Ep. 80- Jewish Revenge and the Holocaust with Laura Jockusch

Even as the Holocaust was ongoing, some Jews dreamed of and sought revenge for Nazi attacks on them.  Ironically, the Nazis themselves believed in a particularly antisemitic myth of Jewish vengeance and many Germans after the war feared widespread retaliation by Holocaust survivors.  Indeed, there were some attempts to carry out revenge attacks on Nazis after the war.

In this episode, I talked with Laura Jockusch about what revenge meant in all these contexts and more, including in the popular imagination with media like Inglourious Basterds and The Hunters.  

Laura Jockusch is the Albert Abramson Associate Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University.

Jockusch, Laura. Jewish Revenge and the Holocaust: History, Memory, and Imagination (2026)

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Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

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You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Transcript

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Waitman Beorn (00:00.872)
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Holocaust History Podcast. I'm your host, Waiteman Bourne. And today we're talking about a really, really interesting topic, and that's the topic of Jewish revenge and the Holocaust. I'm not saying after the Holocaust, and you'll see why in a minute, but Jewish revenge and the Holocaust. How is this concept important? How did Jews think about taking vengeance for what had happened to them against Nazis and other people? unfortunately, there's a great scholar.

Yo Yakush who has written a book on this and she's with us here today. So Laura, thanks so much for coming on.

Laura Jockusch (00:36.002)
Thank you, White Man, for having me.

Waitman Beorn (00:38.476)
can you tell us a little bit just w to get started? You know, how did you get interested in this particular topic?

Laura Jockusch (00:44.276)
actually that was a long journey. I was interested in in trials and I was looking for how Jews conceptualized justice. And there was of course a lot about revenge as in a way the flip side of justice. And I put it aside. I didn't really know how to fit it in. And at the same time, I found lots of, you know, references by so prominent survivors such as Elie Wizello.

Simon Wiesenthal or less prominent figures who said, well, the Jews didn't really take revenge or were not interested in revenge. Revenge didn't matter. And so that struck me as something that people would say in the 80s and 90s, but that doesn't really match the historical record on the ground when you look at the sources from during the war or from the early post-war period. So something was going on between

The war years and the early post war period and the nineteen eighties and nineties that made me curious about it.

Waitman Beorn (01:52.39)
And that's I mean it's interesting it it's we we can jump right in, but a as you as you mentioned that, there's sort of an interesting analogue to the sort of Jews going like lambs to the slaughter kind of idea, you know, that that that the Jews should be doing there's just something that they should be doing. Like vengeance is a is a sort of obligation, which I think's kind of interesting. I know if that I know if you've picked up on that, but I mean it seems like

It's interesting that the that I mean again, this is not necessarily anti Semitic 'cause this is also what, as you point out, what survivors some survivors are saying, but this idea that there's an obligation to to take vengeance.

Laura Jockusch (02:30.709)
Yeah, and in a way, I think in a way the the claim that Jews did not do vengeance or were not interested in revenge dehumanizes them because kind of hurting those who hurt us is a universal human phenomenon. And so to in a way take out the Jews is I think counterintuitive and is is wrong. And so in a way, how can you not think of

Also, revenge, if you think of the multiplicity of responses to the to the Holocaust. And so I think it's important that we put revenge into the picture. And I think the story of what revenge did or didn't do for Jews during and after the Holocaust actually just shows again that they were not at all passive, right? I think this this whole stereotype of like clamps to the slaughter is just.

Yet again disproven when we look at the story of a revenge.

Waitman Beorn (03:35.388)
Yeah, and and one of the things that you do in the book that that I think is really, really interesting is is that you know that revenge is kind of a big tent, it seems like for you, because it also includes fantasies of revenge, ideation of revenge, not just literally, you know, someone physically trying to to assault someone else. and and also you you include, and I think this is one of the one of the brilliant things, and I want to give you some time to sort of talk us through it.

is that and again the the Nazis it with the Nazis it's often all projection, but you know they there is an anti-Semitic history of Jews as particularly vengeful vengeers vengeful people. Can you talk can you talk a little about about sort of how that plays into this?

Laura Jockusch (04:25.739)
Yeah, so I think before we get to the Nazis, I think we can say that there is a centuries-old tradition of anti sem anti-Semitic ideas of Jews as distinctly vengeful, or of Judaism as being a revengeful religion, or the the Jewish god as being vengeful, which of course isn't true. but like any human culture, of course, there is a lot of

talk and talking or writing a about vengeance as as in other cultures, also in Judaism. And I think this idea that in a way Jews are more vengeful than other human beings is of course a Christian, mostly Christian or non-Jewish stereotype or or form of othering Jews, and in the Jewish religion. And what we often hear in this context is this

Examples from the Hebrew Bible, for example, an eye for an eye as the quote-unquote classic trope of quote-unquote Jewish revenge, Exodus chapter 21, verse 23 through 25. but of course, in a way, that is more a a form of addressing or dealing with the human urges for vengeance that

Hebrew Bible tries to do there. And if anything, it's more a Lexalionis form of response, meaning that you have to have a system in which the the punishment for a crime cannot exceed the crime itself. So that's why it says an eye for an eye, right? And not I don't know, a head for an eye. If you heard somebody an eye, your head is going to be cut off. So, anyway, I think that's just one example of.

Of how how Judaism tries to negotiate and and manage these human impulses for revenge, which were of course widespread in other ancient cultures. For example, in the ancient Babylonian code of Hammurabi has the same kind of idea of reciprocity. And so we have a lot of examples, so that doesn't actually mean that there is a distinctly vengeful

Laura Jockusch (06:52.489)
Tendency in Judaism. On the contrary, I think there's lots of examples in Judaism where there is attempts to mitigate that or to manage that that human impulse for vengeance. But oddly enough, that doesn't interest anti-Semites, of course, that the reality doesn't in it doesn't need to be grounded in reality. There's a long history of othering Jews.

And using stereotypes of Jews as evil, depraved, dangerous, unethical, a threat to Christians, which are are phrased around the idea that Jews are vengeful. And that of course the Nazis then were using for their own purposes.

Waitman Beorn (07:41.48)
Yeah, I mean I think you mentioned in the book Yud Sus, right? the did you mention the the propaganda film? You know, and and so the the Nazis themselves, can you talk a little about sort of how did the Nazis mobilize this idea of of first I want to s I want to kind of separate it into two areas because I think that's that's kind of how we think about it. You know, one is sort of the existing anti Semitic trope.

Laura Jockusch (07:47.991)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (08:10.917)
Which we can talk about now. But then the a after that we can talk about this sort of Nazi projection that the Jews are gonna get us back for for what we've done. So maybe the first part we can talk kind of how do the Nazis sort of mobilize this idea for the local population of s of sort of trying to convince them that Jews are this particularly sort of, you know, vengeful, vengeful group of people.

Laura Jockusch (08:18.157)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (08:33.131)
Yes. So I mean we as you already mentioned there's ample ample source material. films, for example, Hugh Zeus or The Eternal Jew have some motifs of casting Jews as as vengeful, but also I mean Nazi propaganda, imagery, press, the press speeches are full of of revenge motifs and I think they work in different ways. So for one they cast

Jews or as as vengeful by nature or by by race, so to speak. So they racialize vengeance as a racial trait of the Jews. And then the second element I think is that propaganda casts Jewish revenge as a quote unquote historical fact or law of history of sorts. So that basically

There's a version of the argument that Jews have always wronged Germans or non-Jews more broadly because they are vengeful and because they hate Germans. And there's this long liturgy of wrongs that supposedly the Jews did to the German nation. And then it goes both ways at the same time. This then is used basically as a justification why the Germans

now need to take revenge on the Jews for their for their historical wrongs against the German nate nation. And so that then becomes a justification for persecution, a justification for genocide against the Jews.

Waitman Beorn (10:13.689)
I mean it it sort of seems like it again, it's it's it it's a it's an attempt to turn the assault on the Jews by the Nazis into a defensive action, right? You know, trying to sort of

Laura Jockusch (10:25.609)
Yes. Mm-hmm, absolutely. To totally re reverse the roles of victim and aggressor.

Waitman Beorn (10:32.303)
Yeah, th that you know, the the what we are doing is is justified because of these short term, long term sort of assaults on you know, German culture or whatever by by Jews. And so therefore, you know, vengeance is so actually then in a certain sense, vengeance is a Nazi trait, right? I mean it's it's you know, it's it's it and when they do it it's it's okay.

Laura Jockusch (10:55.201)
Totally, yes, absolutely.

