the camps but this short book is

the most moving, the most powerful 1 have read," wrote Ron Butlin in The

Scotsman (meen 2). The Neue Zürcher Zeitung calleci Bruchstücke "eines der

notwendigsten Zeugnisse ueber das Vemichtungslager" ("Mit nich ts zu

verbinden," screen 1) and Julie Salamon in the New York Times declareci that

Wilkornirski wrote "with a pet's vision, a Md'sstate of grace" (9).

Wikomirski was invited to speaking engagements, and Bruchstiicke received

several prizes, including the National Jewish Book Award and the Prix

Mémoire de la Shoah from the Fondation du Juddisme Français (Maediler

114). Even in academic cirdes the book was weil received: "&gments quiddy

appeared on university lecture lists and was recommended by pedagogical

joumals for reading in school" (Maechier 117). In addition to the aitical

support, Wilkomirski's cuitural appropriation was so successhtl that he

managed to deceive numerous experts and Holocaust survivors. Lea Balint,

director of an organization for helping Holocaust children who have lost

their identity supporteci Wilkomirski's daim that he had spent the in a 162

Cracow orphanage (Lappih 'The Man" 35). Other historians and Holaiaust

speaalists validated his account of Auschwitz and Majdanek (Lappin, "The

Man" 44). Wilkomirski convinced mental health professionals as weU,

including his €riend the psychologist Elitsur Bernstein and his psychiatrist

Monika Matta, whose spedaity is recovered-memory therapy, a fom of

treatment for those coping with traumatic mernories (Maechler 251). A

strange coinadence further added mdibility to Wilkomllski's story. A

woman narned Sara Lerner happened to witness a television documentq

about Holocaust sunrivors featuring Wilkomirski. She contaded her bro ther-

in-law Yakov Maroko, a Holocaust sunrivor Living in Israel, and suggested

that WiIkornirski might be his lost son who was thought to have perished in

Majdanek. Athough subsequent DNA tests proved that Maroko and

WikoLnifSki were unrelated, Maroko for some Lime dung to the hope that

he had finally found his missing son (Maechler 214-21). Laura Grabowski also

claimed to have known WiIlcomirski in Poland. Later it was revealed that

Grabowski was actualiy Laura Stratford, an American woman who had faked

other sensationai biographies about her pas t (Maechler 204-10).

For three years Wilkomirski revelled in the praise and support he

received for his text The sun set for him, however, on A«gst 27,1998 when

the Jewish noveiist Daniel Ganzfned published an article in the Swiss

newsmagazine Weltwoche containing the following statement: "Auch wenn

er seine Türsdiilder mit der neuen IdentiËLt besdiriftet - Binjamin Wikomirski ist ein Pseudonym, sein Trager war nie als Insasse in einem

Konzenhtionslager" ("Die geliehene," screen 4). Ganzfried's exposé revealed what he believes to be Wilkornirski's hue biography while dismisshg his

Holocaust memoir as a fraud. Ganzfried dairned that Binjamin Wilkomirski was actually Bruno Grosjean bom February 12,1941 in Biel Switzerland. His birth mother Yvome Grojean was seriously ill and no longer able to care for her child whom she subsequently gave up for adoption. After king passed from foster home to fostet home, young Bruno Grosjean eventually found some stabiiity at the age of four and a half with a Zurich doctor named Kurt

Wssekker and his wife. To support his case, Ganzfried demonstrated inconsistenaes in Wilkomirski's story, showing how his daims of having been in Poland in 1947 contradicted pictures and documents showing that he

was attenâîng a Swiss school at this the: "Die Begebenheiten, die er aus der

Nachknegszeit als eigenes Erleben in Polen schildert, lassen es schwerlidi zu, dass er 1947 in der Schweiz nir Schule ging" ('Vie geliehene," xreen 3).

Today it does not seem possible to scribe any aedibility to Binjamin

Wilkomirski's story. The American historian Rad Hilberg, for example,

declared that it would not have been possible for a child to survive a

transport from Majdanek to Auschwitz and cast doubt on some of

Willcomirski's terminology such as Latvian militia, a designation which was

never used in association with the Latvian police force (Maediler 167). In

addition, the American literary critic Lawrence Langer has noted a strong resemblance be tween Wilkomirski's text and Jerzy Kosinski's Holocaus t novel The Painted Bird (Maechler 158). The title of Kosinski's text alludes to a scene in which a peasant paints a bird and then sets it free to join its flodc.

The bird's new colours provoke aggression in the other birds who soon ostracize and kiU it. In an interview with Stefan Maechler Wilkomirski acknowledged haWig read and been deeply affecteci by this novei about a boy wandering through Eastern Europe during the Second World War (Mader

59).

intertextuality is no t uncommon in Holocaust testimonials and some authors such as Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel have incorporated traditional

"literary associations" and references frorn Dostoevsky and Dante in their memoirs (Langer 43-46). The similarities between The Painted Bird and

Bruchstücke, however, are startling. Both narratives have almost identical plotlines, describing the ordeal of chiIdren in Eastern Europe separated from

their families during World War Two (Maediler 212). Eventually the boy in

Kosinçki's tale is reunited with his parents after the war in mu& the same

way that Willcomirski is sent to live with foster parents in Switzerland.

Certain passages show a remarkable lüceness. Kosinksi Mites: "1 was myd

now a bird. [...] Borne abruptly up on a gust of hesh, reviving wind, 1 soared straight into a ray of ninshine [...lm (25). Wilkomirski also employs the image

of flying away and escaping like a bird: "Und dam schweife ich ab mit

meinen Gedanken, um mich m retten, ich schwebe in die H(rhe, über die Hauser und Dacher, hinweg Uber die bose Stadt, den Vogeln folgend, weit

über endlose Birkenwalder, über Seen und Fltisse" (125). Tembie nightmares of insects haunt Wilkomirski after the war:

In der Ebene rund um den Berg krochen auf einmal Scharen

von beiBendem Ungeziefer aus dem Men. So weit das Auge

reichte, wurde des immer dichter überat, und die Ebene schien

zu wogen von b&en Insekten.

Die Tiere krochen über midi. Ameisen, Lause, Kafer, sie

krochen an meinen Beinen hoch, aber den Bau& sie flogen

gegen meinen Kopf und krabbelten in mein Haar, meine Ohren,

Augen, Nase und Mund. (38)

Kosinski's wrator presents equally horrific images of an insect plague: "In my imagination I saw armies of ants and cockmaches calling to one another and scurrying toward my head, to some place under the top of my skd, where they would build new ne&" (24). Kosinski's depiction of stale bread soaked in borsdit (66) reminds one of the scene where Willcomirski obtains a piece of stale bread from his mother in Majdanek and is told to soak it in

water (48). In The Painted Bird, a boy who is older and stronger, named the

Silent One, becomes a protector of Kosinski's mator in the same manner

that a boy named Jankl becomes a mentor for Wilkomirski in Majdanek

Wilkomirski desaiies how he was tossed out of a train carrying Jews to a concentration camp: "Zwei groBe, starke Hade packen mich unter den 166

Annen. Sie werfen mich nach vome, über die anderen hinweg, dorthint wo

das Licht ist, wo Luft kt" (85). In The Painted Bird a young Jewish boy is

thrown from a train in the hopes that he too will avoid death (98-99).

