p. 281. “a couple of powerfully argued polemics.” Bauer, “Is the Holocaust Explicable?” and “On the Place of the Holocaust in History.”
p. 281. “an increasing number of commentators.” Bauer, “Is the Holocaust Explicable?” p. 145.
p. 283. “no way that there can be an all-powerful.” The classic statement of the problem of omnipotence for theodicy can be found in J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind 64 (1955): 200–212.
p. 284. “Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga.” Plantinga, “God, Evil, and the Metaphysics of Freedom,” and Plantinga, telephone interview with author.
p. 284. “a survey of the debate.” Bill Bruinooge, “The Holocaust as a Challenge to Belief,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (1989): 192–200. The phrase “does not remove God from the dock” comes from John Roth in When God and Man Failed, ed. Harry Cargas.
p. 285. “How do you explain a person anyway?” Emil Fackenheim, interview with author.
p. 285. “It was there, Fackenheim has written.” Fackenheim, To Mend the World, pp. 206–7.
pp. 285–86. “The fiction was still maintained.” Emil Fackenheim, interview with author.
p. 286. “His theory of ‘radical evil.’” Fackenheim’s vision of radical evil differs from both Martin Buber’s and Hannah Arendt’s uses of the term in that it does not have an origin within man; it takes a force beyond psychology or therapy to ameliorate a being as powerful and inexplicable as God. See Laurie McRobert, “Emil Fackenheim and Radical Evil,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58.339 (summer 1989): 325–39.
p. 287. “Jews are forbidden . . .” Though first expressed in print as “Jews are forbidden to grant posthumous victories to Hitler,” later, in God’s Presence in History, Fackenheim expresses it, “Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories.”
p. 287. “An exchange of letters with writer Terrence Des Pres.” Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
p. 288. “I read people like the Auschwitz commandant.” Rudolf Höss, Death Dealer (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992).
p. 289. “J. P. Stern . . . took issue.” Stern, Hitler.
p. 289. “You know Robert Waite’s book?” Waite, Psychopathic God.
p. 289. “What Waite actually wrote.” Ibid., p. 482.
p. 291. “as one commentator on Fackenheim describes it.” McRobert, “Emil Fackenheim and Radical Evil,” p. 339.
p. 291. “The insistence on the Holocaust’s uniqueness.” Elizabeth Domansky, “‘Kristallnacht,’ the Holocaust, and German Unity,” History and Memory 4.1 (Spring/Summer 1992): 60–84, at p. 79.
p. 293. “Heinz Höhne, the historian of the SS.” Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head (New York: Coward-McCann, 1970), pp. 182–84.
p. 293. “a League of Nations official.” Carl Burckhardt, cited in ibid., p. 184.
p. 293. “Fackenheim cites Himmler’s belief.” Fackenheim, To Mend the World, p. 211.
p. 294. “the masseur Felix Kersten.” Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Dr. Felix Kersten, ed. Herma Briffaut, trans. Dr. Ernst Morwitz (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947).
p. 294. “Waite’s formulation.” Fackenheim, To Mend the World, pp. 232–33.
p. 295. “Herbert Luethy’s 1954 Commentary essay.” Reprinted in Norman Podhoretz, ed., The Commentary Reader (New York: Atheneum, 1966).
p. 295. “Fackenheim goes on to declare.” Fackenheim, To Mend the World, pp. 232–33.
p. 296. “Elie Wiesel is famous for a stunning image.” Elie Wiesel, Night [1960] (New York: Random House, 1973).
p. 296. “In a Yom Kippur 1997 essay.” Elie Wiesel, “A Prayer for the Days of Awe,” The New York Times, October 2, 1997, p. A19.
p. 298. “Some, like Rabbi Richard Rubenstein.” See Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
Chapter 17: George Steiner
p. 300. “a fictive character called ‘A.H.’” Steiner, Portage to San Cristóbal.
p. 300. “It scared the hell out of me.” George Steiner, interview with author.
p. 301. “an account in the London Observer of the play.” London Observer, February 21, 1982. The reviewer, Victoria Radin, spoke of “a storm of applause and shouts of ‘bravo.’ I think they were in some measure for Hitler as much as [Alec] McCowen [the actor who played Hitler].”
pp. 303–4. “An admiring introduction . . .” Nathan A. Scott, Jr., in Reading George Steiner, ed. Nathan A. Scott, Jr., and Ronald A. Sharp (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).
