History, Memory, and the Historian: Dilemmas and Responsibilities Author(s): Saul Friedlnder Source: New German Critique,

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History, Memory,and the Historian: Dilemmas and Responsibilities

Saul Friedlander

On July 9, 1942, Henry Montor, the President of the United Palestine Appeal, asked Richard Lichtheim, the representative of the Jewish Agency in Geneva, to send him a 1500-word article reviewing the position of the Jews in Europe. "I feel at present quite unable to write a 'report'," Lichtheim answered Montor on August 13, "a survey, something cool and clear and reasonable. .... So I wrote not a survey but something more personal, an article if you like, or an essay, not of 1500 words but of 4000, giving more of my own feelings than of the 'facts.'. . ." Lichtheim ends his accompanying letter with "all good wishes for the New Year to you and the happier Jews of 'God's own country'." Lichtheim's essay, entitled "What is Happening to the Jews of Europe," opens with the following two paragraphs: A letterhas reachedme from the United States,asking me 'to review the position of the Jews in Europe.'This I cannotdo becausethe Jews of Europeare today no more in a 'position' thanthe watersof a rapid rushingdown into some canyon, or the dust of the desert lifted by a tornadoand blown in all directions. I cannot even tell you how many Jews there are at presentin this or that town, in this or thatcountry,becauseat the very momentof writing thousandsof them are fleeing hither and thither,from Belgium and Holland to France(hoping to escape to Switzerland),from Gerto many - because deportation Polandwas imminent- to Franceand havejust been issued. Belgium, where the same ordersfor deportation Trappedmice runningin circles. They are fleeing from Slovakia to 3

History, Memory, and the Historian

to fromCroatia Italy... At the sametime,thousands are Hungary, fromthe ghettoof Warsaw Nazi supervision to shiftedunder being further whileotherthousands forced-labor east, campsin thecountry are fromGermany Austria thrown the ghettosof or into just arrived or Lublin... Riga We do not know whether, when Lichtheim sent his "essay," on that five days earlier August 13, 1942, he was privy to the information his Geneva colleague, GerhardRiegner, had conveyed to the State and Department the ForeignOffice. In fact, the plan for a generalextermination of EuropeanJewry that Riegner transmittedto London and Washington had already been implemented for months; by August 1942, close to a million and a half EuropeanJews had been exterminated. Yet, even if Lichtheim'sdescriptionof "whatwas happeningto the Jews of Europe"was factuallyfalse because it missed the defining it aspect of these events, total physical extermination, conveys in words not to be forgotten,somethingthat defies directexpression:the sense of despairand doom of tens and tens of thousandsof Jews fleeing "hither mice runningin circles," as well as - unreand thither"like "trapped his portedby him, but sensed throughout essay - the suffocatingterror millions. of the remaining "I am burstingwith facts,"Lichtheimwent on, "butI cannottell them in an article of a few thousandwords. I would have to write for years
and years. .
.

. That means I really cannot tell you what has happened

and is happeningto five million persecutedJews in Hitler's Europe. Nobody will ever tell the story - a story of five million personaltragedies every one of which would fill a volume." As strangeas HenryMontor'sdemandfor a 1500-wordreporton the situationof the Jews in Europemay appearto us today, it can, in a way, for and be consideredas paradigmatic most representations commemorations of the Shoah; Lichtheim'sanswer expresses an opposite mode of evocation.On the one hand,a reportprovidesprecisefactualinformation offeredwithin strictlimits and usuallyarounda centralidea that gives it coherence;on the other, Lichtheim'sanswer is an outburstof pain and despairthat,in principle, rejectsthe possibilityof orderandcoherence. Over the last decades, the memory of the Shoah has crystallized aroundthese two poles. Whereasthe first one meansclosure, the second

