Professor David Peimer
Goebbels: The Propaganda Genius of the 20th Century?
Professor David Peimer - Goebbels: Propaganda Genius of the 20th Century - With Anita Lasker-Wallfisch on the Liberation of Belsen
- So today is a bit of a mixed feeling, I have to be honest with everyone, inside myself, ‘cause I’m going to talk about Goebbels and propaganda, not about his life, but just about some of his main ideas in propaganda and what he implemented. And I’m going to show some examples of the propaganda that he used. And then some very contemporary, what for me would be, interpretations and usages of Goebbels’ ideas, how they interpreted, and used in the modern internet media age. I’m also going to mention some ideas of the great, or for me, the really interesting and wonderful Yale political theorist, Jason Stanley, who I think has hit the nail on the head with some of the most interesting ideas on how contemporary propaganda functions based on these ideas. You know, going back to Goebbels and his whole period. The other thing to mention, why I feel a bit of a strange, mixed feeling, not strange, but a very mixed feeling and deep sensitivity, is today, as I’m sure many people know, is the 78th anniversary, literally today, of the anniversary of the Liberation of Belsen. And later at twenty to five, Trudy and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, two of the most wonderful human beings I’ve ever met, will be coming on and having a discussion in relation to that. And also we will show a five minute clip from the superb documentary called, ‘A Painful Reminder’ by Sydney Bernstein. So I’m going to begin with, until then, looking at Goebbels and his ideas of propaganda, a lot of these, you know, in preparing for this. I looked at a lot of commentators on Goebbels, but then went back because I do have his diaries, which are an insane number of pages, but actually the most, I think we bleed the most significant ideas from inside that.
Opening to look at these two pictures of the same human being. The reason I chose this, is to show, obviously this is for me, one of the most evil people who ever lived. I hesitate if Hitler could have achieved, and the Nazi war machine, and the extermination, the absolute horror of it, without the influence of Goebbels. And we know this history, I’m not going to go into that of the Democratic elections, how Goebbels manufactured so many images of Hitler and the ideas of the Nazi party, et cetera in Germany. That’s for another time. I’m looking specifically at his main ideas on propaganda and how they were implemented because it overlaps with my interest, obviously, in art and literature, the visual arts, the literary arts, and also the theatricality of propaganda and the dangerous side of a certain approach to theatricality, whatever the genre used, in their case, of course, mostly film, radio, and posters, leaflets, et cetera, in our times, obviously, the internet and so on. But the ideas remain, is the point. These two images, for me, capture, in a sense, the two sides because I go along with what we were talking about last week where, you know, the debate of showing representations of Hitler in film. Is this a monster devoid of any human capacity? Or is this a human who has these megalomaniac, grotesque, horrific ideas with no heart and implementing them? And obviously there’s an ability in individuals like this, of Goebbels, to charm, to be friendly, as we’re talking about with Hitler, to children, animals, you know, certain other peoples.
And of course the other side of him, which is the nature of the work. And these are two extremes or two parts of the same personality. And without getting into detail about Jekyll and Hyde and all of that, it’s emblematic for me of the two extremes of human nature. And that is what we, as educational people, must show, why? Because if we are to gain anything from history, as Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. And if we are to gain anything to help prevent this in the future, to help as a warning in a sense. We need to understand it through education, I believe, how propaganda works in a hundred years ago and in our own times as well. And I think it’s part of the crucial function of lockdown as many, many others are doing in every area and part of an education system that’s worth its salt. So Goebbels, going on to him. And next week I’m going to talk about how representation of images in film of the Holocaust and the debates around that from Claude Lansman to Schindler’s list and many others. I’m not going to get so much into the debate on the right or wrong or the morality of this today, but just trying to understand his insights and usage of propaganda. Its echoes very resonantly, powerful today and, therefore, gain an understanding. Goebbels wrote in his diary, and I’m quoting a lot from his diary today, we entered the Reichstag, let’s remember 1933, they get the majority, they get 34, 35% of the vote, check that, we enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us the insights as to how we can destroy democracy, that is a democracy’s problem.
We come neither as friends nor neutrals. We come as enemies, as the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we into the Reichstag. So he’s completely conscious of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And one of the insights is, if democracy is foolish enough to give us the tools of how we can destroy democracy itself, then we will use it to destroy it. And he’s the first to articulate it in one sentence, like that. I’ll come back to that shortly. This idea of how democracy does it, and it does it through the terrible, terrible irony of free speech, one of the hallmarks of democracy. But what that enables the other extreme to do, also from Goebbels in his diary, and this is probably well known by many people, propaganda must limit itself to very few points. It must harp on these in slogans again and again until the last member of the public understands what you mean and what you want. Very few points, very few slogans, and just keep hammering them. Propaganda must be popular and not intellectually pleasing. Never appeal to the intellect, appeal to popular entertainment. It is not the task of propaganda to discover or even discuss intellectually valid truths. These are the insights from this man’s diary. Nationalism must be used in propaganda, always. It is far more wide reaching for the masses than any discussion of internationalism, what we would call maybe a global consciousness today.
