The Gingrich-Jeffrey Capital Gaff: Storm in a Teacup or Constitutional Issue?
It will no doubt be nothing more than a short bleep on the Washington radar monitor, not even worthy of a footnote. Nevertheless, in other than the capital's history books, the Gingrich-Jeffrey fiasco deserves serious consideration. Was the new House Speaker's selection of a House historian an egregious misappointment? Or was the instant gunning down of Newt Gingrich's choice of Professor Christina Jeffrey an hysterical act of overkill, a breach of rights, or a political and professional vendetta? Was the criticism rendered at her justified or an act of blatant vigilantism?
Here are the bare facts: recently elected House Speaker Gingrich, as is his prerogative, appointed Associate Professor Jeffrey from Kennesaw State College in Marietta, Georgia, to the post of House historian (replacing Professor Raymond Smock). Gingrich and Jeffrey had briefly been colleagues at the college, where she teaches full time and he had part-time. Then came the reaction. Within days, the appointment became a cause célèbre, a NY Times page one item. What had happened?
It seems that nine years ago, while acting as an employed grant application referee for the Education Department, Jeffrey had evaluated a junior high-school curriculum grant application from "Facing History and Ourselves," a highly respected Boston-based teacher-educational program, as one-sided and not sufficiently representative of the views of National Socialism and of the Ku Klux Klan. More important, she felt the pedagogical approach of the proposal topically too narrow for eighth and ninth graders.
For this glaring politically incorrect, certainly, clumsy and naive attempt in 1986 to give expression to the all-American principle of fairness and equal time Professor Jeffrey was immediately tarred and feathered, and kicked out of town back to Marietta, in 1995. How much of this was justified and how much was revenge? To what extend do her comments in 1986 - supposedly confidential (but since 1988 part of the record of a congressional subcommittee) - reflect on her professional qualification for the post of House historian in 1995? Logically, her "sin" or "indiscretion" should carry over to her teaching job; ought not those who crusaded against her have carried their brooms to Kennesaw State College, where, supposedly, her views would "infect" generations of young students? Attempts to elicit an answer to this query from her "morally" incensed opponents came to nought; so much for open debate and the exercise of naked political power and influence.
The whole affair smacks of the lustration campaigns (the post-communist witch hunts in Czechoslovakia) soundly and courageously condemned by President Vaclav Havel. The assault against Jeffrey also brings to mind the on-going politically-inspired character assassination campaigns launched against prominent Germans whose names appear in the former East German Stasi (Secret Police) files, references that give the immediate impression of past collaboration, allowing the persons accused little room for defense, even as their characters are hopelessly compromised and careers ruined by innuendo, always with the cooperation of the barracuda-like "free" press and sensation-seeking electronic media.
Is Professor Jeffrey guilty? If so, of what? Has everyone who accuses her read the entire text of her recommendation against support of a taxpayer funded program? And who accepted bits and scraps of the text, out of context, as clear evidence of guilt? And, if so, guilty of what? Did she render an honest assessment made in good faith? Or did she commit a gross error of judgement? Or professional misconduct? Or of antisemitism? Or worse?
Was she given a fair hearing, or did she have to endure "electronic lynching" by telephone and fax, by unseen accusers and fellow travellers who jumped on the bandwagon of pious finger-pointing? Did she ever have her day in court, a chance to explain, to defend herself, her reputation, her career? Who were the personae dramatis who participated in this unseemly affair, other than the once (six years ago) "aggrieved" at the "Confronting History and Ourselves" offices and the "brave" democratic "fair-minded" congressmen and women who implored Gingrich to retract his appointment?
Of all the prominently loud speakers, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, might have been more generous of speech ("He [Gingrich] should get rid of her!") and sensitive to the possibility of an act of injustice, given his own experiences of an intolerant and prejudiced world. Not to mention Representative Maxime Waters of California who, at the expense of Professor Jeffrey, used the occasion to attack Gingrich and, thereby, win cheap political points. One wonders where her deep commitment to the integrity of Holocaust Studies was prior to this TV opportunity on prime time. But even the clear-sighted can become myopic under the corrupting pressure of political expediency (giving in to the demands of irate constituents). Who, then, were the unnamed intermediaries who managed and fine-tuned this incident? Are they willing to identify themselves in the open and answer questions such as those raised in this essay?
