I wrote recently that I took a course dealing with the Holocaust. Surprisingly, in it I learned, remembered, recalled, and/or recollected truths that have accurate and direct application in my world of today. I was very surprised, in fact.
Yet, if the purpose of learning is to gain knowledge, and increase wisdom, I must do the work required to bridge that most important gap. I will readily admit that what I learned and/or found through this amazing course shocked me to my core at points. Not at every point, however.
What surprised me most, perhaps were two things. I hope you will follow me just below the squiggledoodlethingey fold, and find out what they were.
After many minutes of consideration, I decided to keep this diary/series graphics-free. It was a careful analysis on my part, and the course is, to a large extent to blame. Let me explain.
Dr. Peter Kenez finds the Nazis, Germany, and the governments and peoples of European countries to be of his historical interest, as his thesis for the course. Kenez gives, in his first introductory lecture of our time together, what he considers to be the three critical components which yielded the Nazi regime, the Holocaust of WWII. If you are interested, I will point you to his explanation here. This is a superb lecture, and is about one hour in length.
From a purely historical perspective, Kenez attempts (successfully, in my view) to thread the needle which can at least superficially explain the five-dimensional historical understanding of the Germany which gave rise to the Nazi movement before, during, and after World War II (WWII--not, as was posited by one student, World War Eleven!).
Kenez makes clear, from the beginning of the course that his journey into inquiry is for the purpose of examining, and understanding the lunacy of the Nazi mentality. (Just so we know where he stands on the subject.) Being a Hungarian survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camps, he gets a pass to speak with complete authority on the subject.
So, does the correct graphic include a Swastika? Hitler? Neuremburg? Auschwitz? No, and I'll explain why later in this series.
As a starting point, Dr. Kenez challenges us to understand an important point. I quickly understood it--all to well.
"There is nothing," Kenez tells us "quite so difficult as being a successful hypocrite. If you want to look at the thinking of the Nazis, look at their propaganda! Propaganda is never designed to 'pull (sic) something over' on you. Propaganda is a clear evocation of what you believe to be true, and why."
It is (propaganda) a statement to your intended audience as to exactly what it is that you stand for, and why--and why your audience should not only agree with you, but join you.
So, as Dr. Kenez lectures us throughout the course, we see not only the purest examples of Nazi propaganda, but the effects of that propaganda upon the European Continent from 1929-1945 (and beyond). There is, throughout this time, a multiplicity of propaganda "themes" used by the Nazi Party as it was formed, as it came to power, as it translated that gained power throughout Europe (and the world) during the time of its power. (More on that as we proceed through the series.)
Should the graphics be of Jews, or the horrors endured by humanity during the singularly unique experience we call the Holocaust? Trains, or camps, or clothes, or shoes?
As Kenez concentrates on the understanding of the Nazi mindset which promulgated itself across almost all of the European Continent during WWII, Dr. Baumgarten seeks to bring to us the reality, through literature, of the Holocaust from every available viewpoint.
These are two very different, but complimentary viewpoints which the course fully utilizes in each lecture, and in every assignment. Dr. Baumgarten represents to and for us the Jew of the Holocaust; the Jew of Europe (and the world) before, during and after the war. History is an overview. History gives us a "zoomed out", dispassionate and almost sterile statement of facts of a thing. And, I did learn a lot of history during this course.
Literature, however, does not give us the comfort of distance. Literature invites, demands our very personal attention and involvement. We feel in literature. In the very best literature, we are transformed. We are affected, and sometimes deeply. When we invest ourselves in the very best literature, our lives are forever changed. Poetry does it. Novels do it. Non-fiction does it, too. This was a point which I had to recollect. But, as Baumgarten demands, I recollect through the experience of literature. Where the importance of history informs us, literature involves us.
"How can we, after all, imagine the unimaginable?" Baumgarten wishes us good luck at the first introduction of the course with this question.
The simple answer is that we cannot. But, through the understanding, the involvement of the literature the course compels us to address, we can at least begin to understand how very unimaginable it is for the Jewry of Europe before, during and after WWII.
If the history were not sufficient in some way to educate, or inform us, the literature removes any available exit from our examination, our involvement...our witness of those events.
I am, by profession, a writer. I have been writing for almost fifty years now. Texts, sermons, teaching methods, diaries, journals, blogs...any available manner it would seem. I am editor and publisher, as well. One of the dangers or improprieties of such endeavors is that you detach yourself from the writing of others when it comes to the reading of others. (Writers will understand this statement.) We tend to look for, find, and quickly point out weak writing, or weak argument, or technical error in our reading of others.
Through this course, I once again entered into what I call a Holy Place: the heart of the writer. I will tell you I did not do so easily, or even willingly. I did not go bravely, or daringly into the literature of this course. I went timidly. Well before the end of the first literary assignment, I was wanting to be away from it. It hurt. It was painful. It was obscene. I did not deserve to be here, to even begin to understand here. It was not mine to own. I wished no part of it. I did not desire it.
I needed it.
By the end of the first literature assignment, I was asked to reflect on what it means "to pass" by Dr. Baumgarten.
This is a subject which I happen to know well. I successfully passed (for the greater part, anyway) for the first fifty years of my life, and for many of the same reasons as those whose words I had just read. My life, my career, my living, my being depended upon it. But, that ability never dealt with the survival of others. My family could have been negatively affected, but they would not have been shot, or deported to a concentration camp because of me.
I understood. But, I did not understand at all. I vowed I would, or at least that I would try to. I will be a witness, because I am a witness. That understanding suddenly thrust me back to this very page.
I am an American Citizen. I write about what I believe that means, in ways that I understand. Yes, my writing is personal, and reflective. At most times, that is just fine with me. When I write, and make a call for others to understand citizenship as I understand it, you could well imagine it to be my propaganda. So be it. It IS what I believe. I want you to believe it, too. I want you to join me in my quest to return democracy to my land, as only a citizen can do.
My propaganda is not working as well as the propaganda of those who wish to destroy democracy in my land. I am out-spent, and out-manned, and (for the most part) outcast as a Progressive.
Because of this course, I understand that in a new, and completely horrific way. But, even if I can only be a disruptive influence; a biological road bump as those who would destroy my country merrily proceed, that I will be. A partisan, if you will. Because, you see, only I can make that determination for myself.
I often ask others, "What are YOU going to do about it?"
This course has taken me to a place where the absolute reality of the answer to that very question matters most. As never before, I am acutely aware of the accuracy of the question. I more fully understand why it must be asked--and answered.
There is much I cannot do. There are some things I can do. Those things which I can do, I must do. That requires understanding, commitment and determination to do what is possible, so long as it is right.
That does not require a graphic.