Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
nerd alert.
Here is a recent paper I wrote... It is on Nonviolence and the Holocaust.
Gandhi said,
“I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in a non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope.”[1]
Often, when the conversation around the just war theory is approached, World War II is highlighted as a time in history where war was required to bring down a regime. This unique time in history, the impact of one dictator, Adolf Hitler, brings about such a penetrating example for so many as a justification for using violence when necessary to bring about peace. The Holocaust is not the only genocide in the history of the world, however it brings to perspective the presupposed enlightenment of society after World War I. The League of Nations and the call for peace was to bring about a new reign in the world, until the systematic approach of authoritarian control changed a culture from peace, to a propaganda-influenced mentality calling for the segregation and ultimate eradication of an entire race of people. In a conversation between a German reader and Primo Levi, a survivor of Auschwitz and author, the German reader makes reference to how Hitler was a deceiver and did not promise what he intended to do for Germany. It was a choice for the Germans between two abysses; Communism and Hitler.[2] Levi’s response was that he possessed a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and, “Hitler promised exactly what he carried out, and that he didn’t betray anyone; if you can say one thing for him it’s simply that he was never a deceiver.” What speaks even more to the situation in which Europe found itself with the rise of the Third Reich was a short note that accompanied the German reader’s response. It was from his wife who slipped the note without her husband’s knowledge, “When the devil is loose in the village, a few people try to resist and are overcome, many bow their heads, and the majority follow him with enthusiasm.”[3]
The beginning date of the Holocaust is difficult to define. Even harder is pinpointing of the end of the Holocaust. Was it truly over when the final concentration camp was liberated? While the Holocaust is over in its historical time period, the ideas, hatred, and violent motives are still in the world. Genocide still occurs around the world, yet there is rarely a world-wide war initiative to intervene. When hate in one’s heart is allowed to be expressed without dialogue, challenge, or nonviolent response, it has free reign. The options are passivity, violence, or active nonviolent resistance. Could the Holocaust have been prevented through nonviolent communication and action?
Gandhi’s Satyagraha and the Jews
Gandhi is one of the greatest influencers of nonviolent response. Satyagraha or ‘truth force’ has been a term that is attributed to describing the nonviolent response from the teachings of Gandhi. In light of genocide, such as the Holocaust, the question remains of whether or not Gandhi’s method would have worked against the totalitarian regime at the time. Gandhi himself sees this question from both sides. While affirming the steadfast and almost timeless truth of love and nonviolence, he also sees how a war in the name of and for humanity could be justified against Germany.[4] He affirms the ability of all people to resist force with truth, even if it means that the victory is won not in the initiation of peace, but in the dignity for standing for what is right, even at the case of death.
While Gandhi wrote about the plight of the German Jew, his message was not received well by all. Particularly helpful in engaging with the idea of Satyagraha working in war-torn Germany were Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, and Hayim Greenberg. Through correspondence and critique they help one to see whether or not it would be applicable to use nonviolence against the Nazis. All three of these men were Jewish Pacifists who believed in nonviolence. Martin Buber is one who would affirm that there were instances of Satyagraha among the Jews.[5] There were cases of resistance, both nonviolent and violent, but in the end one is still left with the murdering of millions of people. The speculation remains and the question still unfulfilled. Did the Nazi’s accomplish their intended goal? For Gandhi, Satyagraha is not so much about the oppressor/oppressed relationship as it is with the state of the individual. “To Gandhi, the important battle was going on within each person’s own soul and not between the person and his opponent.”[6]
However, this statement presupposes that the opponent has humanity or some level of commonality with the oppressed. Counterpoint to this argument is made that while British soldiers could see their victims as persons, the German soldier was developed to see the Jew as less than a person and to destroy such a person was seen as the highest of moral ideals.[7] The moral compass for the community was changed to define a new form of oppression. The mass movement of the culture of this time was brought forth towards a prejudice to hate rather than assimilate. It is seeing the humanity in each person that draws the power of the Satyagraha. “Nonviolence and love seek to restore community broken when men fail to acknowledge their sacred and divine kinship.”[8] Kling would believe that even in a person such as Hitler there would have to be a piece of his humanity that could be reached. In loving the enemy the love would become contagious and effective.[9]
The task of looking to the teachings of Gandhi to find a nonviolent alternative or method of nonviolent resistance for the Holocaust is difficult because the full understanding of the Satyagraha was not developed during this time. It is over a lifetime that the true meaning of nonviolent response is brought to light in Gandhi’s teachings. While history will not be able to define whether or not the method would have worked in that day, it is important to hope that such a method could have strengthened the resistance movement. “Had the technique been available to the Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, it could have strengthened their resistance and perhaps saved thousands of lives.”[10] In the end, Kling feels that those who resisted did not accomplish a true understanding of Gandhi’s Satyagraha. Gandhi believed wholeheartedly that this principle can be used by any people in any culture regardless of race, creed, or religion. However, history speaks hauntingly about the final picture of what happened in the Holocaust. While there were moments of resistance, both violent and nonviolent, the overall picture is given, though anachronistically, by Bruno Bettelheim.