Yes. It's exactly and it's it's not even that contradiction doesn't even, you know, appear egg it it it's not even a problem. I mean that's that's a common trait of anti Semitic rhetoric and conspiratorial thinking about Jews that these contradictions don't don't seem to be contradictory at all because they seem to be a justified response to those using them. But then there is a third way which is is closely connected, and that is

Waitman Beorn (11:00.993)
It's it's righteous and sort of you know, that kind of thing.

Laura Jockusch (11:29.021)
If we don't take revenge on the Jews, and the Germans take in a way have a complete genocide, then the Jews will come after us in revenge. So revenge then becomes a revenge rhetoric, then becomes this future prospect or the the specter of genus of kind of destruction of the Germans as a response to to the genocide they did.

The Jews. Of course, they don't use those words, but the idea is very clear. For example, if you take Heinrich Himmler's infamous posent speech of October 1943, where he speaks about the murder also of women and especially children, he he gives the motif of: if we didn't also murder the children, they would come for us in the future and come for our own children.

You can see the same rhetoric for Einsatzg with Einsatzgruppen perpetrators in the in Einsatzgruppen trials. They use the same logic of a complete genocide to kind of make sure that there cannot be revenge in the future. And of course, you could ask a qu well, maybe this is that resonated with extreme perpetrators or people who were committed to the Nazi regime.

In its to its core, but what about all the kind of less involved perpetrators? How do they actually respond to that kind of rhetoric? And I think it's very interesting that towards the end of the war, the fear of losing the war and the sense of doom and and guilt is kind of mixed together, so that I think a larger group of

of quote unquote ordinary Germans becomes actually actually susceptible to this kind of of rhetoric or the idea that after the war the Jews will come for us and Germany will actually be destroyed. because they they actually fear that they are losing the war. And because actually the the years of propaganda become in a way a self fulfilling prophecy. And especially this

Laura Jockusch (13:49.642)
Antisemitic trope of this Jewish c communist nexus and the Soviet Union as being ruled by Jews. If we lose the war towards the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union slash the Jews will come for us and will finally destroy us as they have always actually sought to do. And so, in a way, I think there is an element of believing in

In their own propaganda, but at the same time also a sense of latent of guilt that given what we did to the Jews, how can they not actually come for us after the war? And you can see that in diaries, and in letters, and in various forms of of discourse towards the end of the war and even after the war.

Waitman Beorn (14:42.523)
Well and and there's also the y you know, the without putting too fine a point on it, you know, comparing to sort of some current events, you know, there there's this sort of projection of, you know, well of course they would come murder us all because that's what we do. Right? I mean, like th the the the th this isn't it's expected because that's that's how the Nazis view the world as, you know, if there's somebody in the world that's a threat to you, you annihilate them. So why wouldn't why wouldn't Jews be the same? Because

Laura Jockusch (14:57.037)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Waitman Beorn (15:12.827)
That's how we would do it, the Nazis would say, right? Yeah.

Laura Jockusch (15:18.913)
Yeah, and so I I was trying to so I was actually because you asked how I got to the topic, and I was in a way struggling with these two sides of the topic. So on the one hand, that we can look at the Nazi regime and the use of revenge rhetoric to mobilize perpetrators and also to justify genocide throughout the Nazi regime. And

We can see how also the legacies, if you will, of Nazi propaganda then carry over into the post-war era through those fears that Germans then have of quote unquote the Jews are coming for us or they're coming after us. And that's the one side. And the other side is: well, how did actually Jews use revenge as a

Coping response to the reality of genocide? And how do they actually, with all the different responses, coping, evasion, resistance, cooperation, whatnot, where does revenge actually fit in this, in the multiplicity of Jewish responses as the genocide was unfolding? And also, how how does thinking about revenge change once

The war is over and survivors are trying to come to terms with what they have gone through. And so these seem to be completely different sides of the topic, but I think they are connected, even if there's of course no causality. I mean, the Jews don't anyway, they they don't it's not the Jews who who

cause the Nazis to think of revenge on the other it it it also of course goes the other way around. Of course they there's first of all the the conspiratorial thinking and Nazi ideology and anti-Semitic rhetoric. and then the Germans of course do their the the process of persecution and eventually I think some Jews come to a real realization that this is a continentwide genocide under the underway and that

Laura Jockusch (17:38.207)
in this whole sense of utter powerlessness, some revert to revenge as a as a coping mechanism.

Waitman Beorn (17:49.062)
Yeah, I mean and I know I definitely talk I definitely want to talk about this because in in in a second, you know, because I think w one of the things that again is interesting if we stick with the Nazis just for a second, because we have plenty of times we can we can come back. you know, there's on the one hand, there is, as you point out, sort of this ideological notion of revenge, right? That that Jews this is a this is a sort of racial anti Semitic trait of Jews, etc. And so you you kind of have to be somewhat of a a of a fervent

devout anti-Semite to sort of subscribe to this. But then there's also the sort of as you point out in the book, the the very sort of practical side of people are like, we know, even if I wasn't involved in it, I know that we the Germans have done this and somebody's gonna be mad about it and someone's gonna hold us to account for this. And therefore we really can't we really can't lose. Because if you know so so it so it becomes it's almost like a pragmatic

notion of like this, you know, there will be repercussions for for this and that that makes and I wonder, you know, one of the things that that students often ask and and general people often ask is, you know, why did they why did the Nazis, when the when it's clear the war was over, essentially keep investing time and effort into Holocaust related things? You know, whether it's the Sonder Commando thousand five that's going around

Laura Jockusch (18:47.745)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (19:16.357)
you know, Eastern Europe digging up digging up mass graves and and trying to dispose of the bodies or, you know, evacuating prisoners from Auschwitz when there's really, you know, really no point and they're not gonna be able to really do much up. Why are they doing that? And I wonder maybe if one of the one of the explanations for this is that either one of the two of those versions of vengeance awareness by the Nazis is also sort of driving them to like keep

keep doing this stuff even when rationally that you know that there's no way they're going to cover up the Holocaust or there's no way they're gonna, you know, does that make sense or is that

Laura Jockusch (19:52.854)
Yeah, I I think it actually does. I mean it's hard to to prove, but but certainly I mean when you hear Himmler's posen speech or when you hear Sonderkumma sorry Einsatzgruppen perpetrators talk about it, I'm sure that there is a genuine I mean belief in their own propaganda and that there is a a genuine idea that

the genocide had to be complete in order to actually fulfill its its ideological purpose. So I'm I'm sh I'm I'm c I'm I'm convinced that some of the most fanatic perpetrators believed in this and and that's why they kept kept going about this project, even when they as they were losing this war, or perhaps even particularly because they were losing this war, that there is this

radicalization to at least quote unquote win the war against the Jews, right? And if even if everything else fails. but to me the question was really how is it even if we have a relatively small group of fanatic believers in the Nazi cause how does it actually work with the broader less directly involved

i in terms of ideology, how does it actually work with a larger group of quote unquote ordinary Germans? And here I think revenge is really interesting because in a way you already said it before, you don't have to be a fanatic believer to actually have a sense at the end of the war that because of the enormous crimes committed,

By Germans through the Nazi state or for the Nazi state. In this sense that there's the people's community in a way, the Volksgemeinschaft becomes this community of doom towards the end of the war. And in a way, as also Götz Ali recently pointed out, the the collective guilt is already ingrained in the idea of the of the people's community and kind of the sense of doom. If this project fails, we are all.

Laura Jockusch (22:18.029)
kind of responsible for for our national collapse. And I think that's also true for the sense that we are all in it together and all responsible for the crimes, even if individu as an individual someone didn't directly participate, but that that the community in a self or the nation will will be held accountable. And I think the fantasy of

of vengeance of having to suffer as as a because of those crimes is just it it makes a lot of sense to to quote unquote ordinary Germans, even if they were not actually ideologically committed or or or or or personally invested in the crimes, they think that they are implicated enough to to suffer in the postwar period. And then of course by that definition, everybody thinks that

you know, massive sexual violence against German women and or Austrian women and k trials and occupation and expulsions from Eastern Europe, then that all becomes revenge. And it all becomes quote unquote Jewish revenge because the Nazi regime spent so much effort in basically hammering home to Germans that

In way, the international community is ruled by Jews and the Allies are ruled by Jews, and hence a foreign occupation is in a way, quote unquote, Jewish revenge, as are the Allied bombings, a form of Jewish revenge in the perceptions of many Germans.

