Teaching the Holocaust
I don't really teach the Holocaust. That's not my thing. Or I guess I should say, I do teach it, but it isn't my subject matter. My primary critical focus is the effect of Nazism on American Culture, but there are certain things that go hand in hand. If you're an expert on Nazi anything, you have to know as much as is possible to know about the Holocaust. It's a kind of moral responsability. So, while I imagine I could conduct my studies by just saying that the Nazis were evil and leave it at that, people expect you to know more for street cred.
...and, by the way, I do. I know a whole bunch about the Holocaust. More than I care to. Mind you, I'm not Jewish, so for some people the question of how much I know is sort of suspect. In this country, if you're not Jewish and you're fixated on the Holocaust, you owe everyone an explanation: "I am not a Nazi sympathizer." Because I'm not.
Interesting thing though, because I'm not Jewish, as soon as I tell people what I study, somebody will "out" themselves as a Nazi sympathizer or anti-semmite, normally under the guise as a history buff.
In any case, this last semester, I taught the literature of the Holocaust as a course, and I discovered some things that I found kind of interesting. The first thing is that because I'm not Jewish, there were a number of people in the class who felt I had no right to be teaching them about the literature of the Holocaust. The number was a minority at best, but they were there and made there presence known. During class one day, one of my B- students said to the whole class, "I could teach this class." Sure you could. But in a way, I'm not knocking them. I kind of agree, even as I wholeheartedly disagree with every fiber of my scholarly being. In some senses, the Holocaust just doesn't belong to me.
But then, on the other hand, if it doesn't belong to me, then why should I care, and also, why can't the world move past it. I'm playing Bioshock now and the game is littered with Nazi references. It's 60 years later. The world is still in shock, and it's not simply a Jewish shock.
Yet still, I don't have a grandmother who survived this stuff. I don't have a blood tie to the atrocity. Should that matter? I'm still up in the air about it. On the one hand, I think facts are facts, books are books, and that's that. But I also think that by taking the position of power in this conversation, I'm kind of taking the culture's grief away from them. I mean, yeah, I'm trying to make it universal, and there's some nobility to that, but still, there's a kind of cultural hijacking going on in there.
Now, as for what I really study, this is it. I mean this, that stuff I just mentioned. I study the way that Nazi Germany has made ethics an impossible to decipher philosophy: the great evil has otherwise messed up all other goods and evils. Don't believe me? Think hard about it. Should I or shouldn't I (a non-Jew) be allowed to teach the Holocaust to the grandchildren of survivors? Should I be allowed to give them a grade? Should I be allowed to flunk them? Or how about this: are they wrong for assuming that I shouldn't have that authority? Are they wrong for thinking that the Holocaust is a Jewish phenomenum that no non-Jew can understand? Should this opinion extend to all non-survivors including themselves or is there assumption that Holocaust "ownership" comes with being a Jew, and if so, does that validate Nazi understandings of race? Who is the fascist here, who the victim? Fun stuff. I don't think that I could immediately tell you the answer.
...and, by the way, I do. I know a whole bunch about the Holocaust. More than I care to. Mind you, I'm not Jewish, so for some people the question of how much I know is sort of suspect. In this country, if you're not Jewish and you're fixated on the Holocaust, you owe everyone an explanation: "I am not a Nazi sympathizer." Because I'm not.
Interesting thing though, because I'm not Jewish, as soon as I tell people what I study, somebody will "out" themselves as a Nazi sympathizer or anti-semmite, normally under the guise as a history buff.
In any case, this last semester, I taught the literature of the Holocaust as a course, and I discovered some things that I found kind of interesting. The first thing is that because I'm not Jewish, there were a number of people in the class who felt I had no right to be teaching them about the literature of the Holocaust. The number was a minority at best, but they were there and made there presence known. During class one day, one of my B- students said to the whole class, "I could teach this class." Sure you could. But in a way, I'm not knocking them. I kind of agree, even as I wholeheartedly disagree with every fiber of my scholarly being. In some senses, the Holocaust just doesn't belong to me.
But then, on the other hand, if it doesn't belong to me, then why should I care, and also, why can't the world move past it. I'm playing Bioshock now and the game is littered with Nazi references. It's 60 years later. The world is still in shock, and it's not simply a Jewish shock.