Wiikoniirçki refers to the problem of rats in the concentration camps which

aggressively went after the children (81). Rats are alço desmfed as attacking

people in The Painted Bird (63).Given the aforementioned sidanties one

cmsee why Langer condudeci Uiat Wilkomirski fabricated his text

Bruchstücke by borrowing ex tensively from Kosinski's The Painted Bùd.

Stefan Maediler, a Swiss historian, provides further proof that

Wilkomirski's autobiography is a fake. He agrees with Ganzfried's assessrnent

that Wilkomirski and Bruno Grosjean are one and the same: "There is not

the least doubt that Binjamin Wilkomirski is identical with Brno Grosjean,

and that the story he wrote in Fraements and has told elsewhere took place

solely within the world of his thoughts and emotions" (268). He dismisses the

idea that there were rats in Majdanek (169) and shows how it would have

been very unlikely for a Jewish child who survived the Holocaust to be sent

to Switzerland after the war. Jewish organizations would have opposeci ail

attempts to take surviving chiidren and resettle them with a Christian family:

"a Jewish organiza tion never wodd have suppliecl a Mdwi th a Christian

identity" (186). There were cases where Jewish children arrived in

Switzerland from Belgium and France but this was during the course of the

war when they were seeking a safe haven from Nazi persecution (Picard, 167 saeen 2). Maediler &O cast doubt on the WiIhelrn Tell episode. During his school years in Switzerland, Willcomirski recalls an incident where he provokes a Mous reaction £rom a teachei after she asks him to des& a picture of the Swiss hero Wilhelm Tell. Hawig learned to associate the word hero with the black uniform of the SS, he responds in the foilowing manner:

"'Ich sehe ..., ich sehe einen SSbiann..,' sage idi zogernd. 'Und er schieBt ad

Kinder [...]'" (120). Instead of responding with anger, Wilko~ki's former teacher daimed she would have been sympathetic towards a chiid acting out

Holocaust trauma (Maechler 193). The woman Karola who appears toward the end of Bruchstücke furthet damaged the credibility of Wilkomirski's story. She stated that she met Wiikomirski for the kttime on a train from

Zurich to Paris in 1971. As she says: "1 didn't know him in Krakow, he wasn't there badc then, only later, to searckt for lies" (qtd. in MaechIer 197). Karola's anger with Wilkomirski has to do with the fact that he apparently appropriated large segments of her story as a Holocaust orphan in fabricating his own narrative (Mader 200).

Before king adoptai by the Dtbsekkers, Wilkomirski spent time wîth a farmer in Nidau, Switzerland. The son of the farmer, Renee Aeberhard, indicated to Maechler that an old photograph of WilkomKski resembled

Bruno Grosjean whom he encountered in 1944 when Wilkomirski was allegedly in Poland (226). Maechler notes several padels between

Willcomirski's geographic descriptions, characterizations and other de tails of 168 his üme in Poland and the Swiss farm where Bruno GrMean briefly resided:

... the farm near Zamosc was actually in the Swiss Jura, the canal

there was the Aere canal [...] the fnghtening deof the Polish

fmer was Bruno's mentaliy ill foster mother in the canton of

Bem; the soldateska were the Helvetian militia; and the gunfire

came from the rine range at Nidau. (229)

Further proof that Wilkomirski is Brno Grosjean is demonstrated in the fad that he collected a modest inheritance frorn his birth mother Yvonne

Grosjean, following her death in the early 1980s (Lappin, "The Man" 26).

Wilkomirski appears to have fabricated his Holocaust story over an extensive period of the. In the 194ûs, as he was perhaps beginning to corne to terms with his early childhood trauma as a young adult, Wilkornirski began to dress according to his conception of a Jewish peson: "Not until the mid-

1960s did he begin to manifest a Jewish heritage, wearing a nedace with the

Star of David, donning a yarmullce at home, and mounting a mezuzah on his apartment door" (Maechler 237). A professor whom Grosjean encountered during a trip to Poland in 1972, apparently inspired his name change after he noted a strong resemblance between the Swiss man and the famed Poüsh violinist Wanda Wilkomirska (Maechler 194-95). By the ~arly1980s

Wilkornirski had metamorphosed into a Holocaust survivor (Maechler 240).

Wiikomirski gradually altered the dates and circumstances of his Holocaust narrative £rom the early 1980s to the appearance of Bruchstücke in 1995 169

(Maechler 240-41). Along the way Wilkomirski accumuiated his knowledge of the Holocaust by reading personal testirnonies, from his vast collection of historical sources, and his numerous trips to various sites in Eastern Europe.

One of hi9 greatest influences was a documentary nIm about the Majdanek concentration camp trials whkh appeared on German television in the 1980s

(Maechler 243).

In the wake of Wilkomirski's exposure, the obvious question seems to be why he felt compelled to fabricate an identity as a Jewish Holocaust survivor. By cornparison, Solomon Perel's reason for disguising his ethnicity is abundantly dear since he would have been put to death had his Jewishness been discovered. Daniel Ganzfried characterizes Wilkomirski as a calculating baud. As he writes: "Ich selbst bin sdion hüh zur Eùischatmng gelangt, dass wir es mit einem Mt planenden, systematisch vorgehenden Falscher zu tun haben, dessen eigentlich bemerkenswertes Handwerk die mimetische

Sdiauspieikunst kt'' ("Verwandelte Polin," saeen 4). If one agrees with

Ganzfkied, one might condude that WiUcomirski hoped to gain some benefit from his deception, perhaps finanaal or othenvise. It seems unlikely that

Wilkomirski's motives were as sinister as Ganzfned suggests and there is strong evidence that he truly believed in his Holocaust narrative. Those who met Wilkomirski were often impressed by the fad that there was sornething genuine about his suffe~g,even if his story did not seem to be true. Well aware that Binjamin Wilkomirski was identined as Bruno Grosjean, Elena Lappin was nevertheless impressed by the seeming legitimacy of his Jewish masquerade. As she wrote following an interview with him: "1 cannot believe that Fraements is anything other than fiction. And yet when I came badc hm his fannhouse that evening 1 was, as 1 said, convinceci he was genuine.