Waitman Beorn (23:53.192)
And there's in what's interesting that that that I'd something that just sort of sprung to my mind too is that you know, Harold Weltzer and Sonka and Sunka Neitzel did this the the book about Opa of Arkan Nazi, right? That that looking at sort of intergenerational attitudes towards towards the third right. And and one of the sort of big takeaways, of course, is that, you know, Germany c as a whole, as a collective, has arguably done a a decent job of admitting that.

Laura Jockusch (24:04.609)
Yeah.

Waitman Beorn (24:23.781)
you know, it was guilty of the Holocaust and it was guilty of the Third Reich, et cetera. But individually, you know, taken on taken at an individual level, lots of people are like, well, not my grandfather or not my family, et cetera, et cetera. And in a certain way that that that connects to this because the idea that we the Germans are suffering in the post war period or in the immediate end of war period because of things that we quote, didn't do. Right? So it's again it's it's almost a that

Laura Jockusch (24:50.081)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (24:52.751)
That idea that that that the Germans are the victims of this sort of vengeance for things that they in their mind had nothing to do with seems in certain ways to be kind of a way of vindicating one's own individual guilt, right? Because I can say, I'm suffering. but it's unfair. And why is it unfair? Well, it's unfair because I wasn't involved in the bad thing.

Laura Jockusch (25:01.005)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (25:17.771)
Yeah. Yeah. And then it also plays into the self image of of victimhood, right? That that is so pertinent. and as you say, the dissociation on an individual level, while we can admit even today, collectively the the guilt or the responsibility. but then I think it's it's it even lingers on today with

How some Germans think about Israel or Israelis, well, they must hate us because of what we did. And anyway, it's it's it struck me also in conversations with people that the the sense that Jews are vengeful toward Germans, even if those Germans never experienced any act of vengeance or even any any vindictive comments or anything.

is lingering in the heads of many people, which which is completely disconnected from reality, but is perhaps a a way of, as you just said, of of in a way, embodied sense of of guilt for things that individual actors didn't commit. Right.

Waitman Beorn (26:38.095)
Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean it's it's you can just wrap your head around all all different ways. I mean we can come back we can come back to the sort of the the present day 'cause I think that's interesting too, 'cause th again there's this idea, you know, that I mean, certainly it it's it would be, you know, reasonable again, collective to collective, for Jews or Israelis or Israeli Jews or whatever, to not like Germany based on, you know, the Nazi past. But the idea that, you know, eighty years on

tha there's an active sort of policy of of revenge or whatever. It i it's a it does take it down that down that path of sort of the the particularly anti Semitic Jewish grudge holding conspiracy behavior that, you know, that that eighty years on, you know, that there's there's something that there's a nefarious plan out there that's being actual, you know, of some kind of substance, right? excuse me. But I I

Let's move on. Let's move on to to Jews themselves. because a lot of the book and it's really, really interesting, is is looking at vengeance not after the Holocaust, but during the Holocaust. And think that's a really, really interesting discussion. and I want to let you talk about this because one of the things that you do right off the bat, which I think is is interesting and and it's important, is to try to distinguish it to the extent that one can between

resistance and revenge. And you know, to at first glance without a lot of thought into it, you might think, these are these are sort of the same same thing. But actually as you point out they're they're they're different. So can talk can you talk a little about sort of the the the theory behind that and then we'll look at some of the ways in which this actually takes place.

Laura Jockusch (28:23.137)
Yeah. So just before I get into the distinction, I I think it was really important for me to to give room to the wide range of revenge phenomena from violent acts over fantasies that were actualized or not at all actualized to to sim to to non-violent acts, to symbolic acts, and and not to just limit

revenge to violence, which is often the case. And the question of how is revenge different from resistance really bothered me for a long time because individual actors in their sources often use those interchangeably or or it's kind of muddled together. And so I think there is a sh significant difference.

So I think that what we would generally categorize as resistance usually comes from a place of optimism, namely that victims think they can do something to change the power relations between the perpetrators and the victims in favor of the victims to help them

Basically to strengthen the victims, to weaken the perpetrators, to strengthen strengthen the the the victims, to enhance their chances of survival. Even if it's minimal, and even if the resistors themselves die along the way, there is a a a kind of a big big scheme thinking behind it that ultimately this will all pay off and will change the power relations in favor of the victims. So that's what I would call resistance.

So for example, take the Sobibor death camp uprising in October nineteen forty-three, which involved killing of SS guards by prisoners and enable to enable mass escape of prisoners, or the uprising of the Zonder Command of by Sonderkommando members in Auschwitz-Birkenau in October nineteen forty-four, which focused very much on rendering the

Laura Jockusch (30:47.575)
killing facilities dysfunctional and also on helping to individuals to to escape which did not work out but at least in principle that was the idea so the to help to change the power dynamics between victims and perpetrators and enable survival and opposed to that revenge I think comes from a very different place from a place of pessimism pessimism and

from a thinking that has to accept that the situation cannot be changed, but that victim can exact a toll from the perpetrators or kind of can even if they cannot change the fact that the mass murder is happening, it's a fat done compli accompli. they can, however, in a way make it painful and and

Exact at all from the perpetrators. Even if it's small, almost symbolic, or it's it's disproportionate. But it still matters psychologically for the victims. So, for example, we have, of course, acts like Maya Berliner, who killed an SS guard at Triblinka in September 1942, or Francesca Mann, who killed an SS guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1943.

Or many unknown individuals who spat at guards or slapped their faces or yelled revenge slurs at them on the way to their deaths, on the way to the gas chambers. And of course, they could not change the fact that they were going to their death. But in the situation, as far as we can even put ourselves in a situation like this to

To empathize with what the victims were going through. It must have felt as if they at least had the chance of conveying to the perpetrators that their power was not unlimited and that what they were doing would come at a price, at a cost for them as well. So those individuals couldn't change their situations, they were powerless.

Laura Jockusch (33:11.991)
They couldn't change the fact they couldn't, they had no way of ex escaping their own death or even preventing the death of others. On the contrary, often their actions then were retaliated upon by the perpetrators. and they in a way endangered or or the lives of others. But it was must have been very meaningful for the individuals in the situations, those situations to to make

the the situation painful to some perpetrators. That could be physically by murdering a perpetrator, or it could be by humiliating perpetrators, right? It could be kind of symbolic pain or more yeah less physical at least more in terms of yeah humiliation and and kind of

putting them in their place and telling them that their power was not unlimited. But on a personal level, of course, for individuals, both could be intertwined reset resistance and revenge. So for example, someone who was participated in participating in an act of resistance could at the same time think that whatever they were doing were actually

a vengeance for the deaths of their loved ones. So we have that often in the context of partisan fight that those partisans talk about how capting captivating German soldiers and or or killing or sabotaging German troops or military advances was was a way to avenge their loved ones. So they were thinking of their loved ones while they were

Doing this, often also to motivate themselves or to also justify before themselves why they were becoming violent. So that we often often have that there is this hesitance among victims to actually engage in violence, and then that they often justify it by saying, Well, I thought of my loved ones who were who had been murdered by the Germans when I was participating in this, even for example, in in

Laura Jockusch (35:34.762)
in Sobibor in the in the uprising, there's testimony of of some of the participants who survived that they were hesitant of murdering German SS men, but thinking of their loved ones in this moment and looking at it in through the lens of revenge actually helped them carry these acts out. And so that's yeah.

Waitman Beorn (35:58.426)
Is there is is i i is there is there like a a time element to this as well, in the sense that you know, obviously you could probably you could probably divide it, you know, nineteen thirty-three to thirty nine, you know, are there German Jews, for example, that are that are taking acts of revenge against the Nazis for doing things. But in more more generally, you know, the the Holocaust as we understand it, the sort of final solution piece

begins, you know, essentially summer, fall, nineteen forty one. But then it it takes a w it takes a w a little bit for people to sort of realize that there is something to be avenged. you know, is is is that kind of a some a phenomenon that you noticed when you were doing your work for this?

Laura Jockusch (36:38.624)
Absolutely.