“Millions of the Jews of Europe who did not or could not escape in time or go underground as many thousands did, could at least have marched as free men against the SS, rather than to first grovel, then wait to be rounded up for their own extermination, and finally walk themselves to the gas chambers.”[11]
The following portions of this paper seek to investigate the places, persons, and methods by which nonviolent resistance was given to the Nazi regime. Mass migration, evasion, sabotage, hiding, surviving, stalling, and asserting one’s humanity are all manners in which Jews throughout Europe engaged in nonviolent resistance. In seeing their humanity amid systemic brutality, one would seek to draw conclusions from their methods and philosophy in order that history would not repeat itself. By seeing their lives, indeed an opportunity for Satyagraha could be offered for tomorrow’s hope.
Holland, Denmark and other Surrounding Nations Rise
Through capturing the stories of Holocaust survivors and those who lived during this troubled period of world history, one can see the heroism of individuals who chose to stand for truth in light of fascist control. Conspirators, loyalists, nationalists, heroes, humanitarians, or whatever words one could use to describe those who resisted the movement of the Nazi party, there are those who chose to fight with tactics to save lives rather than to take them. Instead of picking up arms against the soldiers who came to capture Jews, some chose to get involved in the aiding of the survival of their Jewish neighbors.[12] While all grass-roots movements have their beginnings in individuals coming together, in order for nonviolent response to carry larger impact it is given to the systems or groups of people who choose to work together for the common good. Denmark, for instance, was one of the few nations of that time which presented effective and formal nonviolent resistance.[13]
It seemed as if there was a national refusal of the Danes to cooperate with the Nazis from the King down to the commoner.
“When the Germans first approached the Danes about the segregation of Jews, proposing the introduction of the yellow badge, the government officials replied that the King of Denmark would be the first to wear the badge, and that the introduction of any anti-Jewish measure would lead immediately to their own resignation.”[14]
Here is a smaller country that has been occupied by the Nazis. Their military strength could not match that of the Germans so they fought with other tactics. The solidarity of their commitment to one another, a Danish Jew or Jew of any nationality was a humanitarian effort that required planning and strategic resistance. Bombs would not work because the Germans had more bombs and they could inflict more damage. So the Danes hit the Germans where it would be felt the most. Through strikes, purposefully slowing down operations, and even using their own resources towards the evacuation of Jews to a neighboring country, they resisted as a nation. They cooperated with Sweden and opened up opportunities for Jews to work and to find a place of safety there. Danes not only saved Danes, but they made no distinction between Danish and non-Danish Jews.[15] The Jews were not only from one country or another, but they saw Jews not as Jews first, but people. The dehumanization that took place throughout other regions of Europe did not find its way into the borders of Denmark. “Danish citizens refused to aid the Nazi war effort during the occupation and brought their cities to a standstill.”[16] The ultimate impact, due to their small size and influence as a country, didn’t bring down the regime but it did make a historical and life-changing impact. Thousands were saved and “only five hundred were actually arrested, and forty-eight of them died, mostly of natural causes.”[17]
A turning point in the outward expression of anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime was what is called Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938. If there was not an catalytic point for German Jews to flee already, it was this event that set forth an exodus for freedom. Many turned to Denmark and neighboring Holland for refuge. There the Jews were met with groups of people who wanted to set up a structure to ensure their safety. The hachshara movement sought to offer professional training in agriculture.[18] But this group’s intention changed and developed as the war continued, and their ultimate impact is seen in the nonviolent resistance they gave.