p. 304. “greatness. . . . The shocking massiveness.” Ibid., p. 1.
p. 304. “the honors in the . . . academic community.” Steiner has since been appointed to a special chair in Comparative Literature at Oxford.
p. 304. “Language and Silence and . . . After Babel.” George Steiner, Language and Silence (New York: Atheneum, 1967), and George Steiner, After Babel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975; rev. ed. 1992).
p. 305. “persuasively challenged by Lawrence Langer.” L. Langer, Admitting the Holocaust, pp. 109–24.
p. 308. “Sir Leslie specifically calls Hitler.” Steiner, Portage to San Cristóbal, p. 12.
p. 308. “actor to the end.” Ibid., p. 10.
p. 308. “Don’t let him speak.” Ibid., pp. 47–48.
p. 308. “Hitler’s own Hitler explanation.” Ibid., pp. 179–89.
p. 308. “My racism was a parody.” Ibid., p. 182.
p. 309. “The Jew invented conscience.” Ibid., p. 184.
p. 309. “What were our camps compared with that?” Ibid., pp. 184–85.
p. 309. “some ‘singular demon.’” Ibid., p. 186.
p. 309. “Our terrors were a village carnival.” Ibid., p. 188.
p. 309. “Gentlemen of the tribunal.” Ibid., p. 189.
p. 310. “One final full paragraph.” Ibid., pp. 189–90.
p. 310. “playing with fire.” Hyam Maccoby, interview with author. See chapter 18.
p. 311. “when Steiner permitted the novel to be staged.” An adaption by Christopher Hampton, at the Mermaid Theater, London, February 1982.
p. 311. “excellent early study of the question.” Stanley Fish, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost [1967] (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).
p. 314. “Sidney Hook gave [Norman] Podhoretz an interview.” Sidney Hook, “On Being a Jew,” Commentary 88.4 (October 1989): 28–36.
p. 314. “he demanded it be kept posthumous.” Hook said: “This part I don’t want published until I’m dead.” Ibid., p. 36.
p. 314. “If we [the Jews] had disappeared.” Hook’s words were “I’ve found myself thinking about the crazy Zealots . . . what if the whole Palestine Jewish population of that time had gone down fighting? Just think what we would have been spared, two thousand years of anti-semitic excess. . . . Under some circumstances I think it’s better not to be than to be.” Ibid., p. 36.
p. 315. “Benzion Netanyahu demonstrated.” In The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (New York: Random House, 1995).
p. 317. “Bainbridge’s challenging novel.” Beryl Bainbridge, Young Adolf [1978] (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1995).
Chapter 18: Singling out Christianity
p. 319. “People go on about this jolly festival.” Hyam Maccoby, interview with author.
p. 321. “combative polemics in Commentary.” In particular, Hyam Maccoby, “Theologian of the Holocaust,” Commentary 74 (December 1982), ostensibly about Emil Fackenheim, provoked a furor by suggesting that Jews are unwilling to place the full share of the blame for the Holocaust on Christian anti-Semitism. See also Hyam Maccoby, “Christianity’s Break with Judaism,” Commentary 78.2 (August 1984).
p. 321. “a piece in Commentary that created an uproar.” Maccoby, “Theologian of the Holocaust,” and “Letters from Readers,” Commentary 75 (March 1983).
p. 323. “There’s [John]
Charmley now.” John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1993).
p. 324. “a devil and the devil’s workman.” Pope Gelasius I, cited in Hyam Maccoby, Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 6.
p. 325. “Woe to that man.” Mark 14:21.
p. 325. “field of blood.” Matthew 27:3–10.
p. 325. “intestines bursting out of his body.” Acts 1:18–19.
p. 326. “entered by Satan.” Luke 22:3.
p. 326. “taken possession by the Devil.” John 13:2.
p. 326. “a newspaper column by Pat Buchanan.” Pat Buchanan, New York Post, December 14, 1994, p. 25.
p. 327. “a doctoral thesis I’d seen.” Schmeller, “Hitler’s View of History.”
p. 328. “Daniel Goldhagen’s concept of ‘eliminationist anti-Semitism.’” See discussion in chapter 19. Goldhagen defines this against Christian anti-Semitism in the sense that Christian anti-Semites at least profess to be satisfied with conversion of Jews. Racial, eliminationist anti-Semites are satisfied only by Jews’ deaths.
p. 328. “In his book on the Judas question.” Hyam Maccoby, The Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1982).