Laura Jockusch (36:42.805)
Yes, yes. I think it's very, very important the time element that you raise. So we have these outliers at the beginning. We have these young men, who are these lone wolves, if you will, who who in a way think that they need to protest what Nazi Germany is doing to German Jews by by a violent act to kind of call public attention to it and

Waitman Beorn (36:51.622)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (37:08.853)
change popular public opinion in favor of the Jews. For example, so the David Frankfurter who kills Wilhelm Gustloff the Nazi Party representative in Switzerland in February 1936 or of course Herschel Grun Grünschbahn who kills Ernst vom Rath who wasn't a Nazi party member but was a representative of the German state obviously it

The embassy of at pi in Paris, the German embassy in Paris in 19 38, as which which was then actually used as an excuse for for the Nazi state to launch the so-called Kristall Knight pogrom. but these two men were really outliers, and at the time German Jews didn't think that they were doing a service to

To German Jews and could actually change anything by these kinds of acts. On the contrary, I think they were there was outrage about this, and this is not the way to go because people believed, nevertheless, that this was the whole Nazi regime and its persecution of the Jews was a passing phenomenon, and eventually eventually there would be a return to the rule of law and there would be you know a justice system that Jews could be a

could be appealing to. And so they are outliers. But then as you say, as the genocide becomes a global policy or under under in the Nazi orbit of power, and Jews realize that it's a systematic phenomenon that doesn't leave many options to individuals. I think revenge becomes

Less of a taboo and it becomes and I think people begin to think about it or engage with the idea. So I would in terms of the timing, I think it's really interesting. So in March 1942, about 75 to 80 percent of the victims of the Holocaust are still alive, right? And 11 months later, in February 1943, only 20, 20 to 25% of the victims of the Holocaust are still alive.

Laura Jockusch (39:31.572)
So that means that 60% of all victims of the Holocaust were murdered in this 11-month period in 1942-43. And I would say that revenge is correlated to that. So we see more thinking about revenge and talking about revenge and revenge acts after 1942-43. And I think it intensifies. And of course, then it also has

the question of generation or or date of birth, right? It's usually younger people who are in their 20s and 30s, or and we can say, well, this has to do with maybe body bodily or physical ability to engage in revenge or to think about revenge less of a taboo because they spend less time

in the quote unquote normal civilian society, right? and so maybe their thinking about revenge was less hindered or hinged by kind of conventional ethical perceptions that of course exceptionalized revenge as something that is that is something that quote unquote good people don't engage with, right? That that you should

appeal to kind of to build on on courtroom justice and and the rule of law rather than you know take matters in your own hands but of course that all falls apart once it's clear it becomes clear that there's a genocide at work. and then of course it's the question like there's I said there's different motifs and different forms of revenge and

violent f forms of revenge are not the most dominant ones. So we have all sorts of other phenomena which we need to talk about in this context.

Waitman Beorn (41:39.112)
I mean, I one of the things that I wanna may maybe pause here for a second is because is your sources for this. because there are just some incredibly poignant stories, examples, you know, that that you bring about in the book. and again, going back to this idea of of chronology, you know, revenge sort of by its definition is for something that has happened already in the past, you know, that you are taking

Laura Jockusch (41:45.197)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (42:05.639)
And and as time moves on, what's happened in the past is one's family has been killed or one, you know, friends or whatever. And so there's there is this communication of a desire often for revenge from people who know they're going to be killed. And these these are some of the the sources sources that I'm I'm talking about that are particularly I think sort of powerful i in in the book. So can you talk a little about about, you know, how do we know these things about what

what Jews at the time are thinking about revenge and the extent to which they are, as you say, sort of thinking about, you know, resistance versus revenge and the ways in which it can happen and that kind of thing.

Laura Jockusch (42:49.141)
Yeah. so we know about this because of because there's so many different types of sources, either by the individuals themselves or by people who witnessed revenge acts or talking heard people talk about revenge. And so for example, letters are really important, letters thrown from deportation trains, last letters where people

express that some anticipation that they were going to be killed soon or that they it's it's it's this mixture of farewell and and connecting to loved ones but also expressing imperatives almost of revenge for those who will survive to take revenge or avenge us so that they are

that our deaths are not go is not are not going to be in vain, or some kind of making sure that they will be remembered and that there will be some kind of cost to the perpetrators in the future. There's of course lots of diaries. It's really fascinating to me that there are some diaries that we have been reading for decades and have some elements of of revenge that have complete been completely overlooked.

So for example, Anne Frank even has a passage about which I would call a revenge fantasy, or Victor Klemperer or Emmanuel Ringelblum, they all have or and and many others, they all have passages related to revenge and especially revenge fantasies. We have what other forms of wartime accounts that were not necessarily written in diary form or like something between memoir and diary, but written during the war.

for example, Thunderkommando notes that are very important, both as a source for what the individuals were thinking in terms of revenge, but also as basically witnessing revenge acts or witnessing other people's emotions and revenge imperatives. There's wall inscriptions in prisons and execution sites that of victims who were.

Laura Jockusch (45:11.681)
Who knew that they were going to be murdered, who write wrote Final Message of Despair. And so talking about revenge in that context becomes, in a way, a coping mechanism of a of a in a way when when in a in a in a moment when when victims anticipated their deaths. And so famously, the photographer Svi Kad Kadish or George Kaddushin captured some of these inscriptions on camera.

Shortly after the war. There's of course very interesting material in post-war testimony, both early post-war and from later decades, written testimony as well as oral testimony. We know about, for example, games that people played imagining revenge in the future, or jokes people made about revenge. We have

I think testimony is a really interesting source, and and by that I mean or audiovisual testimony from say the late 1970s onward, where we also have kind of not just revenge during the Holocaust as talked about in these testimonies, but also we have this whole history of how the witnesses rationalized revenge and how they how uncomfortable they felt and how painful.

So there's in other words a reflection on living with revenge or with with vengeful urges and explaining to posterity why this seemed legitimate at the time, but why it seems out of place in the post war world. And we have lots of material on ethical dilemmas or moral moral dilemmas rel related to revenge and why someone should take revenge or should not take revenge. And so this is really, really interesting material.

How people lived with revenge acts as a burden. We have, of course, trial records, which are also very interesting. And we have photographs and literary renditions of for example, songs and poems about revenge that are often also related in testimonies. And and of course, we have lately.

Laura Jockusch (47:37.101)
Pop culture representations of Jewish revenge, which we can also analyze. Why why is there this obsession with vengeful survivors in popular culture? In on Prime on Amazon Prime and and Netflix, right?

Waitman Beorn (47:53.648)
Yeah, yeah, I mean let's let's let's come back to come back to that at the end. because I think it that's really interesting too, because there's some also I mean, you're talking about the the Amazon thing with Apacino, I mean there's also some really weird plot twists going on there as well. w if we move into the post war period, can you talk a little bit a little bit about about that moment? Because there it that seems like there was kind of a a window of time.

Laura Jockusch (48:06.932)
Red stuff. Yeah.

Laura Jockusch (48:21.517)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (48:21.957)
in in which survivors were for whatever reason vulnerable to particularly interested in motivated in sort of real physical acts of violence against revenge for against Nazis. And then and then that sort of as as you as you mentioned a little bit earlier, then that sort of trails off into fantasy and then into reflection about whether or not this is a good thing later on. But what what is that what is that immediate

post war period like.

Laura Jockusch (48:54.561)
Yeah, it's it's really a a fascinating question because I think based on the source material from during the war, we would actually expect that there would be lots of revenge acts in the post-war period p p done by Jewish survivors. And if we look at Germans and their fears, certainly we would expect that they actually base this on some kind of reality.

But the truth is there there weren't. And yes, of course, we do have lots of acts of violence against Germans and purported collaborators with the Germans among the nations that were occupied by Germany or allied with Nazi Germany. but Jews are not the central player in these acts. They are just one group among many groups alongside

Various other actors, liberated camp survivors who were non Jews, forced laborers, POWs, partisans, all these various national undergrounds, and even Allied soldiers took part in revenge acts against German civilians in this strange twilight between war and peace, where this

the warfare warfare is still going on, but some parts have been already liberated and and under Allied control. And there is just a a very messy and violent transition, I think. We often forget we often forget that about the post-war period because we actually focused, I think memory, public memory really focuses on iconic images of liberation, where there's this cheering

prisoners in striped pyjamas and and allied soldiers who give out chocolates, especially Western Allied soldiers. And then the next iconic imagery is of course post-war trials, right? And then if we focus so much on the on on staying the hand of vengeance on on kind of the the triumphalist, if you will, history of post-war justice. And we forgot that that that

Laura Jockusch (51:15.115)
the path towards that justice was messy and was also paved with a lot of or was ri rife with a lot of violence that that we can call revenge. And but

Waitman Beorn (51:27.749)
I mean it it's interesting too to to think about that that liminal period of time, right? where survivors and perpetrators are oftentimes bumping bumping into each other because they're you know, they they the the the story that I that I always tell is a guy that you actually mentioned in the book, Leon Leon Wells. you know, he's a he's a survivor of the Novska camp that I just finished working on and he's in Munich.