Saul Friedldnder

In indicates an open-endedprocess of remembrance. other terms, the first is embodied in set rituals and in organizedpresentationsranging from textbooks to museums, from monumentsto public commemorations. This public memorydemandssimplicityas well as clear interpretation; its aim, unstated and maybe unperceived, is to domesticate incoherence, eliminate pain, and introducea message of redemption. The second domainknows no rules. It disruptsany set renditionamong those who imagine this past - the immense majoritynow - and those who still rememberit. In the testimoniesof those who remember,both narration expressionsof the past resurface:the organized,oft-rehearsed and on the one hand,the uncontrolled chaoticemotion,on the other. not In the long run,the memoryof the Shoahwill probably escape comthis day at least, an open-endedrepresentation Yet, to plete ritualization. of these events seems presentin the Westernworld and possibly beyond. the More so, it appearsto be growingas time goes by. After interpreting of this memoryand pointingto the complex interexpansion paradoxical action between the memoryof the Shoahand the writingof its history,I conclude by dwelling on the challenges and responsibilitiesincumbent upon the historian.In this domain there can be no credo, merely some reflectionsaboutcompellingassignmentsandunresolvedquestions. The Expanding Memoryof the Shoah as The two decades following the war can be characterized a periodof and virtualsilence aboutthe Shoah:The consensuswas one of repression of oblivion. Adult contemporaries Nazism still dominated the public scene. Even the survivorschose to remainsilent, since very few people were interestedin listening to them (even in Israel) and since, in any to and case, theirown maingoal was social integration a return normalcy. In the mid-1960s, a first wave of debates shook these defenses. The generationborn duringor toward the end of the war was moving into the limelight. Mainly in Europe,the students' unrest of the late 1960s and its sequels called into question various aspects of contemporary culture as well as the lies and the obfuscation regarding the Nazi period. The major turmoil occurredin Germany,but the famous slogan of the French students, "We are all GermanJews" [nous sommes tous des juifs allemands], intendedto protest against the expulsion of the Jewish student leader, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, had more than one meaning. At the same time, in Marcel Ophuls's The Sorrow and the

History,Memory,and the Historian

Pity, France witnessed a first rift in the constructionof the mythical of self-representation its history during the war years. However, this returnof the past was quickly neutralizedby theoreticalabstractions about all pervasive "fascism," produced mainly on the extreme left, and by the extremepoliticizationof the debates. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a second wave of controversies opened the way for a growing subjectivityand weakened the hold of some of the theoreticalconstructsof the previous decade. An expansion of autobiographical literature, among Germansand among Jews, of deeply probing and innovative films, as well as the quest for the history of everydaylife underNazism createda new, more direct confrontation with the past. However, some of these endeavors,in Germanyin also carriedan unmistakable apologetic urge and early postparticular, of modem representations the Nazi era were not devoid of perversefascination. Strangelyenough, it was a mass media event, the screeningof the NBC miniseries "Holocaust"in 1978-79, that became a turning point all over the West, drawing increasedattentionto the extermination of the Jews as the defining event of the Nazi period. Over the last it decade, this past became even more present,particularly, seems, for the thirdpostwargeneration,the "generation the grandchildren," of folthe fierce debates of the 1980s in Germany,known as "the hislowing torians' controversy,"and as an indirect sequel of the downfall of communismand German reunification. The durationof the phases varies in differentnationaland religious contexts. For example, the periodof "amnesia" may have been particularly lengthy and the passage to broader awareness quite abrupt in France and, even more so, in Switzerland.In France, the surge of a national memory of Vichy's anti-Jewishpolicies found its first major expressionsome twenty years ago, first on the judicial level then on the political and institutionalone, as well as in the intellectualand artistic domains.As for the unexpecteduproarover the role of Switzerlandduring the war, it has led to fierce public controversyabout the material of and financialexploitationand defrauding Jewish victims, not only in that country,but throughout Europe.This debate,it has to be added,has in contributedto the reappearance, Switzerlandand possibly elsewhere in Europe,of a kind of anti-Semitismthat seemed to be a thing of the or, past: an anti-Semitismof the middle classes that is "salonfdhig" in otherwords,openlyacceptableagain.