A campaign began which sought to hide the Jews in surrounding farms with Dutch families. Some troubles arose either with the long-term commitment needed or with the betrayal of Dutch Nazis.[19] Hiding would only work for so long, so they had to develop plans for escape. Some were able to immigrate to other countries, including the United States, but once Holland became occupied, the allied countries would no longer accept refugees.[20] This left the neutral countries of Europe, all of which were of some distance away. To make things more difficult was the border patrol by the Nazis. Escape routes would have to be carefully planned. The first attempt in September 1942 failed and all members were caught and deported to Auschwitz. Only one of the eight that tried to escape survived.[21] Over the years the escaped refugees found homes and places of safety in other European countries. The path to escape was very dangerous and in the end not the most efficient manner of resisting. An opportunity soon became available where they would be able to escape ‘legally’.[22] Through the acquisition of papers, stolen of course, it allowed for the Dutch to travel to France as laborers in the needed areas of building, supplying, and developing the French front for the impending allied invasion.[23]
In essence, the resistance groups used the tools they had to work with for the sake of others. Interpreting the resistance movement of the Holocaust was not fully realized until at least two decades after the war with the dialogue between Hilberg, Bettelheim, and Arendt. Raul Hilberg was one of the forerunners of Holocaust studies and he was influential in taking the study of the Holocaust outside of the social science or humanities field. Historically speaking, he gave it its own place in the realm of philosophy, ethics, and history.[24] With such an influence and large amounts of research and writing, the explicatory picture of Jewish resistance was able to come into view. Whether such resistance was passive or active, the story has been told of those who used nonviolence to fight back.
Resistance in the Grey Zone: Primo Levi’s portrayal of humanity
While resistance was given, it did not stop the war machine from carrying millions on trains to concentration camps where they would either be exterminated like creatures lower than animals, or they would be forced to work while being starved to death.[25] The prisoners lived in the fear of random executions, abuse by other inmates, and the madness that came with starvation. After losing family right before their eyes, the prisoners were left with very few choices. How could one resist while barely being able to stay alive? This was it; their resistance to hatred may not be able to be seen in expressions of love, but in the very act of survival.
Knowing that the survivors would be tempted to resist, the SS and officials made it a point to beat the resistance out of the surviving prisoners from the very beginning. The primary purpose of the concentration camp was to shatter the “adversaries capacity to resist”.[26] The oppressors gave the prisoners numbers to redefine them. They were no longer people but numbers. But whatever category, number, or label was given to a prisoner they were immediately beaten to ensure that they would not be the catalyst of organized resistance.[27] “It is difficult to defend oneself against a blow for which one is not prepared.”[28] Such a culture was created in the camps and Levi, as a prisoner at Auschwitz, defined his new home and situation in life as the Grey Zone.
The Grey Zone is a place where usually clear opposites become blurred. It is no longer about love versus hate or good versus evil. Instead, in the Grey Zone, the new realm of existence is discovered in those who are drowned and saved. The categorical approach to defining humanity is washed away in the aloneness of the camp. For, in such a place there is no manner of cooperation towards a resistance movement for each person is found in the daily struggle to survive. This survival mentality, created by the oppressors, does not give a chance for the oppressed to rise above their own state of mind to see a path of resistance. When one falls in the camp they will not find an outstretched hand of help, but on the contrary, someone who will knock them aside further.[29] “Primo Levi’s concept of the Grey Zone alerts us to how institutionalized brutality overwhelms the possibility of human solidarity.”[30]
In shared suffering or experience one might think that the prisoners would find a common shared vision to resist, fight back, or ensure the survival of others. In the Grey Zone the oppressors create a system that allows for the destruction of the oppressed by their own means. It is a calculated system that draws upon the baseness of humanity. In the end evil believes that if an environment were created, then the prisoners would destroy themselves.
“The harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness, with all its infinite nuances and motivations, to collaborate: terror, ideological seduction, servile imitation of the victor, myopic desire for any power whatsoever, even though ridiculously circumscribed in space and time, cowardice, and finally, lucid calculation aimed at eluding the imposed orders and order. All these motives have come into play in the creation of the Gray Zone… to preserve and consolidate established privilege vis-à-vis those without privilege.”[31]
Such an environment found its way into the soup line each day. The prisoners were forced to work all day and were fed a very small portion of food. Food became a commodity even and was used as a prisoner model of currency where indebtedness or exchange could be given or received via a portion of bread.[32] Forming a line for each meal became in itself a strategic game that was played out. Early in the war when vegetable soup was served, to be at the end of the line one would only be receiving liquid.[33] The sick, elderly, or simply those without status would be pushed to the back of the line. The soup and bread line required speed and influence. Some would urinate while running in the morning to secure their place and food for the day.[34] Contrast this same exercise towards the end of war when Primo Levi was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 where the soup was nothing but liquid. Any kind of protein or substance would find its way to the bottom of the serving pot, so the intricate plan of finding oneself at the enviable end of the line forced others towards the front now to partake in only the liquid. Because they consumed so much liquid prisoners were forced into difficult situations concerning kidneys and overall health and urination. Throughout the night the prisoners would lose ground in their bunk to their forced sleeping partner.[35] Finding a way to the back of the line was now a matter of life and health.