Laura Jockusch (51:52.951)
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Waitman Beorn (51:56.612)
after the war, you know, he's he's a displaced person. And he literally bumps into the SS guy who is in charge of the Sunder Commando in Yanovska. And he's taken the he they they get some American military policemen to arrest this guy and he's he put in a jail. And Leon and two other guys that were in the the Sunder Commando have to go down to the police station the the American police station and identify him. Say, you know

Confirm that this is the guy. And and Wells says in his testimony that the lieutenant, who is Polish American, who was in charge of this guy, basically said, you know, I'm gonna go out and have a cigarette. you know, there there's a club in the corner, you know. Who knows what might happen when I'm gone, you know, but don't but don't you can't kill the guy. And and Leon basically says that he

Laura Jockusch (52:48.193)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (52:53.647)
He punched the guy a couple of times, you know, whatever. And then he he left, right? But but that kind of thing, you know, happened, right? I mean, like people are are are running into each other and and that kind of thing.

Laura Jockusch (53:01.398)
Yes.

Absolutely. And it happened often. And it happened that the Allies were, as you is in the story with with Leon Velchka Wells, is that the Allies were facilitating and even encouraging that type of vengeful encounter or v getting kind of getting your anger out by punching a PO a German POW or a s a specific perpetrator. and that this was in a way that there was

a certain sense of impunity that this was was legitimate or was acceptable for a certain amount of time. But the survivors who talk about this often also say that it was clear that this window of opportunity for revenge where this was kind of where there was no legal system really in place and where also there was so much weapons so many weapons that were just readily available

It that it would it was clear that it was going to close very soon, which is really interesting. and how then survivors often actually channel in a way, maybe get their anger out. But what's really important to them is that they identified this perpetrator and that there is actually some kind of justice process that the that will then start and and this person will then be tried and they can make a contribution to kind of the legal reckoning with.

with with the crimes rather than kind of beating someone to death that this is ultimately more productive to have this to help the justice system to to prosecute these individuals. but I wanted to say there's also of course there's this extreme example of of Abakovna and and the Nakam group which were a group of survivors from Eastern Europe

Waitman Beorn (54:53.327)
Yeah, yeah.

Laura Jockusch (55:02.445)
Who gathered around Abakovna and his wife Witka Kempner, to with with the with the idea that they would kill six million Germans in revenge for the six million. And of course, that was just a plot that did not actually manifest for various reasons. Dina Porat has written a very

detailed and and richly researched book about this plot and why it actually failed. And then there was Plan B. That was Plan A. Plan A were the six million Germans by murdering six million Germans by poisoning the the water supplies of German cities, major German cities. And plan B was to poison the bread of POW camp outside of Nuremberg, which actually happened in April 1946, but it was

not efficiently done so people actually got food poisoning from it. and so in a way I think it's the point is that yes these ideas were around but they did not actually they were not actually executed. And I think that also tells us something about about Jewish revenge and the impossibility of actually carrying it out for various reasons.

Waitman Beorn (56:29.031)
Well, I think that that's an important point though, you know, that again, sort of the conventional wisdom or people that just haven't really thought about it, like, you know, why didn't why didn't Holocaust survivors, you know, flood into the towns and cities and find Nazis? But if you think about the the very practical situation of Holocaust survivors, you know, they are in poor health, you know, they they ha you know, many of them are

Laura Jockusch (56:52.18)
Mm, absolutely.

Waitman Beorn (56:56.145)
probably more interested in trying to find their families, if their families still exist, and figure out what they're gonna do with the rest of their lives, you know, necessarily than going to take and I think I think one of the keys maybe is anonymous or random revenge versus revenge against a particular person. In the sense that, you know, if you had if you had ask Holocaust survivor, you know, to name the Nazi that they would

Laura Jockusch (57:01.516)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (57:12.269)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (57:17.174)
Yes,

Waitman Beorn (57:23.473)
they would like to take vengeance on for killing their family or whatever, you know, they had done, and you could drop that particular person in the in the displaced persons camp, you know, they they they may very well have been murdered by by Jews taking revenge. But there's something different of even though you know that the German state was guilty, there's something different about just sort of walking into a local village and finding a Nazi and and killing them, right?

Laura Jockusch (57:36.149)
Mm, mm.

Laura Jockusch (57:49.45)
Exactly. The indiscriminate revenge is what what then seems very quickly seems illegitimate to a lot of actors. So and and you can read about this in memoirs and you can read about it or listen to it in testimony. This ample material, exactly this dilemma of individuals saying, thinking about revenge as I was standing in this endless roll call in in this camp.

made made or or during a death march, thinking about and talking about what will happen or what I would do to this particular perpetrator. That's what kept me alive. But once the war was over, I realized that this is a totally pointless endeavor because even if first of all, mostly perpetrators, specific perpetrators were with not within reach. And if they were, survivors realized that

it wouldn't actually make any difference because they even if they beat up this particular perpetrator or even even killed a perpetrator, it wouldn't bring back the dead. It wouldn't it wouldn't in a way be able to to soothe the pain that they were feeling about the loss of their families and the destruction of their communities. So I think it's there's multiple reasons why survivors didn't actually

Do more revenge, as you say, the frailness is really important and also the shifting priorities that what seemed to be really important during the war in terms of living to see the day after and living to see the Germans defeated and wanting to be part of the vengeance that would come totally shifts towards.

individual priorities of finding living surviving family members of finding food and shelter and getting care towards physical well-being. And that put all these avengeful impulses second if if not even kind of obliterating them for good. Or the question of who to

Laura Jockusch (01:00:04.865)
Take revenge on, right? So the there's lots of interesting testimony that talks about having those feelings and not finding where to direct them. And that it seemed this indiscriminate revenge that you mentioned before seemed i immoral because not all Germans had been guilty in the same way. And the sense that we need to kind of deal with that on an individual basis.

becomes really important for individual survivors. And I think there's more and more awareness of the ethical dilemmas around revenge that we can also find in wartime sources. It's fascinating to me that even in diaries you see those dilemmas of that that having vengeful urges on the one hand, but taking revenge is seen as immoral and

kind of against what one's wants human beings to to be like. And I don't want to become this this type of human being who is a vengeful individual, even if this was done to me and I have been dehuman dehumanized as a victim. So I think a lot of this discourse about why not to take revenge has to do with kind of reconstituting one's ethical values and finding

in way or rebuilding a sense of self that that rejects revenge despite the fact of what the perpetrators did to the individuals and on the contrary it's like in a way even drawing strengths by kind of reconnecting with with the values of of or valuing human life rather than

becoming quote unquote like the perpetrators, which is an anxiety that a lot of victims talk about. I did not want to become like the perpetrators. I did not want to sink to their levels. And that's what made them give up on revenge and look at different kind of go into different areas. And then there are others who who find in a way symbolic realms of revenge. So for example

Laura Jockusch (01:02:30.401)
the aforementioned phenomenon that you could identify perpetrators and hand them over to the military police and see to it that they would be tried by giving incriminating testimony could be one avenue. Yeah Wiesenthal is a good example.

Waitman Beorn (01:02:42.277)
I mean, Wiesenthal's a good example of this, right? Where, you know, he basically spends the rest of his life trying to hunt down Nazis. And he sort of I guess he kind of he he kind of covers both sides because he's hunting down Nazis, but he's also hunting down the commandant of Vnowska, where he was a prisoner. So he's he's he's doing sort of a general kind of vengeance by hunting down Nazi war criminals, but also he's always trying he's always trying to find this guy Friedrich Varzok, who he never actually finds, but

Laura Jockusch (01:02:47.767)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:03:11.152)
So he's kinda doing doing both things at the same time.

Laura Jockusch (01:03:14.711)
And that could be really closely connected. You could have individual as an individual you could have vengeful impulses, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that you could not also give historically accurate testimony at a trial, right? It's it it because you could say that the trial and having survived to kind of counteract to to speak against a perpetrator to

to contrast their mendacious accounts could be your way of taking revenge on the Nazi regime or on this particular perpetrator or this yeah.

Waitman Beorn (01:03:55.204)
And what's interesting too is that is that, you know, that how seriously a lot of survivors take that. you know, i and and just I'm I'm just remembering some of the examples that I've read, you know, in the past, in the archives, you know, where where they will say, you know, I only want to talk about what I know to be true. I'm not going to speculate about this event or that event or this person. Like I really want to limit myself to, you know, what I is

Laura Jockusch (01:04:02.135)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:04:15.277)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:04:25.367)
legally, you know, I'm I know for certain, which is really interesting, right? That you know, that that they don't, by and large, fabricate, you know, crimes of the Nazi. Not that they have to, that's the point part of the point too, I guess. But they don't, you know, they they will say quite often, you know, I I don't know. I don't know if it was that guy or not. You know, and and and it which is interesting and when you think about it, because

Laura Jockusch (01:04:35.885)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:04:40.919)
Yeah, yeah.