Always use nationalism. I have devoted, this is Goebbels, I have devoted exhaustive studies to the protocols of Zion. As propaganda, I find that we can use them extremely well. I mentioned this to the Fuhrer the other day. He believes the protocols to be absolutely genuine, exclamation mark. And he goes on about it. He is, Goebbels himself, is ambiguous about whether he believes they’re genuine or not, but whether he persuades or Hitler just believes it, it’s in the diaries of Goebbles. I go on from the diary, One of the most ridiculous aspects of democracy, is that the it has offered us the means by which we can destroy it. Free speech, we will use free speech. We can say anything we want. We can be as extreme as we want, but democracy holds free speech up to be a value. Well, we will turn that [Indistinct] into our sword, and we will attack it and destroy democracy with it. Christ is the genius of love, this is Goebbels, and as such, the diametrical opposite of Judaism, which is the incarnation of hate. The most brilliant propaganda techniques that I can argue, is all from his diaries, is to confine yourself to very few points, repeat them over and over again. And the lie will become believed by the majority. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes the truth. I have learnt this from studying British propaganda about colonialism. The more they repeated the lie, of they were bringing civilization and Christianity to the dark masses of the world, the more it was believed at home. Its all Goebbels. If you repeat a lie many times, people will, of course, start believing it.
And then another interesting insight, and he’s talking in the context of British imperialism and the First World War. I have studied how the British and the allies used propaganda in the first war. They accused the other side precisely of what they were guilty of. Very clever. We will do exactly the same. We will accuse the other side of what we are guilty of, what we do. This was the cleverest trick used by the Allies and the English in their propaganda against Germany during the war. To accuse Germany of what our enemies themselves were doing. So he goes on and on in all these ways, and, you know, it’s hundreds of pages in the diary, but it’s filled with his ongoing insights into propaganda which have lasted, I would argue, you know, nearly a hundred years since the war or since the thirties, that’s for sure. He obviously used anti-Semitism, whether it was a merely a means to achieve personal power or whether he had a deep-seated hatred against Jewish people, is open to discussion. Interesting that there was a discussion with Goring when he was in the Nuremberg prison with Leon Goldenhausen, and, sorry Goldensohn, who was one of the psychologists who was sent by the Americans to interview the inmates in Nuremberg. So there’s no reason for him to try and impress because this is a Jewish psychologist interviewing Goring in his prison cell. This is not him performing in the trial itself. And he wrote, Goebbels, he said to Goldensohn, Goebbels in my opinion, used anti-Semitism as a means of achieving personal power. Whether he had any deep-seated hatred against the Jews is questionable, in my opinion. He was too much of an opportunist to have any deep seated feelings for or against anything except his personal attainment of power.
Now, whether we agree with Goring or not, but the only thing I would say, is that Goring has no need to impress, he’s just speaking to a psychologist in the Nuremburg prison. So whether this man has a total opportunist, no opinion either way, doesn’t matter, all that matters is power, or whether he had a deep hatred for Jews and was playing on that. It’s at least a question mark. And we can decide which way, you know, we would feel, it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t have a hatred for Jewish people. But it’s interesting, always for me as an educationist and writer, to look at the other side of the same opinion. Goring went on, I couldn’t discuss anything with Goebbels or Himmler. Goebbels was the most dishonest of any man I’ve ever met. So, of course, I hardly discussed anything with him. Now again, this isn’t in the trial, this is to the psychologist interviewing. Then Goebbels goes on, we must embody human traits in the physicality of one individual. And it’s a loose translation from the German and stereotype that and use it and repeat it endlessly. So we get his images of the Jewish person. It’s repeated again and again. We know the image so well, I’m not going to repeat it, but it’s located in the body, first. The body has to be the visual representation of the hate of the propaganda. He speaks about the race of parasites, the eternal Jew, the sponger, the wanderer, et cetera. The eternal wandering Jew.
And this word ‘eternal’ goes often because he’s obviously invoking ancient history that, you know, it’s not just us Nazis hating Jewish people. It goes way back to the, you know, many, many things in history. And of course then once he’s located it in the body, he can link, as you’ll see, typhus, diseases, rats, dirty, cunning, deceitful, all around the notion of disease. You can do it if you locate it in the body. So that’s crucial. Choose one body image, which is just pumped again and again. The single image, the single body, creates the stereotypes. Of course, what is stereotype? It’s at the essence of prejudice. It’s also at the essence of great humour. But that’s in the context of satire and whit. Take it out of the context of satire and prejudice requires stereotype. Take one characteristic of a group of individuals and make that the defining core of the race, the religion, the group, and push that again and again in different costume, clothing, settings. Propaganda, he goes on, must mobilise hatred against the enemy. Enemy can be within as much as without, and one must convince the justness of the cause. So the enemy must, of course, appear this diseased evil parasite or savage or barbaric. Never appeal to facts or science in propaganda. Appeal only to emotion and personify the propaganda in these ways that I’ve mentioned. Use repetition, slogans, always repeat the same idea again and again. This is all Goebbels’ ideas. We can see so much of this, to me, resonant today. In our times, what Goebbels understood is that politics is entertainment, it’s storytelling. And that’s where it links, to me, for theatre, literature, novels. It has taken on, especially in our times, entertainment. Think of the spectacles of the rallies in Nuremberg and all the others, and the marches and those big images. The spectacles, it’s of theatrical entertainment almost.
