Nearly everything I’ve heard about the new UN Secretary-General Ban has been good. Or, at least, comparatively good–compared, that is, to his predecessor Kofi Annan.
Now he’s done two reasonable things, after only a couple of days on the job: refused to condemn the execution of Saddam Hussein in the usual pious and doctrinaire UN fashion, and stated a commitment to dealing with Darfur.
The loaded phrases “show trial” and “show execution” have been used by the Left recently to describe the judicial proceedings regarding Saddam Hussein (just Google “Saddam ‘show trial'” and you’ll find plenty more examples).
Ah, the Left should know about “show trials”-they championed them and applauded them (and practically invented them), back in Moscow in the thirties. Take a look and you’ll see a description of a bunch of real show trials.
It’s part of the debasement of language that Saddam’s trial can be called a “show trial.” I’ve read many essays that make that accusation, and most of them seem to have no conception of what a show trial actually is, or what might be wrong with it.
There’s nothing inherently wrong, for example, about a trial that is for public consumption. In that sense, of course, Saddam’s trial is “for show;” how could it not be? The same was true for the Nuremberg trials, the proceedings that set the precedent for trying leaders of a defeated regime for the offenses known as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that trying a defeated former dictator and tyrant in a court of law is an inherently murky situation. The law is not really designed to deal with this sort of thing–war is. The idea of bringing defeated heads of state to trial is a relatively new one, and international law is confused on how to deal with it, as well (just look at what happened with Milosevic).
What are the alternatives to such a trial? The tyrant can get off scot-free and go to a cushy exile somewhere like Saudi Arabia, where he gets to die in bed at a ripe old age. This, for example, is what happened to the notorious Idi Amin of Uganda. To most, that’s a solution that fails abysmally in serving the cause of justice.
The second alternative, the time-honored and traditional approach, is to kill the leaders in question without even the pretense of a legal proceeding, if the opportunity presents itself. After all, such dictators tend to be violently deposed; it’s very unusual for a person of this type to give up power voluntarily. Live by the sword die by the sword, and all that. And this might have happened to Saddam at the very moment he climbed out of his hiding hole.
But the decision was made to do something more progressive. It’s considered an advance over that kind of summary justice to have a trial; that’s what happened with Saddam. And of course such a trial, by its very nature, must be “for show.” That is, it is for the people of the country in question–as well as other tyrants of like ilk, and the world–to view.
The purpose? To show the superiority of court justice to the random murders the person in question has perpetrated. To allow the traumatized people of the dictator’s country the satisfaction of seeing the formerly all-powerful leader brought low by the justice system, and forced to watch the proceedings as his own crimes are paraded before him.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of “show.” It represents an improvement of sorts over the first two alternatives mentioned. Certainly, no one would suggest that a secret trial would be better. No, there’s no way around the fact that trying a former dictator is inherently a “show,” in the sense of an object lesson and a demonstration. But that’s not the “show” that makes a trial a true “show trial.”
It’s often said that “show trials” are ones in which the outcome is a foregone conclusion and the guilt of the accused is known. But that can’t be the definition, either, because then all such trials of former mass murdering dictators would be “show trials.” After all, it’s not as though they are routine suspects picked up because they happen to fit the description of some eyewitness to a crime.
No, their crimes are already well known and documented, and their identity is not in question. So of course, by the time a trial of such a leader commences, even though they are de jure legally innocent till proven guilty, it’s realistic to say that they are de facto regarded as guilty by most who have followed their history (which, after all, is mostly in the public domain). The trial functions–and cannot help but function–more as a documentation and demonstration of that fact.
There’s no way around that truth. The mental gymnastics required to ignore Saddam’s known and vast history of human rights abuses are too much for most people to perform. Nor does this mean his trial is inherently unfair.
His trial, of course, was imperfect in terms of the definition the ACLU would give for such things. It was an Iraqi proceeding, and each country’s legal system is quite different. But there’s no question that Saddam was not railroaded. Nor was he convicted of crimes he did not commit. Nor was he tortured to extract some sort of confession. And these elements are the key attributes of “show trials,” such as the Moscow variety.
The Moscow trials were applauded by American Communists and supporters of the time, however. The following was typical of the reaction:
…Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt, in the Daily Worker of March 12, 1936 told the world that “the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress.” The article was ironically illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov, himself shortly to vanish and his photographs airbrushed from history by NKVD archivists. In the United States, Communist proponents such as Corliss Lamont and Lillian Hellman also denounced criticism of the Moscow trials, signing “An Open Letter To American Liberals” in support of the trials for the March 1937 issue of Soviet Russia Today.
Later, even Khrushchev acknowledged that the trials were, quite simply, frameups to get rid of Stalin’s enemies, the confessions that so impressed Western Leftists extracted by torture. In Orwell’s chilling 1984, he based the treatment of Winston Smith at least partly on the example of these trials and similar ones staged by the Communists.
It’s an interesting example of projection, once again, that Leftists today make the charge of “show trial” towards Saddam Hussein’s, when the Left presided over the most prominent example of the genre in recent memory. And, by the elastic definition the Left now holds of the term “show trial,” no trial of a former dictator for war crimes could help but be a “show trial,” because all are conducted with an eye to the purpose of “showing” to the world what that leader has done, all begin with factual knowledge of the perpetrator’s well-known guilt, all have elements of vengeance for the terrible crimes committed, and all have partly political aims.