p. 328. “Jews are killed because of Christian guilt.” Ibid.
p. 330. “theologians such as Rosemary Ruether.” See, for instance, Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide (San Francisco: Seabury Press, 1974).
p. 330. “Of all the attacks.” Hyam Maccoby, “George Steiner’s Hitler,” Encounter, May 1982, pp. 27–34.
p. 330. “Hitler . . . ‘becomes a full blown Steinerian . . .’” Ibid., p. 31.
p. 330. “misleading piece of anti-Jewish propaganda.” Ibid., p. 30.
p. 331. “colossal miscalculation.” Ibid., p. 30.
p. 334. “Richard Rubenstein.” Rubenstein, After Auschwitz.
p. 334. “Rubenstein singled out Rabbi Leo Baeck.” Rubenstein, phone conversation with author.
p. 335. “Cynthia Ozick . . . stressed to me.” Cynthia Ozick, letter to author.
Chapter 19: Daniel Goldhagen
p. 337. “Goldhagen’s just-published book.” Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners.
p. 338. “Langer is the author of a study.” Langer, Admitting the Holocaust.
p. 338. “often thought of strangling them.” Lawrence Langer, author’s notes, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum forum, April 8, 1996.
p. 339. “pregnant with murder.” Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, p. 75. He goes on to say: “The only matter that cannot be ascertained is . . . how many Germans subscribed to it” at what point. But, certainly, state-encouraged murder began as early as 1933.
p. 340. “Columbia’s Fritz Stern.” Fritz Stern, “The Goldhagen Controversy,” Foreign Affairs, November–December 1996, pp. 128–38.
p. 340. “pretentious . . . shrill and simplistic.” Ibid., p. 138.
p. 340. “For Goldhagen . . . Hitler was Germany.” Ibid., p. 131.
p. 341. “the book’s boast to have solved a problem.” According to Goldhagen, “explaining why the Holocaust occurred requires a radical revision of what has until now been written. This book is that revision,” cited in ibid., p. 128.
p. 342. “a letter from Hilberg.” This letter was actually written to Henry Friedländer. Friedländer is the author of The Origins of Nazi Genocide (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
p. 342. “Kweit goes further, too.” Author’s notes, Holocaust Memorial Museum forum.
p. 342. “Hilberg says, ‘I take exception . . .’” Kweit, citing Hilberg’s letter to Friedländer, ibid.
p. 342. “Hilberg’s lifework, his three-volume history.” Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. ed. (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985).
p. 343. “Goldhagen dismisses . . . the ‘five conventional explanations.’” Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, pp. 379–85.
p. 343. “Hilberg as ‘an exemplar . . .’” Ibid., p. 385.
p. 345. “Bauer cited . . . George Mosse.” Author’s notes, Holocaust Memorial Museum forum.
p. 345. “It’s not Goldhagen’s fault.” Ibid.
p. 345. “the risk of ending up like Arno Mayer.” Arno Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? (New York: Pantheon, 1988). Mayer’s book does have its defenders, although it seems to me a peculiar backhanded way of recuperating Marxism by portraying Jews as martyrs more for their “Bolshevism” than their Jewishness.
p. 346. “the lurid headline . . . in Der Spiegel.” Der Spiegel 21, May 20, 1996.
p. 346. “Die Zeit.” The weekly ran a series on the Goldhagen debate from April 11 through June 24, with a reply from Goldhagen to his critics on August 2.
p. 346. “Goldhagen abruptly canceled the NYU meeting.” “Forum on Holocaust Canceled After Author Withdraws,” The New York Times, May 7, 1996.
p. 347. “Sir Isaiah Berlin has written.” Berlin, Against the Current.
p. 347. “Norman Cohn . . . author of a study.” Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, p. 194.
p. 347. “Cohn defines Hitler’s Austrianness.” Ibid., p. 194.
p. 348. “There were regional variations in anti-Semitism . . .” Daniel Gold hagen, interview with author.
p. 350. “I reread Weber’s famous essay.” Max Weber, “The Nature of Charismatic Domination.” In Weber: Selections in Translation, ed. W. G. Runciman, trans. Eric Matthews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 226–50.
p. 350. “his right to rule.” Ibid., p. 227.
p. 351. “Erich Goldhagen . . . a 1972 essay.” Erich Goldhagen, “Pragmatism, Function and Belief in Nazi Anti-Semitism,” Midstream, December 1972, pp. 52–62.
