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S HULAMIT Volkov. Germans, Jews, and Antisemite,): Trials in Emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 311.LARS FISCHER. The Socialist Response to Antisemitism in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xix + 252.One of the most contentious issues in the historiography of the Holocaust is the question of origins: How far back does one look for causes? Answers range from the immediate context following the outbreak of World War II to the depths of the Middle Ages. But many, perhaps most, historians believe that one has to begin by examining the rise of "modern" anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany. Much has been written on this issue, but as we see by examining these two books from two different generations of scholars - a collection of essays, written over the course of thirty years, by Shulamith Volkov, one of the outstanding experts in the field; and the revised dissertation of Lars Fischer- interpretive consensus is still far off.Another question that has been asked repeatedly is the one that personally drives Volkov's scholarship: "Why was it so hard to see the approaching disaster?" Her essays are an attempt to evoke and analyze "the true complexity of the situation," the fact that "matters were indeed so obscure and so multidimensional that it was practically impossible, even for many clear sighted men and women, to see through and extract the ominous signs" (p. x). In the first of the three parts that make up the volume, Volkov offers an international perspective by outlining the differences of perception and opinion among Jews in the late nineteenth century and in the late 1930s. In the former period, Russia's Jews - obviously afflicted enough in their own country - looked anxiously at developments in Western and Central Europe, and what they saw pushed them even further toward Zionism. Conversely, German Jews did not believe that the conditions in the Tsarist Empire, however deplorable, could ever be replicated in their country. Forty years later, even after what we see in retrospect as the absolutely clear signal sent by Kriatainacht, blinders remained. Precisely because the events of November 1938 seemed so like a traditional pogrom, some observers actually believed that the Nazis represented nothing new after all: terrible and murderous, to be sure, but ultimately just one more old style enemy to be opposed and overcome. Moreover, many Zionists, however concerned about their brethren in the Third Reich, remained even more focused on fighting British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine - an attitude encapsulated in Ben Gurion's notorious remark: "Had I know that it were possible to save all the children of Germany by bringing them over to England, or save only half of them by transferring them to Eretz Idrael, I would have chosen the latter" (p. 61).Volkov's honesty in dealing with the complexity of the issue extends even to her own family. In the remarkable prologue to the book, titled "My Father Leaves His German Homeland," she recounts how her father had always portrayed himself as a committed Zionist who decided to emigrate to Palestine as soon as Hitler came to power. But after his death, the family discovered letters that he had written from Germany in the spring and summer of 1933 to his fiancee - a native of Tel Aviv who had gone to Berlin to study medicine but returned home already in March 1933. The letters revealed his deep attachment to Germany and his agonizing over the decision to leave. Indeed, in the letter of May 2, Volkov's father (then twenty-five-years old) recounted hearing Hitler speak on the radio the day before and being swept up as by "a gigantic force of nature." He then asked plaintively: "Is there really no possibility at all for a Jew to take part in this thing here?" (p. T). Within the ensuing weeks he came to his senses and left for Palestine. Yet this troubling story sticks with the reader throughout the book and reminds us that there are no easy answers to the question: Why did people not see what was coming? … |
