Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation

1.0 Overview PETER >> It seems to me that the fundamental issue of the Holocaust, when I always try to understand, how could this happen? How could the Germans do it? And it seems to me it's really the actions of the Germans, which needs to be analyzed and understood. But in order to approach that, we have to also see who the Jews were. It seems to me that the Holocaust could not have succeeded if the Nazis did not believe, and if they could not make others believe that the Jews in fact were the most dangerous enemies, then consequently it seems to me that an study of the Holocaust must begin with who the Jews were. Why is that it was possible to project on them really crazy fantasies, which I think for, for an observer, seems crazy? MURRAY >> Well, for the Jews, also, it was crazy. They could not understand why their success having been emancipated made them targets. PETER >> Well the answer to that is because Jews came to be associated with modernity. 1.1 Dry Tears and Personal Witnessing, part 1 MURRAY >> We're reading Holocaust literature; we're also talking about the history of the Holocaust. Peter and I share the work. There are all sorts of similarities in history and literature. And Peter attended a school where there is even such a major called history and literature. But in most places, in most areas they are separated. And there's a significant difference in the kind of writing that we call history and the kind of writing that we call literature. You will be reading, in fact, you should start Yehuda Bauer's history of the Holocaust, now that you've had the chance to read Dry Tears, which is a work of literature. Part of my job is to talk to you about what it's like to read Holocaust writing both history and literature. And Peter and I will have a chance to talk about both the similarities and the differences. Surely one of the things you've been thinking about as you started to read Dry Tears is the way in which her narrative. Nechama Tec's narrative echoes the themes that Peter raise in his lecture on Friday. And some of those themes include and resonate. You'll remember the very beginning of Dry Tears when, as a result of the Nazi edict upon the invasion and conquest of Poland, which took so quickly. Right from the very first sentence shortly after the occupation of Lublin 1939 Jewish children had been barred from attending school and private instruction was prohibited. As with all such Nazi directed disobedience if discovered met with severe punishment even death.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation

So right away the question of education is raised by Nechama Tec. And one of the values in this text, in this work of holocaust writing, is its engagement with the historical material. It is after all a work written by someone who lived that history. But to say that she lived that history isn't completely accurate, because the history that we know, and we usually call history, is a synthetic account. And I want to come back to that. One of the things that she talks about is her city of Lublin and what that city was like. Well that's a little bit further in the first chapter and the second chapter where she talks about Lublin as multicultural. That starts on page 45, and right away she emphasizes the diversity of Lublin, of Poland. She talks about urbanism, how the Jews had come to the city, about industrialization. After all her father runs a chemical factory that makes a range of things. So that's part of modern society. And she experiences right away something that she did not think was a question but becomes even more so as her Polish neighbors ask her. Peter called it the problem of how can a Jew be French. In talking about French culture we might say how can a Jew be Polish? So all of that is in the narrative and part of your job as you read and part of the job of the section discussions will be to help you see how the history is not out there as background, but the history that Peter is talking about is in the text, is in her life as an experience of everydayness - of daily life. Just us what just happened this week end is not yet history, but part of our daily experience. So right away we see that this is a book of personal experience, told in the first person - first person narration. She speaks in her own voice. When we read history we expect to hear a third person narration not [can as ?] but an objective account and he already has something to add. PETER >> By the way it was phrased at that time, are you a Jewish Frenchman or are you a French Jew? The difference is very great if you can see. Or in the case of Poland, are you a Polish Jew or a Jewish Pole? MURRAY >> So, that's the story of. PETER >> It's not the same. MURRAY >> Right, that's the story of where you put the hyphen. Right? And that's one of the issues in multi-cultural society in a diversity situation. PETER >> Or because if you are a Polish Jew, then you are a Jew who happens to live in Poland. If you are a Jewish Pole, then well, there are all sort of Poles, some of them are Jews.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation MURRAY >> Nechama Tec's in her memoir talks about Lublin as her city - as her place. So she fits with not a Polish Jew but a Jewish Pole. She believes that the city is a place that is open to all. She believes in the freedom of the city echoing a crucial experience in western culture. The notion that the city air makes you free, that you're not a surf tied to the land. To the location but that you are someone who has the right of citizenship. And the word citizenship comes from the word for, you heard it, city. And yet this is a memoir as you know from reading it of the repudiation of citizenship - of the removal of the rights of citizenship from Polish Jews. The taking away of what was central to the experience of Europeans, of Westerners, since the French Revolution. The notion that one was a citizen of a country no matter what ethnic, religious, cultural persuasion, and therefore could participate fully in the experience of that society and contribute to it and therefore have rights and privileges like everyone else. We'll come back to that as we look at the narrative. One of the things we also hear about in this story (which is after all the story of a young girl) is the notion of family - the notion of community. I'm hesitant to quote from the epilogue because that's at the end of the book. And I don't know how many of you have finished reading it. But I would ask that in your section you think also about her comment in the epilogue about how, when people returned, they formed new kinds of families. After all it turns out that her family is only the third family that returns to Lublin as a family. Most families were destroyed. Most nuclear biological families were destroyed as part of the murder of the Jews by the Nazis. And she makes a point of saying. Ours was only the third intact family and yet people collect and become let us say familial. So this is also an account of not only one girls experience but of one familys experience. And some of you may recall how her mother seems to be rejuvenated when her brother, her mothers brother Uncle Joseph comes and stays with them. And this is a very particular moment in their lives. Now, there's a difference in the way in which, in literary writing in this book, in Dry Tears. The appearance of her uncle and it's impact gets described over and against how, in a historical account, one can say something about. And then the family gathered once more. There's a difference how in this account cousins appear. And how they behave and what that impact is as a literature work or work of literary writing versus how one presents an extended family in historical writing. And a great deal of the difference is through the first person narration. Nechama is telling us about her life. That means that we get a sense of texture, of the grittiness, the everydayness which historical writing which is synthetic and trying to give a bigger picture cannot do. It's the difference between let us say in perhaps a language that your generation is more familiar with. Close-up where you can see the details and the far away camera shot, which gives you the outline. So