So propaganda and politics becomes a spectacle. Does it go back to the ancient Romans? Bread and circus, and the gladiators, the coliseum, there’s obviously an echo there. It must activate emotions of love and aggression. One group aggression to the other, whoever that other is. There must be a shared bond in hate, not a shared bond in love, a shared bond to hate some other group, not just dislike or question. You know, in our own contemporary times, a much more sophisticated resonance of that wouldn’t be a shared hate, but it would be what the great, really fantastic I think, post-colonial theorist Paul Gilroy argued, was a groomed ignorance. How education and propaganda can use, what he called a ‘groomed ignorance’ by what you don’t tell people in education or what you don’t tell people through the media and other things. You groom a certain ignorance and, therefore, you can manipulate the masses, of course. The aim, of course, being to dehumanise. Edward Bernays, in 1928, in his book ‘Propaganda’. And, of course, he was related to Freud as we know. And his rabbi, his great-grandfather was a chief rabbi of Hamburg. Anyway, he goes to America, and his mother was Freud’s sister, but he wrote this book, ‘Propaganda’, where he argued that consent must be engineered through the emotions, fundamentally. Engineering consent in the democratic cultures.
So the new political art form takes this theatricality, takes all of these qualities, and, of course, the internet, it has a far greater reach. Jason Stanley, the Yale, the very interesting and wonderful Yale political philosopher has a very interesting argument where he suggests that in today’s environment, the Orwellian idea of 1984, you know, animal farm of the model of propaganda makes less sense of a sort of top down, you know, couple of leaders at the top, the state, et cetera. He argues- They have access to the information and they just pump it all out, because he argues in the digital age, news consumption is the same as shopping. It’s manipulating a manufactured consent in opinion, in public opinion. But it’s almost, you can shop on the internet for any opinion you want that feeds your prejudice. So what he argues is that what we would call propaganda today, how the rise, it links to the rise of conspiracy theories, spin, which is misleading, and that the main goal of propaganda today is to undercut the very idea of truth and distract the audience. If you can destroy what the very idea of truth is, you know, let’s go back to liberal education. What is truth? If we can destroy that through mass media entertainment on the internet, we can take back control because we confuse people as to what is truth and what is lie. They don’t know. Propaganda is about framing the conversation by overwhelming the public with disinformation. And that’s a fascinating contemporary interpretation of using the internet in mass media.
So that the goal of propaganda in our digital age is to make information and truth irrelevant. And thus believe any lie that comes up on the internet, which comes from any corner. So the idea of truth itself must be thrown out the window because there are so many possible truths, so many possible ideas. And in the jargon of many of these propagators, flood the information market space so that people cannot distinguish a fact from a lie. And they don’t want to, some of them may want to just collude with whatever information is thrown their way. And once you open the information market space, it becomes almost a free market of ideas. Any market can be sold in any stall on the information space. Any idea can be sold in any market. So the idea of truth goes out the window and we equalise or we trivialise realistic truth, is the achievement because I can buy any one of 20, 30 truths about the same event and that’s where it’s no longer top down. It’s coming from the digital age up in Jason Stanley’s ideas. And that’s the distinctive nature of propaganda today. And then it goes back to all these ideas I mentioned of Goebbels, you know, one lie, push it, et cetera, et cetera. ‘Flood the zone’ is the contemporary phrase of 21st century digital propaganda, not about ideas or facts, just simply my team or your team. And again, that links to the crucial transformation of politics into a contest of tribal identity. As an explicit goal of modern western propaganda. Politics becomes a contest of small or large tribal identities. What’s true or false? What’s right or wrong becomes trivialised. All that matters is I have a marketplace of so many ideas, I can choose whichever, whatever. And, of course, it’s great for ratings because it feeds into theatrical desire for spectacle and endless news, new conflict, news all the time. This endless insatiability, perhaps part of human nature.
So go back to Goebbels at the end before I’m showing the slides now. He wrote, the best joke of democracy is that it gave its enemies the means by which to destroy it, free speech. Why, because in free speech, nobody can be stopped. What we might call hate speech today, or not, or conspiracy theory or misleading spin or obvious blatant untruths, lies, in the democratic debate of free speech, all of this can be allowed. Where do you draw the line? Who draws the line? Who doesn’t? Goebbels, in a hundred years ago understood this and said, that is what we will use in propaganda to destroy democracy, human rights, ideas of justice itself. Use the very device of democracy. And the technique of free speech, really, the principle of free speech, a terrifying thought. One, which I believe, needs an enormous amount of investigation. But that’s for another time. Okay, I want to show some slides now from his time and link to our time, now. This is, on the left hand side, this is one of the Nazi, classic Nazi propaganda posters. I think the meaning is fairly obvious, you know, the black jazz player represented as an animal. Obviously it has to be the star of David as well, you know, decadent music, black, Jewish, et cetera. I think it’s fairly obvious. Let’s look at the colours. Red and black, always so powerful in propaganda. And, of course, we don’t need to go back to the swastika to know it. This is obviously an image from, again, from Goebbels’ propaganda machine.