Yet still, I don't have a grandmother who survived this stuff. I don't have a blood tie to the atrocity. Should that matter? I'm still up in the air about it. On the one hand, I think facts are facts, books are books, and that's that. But I also think that by taking the position of power in this conversation, I'm kind of taking the culture's grief away from them. I mean, yeah, I'm trying to make it universal, and there's some nobility to that, but still, there's a kind of cultural hijacking going on in there.
Now, as for what I really study, this is it. I mean this, that stuff I just mentioned. I study the way that Nazi Germany has made ethics an impossible to decipher philosophy: the great evil has otherwise messed up all other goods and evils. Don't believe me? Think hard about it. Should I or shouldn't I (a non-Jew) be allowed to teach the Holocaust to the grandchildren of survivors? Should I be allowed to give them a grade? Should I be allowed to flunk them? Or how about this: are they wrong for assuming that I shouldn't have that authority? Are they wrong for thinking that the Holocaust is a Jewish phenomenum that no non-Jew can understand? Should this opinion extend to all non-survivors including themselves or is there assumption that Holocaust "ownership" comes with being a Jew, and if so, does that validate Nazi understandings of race? Who is the fascist here, who the victim? Fun stuff. I don't think that I could immediately tell you the answer.
posted by Monstro D. Whale | 3:55 PM
5 Comments:
The holocaust is a human tragedy that doesn't belong entirely to the Jewish nor any other nation. It speaks for all genocides in the sense that it opened the world's eyes. However, genocide continues, even with the support of our government. Take, for instance, the Turkish eradication of the Kurds which is being assisted by US intelligence. The Turks pushed the Kurds out of Turkey; those who survived, anyhow. Now they pursue them across the Iraqi border with US assistance. Clearly, the holocaust should remain an open scholarly field for everyone, for we have too soon forgotten the lessons that it supposedly taught.
Well, certainly it isn't cultural hijacking if you stick to the literature, right? I mean, are these classes literature or history? I suppose the line is blurred too much to answer. But, yeah, the sheer superlativity (is that a word?) of the Holocaust makes this line of enquiry especially tough to address -- a lot tougher than, say, your being (hypothetically) a non-Irish-Catholic and teaching Joyce.
The problem is that for most non-Jews, the Holocaust is theirs because it is the greatest evil the world remembers. We like to think of it as a moment in the world consciousness...and that works.
But then, who suffered? Don't the victims have first shot at calling the crime theirs? Not to mention that the Holocaust is the culmination of 1000 years of antisemitism in Europe that goes beyond the national borders of Germany. So, in a way, the rest of the world is implicated in this travesty. Hell, that's why Jews insist on Israel as a nation. There's sort of a history of the world not coming to their aid.
But then you teach the literature, but what is the literature of the Holocaust? Most of it is first hand accounts. Wiesel, Levi, Borowski, etc.. So, yes it's literature, but it's also history, and memoir, and Jewish studies.
There's an extra component to this. It isn't just that I'm teaching something; it's that I'm grading someone's knowledge of their own culture, a culture to which I do not belong. These people take their report cards home after all. Can you imagine being the grand daughter of a holocaust survivor and getting a C in a class on the Holocaust?
Well, that is one of the assumptions that a college student often needs to be quelled. They can't take classes that they think are going to be easy because they think that they know everything in it already and won't have to pay attention. Or maybe they take the class so that they can be the resident expert. Maybe you should check with them.
"So, did you take this class because you have special insight that you want to share with the rest of us, did you take it for an easy 'A', or did you just take the class to heckle the instructor?"
Then you can let them know that by taking such a course, they are submitting to the instructor's curriculum and grading, regardless of what the student thinks that they know.
I wouldn't worry about it so much if I were you. The first people the Right wing goons went after
just after WWI were Communists and Socialists. Lots of people write about this without being Lefties of any sort. And I think if anyone taught a course in that they would not feel obliged to be Socialists of any sort. (Although in my opinion, people who are not politically Left seldom really understand revolutions or the reactions against them.)
And what does it mean to say the holocaust "belongs" to somebody? It might mean something, but one needs to delineate what, exactly.
What if ancestors of mine had been Nazis? Would the Nazi party belong to me? What would that mean?
Cheers,
Roxy Katt
Pornographer and Cultural Bolshevik
roxykatt.com
roxykatt.blogspot.com
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