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation the question is why should we read Holocaust literature rather than just get the big picture? And I will turn to my colleague and ask him why we should do that? PETER >> First let me ask you? A is your review a autobiographies of literature or a way of writing history? MURRAY >> I think it's both. PETER >> I'm glad that you say that. [LAUGH] MURRAY >> He has written an auto biography and so have I. His is longer. [LAUGH] But it covers more ground. This is after all an autobiography and he right away went to categories of writing. Because each category each kind of writing has a convention associated with a range of feeling. In an autobiography, after all, you all had to write some version of that to get in here. Right? PETER >> I'm not sure and I answered you. I do think that our task is to understand. And there are several ways of coming to it. And it's difficult to understand, and understanding is always partial, and, we have to live with it that this is partial, and that's fine. And, and I wouldn't privilege one form to another. MURRAY >> So, he wants us to read literature even though he is the historian. But autobiography straddles it. Autobiography is about personal life writing right? From the meaning of the word Auto Graph right. 1.2 Dry Tears and Personal Witnessing, part 2 MURRAY >> But this book is not just autobiography; this book is a mixed genre. That is it has more than autobiographical material; it has some historical narration, as in the second chapter, where we learn about the city of Lublin. This book is also a communal, or a familial account, familial history, about what happened to their family. It's also about economic issues. And after all it's economics that in some ways allows them to survive. Right? And that very smart action of her father, you'll remember when the German in charge of industrial production seems to extend himself and say yes, your chemical plant is very important, we will take care of you, here are your working papers, and do you remember what her father does? Her father hands the German a little bag containing money and jewelry. And they've been collecting money and jewelry to help with their lives. And he says, here I want you to hold this for me. I want you to hold this for me it will be safer with you than with me and so he is telling this German whose protection he relies on that there's a thank you gift.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation And of course Peter and I expect such at the end of a quarter from each of you. [LAUGH] Right? That is if her father is making an exchange that's economic - giving him money for protection. But the way in which he does it, how tactful, right? He doesn't say, here's some cash, thank you. He says hold this for me. In your section I want you to ask, what happens to that little bag of jewelry and money in the course of this account. Where is it? So this book is also got some of the techniques of detective fiction. What happens to the money? This book is a generic mixture. And that's different from historical writing, which leads us. By giving us the big picture to generalizations, to general statements. This book is personal. In terms of personal issues, I'm going to ask, what does literary writing do, that history doesn't? And I'm going to make a generalization. And it grows out of, now you've had some experience in reading literature of the holocaust. After all, we read this poem on Wednesday. It's in the syllabus on eCommons as well as some other poems, and this poem, like Dry Tears, is in the first person. And the first person is different than third person narration. Third person narration as I said it isn't [UNKNOWN] speaking, it's history with a capital H. It's objective. As much as objective can be. Right? This is first person and we are now talking about different kinds of understanding. The word understanding is a wonderful word. Because it tells us that understanding has something to do with where we stand. That our partialness of understanding the limitation that each of us has that the family the community. The nation but also the individual has, is connected to our place in the world where we stand. Understanding and literature gives us different kinds of understanding than history. The notion of objective writing is, you know like back up there the bird's eye view, or it was once claimed, the God's eye view. So, Dry Tears, Dan Pagis' poem, are all about personal experience and a personal understanding. And yet we saw from Don Pagis' poem here in this carload I am Eve, so this is the mother of us all speaking. That's her understanding. But something else happens in first person narration than in third person. The first person narration is [UNKNOWN] is Eve, the mother of us all, but it's also each of us. In one sense, we can say, especially about poetry but it's true of all reading, that we give it breath. That is I give it life. So it is also in some way my life that I am reading about. If this is the case and now you have a hypothesis to try out throughout the quarter, and if I don't convince you, you know, that is that the text is not only something that we read. But the text reads us. And this is a little different from the objective writing or as in some silly television show I saw years ago I remember at the end of the show the character says, that's history! It's over with. Let's go on to something else. But if I am right about Holocaust Literary writing, the text reads us. So we can't get rid of it. It's not over. It continues. It is now part

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation of us. This then leads me to another issue as we're going to see over and over again. We're going to see that many, many writers. Who write their memoirs, who write their autobiography, who write a an account of the experience they went through in this mixed generic way, where there's historical writing, economic writing, political writing, psychological writing, sociological observation. What a mixture. Your teachers in school would have told you forget it. You gotta pick one. Right? We're all divided up into disciplines. We can't possibly want to mix all of these things up. Except in our lives where they're all intertwined aren't they? Including the fact that there's no heat in this room. These writers all say that part of the reason they wrote this is to bear witness to the experience. They want to serve as witnesses and I have to ask you what it is to be a witness. When you turn on the radio or the television today, you will hear witnessing bystander accounts of what happened, right? And I don't know if any of you have been witnesses in different ways. Primo Levi, who's a very important witness, talks about what it is to be a witness as in a court of law. What does it mean to experience something and then serve as a witness in a court of law? Many of you have had, perhaps that experience in traffic accidents. And perhaps even been called not just to provide your testimony, right? Witness testimony but to go to court to say it. So I am arguing that Holocaust writing of the kind that we are reading is a kind of understanding of witnessing and I'm also arguing that as the writer is witnessing, testifying to his experience, so too the reader. That one of the reasons these people write is to be a witness, but also in effect to create a chain of witnessing, so you will be the witnesses to what happened, though you weren't there. And that this is, if you will, the magic of culture. Why is this important? Well, we know that part of the Nazi effort was not only to exterminate the Jews, to make them extinct but to make even the memory of their existence extinct. So part of what we are going to be reading about is the effort to counter. To resist. To fight against that crucial part that cultural part if you will, of the effort to destroy the Jews. And here Peter and I are going to have all sorts of questions. If you weren't able to fight back at the time, what good is writing? And yet the writing continues, we find this interest in writing, over and over again. And, we hope you'll have a chance to listen to Dora Sorell , who will talk for you, as a survivor, and also tell you about, her writing. And in some ways, I would, claim that Peter and I, who had different relationships and relations to the Nazi effort to destroy the Jews, are also engaged in that process, that impulse to write. And it's connected to the notion of cultural memory and the notion that dry tears, holocaust writing, Don Pagis's poem, is to make a testimony that makes us witnesses. So, this is, if you will, an overarching theme of what I will be discussing, and what you will be

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation arguing with and thinking about and dealing as a hypothesis, in your sections, in your comments. In your papers, in your emails, in our conversation, and perhaps the kind of history that Peter is talking about is also a form of witnessing, but at a different level of understanding. And though I have tried to explain the difference between history and literature, here and literary writing, I would be the first to say that without the historical understanding it is very hard to have what I'm calling literary understanding. And in fact, it's only because we were willing to do this course together that it exists. 1.3 Dry Tears and Personal Witnessing, part 3 PETER >> Well I do think that good history and good literature provides you with the same. Bad history is different from bad literature. We do operate under somewhat different restraints. But after all, what we are after, what we want to achieve is wisdom by looking at the variety of human experience. And that's the most you can get, and consequently from reading a decent history book you get the same thing as reading a good literature even though we go about it a different way. Is that, does that satisfy? MURRAY >> No. I think here the key thing is what one means by wisdom. PETER >> Well, the, wisdom is an, an ability to contemplate the variety of human experience. And on the basis of this, perhaps, not necessarily, but perhaps, you will make better decisions, that is, that is what I consider wisdom. MURRAY >> I'm not sure that literature gives you wisdom. I think literature gives you experience, and it's from your experience, the detail of your experience that you make better decisions. One of my favorite writers is a Czech writer named Josef Skvorecky and he has a wonderful set of stories about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, including the problem that the young people faced, because the Nazis forbade jazz. Jazz you see, like modern painting, was part of the decadent society, and decadent west. So he writes about dance halls and what was allowed to be played and young people could go and enjoy themselves and get to meet each other, etcetera. And when the Nazi overseer got tired of all these country polkas that the jazz band was allowed to play, he would leave, and then they would play jazz. And the narrator, the first person narrator of that story says, and ever since when I have to make a decision to know whether to go to the right or the left at a fork in my life's road it's a song that I remember. That tells me which way to go. I hope that rings for you because I've