You know, there’s the little boy, but there’s the great God, mythical hero. And it’s that link between son and father. The archetypal link played out again and again, Oedipal in certain ways. And there’s the little girl on the other side with that dark blue background, you know, and her looking with those eyes, the boy’s eyes looking up and, you know, the Hitler eyes straight, determined vision. We know those looks so well. Now this, for me, is one of the most grotesquely evil and powerful images coming out of this, the 1930s. The Jewish banker at the back. What I said about the physical embodiment, the nose, the eyes, the lips, the weight in the body, you know, then there’s the American flag, the British, and the Russian. So the Jew is responsible for capitalism. The Jew responsible for communism. The Jew is responsible for anything because he finances all of it. One of the most powerful images, I believe, that came out of the evil of the propaganda of this time was this one. Many studies have been written about this particular image. This here is an image, interestingly, I chose it because there were many of them, but not that much is known how much the Germans brought in young men from the countries they conquered from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, yeah, et cetera, et cetera, not only from the Eastern Europe to join the SS and to join the Wehrmacht. I think the meaning is pretty obvious. You can be part of the glory. And this is the heroic, romantic image, obviously, if you join. Now compare that heroic image, you know, to these other ones that I’ve shown. This is one of the most horrific, and even though this goes way back a hundred, nearly a hundred years, to the thirties, there’s the Jewish character in the back.
And it’s about Jews are responsible for typhus. What I said, the parasite, the disease, when I show a little bit of Jud Süß in the next week or two, you’ll see it’s always linked to rats and disease of the body. And here, you know, there’s the typhus, well carried by the insect, and there’s the Jewish individual, you know, portrayed in this horrific stereotype behind. This image here is from one of the films that was made during this period, one of the most propagandistic and disgusting films ever made. ‘The eternal Jew’, I don’t have to describe it for you. I think we all get the meaning of it and the terrifying power that this would have if we imagine all those years ago. And I would argue even today, this would not just be seen as kitsch in terms of, you know, oh, this has been done, we’ve seen these images before, et cetera. I would argue the opposite. I would argue that it’s almost as terrifying today as it was then. And the effect, so direct, everything I mentioned about focus on the individual, stereotype and the body always, and the look, you know, and that star of David, of course. This is here Goebbels, think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play. That phrase, again, comes from his diaries. And it’s gone down in many places that this has studied. From, you know, PR to many, many, many other things. And you know, this is the cynicism, but I don’t think it’s so far from how some of these things are used today.
You know, who’s playing who, the press and the government, the giant, it’s just a keyboard, you know, it’s a typewriter keyboard, basically, that he means. It’s just a tool for the advancement of power and propaganda. This is a contemporary image for today. If we have a look at it, and this is only a couple of years ago. Obviously the White House, and often in contemporary imagery, again, the sort of slimy grotesque creatures, whether it’s the typhus, the insect, or the rats, we’ll see again, or the octopus, you know, the hands of the octopus, of the Jewish people are spread all over, you know, and of course there it is, you know, over the White House. And there’s the octopus over the world on the other side. This here, another image, and, of course, this is one of the classics that we know, you know, again, one individual, the physical embodiment of all the evil from the propagandistic point of view, obviously linked to Jewish people, and of course all the gold coins behind. But look at the absolute, the the grotesque simplicity of it. An image that you create of a man. And just one thing is all the gold coins, don’t need more. Reduce it to its simplicity. Hammer it again and again and again. Reduce an entire people to one stereotyped physical image. These techniques we see again and again, this is today. And how far is this from this? You know, it’s the same techniques, I would argue, being employed, which are the Goebbels’ ideas. And then of course, here are the one trope that we all know so well, very contemporary. And these are massively circulating, not just on the dark web. These are circulating on the web, on the internet in a massive scale.
You know, I don’t want to get into the numbers of like or looks. Okay, and look it all at the bottom from MI6 to ISIS, you know, everything is feeding and you get the image completely. I don’t want to go into any discussion of it. I think it says it itself. It even goes to the children’s thing of the piggy bank. I mean, it is ruthless in where it’ll take the image and hammer it and push it and never stop. This is from, I’m going to show next week a little bit of Leni Riefenstahl’s film ‘Triumph of the will’ and she, of course, was hitter’s favourite filmmaker, fascinating, she died in her nineties. And we’ll talk a bit about her life, when I show ‘triumph of the will’, clips from ‘Triumph of the Will’, this is probably the most horrifically powerful propagandistic film ever made. And triumph of the will, this was the poster, the one on the right hand side. This was the poster for it. It’s not so far from images of Darth Vader and Star Wars and many other things today, is it, and let’s see, you know, the darkness and the light and how it’s played with, to give an image of such steel power, if you like, an image of heroism, romanticism, but requiring the ability to murder and slaughter in that image, I believe. On the left is Riefenstahl with Hitler, you know, and then he descended by the aeroplane. I’ll get into that when I show the film. This is a very, very contemporary one as well. The very idea of liberties is been, has got this, the octopus’s tentacles, and of course with the star of David on it. Notice how simple, couple of colours, just one or two objects, and you create, through a surrealist idea, such a powerful propagandistic image.
And to go on here, this is one which I’m sure many would know, you know, that even a figure like Trump is led by, not by Putin, is led by, you know, Netanyahu, is led by the Jewish leader, has nothing to do with Netanyahu, pro or con. It’s just even in this trope, these are so widely disseminated, its terrifying in today’s world, in the last seven, eight years. Let’s go on, George Soros, we back to the octopus, which the octopus, the dog, and couple of others, are the very contemporary images, in Goebbels’ time, it was more the cockroach, the rats, the insect, you know, spreading the virus. But in our times, it’s, you know, it’s the same idea, but just finding different animal creatures, the meaning is pretty clear, I think, there. This is an interesting one from, on the left hand side, this was one of Goebbels’ department of propaganda’s images. There’s the Jewish man, you can see how he’s dressed, obviously, the fat banker, trying to seduce, you know, this, in inverted commas, pure aryan girl. And there are the little children, you know, looking on, in pretended innocence, you know, but obviously the picture of good and evil, of innocence and evil. You set up the simple binaries in order to propagate the image of evil through propaganda. The rest, you know, ‘Jews explain why they bring millions of Muslims’, et cetera. This is another hole. This is a very contemporary one. And this, and on the left hand side, one going back to the Nazi period.