Anguish Like his seemed impossible to fabricate" (The Man" 61). It is certainly beyond the scope of this thesis to offer a detaited psychological anaiysis of Wilkomirçki, but it is possible that his disguise is an expression of his diildhood trauma as a Swiss orphan (Maechler 254). Constructirtg a narrative around one of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century would provide hirn with a greater audience than a "story of an unhappy, iilegi tima te, adopted workingclass child" (Maediier 278)P

The success of Bruchstüdce as weli as Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's

Willin~Executioners and Victor Klempereis diaries Ich will Zeugnis ablegel? bis zum Letzten, detailing his life as a Jew in ûresden during the Hitler era, reflects the public's desire for a more personalized view of the Holocaust. Part

23 In fact, there are less prominent documented cases similar to that of Binjamin Wilkomirski, including a man who daimed to be a Vietnam veteran. His story was so convincing that he deceived therapists as well as his wife and, although his story was revealed to be false, his anguish was not and evenhially he committed suicide (Yapko 31-32). One should also bear in mind that there is sorne controversy amongst psychologists about the extent to which the therapist can encourage memones in their patients which might not necessady be me. Severely depressed clients are partidarly susceptible to suggestions about the mot of their tonnent (Yapko 35). Although Wilkomirski assumeci a Jewish identity long before he met Monika Matta and Elitsur Bernstein, these therapists might have encouraged and strengthened his belief in his Holocaust narrative. 171 of this interest can be attributed to the ongoing need for an explanation as to why the Nazi genocide took place. Postwar historiography can shed light on how the medianisms for committing genocide were put into place, but has diffidty explaining why the average person would perpetrate su& inhumanity. As well, Wilkomirski's memoir and other Holocaust narratives help bring to Me that which is difficult to comprehend in dry historical discourse. As Maderwrïtes: "It [the popularity of the autobiographical genre] evidentiy corresponds to a deep human need to make the past present in the colorful and emotiortai yet conaete reality of an individual - a desire that scientific history seldom satisfies" (Maediler 306). The opening of the

Holocaust museum in Washington, widespread publicity surrounding Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation - an organization which captures personal survivor testimonials on film - as well as the success of films like

Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful have oniy contnbuted to this desire for a more personalized account of history (Henry, xreen 5).

The public's fascination with "micro-history" and the success of

Bruchstücke taise some important issues about the quality of historical documents. There has been a steady increase in the yearly publication of

Holocaust memoirs worldwide, from 107 in 1986 to 180 in 1995 (Henry, srneen

4). Wilkomirski's story stood out amongst most survivor testimonials because of its tremendous marketability. Some publishers assume that the

majority of readers of Holocaust memoirs are Jewîsh and so they tend to 172 favour naratives which emphasize heroic struggles of survivai over less valiant accounts by Jews who may have collaborated with the Nazis (Henry, screen 3). Willcomirski's melodramatic presentation of a small boy who against ali odds prevails in the face of homfic persecution fits the publishers' profile, and it was rushed to the market before editon verified the text's authentiaty. In the article in which Daniel Ganzfned exposes Wilkomirski, he criticizes the editors and reviewers who failed to research the man's background adequately and who lacked the courage to question his testimony:

Es mag erstaunen, wie billig sich die Rezipienten und

Multiplikatoren in Film und Literatur abspeisen lassen. Dass

ihnen aber vor einern Konstnikk wie Wilkomirskis

LebensgesdUdite nicht nur die Freiheit zu fragen, sondern auch

der Mut des eigenen Urteils abhanden kommt, muss

erschrecken ('me geliehene," screen 5)

Rad Hilberg agrees with Ganzfned's assessrnent of the publishg industry which, given the popularity of Holocaust narratives, often saaifices quality to meet market demand. During an interview on Sixtv Minutes he chastised publishers and critics for their ignorance and warned about the lack of proper screening of those purporüng to be sunrivors:

Well, they're ignorant. They're tem%ly ignorant, and here 1 speak

of the editors and the reviewers and the prize juries. And I must

add that there is a cuit of testimony today. There is an effort to elicit the story from every single survïvor stiU able to tak Ço in

that sense, evqbody who says, 'Tm a survivor and 1 have a

story," will be told, " Corne on in." And if he's capable of writing

some tbgvery interesting, he'U be celebrated. (Franments,

saeen 8)

Hilberg's comments could apply to projects Like Steven Spielberg's Shoah

Foundation which has so far collected over 45,000 survivor narratives on film, one of which belongs to Binjamin Wilkomirski (Schoeps, screen 3).

For Daniel Ganzfried one of the most damaging consequences resulting from Wilkomirski's masquerade is the fad that the man tamished the aedibiiity of a.U Holocaust survivors. He was especially concemed about the effect the "Wilkomirski Affair" would have on those, particularly chiidren, who had Listened to him speak: "Aber nun müssen sie erfahren, dass auch der

Zeuge falsch war. Bald glauben sie gar nichts mehr, und morgen schon neigen sie dam, dem zu glauben, der ihnen enahlen will, dass Auschwitz nwein

kbeitslager war, wo leider auch eh paar Insassen zuviel gestorben seienW(Wiegeliehene," saeen 5). Wiucomirski's fabrication might tempt one

to believe in the arguments of those who deny or diminish the bue nature of

the Holocaust. A perusai of the relevant websites on the intemet reveals that

many neo-Nazi organizations have indeed seized on the "Wilkomirski

Affair" to support Holocaust denial.

One prominent Holocaust "revisonkt" who has manipulated WiUcomirski's fabrication to his own end is the historian David Inring.

Irving repeatedy cited the Wilkomitski case during his farnous libel suit last year in England against Deborah Lipstadt, author of den vin^ the Holocaust, a book detailing persons and organizations involved in dismissing the

Holocaust as a hoa. One of the premises underpinning Irving's assertion that the sdeof the Holocaust was much smailer than conventional historians would have us believe, is the umeliability of survivor testimonies as evidence of German wartime atrocities (Menasse, screen 1).According to

Irving, the success of Bmchstücke demonstrates that it is quite possible to imagine and construct fantastic stories about Nazi persecution that have no basis in fact (Menasse, screen 1). During his trial against Lipstadt, Irving introduced Wilkomirski's name in the same context with Holocaust survivors Like Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel. Irving daimed that Frank's diary is a novel written after the war, citing a German govenunent investigation which concluded that certain types of ink not available before 1950 were found on some of its pages (Inrine vs. Limtadt Feb. 15 54-80).24 Irving &O labelleci Elie Wiesel a "poser" because of his inability to recall in which concentration camp he was intemed duruig the war (Irvuie vs. Liwtadt lm.

24 The controversy began when the Bundeskriminalamt found traces of ballpoint pen residue in the diaries. A subsequent investigation bv the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation concluded that *the diaries were very likely genuine and that the ballpoint pen additions were of an extremely lùnited nature and certainly not indicative of a forgery (Lipstadt 234-35). -20 186-87). Irving believes many so-ded sinvivors like Wiesel and WilkomVski are faking their Holocaust narratives for profit: '%me are [...] people who believe they were there [in the camps] [...]. There have been an

increasing number in recent years - Binjamin Wilomierski [sic] is one example Ely [sic] Wiesel is another - who have capitalized on, or

inshumentalized, the Holocaust" (IMne vs. Li~stadtMardi 2 36). During his

closing arguments at his trial, Irving aiso attempted to hun the tables on

Lipstadt, daiming that she manipulateci historical facts by teadiing

Bmchstücke to her university students, in spite of her awareness that the

diary is a fake. As he explained to the judge: "It may seem unjust to your

Lordship that it is I who have had to answer this person's allegation that I

distort and manipulate historical sources" (hine vs. Li~stadtMarch 15 139).

