Steelhead Rants Again (was Re: Oskar Schindler: War Criminal)

[davemarc]

> From: Steelhead <sitka at teleport.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Oskar Schindler: War Criminal
> Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1997 3:53 PM
> 
> I really don't want to rehash the Schindler's List debate. But since this
> list seems to be populated now with even more devotees of the film than
> when we last visited this topic more than a year ago, I will briefly
> restate my case against it.

Please, Jeffrey St. Clair, don't feel obliged in the least to rehash the
debate--or to trigger it again with your arrogant pontificating, hyperbolic
moralizing, and neglectful factchecking.  Whoops.  Too late.
> 
> The movie glorifies a man, Oskar Schindler, who profited from the use of
> prison/slave labor. To make him a "hero"--with the obligatory "slight
hint
> of moral ambiguity" to add "depth" to his character--for attempting to
> "save" from extirmination "some" of the laborers who had built and
largely
> managed his "business" is, I contend, a dangerous and deceptive use of
> artistic propaganda--hence my earlier parallel of Spielberg to Leni
> Reifenstahl--though Leni is by far the more gifted film-maker, and, oddly
> enough, has probably more heart than Mr. S, despite his talent for
selling
> schmaltz.

Once again Jeffrey St. Clair trots out this asinine comparison between
Spielberg and Riefenstahl.  Riefenstahl, the artist who was near the top of
the Nazi regime but for decades and decades
claims to have known nothing about its offenses against humanity.  Years
before the Final Solution, Fritz Lang, the first pick for the job Leni got,
figured out that he ought to get his ass out of the country (and make
anti-Nazi propaganda films) rather serve Hitler, but Riefenstahl stayed and
stayed and basked in the Nazi limelight.  She shot miles and miles of film
under the Nazi regime, but how much of those pro-Nazi commercials depicted
the suffering of the Jews, the gypsies, the communists in anyway?  Precious
little.

So here's a woman who profited from the use of prison/slave labor and
probably saved no one from extermination.  And Jeffrey St. Clair, who
doesn't have a problem demonizing Henry Ford for distributing anti-Jewish
tracts, insists on championing her in order to criticize Steven Spielberg,
who happens to spearhead the Shoah Project (though you wouldn't know that
from reading Jeffrey St. Clair's rants).  How crass.  And he doesn't even
spell Riefenstahl's name correctly.
> 
> Schindler's factory was a *negelganger,* a side camp designed to exploit
> the same kind of prison labor pools that were assembling rockets at
> Nordhausen (Dora/Buchenwald), chemicals and Xyklon-b gas for Dow and IG
> Farben at Dauchau and Mauthausen, film for IG Farben at Ravensbruck,
> electronic equipment for Phillips and Siemens at Herzogenbusch, car parts
> for BMW and Daimler-Benz at Sachsenhausen, and amunitions for Krupp at
> Gross Rosen and Neuengamme.
> 
> In aiding the escape of the "Schindler Jews," Schindler was shrewdly
acting
> in his own self-interest: first, the gassing of his best and most
> experienced employees would be bad for business; and, second, he saw the
> writing on the wall--the war was coming to a rapid close, the Soviet
troops
> were moving in to liberate the death camps, and he needed to take some
kind
> of action to save his own ass. This is the liberal (in John Locke's sense
> of the word) theme of the movie: that enlightened self-interest is both
> heroic, moral, and redemptive. 

Maybe Jeffrey St. Clair's not aware that these days there's just a teensy
weensy debate on whether or not any movie can have a single theme (and
maybe he's not aware that "both" should only modify a list of two
components).  Spielberg presents a story that raises questions about issues
but doesn't necessarily state that there are clear answers.  According to
one Jewish tradition, for example, Schindler's actions are not necessarily
the highest form of righteousness, which would be completely anonymous. 
Nevertheless, Schindler enacted a lower, more problematic, more debatable,
more questionable, form of righteousness while advancing himself.  That's
clear in the film.

> The socio-political implication: Germany can
> be rebuilt with capitalist and social/democratic institutions and we'll
not
> have to worry about another spasm of genocidal tendencies breaking out.

Where does this projection come from?  Has Jeffrey St. Clair even seen the
film?  Where in the film can the basis for this be found?  
> 
> Yes, of course, Speilberg shows us the children, taunting "the Jews, the
> Jews," and it is a typical cheap trick on his part. Where are the parents
> of these children? Probably out with the local police posse, known as the
> Einsatzkommando, ordinary citizens--not the crazed Ralph Fiennes
> character--that slaughtered between 2.5 and 3 million Jews--not in death
> camps, but on the streets, in the markets, and in their homes.

Oh boy, so Jeffrey St. Clair's found another academic he can like: 
Goldhagen, whose book appeared after the book and the film Schindler's
List.  Perhaps when Steely makes his own two hour docudrama about the
Holocaust, he'll manage to cover every aspect of the story and anticipate
future scholarship in the process.  If memory serves, I think Jeffrey St.
Clair admires Night and Fog.  Weren't some key details notoriously excluded
from that excellent film, too?  Like something about France, for starters?
> 
> Schindler was a war criminal in my view, as surely as Rieber, Henry Ford,
> and the executives of IG Farben, Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz, Dow Chemical,
> Shell, and the hundreds of other corporations who used the genocidal
> rampage of the Nazis to increase their profit margins. If Spielberg had
> wanted to concentrate on the heroism of a resistance to the Nazis, and
> profile people who really put their ass on the line to save Jews, he
should
> have focused on the courageous citizens of Denmark or the underground in
> Italy, the countries which had the highest rate of survival for Jews
under
> Nazi occupation. I recommend two sources: Zuccotti's The Italians and the
> Holocaust and Leni Yahil's The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a
Democracy.

If Jeffrey St. Clair wants to concentrate on a filmmaker with heart and
talent, why the hell does he insist on Riefenstahl?  Spielberg hits a lot
closer with Schindler than St. Clair does with Riefenstahl.  Anyway,
Spielberg's actively involved in documenting the oral history of survivors
from all over the world. So he's doing exactly what Jeffrey St. Clair
suggests he isn't doing.  (And Riefenstahl's been around all along.  Where
are her attempts to deal honestly with her role in the Holocaust?)  Jeffrey
St. Clair's been informed repeatedly about the Shoah Project--he even seems
to have done some research about it--yet he seems to forget about it
whenever he launches these idiotic diatribes.
> 
> Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's remarkable book, Hitler's Willing Executioners,
> has been much abused by the Speilberg allies on this list. 

How about one example, just one, to show how Goldhagen's book has been
"much abused" here?  I'd never accuse Jeffrey St. Clair of perpetuating a
Big Lie (that's Riefenstahl's specialty), but there are so many omissions
and mistakes in his posts that I'm beginning to think he's a specialist in
little lies.  I'm even beginning to have trouble bringing myself to read
his articles because I've found so many of his assertions here to be
specious.

> I won't defend
> Goldhagen's conclusions, except to say that his work is a chilling
> masterpiece that must be confronted. But I would recommend the following
> less controversial works as antidotes to those who believe Schindler's
List
> is "pretty bold stuff":
> 
> The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies by Frank
> Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn
> 
> Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazi's: Robert Proctor
> 
> The Nazi Doctors: RJ Lifton
> 
> Hitler's Professors: the part of scholarship in Hitler's Germany: Max
Weinreich
> 
> Blowback: Christopher Simpson
> 
> Jews for Sale: Yehuda Bauer
> 
> Education for Death: the making of a Nazi: Gregor Ziemer
> 
> The Splendid Blond Beast: Christopher Simpson
> 
No argument here.

davemarc