Saul Friedldnder

The religious domain may have an even more lasting impact on the a presenceof the past thanthe nationalone. Establishing Carmeliteconvent at Auschwitz was a minor mattercomparedto the storm that may eruptaroundthe imminentbeatificationof Pius XII, if maintained.The entire set of controversiesregardingthe role of Christianity,its antiJewish teachings and its traditionalhostility towards the Jews - all of but which providedthe obviously involuntary, historicallyunavoidable backgroundto their extermination- would reappearagain. Thus the presence of the Holocaust in western consciousness resembles that of some sort of lava rising ever closer to the surface and announcedby ever strongereruptions.Yet, recognizingthis growing presence of the a past does not explain it. Let me turnto three possible interpretations: an ongoing demandfor justice, and the transformagenerationalfactor, of tion of Nazism into the metaphor evil for ourtime. that factoris the first explanation comes to mind.The The generational of the grandchildren," (Germansin mainlyamongEuropeans "generation but among Jews as well, has now acquiredsufficientdistance particular) from the events in termsof both the sheer passage of time and personal involvementto be.able to confrontthe full impactof the past. Thus, the as growing rise of the memory of the Shoah could be interpreted the inducedby the passageof time. liftingof collectiverepression, gradual could be understood,metaphoricallyspeaking, as This interpretation but also, possibly, as a collective "returnof the "working through" Are repressed." we now readyto face the worst aspects of this past or is as the repressedreturning, the historianDominickLaCapra expressedit, in the form of "reneweddisavowal in certainquarters... and commercialized, politically tendentious, and self-interested (if not pornoin graphic)representations otherquarters?"' In other words, are we mainly witnessing a gradual lifting of defenses or could one argue that, simultaneously,the growing awareness of the past is also due to very differentimpulses, such as the fascination with the aesthetics of Nazism that flourishedin the 1970s, or, more recently,the growing diatribesof negationistsand the activism of radicalright-winggroups?
the I. DominickLaCapra, (IthRepresenting Holocaust:History, Theory,Trauma aca: Comell UP, 1994) 189.

History, Memory, and the Historian

Generationsare not merely categories of time but also clusters of shared formative experience. In terms of experience, those Germans were far apartfrom adolescents merely who served in the Wehrmacht two or three years younger,who at the end of the war were only "Flabatteries.One single khelfer,"that is, those who manned anti-aircraft could make a majordifference.While this issue demandsa longer year disquisition, suffice it to mention here that mainly in Germanythere often is an age group (or generational)element in what I called the of return the repressed. took place among scholIn the 1980s, the "Historians'Controversy" ars who, with the exception of two out of some twelve of fourteen, were all membersof the Hitlerjugendgeneration,having all been adolescents in the ThirdReich. Theirpositionswere sharplydivided, as we know, but the intensityof the debatestemmed,in partat least, from the experiencesand their refractionthroughthe impactof these long-buried prismof laterpoliticalchoices. Last year, MartinWalser's outburstand the standingovation that he or received at the Friedenspreisceremony in Frankfurt, the accolades frompeople like von Dohnanyior Augstein,carriedonce more the signs of an age group. Ignaz Bubis, however clumsily or angrily, expressed the outrageof a memorymuchless deflectedor reinvestedby time. In a letter to Karl Jaspers,HannahArendtwrote on August 17, 1946: "The Nazi crimes, it seems to me, explode the limits of the law; and For that is precisely what constitutestheir monstrousness. these crimes, no punishment is severe enough. It may well be essential to hang That is, this guilt, in contrastto all G-ring, but it is totally inadequate. criminalguilt, overstepsand shattersany and all legal systems. That is the reason why the Nazis in Nurembergare so smug. They know that, of course. And just as inhumanas their guilt, is the innocence of their victims. Humanbeings simply can't be as innocentas they all were in
the face of the gas chambers. . . . We are simply not equipped to deal,

on a human, political level, with a guilt that is beyond crime and an innocencethatis beyondgood andvirtue."2 Arendt's letter is a cri du coeur that made much sense in 1946; yet,
2. HannahArendt,KarlJaspers,Correspondence 1926-1969, eds. Lotte Kohler& BraceJovanovich,1992)54. HansSaner; trans.Robert& RitaKimber (New York:Harcourt