In addition to providing "revisionists" like Irving with material for

their cause, Wikomirski &O perpetuates a number of Jewish stereotypes

(Maechler 304). Similar to Esther Becker's or Hugo NiehouB's, Willcomirski's

identity transformation gave him ail the appearances of a "trademark" Jew.

His classrnates from primary school do not recall that Wilkomirski possessed

any sort of linguistic quirk (Ganzfried, "Die geliehene," screen 3). Elena Lappin, however, noted a Yiddish accent when she met with him - "He talked in a low voice in slightly Yiddish-sounding German [...If' (16) - a

pdarity which disappeared in subsequent conversations she had with him

(65). His hiend ELitsur Bernstein &O remarked on his Yiddish accent which 176 he noticed during a trip with Wiornirski to Eastern Europe: "I noticed that whenever he spoke with Jewish or non-Jewish persons, his German, which is nonnally orienteci towards correct syntax and vocabulary, was transformed and took on a Yiddish color" (qtd. in Mader 99). Most people visithg

Wilkomirski's Swiss farmhouse note the decor ernphasizing his Jewishness:

"There was a profusion of rather touristy Jewish memorabilia," recalls Lappin

("The Man" 16). Ganzfned made sirnilar comments following an interview with Wilkomirski:

Wohin das Auge blidct - Judaica: Wandbehange mit biblischen

Motiven, Mesusot (Türkapseln) an jedem Durch- und Eingang,

Davidsteme und Bilder aus dem Heiiigen Land. Uns ist, als

k6me jederzeit eh Rabbiner vorbeikommenf um das

Glaubensbekenntnis seines Konvertiten zu überprüfen. ("Die

geliehene," screen 2)

During his book tours and speaking engagements Wilkomirski would often adom himself in a prayer shawl whidi gave him the "additional aura of a religious Jew and tent the event a sacral dignity" (Maechler 283). Ganzfned also claimeci that Wilkomirski went as far as hving his hair curied in the manner of the stereotypical Jew (qtd. in Gourevitch 65). Beyond his physicid alterations, Ganzfried sees Bruchstiicke and the appearances WiUcomirski made to support it as promoting another Jewish stereotype: that of the etemal

Jewish victim. As he wrîtes: Dei Autor ha t seinen Pos t-Holocaus t-Juden so zurechtfrisiert,

wie man ihn sich in den besseren Kreisen, denen er entstamrnt,

eben vorstellt: weinerlich, hihdereibend, geschlagen und

gebrochen für immer, nachdem man den Juden als Blutsauger

und Christusmtkder gerade erst losgeworden ist. ("Verwandelte

Poh," screen 6)

It is diffidt to imagine that Wilkomirski alone could be responsible for an increase in anti-Semitic sentiment, as Canzfned seems to suggest. It is interesthg tu note that many failed to question Wilkomllski's stereotypical masquerade, induding people within the Jewish community itseif.

1 demonstrate in previous chapters how role reversai is often a vehicle to reflect or mticize how Austria and Germany have dealt with the history of

National Socialism. Bmchstücke and its reception mirror the controversies surrounding Switzerland's past during the 1990s (Maediler 297-300). When

Bruchstücke was Fvst published in 1995, SwitzerIand was experiencing a fundamental reexamination of the country's World War Two history. During the course of such investigations evidence emerged about Swiss bahand

theK wartime role in laundering millions of dollars in plundered Nazi gold, as weU as their postwar retention of significant Jewish assets in dormant bank

accounts. It also became dear that Swiss industry had done much to supply

Hitler's economy with valuable materials for the production of weapons

(Vincent 117). As well, reports surfaced about Switzerland's dreadful treatment of Jewish refugees during the war and how the Red Cross aided the escape of Nazi war crimllials to South America. The hth about Swiss cooperation with the Nazis, which was motivated not ody by greed but &O by the very real threat of German invasion,25 helped destroy several national myths, induding the belief in the country's wartime neutrality, the deterrent power of its army and its seif-image as the European centre of humanitarianism (Vincent 182). The Zurich literary critic Brigitte Erdle interprets Wilkomirski's Wilhelm Tell episode as an allegory of the darker periods of Swiss history (Jaeger, "Die Buergschaft" saeen 2). Mistaking the legendary figure of Wiihelm Tell for an SS officer, Wïlkomimki dudes to

Switzerland's collaboration with Hitlefs regixne and the destruction of the aforementioned national myths. Wilkomirski's description of Swiss anti-

Semitism in his text Merunderpins the less pleasant aspects of the country's history: "Deute ihnen nur leise einmai an, daes sein komte, da.@ du ein Jud' bist und du wirst spiiren: Es sind noch immer die gleichen

Menschen - und ich bin sicher: Sie k6men noch immer toten, auch ohne

Uniform," writes the narrator Wilkomirski of his fellow Swiss citizens (140).

Even though he was living in a country which had not directiy partiapated in the Nazi genodde, Wilkomirski nevertheless sensed some sort of anti-Jewîsh sentiment. The very success of Bruchstücke cm be attribut& to its appearance

25 Some top Nazis wanted to occupy Switzerland and the German army did in fact have a plan for the invasion of the country cded "Operation Christmas Tree" (Vincent 114-15). 179 during the time of these heady discussions about Switzerland's past. At a time when the country was reeling £rom revelations of Nazi collaboration it would have been difficult for aitics to dismiss the testimony of a Jewish chiid survivor.

in chapter one 1 have discussed how Edgar Hilsenrath's grotesque aesthetic prevents any sense of empathy on the part of the reader, partidary since the protagonist Max Schulz is a mass murderer. Wilkomirski's narrative provokes the exact opposite reaction and the positive reception of

Bruchstücke can in part be attributed to Wilkomirski's effective depiction of a brutal black and white world where there is a strong dichotomy between the victim and the perpetrator, as well as between grownup and chiid ("Rhetorik des Traumas," saeen 3). Wilkomirski moves the reader with horrifying scenes iike his fathefs death at the hands of the Latvian miiitia who cnish hirn with a tm& "Kein Sdirei kommt aus seiner Kehle, aber ein mkhtiger, schwarzer Strahl sdueBt aus seinem Hals, als das GefWrt ihn krachend an der

Hauswand zerquetscht" (10). He presents other sickening images of babies in

Majdanek who out of hunger chew thek hgers down to the bone (67-68)and a camp guard who murders a child by cracking his head open during a

"friendly" game with a wooden ball (74). Later in Switzerland, Wilkomirski consistently portrays himself as an outcast in a world which has no sympathy for a Mdacting out episodes of his Holocaust trauma. Adults chastise him for stealing cheese rinds at the orphanage: "'Et spuckt, beiBt, tobt und iBt Abfalle!' rief erregt eine der weiSen Schürzen" (25). At one point

Wikomirski meets an old hiend from his days in Gacow named Karola.

During a skiing expedition in the alps WiIkomirski recounts how both he and

Karola were terrifieci when confronted with a ski Mt which reminds them of

the "death machine" in the concentration camps (132), the engine which

produced carbon monoxide for the gas chambers. Their anxiety causes the ski

instructor to chastise them as weaklings (134). Even Willcomirski's foster

parents discourage hirn from expressing his tonnent and counsel him to

leave his past behind: 'mas mdt du jetzt vergessen! Vergessen, wie einen

bosen Traum" (115).