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation noticed that many of you know the words to many songs that I can't understand [LAUGH] when I hear them in the Stevenson Coffee Shop. And when Peter and I go in there, and Peter always says to me, this music is a threat to our civilization, [LAUGH] and it may be, but the words of the song tell this person which way to live. I don't think that's what Peter means by or what most people mean by wisdom. I think when they say wisdom, they mean abstractions. They mean what my psychology colleagues talk about as values. When I hear people talk about values, my eyes glaze over [LAUGH]. But when they talk about experience, the nitty gritty of it, then I know we're talking about the real stuff. Well, we have to continue with this argument. And I hope that in the middle of February, you'll come and hear Robert Alter, who has just translated The Wisdom Books of the Hebrew Bible and we're going to have him give a talk about that. And it's interesting that the Hebrew Bible has both, a narrative, and wisdom books, and economics, and politics, and sociology. It too is a mixed genre. After all, that's why it counts for so much. But I want to get back to Dry Tears, because the experience that Nechama talks about in dry tears, as you know of, how many of you have gotten into the third chapter or more? That experience is about something that both Peter and I have had. And that experience is about something that makes it possible for her to survive and it's both a problem and an opportunity. And the experience is the experience of passing, and you all know what that is and you all practice passing. I look at you and you all are wearing the same kinds of clothes. You're all wearing outfits that won't make you stand out in any way that really marks you as different. And if you are all the same, then you can all talk to each other in the same way about anything you want to and you will all assume you are talking the same language. And yet, as soon as we talk, differences start to emerge, right? And the notion of small differences is very important. And you've all heard it already, because you know that English is my third language, and for Peter, as well. And you know that the whole question of accent, intonation Language counts. Now why is it important for Nechama to pass? Because the Nazis are killing Jews no matter what they do, not matter what their class, no matter what their personal history, no matter that many of them in Austria and Germany, like my own grandfather, served in the Austrian army in World War I, like Ann Neufeld-Levin's father, Heinrich, who served in the Austrian army didn't matter. In fact, she went back and has been trying to get her father's name back on the list of veterans who served in World War I, because I told you, they're trying to remove even the memory of the existence of Jews. So those Jewish soldiers who served for the Germans and the Austrians in World

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation War I were erased from the historical record. Now, you see the problem of history. History gets rewritten; history erases things, bad history. It happens all the time, but witnessing, the witnessing remains. The testimony remains, especially if it remains in us. Another story: Soviet poets, Soviet poets, Soviet writers didn't write their poems down. Written poems disappear. They memorize them, and then their friends memorize them, because the kinds of things they were writing about they weren't allowed to because history of that kind had rules. But I want to get back to passing. What is it to pass? What does Nechama have to do to pass? What do all of you have to do to pass? Well, I made a long story out of it very briefly. She has to look like, not a Jew, right? She can't look like a Jew. So what does a Jew look like? Well some of you know Jews who are blond and blue eyed. And when my parents left Vienna in 1938, my mother's passport had expired and my sister was on her passport. My father showed his passport to the Nazi guard. This is after Anschluss - a little history there - and flashed my mother's passport, he was nervous. But the Nazi guard at the railroad chucked my sister under the chin and said, what a beautiful Aryan child. So they got on the train and went to Rotterdam et cetera et cetera. What a beautiful Aryan child. So a Jew in the Nazi vision of things did not look like an Aryan. Blond, blueeyed. Check out your roommate. Blond? Blue-eyed? What ethnic? We're all mongrels aren't we? We're all mutts. So blond and blue eyed, has nothing to do with, Nechama looks blond. She's blue-eyed, she passes, right? What else does she have to do to pass? She has to speak Polish. But she can't speak Polish like me, right? She can't speak Polish with an accent. She has to speak, flawless, Polish. She has to fit in. Probably you haven't had the experience that I have, when I came to this country, and was told I had to learn to speak Proper English. Or maybe you have. Or maybe there were, in your schools, elocution classes so that you could pronounce the t h properly. Not like my parent, th, the, right? She has to speak proper prose. Why can't her mother pass? She wasn't blonde but she left. Why can't her mother pass? What? Because of her accent. What's her mother's native language? Yiddish. Why else can't she pass? Because she's dark and has dark eyes, and is small, and dark-haired. She's a target. But Nechama, blonde and blue-eyed, and Nechama sister - and you'll remember on the train, or maybe you haven't gotten that far so I'll just signal to you, on the train when her sister is stopped and interrogated. She just talks her way right out of it because she too is blonde, blue-eyed and speaks a perfect Polish. What do you mean stopping me? I'm Polish I have rights. This is the stuff of all of those the detective stories where the hero grabs the beautiful, blonde, blueeyed girlfriend to help him get through, you know, whatever it is. You've been, there are so many of those movies, right? But, it's about passing, and the Nechama has to learn to pass. Why can't her father pass? Because his native language is Yiddish, he doesn't have very

