Volume 37, no. 2 of Yad Vashem Studies is dedicated to the memory of Professor Franklin H. Littell, a major figure in the study of the Holocaust, who played a seminal role in introducing the subject into North American academia. Littell grappled with the role of Christians and the Christian churches during the Holocaust and with their contributions to laying the foundations for its occurrence. He was instrumental in bringing about change in the way the Christian world viewed the Jews and Christian–Jewish dialogue. Together with Professor Hubert G. Locke, he introduced the Scholars’ Conference on the Church Struggle and the Holocaust back in 1970, and he continued to pursue and promote the study of the Holocaust until the end of his days. Littell argued that the Shoah had exposed the Christian world’s most farreaching theological crisis, both in terms of those who had demonized the Jews and from among whom had emerged the murderers. He tried to bring people to face the subject and its implications squarely, as he himself always did. His passion for his subject was infectious, his knowledge of theology and history encyclopedic. In his later years he pursued the development of an early warning system for genocide, in the hope of finding a way to prevent such things from recurring. This issue of Yad Vashem Studies opens with an article on Franklin Littell and his contribution to the field and to humanity by one of his closest friends in Israel, Professor Yehuda Bauer.
The research section of this issue includes three articles addressing three different kinds of documentation — by Jews, by a perpetrator, and by postwar thinkers. Sarit Shavit and Dan Michman analyze the friendship between Leni Yahil and Hannah Arendt that foundered over Arendt’s interpretation of the Eichmann trial in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, as reflected in their exchange of letters in the 1960s; László Karsai analyzes and presents the 1943–1944 wartime diary of Hungary’s Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi; and Claude Klein writes on the wartime testimony written by his mother after she successfully snuck over the border from France into Switzerland.
Hannah Arendt and Leni Yahil need no introduction to the readers of Yad Vashem Studies. The article introduces an exchange of fifteen letters between these two deep thinkers addressing the Holocaust and Israel, in which we watch a developing close friendship collapse in their discussions following the publication of Arendt’s articles and book. The letters include in-depth discussions about totalitarianism, nationalism, and other scholarly and philosophical subjects, as well as personal matters, such as health and family. However, Yahil took Arendt to task, unable to fathom that which had motivated Arendt to write what to Yahil and many others in Israel seemed outrageous. The “Arendt controversy” is well-reflected here, and Yahil’s critique, though never published, is presented in brief form in her letters.
The well-known Hungarian scholar László Karsai introduces us to a very different type of documentation — Ferenc Szálasi’s diary. Karsai’s informative and incisive introduction is invaluable in helping us navigate through the murky flow of Szálasi’s thoughts. Szálasi saw Hungary and Hungarians as a kind of master race who would one day play a dominant role in the world alongside, or perhaps instead of, the Germans. He viewed Jews through a racist prism and saw no future for Jews in Hungary or anywhere else. His thought is close to Nazism, but with a distinct Hungarian twist. This is difficult but important reading for anyone who wants to understand Hungary during that period. Reading the thoughts of a villain who was a radical nationalist and a racist antisemite is not pleasant, but Szálasi’s writing also offers an insight into nationalism, politics, and antisemitism in Europe during that period, all of which played a role in World War II and the Holocaust.
Claude Klein, a law professor at the Hebrew University, presents a survivor testimony written in real time during the war, which is both personal — it is his mother’s testimony — and new to the scholarly world. Cecille Klein Hechel tells of her harrowing experiences trying to cross the border from Grenoble to Switzerland with her two small children in September 1943. The contrast between life for the Jews in Grenoble under the Italians (November 1942–September 1943), which was relatively peaceful, and under the Vichy regime before them or the Germans after them is poignantly evident in this wartime testimony. The difficulty crossing the border into the country where she was raised is telling, as regards the various players and her experiences along the frontier, all of which is told simply and vividly, shedding light on aspects of that haven.
Oula Silvennoinen examines Finland’s role in World War II and the Holocaust, and his forthright and open approach reflect the beginning of a critical grappling with Finland’s role as a co-combatant alongside Nazi Germany. Although Finland did not deport most of its Jews, its alliance with Germany and conflict with the USSR ultimately led to the deaths of many thousands of people. This article marks one of the first pioneering steps in Finland’s facing up to its wartime past and its treatment of Soviet POWs and Jews. Silvennoinen also addresses the reasons for Finland’s long delay in addressing its recent history forthrightly, a delay that lasted well beyond the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Roni Stauber examines the negotiations between West Germany and Israel following the signing of the reparations payments accord in the early 1950s. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the German government were seeking both to make a gesture to the Jewish people and to gain wider acceptance as the new Germany, having shed its recent Nazi past. Whereas Adenauer was interested in full diplomatic relations, Israel was unwilling to go beyond the reparations agreement. Wounds were still too raw even to consider opening negotiations with Germany on establishing diplomatic ties, yet internally Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and his ministry’s professionals quietly debated the pros and cons of this divisive issue for years. However, once West Germany was allowed to join NATO and was clearly being accepted by the West, its need for Israel’s recognition diminished. This, coupled with a desire to improve relations with the Arab world, soon made relations with Israel seem more like an encumbrance than an advantage. Faced with these new circumstances and with West German society’s clear lack of interest in confronting its past, Israel’s political leadership was forced to reconsider its position on upgrading diplomatic relations.
This volume also includes review articles by Yfaat Weiss on Moshe Zimmerman’s worthy book that fills a lacuna pertinent to German Jewry during World War II, and Natan Sznaider on a fascinating book by Dov Schidorsky that chronicles Israeli and Diaspora Jewry’s postwar efforts to retrieve “heirless” Jewish books and libraries from Shoah-devastated Europe.
With this volume, our veteran language editor, Leah Aharonov, is taking a break from Yad Vashem Studies and moving on to other editing challenges in books while continuing with other projects at Yad Vashem. Leah has expertly edited Yad Vashem Studies for nearly twenty years, achieving outstanding results and consistently being a pleasure to work with. We are delighted to welcome David Brauner as language editor. David brings vast experience and expertise to the job, and we look forward to continuing what has begun as an excellent collaboration.
The articles in this issue break new ground, both in documentation and in research, and pose challenges to scholars grappling with the Holocaust, its documentation, and its implications. And to come full circle, we can say that given how far Holocaust studies have come since Franklin Littell’s first yeoman efforts forty years ago, he could look back and have much to be proud of.