The food line was just one of the many ways in which the totalitarian regime influenced their destruction. Resistance at this point of the war was found in simply trying to find dignity in death. Looking for hope, Primo Levi was left without much to be found with those around him. Throughout his experience his resistance was seen more in his survival in the system than by taking the system down. There was a new world in which he lived, and in order to address it in the future, he had to survive the present.
“One must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last – the power to refuse our consent.”[36]
Christianity and the Holocaust
Christians who wish to engage in nonviolent resistance must avail themselves to inter-faith dialogue. The teachings of Jesus can engage several faith traditions, much like how Gandhi drew upon the Sermon on the Mount. Christians today still need to engage in the conversation around the Holocaust and Judaism. For if dialogue is not alive, then the same anti-Semitic bias that drew others into passivity or the destruction of others may unintentionally rise from our teachings as well. If Christians listen to the stories and hear the perspective of others we will not lead ourselves into what Elie Wiesel calls a “teaching of contempt.”[37] But instead we will engage in active nonviolent resistance for the sake of all humanity.
If Christians are going to further engage in the historical and theological understanding of the Holocaust, then the use and reference to Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) needs to be clarified and reframed. Bonhoeffer is considered one of the leading 20th Century practical theologians, and many look to his own martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis as being an example of resistance and connection with the suffering of the Jews. Bonhoeffer’s resistance began in 1933 with the condemnation of the political ideas of the Nazi party. But, what ultimately placed him in the concentration camp where he would die is his partaking in the conspiracy and involvement in an assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler. The first conspiracy talks began in 1939.[38] The message of Bonhoeffer often perplexes some that try to find a place for his theology in light of his actions. It is clear that Bonhoeffer taught on love as the highest ideal and manner in which to live. Certainly this echoes the voices of those who resist nonviolently.
“Self-love is misguided love that has rebelled against its source, love that does not need the help of others and thus is condemned to be unfruitful, love that is basically enmity toward God and one's neighbor because they could only disturb the immediate circle of myself. Both types of love actually have the same power, the same passion, the same exclusivity. The only thing that sets them apart is the tremendously different goal they each have - in one case, I myself, in the other, God and my neighbor.”[39]
Bonhoeffer is praised for his admirable life, but is often critiqued because he is not able to move beyond the perceived Christian tradition that leads to anti-Semitism. Therefore, he is judged as not being an appropriate source for “contemporary conversations between Christians and Jews”.[40] Scholars can certainly look at Bonhoeffer’s earlier works and see how he is, in 1933, learning to engage politically and theologically. To view only these writings, as Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, and others try to do, as a support towards a secularist or ‘death of God’ theology is not fully capturing the growth in Bonhoeffer’s life and writings.[41] The progression of thought is seen, particularly with Kristallnacht, being a noticeable turning point for him. Moving from a confessional approach to a more politically active approach to his incarnational ministry in Germany, Bonhoeffer felt great pain and frustration at the speed in which the church as a whole sought a response to the government at the time. But, as Hitler took Luther’s theology to an extreme, one must be careful not to view Bonhoeffer either as the model nor scapegoat concerning a Christian’s engagement post-Holocaust.[42] He is one to whom we can draw upon, but must not rely. For our contemporary conversation begins with not a justification of the past, but in the confession of its continued effects today.
Elie Wiesel desires for the relationship between Christians and Jews to be one of friendship where there is not a remembering of the injustice of the past from one tradition to another, but in the hope for a future.[43] Such a conversation needs to be one where a desire for conversion is not sought after.[44] Wiesel offers an opportunity for people to move beyond the misinterpreted idea of how Christians are God’s defenders, and the guilty verdict falls upon the Jews as the murderers of Christ. Perhaps Bonhoeffer is helpful for this engagement or re-engagement together to have conversations around learning from the Holocaust, it’s nonviolent history of resistance, and how today all people can become voices for nonviolence.
“The Church confesses that she has witnessed lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the victims and has not found ways to hasten to their aid. She is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ.”[45]
Reflection for Today
In the final days before the liberation of Auschwitz, Primo Levi lay incapacitated with illness, pain, and despair. He witnessed another prisoner show compassion to another as he bandaged his wounds. Levi says, “I judged his self-sacrifice by the tiredness which I would have had to overcome in myself to do what he had done.”[46] For Levi, hope abounds. Perhaps it is the one that survives who indeed has courage and vision that Gandhi spoke of to lead a nonviolent movement that would take the winter of despair and turn it into a summer of hope. In the end it might not be the ones who resisted, whether they were kings, nations, or organizations, but in the survivors who tell their story still today. With their lives and with the voices who cry from mass graves, the world moves toward nonviolence when our future draws upon the past and we say, ‘never again’.