This here again, on the left hand side, this is a very contemporary one. Only in the last number of years, this image, you know, and look at, you know, America, you know, the big animal, but underneath, you know, the Jew snake. So it’s linked to the snake, the octopus, these other kinds of creatures who have a very sinister and evil connotation in contemporary consciousness, always with the star of David flag, so often used, okay, horrific and powerful. But it is so contemporary and, again, resonant of the ideas of Goebbels. And then the last one I want to show, come back to this one, because I think this remains one of, the one on the left, one of the most powerful and infamous from the whole thirties and forties period of Nazi Germany in terms of propaganda and the hatred of Jewish people. On the right hand side is a much more contemporary one, which is using more words and, you know, certain images all put together. You can imagine this coming up on the internet now, it’s geared towards glancing on the internet, one for one, you know, in the privacy of people’s homes, et cetera. Okay, I’m going to hold it here. Thank you very much everybody. And just a brief introduction to some of the ideas of Goebbels and propaganda. And in the sense of the anniversary of the liberation of Belsen, to hand over to Trudy and Anita, thank you very much.
Thank you very much David. And Anita, lovely to see you.
Hello.
Hello, and I see Maya in the background. Welcome Maya. Before we speak, we are going to show a very interesting film that was made by Sydney Bernstein. One of the first Jewish doctors into Belsen was Dr. Stone. He contacted his brother-in-law, Sydney Bernstein, who was at that time working for the BBC, Sydney Bernstein was already a very famous filmmaker. And later on, of course, went on to create Granada television. Bernstein came into the camp, and, of course, what he saw totally horrified him. And going back to what David has just done, in a way that terrible propaganda does link us in to commemorating this day. Because there is a thread, but what Bernstein did was to make a film of the liberation. And he had advice from Hitchcock because Hitchcock, at the time, was working with him under Capricorn, and Hitchcock told him to make it in the round. Now, the point about the film, ‘A Painful reminder’, the film, the original film that Bernstein made was to be shown onto every German, it was to go onto every German cinema. But then the allies decide not, why, because they are going to need West Germany to bolster up against communism. So consequently, the film was never shown on German cinema. However, when Bernstein, later on back in 1986, he decided he would take some of the reels that he had made in the camp and put it into the middle of a film as to why it wasn’t shown in Germany. And again, it gives you a terrible view of the cynicism. So what we’re going to do first, thank you Judi, is to show some footage from Bernstein’s film, where he actually interviews Anita, and then I will talk to Anita, so thank you.
[Narrator] Witnessing the liberation was 18 year old Anita Lasker, a survivor of three and a half years in different camps.
I remember somebody said, I think the British are coming, I didn’t want to know. However, in the end, I believe my sister dragged me out of the bunk. And we sat down on the ground, leaning against the barrack. By that time it was summer, well, it was spring, and it was very warm, and it didn’t help the bodies, of course, there was the most unbelievable stench, so we are told by the people who came in, we no longer smelled it. So we sat outside there and just waited for something to happen. And there it was, a loud hailer. ‘You’re liberated.’
[Interviewer] What were conditions in these huts like by this time?
Unbelievable. Especially as people died and died and died, and you had to take the bodies out and more bodies and they piled up as you’ve seen in the pictures. And there was no way to remove them even. There was nothing, it was infernal. You know, they had seen a thing or two, these soldiers, you know, they’d been through a war, but I don’t think anybody could imagine, or worst, dreams anything like Belsen. And of course, their natural reaction was to give them food. I don’t think any soldier could have eaten a thing. And that was a another disaster because people started eating and died because of eating, because we weren’t used to eating. And unless that was very carefully monitored, the body couldn’t take it. So thousands of people died after the liberation. I mean, all you have to do is to shave a man’s head and immediately he’s a nobody, he ceases to exist and to isolate people from their families. Say somebody is taken with his family, then at one point they’re separated, so you are alone. You get your head shaved and you get a number. You forget who you are, you’re just nobody. And the next thing is you get insulted. You get no food or just a subsistence level. So you are hungry, you are cold, you’re made to stand up for hours and then to be counted. You probably have dysentery, you’re not allowed to go and relieve yourself. And the end result is that you are an animal or worse than an animal. And to see this happen to people who started off as perfectly normal human beings. And it’s a process that works very fast. I mean, you could do this to anybody around here in no time. You can deprive people of their human dignity and get animals. And then it’s very easy to destroy these animals. Nothing to do with human beings anymore.
[Narrator] In December 1944, Anita Lasker was sent by train from Auschwitz, hundreds of miles to Belsen.