There is absolutely no way to avoid these things. But trials such as Saddam’s lack the elements that would make a trial truly a “show trial” and a sham: framing the innocent with trumped-up charges, confessions and testimony extracted by torture (true torture, by the way, which isn’t the same as sleep deprivation).
However, if the Left ever gets its chance to try Bush and Rumsfeld for war crimes, you can rest assured they’ll consider those to be no “show trials” at all, but the fairest of fair proceedings.
Well, I’ve recovered from last night.
Not all that much to recover from, actually, compared to my wild and misspent youth. Yes, on certain New Years Eves Past I actually used to haul myself off to Times Square to watch that ball go down, back when it was really just a plain sphere rather than some sort of complex and enormous light-studded Christmas ornament resembling the mother ship from “Close Encounters.”
Here‘s a history of the Times Square ball. Memory did serve me well; it turns out that my forays into Times Square were made during the era of the unadorned aluminum ball, a mere 150-pounder (the ball, that is, not me!) sort of like the plainness of Pat Nixon’s Republican cloth coat.
Today’s ball, by comparison, weighs over one thousand pounds, is studded with Waterford-crystal triangles and lit by–well, it’s way too complex, so I’ll just quote the official site:
For the 2007 New Year’s Eve celebration, 72 of the crystal triangles feature the new “Hope for Peace” design, consisting of three dove-like patterns symbolizing messengers of peace. The remaining 432 triangles feature Waterford designs from previous years, including the Hope for Fellowship, Hope for Wisdom, Hope for Unity, Hope for Courage, Hope for Healing, Hope for Abundance, and Star of Hope triangles. These crystal triangles are bolted to 168 translucent triangular lexan panels which are attached to the aluminum frame of the Ball. The exterior of the Ball is illuminated by 168 Philips Halogené¡ Brilliant Crystal light bulbs, exclusively engineered for the New Year’s Eve Ball to enhance the Waterford crystal. The interior of the Ball is illuminated by 432 Philips Light Bulbs (208 clear, 56 red, 56 blue, 56 green, and 56 yellow), and 96 high-intensity strobe lights, which together create bright bubbling bursts of color. The exterior of the Ball features 90 rotating pyramid mirrors that reflect light back into the audience at Times Square. All 696 lights and 90 rotating pyramid mirrors are computer controlled, enabling the Ball to produce a state-of-the-art light show of eye-dazzling color patterns and a spectacular kaleidoscope effect atop One Times Square.
But I digress. Today’s the day for New Years resolutions, pristine ones we haven’t yet had time to break. So, here are mine:
(1) The usual diet stuff. Say no more; we all know the drill.
(2) Get the house in order and put it on the market.
(3) Plan the move.
(4) Throw out the junk.
(5) Redo the blog to make it more difficult for trolls to post.
(6) Write more segments of the “change” series!
(7) Read more books. Ever since I’ve been blogging, reading for pleasure has fallen by the wayside.
(8) Realize that this list, which is only the beginning of what I need to do (and only deals with the outer, rather than the inner, self) would probably take most of 2007 to accomplish.
2007-it has a ring to it, doesn’t it? One of the things I find it hard to believe is how much time has passed since the millennium. I’ve read that time really does appear to pass more quickly as one gets older (and that’s the only direction in which one can ever go, it seems) because a year becomes a smaller percentage of the life already lived.
When you’re five years old, a year is one-fifth of your life, and it seems like the next birthday (or Christmas, or whatever it is one is waiting for) will never ever come. But when you’re–oh, to choose a round and arbitrary number, fifty–that same year is only one-fiftieth of your life. Thus, the perception of the acceleration of time.
But, whatever your age, have a good year! If anyone wants to share New Years resolutions here, feel free.
I want to wish you the happiest of Happy New Years! May the coming year be much better than the last for everyone–except the terrorists and their henchmen.
Party on, and drive safely.
Richard Fernandez has a thought-provoking take on how the blogosphere works, including the various categories of Finders, Linkers, and Thinkers, and the roles they play.
In his comment on that thread, blogger Tigerhawk discusses Fernandez’s contention that, originally, it was feared that the blogosphere would be a powerful force for the dissemination of disinformation. But it turns out that it’s been more instrumental in countering the spread of disinformation so far. Tigerhawk attributes this to something in the structure of blogs; “perhaps their sheer numbers.”
If so, I think it’s an illustration of the principles in the book The Wisdom of Crowds. In it, author Surowiecki asserts that:
…large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant””better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.
This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives.
As for “predicting the future,” I thought it was pretty funny that blogger William Beutler at P.I. managed to predict Time magazine’s rather inane selection of “You” as Person of the Year, and even got the cover of the issue close to right (hat tip: Pajamas Media). But then, when I thought about it some more (I try to be a “Thinker,” after all) I realized the sheer size of the blogosphere indicates that, merely by chance, somebody’s bound to get it right. Right? (Not quite like those infinite monkeys and Shakespeare, however–not yet).