Saul Friedldnder

even today, many people would opt for such an absolutestand in regard to Nazi crimes. The present-day judicial process is basically not at issue trial in France was possibly the last major court anymore (the Papon case regardingNazism and relatedcrimes) but the demandfor an absoand lute, uncompromising, almost metaphysical justice remains,mainly in the communityof the victims. It also appearsin segments of Eurowith Nazism. There pean society somehow involved in the collaboration it becomes a demand for distinctionsbetween degrees of involvement, of responsibility,and of guilt. On all sides, the quest for justice focuses to on the shapingof memoryandcontributes the growthof memory. The demandfor justice is also fueling fierce debates on comparative victimizationwithin the Nazi system of terrorand exterminationitself and among various terrorand extermination systems, the Stalinist and the Nazi, for example. Over the last three decades or so, some of these debates have spread to the American scene. The growing demand of diverse ethnic minoritiesfor the recognitionof theirown historicalheritage, one that would offer a tale of sufferingand triumph,is leading to In about degrees of historicalmartyrdom. this conovert confrontations become a focus of resentmentand the demand text, the Holocaust has for justice fuses with increasinglyacrimoniousargumentsaboutthe hisof or torical comparability exceptionalityof the extermination the EuroJews. Mainly, the adoption of the Holocaust by popular culture pean has increasinglyadded a peculiar dimension to its image in the consciousness of vast sectorsof U.S. andWesternsociety. of Nazism has become the centralmetaphor evil of our time. In our age mass criminality,apartfrom its specific historicalconof genocide and of text, the extermination the Jews of Europeis now perceivedby many of as the ultimatestandard evil againstwhich all degreesof evil are measured. Such a perceptionof Nazism was already present before and mainly duringthe war among the Allies, in occupied Europe,and even itself. Afterthe war, HannahArendt amongresistancegroupsin Germany identifiedNazism with "radicalevil." Her later notion of the "banality In of evil" was no contradiction. our epoch, radicalevil is linked to the of the utterbanalityof its perpetrators, Eichmanns this world. The most extreme insult that one can hurl against any brutalbehavior is to compareit with Nazism, the worst tag applicableto a hated leader is the comparison with Hitler. And, incidentally, the only Christian name that may have disappearedfrom the repertory after 1945 is