We had no idea really where we were going, but we were told there were rumours that we were going to Belsen. And it’s a very nice place. It’s a place where people recuperate, couldn’t quite believe it, however, and we were also told that if we work hard and build the camp up, all will be very well. However, we got there, we were vintage prisoners, you know, we could smell, we could see how things are going. I think to me, probably the most painful thing is the one thing that I didn’t actually see, but I know happened. For instance, what happened to my parents, they were taken away one fine day. And the next thing I knew was a postcard from my father, from a place called [Indistinct] that nobody’s even heard about, where he just wrote the beginning of a song. I lift up my eyes to the hills from winds comeist my help. I found out that these particular people dug their own graves and were shot into them. So in a way, to me, although I didn’t see it happen, is the most painful thing that you live with. This is a terrible thing that, I mean, that’s why it’s so important to show it again and again. I mean, one doesn’t have to keep rubbing it in, but from time to time, I think a reminder has to be made that it has happened. And I mean, you know, there are enough people alive still who’ve actually seen it.
That was made in, you were interviewed in 1986, Anita, what are your thoughts looking back on that bit of footage?
My thoughts, well, nothing’s changed very much, really. I mean, enough people now to say that it is all invented. I mean, how that is possible, I don’t understand.
Because I remember we were at the same meeting in the year 2000. We really thought that there’d been a breakthrough, didn’t we? We thought that Holocaust education was beginning to make inroads into people’s souls. Then today, I mean, particularly the kind of imagery David’s shown us. Where do you think the disconnect is? I mean, your story, told so eloquently, and I know last week was the anniversary of your parents’ murder. I mean, is there anything left that we can possibly do to alert people, in your view?
That’s a big question, what can we do? Well, I think educating, telling people, if that is possible, what and who are these people Jews, and then you make a decision, I don’t like these people, or I do like these people and I’m interested in them, but I don’t like them, but please don’t kill them. You don’t have to like them. But what is this idea that you have to murder all people that are Jewish? It’s crazy, but it’s been going on for centuries. It wasn’t invented by the Germans.
Yeah, yeah. You and I have talked much about this, but I suppose to me, the real, and it still is a shock, that despite the testimony of people like you, your incredibly eloquent testimony, despite the books, the films, serious people like the great Yahu debar, putting their hearts and souls into all the work. And for a period it did seem, it went on the core curriculum. You were in Stockholm, I remember of course, you and your family playing for the first ever conference of the third millennium. It was about Holocaust education. So where do you think it went wrong? I think there was a breakthrough, wasn’t there?
Well, I think the problem was that the generation that was there at the conference no longer exists. There’s a new generation where all this is already much further away from them than it was in the year 2000. It sort of dwindles into the middle distance with all the other troubles that people have, personal troubles that people have. Why don’t we worry so much about the Jews, you know.
It’s about the Jews, but it’s when you talked in that ‘86 film about how easy it was to depersonalise people, surely that’s a message for every group, isn’t it? I think, I feel like you, that the show is unique and it should be taught as a unique thing. But there is this universal message, is there not, of, you know, treating people with respect and dignity, that’s something that you do in your own life, you do.
What can one say it’s all very wrong. Holocaust education, so you tell very young people, who’ve got their own troubles, the terrible things that happened to some people who are Jewish. What do we actually expect? What do we expect? That they hook into the stories with all their beings. They’ve got other troubles. I think we are too optimistic.
And yet you were brought up in the tradition of the enlightenment, weren’t you?
Say that again?
You were brought up in the tradition of the enlightenment, and in a way I still think we have to hang onto it, don’t we? But how did you feel when you, not feel, you hate that word. What were your thoughts when you saw you being interviewed in 1986?
Why was I interviewed in 1986?
Yeah, for that film, it was actually 1986, I believe. When Bernstein interviewed.
Don’t ask me what I felt like, no idea.
No, what I meant was not how you felt.
I can’t even remember it.
But by that time you were already teaching in Germany, weren’t you, by then?
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
And I’m very, I mean, I got, even today, I got a very touching email from somebody I did lectures for in Germany. I mean, there are people in Germany who feel very deeply about and ashamed about the whole thing, but this anti-Semitism is a disease, you know, which is not new. We have got to blame everything on somebody.
I think it, my view is that, I think the western world actually has to own up to it. I think one of the problems, it’s so deep, I’m going to say this, in Christian theology, that we have a problem and it’s got to be owned up to, that’s how I think we can get rid of the beast. Not get rid of it, but at least make it livable with. And honestly though, I do believe that if there’s an economic upturn, it will lessen somewhat. It always does, but it’s- Shall we, I’m sure a lot of people will like to ask questions. How do we do this, Judi? We just look at them?
Q&A and Comments:
And Bernice is saying, my husband was in Belsen when it was liberated by the British. They had a Friday night service. And I’ve heard the recording of them singing hatikvah, I mean, it must have been an extraordinary, I mean, for some people, I remember the chaplain, Leslie Hardman, what he had to say. And for the religious, they did have their religious services, didn’t they? Even in hell, people can cling onto religion. I don’t, are there any questions specifically for Anita? I know it’s a very difficult thing to- there are mainly people talking about propaganda, so is there anything you want to talk about Anita? Really, because it is the liberation of Belsen. It was 78 years ago, you were witness to it. You saw the effect it had on British soldiers. I believe that some of the soldiers could never talk about it. I actually knew very well the son of one of the liberators. And it traumatised him to say nothing of how much worse it was for those who survived. But I think for those people, it stayed with them forever. And as you said, you do get simpatico letters from people. I think one of the problems you and I have talked about, that they have in late respect for you, but do they see you as part of the Jewish people? And I think that’s where we have a problem that we’ve, kind of, we haven’t concentrated enough on keeping holocaust studies within the context of Jewish history. I dunno if you want to comment on that.
