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1985
~~~~*0.
THE HOLOCAUST
AND PHILOSOPHY*
505
506
bee:3 "What the Nazis did is not peculiar.") Qua philosophers,having always had problems with evil, theyhave a new problem now.
However, philosophers must confrontaporiae, not evade or ignore
them.
This paper will treattheHolocaust as unique; as anti-Jewishnot
accidentallybut essentially;and as a novum in the historyof evil.
I. THE UNIQUENESS
OF THE HOLOCAUST
THE HOLOCAUST
507
508
THE HOLOCAUST
509
But the Holocaust took place in our world. The historianmustexplain it, and the philosopher must reflecton the historian'swork.
Raul Hilberg9has studiedcloselythe "how" of theHolocaust. In
answer to the "why" he has said: "They did it because theywanted
to do it."10This stressesadmirablythe respectiveroles of Nazi Weltanschauung and Nazi decision-making.But how accept such a
Weltanschauung? How make decisions such as these? As if in
answer to thesefurtherquestions, Bracher(op. cit.) writes:
of
The extermination
insanity
[oftheJews]grewoutofthebiologistic
of
Nazi ideology,and forthatreasonis completely
unliketheterrors
and warsof thepast(430).
revolutions
9See his magisterial The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1961).
10In privateconversationwith this writer.
510
Again further
questionsarise. What or who was insane, theideology
or those creating,believing, implementingit? If the latter,who?
Justtheone? Or theone and thedirectaccomplices?Or theindirect
accomplices as well? And, climactically,is "insanity" itselfan explanation, or merelya way of saying thatattemptsto explain have
come to an end?
Historianswill resistthisconclusion. Has not the"Jewishdevil"
a long tradition,harkingback to theNew Testament?(See especially
John 8:44.) As forthe "Jewish vermin" (or "virus" or "parasite"),
Hitler got it fromantisemitictrashharking back decades. Doubtless without these factorsthe Holocaust would have been impossible,a factin itselfsufficient
to markofftheeventfromothergenocides. But do these(and other)factorssufficeto make theHolocaust
possible? To explain an eventis to show how it was possible; but
the mind accepts the possibilityof theHolocaust, in the last analysis, only because it was actual. Explanation, in short-so it seemsmoves in circles.
In his unremittingsearchforexplanations the historianmustrespond to this challenge by focusingever more sharplyon what is
unique in the Holocaust. The philosopher must ponder Hans Jonas's paradoxical Holocaust-dictum:"Much more is real than is
possible" (MW 233). Minimally, what became real at Auschwitz
was always possible, but is now known to be so. Maximally,
Auschwitzhas made possible what previouslywas impossible; for
it is a precedent.In eithercase, philosophers must face a novum
within a question as old as Socrates: what does it mean to be
human?
III. THE MUSELMANN
THE
HOLOCAUST
511
non-JewishMuselmanner wereJews-by-association
than thatJewish
Muselmdnner were a sub-speciesof "enemies of the Reich."
The process was focusedon Jews in particular.Its implications,
however,concernthe whole human condition,and, therefore,
philosophers. Among these few would deny that to die one's own
death is part of one's freedom;in Martin Heidegger's Being and
Time this freedomis foundational. Yet, of the AuschwitzMuselmann, Primo Levi'2 writes:
Theirlifeis short,buttheirnumberis endless;they,theMuselminner,
thedrowned,formthebackboneof thecamp,an anonymousmass,
and alwaysidentical,
whomarchand
continually
renewed
ofnon-men
laborin silence,thedivinesparkdeadwithinthem,alreadytooempty
reallyto suffer.
One hesitates
to call themliving;one hesitates
to call
theirdeathdeath.
To die one's own death has always been a freedomsubjectto loss by
accident. On Planet Auschwitz,however,theloss of it was made essential,and its survivalaccidental.Hence Theodor Adorno'3writes:
Withtheadministrative
murderof millionsdeathhas becomesomethingthatneverbeforewas to be fearedin thisway.Deathno longer
entersinto theexperienced
lifeof theindividual,as somehowharmonizingwithitscourse.It was no longertheindividualthatdiedin
the camps, but the specimen. This mustaffectalso the dyingof those
who escaped theprocedure(355; my translation;italics added).
512
THE HOLOCAUST
513
passion, and even thatis mostlyfedby a need,as pettyas it is limitless, to show them-whom?-that the nobody is somebody.Were
even the beliefsof this "true believer" trulyheld? Did he everdare
to examine them?Certainly-all his biographersare struckby the
fact-he neverre-examinedthem.As likely,theytoo werepart of a
Wagner-style
posturing,rightup to his theatricaldeath.
Such historicalconsiderationsaside, we mustfacea philosophical
problem. If we accept and philosophically radicalize Eichmann's
plea to have been a mere"cog in thewheel," we end up attributing
to the few-even to just one?-a power to mesmerize,manipulate,
dominate,terrorizethatis beyondall humanityand, to themany,a
mesmerizability,manipulability,and craven cowardice that is beneath all humanity.Yet, whereasAuschwitzwas a kingdomnot of
this world, its creatorsand operatorswere neithersuper- nor subhuman but rather-a terrifying
thought!-human like ourselves.
Hence, in howevervaryingdegrees,the mesmerizedand manipulated allowed themselvesto be so treated,and the dominated and
terrorizedgave in to craven cowardice. Not only Eichmann but
everyonewas more than a cog in the wheel. The operatorsof the
Auschwitzsystemwereall its unbanal creatorseven as theywereits
banal creatures.
A moment of truthrelevant to this occurred during the 1964
Auschwitztrialheld in Frankfurt,
Germany.A survivorhad testified
that,thanksto a certainS.S. officerFlacke, one Auschwitzsubcamp
had been an "island of peace." The judge sat up, electrified:"Do
you wish to say thateveryonecould decide forhimselfto be either
good or evil at Auschwitz?,"he asked. "That is exactlywhat I wish
to say," the witnessreplied (MW 242).
Then why were such as S.S. officerFlacke exceptionsso rare as
barely to touch and not at all to shake the smooth functioningof
the machineryof humiliation, torture,and murder?And how
could thosewho were therule, banal ones all, place into our world
a "kingdom" evil without precedent,far removed frombanality
and fated to haunt mankind forever?We cannot answer the first
question. Gripped by the aporia of the second, the philosopher is
unlikely to do betterthan fall back on a familiardictum: Auschwitz-like theReich as a whole, especiallyas revealedin theendless,
emptySieg Heils of the NurembergParteitage 8-was a whole that
was more than the sum of its parts.
18I have triedto grasp and to capture the idolatrouscompact betweenVolk and
Fuehrer,manifestedmost clearlyin the endless yetemptySieg Heils of the NurembergParteitage,in "Idolatryas a Modern Possibility,"EncountersbetweenJudaism
and Modern Philosophy (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), pp. 171-198,esp. pp.
192-195.
514
Hebrew University,Jerusalem
UNIQUENESS
AND EXPLANATION*
0022-362X/85/8210/0514$00.50