10

History,Memory,and the Historian

"Adolf." In other words, Nazism and evil have become so naturally intertwinedthat this identificationtriggers an ongoing and expanding but process of representation also of recall by association:"Schindler's "Life is Beautiful," The Reader; Kosovo, Le Pen, Heider; gay List," and bashing,mercy killing, abortionor anti-abortion, so on. But doesn't that ever spreadingreferencemean an ever growing dilution, and ever growing simplification,and ever growing vulgarization?Moreover, is or the process self-triggered does it fulfill a functionin oursociety? in I wish to suggesthere a link betweenthe simplification the represencultureand the functionof tationof Nazism and the Holocaustin popular in this simplifiedrepresentation our society. By functionI do not mean to dwell again upon the politics of identityof variousgroupsin this counof try nor upon the diverse forms of instrumentalization the Holocaust. Morerelevantwould be the urge of the Catholicchurchto make sure that believers today and in the futurebe convinced that at the time of its greatestchallenge,the Papacywas resolutelyon the side of the victims andthatthe Vicarof Christstoodundaunted againstevil in ourtime. of The most basic function of this representation evil is inherentto the self-image of liberal society as such. Nowadays, liberal society is not faced with any concrete enemy; its existence was not threatened, even before the complete demise of communism.But, in orderto idenany tify its own ideals and the natureof its institutions, society needs to define the quintessentialopposite of its own image. Due to its unquestionablehorror,to the immensenumberof its victims, to the heroic sacrifices demandedto achieve victory over it, Nazism did and does fulfill the functionof the enemyper se. This is true for the United States but also, for differentand no less obvious reasons, for present-dayliberal, democraticGermanyand for the westernworld more generally.In fact, few are the regimes that, since 1945, would have chosen to identify with the Nazi model. but The memory of the extermination also that of the suffering and the agony imposed by Nazism or that of the fateful commitments demandedof those willing to resist it remainsa landscapeof death on of the background which choices were made that still appearto many as the most importantever decided upon in modem times. In a world in which such choices have all in all disappeared,the memory of the Shoah is paradoxicallylinked to a simplified, watered down, yet real andprobably deep-seatedlongingfor the tragicdimensionof life.

Saul Friedldnder

11

On Memoryand History It may have become evident, from what has been said until now, that the various facets of the expandingmemory of the Holocaust create a whole array of dilemmas in the writing of its history. The impact of of generational change on the transformation the historiographyof mentioned.3The personalmemoNazism and the Shoahhas often been ries of those historians who were the contemporariesof Nazism do indeedfind theirexpressionin distinctformsof emphasisor avoidance.4 More specifically, it has been argued that emotional involvement in these events precludes a rationalapproachto the writing of their history. The "mythic memory"of the victims has been set against the of "rational" understanding others. I certainlydo not wish to open old debatesbut merely to suggest thatGermanand Jewish historiansas well cannot avoid a measureof "transferas those of any other background ence" in regardto this past. Of necessity, such involvement impinges upon the writing of history. But the historian's necessary measure of detachmentis not hinderedtherebyprovidingthe presence of sufficient self-awareness.It may indeed be harderto keep one's balance in the other direction;whereas a constantlyself-critical gaze might diminish the effects of subjectivity,it could also lead to other, no lesser risks, caution. and those of unduerestraint paralyzing between the memoryof the HoloThe main aspect of the interaction caust and its historiography belongsto the moraldimensionof the events, of thatis to the demandforjustice andto Nazism as a metaphor evil. In the early 1980s, German historians seized upon the TV show in "Holocaust"and similar media representations order to criticize a of moralisticrepresentation Nazism. In the black and white, so-called and in the debate about the historiunfolding "historians'controversy" cization of National Socialism, among other themes at stake was this of dimension of the representation the "black-and-white" "moralistic," events and, thus,the limits of theirhistoricization.5
National to Norbert See in particular 3. Frei,"Farewell the Eraof Contemporaries: en Socialism and Its HistoricalExamination routeinto History," History& Memory9.1/2 (Fall 1997): 59ff. "A MartinBroszatand Saul Friedliinder, Controversyabout 4. See, in particular, the of the Historicization NationalSocialism,"Reworking Past: Hitler, the Holocaust and the Historians'Debate, ed. PeterBaldwin(Boston:Beacon, 1990). The most profoundcommenton this debateand its implicationsis to be found 5. Reflections on the Debate Metahistorical in JoimRilsen, "The Logic of Historicization: and between Friedliinder Broszat," History& Memory9.1/2 (Fall 1997): 113-44.

