Cross
Disciplinary Notes on Teaching the Shoah:
Four
Questions for Most Holocaust Courses*
Many years ago I was teaching a course on
the Shoah[1]
and a woman student suddenly raised her hand and asked, ÒProfessor Blumenthal,
why are you barking at us?Ó I was, to be sure, taken aback but I realized
immediately that she was correct; I had been unpleasantly sharp with them. I
stopped the class to explain that, at the next session, we were to see Night
and Fog and that,
although I had seen it several times, I was upset at the coming film. This led
to a long discussion about how all of us, including professionals, find the
material of the Shoah so difficult to deal with. The very facts offend our
sense of humanity. They fragment mercilessly our concept of who we are as
people. As Jews, dealing with the Shoah is brutal for we know it was directed
against us, against our bodies and souls. The Shoah assaults our sense of the
value of Jewish being. It brings us to rage. Sometimes, it brings us to
despair.
Is
the Shoah ÒuniqueÓ or, perhaps more accurately, in what sense is the Shoah
ÒuniqueÓ? This issue has been a source of contention among scholars for many
years. Sometimes ÒuniqueÓ means ÒinexpressibleÓ; but then, how can one teach
the Shoah at all? Sometimes ÒuniqueÓ means ÒdifferentÓ; but then, what is
unique about the Shoah since all moments in history are, by definition,
different? Sometimes ÒuniqueÓ denotes a deeply intense emotion that one
experiences when one studies and teaches the Shoah. In this sense, ÒuniqueÓ
means that the Jew-hatred, or the inhumanity, or some other aspect of the Shoah
is experienced by us as very intense. But, how does one teach that intensity
without either diluting it or making it so central that nothing else can be
taught or learned except that intensity? Finally, ÒuniqueÓ sometimes means that
the subject is alien to the structures of perception, thought, and affect that
we usually use in examining and responding to human situations. Does this mean
that Shoah cannot be taught because it just doesnÕt fit in our usual categories
of analysis and response? On the contrary, Ònothing human is alien to meÓ --
even at its ugliest -- should be our motto. The question is, how do we teach
that which is alien, indeed repulsive, to us as human beings?
The
first step is to admit our own humanity. We must begin by confessing, to
ourselves and our students, that the Shoah upsets us, that the material
assaults, indeed abuses, our sense of humanity and, if one is Jewish, our sense
of Jewishness. Only through forthright confrontation with our own hurt in
connection with the Shoah can we appreciate how hard it is for others to learn.
Only through honest self-examination can we come to the realization that the
facts of the Shoah preclude -- and perhaps should preclude -- an Òobjective,Ó Òethically
neutralÓ examination. We are who we are and we must admit that.
Notwithstanding
the bruising quality of our engagement with the Shoah, it seems to me that
there are four questions that beg to be answered and conclusions that demand to
be drawn. Any one of them could be a course of study unto itself but, equally,
any one of them could be a part of any course of study or any extended thought
on the subject of the Shoah. One need not teach a class on the Shoah to confront
these questions, and one need not be an expert in any of the disciplines
suggested to confront the problematic that these fundamental questions raise,
for each question is part of la condition humaine
after the Shoah.
The
Historical Question
The
first question deals with the accuracy of what we know. Historians must go over
and over the material, checking and cross checking for truth. There is still so
much to be uncovered. For instance: Is it true that American oil companies were
shipping oil to the German war machine through Spain almost until the end of
the war? Is it true that American banks helped finance the Nazi war effort, and
provided cover for the saving of Nazi wealth after the war? What is the exact
evidence? Does such action make such companies guilty of treason? And, why were
no trials held of Americans who acted this way after the war?[2]
Can scholars decide whether the genocide of the Jews was part of HitlerÕs
vision from the beginning or a later improvisation?[3]
What of the received numbers of 6,000,000 Jews and 20,000,000 total dead? How
accurate are they? How could we know? How accurate are the stories of
survivors? How accurate do they need to be?[4]
And so on. Especially in view of the rewriting of history by the revisionists,
the work of checking and uncovering the truth is very important. Research and
seminars on this topic must be held continuously.
The Question
of Theodicy
The second question, which is of more
interest to me as a theologian, is: where was God. I am asked this question in
every class I teach whether it is Psalms, modern Jewish theology, the
prayerbook, Jewish mysticism, the sociology of evil, or Judaism and Hinduism. I
get this question from children, students, and adults; from Jews, Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, and atheists. The question of GodÕs responsibility in the Shoah
is a perfectly reasonable question to ask, even for secularists. The question
jumps out at anyone who tries to think religion and the Shoah in the same
sentence.
