From Holocaust to German Unification

Classnotes and Study Guides:
Part 3: Vergangenheitsbewältigung
(Coming to termas with the Past)
for Students in my First Year Seminar: From Holocaust to German Unification
at McDaniel College, compiled by Dr. Mohamed Esa

Questions for the discussion

"The Nasty Girl" (Das schreckiche Mädchen) by Michael Verhoeven
"The Reader" (Der Vorleser) by Bernhard Schlink

"The Nasty Girl" ("Das schreckliche Mädchen")
by Michael Verhoeven, 1989

The name of the town "Pfilzing" sounds like the German verb "filzen’, which means to be stingy or to search through. Explain this!
Who is trying to cope with the Nazi past and how is it accomplished?
Who is trying to conceal their past, how and why?
How did the people of the town behave during the Nazi time?
What were their motivations?
Discuss how the film deals with hypocrisy of society in Bavaria.
What is being said about "What's past is past" and "Let sleeping dogs (crimes) lie"?
Did Sonya go too far to find the truth, or is she a "good" girl who reveals a "nasty" truth?
Explain how the Nazi past haunts the present.
Relate the following statement by the philosopher George Santayana to the film: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
What would you do if you were Sonya or an "ordinary" citizen and lived in the town of Pfilzing (Passau): "unveil the past at all costs" or "hide the past at all costs"? Explain!

"The Reader" ("Der Vorleser")
by Bernhard Schlink, New York: Vintage International, 1998

Who? Where? When? What? Why?
What is Hanna accused of?
Is Hanna a perpetrator? Why?
Why didn't Michael Berger help Hanna?
What was his dilemma? (2 images of Hanna)
Who is "coping with the past," how and why?
How is Michael coping with the past? How is Hanna coping with the past?
What does Hanna represent? What does Michael represent?
Does Hanna represent Germany: before, during, and after the Holocaust?
Does Michael represent "the victims": Jews and Germans??
Compare Michaels state of mind as a young boy (before the trial = time of innocence) and as an adult (after the trial = time of reasoning and realization (Erkenntnis)?
Was Hanna a "cold blooded murderer," stubborn, proud woman," or even an "ordinary German"?
What is being said about "guilt" and "atonement", collective and individual guilt" and "collective and individual atonement"?
To flee is not only to run away. It is also to arrive some where. How does Michael and/or Hanna flee to arrive some where?
Michael says that he was not able to cry, not able to produce tears "I felt the tears again in my chest and throat" (p. 206) not in his eyes. What does that mean? What do tears symbolize? Why wasn't he ready for a "purification" a "catharsis"? He was not ready for an inner liberation or catharsis. He became a lawyer, a rationalist thinker and planer. He lost his ability to be spontaneous -the ability to mourn??
Why does Michael reveal his secret that he loved Hanna to a Holocaust Survivor? Does he owe the victims the truth? Does he want to set himself free and be at peace with himself?
He meets the Holocaust survivors as a representative of the young generation that must deal with the notion of "collective guilt".
If someone loves/ sleeps with a former Nazi guard or murderer (without knowing it). Do you have to feel automatically guilty? How can/ cant' this be applied to Michael? How did Michael feel about it?
Did Michael forgive Hanna? How? Would he free himself from his homesickness (or Hanna-sickness)?
Why does Hanna take responsibility for all what happened?

"(And) was she vain enough, and evil enough, to become a criminal simply to avoid exposure?" (p. 133)
Was she too proud to admit her weaknesses
Wy didn't she have enough strength to fight for her own cause?
She was not able to run away from her own shadow, her past.
Ihre Vergangenheit hat sie eingeholt.
Was it a form of self punishment: Die Schuld auf sich nehmen als form der Selbstbestrafung?
How can a sadist become a masochist
Question of guilt and atonement
Deus ex machina

Did Hanna (Germany) change after her trial (Nuremberg Trial)? How?
What did Hanna read while she was in prison? Why?
Hanna received recognition but not absolution from the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Explain this.
Explain how the process of writing can help people set themselves free.
Can the book be read as an attempt by Schlink to revise German history ("revisionist approach")?