Holocaust
Scholar Teaches the Mechanics of Genocide Can Happen
by Ariel Duncan
Eminent
Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg has spent the past 53 years working
backwards from never again, the first words uttered
by the liberated inmates of a concentration camp. Years unearthing
history has engraved details, specific railroad schedules, deportation
statistics and dates in his memory. Taking a course with someone
who has spent their entire life working on the subject is a unique
experience. Hilberg has an intimacy with the material which allows
him to see connections that others would miss, Assistant Professor
of Jewish Studies Abe Socher said.
First-year Wilson Skinner commented that Hilbergs command
of the material is amazing. He knows everything, or it seems like
everything.
Working for the US Army, a 22 year old Hilberg began literally and
figuratively unpacking the enormous quantity of information held
in the estimated 40,000 pieces of Nazi paperwork after the war.
Even at the age of 22, he knew better than to look for an explanation
for the Holocaust. I am very different from most other researchers
who start out with questions. I approach documents in an almost
random manner. I was considered a novice [when, at an archive] I
was asked what I wanted to see and I said anything. In her
introduction of Hilberg on Sunday, Jewish Studies department chair
Shulamit Magnus deemed him a pioneer of systematic scholarly
study [of the Holocaust] and praised his ability to interpret
the facts without flinching while keeping up a frenetic
pace of scholarly work.
In his first lecture, Hilberg mentioned the pervasive question always
asked, never answered in the study of the Holocaust: How
could this have happened? Later, he noted that things
just dont happen. There are occasions. There are possibilities
that open the door.
Hilbergs 50-plus years of careful research in Holocaust documentation
have distilled his view of the events into a story and transformed
himself into its principal storyteller. Wry, incredulous and even
sarcastic, Hilberg makes sure his audience cant forget the
incredible normalcy of Hitlers life nor the absolute
significance of specific knowledge in the study of the Holocaust.
From Hitler, the art school-reject (he couldnt draw
faces), to the transportation of millions of people to concentration
camps at a per-capita cost of about two cents per track kilometer
for adults, children half off, and kids under six travel free...to
Auschwitz, that is. Listeners heard a detailed, but memorable
story emphasizing the step-by-step nature of annihilation.
Under his exacting gaze, the notion of Nazi Germany as a well-oiled
machine crumbled. They had no goals; they only had a direction....This
is very remarkable....They are moving without knowing where they
will end up, but thats the way it was ladies and gentlemen....Thats
the only way it could be....You dont verbalize it [the decision
to murder all the Jews] to yourself, you dont use vocabulary
to describe it to yourself in ordinary language. He concluded
matter-of-factly, There are some things you do, but dont
say.
Because the Holocaust is a story that, to borrow the words of Magnus,
has been politicized in ways that are illegitimate,
many felt that Hilbergs detail-heavy presentation offered
a valuable lesson as to how genocide happens. Critical of those
uninterested in detail, he said, They dont ask how people
get from here to there, Auschwitz! Thats whats important!
[They say], well, how do they get there?...trains?...Who sends the
trains? How does it happen? Hilberg emphasized the collaboration
of bystanders from priests to accountants. Name a profession
and Ill tell you what that profession contributed [to the
Holocaust].
In a final lecture entitled Moral Problems in Hitlers
Europe: Perpetrators and Victims, Hilberg discussed the mentality
of Nazi killers, Somebody has to do it, they were all saying
to themselves. Why does somebody have to do it? These
are very difficult questions. I am not going to answer them.
Later, he concluded that the issue is if intelligent, normal
functioning, stable human beings can accomplish a holocaust,
adding that one thing they were not they were not crazy.
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