In
addressing this question, it is my custom to label the problem, present the
usual answers, and show why I feel they are inadequate. Then, I present my own
answer. Briefly, in classical theological thinking, the problem of the good God
Who does, or allows, unjustified evil to occur is called ÒtheodicyÓ or the
problem of theodicy. It is a hoary issue in religious thinking and the roots go
back to GodÕs punishment of Cain. God has not told Cain not to murder and, in a
certain sense, CainÕs action is a reaction to GodÕs favoring his brother. So,
is GodÕs punishment of Cain just? From there, the issue runs like a thread
through the Bible: Why does God kill the animals in the flood of Noah? How can
God destroy the whole population of Sodom and Gemorra? And so on, all the way
through to Job who asks how God can punish him when he has committed no sin.
The same question surfaces after the destruction of the first and then the
second temples, and again after the massacres of the crusades and, to be sure,
after the Shoah.
One
classical answer to the question of theodicy is that those who were killed were
really guilty and, hence, what happened to them is not evil but justified
punishment. Their innocence, and hence the injustice of what happened, is an
illusion. This is one of the answers of the so-called friends of Job. It is
also the theology embodied in Book of Lamentations and developed in rabbinic
liturgy with such formulas as u-mipnei hataÕeinu, Òbecause of our sins ....Ó It became the
classic rabbinic response to catastrophe: No matter how grave the catastrophe,
the Jews deserved it and there follows a list of sins which justify the
destruction. In the case of the Shoah, this classical biblical-rabbinic
argument for theodicy has been made: that the Jews of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries had indeed deserted God and GodÕs Torah and, hence, God
chose to punish them. I know people who accept this theodicy; I cannot. I just
cannot agree that any sin (or sins) of the people justified the extermination
of one and one-half million children, or that it justified the cruelty and
inhumanity of the way Jews died during the Shoah.
Another
classical answer to the question of theodicy is that we, humans, finite as we
are, can never know why God, infinite as God is, did what God did. This answer
proposes that the gap between God and humans is so great, in every sense, that
we simply cannot know why God does anything. The very transcendence of God
argues against our comprehending the reason behind GodÕs actions. This
understanding of theodicy, too, is rooted in the biblical and rabbinic sources.
It is embodied in the phrase hester panim, God hides GodÕs Face. Sometimes the biblical authors hear
God say that God will hide GodÕs Face and, sometimes they poignantly express
their own sense of being cut off from the presence of God. The rabbis, too, use
this answer. Even as modern and non-rabbinic a thinker as Martin Buber used it
when he called GodÕs presence in the Shoah an ÒeclipseÓ of God.[5]
It is also another of the answers of the so-called friends of Job.
This
answer to the problem of theodicy is the easiest for contemporary Jews. It
enables them to escape from the question: where was God in the Shoah. Affirming
the utter transcendence of God and, hence, GodÕs non-involvement in the Shoah enables contemporary people
to keep God clean of responsibility. They can have their God, for whatever
reason, and they do not have to ask the uncomfortable question of GodÕs
involvement in history. They can have their cake and eat it too, so to speak.
They do not realize that this answer, even though it is classic, denies GodÕs
role in history and is precisely contrary to the other Jewish view that God is
deeply involved, directly and indirectly, in the history of the world and
especially of GodÕs people. Providence is denied because, if affirmed, it
raises a question that is just too cruel to ask: where was God in the Shoah.
Another
classical answer to the question of theodicy is that we, humans, did it. God
gives humans free will and it is they who act wholly on their own, for better
and for worse. Therefore, it is humans who bear sole responsibility for the Shoah,
not God. This answer too is a hoary one, deeply embedded in biblical and
rabbinic thought. The whole theology of commandment, sin, reward, and
punishment hinges on it. So does the theology of revelation and of redemption.
It seems like a good answer and, indeed, can serve as such at first glance.
However, both biblical and rabbinic Judaism did not allow themselves to be
drawn into an assertion of human moral responsibility which would clearly deny
GodÕs action in history. The doctrine of free will never takes precedence over
the doctrine of providence, except in the matter of individual responsibility. On the matter of
national action, Judaism frankly asserts both doctrines even though they are
contradictory. Hence, humans are free but God also acts, and both are responsible.[6]
Again,
contemporary persons like this answer to the problem of theodicy. The idea that
God leaves us free to act is very precious to contemporary sensibility. We
would rather be free, even if guilty, than under GodÕs continuing influence and
presence. In the matter of the Shoah, this leaves the Nazis guilty, together
with the collaborators, but it leaves God off the hook. Such a God is abstract,
remote -- and contemporary persons like their God that way. An active, intimate
God would be harder to deal with. So many prefer a remote God even if that
means one cannot ask the question of theodicy.
Another
classical answer to the question of theodicy is that God was active but that
God suffers with us. God goes into exile with us and suffers our pains with us.