Yes, the blogosphere is very large indeed. But, as Tigerhawk also points out, its actual readership, though growing, is still relatively small. Right now it only has true influence in certain very dramatic cases like Rathergate; otherwise, the news (for example, of Hezbollah’s disinformation campaign during the recent Lebanon/Israel war) doesn’t truly penetrate the still vastly greater audience and influence of the MSM.
It has been announced that Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging a few hours ago.
I’m not a death penalty fan. But I’ve always realized that there are some situations in which execution seems only appropriate.
A trial of Adolf Hitler would have been one of them, if he hadn’t finessed the situation by killing himself first. It’s difficult to see how keeping him alive after a trial would have been anything but a trivialization of the enormity of his crimes.
Saddam wasn’t Hitler, but he was definitely evil enough, and on a large enough scale, to justify the death penalty. His continued existence would have had other dangers, as well–it would represent a rallying point for future hopes of a Baathist resurgence.
Unlike Saddam, Hitler cheated his executioner, as did the clever Goering, who managed to swallow poison just a few hours before he was due to hang. Then there was Milosevic, who died during his four-year-long trial, which had seemed interminable up till that point.
But many other prominent Nazis were executed after being sentenced at the Nuremberg trials, and the disposal of their bodies was treated with great care. Photographs were taken and distributed to prove they were actually dead (the same, apparently, is true of Saddam; as I write this, the photos and videos are expected to be released shortly). But after that documentation, the bodies of the executed Nazis were thoroughly destroyed, to avoid any possibility of a grave with remains that could inspire veneration and devotion in followers:
Afterwards, the bodies of the executed were photographed and, writes Anthony Read in The Devil’s Disciples (W.W. Norton, 2004), “wrapped in mattress covers, sealed in coffins, then driven off in army trucks . . . to a crematorium in Munich, which had been told to expect the bodies of fourteen American soldiers. The coffins were opened up for inspection . . . before being loaded into the cremation ovens. That same evening, a container holding all the ashes” ”” including those belonging to Field Marshal Hermann Gé¶ring, who had committed suicide a few hours earlier ”” “was driven away into the Bavarian countryside, in the rain. It stopped in a quiet lane about an hour later, and the ashes were poured into a muddy ditch.”
The Soviets and the Chinese Communists, on the other hand, have managed to make the bodies of their mass murderers into Madame Tussaud-like figures, embalmed and displayed as relics in shrines that have an almost religious quality (see this post I once wrote on that strange and grisly subject).
Mussolini, on the other hand, would probably have preferred any of the previous body dispositions to his actual fate–a fate that was on Hitler’s mind when he not only shot himself, but also gave orders for the destruction of his own corpse to prevent it from falling into the hands of his enemies.
Mussolini had been executed by Communist partisans, his body dumped in a public square, then strung up and beaten and otherwise desecrated by a crowd that had gathered. But he was later cut down and buried in a family plot, which became the focus of visits by neo-Fascist admirers.
What will happen to Saddam’s remains is unclear. His daughter is requesting temporary burial in Yemen, until Iraq can be “liberated” and he can be reinterred there. She is probably well aware of the tradition of destroying the bodies of executed dictators, and the reason this is done. She’s clearly hoping for some almost-Soviet style veneration in Saddam’s future. A fitting wish, since Saddam himself was a great admirer of Uncle Joe Stalin, the butcher of millions who himself died peacefully of natural causes–or did he?.
[ADDENDUM: The precedent of the past isn’t being followed: Saddam’s burial place is known, in his home base of Tikrit, about two miles from the graves of his sons. Thus, shrine possibilities remain intact.]
[Part I here.]
By early 1943, the time of the Rosenstrasse Protest, the Final Solution were well underway. The Nazis had been very careful about their policy of extermination of the Jews; one can view the entire operation as a series of slowly escalating experiments to see what the German public and the world would tolerate.
The persecution of the Jews started out with a group of racial laws in Germany (the Nuremberg Laws) that isolated and ostracized them from other Germans; previously the Jews of Germany had been among the most assimilated in Europe. What happened as a result? Not much, apparently. Here is a summary of German reports of the time evaluating the responses of the general population of Germany, reported to have been either “satisfaction,” “enthusiasm,” “understanding,” or “silence” (the latter in the predominantly Catholic town of Aachen, which bordered Belgium).
The Nazis were well aware that their policies required cooperation, active or at least passive, from the public. They had learned this during an earlier “experiment,” the T4 program, which had involved murdering the mentally and/or physically disabled. When word had gotten out about the T4 program, there were massive protests (the only large ones for any policy of the Hitler regime) and Catholic officials spoke out publicly to criticize it.
As a result the program was officially scrapped, although it continued to a certain degree in a more clandestine way. But this outcome shows the power of German public opinion, even for the Nazis. They were indeed worried about the perception of the public towards their policies, and weren’t willing to create public discord by firing on German demonstrators and causing a backlash.
This is an interesting fact. The Nazis were indeed brutal killers, but they were canny about what they did. Mass murder of their own people–in the style of other tyrants such as Stalin and Pol Pot–was most definitely not the style of the Nazis. They needed and wanted the cooperation of the German people, and were well aware of how far the people could be pushed before they would withdraw that cooperation and begin to cause trouble. Therefore the Nazis carefully calibrated their moves, backtracking (or becoming more secretive and hidden) when the rumblings threatened to get out of control.
