"The Reader" - shadow of the holocaust

(PS : This is a pretty long essay. A Good friend of mine requested me to add a note on top (specifically on FB) whenever my writing crosses 1500 words. His reasoning was it makes it easier to find enough time to read. It seemed good, sane advice and I decided to incorporate it straight away.. Thanks Old boy.. )

Enough has been written of the holocaust; more reams of paper have been filled with the gory details of how more than six million Jews were incarcerated, brutalized, broken physiologically and physically and finally exterminated in the most inhuman conditions conceivable – than any other subject in the last seventy years. Scenes of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald have arrested our attention in thousands of biopics, to the extent that many of us have become in-sensitized, accustomed to its horrors, and anesthetized against the sheer “banality” of evil committed during that span of five years between 1940 and 45. No amount of solace, sympathy or retribution can assuage the grief, the scar, the repercussions of those ghastly years. For the sheer scale of Man made annihilation, Holocaust remains and will remain (Hopefully!!) unparalleled in the annals of recorded history. Never before were a race so specifically targeted for massacre for so flimsy a reason. The crimes of Nero, Caligula, or the ravages of crusades pales to insignificance in comparison. Even At this distance, barely a generation away, one shudders at the very thought of how a nation of educated Men and Women could allow themselves to descend to such levels of depravity, despite the promise of social progress and material prosperity ushered in by the previous century. Scholars, historians, philosophers, social scientists are still speculating on how this could have happened. Regular books of Fiction and non-fiction still fill books stores with their theories and reconstructions of those ghastly years.. It is almost ironic, when the twentieth century began, that anyone would have believed they would witness two explosive wars within next fifty years. Despite Man’s confidence and pride in his mastery of the world around him, there silently lurked within his human breast a volcano of discontent, hatred and thirst for blood – which went quite unnoticed and simmering, until the first gun was fired on the fateful day In August 1914 precipitating the First World War and exploding into unbridled fury; followed a decade later from its unquenched embers rose the reasons for Second World War, and the rise of the most virulent forces of hatred in the form of Nazi dominate Germany – led by Adolf Hitler and his fanatically devoted team.

The basic question that haunts us is how could a nation unanimously, without any iota of dissension , chose to kill without remorse. They called it the “Total solution”. In 1942, in a secluded Villa in Northern Germany, at the height of Nazi power, Thirteen major departments of the German Government met to decide on the conduct of how this extermination should take place. The infamous name for this congregation is Wannsee Conference . Not once , during those proceedings was the goal ever discussed, only methods were clinically proposed and adopted. It is spine chilling to even think of how well meaning Men and women tacitly accepted means of such barbarity. Academicians, Generals, clerks, truck drivers, laborers, children- every one of them involved in running this ghastly killing machinery did their job with utmost precision, dignity and commitment. Like cogs in a wheel, they did not or could not pause to think on the implications of their actions. “Moral responsibility” - the golden phrase that stood as epitome of Man’s achievement lay tattered amidst the blood, grime and flesh of hapless Jews. To achieve the kind of methodical murder, an entire nation had to be prepared and work with clock-like precision. Decent citizens, who would not have hurt a fly was consumed in this fire of hatred. All sense of responsibility was sublimated to the cause of German superiority and the rhetoric of its perpetrators. The question that normally one asks is : why didn’t anyone stop or question the blood bath?. And an answer to that has eluded us till today. In 1962, when the Eichmann trials were held in Israel , Hannah Arendt, the great Jewish Philosopher and thinker, covering the trial for New York times, made the startling observation that none of the Nazi war criminals had a choice in their participation and execution of Final solution. It was a job they had to do. In totalitarian regimes ( It is hard to conceive, because we don't live in one), choice and moral responsibility has no place. Throughout the trials, Eichmann kept repeating that he was merely “following” orders, and did not know the consequences of his actions. Though it is hard to believe Eichmann, that a Man’s moral compass can be so incongruous he cannot make a conscious difference between right and wrong in so brutal an assignment, the testimony of numerous war criminals during the Nuremberg trials seem to point to the fact they actually may be speaking the truth, after all. When a entire nation is geared to a pernicious goal, it's loyal citizens only act as agents to that end. This is the brute reality of totalitarianism.

