Legal Commentary

I came late to the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat, two survivors of the Shoah (he at Schlieben, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, she pretending to be Christian and living on a nearby farm). The tale they told for a decade until last weekend is that during seven months in the winter of 1945, Roma (then nine) met Herman (then a teen) at the camp fence and tossed food to him over the barbed-wire fence. They then met on a blind date in Coney Island in 1957, told their stories of the War and realized who the other was; they fell in love and married and remain together, retired near Miami. This love story landed them two appearances on Oprah and a book contract with Berkley Books (a division of Penguin Group); their story was the subject of a children's book published last fall and of a movie, titled Flower of the Fence, scheduled to go into production in March.

But Ken Waltzer, a Holocaust expert and the director of the Jewish Studies program at Michigan State, looked into the story and began calling it into question. So did Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, an appointee the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. The New Republic did an extensive investigation, including talking to other Schlieben survivors, some of them members of Rosenblat's family, who denied the story. Last Saturday, Berkley canceled the book after Rosenblat admitted to Harris Salomon (the film producer), his agent, and the press that the story was false. Roma was, in fact, in hiding in a different part of Poland, 200 miles away; Herman did not go to the fence to get food every day for months on end. TNR coverage here, here, here, and here. Comments from Waltzer here and here and from Lipstadt here and here.

I want to touch on two points in this story--one on the merits of the memoir controversy and one closer to the academic focus of this blog.

On the merits, I agree with the argument that falsified stories about the Shoah are troubling. But not because I think that enough small falsifications leave room to deny the entire thing. Rather, my problem is that this event was so horrific and that horror is lost amid false stories that humanize the events and, in the course of humanizing, make them seem more benign. The detail that caused scholars to question the story was that the only space along the fence at Schlieben where such an encounter could have occurred was right by the SS barracks; no prisoner and no Jew in hiding would or could deliberately walk that close to an electrified, barbed-wire fence, much less to the barracks and to the SS on a daily basis. A story, purporting to be true, that suggests otherwise makes the SS, and everyone's situation, appear less dangerous.

Waltzer sharply criticized the "culture makers"--Oprah, Berkley Books, producer Salomon--for failing to investigate or even question the veracity of a story that was on the "far end of implausibility" to begin with. He argues that the willingness to accept the story "shows something about the broad unwillingness in our culture to confront the difficult knowledge of the Holocaust." His suggestion is that the culture makers fail when they try to sugarcoat the Shoah for Middle America, resulting in miseducation rather than education. The flip side, as expressed to TNR by film-producer Salomon, is that the "candy-coated message" gives the story resonance with middle America and "can do more to teach people about the Jewish experience during the Holocaust in a way nothing before has done."

Count me on Waltzer's side of the fence (so to speak) on this one. I do not believe that we can teach about the Jewish experience during the Holocaust (or any experience, frankly) by presenting a story so sanitized that it presents a false (not just fictitious, but false) image of reality. Quite the opposite--we disserve the Jewish experience by giving it an impossibly pleasant veneer. Interestingly, Salomon for now plans to go forward with the movie, which he says was to have been a fictionalized "based on" story, rather than a true-to-life translation of the memoir. Salomon apparently sees this story, fictional though it may be, as much like the recent film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in depicting a friendship between people on opposite sides of the camp fence. But, as the TNR story pointed out, that at least acknowledged that it was a work of pure fiction. (See here for a taxonomy of Hollywood Holocaust plots).

Now on to the academic point: This story suggests something about the continuing need for tenure. It is quite common to question that institution, given the negative incentives it provides. Or it is used to protect scoundrels, those who use it to write and say outrageous and offensive things (something that I am all for as a general matter, but not all people and not all universities are). But sometimes tenure still is necessary to protect scholars who are doing the right thing.*

As Waltzer's skeptical investigation, and the reportage by TNR, intensified, there was pushback from "culture makers" with a vested interest in this project going forward, most notably from producer Salomon. One move was to contact the dean at Michigan State to question and complain about Weltzer's research. Salomon also called it "bloody repugnant" that Weltzer spoke with TNR. Salomon also went after Lipstadt via e-mail, suggesting that she was slandering Rosenblat by questioning the story, that he (Salomon) knew more about the Shoah than she did, and that her questioning of the story is a "sin to the memory of all those who perished so long ago."

Of course, in neither situation did anything happen beyond sharp criticism of the scholars--which is, of course, completely fair game. And in neither situation did the University decline to support the professor fully and there is no reason to think they would not have done so had it come to that. But a university granting tenure is Ulysses tying himself to the mast--a precommitment that it saves it from even the possibility of its lesser tendencies. Perhaps the University never even will be tempted and perhaps scholars never will "need" to rely on tenure (I frankly never expect to have to). But it continues to serve a purpose, even if it only is wielded in the rarest and most exceptional circumstances. If I am Ken Waltzer, I feel better and safer entering into this fray knowing that I have tenure behind me.

* Yes, I recognize the subjectivity of those last two sentences.