"Hitler's Willing Executioners" was recently translated
into Hebrew. Professor Anita Shapira of Tel Aviv University reviewed
the book in the last issue of "Sefarim" (Books) the
weekly supplement of "Ha'aretz" (The Land), an Israeli
daily newspaper.
The article is palpably different from most of other reviews of
the book in the US, Germany and Israel. Before pointing out the
issues in which she differs with Goldhagen, she summarizes what
the book is about. She also deals with the aftermath of the publication
in the US and in Germany, asking why it was so bitterly attacked
and dismissed by historians of the Holocaust "the elders
of the tribe" while enthusiastically accepted by the
public at large, in particular in Germany.
Goldhagen shifts the center of Holocaust studies upside down.
Away from the "other planet," from abstract evil, from
deus ex machina bureaucracy, from apparently erudite distinctions
of "intentionalism" and "functionalism" into
down to earth simple description of Germans not necessarily
Nazis -- killing Jews women, children and men -- torturing
them, beyond the call of duty, willingly. He comes closer to the
narrative of victims and survivors. Shapira reminds the reader
of the German perpetrator who was willing to spare the life of
his victim, if the victim would be able to tell which of the eyes
of the potential killer is made of glass. The victim identified
on the spot the glass eye, because it expressed more humanity
than the other one.
Similarly to other historians she is critical of Goldhagen explanation
of the Holocaust as a direct result of German antisemitism. In
her opinion Goldhagen grasps the German history in a simplistic
manner.
Anita Shapira makes reference to the change of opinion as to Hitler and the Third Reich. Hitler is now portrayed as a leader whose many decisions were rational. She mentions the article of Gordon Craig in the New York Review of Books, (reviewing a book by John Lukacs on Hitler's historiography, I believe) where he writes that Hitler influenced the history of twentieth century more than any other individual. In her view, the book of Goldhagen stands even more out against the background of this change of outlook.
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Source: Aharon Meytahl <[email protected]> Sat, 7 Feb 1998 on <[email protected]>
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