"This book will provoke intellectually, ideologically, and
emotionally loaded responses in the U.S., Germany, and Israel. Barnouw's critique of
the 'enduringly narrow post-Holocaust perspective on German guilt and the ensuing
fixation on German remorse' questions taboos that the political and cultural elites
in those three countries would rather leave alone.... [Barnouw] makes us understand
why the maintenance of a privileged memory of the Nazi period and World War II may
not survive much longer." -- Manfred Henningsen, University of
Hawai'i
In Germany, the reemergence of memories of wartime
suffering is being met with intense public debate. In the United States, the recent
translation and publication of Crabwalk by Günter Grass and The Natural History of
Destruction by W. G. Sebald offer evidence that these submerged memories are
surfacing.
Taking account of these developments, Barnouw examines
this debate about the validity and importance of German memories of war and the
events that have occasioned it. Steering her path between the notions of
"victim" and "perpetrator," Barnouw seeks a place where
acknowledgment of both the horror of Auschwitz and the suffering of the non-Jewish
Germans can, together, create a more complete historical remembrance for postwar
generations.
