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Part Two RECONCILIATION T errible things happen when people do not get along. The Holocaust and September 11 testify to that. Hence, reconciliation deserves to be high on the list of important after-words. In fact, John K. Roth’s “Useless Experience: Its Significance for Reconciliation after Auschwitz” suggests that reconciliation may be the most basic of the three after-words before us, for reconciliation is based on a fundamental humanity shared by all, without which any discussion of forgiveness or justice is vanity. Reconciliation entails repairing action—not action in general but specific, concrete deeds aimed at helping people get along in definite times and places. Roth illustrates this point in the aftermath of the Holocaust by arguing that reconciliation between Jews and Christians, and even among Christians themselves, is linked to the opening of the Vatican’s Holocaust-related archives. Of course, as Didier Pollefeyt notes in his response to Roth, there is no guarantee that opening those archives will improve relations between Christians and Jews or between Christians and Christians. What one sees in the dialogue between Roth and his respondents is the double-edged nature of any eªort to bring about reconciliation. But do we have the luxury of refraining from trying? Roth says no. Perhaps this double-edged nature of the eªort to reconcile is what leads Britta Frede-Wenger to maintain that after Auschwitz reconcili81 ation is both impossible and necessary. In her essay “Anthropological Remarks on Reconciliation after Auschwitz,” Frede-Wenger rejects attempts to reconcile through either amnesty or escape attempts. Focusing on the problem of reconciliation as it confronts a new generation of Germans, she argues that reconciliation requires acts of repentance, a commitment to a democratic society, compensation of survivors, and the hope for a kind of messianic, universal reconciliation at the end of history. Not yet at time’s end by any means, we are left, despite our feelings of “unfulfilled justice,” to answer continually for who we are in history’s contexts. Didier Pollefeyt’s response to Frede-Wenger stresses that reconciliation is indeed problematic after Auschwitz, because the evil of history contaminates entire generations; yet reconciliation is not impossible if such evil can be transcended through acts of forgiveness. The questions that remain include the following: Must we wait until the end of history to attain that transcendence? If so, are we to envision the returning Messiah as a returning Jesus Christ? In his reply to Frede-Wenger, Juergen Manemann cautions especially against the latter vision. Manemann’s own essay, “Struggles for Recognition in an Era of Globalization: The Necessity of a Theology of Reconciliation from a Political-Theological Perspective after Auschwitz,” is next. For Manemann , theology unavoidably has political dimensions because it must confront suªering and human responsibility for it. Here we see parallels to Roth’s insistence on action and Frede-Wenger’s concern with identity . Responsibility, says Manemann, is the basis of human identity, and the definition of our identities depends on our actions. If, however , the act of reconciliation entails an act of substitution, as Manemann claims it must, then how can a Christian substitute himself for a Jew without losing his Christianity?—a question that David Patterson raises in his response to Manemann. One danger of reconciliation is what Manemann identifies as the postmodern “unencumbered self,” that is, the self free of the responsibilities and commitments imposed by religious tradition. Consequently, Manemann faces another crucial issue: How can we maintain a healthy postmodern critique of authoritarianism without losing the traditional truths that make reconciliation matter? Related to that question is the one couched in Manemann’s 82 Part Two: Reconciliation closing remarks to his respondents, a question that vibrates along the edges of Auschwitz: Where is the God of tradition? As shown by the essays in this book’s second part, living after puts us in disjointed times and dislocated places. Much needed, reconciliation must be carefully explored as an after-word if it is to be enacted well. 83 Part Two: Reconciliation ...

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