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation good Polish. But maybe because he knows Yiddish, he can talk a little German to the Germans. Maybe that helps. And also, That there is a test the Germans carried out unto each man. Drop your pants. Jewish men are circumcised. The whole notion of Jewish life is that at eight days are so, Jewish boys are entered into the covenant of Abraham. They are circumcised. It's very apparent. So, he can't pass. That's a reason why more women were able; more Jewish women were able to pass. I can't ask you to ask your roommate about circumcision, but So, he can't pass Her mother can't pass, Nechama passes, her sister passes. So now we have the inversion. Who is in charge of this family? The children. Not the adults, but the children. And Nechama will later on be the main breadwinner. Did you get to the part where she takes the bread to the. And you remember at the market someone says, oh this bread is delicious. It tastes just like Jewish Challah and that's a terrible moment. Her mother has baked the bread. Maybe this is a sign that she's Jewish. But that's also a moment where Nechama uses something she learned from her teacher, Hela, with, whom we meet in the first pages. Nechama has learned, well, you remember she talks about how she leaves their hiding place carrying all this bread on her in baskets, in bags, and she laughs at herself. So something happened in her education where she learned not to take herself too seriously - to laugh at herself a little bit. And that helps her with the crisis of passing. Because thus far it's what your roommate does. Has a lot of fun, is easy and says, oh, I can get into that concert, the tickets are sold. But I'll do what my well, my daughter's boyfriend once did. Went to some performance and they said, how, she said, how are we going to get there? We don't have tickets. He said trust me. Walks up to the ticket teller and says, I'm here from a law firm. I want the tickets for Doe and Smith. Got the tickets, went box. Try it. No. Acting, passing is acting. How does one pass? You act the part; you fit in. There's a long tradition of doing this for all sorts of people, is protective coloration. In Spain when in the 14th century Jews were being singled out, in what may have been the first kind of racism, the phrase came out this way. And since we're in California, we all know a little Spanish, A no ser notado, not to be noticed. Right? That's why you want to act a certain way. That's why you want to dress a certain way. Not to be noticed. You fit in. And then, if you're going to be noticed, you assert yourself with the rights of blondes and blue-eyed beautiful women as her sister does when she's interrogated. But something else happens to Nechama because Nechama has to live the life of passing. And one of the experiences of passing is that she gets a new name, right? What's her name? Tricia. She gets a new name, a new first name and a new last name. By the way the Nazis

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation renamed all these towns, right? They kept making German names for these places, except for Lublin, that was so far almost in Russia they didn't care. They just built a death camp nearby called Majdanek. What happens to someone who is passing? Well you're passing for a reason, right? You're passing to be an agent, to be undercover, and to get the information, the money, the experience that you need to survive, to carry out your mission. Nechama's mission, make enough money so my parents and I can survive and pay the people who are hiding us, right? Whom they meet later on, you'll remember. And who at the end say to them, by the way, now that the war is over, don't let anybody know we hid you. We're not heroes. In fact we did something for money, don't let anybody know. And this of course is part of the further inversion where Nechama will feel thrown out by her native city, a city she was born to, a city that she believed made her free. We're working on getting rid of all blondes in Santa Cruz, [LAUGH] right? Whether you're born here or not. Imagine that. What happens to Nechama is a psychological problem. A question of who am I, because Nechama experiences, in her Polish world, the hatred of the Jew. The hatred of the Jew that now has surfaced because of the Nazi presence. Because the Jews have been made the scapegoat. Peter talked about the Jews as, the other, of western culture. The Muslims were thrown out. The Jews were kept, a little bit. They seem to manage to hang out. And we'll hear about Bulgaria later on during the Holocaust. The Muslim stayed there, but that's a different story, but the Jews were the other. But now, they are not only the other, they are the scapegoat. And what does Nechama learn about? She learns that her Polish friends believe in something called the blood libel. Blood libel. It's invented in England, basically in the end of the 12th, 13th century, and it then spreads wildly everywhere and is repeated in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and it echoes something in the Gospels, namely that the Jews did something bad to Jesus, who was, after all, a Jewish boy, but they didn't acknowledge him, that they are responsible for murdering him. And then in the blood libel, they need the blood of Krysian children, according to the blood libel, to make matzo. This is, after all, an astonishing myth. With no standing in historical evidence, but a myth that's so powerful that it has been repeated over and over again. And the Romans did it too, the Romans came up with the same kind of thing. It's a terrific story if you want to blame somebody for a lot of things. So Nechama gets to hear her friends, her friends, her new friends talk about the Jews. And there's a wonderful moment where Nechama has heard about the blood libel. Yeah, I'm sure you're uncomfortable now. These are, you know, trivial things you hear about on television all the time, Right? This is the texture. The grittiness of the texture of the cultural situation that she's in, and that passing puts her in, and the grittiness of the myth that circulates everywhere.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation I had a good friend in graduate school. We both had children while we were graduate students, we were both struggling, and we were in many classes. And one day, a friend said to, said to us, said, well, you're going to be friends forever, and he turned to me and said, well, no, when we die, he's going down here and I'm going up here. [LAUGH] I said, oh, that's what he thinks. [LAUGH] A myth. There's an awful lot of ideology, there's a lot of that structured, hard-wired even. Right? Nechama has to deal with people who tell her about the blood libel, and she says, you remember that she's very brave. She says, have you any evidence of this? And the answer is, of course there's no evidence for this her friend says. The Jews are too smart to do do this in public. It's all done in secret. So of course there's no evidence. Primo Levi is a remarkable writer, one of the great writers, and he talks in a book that you're not going to read called The Periodic Table about seeking as a chemist and a physicist and a human being and someone who was given all these Fascist lies - seeking the strenuous clarity of the West. The strenuous clarity of the West. It's a fabulous phrase. It's to the honor of Western culture that it came up with this notion of testing things, of empirical evidence, of seeking the truth. In many different ways of not being satisfied with received wisdom of understanding small differences. Nechama is saying something like that, do you have any evidence? And her friend says, I don't need any evidence. It's done by the Jews; the Jews do things in secret. There's no evidence needed. The strenuous clarity of the West. These Holocaust writings, in some ways, are experiments in this question of clarity. What does passing do to the person who passes? Well, Nechama has a crisis. And we find that over and over again in terms of the whole idea of passing. She has an identity crisis. Who is she? Is she Nechama or is she Krysia? Wouldn't take much for her to say, Nechama is history. I'm Krysia. And to go over completely to the dark side. Right? You remember those kinds of stories. Right? She's being seduced into that world. Can she maintain her connections to her family? One of the reasons she can is that she has a very strong sense of her city, her experience. And one of those reasons takes us back to what the book begins with, the notion of education and who she gets taught by. The first paragraph of the book says, no more teaching for Jewish kids. No private instruction is allowed. This is very different from Italian Jews under Mussolini. The Italian Jews were thrown out of the public schools. But they were allowed to have their own schools. Italian Fascism was different. Here even private instruction is forbidden, but what do her parents do? They get somebody to be her private tutor who changes her understanding of education and of learning.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation Nechama Tec as you know survived. She became, a citizen of this country. She got a PhD. She became a distinguished sociologist. She is now a member of senior member of the staff at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Education. Something about education, process of education that we learn about in this book, in her account made it possible for her to keep her balance, not to become Krysia - to play at being Krysia successfully, not to give up being Nechama. I think because it's first-person narration because it has such a wide mixture of genres, because it's autobiography, because it's a book about initiation. It's a book about growing up. It's a book about being in charge of your family. It's a book about economic sociology - all of those kinds of things. A book about being somebody with street smarts. It's also something we experience. So watch out, you have to pass in your section. Thank you. 1.4 The Jews of Western Europe, part 1 PETER >> During the Second World War wherever the Germans went, they found collaborators and a larger or a smaller proportion of the Jews were killed. By contrast, where the Germans did not go in the course of the Second World War, with the significant exception of Romania, which I want to talk about separately much later on, the Jews survived. So consequently we can associate the Germans, Nazis with the Holocaust. I mean, this is a non-controversial issue. At the same time, it seems to me and this is controversial; I think that many historians might agree with me, there was nothing in the German past which would have predicted this outcome. I don't think that there was anything special. I don't think that the the Germans had an eliminations anti-Semitism before the coming of Hitler. I am taking this phrase, elimination. Mr. Edelson, who is a, from a very, a significant book by Daniel Goldhagen, which some years ago made a, a great, a great splash. So consequently how are we to explain? How are we to explain the end result? And it seems to me that there were three basic preconditions. And I want to organize my lectures, my thoughts on elaborating these preconditions. And the first and obviously modern anti-Semitism, modern as opposed to pre-modern anti-Semitism. And what I mean by this, I will be talking about it in a moment. That is it was, it was necessary to perceive the Jews as a dangerous enemy. And this is modern anti-Semitism. The second pre-condition. Again, it's an obvious one. Namely, there's going to be a party have to take control of the machinery of a modern state. And it's of course the Nazis. I, I like to emphasize the lunatic aspects aside from the viciousness of the Nazi mentality, because it seems to me that they were crazy. I mean what they were after did