Wilkomirski's shocking portrait of a helpless child surromdeci by

hostile adults and sadistic perpetrators allows him to manipulate his audience

as he plays upon their conscience and forces them to empathize with him:

Entweder er [the reader] hehlt sich als Taeter schuldig, der er

stelit sich auf die Seite des Opfers und identihlZiertsich mit ihm.

Eh naheliegender Ausweg aus der Sdiuldmweisung oder einer

anderweitig beaengstigenden Identifikation scheint darin ni

bestehen, das Buch ueber alles zu loben und auf dessen

Authentizitaet zu verweisen. ("Rhetorik des Traumas," saeen 3)

Sorne German mitics could escape their feelings of guilt for the past by

showing solidarity with the victimOpraising his text and lending its author

credibility. OUier readers, whose parents may have beai perpetrators, codd comfort themselves with the idea that they would never be capable of the atrocities perpetrated by Wilkomirski's brutal camp guards (Mertins, screen 2). uistead, they could displace their feelings of guilt by pointing the hger at their relatives and thus take the "moral high ground" (Maechler 290). As mentioned, Daniel Ganzfried chastised critics and publishers for ailowing such feelings of empathy to inhibit their critical judgement of Bmchstücke. Ln a sense Ganzfried argued dong the lines of those postwar writers, Ue

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who felt that it was important for the reader to retain a sense of estrangement from the Holocaust. As Ganzfned writes: 'Wenn

Militleid, die le tz te Tugend des guten Mensdien, über den Abgrund von

Auschwitz m verführen beginnt, so schwindet genau das, was am Faktum selber den weltabgewandten Charakter und in der Folge die Schwierigkeit des

Eruinerns ausrnadit: die Bodenlosigkeit" geliehene," screen 5).

Wilkomirski's strategy of manipulating reader sympathy is not to be found in the memoir of Solornon Perel. Like Wilkomirski's narrator, Perel

was &O an orphan in Eastern Europe, separated £rom his family as the

German army advanced. Perel fled Nazi persecution with his family to Lodz,

Poland from his native Germany in 1938.26 After the German invasion of

Poland he and his brother Isaac leave for Russia where Perel, wary of his

mother's advice to survive at ail costs, quickly adapts to Soviet Me: "Solly

26 Interestingiy, Pddescricbes himself as the "grandson of a wise man from Wilkomir," a village in Poland (my emphasis 88). 182

Perel became a devoted participant in the dass struggie for a better hihue for mankùid," he writes of this Lime (14). When Perel is captured by German troops near Minsk he once again displays his adeptness at changing roles, adopting the identity of a Lithuanian ethnic German and later that of a Hitler

Youth. Because Perei's is much older than Willcomirski's protagonist, his memories are much more vivid, the narration les fragmented. Perel arranges his tex t chronologically, occasionally in terrup ting hiç narrative wi th itaiicized reflections or comentary on past events. At times, to distance himself from his Hitler Youth persona Josef Peell or "Jupp,"Perel wiil switch to third-person narration when describing the thoughts or actions of his alter ego.

Less apparent in Perers account are the excessively grotesque images which Wilkomirski borrowed from the Painted Bird. Certainly Perel witnessed acts of barbarism on the Eastern Front, as exhibited in the episodes where he descrii the Geman treatment of Russian partisans or how

Wehrmacht soldiers deliberately place a village's cats into a house and then fire builets into it until there is silence (44). One of his most moving descriptions is that of the Lodz ghetto in Poland which he visited on furlough from the Hitler Youth Academy in 1943. Searching for his parents, Perel instead encounters the pesome sight of ernaciated and diseased figures and corpses being loaded ont0 carts. At one point he seems to recognize someone as his mother: "The more 1 stared at her the more convinced 1 becarne that it was my mother" (151). This scene reminds one of the tragic image of

Wilkomirski's narrator's longhg for his mother, as represented in the scene where he visits her in the Majdanek concentration camp.

The destruction of one's famiiy at the hands of the Nazis is somethuig which one wodd exped to inspire fear and intense hatred of the perpetrators.

As 1 have demonstrated, Wilkomirski's narrator, having been orphaned by the Nazis, makes strenuous efforts to emphasize his victimhood, depicting a world of binary opposites where animosity reigns between perpetrator and victim, child and adult. Swiss and non-Swiss. Solomon Perel's reaction to

Nazi persecution and his attitude towards Germans, on the other hand, is much more complex. His text presents a differentiated portrait of Gemans and Germany that diffea considerably hmthe hostile images assoaated with

WiUcomirski's Switzeriand. One certallily does not have the feeling that ail

Germans were evil or ardent National Socialists after reading Solomon

Perei's autobiography. In fa&, one often has the impression that Perel p~vp~selyavoids anythuig in the way of negative commentary about his native country, an attitude which is remarkable given the fact that he Iost both his parents and his sister in the Holocaust.27 Certaidy a part of Perel expresses hatred towards his Nazi mentors, partidarly since, as a Hitler

27 In a 1992 interview with the Jemalem Post Perel maintained his respect and love of Germany and its culture: Y still thllik of Germany as my m0therIa.d and apprecîate its cul- and beauty," he stated (qtd. in Hershenson, screen 3). Youth, he is bombarded with theh propaganda on a daily basis. However, more apparent than the divide separating German and Jew in Ewa. Euro~a is the hatred Perel describes between Eastern European and German Jews, which he encounters when his family relocates to Poland in the late 1930s.

Recalling his diildhood in Lodz, Perel has painhrl mernories of the derisive behaviour of his dassmates, particularly, "The loud scornfd snickering of the local Jewish kids who mocked the Yeke Putz mit a Top Kawe [the Gennan

Jewish Loser with a pot of coffee][...IN (4.28

Perel's positive experiences with Germans are recounted throughou t his text. When he meets his former German teachers and colleagues after the war they are surprised to lem of his Jewishness, but interestingly enough the bond of camaraderie is almost always stronger than prejudice or the neeci for some sort of revenge. Perel retums to his native Peine for a Knstallnacht cornmernoration in 1985 where he encounters his Hitler Youth Home leader

Karl R. and quickly informs the man that he is Jewish. After tahg a moment

to grasp this fact, Karl R. nevertheles expresses great happiness at meeting his

former student Perel describes his teaction: "It was a spontaneous expression

of genuine joy. I didn't want to play the role of avenger, although I was

determined not to forget the pst. 1 merely wanted to set the record straight.