Literature and art have kept the agony of the holocaust alive for us. From the moving dairies of Anne frank to Thomas Kenneally's Schindler’s Ark to Bernard Schlink's The Reader to Markus Zusak's The book thief among many others; these works of historical fiction have time and again recreated for us the private emotional world of individuals caught in concentration camps or having to make difficult moral decisions regarding them. Though William Shirer's masterly non-fictional account “the rise and fall of the third Reich” did place before the world a comprehensive factual account of those fateful years, it was only through stories and movies that common man came to experience intimately what it would have been to live through those years. It would indeed be an insensitive soul who would not have cried silently on reading Anne Frank’s frank words, or not come out of theater deeply disturbed after having watched Spielberg's heart wrenching portrayal of Schindler. These are our mirrors of introspection, and it is through their eyes that modern generation have come to know the holocaust.

In 2008, Stephen Daldry adapted “The Reader” for the screen. Translated from German into nearly forty languages, the book is about a middle aged German lady having an affair with a young boy in need of companionship during Nazi Germany. She cannot read or write , but loves to listen to stories and cadence of its language. Every night, after stormy sex, The young boy reads out classics aloud to her, forming a relationship between the two based on physical needs and intellectual curiosity. War changes things. The boy goes on to study law, and the lady takes a job with railway transportation. Years later, the young aspiring lawyer encounters his first love in court , standing trial for genocide along with six other women. They are charged on imprisoning and burning over 300 Jews in a church, and Hanna Schmidt ( the lady) is made to bear the brunt of this charge. She is accused of writing the report of that horrific incident for SS. She doesn't defend herself, but quietly accepts the tribunal’s judgement. Michael (the young lawyer) realizes that she is giving herself up by withholding vital information that could help her case. He knows Hannah cannot read or write, hence could not have written the report. Yet, he does nothing, but quietly pines within. While she is in prison, he sends her audio tapes with stories recorded in his voice. And Hannah, begins to learn the language using those tapes. The story then takes tragic turn, ending in redemption both for Michael and Hannah. The main segment of the story lies in Hannah’s answers to questions in court. While she acknowledges her role in choosing, transporting and locking Jews in the church, she finds it incomprehensible that she could have done anything else in those circumstances.There is a air of disbelief in her answers. In previous paragraphs we spoke about moral responsibility, and how it is almost impossible to have that quality in a totalitarian regime. Though Hannah is gentle, dignified and cultured, her position during the war was dictated through an external agency, and she was only to execute orders and not question them. This is the same dilemma Hannah Arendt observed during Eichmann trials.

I watched this movie yesterday, and ( as you would guessed) is the genesis of this essay. Every artist has a peak, a year or couple of them, when their art is supreme, sublime and almost spiritual. Kate Winslet was in that zone in 2008. There could not have a better choice to play Hanna than her. If an actor needs to learn how to infuse life into a character based on a book, they should watch Kate translate the passion and agony of Hanna on screen. It defies description. Produced by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella - two great producers, the movie went on to equal Spielberg’s effort in 1993. Sadly, both men weren't alive when the movie was released , but they could rest in peace with the thought this was a crown jewel in their long and illustrious careers. Kate went on to win the academy award that year. Not surprising at all!!!. There was no competition.

This has turned out be a lengthy essay. I apologize, but as a student of history and philosophy , I genuinely feel that the holocaust is a singular event in modern times, and is a great lesson for all emerging, new and established democracies to learn from. There is a very thin line that divides freedom from indoctrination; nationalism from totalitarianism; war from brutality; equality from racism, religion from fanaticism, free will from destiny. As we march ahead, there will be periods (if not already) when we will confront similar choices and questions that arose then; and if we learn our lessons from history well enough , chances are likely we will not slip into same follies that led to millions to die in the hands of those who earnestly believed they were doing the “right” thing. That is a scary thought!!. I hope and pray, that never again shall our history be tainted with such saddening blood. If it does, we may have no future..

God bless…

Yours in mortality,

Bala