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation not really serve their interests no matter how you define those interests. And the third precondition, without which it seems to me the whole cost would have been inconceivable is the war. That is you simply cannot kill millions of human beings in a peace time condition. And there when we come that point, that is good because the third, third of my uh, [FOREIGN] there what will interest me is how come that in some countries, in some societies, the Nazis were more successful at killing than in other countries and societies? To what extent can we associate this Nazi success with preexisting anti-Semitism? And to anticipate, my argument will be not that much. That really, there were really other factors, that, which have to be taken into consideration. So and, what I, what I was giving to you is my approach to the problem. And also, an organization, a tripartite organization of my of my envisaged tomes. Mainly Western Europe next time when I turn to guns I will talk about the Russian empire and so on and so forth. And so forth. So, so, I mean, this is the outline eh, of this whole undertaking, as far as I am concerned. Now as I said last time eh, it's a difficult thing to understand. I mean, it is, it, it doesn't compute that people - Germans educated, nice people in the middle of 20th century, middle of Europe were really so many ways like just you and me did what they did. And so, it seems to me, that we have to bring together the various approaches. And here comes in literature and philosophy. And, and, and all that. Something which I'm incapable of discussing because I, I really just like to stick close to who did what, when, and how and why. I cannot really rise to. MURRAY >> I would just add that. The language of science in the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century was German. That tells you something about technological progress, civilization, all of those things that Peter will be mentioning. PETER >> So, what I want to talk about now is how modern antiSemitism differs from ancient anti-Semitism. And one should not push this too far. I mean, obviously modern anti-Semitism subsumed ideas which had been around before. That is anti-Semitism acts took place in Europe, in the 12th century, and, and many of the images such as the Blood Libel and and Jewish clannishness, and what have you, have the murder of Christ and on this of ancient origin. But, something fundamentally changed with the coming of an industrial civilization. Now, you know, we telescope this by associating with the French Revolution. I mean, obviously it really didn't start one day. I mean, there were but let us do it, and then how it played out. But it's okay for us to even associate with ideas of the French Revolution namely

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation

emancipation, mainly the idea that there is such a thing as citizenship as opposed to the pre-industrial world in which people belonged to a state. And they had defined rights and obligations. And in that society, the Jews had a certain place. Now obviously the Jews were periodically expelled periodically especially in the Eastern part of the continent. Murdered, and what have you. And yet at the same time we should not push this too far. The Jews were unique in the sense that the people defined their identity through the religion. And after the expulsion of the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, really the only non-Krysian minority the only other which existed in Western Europe were the Jews. And so, [UNKNOWN]. On the other hand, the, the Jews were really not more miserable than an average peasant. I mean, this, this sense of belonging was, something which really meant. Now with the coming of the French Revolution, the idea of universal citizenship, meaning emancipation. What does emancipation mean? Emancipation simply means to do away, all those laws which apply only to one particular group of people. In this instance, to the Jews. Now emancipation is different from the other two concepts. Namely, the other one is acculturation. Then when the Jews go in the Pre-Revolutionary age, spoke a different language, looked different. And then in the course of the 19th century, first in Western Europe, and then in the other part of the continent, came to look like, just like everybody else. Now, Murray will have a wonderful story, I mean I'm not going to anticipate which [LAUGH] which is a great plasticity shows the, the problems and limits of this acculturation. But it is fair to say that in the course of the nineteenth century in Western Europe, the Jews came to be acculturated. [INAUDIBLE] And then the third concept is assimilation. Now, assimilation would be is that, you really, [INAUDIBLE] to be a Jew. Acculturation took place, assimilation did not. And assimilation was anticipated. Those who liberated the Jews, those who emancipated the Jews, they emancipated with the expectation that they would assimilate. And simply, the Jews would disappear. The French articulated this in the Napoleonic Age quite clearly. Napoleon himself accepted this that ultimately a Jew will be intermarrying too, just like everybody else and, and the, the Jewish problem [INAUDIBLE] will simply disappear. Well, what happened was that the Jews in cultural and economic terms in general. My example here is France but also in Germany, became exceptionally successful. This is what uh, [INAUDIBLE] come from, from pariah to parvenu. This is the accomplishment of the 19th century. And this is very important for us. It seems to be very important for us to understand what was to