The reaction to T4 clearly indicates that a stronger protest by the German people to the Nuremberg Laws, and then to the roundups of Jews, could have either halted the entire endeavor or made it far more difficult. T4 had another significance: it was a chance for the Nazis to perfect some of their techniques, since it featured the first mass gassings, cremations, and even the decoy shower heads in the gas chambers, all prototypes for the techniques of the death camps.
Other well-known early “experiments” in mass killings–this time of the Jews–were the notorious Nazi “Einsatzgruppen” mass murders on the Eastern front in Russia and Eastern Europe. These killings were quite different from those in the subsequent death camps. They featured open-air shootings over mass graves dug by the victims themselves, and were supervised by the SS but were mainly performed by squads of specially trained German and Austrian police.
Although not publicized, these killings could hardly be kept totally hidden from the German people, as Goldhagen’s controversial book Hitler’s Willing Executioners makes clear. Nor were they secrets to the occupied countries involved–in fact, locals were sometimes recruited to help out with the proceedings.
The relatively primitive and bloody chaos of these massacres on the Eastern Front occurred mainly in 1941 and early 1942, and were limited to those occupied territories. Later efforts were the death camps, a more “refined” and hidden “solution” to the problem, as well as a far more efficient one: less manpower and ammunition required.
It is sobering to think that the near-extermination of the Jews of Europe occurred without anything resembling the protest that marked the German reaction to the T4 program. It’s sobering partly because it’s very clear that such protests would, and could, have been at least somewhat effective. The Nazis were clearly afraid of the power of public opinion–at least in Germany, at least for pragmatic reasons.
The one example (besides the T4 protests) of this type of group demonstration by a significant crowd of Germans was a very specialized one. Known as The Rosenstrasse Protest, it is a relatively little-known event in the history of the Third Reich,
Because of the prewar assimilation of the Jews of Germany, there were a number of intermarriages, especially in Berlin. When the Jews of Germany were rounded up and sent to the camps, these Jewish spouses were spared–temporarily.
This in and of itself is in interesting fact, another example of the Nazis’ cunning. Rounding up regular Jews was one thing, and they correctly surmised it was unlikely to occasion more than a ripple among the ordinary German population. But taking away the Jewish spouses of “regular” Germans could be expected to be a much more emotional undertaking. And so, mindful of the need to keep the public calm, the selection of those spouses was postponed.
The roundup action, in early 1943, was meant to be a birthday present for Hitler:
The Gestapo called this action simply the “SchluéŸaktion der Berliner Juden” (Closing Berlin Jew Action). Hitler was offended that so many Jews still lived in Berlin, and the Nazi Party Director for Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, had promised to make Berlin “Judenfrei” (free of Jews) for the Fé¼hrer’s 54th birthday in April.
It was mostly successful; 8,000 of the 10,000 rounded up were not spouses in mixed marriages, and they were sent off to Auschwitz with hardly a ripple. The 2000 remaining were the spouses (all husbands, actually; I’ve never seen a report that mentioned what may have happened to Jewish wives in mixed marriages). In a spontaneous reaction, their non-Jewish wives came to the place where they were being held–an office in central Berlin that gave the protest its name.
The weeklong demonstration grew in numbers and seriousness, although it was never officially organized. SS guards threatened to shoot the women, but the wives were defiant and no shootings ever happened. In fact, the men were released, and even a few who had already been sent to Auschwitz were returned.
What was going on here? Once again, we see the Nazi respect for public order and the desire not to push the German people one ounce beyond what the latter could and would tolerate. Two thousand Jewish men remaining in Berlin were considered a small price to pay to maintain the public order. The plan was to take care of them later–but “later” never happened; almost all the men survived the war safely in Berlin.
In a recent book on the matter, Nathan Stoltzfus concludes that the German people had far more say in Nazi policies than they would have you believe. The evidence is fairly clear that protests would have made a difference. The sad fact is that the Germans were only energized a few times to engage in protests, and only in certain very specialized situations.
Many who advocate nonviolence consider it almost a panacaea. It is not, of course. The Nazis had a particular and relatively benign and respectful attitude towards their own people that not all tyrannical regimes share. For a peaceful protest to be successful, there must be that all-important attitude on the part of the government: a modicum of respect for the people involved, and a reluctance to upset them by a show of force and muscle. Because if the authorities decide to go for brutality and power, nonviolent protesters can be easily deterred and silenced.
Gandhi didn’t think so, as I’ve written here. The type of absolute pacifism he suggested is both unrealistic, given human nature, and absolutely ensures a mass bloodbath if the authorities being challenged are brutal enough. As I discussed in the linked piece, Gandhi famously advocated that the Jews go willingly and meekly to the slaughter to prove a point and take the moral high road.
But it turns out he would have done far far better to have suggested to the German people that they undertake nonviolent protests in order to protect the Jews–if, in fact, they had any motivation to do so, which seems to have not been the case. Because it’s clear from the evidence that protest by the German people themselves would have been successful in forestalling the Holocaust, as it was for other resisting groups such as the Danes and the Bulgarians whom the Nazis happened to respect.