There are some serious constitutional issues involved. To mention one or two: 1) Double jeopardy. Professor Jeffrey was fired from her position as a grant referee by the Education Department in 1988, following the inquiry in response to complaints about her professional judgement made in 1986. Now, in 1995, she is being fired again for the same "offense." That is a clear violation of her rights, since she did not commit the same offense (whatever that might have been originally in 1988) again between 1988 and 1994. 2) Defamation of character. All sorts of accusations have been arrayed against her, including charges of antisemitism, without any substantive proof, except extracts taken out of context of her controversial text, in which she expressed what she was hired to do, namely, to provide her honest professional opinion. 3) Freedom of speech. Professor Jeffrey was hired to evaluate applications. She did so on the assumption she would not have to please or conform to anyone's preset conclusions. When, however, she expressed her opinion forthrightly and in good faith, she was pilloried. What is conveniently forgotten is that, for all her detractors, Professor Jeffrey had and still has respected supporters from the mainstream and not from the fringes of public and professional opinion. Since when, then, has arguable, academic controversy been punishable, except by the exercise of raw political power? What has happened to judicial process? Does she not deserve her day in court?
Is this violation of individual rights what "Confronting History and Ourselves" wishes to be associated with? Is this the model of tolerance it wishes to have taught in the classrooms? Has anyone brought up this interpretation in their ranks, or would such an unpopular opinion be drummed out as was Professor Jeffrey? Sometimes, ironically, in order to defend a principle, one has to side with one's opponents. One of the Founding Fathers actually enunciated that principle: to be prepared to die so an opponent may have the right to hold a view, however, despicable.
No doubt, the whole sordid business will be conveniently forgotten, if only because another "moral" issue will distract everyone's attention away from this uncomfortable and discomforting incident, a mini-ripple in the daily routine of Washington D.C. Nevertheless, it leaves a permanent bad taste. It reminds one, if just a little but still enough, of the eviction of Jewish professors from German universities in the early thirties. One wonders who will be anonymously targeted next by the seen and unseen custodians of morality in our society. And who, in the final analysis, is closer to the KKK? Professor Jeffrey for her undebatably dreadful critique (if only because Nazi ideology is discussed in the program she rejected); or those invisible and known persons, some cloaked in cowardly secrecy, who denied her her constitutional rights? Let the readers decide.
Nota bene: Teachers of the Holocaust, here indeed is an opportunity to test who, if anyone, is on the side of the angels. Let us hear from you! Break the silence and let The Forum afford an open debate. Or is there too much intimidation and fear of retribution in the land of liberty?
Henry R. Huttenbach
They didn't just die in Auschwitz! Choosing words carefully
It is now fifty years after Auschwitz, and a litany of editorials and other commemorative events have taken note of this Death Camp whose name has come to stand for the entire état concentrationnaire erected by the National Socialists and in which they carried out the genocide of the Final Solution.
All speeches and articles made mention of the fearsome numbers of victims who perished in Auschwitz, numbers that are testimony to the genocide which took place inside this terrible space enclosed by electrified barbed-wire fences. Blessedly, the total of those who lost their lives there has recently been reduced from the original "guesstimate" of 3-4 million (repeated much too often refrain-like) to the more credible estimate of c.1.3-1.5 million, a number extrapolated from extant quantitative data. The "lesser" number by no means diminishes the enormity of Auschwitz in general and Birkenau (the Nazi epicenter of systematized and mechanized mass destruction of human lives and bodies) in particular.
But all too often vocabulary has tended to mask the ultimate truth of Auschwitz as Death Factory. Too many English speakers and writers have made reference to the victims who "died" in Auschwitz; the same applies often enough to the French, who use the verb "mourir" to describe the fate of "les victimes" and/or "les juifs." So what is incorrect about the choice of the verb "to die" as a means to convey what happened to the inmates of Auschwitz, or for that matter, in any other concentration camp and ghetto? They did, after all, die. True, but not true enough. They were murdered.
There is something comforting in the concept "to die." To die is sad, but natural. In no way does it convey the brutal reality of death in Auschwitz. People die in hospitals, at home, in accidents, slowly or suddenly, in normal social contexts. Sometimes they die violently, not by accident, but intentionally as a result of criminal intent. Some would say "killed"; but in fact the kind of death that took place in Auschwitz was prima facie murder, a particular and specific form of being criminally killed.
Returning to those who "died" in Auschwitz: what, then, is the appropriate word to pinpoint the manner in which their lives ended? Yes, many "died" in their bunks, at work, or while standing during an hours-long Appell. But did they die normally? Hardly! They died of man-made malnutrition, from lack of hygiene, from exhaustion, from emotional/psychological collapse, sometimes at their own hands in order to escape further suffering which had become the sum-total of their daily and nightly existence. They perished because they were denied even minimum allotments of food, clothing, shelter, medication, and human dignity. They died abnormally.