Laura Jockusch (01:04:47.682)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:04:52.627)
one might think that, you know, one way to take revenge is to sort sort of just make up make up a c a crime and accuse a Nazi of it and have them, you know, I mean, in a perfect world get convicted of it.

Laura Jockusch (01:05:05.057)
But that's of course then the self-serving argument of the Nazi in the dog is that to say, well, they all want vengeance and they are all fabricating this. And and you're right, it doesn't happen. It on the contrary, they don't need to to fabricate anything. But the fact of having lived to the moment to actually attest to the perpetrator's crimes against the mandations account of innocence, right? Is is is the revenge itself. And I think we can also see that in

Waitman Beorn (01:05:08.453)
Yeah. Yes.

Laura Jockusch (01:05:34.528)
In other realms, for example, with forming families, that people would reference their families or the fact that they they are s the the sole survivor of their family, but they were able to rebuild families and have children and grandchildren or great grandchildren, that's their quote unquote revenge on on the Nazi regime's attempt to wipe Jews from the faith of the Yep.

Waitman Beorn (01:05:59.908)
And here you have the the the sort of second generation, you know, and the transmission transmission in some sense of of trauma as well. That because then that the children of Holocaust survivors, you know, w would often sometimes feel like they have this great pressure on them to sort of continue to carry out whatever you want to call it, revenge or or rebuilding or whatever. But n now they they have to to basically have on their shoulders all of the unrealized dreams and goals and ambitions.

Laura Jockusch (01:06:04.877)
Yeah, sure.

Laura Jockusch (01:06:14.443)
Hm.

Laura Jockusch (01:06:18.764)
Yeah.

Waitman Beorn (01:06:30.371)
Of everybody in the family, you know, who was killed during the Holocaust, right? So that there's a sort of a darker side, I suppose, to some of this this, you know, vengeance by creating by living on and that kind of thing.

Laura Jockusch (01:06:41.805)
Absolutely, but but it's and also really I I mean as a burden to to to live that. It's it's unimaginable to if you think of it as being ref referred to as one's vengeance against Hitler. It's of course it's a it's a burden, but and often it's done in a humorous way. I think even like from survivors at the end of a testimony bringing in their families and saying, Well, this is the true revenge on Hitler because we

Waitman Beorn (01:07:09.959)
Mm.

Laura Jockusch (01:07:11.423)
actually have a continued existence, etc. so you're right, it's it's it's in a way a contested issue. But I think it's interesting that the shift focuses on the continued existence as the ultimate revenge because it contradicts the intentions that the Nazis had and and in a way proved them wrong.

That's what I find really fascinating in these in these in these kind of attempts to to make to make meaning from survival itself, which I think is is is a radical change when you think of how often survivors at the in the early period post-war period also of course talk about survival guilt and the in a way the burden of have of survival is in a way

I think it changes over the decades to have positive meaning for many individuals. And I think that that then it also becomes kind of seen as a symbolic form of revenge.

Waitman Beorn (01:08:23.441)
And there's also, I think, there's I think there's also this this it's a it's a choice ultimately, you know, between looking forward and looking back. And y you know, it's it's not surprising, but perhaps, you know, initially surprising that like more more survivors don't spend, you know, time and effort trying to find the people that responsible for victimizing them, you know. And I again and there's no judgment here, but the you know, most of them don't.

Laura Jockusch (01:08:31.788)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:08:49.122)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:08:52.935)
You know, most of them are not, you know, they're not Wiesendal. They're not going out there trying to find the people that that victimize them. and I think you know, what your work shows it is is a lot of that is just people saying, Look, I I want to focus on sort of moving forward and so sort of positive things in my life rather than, you know, continuing to dwell looking back on, you know, devoting my time and energy to the person who was, you know, the camp guard or the

Laura Jockusch (01:08:53.165)
Mm.

Laura Jockusch (01:09:21.741)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:09:22.043)
the the person who turned me in or whatever, right? I mean, I think that that's that's part of it too, right?

Laura Jockusch (01:09:26.859)
Yes, absolutely. And I think there's lots of testimony and and and some memoir literature where people actually exactly say that the moment they let go of the perpetrators and so gave up on revenge or even sometimes even seeking seeking justice made them free because set them free because that way the perpetrators

didn't have so much power over their post war lives.

Waitman Beorn (01:09:58.918)
Yeah, I mean i it it's it's it's really fascinating because on the one hand, you know, it's hard to put ourselves obviously in their in their shoes. you know, and I think I I think a lot of us would again, not being in their shoes, would be like, I would, you know, I would go find those people, you know, but but actually, you know, the the the history says that probably not. You know, that we will probably be

much more interested in in other things that ultimately were more important and ultimately more fulfilling, I suppose, than, you know, hunting someone down and killing them, you know, which would again, what have you actually accomplished beyond all the things that you were talking about, you know, of being just as bad in a certain sense as as the Nazis or or at least feeling like you've compromised morally.

Laura Jockusch (01:10:35.469)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:10:51.547)
I do want to talk about I do want to talk about the pop culture piece at the end here because it it's really fascinating. And and I'm sure the listeners have seen at least a couple of the sort of films in which this is a a big deal. I mean, one of them obviously is Inglorious Bastards, which I mean I goes off the rails in a particularly Tarantino-esque way. which I think is sad because I think there's there's there's there's

I mean I like the film up until like killing all the Nazis and and everybody at the end and you know that was but then there's also the one I'm forgetting, the Hunters. So Hunters Hunters is the one with Al Pacino where he sort of leads this motley bank motley motley gang of diverse woke, you know, people in the in the nineteen seventies who were trying to hunt down Nazis. And then there's the other one, which is where the guys in the nursing home

Laura Jockusch (01:11:28.055)
Hunters.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:11:37.494)
Yes, yes.

Waitman Beorn (01:11:47.544)
And he's he it's it's ostensibly the two Jewish men in the nursing home. Which one is that? Is that Remembrance? so anyway, can you talk a little bit about these? Because they're I hope hopefully some of our audience members are are familiar with at least a couple of those films. but you know, what what's going on in those and and and is there a moment, you know, because they all seem to be, you know, clustered around a certain time period as well.

Laura Jockusch (01:11:53.961)
Remembrance, I think. Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:12:16.769)
Well, I I think they are kind of a b blessing and a curse, these movies. Because I think a blessing in the sense that they are open they they took because I mean starting with Tarantino, they in a way broke the taboo of of kind of talking about revenge and the Holocaust. And that made it I think possible for historians to

To ask historical questions about the real quote unquote real history of of revenge and and and kind of go into the sources and and and dig out the evidence towards kind of getting a nuanced understanding of of of what revenge actually meant. but a curse also because they do

I think there's lots of gratuitous violence that I mean we have that's this part of our culture, but I find it in a way painful when it comes to put potentially an audience that doesn't actually know much about the historical events that we call the Holocaust. And if we see Jews as powerful, brutal,

Laura Jockusch (01:13:46.474)
Actors if that's all we know about the Holocaust, then it completely twists the historical reality that we are trying to to understand. And so I find it it has potentially really harmful consequences, especially since I think a lot of these films

Take some perpetrator at some camp, no matter where, have some actors who pretend to be Germans and speak German with crappy accents. It is it is this strange way of dumbing down a very complex and and painful part of history. And I I find this

problematic. on the other hand, I think it's it's really fascinating that obviously there's an audience for it that wants to to see that kind counterfactual type of of kind of historical entertainment. and I'm not so sure what to make of it. But there are also good examples, I think, of of kind of responsible documentaries that

So for example, Revenge Our Dad, the Nazi Killer by Moshe Danny Bon Mos Ben Moshe from 2023, which is is about is set in Australia and it's about three sons who of a partisan a Jewish partisan in in Lithuania who actually find out that it could be that their father is implicated in

murdering a Lithuanian collaborator in Australia. And ultimately the film I think does a better job because it shows the evidence and the possible conclusions that we can draw from the evidence, but it doesn't force the viewers into believing that this is exactly what the survivor did. Ultimately I think the film wins by leaving it open because we can't really know if if this

Laura Jockusch (01:16:00.221)
man was implicated in this murder of his collaborator or several collaborators. But it also sheds light on, I think, the pain that survivors had in in what Lawrence Langer calls the after death, right? This the fact that once you were in a space like like a concentration camp or a death camp and you lost all your family, you you never get out of it.

