Burning Books
May. 10th, 2003 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakToday is the 70th anniversary of what we call the "Bücherverbrennung" in German, the "Burning of the Books". The ritual burning of works by authors the Nazis had set on their black list.
Yesterday, I was in Berlin because of this. To remember this, some of our most famous literati now (Rolf Hochhuth, for example, or Christa Wolf) read texts of our most famous authors then, those whose books had ended up in flames. One of those "burned" writers, Erich Kästner, even watched it happen, couldn't understand how so many people, especially students, could participate in the destruction of their own culture, and mused later why he didn't have the courage to shout back when his name was shouted, his works were thrown into the fire. (He came to the sober conclusion that he wasn't a hero and pointed out, correctly, that none of us would know until being in such a situation.) In between texts, we heard jazz - a surprising but far better choice than, say, Mozart would have been, because it IS the "sound" of the Weimar Republic and was banned just like the books - played by Coco Schumann, a Theresienstadt survivor, and his band. And the shock, sadness and overwhelming feeling of loss all of this, none of it new, produced, were as intense as if it happened only a short while ago.
Why is it that the destruction of books is such a powerful symbol? It's not like the Nazis had been idle between January (when they came to power) and May of 1933. They had already outlawed unions, parties other than their own, had used the burning of the Reichstag to start a bloody hunt of Communists, and had organized the first "boycott" of Jewish stores. But it's the image of books burning which sticks to mind most about 1933.
Partly because of the appropriateness of Heine's words, written a century earlier - "where they burn books, they will soon burn humans", I suppose. But also because books are something spiritual, something transcending, and when they're destroyed it seems like a crime beyond the physical act.
It was impossible not to have present-day associations as well. Starting with the opening speech by our head of state, Johannes Rau, who in the final part of his address arrived at the present with not just the obligatory Rushdie reference but with pointing out that in the last year, P.E.N. has counted 1.153 cases of writers dissappearing or being killed, imprisoned, forced into exile or otherwise banished. "And those are only the cases we're certain of", he said, "the actual number is probably much, much higher. This does not happen just far away, outside of Europe, or outside of NATO. It does not happen only in fundamentalistic regimes. The persecution of writers has been stepped up since September 11th, 2001, world wide, and I think it is frightening. And this is why I feel I have to point out again and again that ends do not justify means, not even in the war against terror."
Afterwards, a friend and I visited the Pergamon Museum and stood under the gate of Ishtar, which once had greeted travelers coming to Babylon, seven thousand years ago. It was then that it all came together, and we cried.
Yesterday, I was in Berlin because of this. To remember this, some of our most famous literati now (Rolf Hochhuth, for example, or Christa Wolf) read texts of our most famous authors then, those whose books had ended up in flames. One of those "burned" writers, Erich Kästner, even watched it happen, couldn't understand how so many people, especially students, could participate in the destruction of their own culture, and mused later why he didn't have the courage to shout back when his name was shouted, his works were thrown into the fire. (He came to the sober conclusion that he wasn't a hero and pointed out, correctly, that none of us would know until being in such a situation.) In between texts, we heard jazz - a surprising but far better choice than, say, Mozart would have been, because it IS the "sound" of the Weimar Republic and was banned just like the books - played by Coco Schumann, a Theresienstadt survivor, and his band. And the shock, sadness and overwhelming feeling of loss all of this, none of it new, produced, were as intense as if it happened only a short while ago.
Why is it that the destruction of books is such a powerful symbol? It's not like the Nazis had been idle between January (when they came to power) and May of 1933. They had already outlawed unions, parties other than their own, had used the burning of the Reichstag to start a bloody hunt of Communists, and had organized the first "boycott" of Jewish stores. But it's the image of books burning which sticks to mind most about 1933.
Partly because of the appropriateness of Heine's words, written a century earlier - "where they burn books, they will soon burn humans", I suppose. But also because books are something spiritual, something transcending, and when they're destroyed it seems like a crime beyond the physical act.
It was impossible not to have present-day associations as well. Starting with the opening speech by our head of state, Johannes Rau, who in the final part of his address arrived at the present with not just the obligatory Rushdie reference but with pointing out that in the last year, P.E.N. has counted 1.153 cases of writers dissappearing or being killed, imprisoned, forced into exile or otherwise banished. "And those are only the cases we're certain of", he said, "the actual number is probably much, much higher. This does not happen just far away, outside of Europe, or outside of NATO. It does not happen only in fundamentalistic regimes. The persecution of writers has been stepped up since September 11th, 2001, world wide, and I think it is frightening. And this is why I feel I have to point out again and again that ends do not justify means, not even in the war against terror."
Afterwards, a friend and I visited the Pergamon Museum and stood under the gate of Ishtar, which once had greeted travelers coming to Babylon, seven thousand years ago. It was then that it all came together, and we cried.
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Totally unpolitical response...
Date: 2003-05-10 06:09 am (UTC)'Fahrenheit 451' was also the first book I read in English, and the only book I ever attempted to learn by heart. (I failed; committed about four pages of it to memory, only one of which I still remember.)