They were not even killed. This word is insufficient, a camouflage, indeed euphemism for murder. Each one "died" because each individual victim was targeted for killing, a victim of an unambiguous criminal act; hence, the obligation to stress the full truth, namely, murder. No one simply died in Auschwitz; no inmate was "just" killed (by implication accidentally). Every prisoner who died inside Auschwitz (and elsewhere in the National Socialist Gulag) was murdered. There were no exceptions to this form of dying.
The entire world of Auschwitz was designed to produce death, even of the forced laborers. They too, because they were replaceable, were mistreated in such a manner that the natural course of their lives was radically shortened by exposure to the anti-human "eco-system" in which they were incarcerated. Jews and non-Jews who "died" in Auschwitz were deliberately killed, i.e. murdered, in the case of Jews, genocidally.
One should, therefore, shy away studiously from a vocabulary that bypasses the stark facts. The Holocaust experience must not be shrouded behind a veil of half-accurate words. Over time, these words create permanent, but false, perceptions. Eventually, the Auschwitz reality will be diluted by the repetition of "gentler" words. This technique, though applied perhaps to shield the reader, in fact distorts the truth. To assert that people "died" inside Auschwitz is to deny its full truth as an institution of systematized mass murder. It is not enough to acknowledge this en passant; there is an intellectual obligation to back up this identifying phrase - mass murder institution - with unequivocal specificity, beginning with the insistence and persistence that no one died there, no one in the sense people outside Auschwitz understand the term.
At the heart of the individual's Holocaust experience was murder, perpetual murder. Survivors escaped murder first and foremost. Their relatives and friends who did not survive, did not do so because they were murdered in one fashion or another. It is up to the scholar to spell out exactly the varieties of murder administered in each ghetto and concentration camp and not bury the cruel facts under weak and, therefore, inappropriate words. All too often those who resort to "gentler" words are the very ones who claim Holocaust reality cannot be adequately couched in words. Whether this is true or not, what they do is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In permitting people "to die" inside Auschwitz, they have distanced the readers from a past that would have been better served had they begun their journey into the Holocaust past by focusing on the quintessential fact, a past in which murder, unambiguous mass murder, was the raison d'être for everything else: the beatings, the starvation, the torture, the dehumanization, the "latrines," the "work," etc., etc ., all of them designed explicitly to cause death.
Those of us living outside Auschwitz, outside genocide, may enjoy the luxury of covering up the harshness of life: we speak of "the dearly departed," of those who have "passed on." This phraseology is both good manners and considerate of the bereaved. However, as soon as we cross over into the Holocaust Kingdom, we are governed by different rules. Toning down the truth is a form of disrespect and cruelty, at best, of deceit, at worst. No one has the right to purge the language in order to convey a less than true picture of how the victims died. They no more died than they "passed on." Auschwitz calls for forthright honesty and not false politeness in the vocabulary chosen to depict its true face. Above all, teachers, who have but a few minutes to speak about the genocide, need to express themselves tersely with the vocabulary of truth and not fall back on a vocabulary of euphemisms that will mislead their students. Let us keep in mind: people didn't just die in Auschwitz.
Henry R. Huttenbach
Ladies and gentlemen, This way to the Cattle Car! Holocaust "Realism" in Museums.
Both Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum are in possession of an original freight car in which Jews were deported. The former's is dramatically exhibited outdoors on the edge of a steep incline, as if perched on the edge of a precipice, suggesting imminent disaster; the latter's, indoors, is centrally located to emphasize the transition from a world of extreme prejudice and social persecution to a realm of mass extermination. Visitors to both are confronted by drama and symbolism, and an opportunity, supposedly, to come face to face with the horror of deportation in the presence of an original Holocaust artifact. By entering the cattle car, the visitors have a chance to "enter," briefly, presumably, into the nightmare of the victims.
This is a heavy burden imposed on the individual imagination of each tourist-visitor. For what they see is a well-scrubbed wooden railroad vehicle. They stroll in, gaze around, and move on, duly "moved," no doubt, but quickly engrossed in another exhibit, and by no means lastingly impressed. Which leads one to ask: was their grasp of deportation in any way profoundly enhanced by the few seconds spent inside a "real" freight car? However, its swept floors, its cleansed walls, its permanently opened sliding doors, its well ventilated and lit interior, all conspire to camouflage and sanitize the reality of deportation.