No matter what you do, even if you are seeking justice or you're seeking revenge or you don't do anything, even if you build a beautiful family, it doesn't end for the survivors. And especially also showing and how the justice system, especially in the Cold War, was this toothless tiger. And there's you know, there's so many cases that weren't even investigated or

not not not not just in Germany but even in Australia where where there was just interest of letting in letting of the authorities to not prosecute Nazi perpetrators or their collaborators, even if the evidence was was strong, because of political interests and how frustrating that was for survivors and their community and that communities and that even in remote places in terms of like from a

European Eurocentric perspective or from the kind of geography of the Holocaust, I think it's fascinating to think about Australia as a place where then victims and perpetrators would run into each other in the six fifties and sixties and would actually need to deal with each other on a daily basis. I think that's just a a very it gives a good perspective on kind of the the after death of

the Holocaust, through the lens of revenge.

Waitman Beorn (01:17:53.554)
Well and in South America too, right? So I mean there you know, the there's the kind of the similar thing. I mean, but it's and of course the going back to the the two movies, it's with the three movies, I think what's what's really weird about the whole thing is that in two out of the three movies, one of the protagonists is actually a Nazi. So it's like it's really, really weird that that's like you know, the both Al Pacino's character and who is the

Laura Jockusch (01:17:55.286)
Yes, of course, yeah.

Okay.

Laura Jockusch (01:18:20.597)
Yeah, in the other in the remembrance it's the same thing, right? It's the yeah, it's the it's the the Nazi trying to escape identification by taking on the persona of a vengeful Jew.

Waitman Beorn (01:18:21.351)
The remembrance of the same thing.

Waitman Beorn (01:18:34.523)
Yeah. Which is which is really weird.

Laura Jockusch (01:18:36.255)
Right. And so that that this it is really weird. Yeah. And anyway it's

Yeah, it's playing on certain st it's playing on and with certain stereotypes of Jews as vengeful. right, even if of course, it's not a I mean the ultimate villain is the Nazi, right? But it it's they are do they are acting through the the stereotype typical vengeful Jew. and so I wonder like in terms of what what viewers who don't have any knowledge in the Holocaust or

World War II, what do they take away? Is it that perhaps that Jews are vengeful? Is that the takeaway? Or what's what's at work here? I so I don't really know how how useful those kinds of films are.

Waitman Beorn (01:19:27.207)
And and it's interesting now that you think about like what what are some other films that fall into that category and and and for our listeners and and and whatever, I mean, you know, Defiance I think is one, right? Because it's the Bielski b I the Defiance has i you know, Defiance for the the audience members who don't know, of course, it's about the Bielski brothers who were partisans and and what is now Belarus. They were Jewish. they created a a family camp essentially of of of Jews.

Laura Jockusch (01:19:41.26)
Hm.

Waitman Beorn (01:19:57.156)
but even in that film, there's there is an i a a discussion, disagreement between two of the the Belski brothers about what what vengeance looks like. You know, and one of them is like, I want to kill as many Germans as possible, and the other one is like, I want to protect as many Jews as possible. You know, that's that's their two sort of conflicting visions of of what

Laura Jockusch (01:20:07.341)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:20:13.357)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:20:22.937)
of what vengeance and or resistance, right? So it goes back to your question as well about what is what is revenge and what and like clearly the one guy who live Liv Schreiber's character, you know, is is all about vengeance. He just wants to kill kill Nazis. And Tuvia, right? So it's what's his name's James Bond's character. you know he he's

Laura Jockusch (01:20:41.09)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:20:50.705)
protect protect the family camp, protect the Jews' survivors, you know, as many as possible. So that's interesting. And then that, you know, if we go back a little bit farther back, then we have, you know, Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman, you know, which is an interesting interesting film in that sense because it's it's kind of like a an unwilling vengeance story because the survivor sort of runs into this guy.

Laura Jockusch (01:21:12.63)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:21:15.723)
who was a Nazi and and he wasn't looking for it, but then he gets sort of put into the situation of of having to sort of sort of look for vengeance. You have two different and probably even better stories than than the other the more modern ones.

Laura Jockusch (01:21:29.929)
Absolutely.

Yeah, it's it's fascinating to me that that there is this interest in this, in in in these films and why is there so much right now? especially s yeah.

Waitman Beorn (01:21:47.558)
And they're particularly American, which I think is interesting too, because I mean, even in to add another one to this, you have boys from Brazil, you know, where where literally, you know, Hitler's heir gets killed by a Simon Wiesenthal kind of character, right? But I I wonder if there's something sort of not to go not to go all you know, Holocaust industry on anybody, but you know, the why America, right, as as almost

Laura Jockusch (01:22:00.311)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:22:15.929)
A country that didn't help Jews during the Holocaust, and where there's a perhaps a certain guilt for a result of that. You know, th th these films tend to sort of make us feel good about the war and about the Holocaust because now we get to see Nazis being killed by Jews, you know, when when we didn't really do that before.

Laura Jockusch (01:22:24.013)
Mm.

Laura Jockusch (01:22:36.715)
Yeah, I think that it's is it's a typical problem that's in a way a lot of

Laura Jockusch (01:22:46.483)
Not just the film industry, but also I think broader thinking and talk talking about the Holocaust often has to do with what makes the audience feel good about themselves. And so I think that that vengeance in general is also a a good example of how this actually happens. that often because kind of n maybe the fourth generation or third generation.

The grandchildren or the great grandchildren think differently about revenge and think differently about agency. and they would like to they can empathize with and and this this goes for Jews as well as non-Jews. They can empathize with revenge. makes does it make does it mean that because we can empathize with it, that's why we see revenge everywhere and we are over emphasizing the whole phenomenon? So that's something that I

Myself, I asked myself honestly. maybe I see revenge because I want to see revenge. Is this perhaps like my bias as a scholar? but then again, I think there's this really interesting source material that hasn't been looked at. And of course it shouldn't be blown out of proportion. Revenge is not the only the end all and be all.

that we think we need to think about when we think about the Holocaust. Of course not, but I think it needs to have a place in the broader spectrum of Jewish responses that is so rich. in with the the different modes of responses and how they change over time. And I think we need to give revenge a place that's not just like resistance, but it's related and yet distinct from it. And so that's

Part of what I wanted to do with this book. And also, I think we need to understand the place of revenge in Nazi rhetoric and in how kind of the Nazi regime harnessed ordinary Germans to become perpetrators. I think it has also revenge rhetoric played a role in it. And I think that's that's what I wanted to do with this book is to put it in the persp in perspective.

Waitman Beorn (01:25:01.243)
I mean, one of the things that's really that's really nice about the concept of revenge for this is that particularly the conversation that we just had a minute ago about sort of the popular, you know, I I feel like we often have the same kind of issue with resistance where people want to see everything as resistance, because they want to find something in the Holocaust to feel good about. something that's that's that's uplifting or that is a moral a moral to the story kind of feeling.

Laura Jockusch (01:25:17.324)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:25:23.627)
Yeah, something that's kind of redemptive. Yeah. Yeah.

Waitman Beorn (01:25:31.137)
you know, where whereas yes, there there there are elements that are important about resistance, right? But the you know, the ultimate story of the Holocaust is all the people that were murdered. Did not even survive to resist, let alone you know, resist successfully or take revenge, right? So on the one hand, you know, when we think about revenge.

Laura Jockusch (01:25:42.144)
Yes, exactly.

Laura Jockusch (01:25:55.905)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:26:01.34)
You know, the fact that there wasn't so much revenge, even after the Holocaust, is also kind of I think it's helpful to remind us that, you know, this isn't a story with like a happy ending. This isn't a story with you know, like a moral of the story, you know, the the lesson that we learned about humanity. You know, ultimately is that even the people that that won in the sense that survived, you know, they don't have the energy after the war after the war to to go out and

Laura Jockusch (01:26:12.203)
Hm.

Laura Jockusch (01:26:19.213)
Mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:26:30.851)
hunt down Nazis because they've you know that because they've they're they're hurt, they're injured, or they have other priorities which have to do with their families because most of their families were dead. So I mean again it's it's kind of this you know, we're not we're happening to find a point on it, you know, that w we're not out to sort of find the happy ending, you know, the to find the sort of the the the the redeeming

Laura Jockusch (01:26:51.444)
Mm, absolutely.