One remaining question is whether the German people knew, or should have known, their own strength. In order to have the courage to act en masse in protest, most people need to believe they are not going to be mowed down in cold blood by superior firepower. The overwhelming evidence is that, if the Germans had been paying attention, they ought to have known their influence because of the precedent set in T4. The nearly inescapable and sorrowful conclusion is that most Germans simply did not care enough about what was happening to the Jews to mount any sort of protest at all, because if they had, it would have been successful.
Nonviolent resistance to totalitarian governments can be very difficult because of Draconian retaliation against such efforts and the resulting climate of fear among the populace, as well as the constant propaganda designed to reduce dissent to a minimum. But not all totalitarian regimes are alike in how far they are willing to go to crush resistance. And even the same totalitarian regime is not always willing to go equally far to crush resistance under all circumstances at all times against all comers.
The German Reich was a case in point. The Nazis were relentless in their drive to conquer Europe and make it Judenfrei. But the Nazis had a hierarchy of countries in their racial pantheon, and treated the inhabitants of those places differentially based in large part on the Nazi system of racial classification.
The top of the heap, of course, were the “Aryans” of Germany and Austria. But countries defined as “Nordic” were considered just about as good. And, although supposedly “Aryan,” the Slavic races were regarded as markedly inferior, so the conquered Poles were accordingly treated far more harshly than the Danes, for example.
In looking at the idea of whether successful nonviolent resistance to some of the Nazis’ harshest edicts was possible, one must always remember this differential treatment of occupied countries. What was successful in one place could never have been so in another. Just as Gandhi’s success depended on the fact that he was facing the relatively humane British, so it was that the brutality of the Nazi occupation in one country wasn’t the same as the Nazi occupation in another. Different policies allowed differential responses, such as, for example, the ability of the relatively autonomous and respected Danes to evacuate and thus rescue their relatively small Jewish population.
The Nazis were well aware of the possibility of resistance and the need for a cooperative captive populace. That’s one of the reasons they thought it best to disguise and keep quiet the scope of their genocide. They feared a public backlash against it, even (or perhaps especially) in Germany.
The Nazi racial laws that singled out the Jews for special persecution started slowly in Germany during the early 30s, increasing the Jews’ isolation from the general public over the years and culminating, as we know, in the Final Solution. There’s a great deal of controversy over how much the German people actually knew about the true nature and extent of the death camps. But certainly extreme persecution of the Jews of Germany and elsewhere was common knowledge, as was their deportation to parts unknown, never to be heard from again. So even if the German people didn’t know everything, they knew a great deal.
Some of those “parts unknown” were in concentration camps in Germany itself, such as Dachau and Mathausan-Gusen. So the Germans in the surrounding area clearly knew about these camps. However, the term “concentration camp” is so familiar that most people do not realize that it’s a general term covering two horrific but somewhat different types of institution: the labor camp and the death camp. The camps in Germany were labor camps.
Although conditions in labor camps were dreadful, and death was a common and expected occurrence in them, the main purpose of these camps was not to exterminate directly, but rather to harshly extract the full measure of hard labor out of the inmates with the least cost. If they happened to die from the conditions there, then so be it—and die they did, in droves. The death camps, however, existed solely for the purpose of efficiently killing virtually all their inmates shortly after arrival.
A related distinction is also not ordinarily understood: none of the death camps was located in Germany. Rather, all six were in Poland. Why was this? Poland had a large Jewish population, and therefore the camps were located near the source and less transport would be needed. But it seems that the Nazi leadership may also have wanted to protect the German population from exact and precise knowledge of what was happening, by placing the death camps far away. Perhaps they didn’t have full confidence that their own populace would support outright extermination if it came to know, unequivocally and undeniably, that this was what was actually happening.
In order to accomplish the task of genocide, especially the all-important initial action of rounding up the Jewish population, the cooperation of the local non-Jewish population was a requirement for success. And, as the example of the Danes shows, that cooperation was not always a given. So it would be best to keep the final destination as quiet as possible, to reduce the probability of protest.
It didn’t always work. In addition to the Danes, the Bulgarians were able to defy the Germans and save their Jews. The Bulgarians were even more autonomous than the Danes (in fact, they were unoccupied German allies). They saved their Jews through a combination of church leadership and the fact that anti-Semitism had never really taken much hold there. The Nazis didn’t want to strong-arm the citizens of countries such as Denmark and Bulgaria, who were not considered enemies, into giving up their Jews. They were willing to wait and concentrate on places such as France where it was much easier to get public cooperation for the roundup of their prey. Later, they thought, they’d tie up loose ends in other places.
Anyone who knows Holocaust history knows that Poland was its center. The Polish people have often been condemned for their participation in the death of their Jews–but, although there was indeed a great deal of cooperation from the Poles, it turns out that the situation was far more complex than that. Not only were there also a great many rescuers in Poland (see this book for a thorough documentation of these stirring tales), but the Poles had a great deal more to lose than most from saving Jews. Not to minimize the accomplishments of the Danes or the Bulgarians, but to be a hero in Poland was a lot more meaningful than to be one in Denmark or Bulgaria–or even, as it turns out, in Germany.
