Michael R. Marrus. The Holocaust in History. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 1987. 267 pages.
Richard L. Rubenstein and John Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987. 420 pages.
Some books are good; others are useful. Both of these good books are also quite useful, but for different purposes. Whereas Richard Rubenstein and John Roth have written an interesting and provocative book, which well serves to introduce students to a study of the Holocaust from a diversity of perspectives, Marrus addresses a more limited audience of scholars. The book by Marrus is invaluable for those who are widely read in the field, though they need not be specialists. He writes for those who seek a broad over-view of the study of the Holocaust within the perspective of general history.
The Holocaust in History has many virtues. Marrus has provided a competent overview of the historical issues at stake in the study of the Holocaust. He is a sensitive reader of a wide-ranging historical literature and a skilled writer who makes the historical debate come alive in clear and lucid prose. For the senior scholar, his work may be too basic, lacking some technical nuances; but for the well-read teacher of Holocaust studies, Marrus's broad view is welcome, perhaps even indispensable. He never loses sight of the larger story as he focuses on detail.
At the beginning of the work, Marrus makes a bold promise
to integrate the history of the Holocaust into the general stream of historical consciousness and to apply to it modes of discourse, the scholarly techniques, and the kind of analysis, used for all other issues.1
Thus, Marrus seeks to understand the Holocaust by conventional means and categories. He is aware of the intellectual opposition to this seemingly noncontroversial premise. He quotes Elie Wiesel, the most severe critic of this mode of scholarship. Wiesel argues that
Auschwitz defies perception and imagination, it submits only to memory. Between the dead and the rest of us there exists an abyss that no talent can comprehend.2
Unlike Wiesel, Marrus begins with the assumption that the story of the Holocaust can be told and can be understood even by those who were not there. If in the end a measure of understanding eludes usas it inevitably will- so be it. But in the end, not at the beginning. We cannot allow a sense of mystery to obscure those dimensions of reality that are comprehensible and discernible through the tools of contemporary scholarship. Marrus respectfully cites Yehuda Bauer's admonition against the growing tendency of "immersing tears and suffering in oceans of footnotes."3 Marrus would affirm Hannah Arendt's comment:
The conviction that everything that happened on earth must be comprehensible to man can lead to interpreting history by commonplaces. Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from the precedented or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt. It means, rather, having and bearing consciously the burden which our century has placed upon us-neither denying its existence nor submitting meekly to its weight. Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality-whatever it may be.4
Marrus writes compellingly of the vocation of his generation, the last generation to write while the survivors are alive. He repeatedly argues for the legitimacy of the task of historical scholarship:
For better or for worse we will have to rely upon historians to transmit what is known about the massacre of European Jewry. No one else is likely to do so in a way that commands credibility and standing in our culture.5
The Holocaust in History could not have been written in earlier years. While Marrus does not lack for passion, he is able to review with detachment and objectivity the debates that divided scholars of the past generation. Moreover, he is able to learn-and thus we are able to learn-from both sides of the storm. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his treatment of the Jewish leadership. Marrus reexamines Hannah Arendt's critique of the Judenrat from the perspective of Isaiah 'Trunk's important work on the councils, and Raul Hilberg's understanding of the ghetto as a form of government.6 He also integrates into his reconsideration diverse testimonies of survivors who have shed additional light on the inner workings of the ghetto.7 He understands that more is at stake than historical truth: the pride of the living is salvaged from the conduct of the dead. Thus, there is a great temptation on the part of many people from diverse ideological perspectives to rewrite history.
Similarly, when Marrus treats the role of the bystander, he does not reargue the role of the American Jews or point a finger at the Vatican. Rather, he resorts to the seminal works in the field, contextualizes them, compensates for their passion with reason, and seeks to understand their conclusions.
Marrus's work is meticulously balanced. He never loses his objectivity and authority. Nor does his work degenerate into a hopeless historical relativity in which every theory is credible and nothing is true. Through Marrus's careful work, the Arendt controversy is revisited, the contribution of Bruno Bettelheim is reevaluated, and the perspective of Hilberg is appreciated. There are no personal vendettas, no acrimony, no ad hominem attacks, but rather a serious treatment of the issues.