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation happen. That is Jewish success is a precondition. Jewish acculturation is a precondition for modern anti-Semitism, which is itself a precondition of the Holocaust. And so it is incumbent on us to, to contemplate, how come the Jews behaved so successfully? I mean there had been successful Jews in the, in the pre-French Revolution and it did of course Jewish [INAUDIBLE] but the Jews as a community were not particularly noteworthy in the, in the culture. Now it seems to me that the explanation lies, not in our genes, the explanation lies in culture. That is, the Jews brought with themselves from the pre-emancipation age cultural traits, which at one moment, one historical moment came to be very important and and enabled them to be so successful. But just to give you an example of Jewish success. At the end of the 19th century, the average Jewish German income was three and a half times greater than the average German income that is non-Jewish income. So what was going on here? Now, these are my propositions. Make of them what you will. And I will perhaps stop at one point to give you an opportunity to object to what I've been saying; one is the idea of learning. The idea of education. That is, think about it. Jews call the place of worship the shul. What a strange idea. A Jewish boy at age 13, as you perhaps all know goes through the Bar Mitzvah. And the Bar Mitzvah means that you are to interpret a passage, text. Now as far as I know, no other human subgroup defines majority how you become a member of of, become an adult, by interpreting text. And indeed a proper Jewish man. Not woman. Man. The task is that you wake up early in the morning. And you start eating [INAUDIBLE] the time when you start studying the [INAUDIBLE] and that's how you start the day. And you acquire prestige by being learned. Now you will say that the kind of learning which the tour of the county provides is not particularly relevant in an industrial civilization, but actually that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you study. It is the idea of studying which is good. The idea of learning as a value. Is good. Actually, it seems to me. I am no expert on this. That if you've studied the Talmud and then you want to be a lawyer. that's actually a pretty good preparation. I mean, since I haven't studied the, the Talmud. MURRAY>> And he's not a lawyer. PETER >> I mean don't you think about it the British. They trained their their civil servants and people they sent out to India, by learning the Greek and Latin. It's quite irrelevant to what you do in India. But Learning is good. Now, this was a good thing. I mean, this particular value. This particular cultural trait which was not that much relevance before the French revolution now became relevant.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation Second, is Jews had been traditionally excluded from agriculture. How wonderful that is to be excluded from agriculture. What it means is that. You are property to the extent that you have property, does not tie you to one place. It's not, it does not tie you to the land. You go anywhere where the action is, and so what happens is, very quick urbanization by the middle of the second half of the nineteenth century, two-thirds of the [INAUDIBLE] live in Paris. That's where the action is. The third what I would mention, was that, again being persecuted. We depend on one another. That again turned out to be an advantage. Turn out to be an advantage and you'll trust one another. Who else can you trust? And this is of course the great Madoff affair. Jews invested in Madoff. Well, sometimes we make a mistake. But still the idea is that you would invest with another Jew. Turned out to be an event. And the fourth thing which I would mention is something which of course has ancient roots, namely the law, the Krysian rule against usury, moneylending. Now actually the Jews were also not supposed to, were not supposed to lend money to others on interest. But the Jews, on the other hand, could provide valuable financial services to the modern state. Well, actually to the pre-modern state. That is kings had their Jews. And Jews created a modern financial administration. Again in an industrial age, the [UNKNOWN] advantages, it seems to me, are are obvious and self-evident. 1.5 The Jews of Western Europe, part 2 MURRAY >>Will you explain what usury is? PETER >> Well usury means, depending upon interests, which is actually from Dublin by the major religions. And also by, how should I say, civilians, it somehow, for many people it seems more noble to, cultivate the land then then be a banker. And maybe he is more open. I don't know. I have to try and idle it. Let me stop here for a moment, partially to give you an opportunity to ask questions, partially to, rest my voice. MURRAY >> Peter, I want to summarize and add traditional Jewish culture said that every male in the Jewish community had to know how to read and write Hebrew in order to fulfill his obligation and the communitys obligation as a Jew. This was communally insisted on. So orphaned children, boys, were educated. It didn't mean they were all quick learners but they all had that as a base. If you were in agriculture before the Industrial Revolution, reading and writing was not something you learned. It was what the priests did, and in a large

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation family, maybe one of those boys would become a priest. All male Jewish children, boys, had to learn to read and write. We have many examples of families where they also educated the women. So, literacy. PETER >> Literacy is good, I recommend it. [LAUGH] But by the way, all these traits which I have been talking about, could be perceived different. And were perceived differently by anti-Semites, and became very much part of anti-Semitic discourse. Namely that would be learning, that would be hair-splitting. Jews sticking together, that is clannishness. Money lending is a desire to avoid honest labor. Jewish mobility, ruthlessness. I mean this, there's just the other side of the coin. This is just the other way of phrasing the same. Anybody has, any. . .Yeah. Question from the audience: >> So first there was the period where [INAUDIBLE] Jews had to stay [INAUDIBLE] Jews [INAUDIBLE] the period where they could be Jews not to believe in the most [INAUDIBLE]. Then there was a period when they has to be Jews again through the blood thing. It was there a gab in-between or, or was the blood, the whole thing about Jews who were born Jews, stayed Jews, that whole mess. That, was that already going on in the French Revolution? PETER >> Well, different people thought about it differently. Indeed this would be, would be a major issue. What is a Jew? What makes a Jew a Jew? Now in the pre-revolutionary age the issue did not arise. It was it was evident. It was clearly defined. Now there were marginal, categories. Such as the Marranos in Spain who were converted by, by force. Were they really Jews? Well. Just a way of looking at it. There was a Jewish group, probably you never heard of them, the Karaites, who were set up in the Crimean Peninsula. They practice a different kind of Judaism, and they were so different that Hitler did not consider them Jewish. But the fact remains that Jewishness was not the issue is not the problems of the 19th century. It did become an issue. Namely, who is a Jew? I mean, is it a race as it was perceived at the time by many, not all, by many? Is it a religion? How about the, a Jew who who does not go synagogue, no. and so according to, the logic of emancipation, a Jew does not go to the synagogue is not a Jew any longer, but yet, the Jews perceive themselves still as Jews. Not only, they perceive themselves as Jews, but everybody else perceives them as Jews. And then I will have a great deal more to say, and I think Murray will have a great deal more to say about the problems that the Nazis had, defining who is a Jew. And of course racial thinking from their point view was it was in your blood. There was nothing you can about it, but

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation ultimately in practical terms a in practical terms how are you going to find the Jews? They ultimately have to fall on religion because otherwise Jewishness cannot be established. Here is the problem, what is the definition? And I don't have much to say about it. The famous Nuremberg definition of 1935, and so on and so forth, but this became an issue. I want to talk about the actual process of emancipation in in the French case. There what seems to me striking is that those who were the agents of this emancipation, even the great thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment were by no means pro Jewish. They, this is not what they had in mind, it was not to get the same, that is to encourage the survival of an Jewish culture or what-have-you. On the contrary, the goal of emancipation, from their point of view, was precisely doing away with the Jews, and this was, as I say, clearly articulated. So let me say a, a few things about France, just as a paradigm. I mean, we could talk about Germany, and show up later. The German case is is more mushy, because as you know up to 1870 there was no unified Germany but there were German states and they varied from one another and consequently its much more difficult to find a single line. But in the French case France was a centralized sovereign state one can look up the history of how century, in 19th century France. In France there were actually two types of Jews, a rather small community, the Sephardic Jews, who were established in a the southwest part of France there were about 5000 of them. They were much better integrated in French society. They were much better off they were more likely to speak French. So their emancipation would appear to be, and it, it was a smaller issue, a smaller problem than the emancipation of the much larger Jewry, which were mostly in Alsace and Lorraine, and these are promoted to provinces, [INAUDIBLE] French into 19th century, where there were about 50,000 Jews. So we are talking about a very small Jewry, which would have made emancipation, and acculturation, assimilation, integration to the French life much easier than. And this when we talk about the eastern part of the continent where the great masses of the, of the Jewry lived. Where, I imagine, many of your ancestors came from. The different parts of the defunct Russian empire. The Jewry in that sense was Yiddish speaking. And I think it may be very, we'll talk about the importance of language, but just in a dizzy wish, this is a Germanic language, which goes back to Middle Ages, want to say something about the, about, about [UNKNOWN], and so they were liberated, liberated, emancipated a year and a half later. The Sephardic Jewry was emancipated in 1790. The Ashkenazi Jewry, that is the other group, were emancipated a year and a half later. And there was considered [UNKNOWN] this in among the, the non-Jewish citizens of Alsace objecting to emancipation. However, as I say, this was carried out fairly easily given the, the small size of the