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and the Historian History,Memory,

between the writingof the historyof the To this day, the intertwining and of Holocaust and the unavoidableuse in its interpretation narration or explicit moral categories remains a major challenge. It is implicit aroundthese sharedmoral categoriesthat history and memoryencounter one of their central differences. It may well be that the apparent historyof National Socialdichotomybetween a necessarily"detached" ism and the no less unavoidablepresenceof a moraldimensionin dealing with this epoch may find its resolutiononly in the sensitivity and creativeintuitionof the historian. and In the memory of the contemporaries increasinglyso in present of the extermination the Jews may have become one of day perception, the defining events of our time. Yet it seems impossible to situate its historical place. How can historical inquirydefine the significance of sites whose sole functionwas Chelmno,Belzec, Sobibor,and Treblinka, immediateextermination?6 at two Approximately million victims were murdered these sites alone within a year or so. How can the significance of such events be inteof grated in the interpretation our epoch as they neither influencedthe course of the war, nor any majortrend in postwarhistory, and as, for many historians,so brief a span of time is but the foaming crest on the waves of long duration?Is the real impact of this history solely in the memoryit has left? Historical writing about the Holocaust has increasinglyattemptedto circumventsuch problemsby focusing on the mechanismsthat led to the "Final Solution"within Nazism itself, or on the logistics, the techprocesses of its implementation,on the nology and the bureaucratic agencies of exterminationand the behavior of the perpetrators.For example, in regardto his The Destructionof the EuropeanJews, Raul on Hilbergstatedthathe had mainly concentrated the "how"ratherthan on the "why" of that history. Such historical inquiry into the mechanisms of the "Final Solution"is the very basis of our knowledge and undoubtedly,remainsa primarytask. But, ultimately,the "why" overshadowsall otherconcerns. of It goes without saying that majorissues of interpretation, historical roots, of historicalcategories, have also been addressedfrom the very We beginnings of this historiography. all know at least some of these
Arno Mayer, WhyDid the HeavensNot Darken? The "FinalSolution"in His6. tory (New York:Pantheon,1989).

Saul Friedlinder

13

the special course of German history, anti-Semitism interpretations: or not), fascism, totalitarianism, modernity.It is at this (eliminationist of comes to the fore. level thata peculiarresponsibility the historian On the Historian's Responsibility The historiancannot be and should not be the guardianof memory. The historian'sgaze is analytic,critical,attunedto complexity,and wary But aboutgeneralizations. the historianshouldnot avoid the precise definition of interpretive concepts and categoriesin a domainso wide open to extraordinary flights of imaginationor malicious denials in interpretive endeavors. Moreover, on a very different level, historiansshould dare to challenge the complacencyand routinealreadyexisting in their domain. Regardingthe first issue, let me choose the continuingdebate of about the comparability Nazi and Stalinist crimes within the frameworkof two similartotalitarian regimesas a briefillustration. Totalitarianismas a key interpretivecategory is on the rise again. Decades ago duringthe cold war, it helped to fight communism;today totalitarianismis used to bury communism historically by trying to show that Stalin's crimes may have been worse than those of Hitler. In eastern Europe, first and foremost, but also in France and to a lesser Evil" theory has somedegree in Germany,this revival of the "Greater times taken strangeaccents. We are not confrontedwith Arendt's query into the origins of totalitarian systems but with a crusadeof sorts, aimis demonstratethat totalitarianism the explanationof it all and ing to Stalinwas first, Hitler in mere secthat on the scale of mass criminality ond place. It certainly is a legitimatequery, but one that demands, for example,thatthe followingbe considered. was aboutto cross the Volga at StalThe fall of 1942 the Wehrmacht Had the Germanssucceeded,they would probablyhave brought ingrad. about the militarycollapse of the Soviet Union, a significantprolongaof tion of the war, the non liberation Auschwitz in January1945 and the of the remnantsof EuropeanJewry. Are there complete extermination their knowledge of Stalinist many people today who, notwithstanding crimes, would declare in retrospect,that they wish the Wehrmachthad crossedthe Volga? The majority that still would answer negatively remains, I believe, disinfluencedby a vague intuitionrelatedto a historical-philosophical tinction most admirably expressed by the French-Jewishintellectual