p. 351. “Goldhagen père cites numerous instances.” Ibid., p. 57: In May 1943, Goebbels’s office distributed “secret circulars” ordering “the Propaganda officials of the party . . . to increase and intensify the anti-Semitic ‘enlightenment’ of the populace,” which, by the son’s thesis, should scarcely have been necessary.
p. 351. “in far milder terms than his son.” Ibid., p. 59.
p. 352. “Saul Friedländer . . . ‘redemptive anti-Semitism.’” In Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews.
p. 353. “Breitman suggested to me.” Richard Breitman, interview with author and later telephone conversation.
p. 353. “Professor Richard S. Levy’s study.” Richard S. Levy, The Downfall of the Anti-Semitic Political Parties in Imperial Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).
p. 355. “I’m Very Proud.” Henryk Broder, Der Spiegel 21, May 20, 1996, pp. 58–59.
p. 355. “Broder . . . begins.” Ibid., p. 59.
p. 356. “Levy told me that he thought.” Levy, phone interview with author.
p. 357. “mail from Professor Berel Lang.” Berel Lang, “Holocaust Memory and Revenge: The Presence of the Past,” Jewish Social Studies 2 (Winter 1996): 1–20.
p. 357. “How could it be that revenge was not.” Ibid., p. 2.
p. 357. “An ambitious plan by . . . partisans.” Ibid., pp. 4–5.
p. 357. “what he calls ‘displaced.’” Ibid., pp. 9–10.
p. 359. “A second cover story in Der Spiegel.” Der Spiegel 33, August 12, 1996, pp. 40–55.
p. 359. “another curious sidebar.” Ibid., p. 42.
p. 359. “Consider some other changes.” Ibid. (trans. Alexander Stengel).
p. 360. “He’d just reviewed the book.” Berel Lang, review of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Moment, May 1996.
p. 360. “[Lang] felt the exaggerated nature of its claim.” Berel Lang, interview with author.
p. 360. “The Rage That Elie Wiesel Edited Out of Night.” E. J. Kessler, The Forward, October 4, 1996, pp. 1, 10.
p. 360. “Seidman argued that in the Yiddish version.” Naomi Seidman, “The Scandal of Jewish Rage,” Jewish Social Studies 3.1 (Fall 1996): 1–19.
p. 361. �
��Not so, the scholars Eli Pfeffercorn and David Hirsch contend.” Eli Pfeffercorn and David Hirsch, “Elie Wiesel’s Wrestle with God,” Midstream 43.8 (November 1997): 21ff.
p. 361. “And Wiesel himself denied to The Forward.” The Forward, October 4, 1996, p. 10.
p. 362. “Goldhagen denounced Browning’s 1992 book.” Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, “The Evil of Banality,” review of Ordinary Men, by Christopher R. Browning, The New Republic, July 13–20, 1992, pp. 49–52.
p. 363. “the late . . . Lucy Dawidowicz argued.” See extensive discussion of her thesis in the following chapter.
p. 363. “Goldhagen emphasizes the moment.” Hitler’s speech, “Why Are We Anti-Semites,” August 13, 1920, cited in Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, p. 134.
p. 364. “Yehuda Bauer argues for March 1941.” Yehuda Bauer, interview with author.
p. 364. “Breitman . . . May 1941.” Breitman, Architect of Genocide.
p. 364. “a new study by German scholar Peter Witte.” Peter Witte, “Two Decisions Concerning the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’: Deportations to Lodz and Mass Murder in Chelmno,” trans. B. Richardson, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9.3 (Winter 1995): 318–45.
p. 364. “For a period of six months . . .” Ibid., p. 320.
p. 364. “Hitler’s decision to deport the Jews . . .” Ibid., p. 321.
p. 365. “A recent claim by . . . Christian Gerlach.” See The New York Times, November 21, 1998, p. 4.
p. 365. “appears to be a misinterpretation.” Author’s conversation with Richard Breitman. Breitman does not explicitly call it a misinterpretation: that’s my interpretation of his tentative comments.
p. 366. “People have lost their Holocaust.” Christopher Browning, interview with author.
p. 366. “an illuminating recent book.” Turner, Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power.
p. 367. “Hitler’s triumph, Turner argues.” Ibid., p. 176.
Chapter 20: Lucy Dawidowicz
p. 369. “my conversation . . . about his account of Hitler’s decision.” See especially Christopher Browning, “Beyond Intentionalism and Functionalism: The Decision for the Final Solution Reconsidered,” in The Path to Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
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