- I dunno what to say about that, really.
Q - Well, it’s true, isn’t it? It’s so true. Are there any other comments from anyone? You have an unrivalled opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, because 78 years ago, and there was a belief, and I think there was a belief at the time that if the story was told, that people would come to their senses and it hasn’t happened enough, has it. And I think that that’s the message. My view is, we’ve got to rethink the whole of education. There’s a wonderful quote of Einstein’s on the madness of World War I. He said, 'I blame all those German teachers, who for 50 years, didn’t teach about liberalism.’ So let’s see. I think we have a few more questions coming through now. Anita, do you approve the Holocaust memorial opposite parliament?
A - No, I am dead against it. It is stupid, unthinking, and idiotic. And I do hope that it’ll never, ever happen. It is completely and utterly wrong, apart from the fact that it is geographically wrong in a very dangerous place. Eventually people will drown there anyway. But what are we achieving? If you put into that place, Holocaust and Rwanda? I mean, if people haven’t understood the difference between the Holocaust and the Rwanda, they haven’t understood anything. Rwanda is finished, the Holocaust and antisemitism isn’t finished by any means. Actually, it’s quite interesting to remember that I wrote in my book that when my sister and I came to England, we thought we were waving a big flag, that’ll be the end of anti-Semitism because people know what has happened. And look at the world now.
Q - Yeah, yeah. Nick has asked what happened to your faith?
A - Faith, who says I’ve got faith?
Yeah, exactly.
Faith in what?
I think he’s talking about religious faith.
[Anita] No thanks, I haven’t got religious faith.
Q - Oh, and this is from Richard for Anita. She’s actually asking, she says, the photo of you and your sisters very much looked like those taken of my mother and her sister in Berlin. And of course Anita was born in Breslau, yeah. That’s a very beautiful photograph of your family. And Barbara’s saying she thinks that when Holocaust education does happen, we should include the fact that there are Holocaust deniers, people who say it’s not a fact, and then show the reality of the photos. And Barry says, have you become misanthropic hater of mankind? He’s asking you that Anita, has this made you-
A - Have I become what?
Have you become a hater of mankind? No, you haven’t.
Not really, no. I’m still, you know, hoping against hope.
Yes, and I’m going to say this because when I’m teaching very dark things, I often come round to see Anita and she gives me back my moral compass. I’m saying that publicly, Anita.
You’ll regret that when I see you next.
Q - And this is from Dina. Do you think it could happen again?
A - All I can say, I hope not.
- Yeah, exactly. What if the message was ‘the show is about you’ to those who are not Jewish? Anita’s message about dehumanisation is so profound and applies to everyone. Why not make that the message? It’s an interesting point, isn’t it?
A - Yeah. I mean, basically what I preach is that we should all talk to each other. Talk to each other and not fear each other and go and have a cup of coffee together and tell each other about what makes us different. And be interested in other people’s differences.
To be open.
Yeah, talk to each other before you kill each other.
Q - One feels helpless, says Rene, your advice for teaching about Jewish people without focus on the Holocaust. Would it be helpful?
A - I don’t understand the question.
Q - Well what she’s saying, would it be more, is it useful to teach Holocaust studies within the context of Jewish history?
A - I don’t know, maybe, I’m not a historian.
It has to be, I think one of the problems with the syllabus is that it doesn’t deal with Jewish life before it deals with victims.
I think one of the problem with Jews is that for centuries we haven’t been able to defend ourselves. And our biggest misdeed is that we now have a country and it’s the first time that Jews actually defend themselves. And that is completely unforgivable. We were always the scapegoats, you can, I mean, look what happened in Russia.
Mm, yeah.
The pilgrims, you know, just kill the Jews regardlessly. To have a country, we actually have the ability to defend ourselves. That is unforgivable.
Q - That’s Jonathan Sachs’s argument, isn’t it? First they hated our religion, then our race, and now our nation. This is from Brenda, and she asked, what kind of future do you envisage for your grandchildren?
A - I keep off the subject because I don’t really like looking at it, you know? It’s overwhelming, yeah.
Q - Yeah, and this is from Francine. Today’s Parsha mentions how Aaron stayed silent when his two sons were killed. Do you feel that too many people were silent during the Holocaust and too many are staying silent now?
A - I don’t, quite honestly.
I think what she’s saying is that nobody that, like for example in Germany, ‘33 to '39, who protested, the Allies, they didn’t do much about it.
I don’t know how to answer that. I mean, there have been protests, but you know, you have to have lived it in Germany to understand what it was like in a country where everybody was afraid of everybody else. Yeah, I can’t really answer that intelligently.
Q - The question is, what did you teach in Germany? No, this is, I was referring to when Anita went back to tell her stories about what happened to her.
A - Yeah, but I didn’t just tell my story. I was, I engaged in conversation with young people and it, I have wonderful, wonderful letters from young people, you know?
Yes.
That was well worthwhile doing, talking to young people and that they say that I look exactly like everybody else and speak there. For me, it was important to do it in Germany because I speak their language, you see? Yeah, so I was, yeah, whatever.
There’s a question of how you, do you love the Jewish people and Jewish culture? That’s an interesting one for you.
I love the Jewish people? I don’t love the Jewish people, what does that mean? No, I don’t love the Jewish people. I love individuals, but not Jewish people.
Yeah.
No, I’m not very proud of what’s happening among the Jewish people in Israel at the moment. I’m very proud about the people who actually stand up and try and to achieve something.