Waitman Beorn (01:26:55.557)
qualities that we learned from the Holocaust. I mean, it you know, these are all important things, but ultimately in the end, you know, the story is is how terrible people can be to each other, right?

Laura Jockusch (01:26:55.723)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:27:06.431)
Absolutely. And also I think victims realizing the futility of revenge, namely even if they took revenge or in some did, it didn't actually make their pain less consuming, right? It didn't of course revenge couldn't bring back the dead, and it there is an expectation that was in a way futile to begin with, because

Waitman Beorn (01:27:22.94)
Right.

Laura Jockusch (01:27:36.721)
there's the expectation the emotional urge to see as if that the event, the crime could be undone, but of course it cannot.

Waitman Beorn (01:27:44.924)
Hmm. I mean that that that may be the only sort of moral of the story here, which is, you know, I think all of us, you know, in a vacuum sit there and we think, yes, you know, like revenge isn't the answer, you know, and like retaliation isn't the answer because it's not going to make you feel better and not going to solve the problem. but I think a lot of us might think, Yeah, but actually if I was in that situation, you know, I'd be in this in a certain way. But actually what what the Holocaust may may reveal is that with a group of people that have

the most obvious and righteous claim to to vengeance, they came to that conclusion, you know, that ultimately for them, I mean, I'm speaking now generally, ultimately for them, they were either morally opposed to it or they they recognized that it wasn't going to to make them feel better, you know, and they chose not to do it. which is, you know, that might be an important lesson, I suppose, if we're thinking about it. you know, that that

Laura Jockusch (01:28:25.292)
Mm.

Laura Jockusch (01:28:41.965)
Absolutely.

Waitman Beorn (01:28:43.181)
Actually, yes, that that seems like a hallmark card sort of aphorism that, you know, vengeance isn't the answer, but here you have a sort of a case study in that of a group of people who decided essentially that vengeance wasn't the answer, at least not not that kind of sort of direct retr retributive kind of violent violent vengeance.

Laura Jockusch (01:28:59.627)
Mm.

And at the same time, there could be individuals for whom it actually did work to a certain degree. that they could actually, especially in this in this twilight zone, in the immediate kind of transition to peace time, it could be beating up someone or it could be going into a home and smashing porcelain and and and destroying furniture. That could also be

Waitman Beorn (01:29:07.355)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Laura Jockusch (01:29:28.597)
A form of acting out wentful impulses, and then people can move on, or shaving the head of a of a female perpetrator as a form of revenge. It doesn't kill the person. It is, I mean, of course, in peace by peacetime standard, that's still an act of violence to shave someone's head, but still it is a mitigated form. and and it could have done something to the individual for the individual's.

ability to kind of move on into the post war period and live with the pain that they endured. So it could still be a meaningful act, but others would say, No, it I reject this. And so I think we we we

Waitman Beorn (01:30:11.239)
Yeah, I mean I I I feel like that with with Leon Wells' story, for example, you know, the way that he speaks about it, I feel like that might be kind of what what I mean again, not without knowing what he's thinking. You know, because he said, you know, I I hit him a couple of times and I wonder if he was sort of like, Look, here's my chance. I can I can actually do something and I'll regret it for the rest of my life if I don't punch this guy. But I'm also not gonna kill him.

Laura Jockusch (01:30:34.593)
Mm, mm, mm.

Waitman Beorn (01:30:39.663)
And then and then after I've after I've punched him I can sort of move on. And I wonder if that is what you're talking about a little bit where, you know, it's like it's like a it's it with putting making it too sort of trite, but it's kind of like drawing a line under it and saying, Okay. You know, like I don't I don't need to continue searching for this. I've done it. I'm not gonna re I won't regret the fact that, you know, I didn't do it when I had the chance.

Laura Jockusch (01:30:45.129)
Exactly. Yeah.

Laura Jockusch (01:31:07.597)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:31:07.611)
But now I'm gonna turn my focus in a different direction. That's gonna be helpful for me either pragmatically or ideologically or whatever. That like I'm I'm just gonna go in a different direction. with that.

Laura Jockusch (01:31:20.161)
Yeah, and I found a lot of examples just like these like this one, where people say exactly what you just said, that it it was a way of acting out some of these emotions and moving on. At the same time, it didn't put them their own status or sense of self as a in as being in a in this superior this in the superior category of being a victim and not becoming like the perpetrators.

because they didn't actually engage in the more even deeper or more ugly forms of of vengeance. That it was in a way a compromise, almost a a proxy or something that was like a to do something but not as bad or as morally fraud as murdering someone to their own I'm not judging them. Just it's where they have the agency, yes.

Waitman Beorn (01:32:12.901)
Well, and something where they have the agency, you know, where they have chosen the extent to how far they're going to go and what they're going to do. you know, and so they they can view that as more of a on the one hand, a conscious choice. On the other hand, as you point out, sort of historically speaking, not necessarily chronologically, but historically there's kind of a heat of the moment idea that you know, like in the immediate aftermath of the war, you know, people will do these things. But like a a displaced person in nineteen forty nine is not gonna probably go downtown and smash a shop.

Laura Jockusch (01:32:19.607)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Waitman Beorn (01:32:43.313)
You know, b because that moment has passed. But then afterwards it's it's a focus on on different things. speaking of focus on different things, you know, we I don't want to keep you too much longer. but I do always ask at the end of the show, for a book on the Holocaust that you would recommend. and again, it could be related to this or related to anything, something you found particularly insightful, moving, important. So

Laura Jockusch (01:32:43.687)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Waitman Beorn (01:33:13.157)
What what would you what would you recommend to our listeners?

Laura Jockusch (01:33:15.873)
I want to recommend Salman Gradovsky's account as a member of the Auschwitz Birkenau Sonderkommando who wrote secret notes buried in a thermos bottle and found after the war. And I find it really fascinating in many ways, in part because it is an account from inside the event in a very, very extreme situation, of course, but someone who

Who lived through these pages of notes in terms of his emotional response to the atrocities that he's seeing, and he feels himself, of course, being implicated as a Sonderkommando because he has the sense that he, in a way, is also enabling the perpetrators to do this to a degree trying to survive. But it's also

very very interesting not just as an account of how he describes the the situation of the of being a sonderkommando at Auschwitz and and being a witness to to the mass murder but also what it meant for him to him as a human being so I think there's a lot of insights about the human condition in extremis he talks about

love. He talks about the elements. He talks about the cosmos. There's lots about his what he feels looking at the moon and seeing the moon as the light of the memorial light for the millions of victims of the Holocaust. And so there's lots of

about like reflection about the human condition, which I found really, really moving and very unique. And so there's this beautiful, I think, new edition translation by Philippe Messenard and Arnold Davidson, published by Chicago University Press in twenty twenty three, and it's called The Last Cons Consolation Vanished, the testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz. And again, there's lots about revenge. I think it's a good example of

Laura Jockusch (01:35:35.127)
How we can see revenge play out for an individual who is in the event. He's both talking about his own feelings and urges for revenge, but also he becomes a witness to revenge slurs or revenge imperatives that women who went to their deaths expressed, or for example, women who

who confronted the perpetrators on the way to the gas chambers. Things that we don't sh that we wouldn't know if it hadn't been for that type of source. So I can really highly recommend it to anyone. it's it's such a powerful, powerful book.

Waitman Beorn (01:36:22.907)
Yeah, I mean and and and absolutely. I mean, and then, you know, even even in the the act of writing down, we can have that conversation of is that is that sort of vengeance? Cause one of the things that Grodowski talks about at the very beginning is like, This is my family. And, you know, these are my family that were murdered. And here's my potential family in New York City that you should try to get this to if you find them, right? So I mean there's that there's that piece of food as well. So that's that's a really great recommendation. and and if you're interested in

Laura Jockusch (01:36:25.335)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:36:33.419)
Mm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Jockusch (01:36:45.153)
Yes.

Waitman Beorn (01:36:52.335)
Sunder Commando listeners, we did an episode with Dominic Williams about about just this. And he worked on on with with some of Grudovsky's stuff as well. so again, Laura, thanks so much for coming on. And to our listeners, again, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for staying with us. This is episode eighty, if you can believe it not. eighty episodes, and you've you've been here and I would appreciate it. again, if you have questions or or or comments or

suggestions, feel free to let me know. leave us a comment, like, subscribe, all those things that that social media influencers say that I'm not a social media influencer. and Laura, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Laura Jockusch (01:37:37.432)
Thank you so much, Waitman.