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation Jewry. And then what as I already mentioned [INAUDIBLE] what's striking is the sole week transformation of this [UNKNOWN], of taking advantage of the opportunity offered by an industrial civilization, and this will be a very important point in [INAUDIBLE] ... Namely, the association of Jews with the new world, with the new industrial world. As if the Jews created industrial civilization, but of course they did not create industrial civilization... They were able to take advantage of the opportunities which industrial civilization offered. Now this is a very important point, because those people who came to be uncomfortable in the modern world. And there were many and for very good reasons. That is life in the factory. In the long run their were advantages over living in the barn. In the short run that was pretty miserable. And in the country side in you village you were a member of the community. That was the mind shock, a sense of belonging. Industrial civilization destroyed this sense of belonging. And, and consequently, anti-Semites, by and large, did not like the modern civilization, and those who did like the modern civilization, did not like the Jews. There is an intense, an immediate connection about how we feel about the industrial world and how you feel about Jews. Now as I say, this is, this of course, unfair. I mean one can talk about fairness. I mean it was not the Jews, it's not really the 50 thousand or 55 thousand French Jews which, it transformed France, but nonetheless the Jews were visible, the Jews represented something and this would be essential, for example, for the Nazis, because all anti-Semitism ideologies are past oriented. It is ideology for people who are uncomfortable in the modern, industrial world. I, when I will make an effort to later on, to define what fascism, national Socialism is, actually it's not an easy task. I will put this at the, at the very center to anticipate fascism is a movement against the emancipatory trends introduced by the French revolution, namely it is this very emancipation which destroys the ties which were so important for many. And that is at the very heart of the fascist mode of thinking. So uh, [INAUDIBLE] successful, became urbanized. And the and yet, anti-Semitism at the end. In fact, French thinkers. By the middle of the 19th century there was a considerable body of anti-Semitic thought, which really can be counted as, as prefascist and pre-Nazi. That is, France, especially French special, French public, French public opinion, French intellectual life. Was divided by your attitude to the French Revolution. That is, those who were enthusiastic about the achievements of the French Revolution, and those who deplored it. Those who saw the industrial world as undermining genuine French values, namely the church. Namely the father land or mother land or something like that. The origin which stood for sacred France. On the one hand, and then on the other those who, who happily accepted what the French Revolution brought, and the French Revolution, and the French Revolution had to offer. And

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation this came to be associated with anti-Semitism. That is the, the, the anti-Semitic members [UNKNOWN] who are regarded as a Fascist by their, some definition will argue that the Jew could not become a Frenchman, being French eschews constant and so, much of [UNKNOWN] the Jew, and this, from that point on up to 1945 is a reoccurring issue, what shall we do with the Jews? 1.6 The Jews of Western Europe, part 3 PETER >> The idea of killing them, it's the, I would, I would argue, is, is, doesn't come easily It's, it's, it's difficult to think. It's a difficult point, actually. To think and also to do. Now anti-Semitic moments came to be associated with economic crisis. There was a doctor and a great scandal connected with the French involvement of the building of the Panama Canal in which thousands of people lost their investment. And of course there were the Jews not surprisingly since this is where Jews are to be found. And consequently popular anti-Semitism emerged, and some people argue, though [INAUDIBLE] cannot be decided. That if you knew what was to happen you would have chosen France as the, the background for the Holocaust rather than Germany. Whether this is fair to the French or not, I don't think [INAUDIBLE]. [UNKNOWN] and then came the great Dreyfus Affair. I imagine most of you have heard about it and know. There are several films made about it. The situation is very simple. Jewish French, French officer was arrested and accused of treason passing on information to France, it's the great enemy to the Germans. Now what is actually remarkable about this is that there were Jewish officers the officer of court in 19th century Europe is regarded as the bastion of the aristocracy, and it is an example of a huge that a Jew could be an officer in the French army. And Jews actually were members of the French cabinet and of course, how they made great contributions to science. The And Jews actually were members of the French cabinet and of course, how they made great contributions to science. The And Jews actually were members of the French cabinet and of course, how they made great contributions to science. The Literature, and, and, and what have you, given the small size of the ranch you were in. Their cultural and social, political achievements are extraordinary. I mean in a, in a country which I think what, something like 40 million people, and there by the end of the century there were, I don't know 60 and 80,000 Jews. I mean, this is a really a tiny proportion. It's a much smaller proportion than would be the case in Germany, where they made up one percent of the population. But in France it was much less than 1% of the population. And yet the Jews were visible. And so what happened at the in case of of the Dreyfus affair. Well first of all, it's, it's relevant to point out that Jews as a community very much did not want to be noticed. And actually there was some

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation hesitation on their part to come out in defense of [INAUDIBLE]. They wanted to show that we are just like anybody else. And actually they were for example considerably disturbed. That towards the end of the century was something like 20, 25 thousand Jewish immigrants from Russian Empire who left Russia as a result of the pogroms. And the French found this rather disturbing. On the one hand, they had an obligation to help their fellow Jews. On the other hand [INAUDIBLE] they spoke a different language they did not have the degree of a culture age in which they are. And consequently the, the wellestablished French-Jewish leadership were concerned that the French will associate them with their eastern core religion and their will contribute to anti-Semitism. Because these people [INAUDIBLE] look different and your foreign of course, and [INAUDIBLE]. So the, the Dreyfuss effect, the Dreyfuss scale is [INAUDIBLE] became really, it did not create the division in French society and, and politics, because the division had been there before, but, it crystallized the division. One half of a educated friends. So what I was saying is that a is that the affair did not divide French public opinion because it was already divide, because it crystallizes that division. But as you can say, as you can see in this on the one hand there are triumphs of the liberal France, because as against considerable oppositions, justice prevailed Dreyfus was found innocent and as he was. And the guilty person, someone I think name of Esterhazy was actually found who really passed on the information to, to the Germans. MURRAY >> Yes but remember it took, Dreyfus was convicted at first they had a public ceremony leading to a sword and all sorts of people screaming death to the Jews. And the impact on Hertzle. PETER >> That was a what somebody wrote it a book under the title The Anti-Semitic Moment in 19th century France. And indeed so it was. And as Murray mentioned this had something to do, very much to do with the creation of modern Zionism because Hansel decided that [UNKNOWN] saw that there is no possibility of general integration into into modern Europe society and, and so the desire to establish a separate Jewish state. MURRAY >> Well I would emphasize what Peter just talked about, which is that the 19th century with industrial civilization and modern civilization is the beginning of the experiment where citizenship means that all kinds of people can work together and use their talents for the common good. And its the rise of society and the secular nations state. And by, the Dreyfus affair, there's a great sense that maybe it doesn't work. If you look at each other, you see that you're all wearing the same clothes, there's no difference in how you dress. You were all expecting to use your talents for getting ahead personally and therefore for the common good. And we have all sorts of issues today that echo the kinds of crises that Peter has talked about when the

