The Holocaust's Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education ed. by F.C. DeCoste, Bernard Schwartz (review)

HUMANITIES 327 were guilty of anti-Semitic statements.= Further, he gave his assurance that if, in spite of his repeated warnings to the contrary, >anti-Semitic utterances on the part of his membership were to continue, he would take whatever steps he possibly could in order to definitely squelch any anti-Semitic tendency.= The account of the conversation is revealing on two counts. First, Aberhart candidly admitted that certain Social Crediters were spouting anti-Semitism. Secondly, even though the premier failed to keep his promise to squelch the anti-Semitism among his followers, the Congress chose not to make the conversation public. As a result, an opportunity was lost to publicize Aberhart=s acknowledgment of the problem and his failure to do anything about it. Social Discredit is full of intriguing episodes, but typically the documentation is more complete on the Congress side than on the Social Credit side. In February 1947 two Congress officials held a two-hour meeting with three Social Credit members of Parliament. One of the Congress representatives summarized the conversation that took place in a lengthy memorandum to the national executive. Unfortunately, there is no record of the impressions of those sitting on the other side of the table. In addition, the heavy weight of documentation sometimes leads to repetition . We keep hearing that the Congress is on the brink of public relations policy shift B not actually doing anything, but seriously thinking about it. At times the volume of information overwhelms the reader and clogs the text. That being said, this is a scholarly, compelling book. The reader is caught up in the story of the battle against anti-Semitism and the building of a more tolerant, human-rights-conscious Canada. (JAMES PITSULA) F.C. DeCoste and Bernard Schwartz, editors. The Holocaust=s Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education University of Alberta Press. xx, 568. $69.95 What conditions made the murder of six million European Jews possible? What are the lessons and legacies of the Holocaust tragedy? What are its ghosts and how do they haunt our social, political, and juridical institutions more than fifty years after the event? These are the central questions asked and answered in the aptly named book, The Holocaust=s Ghost: Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education, edited by F.C. DeCoste and Bernard Schwartz. This collection, divided into two sections B part 1: Art and Politics , and part 2: Law and Education B contains thirty-five thoughtprovoking essays by renowned scholars from a variety of disciplines, whose common aim it is to examine the Holocaust phenomenon and its legacies. Their conclusions, while thoughtful and engaging, are also provocative and sometimes disturbing. The Holocaust=s Ghost appropriately begins with an introductory essay by 328 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 Zygmunt Bauman, whose powerful insights into the legacy of the Holocaust set the tone for most of the collection. His essay is intended to draw attention to how the memory of the Holocaust continues in the present to >pollute the world of the living=; it is high time, Bauman stresses, that we move beyond the assiduous work of the historian and begin to assess >the damage done by the memory of gas chambers and crematoria.= Of what these memories consist, and how they affect our world, forms the substance of the book. What are the lessons of this tragedy? Among other things, the Holocaust has taught us that traditional narrative forms of testimony are not the only way to >speak about the unspeakable.= Charlotte Salomon=s Life or Theatre?, Louis Begley=s Wartime Lies, and even the highly controversial work by Binjamin Wilkomirski, Fragments, can inform the historical narrative of the Holocaust and protect against the assault on historical memory. By their very nature, these types of testimony force all of us to take responsibility for the act of remembering. For one group of victims, unfortunately, the Roma, the lesson of the Holocaust is that there is no lesson. The same prejudices that existed before the war persist in haunting them. Today the memory of the Holocaust is at the front and centre of Western culture. Its ghosts permeate our social institutions and our public discourse. We...