The freight cars have been prepared to meet middle class, suburban standards. There is nothing in these two cattle cars to offend the senses and sensitivities of the voyeurs into Holocaust "reality."
Who, from abbreviated strolls through the Jerusalem and/or Washington freight cars, would have an inkling of what actually transpired? Who would know that people, often strangers, stood packed, chest to chest, for days? Without food. Without water. Without latrines. Without heat or cooling. Without air to breathe. Who, by casting a glance, en passant, at the silent artifact would hear the living and the dying, the crying of children, the groans of the sick, the screams of those driven insane by fear and suffering? Who would see the faces of the condemned men, women, and children, of relatives, of strangers, of the young and the old, all reduced to helpless, haunted eyes? Who will feel the suffocating heat or numbing cold, the pangs of thirst and hunger? Who will smell the sweat, the stench of human excrement and vomit? Who will be made aware of the accumulating human urine and feces swilling on the floor and sticking to clothing? Who, because of entering the cattle car, will imagine the conversations, the prayers, the curses of the mad, the singing, the talk of lovers, of parents, of neighbors, of the dying?
Who - in the fleeting moment spent inside the "real" thing - will conjure up the hell of deportation? The exhilarating Jerusalem air and the carefully controlled temperature of the Washington museum cater to the comfort of their clients who, at the slightest sign of discomfort can find a toilet, a bench, a cafeteria, free to go on, free to leave whenever "they can't take it anymore," always secure, knowing that their shock threshold will not be violated. They can go home, content in knowing they had been "inside" an "original" German cattle car, but secretly relieved that their codes of propriety, their discomfort level, was not upset. They were led "inside" but not inside.
Why was there no attempt made to get them to reconstruct vicariously the true horror of deportation? In part because the prevailing philosophy of both museums rests on the false but convenient premise that the Holocaust experience is inexpressible. How convenient! Hence no need to mention the details, no need to discomfort the guests who might complain of poor taste and run from the freight car in real shock. No, they are inferentially told, no need for detailed descriptions of actual acute suffering, for it remains "indescribable." Thus, a false conclusion becomes an excuse for avoiding the awakening of the powerful human vicarious imagination, that instrumentality that allows the human mind to fantasize the loftiest ideals and the darkest perversities.
Museums in general, Holocaust museums in particular, need to reexamine their basic philosophies of displaying artifacts. It is less a question of methodology, of hi-tech, than of purpose, of short and long term intentions. Are they striving for "virtual reality"? Then state-of-the-art gimmickry suffices: lighting, computers, artifacts, etc. Are they looking toward other goals - informing, persuading, even shocking - then more subtle means are called for, namely issues of pedagogy, philosophy and priorities. If a cattle car is deemed essential, then the question must be raised and answered. Until that is done satisfactorily, it is better to leave that awesome task to the poets, to those who show the way to hell (and heaven) with the power of words. How can a cattle car take us on a "journey" with the dead, a journey that transports us, however imperfectly, from our planet to theirs?
To answer that question, a lesson might be learned from a recent exhibit shown throughout Japan. It is exclusively about the long-denied medical experiment carried out on civilians, mostly Chinese, and some prisoners of war, a few of them Americans. The "experiment" included vivisection without anesthesia, a form of cruelty that chokes the imagination and physically repels those who are asked to confront it. The Holocaust Museum has chosen to exhibit Nazi medical experiments in such a manner that both children and feint of heart adults can avoid the graphic photographs, an example of contemporary sensitivities prevailing over historical realism, a form of censorship. In contrast, the Japanese exhibit exposes the most graphic photographs for all to see, hoping, thereby, to create a permanent revulsion, an indelible mental and, thereby, moral impression.
Which approach is correct? Avoidance or confrontation? The sanitized or the graphic? The dispute deserves serious debate that should include more than museum personnel. Pedagogues, historians, and philosophers ought to engage themselves. If the past is to be remembered in the present in the hopes of improving the future, then steps must be taken to depict the past in its most glorious and inglorious terms. Morality is not learned by means of tempered truth but by way of searing reality; that, after all, was the purpose of purgatory, a spiritually cleansing experience. To avoid hell on earth, teachers must lead their students through purgatory. It is purgatory that the managers of Holocaust museums are studiously avoiding, and, in so doing, perform an egregious disservice. The way to the hell of the Holocaust is not through the counterfeit purgatory of the "real" freight cars.
Henry R. Huttenbach