Marrus builds on what others have done. The Holocaust in History is less a work of history than a review of the history that has been written, less a treatment of the Holocaust than a consideration of how the Holocaust has been treated by the historians.
What then are the flaws of this work? First, I was struck by the organization of the book. The topics for individual chapters are well chosen: the "final solution"; Germany's allies, vanquished states, and collaborationist governments; public opinion in Nazi Europe; the victims; Jewish resistance; bystanders; and the end of the Holocaust.
Yet one is not certain why one chapter follows another or where it builds from the previous chapter. While each chapter is well crafted, the total organization of the work is idiosyncratic rather than organic.
Second, Marrus omits the consideration of one historical issue that is vital to the historic debate. His work centers, as it should, on the Jews and on antisernitism as the pivotal factor in the evolution of Nazi policy; but his seemingly exclusive emphasis on the Jews is currently a matter of some controversy with respect to public policy and historical perspective. Since Marrus was so successfully dispassionate on other issues, one bemoans the fact that this central premise of the work remains unexamined and that the controversy over the uniqueness and universality of the Holocaust remains unexplored.
Third, Marrus correctly understands the role that resistance plays in Israeli national life and the urgency with which Israeli historians have pursued the issue. Surely, a historical issue is at stake, but so too are national honor and the ability of the Jews to build their future on the ashes of Auschwitz. Yet Marrus fails to consider the debate between the intentionalists and the functionalists in German history as anything more than a historical debate about the past, far removed from its context in contemporary German culture and national life. One feels the loss of this perspective most keenly because Marrus's consideration of the debate is a model of lucidity and his suggestion as to areas of agreement between the parties so well taken.
Despite these flaws, Marrus has accomplished his central task. He has defined the state of knowledge of the Holocaust, reviewed the debates of the past, detailed the agenda of work undone, and provided the reader with a judicious understanding of individual works of history and their role within the larger scheme of things. In 200 well-written pages backed by ample footnotes, he has told the nonspecialist what he needs to know and what it has taken the specialist years to learn. It is a useful contribution.
To understand the Holocaust, one must address three different but intersecting histories and experiences: the history of the Jews; of the Germans, their allies, and their collaborators; and of the West. One must also understand the experience of the victims, the apparatus and ideology of the perpetrator, and the deeds of the bystander. And finally one must deal with the variety of disciplines that illumine those histories and experiences.
Approaches to Auschwitz is unique. No single work on the Holocaust covers so much ground and is so eclectic methodologically: theology and literary criticism, history and psychology, philosophy and sociology. And no book is as humanistically oriented. Most works confine themselves to one or, at best, two disciplines and play it safe by avoiding difficult questions.
Richard Rubenstein and John Roth are a diverse and multitalented team. I should know. Rubenstein was my teacher and my mentor. He is a friend. John Roth is currently my collaborator on a philosophic and religious study of the Holocaust. He too is a friend. So let the reader beware and compensate just a bit for the respect with which I hold both admired colleagues.
Rubenstein first achieved notoriety with the ground-breaking study that changed the landscape of Jewish theology.8 Before the 1966 publication of Rubenstein's work, you could count on one hand the Jewish thinkers who had probed the implications of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the state of Israel for contemporary Jews and their theology. Ever since, theologians have barely spoken of anything else. Roth teaches philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in California. The author and editor of seventeen books, he concentrates mainly on American ideology and the Holocaust, and has produced a fine work about Elie Wiesel.9
Rubenstein and Roth correctly begin Approaches to Auschwitz with the history of the Jewish people and their encounter with Christianity. In each area Rubenstein and Roth cover, they are firmly grounded in the latest research; but they bring to their findings their own distinct and controversial point of view.
As a textbook, the work is complete. Unlike the text by Lucy Dawidowicz,10 the study by Rubenstein and Roth deals with the experience of the Jews within the concentration camps, and probes the Holocaust not only as a manifestation of German ideology, but also as an expression of extreme trends within Western civilization. In addition to Jewish history, Rubenstein and Roth are able to explore Christianity and German history, the psychology of the bystander, the heroism of the righteous, and the defense mechanisms of the perpetrator.