The rabbis in particular developed this theology.[7]
In this answer, God may have acted unjustly but GodÕs suffering is somehow
expected to mitigate that injustice. If God is infinite, then so is GodÕs
suffering which, then, becomes a kind of repentance for God. Contemporary Jews
do not like this answer though Christians, working with the crucifixion as a
model, are fond of it. Rather, we respond: So what if God suffers?! Why would
suffering justify an unjust action, especially for God?
It
seems to me that all four answers listed above are really not good. The first
and last make no common sense to most contemporary people, and the second and
third provide answers that are evasive and unsatisfactory because they do not
really answer the question; they defer it. There are other classical answers
but none are any better. Is there, then, a ÒbetterÓ answer, one which would, on
the one hand, affirm GodÕs presence in history and, hence, GodÕs responsibility
and, on the other hand, hold God to account for what is a clearly an unjust
action: causing, or allowing, the Shoah?
The
Bible itself provides another, and to my mind, more satisfactory, answer to the
question: where was God in the Shoah? When God announces to Abraham that God is
about to destroy Sodom and Gemorra, Abraham realizes that this action involves
an injustice and he protests. In the end, Abraham loses the argument but his
reaction is the correct one: not to deny God, not to deny GodÕs power or right
to act, but to protest GodÕs judgment. Similarly, when God announces to Moses GodÕs intention to
destroy the Jewish people, Moses responds with protest. In the several cases
where he does so, Moses is more successful than Abraham in stopping an unjust
act by God. Similarly, though on a personal scale, when God decides to punish
Job unjustly, Job responds by protest. From the beginning of the Book of Job to
the very end, Job maintains that he is innocent and God is just plain wrong.
Job does not maintain that there is no God, or that God has no power or right
to act, or that God has hidden GodÕs Face, or that GodÕs ways are by definition
unknowable. These are the arguments of JobÕs so-called friends whose ÒsupportÓ
for God is specifically rejected by God at the end of the book. Rather, Job
maintains that God is God, that Job is innocent, and hence that God is wrong.
This theme of protest, which is occasionally renewed by the rabbis but in much attenuated
form, resurfaces in Jewish civilization after the Shoah in secular Jewish
poetry.[8]
As
a contemporary theologian, I favor the answer of protest to the question of
theodicy. Protest allows me to affirm that there is a God, that God is active
in Jewish history, and hence that God was indeed present in the Shoah. Protest
also allows me to affirm that God was wrong, that, as a matter of moral
judgement, permitting the Shoah was an unjust, immoral step. This answer itself
raises several uncomfortable questions -- what kind of God would do such
things, why would one worship or even have a relationship with such a God, and
how does one protest -- but there are reasonable satisfactory answers to be
considered.[9]
The
Sociological Question
Another
question, again one which I find interesting and important, which demands an
answer is: where was humanity in the Shoah. Put differently: how were so many,
otherwise quite normal people, persuaded to go along with the Shoah? How did
they let it happen? My interest in this subject was aroused when I realized
that the response ÒI did nothing special; I was just doing what was expected of
meÓ was the response of both
the perpetrators and the rescuers.[10]
How, I asked, can those who murdered Jews and those who rescued them
contextualize their actions by saying that they had not done anything
extraordinary but had just followed instructions given explicity or implicitly
by those whom they respected? It seemed too paradoxical to be true. So, I went
to check the sources and found out that it was, indeed, true. Perpetrators, almost always, insist that they
were not demonic or pathological, and psychological tests show that this was
true. They almost always say that they were just following orders, no matter
how horrible the acts they committed. Similarly rescuers, much as Jews and some
Christians would like to see them as heroes, almost always deny having done
anything heroic. And, almost always, they insist that they were only doing the
normal, natural thing that anybody would do, though they know that the evidence
against that generalization is compelling. Fascinating, and relevant, data is
to be found in the obedience and altruistic studies.
The
obedience studies conducted by Milgram[11]
at Yale are the most well-known of a series of such studies, though there are
many others. In this electro-shock experiment, subjects were asked to
administer shocks of increasing intensity to another human being. The final
range of the shocks was clearly designated as lethal. When subjects objected,
the only pressure put upon them was firm instruction from the experimenter to
continue, including the assurance that the experimenter assumed all
responsibility. Depending upon the subject group, between 65-85 percent of the
subjects went on to administer what they believed to be lethal levels of
electro-shock. The film that accompanies the book on this experiment is
particularly disturbing. Other obedience experiments showed the same
phenomenon: the overwhelming majority of people will do what they are told to
do. If it conflicts with their moral instincts, they will show signs of
nervousness, but they will indeed do as instructed.
The
altruistic studies showed the same results. In a study conducted by Ervin Staub,[12]
himself a Shoah survivor, groups which had been assigned busy tasks were given
one of the following three instructions: you may not leave the room, you may
leave the room, or no instruction on leaving the room. When a cry of distress
from an adjacent room was simulated, almost all those in the prohibition group
did not leave the room, almost all those in the permission group did leave the
room, and the results varied for the group which was given no instructions.