Still, t!!s was a very warm human encounter, and 1 gave in to my emotions"

(72). Perel forms a partidarly strmig bond with the school seaetary Miss

28 As Perel explains: "Germans were thought to drink too much coffee" (4). Kochy with whom he maintains cordial relations even after the war ends:

"We have met several times since those days, and even today we feel affection and friendship for each 0the.r" (90). With respect to his former dassmates and soldiers £rom the Russian Front, Perel is able to distinguish between the regime of National Socialism and the Gennan comrades he befriended:

1 hated the Nazi regirne and rejected it completely, and yet 1 was

well-disposed toward these men. Despite my fenrent prayers for

theu qui& defeat and for the rescue of my family and rny fellow

Jews, 1 felt a remarkable affection for them. This muçt be

completely incomprehensible to sorneone who sees things from

a one-dimensional perspective. (85)

Especially remarkable is the degree of cooperation and support Perel receives from those Gennans who are aware of his Jewishness. For example, in Russia

Perel is adopted by the 12th Panzer division with whom he fights for approximately a year. He develops a strong friendship with the unit's medical officer Heinz Kelzenberg who, once aware that Perel is Jewish, refuses to betray his identity to 0thsoldiers. As he tells Perel: "Don't ay,Jupp, they

mustn't hear you outside. 1 won? hurt you and 1 won? betray your secret. You

know, there is another Germany" (44). After he is transporteci badc to

Germany PereI associates with an ardent BDM girl, whose mother, suspicious

about the details of his pst, quizzes him as to whether or not he is really German After Perel breaks down and reveals his bue ethnic origins she reacts with great syrnpathy: "Leni's mother got up and bent over me. Çhe kissed my forehead, dmed me down, and promised not to reveal my secret to anyone" (117). She merdemonstrates her support with continual acts of kindness:

This new relationship expressed itself through small kindnesses:

dmed socks or a piece of homemade cake. In retum, 1 trusted

her completely, convinced that she would never tum me in. On

the contrary, she made me swear, no matter what, never to

reveai my secret to her daughter. In thiç respect, not even Leni's

own mother was sure of her daughter. "Children today are so

different." was her only comment. (118)

As hinted at in Leni's mother's comments about her daughter, Perel attributes

the anti-Semitism he encountered amongst Germans largely to Nazi propaganda.29 He portrays his former classrnates as victims, manipulated by

the steady stream of Stürmer images about the Jew. As he writes of his feilow

Hitler Youth: They had been converted into devout foliowers of Adolf

29 It is interesthg to note how Perel's depiction of Gerrnans contradicts that of Daniel J. Goldhagen's, the American sodologist who beiieves that the majority of Germans during the Nazi era were elimina tionis t antitiSemites. Goldhagen does cite Jacob [sic] Perel's memoir in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners, but refers only to the way in which Perel expected to inherit the estate of an SS officer where he would employ slave labourers from the East (598). In fact, it was a Wehrmacht officer, Perei's commander in the 12th Panzer division, who planned to adopt him der the war. Hitler, and they were devoted to this false prophet, body and sod. Any original ideas, any aitical spirit, had been driven out of hem" (82-83).Years later, when Perel reveals his Jewishness to his old girkiend Leni he describes how her image of the Jew radically changes: "1 also saw that her entire BDM system of racial theories came himbhg down when it dawned on her that she had spent considerable time with a Jew who respected her and who was doser to her than the Aryan friends who shared her political beliefs" (119).

One of the most as tonishing aspects of Perd's story is the degree to which he, iike his dassmates, begins to identify with National Walism.

Perel found that four years playing the role of a Hitler Youth were enough to convert a part of him into a dedicated Nazi. As he writes of his National

Soaalist indoct~ation:1 sensed that I was graduaily becoming ensnared by this depraved 'science,' or at lest by some of its aspects. Eventudy, I became convinced that a superior people had the right to de[...lm (100). Like his dassmates he cornes to cheer every Gerrnan victory (112). Even hfty years later

Perel, now living in Jerusalem, has not fully managed to excorcise the Nazi

"Jupp" horn his personality. He explains how he too like his former dassmates retains some of the propaganda that infected him at the Hitler

Youth Academy: "This same Hitier Youth, 'Jup,' [sic] still hes within me, with everything connected to that. It bothers me in daily Me" (qtd. in Diehl,

Screen 2).

Although Perel served for a year on the Russian Front and travefleci to Poland where he witnessed the horrors of the Lodz ghetto, he consistently maintains in his text that he had no idea at the time that Nazi genocide was king perpetrated on a mass basis. As he Mites: "Presumably, the majority of

Germans in the Third Reich had an inkling of the dimensions of the ex termina tion operation, but the subject never came up in conversations when 1 was present. In all the years 1 hved among hem, as one of them, 1 did not hear the faintest -or or the tiniest hint about genodde" (191). After the war ends Perel encounters a refugee, who had been in a concentration camp, at which point he daims he realized for the fint tirne what had happened to the Jews. That Perel was entireiy ignorant of Nazi genocide is difficult to believe. The German Jew Victor Klemperer describes in his diary having heard about Auschwitz as early as Mardi of 1942 (47) and gasings in Poland a year later (335).Certainly having associated with other members of the Jewish community in Dresden, Klemperer may have been more exposed to the rumours which were filtering in to Germany from the East Still, one must consider that Lodz was located dose to the Chelmno death camp which was in full operation in 1943. Having frateniized with ethnic Germans and soldiers hmthe front during a Christmas party in the aty, it does not seem possible that Perel did not encounter some reference to Nazi genocide. However, had

Perel known about the enormity of the Holocaust, it would no doubt have made his disguise unbearable, particularly since his parents were in Lodz. It is plausible that as a swival mechanism he deliberately refused to perceive the full scale of what was happening to the Jewish people at the time.30

Aside from conveying a differentiated portrait of Gemans and Perei's own incioctrination with Nazi propaganda, Eurova. Eurova is notable for a sense of humor which is missing from Wilkornirski's memoir. The comic elements of Perei's text are often derived from the ùony resulting from his

Geman disguise. In one episode "Jupp" details his passage badc to Germany hom Russia with his escort, the wife of top Nazi Baidur von mach.During the train ride the woman, who lectures endlessly on the accornplishments of the Führer and National Soaalism, soon becomes seduced by Solomon's pitch black hair (57). Perel comments with amusement about their encounter:

"Now I said to rnyself, 'See, Miss Nazi, youfve just been carrying on with a

Jew!' I think she would have killed herself if she had found out" (57). One of the most cornic moments in Perel's text occurs when his instnictor of racial

30 In his text Perei makes reference to the Madagascar plan which was a scheme to transport European Jews to the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa (83). Nazi ofneals considered such a plan until it was realized Great Britain was unwiuing to negotiate Face and that the number of Jews captured in the East made the mass transport of Jews by ship impractical (Landau 153-52). Citing the Madagascar plan, Perel displays what one might term the functionalist view of history which maintains that Nazi genocide was not a well-planned, preconceived Nazi policy as intentionalist historians believe but rather "haphazard, improvised [...] der the alternatives of emigration had been exhausted" (Landau 164). As Perd stated in an interview: "the Germans did not have the means to transfer aU these people [to Madagascarj. Therefore, at that the, the Final Solution of destruction was conceived" (qtd. in Hershenson, screen 3). Perel's functionalist perspective is understandable since havuig semed a Nazi dictatorship which was intentionally planning to murder his fellow Jews from the beginnuig of its ascension to power might compound the feelings of guilt Perel may have for joîning the Hitler Youth as a means of sumival. 190 science explains to his Hitler Youth ciassrnates how "Josef Perjeil" is a prime example of Eastem German ethnic stock. Perel desaibes the irony of this encounter:

