Leonard Grob - Losing Trust in the World: Holocaust Scholars Confront Torture

THE STEPHEN S. WEINSTEIN SERIES

in Post-Holocaust Studies

The Stephen S. Weinstein Series in Post-Holocaust Studies carries on the work and publications of the Pastora Goldner Series (20042007), exploring questions that continue to haunt humanity in the aftermath of Nazi Germanys attempt to destroy Jewish life and culture. Books in this series address the most current and pressing issues of our post-Holocaust world. They are grounded in scholarship undertaken by the Stephen S. Weinstein Holocaust Symposium, whose membershipinternational, interdisciplinary, interfaith, and intergenerationalis committed to dialogue as a fundamental form of inquiry and understanding. The symposium and the series are generously supported by Stephen S. Weinstein, who, with his wife, Nancy, is dedicated to the work of tikkun olam, the healing of the world, and whose commitment to combating present-day evils in our world has inspired the participants in the symposium who contribute to this series.

Series Editors

DAVID PATTERSON

University of Texas

JOHN K. ROTH

Claremont McKenna College

Editorial Board

MARGARET BREARLEY

London, England

MYRNA GOLDENBERG

Bethesda, Maryland

HUBERT G. LOCKE

University of Washington

ROCHELLE L. MILLEN

Wittenberg University

THE STEPHEN S. WEINSTEIN SERIES

in Post-Holocaust Studies

After-Words: Post-Holocaust Struggles with Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justice (2004)

Edited and Introduced by David Patterson and John K. Roth

Fire in the Ashes: God, Evil, and the Holocaust (2005)

Edited and Introduced by David Patterson and John K. Roth

Open Wounds: The Crisis of Jewish Thought in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (2006)

By David Patterson

Testimony, Tensions, and Tikkun: Reflections on Teaching the Holocaust in Colleges and Universities (2007)

Edited and Introduced by Myrna Goldenberg and Rochelle L. Millen

Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimonies, Ethics, and Aesthetics (2012)

By Dorota Glowacka

Encountering the Stranger: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue (2012)

Edited and Introduced by Leonard Grob and John K. Roth

Different Horrors, Same Hell: Gender and the Holocaust (2013)

Edited and Introduced by Myrna Goldenberg and Amy H. Shapiro

Losing Trust in the World: Holocaust Scholars Confront Torture (2017)

Edited and Introduced by Leonard Grob and John K. Roth

Facing Death: Confronting Mortality in the Holocaust and Ourselves (2017)

Edited and Introduced by Sarah K. Pinnock

Losing Trust in the World

Holocaust Scholars Confront Torture

Edited and Introduced by

LEONARD GROB and JOHN K. ROTH

A Samuel and Althea Stroum Book

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

Seattle and London

Losing Trust in the World is published with the assistance of a grant from the Samuel and Althea Stroum Endowed Book Fund.

2017 by the University of Washington Press

Printed and bound in the United States of America

21 20 19 18 175 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

www.washington.edu/uwpress

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Grob, Leonard, editor. | Grob, Leonard. Torture during the Holocaust: responsible witnessing. Container of (work):

Title: Losing trust in the world : Holocaust scholars confront torture / edited and Introduced by Leonard Grob and John K. Roth.

Description: Seattle ; London : University of Washington Press, [2017] | ?2017 | Series: The Stephen S. Weinstein series in post-Holocaust studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016008401 | ISBN 9780295998459 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780295998466 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: TortureHistory20th century. | TortureHistory21st century. | TortureMoral and ethical aspects. | Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)Historiography.

Classification: LCC HV8593 .L67 2017 | DDC 364.6/7dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008401

The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984.

Cover and part illustrations: First Station: Auschwitz-Birkenau, by Arie Galles (1998, 47 75 in., charcoal and white Cont on Arches with barbed wireimpressed wrought-iron frame), from the suite of fifteen drawings Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet (Hashem Yinkom Daman), the latter phrase meaning, May God avenge their blood. The title of the suite refers both to the Stations of the Cross and to the fact that the Nazi concentration camps and killing centers were near railroad stations. Galless drawings are based on Luftwaffe and Allied aerial photographs of those sites. Within this drawing and all the others are invisibly embedded, hand-lettered phrases from the Kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer for the dead.

In Memoriam
Jean Amry (19121978)

Somewhere, someone is crying out under torture.
Perhaps in this hour, this second. I dare to assert that torture is the most horrible event a human being can retain within himself. Whoever has succumbed to torture can no longer feel at home in the world.

Jean Amry, Torture, in At the Minds Limits

CONTENTS

Leonard Grob and John K. Roth

Leonard Grob

Bjrn Krondorfer

Dorota Glowacka

Suzanne Brown-Fleming

Peter J. Haas

Didier Pollefeyt

Sarah K. Pinnock

Margaret Brearley

David Patterson

John K. Roth

Leonard Grob and John K. Roth

Reality is reasonable only so long as it is moral.

Jean Amry, Radical Humanism

Prologue

The Questions of Torture

LEONARD GROB AND JOHN K. ROTH

What happened, happened. But that it happened cannot be so easily accepted.

Jean Amry, At the Minds Limits

As this books governing epigraph indicates, the Jewish philosopher Jean Amrytorture victim and Holocaust survivorbelieved that reality is reasonable only so long as it is moral. Little, if anything, in his experience made him think that reality was or ever would be that way. Torture did much to account for his loss of trust in world, and yet Amrys statement stands: reality is reasonable only so long as it is moral.

Losing Trust in the World takes its title from a persistent theme in Amrys thought. Its authors stand in solidarity with him, and in doing so we all intend this book to oppose power that condemns anyone to torture. Resisting torture may not be enough to restore lost trust, but this book keeps that goal in mind. Its projectto reflect on losing trust in the world in ways that could help to make reality more moral and thus more reasonablebegins with key questions about torture.

What is torture? Is torture justifiable? What can be done about torture? To introduce how this book grapples with those issues, note that the United Nations consists of more than 190 member states. As of June 2016, 159 of them have become partiesofficially signaled basic agreementto the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and entered into force on June 26, 1987. The UN Convention defines