Q - Judith asked, can one ask a question of someone who’s been through so much? She’s asking, huh. My Lithuanian cousin survived the shower, the only member of his family of five who refused to join us in London for a family simpler. He said it was too near Europe. Ruth Fiss said, Holocaust museums are memorials to the triumph of anti-Semitism. That’s an interesting quote. Ruth Fess is a very, very interesting woman and she said, Holocaust museums are memorials to the triumph of anti-Semitism. That’s an interesting comment. And Nikki’s asking, what do you think about the Libeskind museum in Berlin?
A - I think it’s very good.
[Trudy] Yeah.
Very good. I saw it when it was empty and I wish that it had remained empty in a way. It is a little bit over learned now, but no, I think it is very good and it has a lot of visitors. I mean, it is being used very well.
Q - I totally agree with you. I think it was better empty somehow. I think that was the genius of it. Corridors that was sort of uneven and didn’t go anywhere. And there are people saying, thank you. This from Ralph. It seems to me that over the years, Berlin has taken steps to educate children about the Holocaust, maybe more so than other countries in Europe that hosted Nazis. And is it making a difference? He’s specifically saying, do you think it’s better in Germany than in other countries in Europe? In terms of the teaching of the Holocaust.
A - I can’t really judge it. I don’t know what’s going on in other countries. But I mean, I can quite see that it is less and less frequent on the curriculum because it gets further and further away from people, the actual Holocaust. But the hatred and the antisemitism is a present thing. And that should be, that should.
That is something that we do have to go deal with. Anita asks, you have a question. Did you ever, did you ever talk in Austria?
[Anita] Did I ever what?
Q - Did you ever go to Austria to tell your story? To discuss things?
A - Yes. That’s another chapter.
Another chapter. And I should mention that Anita has written a brilliant book called 'Inherit the Truth.’ And I really advise you to read it. This is one, this is from Mickey, if the Allies upon the railway lines leading to Auschwitz, perhaps things would’ve turned out differently. So they are also culpable. This is the whole debate as to why the Allies didn’t form the railway lines. Yeah.
Yeah, that’s another chapter.
It is another chapter, I mean, in the end-
I mean, you know, the British government knew very well what was actually happening in Auschwitz. But there were always other priorities. First we must do this and then that, because it’s only the Jews. It wasn’t only the Jews, you know, the Jews weren’t the only people who were murdered. You know, let’s not forget that.
Q - There’s an interesting question from Gita. Has Anita visited the exhibition at the War Museum now showing at the IWM North? Does she agree that it’s a dignified, respectful tribute to survivors? She’s talking about the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
A - Yeah, I think it’s excellent. I think it’s excellent and absolutely dispenses with any other, it is not necessary to have any other museums or some, it’s absolutely excellent and it, yeah, I was very impressed by it.
Q - Has Anita written another book on her other chapters that you talk about? Have you written another book?
A - No.
No, we talk about that sometimes. Anita’s experiences post-war, I’m going to say this, as a musician who’s travelled the world, she’s had a fascinating post-war life as well. And this is from Karen. It’s a complicated question. Eva Moses was experimented with her twin sister by Mengele. And later she forgave her abusers. What’s your-
[Anita] Say that again.
This is from, there was a lady called Eva Moses who was experimented on by Mengele with her twin sister. And she survived and in later years she forgave her abusers.
Oh yes, I think I know, a Hungarian lady, I think.
Yes, yes.
So what is the question?
Q - What’s your view on that? Can you ever forgive the people who perpetrated such monstrous acts?
A - No, it’s not for me to forgive, you know, I mean, I’m still alive now. I’m not acting on other people’s forgiveness.
Q - It’s interesting because this is a very Jewish response you’ve just given, and I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about this. You can only forgive people who hurt you. You can’t forgive for other people, can you?
A - Exactly, exactly. On behalf of anybody else.
Q - And this is from Peter and it’s a lovely message of hope. If people were aware of the great contribution the Jewish people have made to mankind in medical, scientific, musical, artistic, cultural, commercial, they might have a different view. Anita and her cello, for instance, and her wise words. Ah, that’s from lovely Peter Brie. If only it were true, hey Anita. I think one of the reasons, I think people are insy about us is because we have, inverted commas, overachieved. And this is from Nicki. If Holocaust becomes a historical fact and therefore loses relevance for future generations should anti-Semitism perhaps be taught in citizenship courses in schools going forward. It’s an interesting idea. Ah, I want you to finish on- Anyway, Nita, thank you. Thank you so much. And Maya, I see you in the background and lots of love. Maya is of course Anita’s daughter. Anita, is there anything you want to say to people? We’ve got a very thoughtful worldwide audience.
A - All I want to say is talk to each other.
Yeah.
Most important. And be interested. Celebrate your differences.
Yeah, I like that.
In my back garden. I think, I dunno if I got who said that, Celebrate your differences. It’s interesting how other people live. But don’t kill each other because you’re different. I mean, it’s a very simple message really. It’s not particularly clever, but just talk to each other.
Thank you very much, Anita. Bless you. See you next week and lots of love, bye.
Bye-Bye
Bye. And thank you Judi, and goodbye everyone. And a, deep, deep thank you to Anita for talking to us today.
[Judi] Thank you Trudy, thank you David.
[Trudy] Bye.
[Judi] Bye-Bye everyone.