German 3252
Essay 2 – Generations and Justice
856 Word Count
Can there be justice from the Holocaust?
From 1933 to 1945, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party facilitated the largest genocide in history by killing two thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. These events left survivors and their families without loved ones and more importantly without meaningful justice. Martha Minow, a teacher at Harvard Law school states that “seeking justice for war and mass atrocities like the Holocaust requires balance between two opposite responses: vengeance and forgiveness” (Minow). These two constituents, vengeance and absolution, seem polar, but a happy medium between the two is vital so these events don’t cycle back on each other.
In 1945, following Germanys relinquish in the World War, the Allied countries were given a difficult task to hold Germany responsible for their actions. The first measure of ‘justice’ was conducted in the Nuremburg Trials where twelve major Nazi leaders were sentenced to death for their crimes against humanity. These trials were indeed an instance where legal justice was served but didn’t really touch base with any sense of moral justice. This was a step in the direction of delivering justice to some of the Jewish population but definitely left an imbalance between moral and legal justice. The sentencings legally indicted the Nazis for what they did and punished them in a legal fashion. If moral justice was served, the Nazis and all of their families would have been brutally murdered just as they did to the Jewish population for a decade. Moreover, there is no way to implement both legal and moral justice or the never-ending cycle of vengeance and violence would continue. Personally, I am discomforted in the fact that some Nazis were only given jailtime after they were in control of the largest genocide in history. This may sound grave, but I think that the only way to rightfully serve justice to the Jewish community would be to sentence all Nazi party members to life in prison or death.
There are certain elements from the Holocaust that trials and litigations cannot fix. The emotional losses, physical damage and demoralization of the entire Jewish community are components that cannot be accounted for. The movie Night and Fog sheds light on this idea in a quote by the narrator;
“With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We pretend it happened all at once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry” (Night and Fog).
This quote is a powerful message that must have related to many Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The narrator used imagery to explain the how many Jewish ancestors and loved ones were left beneath the rubble due to the monstrous events of the holocaust. In other words, the narrator is explaining how it is now easy to forgive and forget due to the events being so long ago. In this instance, I don’t think that time could heal the desolation of the Jewish community. I may hinder the ability to recall the horrible events, but it will never fully relinquish the terror once brought onto the Jews. Primo Levi also stated in his writings that “[The Holocaust] happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere” (Levi). These words mean that we need to acknowledge what happened therefore we can make sure it never happens to anyone else, ever again. In a sense, moral justice to some people would be security that something like this could never happen again. As primo stated, these unforeseen events must be remembered but also acted upon to make sure they never happen again.
In the wake of the holocaust, justice must be served between the scale of vengeance and absolution. These two constituents, vengeance and absolution, seem polar, but the happy medium between the two is a recipe to go forth and make sure that these events are in the past. If people were to act solely on vengeance, then the terror would happen again into the other party. If people were to act on forgiveness, then it would deem the actions acceptable to humanity. Furthermore, I don’t personally think that there is a definite answer to what constitutes as Justice in the wake of the holocaust. The scale of crime and terror is far too big for legal action and the moral justice is far too inadequate for the crimes committed.