Unlike Raul Hilberg's study of the destruction,11 Rubenstein and Roth use the writings of the victims, not the documents of the perpetrators, to judge the past. They deal with the Holocaust as perceived by the Jews both during and after the war. Their work, like that of Marrus, is sensitive and fair. Troubling questions of Holocaust historiography are examined with great care and objectivity. The tone is never polemical, and opposing sides of each question are scrutinized in order to learn from each proponent of an argument.
As has Marrus, Rubenstein and Roth have shown us that it is possible to learn from Arendt's insights and to balance them by the meticulous historical research of Isaiah Trunk. They juxtapose William Styron with his critics in order to learn from both. Their treatment of the Dreyfus Affair is a major essay in its own right. Nowhere else is the importance of the French experience described as clearly or as concisely.
I must confess that I share the bias of this book. I often tell my students that almost every piece of quality writing on the Holocaust is correct in its essential insight. Authors go wrong when they stretch beyond evidence or when they believe that they have accounted for the whole of the story with only a fragmentary understanding. Rubenstein and Roth approach Holocaust scholarship with a willingness to learn from each author and to examine each perspective critically. They are neither mired down in details nor overwhelmed by conflict. They never lose their balance or their perspective. Instead, they reach to the core of an argument and are instructed by it, testing their original insights and the teachings of others by the new perspective introduced.
As a work of theology, the book is exceptional. It is authoritative in its treatment of early Christianity and the Christian-Jewish relationship. It is a masterful guide to contemporary Christian writings on the Holocaust, and its treatment of post-Holocaust Jewish theology breaks new ground. The book should cause quite a stir among Jewish theologians interested in Rubenstein's sensitive treatment of his theological rivals Emil Fackenheim and the late Arthur A. Cohen. It seems that with the passage of time, the acrimony of twenty years ago has passed, and Fackenheim's work is treated appreciatively yet critically.
Similarly, the section on literary criticism can serve as both an introduction of literary studies of the Holocaust and an advanced essay to be cherished by scholars and critics. Appraches to Auschwitz touches areas that other authors dare not approach. Rubenstein and Roth deal with the interrelationship between the Holocaust and other manifestations of genocide that preceded and followed it. They correctly balance stories of heroism by tales of failure so that the reader is not left with a distorted picture of the reality of Auschwitz.
Their writing is clear and concise. And like Martin Gilbert's narrative history of the Holocaust,12 Rubenstein and Roth personify their stories and thus preserve the human dimension. Suffering, heroism, even the deeds of the perpetrator or of the theologian-all are personalized. At points I was on the verge of tears, and I often felt a chill down my spine.
Without a doubt, Approaches to Auschwitz will be Rubentein'ssbest received work within the Jewish community. It is a work of uncompromising integrity and undeceived lucidity. The two final chapters are speculative and quite informative. They raise the specter of what can be learned from the Holocaust in the future.
Eclectic yet authoritative, Approaches to Auschwitz is unlike any other work on the Holocaust. It should become a standard for college courses and a must for scholars and lay people alike.
NOTES
1. Marrus, Holocaust in History, p. xiii.
2. Ibid., p. 2. Quoted from Elie Weisel, "Does the Holocaust Lie Beyond the Reach of Art?" New York Times, 17 Apr. 1983.
3. Marrus, Holocaust in History, p. 202.
4. Hannah Arendt, Tile Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951), p. viii.
5. Marrus, Holocaust in History, p. 202.
6. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York, 1963); Isaiah Trunk, judenrat (New York, 1972); and Raul Hilberg, "The Ghetto as a Form of Government: An Analysis of Isaiah Trunk's judenrat," in Tile Holocaust as Historical Experience, ed. Yehuda Bauer and Nathan Rotenstreich (New York, 1981).
7. Marrus, Holocaust in History, pp. 115-22, 226-27.
8. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contempor- ary Judaism (Indianapolis, 1966).
9. See John Roth, A Consuming Fire: Encounters with Elie Wiesel and tile Holocaust (Atlanta, 1979). Roth was named Professor of the Year in 1988 by the American Council on Education.
10. Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Tile War Against tile Jews, 1933-1945 (New York, 1975).
11. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago, 1961).
12. Martin Gilbert, Tile Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During tile Second World War (New York, 1985).