Why? Because Poland was the only Nazi-occupied country in which helping Jews would officially get you the death penalty. Here are the horrific facts (read them and ask yourself if you would have been as brave as the many Poles who did shelter and save Jews):
Poland was the only place where German law rendered any assistance to Jews punishable by death. That punishment was severe and collective: It was meted out not only to the rescuer but also to his entire family and to anyone else who knew about such activities and did not report them. Almost 1,000 Poles were killed this way, including entire families whose children were not spared.
Germans of the World War II era have defended themselves against criticism by saying they not only didn’t know the details of the Holocaust, but if they’d tried to protest, they themselves would have been imprisoned or killed. But in Germany—unlike Poland—this was not true at all. Successful resistance was most definitely possible, as the little-known but fascinating story of the Rosenstrasse Protest shows.
[In Part II, tomorrow, I will explain what this protest was and why it was important.]
Last night I went to the movies to see “Dreamgirls.” I wanted some light entertainment, and I got it.
I was in Brooklyn, and the audience at the large and crowded theater I happened to go to was approximately 99% African-American. This made for a more interesting viewing experience than I would have had if I’d been back home. I expect that audiences in New England are enjoying the film, too. But I very much doubt that their delight goes quite as deep or is expressed quite as strongly as that of my fellow viewers last night.
This audience especially adored Jennifer Hudson and her vocal riffs. And Eddie Murphy (who, to my surprise, actually can sing) was a crowd favorite.
For me–well, I have to say, I loved the costumes, the wigs, and the makeup. They brought back memories of the original Supremes–sorta, kinda.
The movie moved me to go to my computer (where else?) and refresh my memory on some of the real history of the Supremes, which of course is very different from that of the fictional group in the film. For one thing, there was no dreamy rapprochement among the girls–Flo Ballard stayed estranged from the rest. There were many other differences, as well–including Ballard’s untimely death at the age of thirty-two.
But although the film doesn’t purport to be a documentary, it can’t help but dredge up the Supremes’ memory for those of us “of a certain age.” And being of that age myself, I can say that the Supremes really were a glamorous bunch, the first mainstream crossover African-American (Negro, in those days) sex symbols, which was exactly what they were designed and marketed to be. Berry Gordy was some kind of genius; whatever else you might say of him, he really knew his stuff.
The movie is too long, the music inferior (and quite different) to my ears than the Motown originals, and the film has the annoying habit–de rigueur in theatrical musicals; acceptable on stage but always bizarre and almost comical on film–of the main characters breaking into song at odd intervals when they should by all rights be speaking to each other. But, once you accept that convention (and accept it you must, if you want to have a good time), it’s a fun evocation of a small part of an exciting era in musical and American history.
Those who weren’t there may think the costumes are over the top. But I don’t think so. The Supremes were known for their elegant, and then flamboyant (but still elegant) costuming and elaborate wigs, which managed to keep up with the times–and the times they did a-change during the years of their greatest popularity, mid-to late 60s.
They were also known for their stylized choreography, and in this the film is quite different from that of the earlier era; these days more pizazz is demanded. There is nothing I noticed in the movie that can quite compare with the wonderful just-this-side-of-camp hand business that accompanied the Supremes’ hit “Stop! In the Name of Love!,” which featured a breezy and almost self-mocking recurrent traffic-cop-like gesture, arm outstretched and palm towards the audience.
If you want to see it, tune in to U-tube for the original–or several originals; it features a few different performances. Please admire those simple classic white dresses at the beginning; I had one just like them. Notice, also, that Florence Ballard (on the left in the first clip, and on whom the Jennifer Hudson character was roughly modeled) was nowhere near heavy, unlike the character in the movie. In fact, she’s perhaps the most graceful mover of the three, and that’s saying quite a bit.
If you want more early Supremes, take a look. Once again, you’ll see that the choreography was limited to a suggestive but restrained body shake, and expressive hand gestures. Simple white dresses again. Filmed somewhere in London, this clip also demonstrates a fact I first noticed in the 60s: British teenagers were unable to dance. It was as though they’d missed out on some important formative phase of life–they just couldn’t do it. I don’t know whether that problem has been remedied in the intervening decades, but at the time it seemed very odd but very noticeable–despite the Beatles and the Stones, these kids just couldn’t shake it.
For a slightly later, more sparkly, more glam phase of the Supremes oeuvre, try this. Still having fun with the hand motions (a sort of hula-like thing going on there for this one), and the wigs look like they’re about to take off and fly, at least on one side.
Lastly, for those who think that the scene in the film where the group sports geometric Vidal Sassoon-ish haircuts and Courreges-inspired minis might be fiction, think again. The Supremes definitely had a mod phase; here’s the album cover to prove it (one I owned once upon a time, “The Supremes A’ Go-Go”):
The 60s were a big tent, musically. The Supremes and other “girl groups” were a large part of it, and they were innovative in their own way. Motown was the prototype of something unusual at the time: an African-American owned and run company featuring predominantly African-American singers, that was tremendously successful in appealing to mainstream audiences, paving the way for many other African-American musicians who followed. And they were fun.
I’ve been noticing lately that two lovely impulses seem to go hand-in-hand–virulent anti-Semitism plus the willingness to use one’s own people as a sacrifice to the larger goal of destroying the Jews.
Take a look at this post of Dr. Sanity’s, and the Ron Rosenbaum essay on which it’s based. Sobering reading, indeed.
