perhaps just for today you will allow me to smoke immediately Men new yor sent me to report on the trial of Adolf aishman I I assumed that the courtroom had only one interest to fulfill the demands of Justice this was not a simple task because the court that tried asman was confronted with a crime it could not find in the law books and the criminal whose like was unknown in any Court prior to the nber trials but still the court had to Define asman as a man on trial for his deeds there was no system
on trial no history no ISM not even anti-Semitism but only a person the trouble with the Nazi criminal like aishman was that he insisted on renouncing all personal quality ities as if there was nobody left to be either punished or forgiven he protested time and again contrary to the persecutions assertions that he had never done anything out of his own initiative that he had no intentions whatsoever good or bad that he had only obeyed orders this typical Nazi ple makes it clear that the greatest evil in the world is the evil committed by no bodies
evil committed by Men Without motive without convictions without Wicked hearts or demonic vs by human beings who refuse to be persons and it is this phenomenon that I have called the finality of evil Miss Aron you're avoiding the most important part of the controversy you claim that Les Jews would have died if their leaders hadn't cooperated this issue came up in the trial I reported on it and I had to clarify the role of those Jewish leaders who participated directly in aish man's activities you blame the Jewish people for their own destruction I never blamed
the Jewish people resistance was impossible but perhaps there is something in between resistance and cooperation and only in that sense do I say that maybe some of the Jewish leaders might have behaved differently it is profoundly important to ask these questions because the role of the Jewish leaders gives the most striking insight into the totality of the moral collapse that the Nazis caused in respectable European society and not only in Germany but in almost all countries not only among the persecutors but also among the victims yes the persecution was aimed at the Jews why do
you describe amman's offenses as crimes against humanity because Jews are human the aristatus the Nazis try to deny them a crime against them is by definition a crime against humanity I am of course as you know a June and I've been attacked for being a self-hating Jew who defends Nazis and scorns her own people this is not an argument that is a character assassination I wrote no defense of AA but I did try to reconcile the shocking mediocrity of Z Man versus staggering Deeds trying to understand is not the same as forgiveness I see it
as my responsibility to understand it is the responsibility of anyone who dares to put pen to paper on this subject since Socrates and Plato usually called thinking to be engaged in that silent dialogue between me and myself in refusing to be a person aishman utterly surrendered say that single most defining human quality that of being able to think and consequently he was no longer capable of making moral judgments this inability to sink created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil Deeds on a gigantic scale the like of which one had never seen before
it is true I have considered these questions in a philosophical way the manifestation of the Vint of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong beautiful from ugly and I hope that sinking gives people the strengths to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments then the chips are down thank you