[1]Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 90 vols. Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Government of India, vol. 68, 1958, 137-141.
[5]Blair B. Kling, “Gandhi, Nonviolence, and the Holocaust.” Peace and Change 16 no 2 (April 1991): 178.
[8]John Eubanks, “Nonviolence and Social Change.” Journal of Religious Thought Vol. 35 Issue 2, (Fall 1978/Winter 1979): 16.
[12]There was violent resistance when arms could be gathered. The Warsaw uprising is an example of the organization and tactical defense of those who were placed in the ghetto of a capital city in Europe. While this paper seeks to investigate nonviolent response, a helpful source for learning about how this uprising is depicted throughout the world is Adam Suchonski, “Warsaw Uprising in Foreign History Textbooks.” Dialogue and Universalism 2007, (September, 2004): 147-156. Further accounts of violent resistance can be seen in the uprising at Treblinka: Jean-François Steiner, “The Revolt at Treblinka.” Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 240 Issue 10, (May 1967): 34-60.
[16]Peter Ackerman, and Berel Rodal, “The Strategic Dimensions of Civil Resistance” Survival 50 no. 3, (June-July 2008): 112.
[18]Chana Arnon, “Jewish Resistance in Holland: Group Westerweel and Hachshara.” Judaism 49 no 4 (Fall 2000): 449.
[24]Jonathan A. Bush, “Raul Hilberg (1926-2007) In Memoriam.” Jewish Quarterly Review 100 (Fall 2010): 676.
[25]Raul Hilberg writes a powerful article/essay on the German Railroads not being the means to the end, but the end in themselves. A look at the history and the relationships with the railroads and the shipping of humans to the East for their deaths is futher investigated. Raul Hilberg, “German Railroads/Jewish Souls.” Society; Vol. 35 Issue 2, (January-February 1998): 162-174.
[29]Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1960, 88.
[30]Phillippe Bourgois, “Missing the Holocaust: My Father's Account of Auschwitz from August 1943 to June 1944.” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 78 Issue 1, (Winter 2005): 89.
[37]John K. Roth, “Elie Wiesel’s Challenge to Christianity”. Elie Wiesel: Between Memory and Hope. Editor, Carol Rittner, New York: New York University Press, 1990, 83. This text is a collection of works, but for further insight for the commentary of Elie Wiesel and the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, The Trial of God. New York: Schocken Books, 1979 & Elie Wiesel, The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, and The Accident. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.
[38]Edwin H. Robertson, True Patriotism: Letters, Lectures, and Notes 1939-1945 from the Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Volume 3, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
[39]Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Unbelieving Way of Love.” Testament to Freedom, 246. Taken from The Wisdom and Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wayne Whitson Floyd, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000, 98.
[44]Ibid., 88. One should also consult Timothy P. Weber, On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. This is a synthetic treatment of how American evangelical Christians have been influenced by dispensational theology, with the result of particular political positions that affect the contemporary Middle East situation. In the history of the dispensational theology there was a dialogue between helping Israel return to Jerusalem (extreme Zionism), and the need to convert Jews. As Christians this tension is still felt with organizations today that have their foundation in the dispensational movement where Jews would try to reach Jews or how Jews were sought to be converted. The tension is that such conversion is seen to be as anti-Semitic in the end and not helpful for dialogue.
Monday, March 12, 2012
the church.
"According to the witness of the New Testament, the church is the city on the hill. Today it has to venture to live 'outside' in its own life in simple obedience. It has to discover grace in leaving everything, to receive it back again a hundred-fold here. Inner-worldliness is a comfort, but not a principle or a program. The community must suffer life Christ, without wonderment."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lecture - "The Interpretation of the New Testament."
April 26, 1935.
These words are just as true, necessary, and important today as they were then.
Monday, March 5, 2012
love.
Self-love is misguided love that has rebelled against its source, love that does not need the help of others and thus is condemned to be unfruitful, love that is basically enmity toward God and one's neighbor because they could only disturb the immediate circle of myself. Both types of love actually have the same power, the same passion, the same exclusivity. The only thing that sets them apart is the tremendously different goal they each have - in one case, I myself, in the other, God and my neighbor.
- "The Unbelieving Way of Love," Testament to Freedom, 245-246
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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