Then came the surprise! The teadier said, "Class, take a look at

Josef. He is a typical descendant of the Eastern Baltic race,"

Heaven be praised! At this instant thousands of research projects

by Nazi racial scholars reached a point of utter absurdity, their

afieged scholarly cornpetence uncovered for what it redy was:

zero! (96)

When Perel encounters the same teacher after the war, the man steadfastly maintains that he had perceived Perel's Jewishness, daiming, Y knew it all dong, but 1 was trymg to avoid hurting you ... !" (97).31 Although Perel does not accentuate his tragic situation in the manner of Wilkomirski, one is no less sympathetic towards his piight. Chie is inspired by his courage and the remarkable skill with which he fabricated an identity and hid his

cirmcision, which he managed to do in part by showering in his

It is aiso interesthg to note the ciifferences in recep tion between

Bmchstücke and Europa. Eun, a, partidarly with respect to the film version

31 The irony is compounded by the ktthat Perel admits to possessing several stereotypically Jewish feahws. As he Mites: "For I resembled many of the prototypes they [at the Hitler Youth Academy] showed us, and 1 had many of the 'distinguishing Jewish feahues' that were descrïï to us" (94). 191 of Perel's story which appeared more or les simultaneously under the same title as his text in 1991. Whereas Wilkomirski's memou received almost universal critical praise following its initial publication, the film E-a.

Euniva was successhil in the United States but failed in Germany. Certainly one should bear in mind in such a cornparison of Wilkomirski and Perel that film represents a different medium than the memoir and is therefore open to a different critical interpretation. Nevertheless, many felt that i t was Perei's story rather than the representation in film which was the source of controversy surrounding the Polish director Agnieszka Holland's cinematic adaptation of Euro~aEuro~a. Jackson Diehl describes the contrasting aitical reception of the füm in the United States and Germany: "Eurova. Eurow, though hailed elsewhere in Europe and the United States, was panned by many German critics, and the German Export Union refused to nominate it for Best Foreign Language Film - which meant the film could not compete in that category" (saeen 3). The negative reception of the film in Germany surprises because Perel's portrayal of the Germans is not altogether negative.

%me attributed the lukewarm reception in Germany to the fact that Germans were uncornfortable with king represented internationaily by Holocaust films, while others saw reunifïcation as emboldening many to distance

themselves kom the past (Fisher, screen 2). It might &O be possible to attribute the reaction of German critics to Euro~a.Eurova to theV general dislike of Geman films (Fisher, screen 2). For his part, Perel felt that his story reflected an aspect of history which many in Gemany might not have wanted to discuss, partidary since it may have contradicteci their image of the Jew.

As he explains: "it's a lack of courage to deal also with this side of the bue.

Here is a Jew who's not suitable to the mode1 they want to see. And so they simpIy shirk him off" (qtd. in Diehl, screen 4). Perel fails to elaborate on what he means by a German "model" of the Jew, but perhaps he believes that most

Germans wish to see Jews only portrayed as victims.

It is also interesting to note how right-wing groups have reacted to

Perel's story. I have demonstrated how some Holocaust revisionists Like

David Irving have seized on the "Wilkomirski Affair" to demonstrate their daim that it is possible to fddy a convindng Holocaust autobiography. Perel, on the other hand, maintains that he and his story have had the opposite effect, that in speaking in public about his experiences during the Nazi era as a

Hitler Youth he has been able to persuade many young Germans not to join radical parties. As he explains: "When 1 tell them the tmth about racism, Nazi ideology and the concentration camps, they hten with a different ear. I have received letters saying that, after hearing me speak, some of them have begun questioning the Nazi line of thinking" (qtd. in Hershenson, screen 2). That

Perel believes his story can alter the way of thinking of right-wing radicals may in part be a further expression of the guilt he might have for living amongst the enemy while others perished in the death camps. He has often been forced to defend his survival strategy as he did following an interview 193 with a Germa. radio host, who accwd him of behaving immorally during the war. As she said: "Solomon Perel, to save his skin, forgot to behave morally . He betrayed his faith" (qtd. in Diehl, meen 4). To which Perel responded: "Then maybe 1 would have died a mord death. [...] But 1 wanted to live. For me the moral thing was to iive" (qtd. in Diehl, screen 4).

I have demonstrated how Binjamin Wilkomirski's and Solomon

Perel's texts differ radically in terrns of narrative strategy. Perel's positive attitude towards Gerrnany is shüllng, and he consistently indicates that the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in the country during World War Two was nothing more than the result of Nazi-inçpired propaganda. As it has been exposeci as fake, one wonders about the fate of Wilkomirski's narrative.

Reading Bmchstücke as fiction rather than non-fiction certainly has a different effect on the reader, although Wilkomirski's text remains a powerful account of wartime suffe~gthrough the eyes of a child. Ln many instances fiction cm be a useful tool for conveying the essence of a historical event.

Certain films like Sdiindler's List and A~ocalwseNow, for example, effectively capture the horrors of the Holocaust and the Vietnam War respectively. The television mini-series The Winds of War presents an emotionally devastating reconstruction of the process of selection and extermination at Auschwitz, which culminates in a depiction of the suffering of those sent to the gas chamber. Although Bmchstiicke is fiction, it is a disturbing reminder of Nazi barbarian, whose hh~ma~tyextended to the internent and murder of thousands of children. Conclusion

1 have demonstrated by way of comparative/ contras tive analysis how role reversal and passing constitute dominant tropes in the postwar narratives of Gerrnan and Austnan Jewish authors. FVst and second generation writers employ a wide variety of identity transformations, induding role reversais where non-Jews become Jews or vidims become perpetrators and vice versa (Max Schulz, Arno Bronstein, Car1 Bauer, Ida). I have aiso noted various modes of passing sudi as assimilation (Lea

Somenson, Pe ter Adel) and assimilation by association wi th non-Jews

(Emanuel Katz), as well as instances where charaders of mUred parentage emphasize one aspect of their ethnic heritage over the other (Hugo NiehouB,

Charles Men, Hannah's daughter).

With respect to generational, national and gender differences, 1 have drawn attention to a nuaiber of general trends. Hilsenrath and to a lesser extent Becker, explore themes often found in Holocaust üterahire, probing issues of moraüty and justice in the aftermath of the hventieth century's greatest tragedy. As well, ktgeneration authors have influencecl second generation wri ters bo th aesthe tically and thematicdy . Some second generation authors employ the use of binary oppositions Hilsenrath uses in

Der Nazi und der Friseur. Missing from Hilsenrath's text, however, is the fragmentation of chracter and narrative favoured by writers like çchindel,

Rabinovia, Mitgutsch and Dischereit. The Amtrians Doron Rabinoviti and 1%

Anna Mitgutsch &fer from their Ge- cornterparts in ternis of the extent to which they emphasize silence in expressing Uie repression of identities or the coverup of Austria's past. Another notable feature of Austrian Jewish lïterature is the presence of the geographic divide between the urbanite (Jew) and provincial (non-Jew),which 1 discuss in Gebürtig and Absdued von

Jerusalem. With regard to gender differences, for the majority of male writers induded in this study, Jewish identity finds its symbolic representation in circumcision. Female authors, on the other hand, display a tendency to establish their identity by maintainhg a strong bond with past generations of women.