Again, the evidence was clear: most people will do what they are told and, if they
are given permission to do good, they will do so.
A
particularly interesting study[13]
showed that theology students who had just spent time studying the parable of
the Good Samaritan (a person who acts with spontaneous goodness toward an
outcast while the acknowledged religious leaders pass by the sufferer) will
walk right past an ostensibly suffering person if they have been told to hurry
to their next appointment. That is, theology students will follow instruction
they have been legitimately given even if it means ignoring an ethical lesson
in a text they have just studied.
The
implications of these data are enormous for, if we wish to have people do good
(even rescue), we must give them instruction to do so. Indeed, fully sixty-seven
percent of the rescuers did not rescue until asked to do so by someone in
authority. One might say that the most important factor in creating people who
do good is not what
we teach them, though that of course does count, but how we teach them. It may not be the content
of our classes but what we give permission for and what we choose to proscribe.
For example: Is the excuse ÒI was with a sick friend and couldnÕt do my
homeworkÓ (if true) an excuse we would accept in a classroom? Are we assigning
so much work that people feel obligated to do the work and do not have
permission to do spontaneous acts of kindness? If we want people to do
spontaneous acts of goodness, we need to give them permission. Should, then,
doing acts of goodness be an actual course requirement -- and not only in
ethics, philosophy, and religion classes?
The
second factor relevant to the analysis and teaching of good and evil in the Shoah
is family and institutional discipline. Pearl and Samuel Oliner[14]
have shown that almost all of the rescuers came from homes where discipline was
fair. This meant that any particular act of discipline was commensurate to the
wrongdoing, and could be appealed if it was too strict. Growing up in an
environment in which reasonable punishment is expected but unreasonable punishment
is wrong forms the background of rescuers. Children and young adults growing up
in an environment where punishment is reasonable and where unreasonable
punishment can be questioned grow up to be fair and reasonable authorities, and
expect all authority -- civic, political, religious, legal, etc. -- to be fair
and reasonable. Hence, rescue is normal. Fully fifty-two percent of the
rescuers acted out of ÒnormocentricÓmotivations.
Studies
on abused children show the opposite:[15]
Growing up in a home or school environment where unreasonable punishment is the
rule and where no unreasonable punishment can be questioned most often produces
children and then adults who learn to accept unreasonable authority. They
expect all authorities to be unreasonable, or least arbitrary, and often act
that way themselves as adults. Since they have no choice, such people also
become very obedient. The studies of perpetrators show them to have come from
homes which were Òauthoritarian.Ó
Again,
the implications of these data are enormous for, if we want people to do good
and not to do evil, we need to pay attention not to what we are teaching them but to how fair the rules are by which we are asking
them to live. One might say that the most important factor in creating people
who do good is to make sure that they think we are fair with them. For
instance, do we always ask the class if the exam we are about to give is fair?
Do students have a right to question our integrity and how do we react to that
kind of challenge? Do we encourage students to challenge the administration? Do
we do it ourselves?
The Social
Action Question
The
fourth question, perhaps the most pressing, is what does one do with all the knowledge and feelings one
acquires when one studies the Shoah? Given what the Shoah was, and still is, to
us as human beings, it is not enough to study the facts, or to analyze the
theological and sociological implications. It is not even enough to take the
theological next step of active protest to God, or to take the sociological
next step of intelligent pedagogy at home and in our social institutions. The
issue here is injustice and apathy, and the proper response is to reject apathy
and become active in social justice issues. It does not make much difference
which oppression one works against. It might be other genocides. It might be
child abuse, or immigrant issues, or womenÕs health, or landmines. Whatever it
is, one must choose at least one injustice and try to help correct it. And one
must help others to make similar choices.
One
year I led the departmental senior seminar in which students had to form
groups, pick a problem on campus, and try to remedy it. Out of that seminar
came action on rejection of labor pools which exploit illegal workers,
recognition for the janitorial and food services employees, and other projects.
For
many years, I led the departmental internship program in social ethics and
community service in which students had to choose an agency, set up a
supervised internship, and then accomplish the goals they contracted with the
agency. Projects included working with gangs in Denver, working for peace in
Northern Ireland, working with Betselem (the Israeli-Palestininan human rights
organization), serving in the local juvenile courts, prison ministry, immigrant
workers, homeless voting rights, AIDS awareness, and many others. Over the
years, I have solicited and received funds to send students for summer and
year-long internships in social ethics and community service. In addition, I
have broadened the program from the department to the entire university.
Not
all political and social protest is Shoah-related in the strict sense of the
word but, in a broader sense, social action is part of the legacy of the Shoah
and, in my opinion, it is an integral response to the Shoah.[16]
I only regret that my own personal involvement in these issues has not been
more intense.