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and History,Memory, the Historian

was straightforward uncomand RaymondAron. Aron's anti-Stalinism from the immediatepostwaryears onward,but, nonetheless, promising he clearly perceivedthe differencebetweenNazism and communism,as and Arendtdid in her "Questionsof MoralPhilosophy" as many historidifferencebetween Aron identifiedthe quintessential ans do to this day. - and there indeed it lies: "For the two regimes at the conceptuallevel those who wish to 'save the concepts',"Aron wrote, "thereremains a differencebetween a philosophywhose logic is monstrous,and one that lends itself to a monstrous interpretation."7 It remains the historian'sprime responsibilityto probe the concrete aspects of such distinctionsand to work throughthe details of related Thereinlies the majorchallengeas well. In the face of simarguments. of plified representations the past, the historian'sduty is to reintroduce the complexity of discrete historical events, the ambiguity of human of behavior,and the indetermination wider social processes.The task is due to the difficultyof conciliatingthe nuancedresultsof scholdaunting arshipand the necessaryreferenceto historical,but also moral/philosophical categories.In the face of a phenomenonsuch as Nazism, however, a such tasks are not yet sufficient.Thereis, as mentioned, run-of-the-mill to questioned. historyof the Holocaustthatdemands be thoroughly Some two years ago, the BerkeleyhistorianThomasLaqueurwrote a highly perceptivecritiqueof what he called the "businessas usual"hisof toriography the Holocaust,one that"fails to confrontboth the particular moral breakdownthese events imply and the subjectiveterrorthat For they inspired."8 Laqueur,as for myself, only the integrationof the individual fate within the historical narrationcould eventually enable the historian to overcome the dichotomy between the unfathomable of abstraction the millions of dead and the tragedyof individuallife and deathin the time of extermination. In otherwords, how can we rendera historyof the Holocaustwherein not only the historyof the victims as a collectivityis included,but one of which also comprisesthe narration the events accordingto the vicof fate?Laqueur as tims' perceptions, well as descriptions theirindividual data and picturesof children evoked the thousandsof shortbiographical deportedfromFrance,collectedby Serge Klarsfeld.These childrencould
7. Tony Judt, TheBurdenof Responsibility: Blum, Camus,Aron, and the French Twentieth Century(Chicago:U of ChicagoP, 1998) 154. 8. Thomas Laqueur,"The Sound of Voices IntoningNames,"LondonReview of Books (5 June 1997):3.

Saul Friedldnder

15

not speak in their own voice, but the little that could be found aboutthe life and deportationof a boy of eight or a girl of three sufficed, precisely because it was so little. The victims' testimonies cannot enlighten us about the internal but they put Nazi dynamics of Nazi persecutionsand exterminations, behaviorin its full perspective;they describethe face to face encounter with the victims duringthe persecutions,the deportaof the perpetrators and the killings. But, mainly, the victims' testimonies are our tions, They evoke, only source for the historyof theirown pathto destruction. in their own chaotic way, the depth of their terror,despair, apathetic resignation andtotal incomprehension. The integrationof the victims' voices radicallywidens the narrative span. This integrationhas to be complementedby the historian'seffort to find correspondinglynew concepts that would express, however the inadequately, breakdownof all normsand the dimensionsof suffercannoteasily deal with. thattraditional historiography ing Wittlich (in the Mosel region), November 10, 1938. The synagogue has been set on fire, the Jewish shops have been destroyed.HerrMarx, the butcher,as most Jewish men, has been shoved into a truckabout to leave for a concentrationcamp. On the street, in front of the ruined shop, amongjeering SA men, FrauMarx stands wailing: "Why do you do this to us? What did we ever do to you?" And, on both sides of the street, the Marxs' life-long Germanneighborsstand at their windows,
watching her - in silence.

Was it fear, was it hatred,was it just plain humanindifferenceto the despairof today's outcastswho had been yesterday'sfriends?The most elementary human ties had disappearedand the tornado evoked by Lichtheimin his anguishedletterhadnot even started.