"Wissen Macht Frei"; "Wollen Macht Frei"; "Arbeit Macht Frei": Teaching Holocaust Literature in Vienna

80 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 "Wissen Macht Frei"; "Wollen Macht Frei"; "Arbeit Macht Frei": Teaching Holocaust Literature in Vienna! by Ute Stargardt Ute Stargardt is an Associate Professor and Chairwoman of the English Department at Alma College. A medievalist with a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, she has pub· lished articles on a variety of subjects, ranging from a critical study on the Argentine novelist Ernesto Sabato to the mysticism of Dorothea von Montau, the patroness of Prussia and the Teutonic Knights. Like every aspect of the Holocaust, teaching Holocaust literature is an activity beset by urgency. Each time I have taught this subject here in the United States, I have felt it keenly: the awareness of this event inevitably turning into yet another historical abstraction, its human dimension lost irretrievably once the last survivor will have died and no one is left to tell young people what it was like to be a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe, slated for destruction as pestilential vermin. The poems, short stories, diaries, novels, and plays my students read and discuss are, of course, powerful and eloquent witnesses to and expressions of this experience.2 But however moved they may be by what they read and see on film, students remain incredulous. How could they do otherwise, half a century and half a world removed from this monstrous event? So for years I dreamed of teaching Holocaust literature to American students in Europe. There, literature, history, and locale together would impress the reality of the Holocaust on them. In 1991 this dream came 'Presented at the MidwestJewish Studies Association Annual Conference, September 13, 1992. 2A list of the novels, plays, poems, and essays we read appears in the appendix, as does a list of films and excursions. Focus on Teaching the Holocaust 81 true when I had the opportunity to teach the course in Vienna to students ofthe Midwest Consortium for Study Abroad, a group of nine mid-western colleges and universities. The European setting accomplished everything I could have hoped for. It confronted the students with the reality of the Holocaust in ways unimaginable to anyone involved in Holocaust studies in the States. At the same time, being there discouraged these students from oversimplifying the moral, historical, and political issues attending the Holocaust. Because they encountered such a wealth of resources and experiences, their inability to conceive why the Holocaust was possible only increased. They read the literature; they saw the films. They spoke to survivors; they encountered ;'revisionists." They lived in the homes of charming, generous Austrians, not a few ofthem still proud ofAdolf Hitler, Austria's most "famous" son; they visited sites now associated with the Holocaust. They were overwhelmed and came away from it all with a profound appreciation ofthe complexity of this terrifying event, which in spite of all analyses remains an enigma. Upon their arrival in Vienna, my students were largely ignorant of the Viennese roots of Adolf Hitler's antisemitism. However, the inescapable juxtaposition of present and past in all things Viennese soon augmented their history lessons with a wealth of personal experiences and discoveries. Karl Lueger (his name is pronounced Lu-e-ger, which avoids its sounding like Lu-ger, the German word for liar), mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910, helped shape Hitler's hatred ofthe Jews. The statue commemorating this popular politician stands just a stone's throw from the Stadtpark, Vienna's beautiful city park where the equally famous crowd pleasers Johann Strauss and Franz Uhar (the latter a Jew and one of Hitler's favorite composers) are immortalized. Everywhere they went my students encountered dedications to this virulent antisemite, most prominent among them the plaque in the foyer of the Volksoper, the People's Opera constructed under Lueger's administration to afford even Viennese of few means an occasionally escape into the saccharine never-never-Iand of Viennese operetta. Each day they passed the imposing gate of the Hofburg (the imperial palace) that opens onto the Ringstrasse just one short tram stop from our classrooms at the Latin American Institute. They were amazed to discover this gate in the background of a photograph showing Hitler...