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation question is can the Others become part of a larger society working together, or should we sequester them. Should we separate them? Should we throw them out? Should we profile them or is it all one happy melting pot or a mosaic it's now called. PETER >> So let me say just a few words about Germany. Germany had the largest and most significant tour in Western Europe. Larger, as I mentioned by the time of Hitler. The 500,000 Jews maybe the one percent of the population. The difference was that up to 1870 [UNKNOWN] declined and the Germany liberalism was less strong than it was in France. And Jews everywhere came to be connected with liberality. The liberal parties became the Jewish parties and consequently in that sense the Jews were. On the other hand while France was a dynamic. Germany was much more so. That is that Germany gave even greater opportunities for the Jews in economics in culture. In every aspect of national eye to distinguish themselves, and consequently the German Jewry and the ideas current within the German Jewry had enormous influence, not so much in Western Europe but in eastern Europe... the, the intellectual currents that came out of Germany. And another thing the rise of socialism in which Jews had the especially great role to play. Germany in particular, but the rest of Europe also. How can one explain this? The way it was that the way to which [INAUDIBLE] I suppose is that the leadership of the socialist movement. [UNKNOWN] in Europe, came out of the [UNKNOWN] of the Intelligentsia, in which Jews were disproportionate there. And arguably the, the very ruthlessness of Jews contributed to it, namely Marxism [INAUDIBLE] because it is a [UNKNOWN]. Marxism offered an avenue out of Anti-Semitism. That is Marxism, socialism, communism promised rising above national nationalist prejudices. And socialism, communism, offered a solution to some, whether it was legal or not is another matter. a solution to their problems. And so consequently you could be an anti-Semite, because you were concerned about Jewish exploiters, capitalists, bankers. And you could be an anti-Semite because you objected to uh, the [INAUDIBLE]. Well of course most Jews were not socialist, and most socialists were not Jews. Nonetheless, this equation of communism-socialism roles as their roles in history, and it will be decisive in our understanding of the success of Hitler. So, let me stop here. This is enough for one day. MURRAY >> May I add something? What Peter has done is try to give us a quick look at the historical conditions that lead to emancipation and is focused on France and then on Germany. Now, if you think about emancipation in the American context, remember the Emancipation Proclamation is 1863. The Russians emancipate the surfs in 1862.

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation PETER >> 1861 February 9th 61 [LAUGH] MURRAY >> But that's the old calendar. So the whole notion of citizenship is a 19th Century notion that everyone can become a citizen. And you know in your experience that this doesn't take care of all sorts of personal grudges. Personal disagreement or dislikes so under Peter's brief account there's psychological turmoil, or to put it in another way. Do you really love your room mate? [LAUGH] So the whole question of citizenship involves the notion that one can manage the social, political, cultural, economic under currents. That traditional society had done by grouping people. It hadn't taken care of all that but we have a psychological cauldron if you will. And he is a master psychologist. [LAUGH] Of social forces, so what does it mean that Dryfus has a public humiliation as a traitor Though he was a Jewish officer, right, death to the Jews. So this means that Theodore Hurtzel, a brilliant young journalist who is covering the trial for a German newspaper [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGH], right? Part of European opened this. Now he's in France covering the trial for a German newspaper. Somebody who's a cosmopolitan, because he's Hungarian but he knows French and he writes in German, right? Says this experiment has failed. Integration of whatever kind doesn't work. Now we've seen this in the history of many cultures in the West and in the East. But this becomes then the launch into something much nastier than is happened . PETER >> what i wanted to emphasize with that it is not an accident that the great age of the European Jewry and the holocaust coincides. That these are two opposite sides of the same coin. MURRAY >> But I want to go further. I want to argue that the great age of modern industrial civilization that happens with the French Revolution, with industrial society leads to something with the Holocaust that transforms it. There is a huge. Revulsion, from the notion, for example, that things are always going to get better with industrial modern society. MURRAY >> It does, actually. >> [LAUGH] MURRAY >> But it also leads to Mass murder. >> [LAUGH] We have a question. Audience Member >> I just want to point out, Angela Merkel said the same thing last year, at the experiment in Germany of the INAUDIBLE] failed. MURRAY >> Repeat the question. Audience Member >> Well, it wasn't a question [INAUDIBLE]

Week One Module 1: Emancipation, Acculturation, and Assimilation

PETER >> he said that Angela Merkel, Merkel said the same. maybe the idea of [INAUDIBLE] and of occurs referring to a very different situation, namely Muslim Germany with its Turkish Arab subculture this is all, again, it's a very important issue which I don't know. The namely, the comparatively genocides and I, I resist this notion. I resist this notion because the misery factor compared to the [INAUDIBLE] have different sources and, and different reasons. That is the Roma that life is miserable and they've been mistreated. And they were murdered by the Nazis. MURRAY >> The Roma are the gypsies. PETER >> The Roma are the gypsies. and the act that These are apples and oranges. That is you may know what is the, the, what do you call the, the ancients of the island. It is I will talk about it next time. It's a fabrication that shows that you've gone up there. [INAUDIBLE]. It would be inconceivable that someone would come up with the protocols of the ancients of the gypsies. It makes no sense. These are, these are different wickednesses MURRAY >> But I want to point out that as you look at each other and learn to love your room mate that the experiment in diversity is yours. We are living that kind of question today, and all sorts of thing that we hear about every day in turn political life is all about that and yes the whole notion of the experiment in diversity means that there are all sorts of frictions all sorts of unhappinesses, all sorts of problems, maybe we would be better off without it? On the other hand, he says it's a good thing. PETER >> It is a good thing. MURRAY >> [LAUGH] Thank you. Onto Monday. Read Dry Tears.