Here’s the heart of what Dr. Sanity has to say (read her essay; she offers an interesting suggestion, as well):
From [the Iranian mullahs’] warped perspective, the involuntary martyrdom of a few million muslims in Iran is a small price to pay to “wipe Israel off the map” and finish the job that Hitler started.
What a grand gesture for the muslims of the world to witness and emulate! Iran strapping on the suicide bomb around its entire population to gloriously rid Islam of the Jewish menace.
In order to “strap the suicide bomb around its entire population,” it takes a remarkable lack of reverence for human life and regard for one’s own people. Even the Japanese in World War II, who invented the kamikaze pilot (a specialized form of suicide bomber: military bomber, military target), a country which certainly asked its population to be willing to die for the cause, surrendered after the atomic bombs were dropped. It turns out enough sacrifice was enough.
The mullahs of today in Iran see their mission as occurring primarily in the realm of religion. Yes, it’s played out on the stage of this world–the goal is control of Iran (mission accomplished) domination of the Moslem umma (in the works), and triumph over the Great and Little Satans (the US and Israel; consummation devoutly to be wished). But the eyes of the mullahs are very much on the other world, as well, and one of their goals (perhaps the most important one, in their eyes) is ascendance in that world to come. And, as such, they have far less reluctance than most regimes to facilitate the martyrdom of some segment of their own population–after all, they would achieve glory in heaven. What’s not to like?
Here’s how Rosenbaum puts it:
[These words have been] uttered by the leader of what the Western press has lately taken to calling the “pragmatic conservatives” in Iran, Ayatollah Hashemi Rasfanjani:
“If one day the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession [meaning nuclear weapons]””on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This”¦is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.”
Sounds pretty pragmatic to me.
Religious motivations are not the only ones leaders can have for sacrificing their people. Pol Pot certainly wasn’t averse to killing a goodly number of his own, nor was his predecessor (and no doubt, inspiration) Stalin, and they were not religious in the usual sense. Communism isn’t interested in the world to come, only power in this one–but it shares with religion the strength of the belief system of its “true believers,” and their possible ruthlessness.
Hitler, a leader about whom Rosenbaum has also written a book attempting to explain the origins of his evil, was the anti-Semite par excellence. Originally, he didn’t ask his people to martyr themselves in the process of killing the Jews; his concentration camps were a model of efficiency, and cost few–if any–extra German lives. But, strangely enough, at the end of the war when all was lost (except, of course, the war against the Jews of Europe, which he mainly won), he wanted the German people to die.
That impulse was expressed in his last days, when he ordered the destruction of what was left of Germany. The German people had been tried and found wanting; they hadn’t been up to the task, and he wanted them to go down with him. Apparently, his generals failed to cooperate, but the destructive impulse on his part was there; no surprise, actually.
Hitler’s last testament is an interesting document. It calls on the German people and generals to sacrifice to the death and never surrender. It excommunicates generals such as Goehring for even considering negotiating with the enemy. And it shows, among other things, the complete domination of Hitler’s anti-Semitism. From beginning to end, that’s the guiding light; blaming the Jews for the war. Here is the last sentence:
Above all, I enjoin the government and the people to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry.
Remember, these are Hitler’s last words, his final attempt to influence history. And influence it he has. There is no question that the Arab and Iranian worlds have followed Hitler’s rhetoric and example in their anti-Semitism (and take a look at this book for an excellent study of the details of how that happened).
Holocaust denial, the current Iranian vogue, is an ironic tribute to the master, Hitler. It simultaneously attempts to whitewash his evil history while contemplating the completion of the task he considered his most valuable. And these heirs of Hitler are so emboldened by decades of anti-Semitic propaganda round the world that they don’t feel they have to keep mum about it–just as Hitler knew he could count on the cooperation of much of Europe, without whose help he could not have accomplished his glorious task.
There’s a great deal of room for irony, as well, in the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Zionism predated World War II, but without the Holocaust it probably would not have gained enough support to actually influence the UN into establishing a tiny Jewish state alongside the Palestinian one (yes, the UN solution was a “two-state” one, which the Palestinians and the Arab world rejected).
Why did the Jews so desperately want and need a state? Before then, they’d been dispersed around the world for centuries (millennia, actually), and country after country had denied them citizenship and full rights, expelling them time and again. With the single exception of the US, which granted them full citizenship from the start (France was next, by the way), most of the countries of Europe gave them citizenship only in the mid-1800s.
But extreme prejudice remained, and Jews continued to be considered the “other,” suspected of lack of loyalty in most countries in which they resided (this, by the way, was the essence of the Dreyfus Affair). In order to facilitate his destruction of the Jews of Europe, Hitler had to hunt them down, country by country, and gather them together in central places (the camps) to be murdered. The prescient Jews who tried to escape found the way blocked–emigration was barred to most, even by the US.
That very special horror–the closing of the doors of countries that could possibly offer refuge, except to a select few–was part of the legacy of the Holocaust. It has been given graphic representation in Art Spiegelman’s highly recommended Maus, a two-book depiction (in comic/cartoon form) of his parents’ sufferings and survival in the Holocaust.
Spiegelman’s concept sounds odd–and indeed, it is. But read it. It’s a masterpiece, building in power as the the strangeness of the concept–Jews drawn as mice, Germans as cats, and so forth–creates its own hypnotic and horrific world.