German and Aushian Jewish writers use role reversal and passing as a vehide of soda1 commentary and aiticism. Edgar Hilsemath's satire Der Nazi und der Friseur attempts to rejed anti-Semitism by portraying his Jews as

"Aryans" and vice versa. In doing so, however, Hilsenrath preserves anti-

Semitic stereows (albeit in reverse form), as does Irene Esche in "Fromme

Lügen" and %ne Jüdin Hir Charles Men." Aithough seeking to dispel essentialist conceptions of identity through Car1 Bauer's ability to dupe

Ronald Hake, Dische nevertheless constnicts her charaders in accordance with Jewish stereotypes. More successful is Maxim Biller who parodies essentidist notions of iden tity in "Verrat," demonstrating how Hugo

Niehod's identity transformation is based on his exposure to anti-Semitkm and not on any innate sense of Jewishngs.Before the discovery of his Jewish roots Hugo was indistinguishable from any other Geman youth of his generation. It is interesting to note the way in which the role reversais of

Hugo NiehouB, Esther Ekker and Max Schulz go largely unquestioned even by Jewish diaraders.

Some authors use role reversal and passing to demonstrate the sense of se&-hatredexpressed by humof-the-century writers like Otto Weininger and

Max Nordau. Schindel's text presents a wide variety of Jewish characters who express self-loathing, including Peter Adel who, ashamed of his parents' wartime persecution, retum to Germany determined to deny any aspect of his Jewish heritage. While not necessanly passing in the manner of Peter

Adel, the pet Paul Hirschfeld remains cognizant of anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish linguistic deficienaes and thus goes to great lengths to write

"immacula te" German, while denying the existence of anti-Jewish sentiment and the signihcance of the Holocaust. Car1 Bauer exhibits the most extreme

fom of Jewish self-hatred, as he transforms himself into Adolf Hitler in order to conced his Jewishness and expresses his contempt for his daughter's

husband Stanislav Reich.

Furthemore, role reversal and passing reveal the identity problerns facing Jews in postwar Germany and Austria. The hability of parents to

convey a sense of Jewish heritage to their offkpring often results in an identity aisis for second generation Jews, who sometimes cope with their vacuous

sense of self by approprïating the charaderistics of the "Other." Arieh Scheinowiz learns to emulate his father's role changes and eventuaily develops the unique ability to metamorphose into his polar opposite. Dani

Morgenthau, suffering from a similar identity crisis, adoms hiinself in bandages and becomes the mythic bIUllemann, a figure who roams the streets of Vienna exposing the guilty by assuming the identity of various perpetrators he encounters. Rabinovici shows how appropriating the characteristics of the

"Other" is ultirnately unsatisfjmg for both Arieh and Dani. In fact, for the majority of characters discussed in this thesis, role reversal is not empowering but seLf-destructive, a fact most dearly demonstrated in the case of Arno

Bronsteïn, who aliena tes himself from his son and ultimately perishes.

Rabinovici's feilow Austrian Anna Mitgutsch and the German Esther

Dischereit use role reversal and passing to express the difficulties women face in establishg a Jewish identity and a sense of independence in a patriarchal society. Mitgutsch and Dischereit represent non-Jewishness as male and

Jewishness as fade. Dvorah's need to pass reflects the inner confiict between her maternai Jewish roots and the non-Jewishness of her fathefs family and the diffidty she faces in overcoming the patriarchal stricttues which had compelied her grandmother to assimilate and hide her Jewishness. Hannah's daughter in Joëmis Tisdi realizes that she cannot escape the fact that she is the descendant of a Holocaust swivor and eventudy she relinquishes her idealistic hope of assimilathtg by way of joining the socialist movement. She resolves to rediscover her Jewish roots, a joumey her mother had begun only after leaving an extremely abusive relationship with a non-Jew.

For male authors in partidar, role reversal and passing illustrate the schism bebveen Holocaust survivors and their children. In Bronsteins Kinder both Hmand his father initially seek to refuse any special privileges from the East German state which would distinguish hem as victims of fascism.

For Arno this requires the repression of his wartime trauma and suffering which he eventuaüy reveals when he captures and tortures Anio Heppner.

After the kidnapping, the alienation between father and son becomes particularly apparent when Arno victimizes his son Ham, as though he were also a prisoner. Maxim Biller's story "Verrat" also highiights the conflict behveen different generations of Jews. Once aware of his mother's Jewish heritage, Hugo treats her as though she were a traitor, as someone who betrayed her ethniaty for a cornfortable life. However, Lea Sonnenson assimilates because she still senses the threat which caused her to hide her

Jewishness in order to avoid deportation to the death camps. Hugo, incapable of Myunderstanding her motives and the Holocaust, passes as a Jewish caricature. The rift between generations of non-Jews is equaily problematic.

Ida in "Aus Dresden ein Bnef" reflects the difficulty the diildren of perpetrators have in coming to terms with their parents' wartime past.

Komd Sachs in Gebürtig evenhidy overcomes his homfic historical burden when he resolves to reveal his father's tnie identity to the world.

Peter Werres's conclusion that role reversal is a popular narrative device for Geman Jewish authors to critidze the way in whidi perpetrator nations have dealt with their National Socialist history holds true for ht and second generation authors. 1 have demonstrated how Hilseruath parodies postwar philo-Semitisrn in the "Hotel Vaterland" sequence, exposing it as a public relations ploy rather than any genuine expression of reconciliation on the part of non-Jews with Jews. The transparency of Esther Becker's disguise in Dischefs "Eine Jüdin Hu. Charles Men," reflects what Disdie perceives to be the superficial nature of political change in the Federal Republic following

World War Two. In Suche nach M. Mullemann becomes a modem day

Wandering Jew, but in contrast to the legend of Ahasverus he does not embody guilt but rather exposes it, and in doing so, he helps to break through the shroud of silence enveloping Austria's Nazi past. One of the most common identity transformations 1 have noted are the perpetrator / vidim role reversais which authors use to highlight the way in which former Nazis, like Amold Heppner in Bronsteins Kinder and Heinrich Hofstatter in

Gebürtig, or their descendants, Like Avin in Abschied von lerusalem, seek to deny their guilt by shifting responsibility for war crimes.

Finally, it is interesthg to note the paraliels between the Literary representations of role reversal and passing that 1 discuss and the real life cases of Binjamin WilkomVski and Solomon Perel. Bruchstüdce and Euro~a,

Europa reflect and complernent several of the issues raised in my thesis,

induding concems about anti-Semitism and the way in which perpetrator countries deal with their pst.

As 1 have shown, dereversal and passing are a means to express a wide variety of concems of Jews struggiing to enter a dialogue with their kilow non-Jewish Germans and A~striansin the shadow of an ever-present past. Works Cited

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