The Spiegelman book captures in literal terms the cat and mouse game of the Holocaust–the hunters and the hunted. The vast majority of the hunted–the Jews–found the trap closing in on them with no escape possible. Afterwards, the weary survivors were convinced that the only way out for the future was to finally have a country of their own again. That way, several problems would be solved: Jews could never again be expelled from a country at its whim, considered interlopers, with no place to go (the right of return guaranteed that); and they would be able to have their own defense forces and not go “as lambs to the slaughter.”
There was only one catch, it turns out. Although Jews had been in the area from time immemorial, and constituted sizeable populations in both Palestine and other Arab countries as well (populations which were now “transferred” to Israel. much in the way of other such partitions and transfers such as much of the Muslim population of India going to Pakistan on partition there–a transition far more bloody, by the way, than anything that has occurred in Israel/Palestine) Israel didn’t count on the lack of absorption of the Palestinian population by their Arab brethren. That the Palestinians would be kept in “camps,” under UN welfare aegis, for decades, rather than being absorbed by countries such as Jordan (basically composed of other “Palestinians”) was not foreseen. The enduring enmity of countries such as Iran, which had no particular dog in this race, was also not predicted.
Iran is presently the cheerleader of Muslim anti-Semitism, otherwise focused mainly in the Arab world. And Israel, as has been pointed out many times, is a “one-bomb country,” so small that it wouldn’t take much to wipe it out.
Thus, in a rather intense irony (sorry for the repetition, but I can’t seem to stop using that word in relation to this topic) the “ingathering” of Jews that the formation of the state of Israel represented, which was supposed to have been essential for Jewish survival, has instead facilitated the work of Hitler’s heirs.
A great deal of Hitler’s energy was involved in rounding up a widely scattered people–one of the main Holocaust themes is the cattle car, the trains on which the Jews were transported to their doom.
But now there’s no longer need for any such effort. Because of the “ingathering” that Israel already represents, one strategic bomb would destroy half of world Jewry in a moment. If the Jews are the canaries in the mine (and I believe that’s an apt metaphor), half of them are now in a single mine, and it’s sprung a gas leak.
‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the ”˜sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their PCs were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.
Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.
But we all know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be just a token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.
For instance, there might be found, under the tree
An Apple; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It has to be tried out, one just can’t delay.
Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and complex, and covered with glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.
And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore)””
So it seems about time it be newly updated
And here’s my grand effort””aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
Writing, I set a new record for speed.
I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, to write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!
Yesterday I drove down to New York to spend Christmas at my brother’s. This involves no hardship whatsoever, except perhaps for the tedious drive itself. There’s a bunch of parties, a great deal of fabulous food (each day spent there is good for a net gain of approximately two pounds), and much conversation. Oh, and probably a couple of presents as well, but that’s exceedingly secondary.
I’ve written before about the fact that I’m “in transition”–thinkng about moving–and that I don’t really have a single city that I consider home. You’d think that New York, the place I grew up, would fit the bill. But it doesn’t. Oh, it’s familiar, all right. But even when I was a child and teenager here (I left at seventeen, never to return except for visits), it didn’t feel all that “homey” to me. Too overwhelming, too uncaring, so huge that to traverse it took hours. No. I always knew I’d leave as soon as I got the chance. And I did.
But still, but still…when I drive in on a clear night, as I did yesterday, and see that skyline suddenly loom in the distance to the right of me (I come in over the Bronx-Whitestone bridge and then onto the Brookly Queens Expressway), it’s not only an impressive sight, it’s an iconic one, as well.
Somehow New York has become the American city. That feeling has only been accentuated, post-9/11. It’s the biggest, the best, the everythingest, “if I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere.” LA may be a great big freeway (I’ve lived there, too, and I can attest to that), but New York is just great and big.
And beautiful. In recent decades New York has lit itself far more colorfully than it ever did in my youth, the tops of the skyscrapers (particularly the Empire State building) sporting seasonal red and green lights, makng the skyline look from far away (as I saw it last night) like a string of sparkling jewels, diamonds and emeralds and rubies. New York at Christmastime was always a very special place, anyway, with the tree at Rockefeller Center, and the skaters, and the elaborate store windows, and the tempting smell of roasting chestnuts.
The temperature was in the mid-50s yesterday and the same today, however; not so very Christmasy. In fact, we’ve only had one or two days of cold so far this winter. So I feel a bit as though I’ve been transported to the Carolinas or thereabouts rather than New York City. That’s better, though, than the Christmases I spent in Los Angeles, where the holiday decorations always looked oddly out of place no matter how elaborate they might be.
In contrast, where I live it usually looks like a Currier and Ives print around this time. Although the lack of snow this year makes it a little less perfect, visually, it’s still the qunitessential Christmas scene (wish I’d had the prescience to have taken some photos to post here, but I didn’t, and a search didn’t reveal any of the sort I’m seeking). In New England the most popular type of house decoration is minimalist: a single candle (electric, for safety’s sake) in each window–classic and simple, and lovely in an old colonial home or antique cape.
And now I’m going to be out enjoying this beautiful day–and the first party. I hope you do the same, wherever you are, whatever the weather and whatever the scene.