Ni.147 , 81. Johr Berlin, Freitag,28 Jun 1951
A
1957 newspaper
reports Stella's
arrest. Below,
Emanuel Tanay,
left, and Sidney
Bolkosky.
There is no answer to such a question, Dr. Tanay
believes. There is no answer to any morality ques-
tions about victims' behavior during the Holocaust.
The suggestion that perhaps it was all right for
Jews to be part of the Judenrat but blankly con-
demn all kapos, Jewish guards at the death camps,
is ridiculous, he says. "This nonsense of a slippery
slope — that's a game armchair philosophers play."
The last thing any survivor needs, Dr. Tanay in-
sists, is to be told that he behaved inappropriate-
ly during the Holocaust. "We already feel guilty,"
he says. 'We survived, and many who were dear to
us did not."
n every way, Stella was the exception and not
the rule, says U-M Professor Sidney Bolkosky,
co-author of the Holocaust curriculum Life Un-
worthy of Life. The number of Jews who seem
so readily to have cooperated with the Nazis can be
counted on one hand.
Nor will it be possible to ever really understand
why Stella behaved as she did. The greatest Jew-
ish villains — and heroes — of the Holocaust share
one characteristic: they have nothing in common.
Their backgrounds were diverse, their philosophies
were varied, some came from cities, some from small
villages, some were Orthodox, some were secular-
ists.
But perhaps, Professor Bolkosky suggests, Stel-
la's spirit already was so broken she could no longer
see right from wrong, or no longer cared.
Dr. Tanay notes that there are individuals with
"a defective conscience" or no conscience at all — the
men and women who can today be most often found
in the state penitentiary.
It's inevitable such persons exist, Dr. Tanay says.
"And aberrant behavior of certain individuals
doesn't surprise us, just as we know that when we
produce cars there will be lemons."
Author Peter Wyden believes that a combination
of circumstances may have led to Stella's decision
to cooperate with the Nazis.
The first was her desperate hunger for attention.
"She always wanted to be glamourous, noticed, dif-
ferent," he says.
A second possible factor was her narcissism, in-
duced and encouraged by her doting parents. Stel-
la was obsessed with her looks and must have been
devastated when, during beatings, the Nazis
knocked out her teeth and left her face swollen and
black and blue, Mr. Wyden suggests.
He also points to Stella's immaturity, which com-
I
Staatsanwalt
forded fUr
Stella Kabler
labre
Zuchtbaus
De. earl.in, 28. Juni
Rinfzehrt Jahre Zuchthaus bean-
tragte gestern der Staatsanwait im
Schwurgerichtsproze8 gegen Stella
kiibler-Isaaksohn. Die auf Grind
des Urteils eines sowietischen Mili-
ter-Tribunals von ihr vertti3Bte
Strafe von zehn Jahren and die Uts-
bined with her craving
for attention and her
vanity "made her a bit
of a setup for all kinds
of pressures."
"And remember," he
says, "Stella was tor-
tured.
"It's not that I'm
making excuses for
her. What she did was
horrible. But it wasn't
as farfetched as it
might seem today.
When was the last
time you were beaten
to a bloody pulp?"
Don't look for every-
one who knew Stella
to be so empathic. Mr. Wyden recently received a
call from a survivor who had known the Blonde Poi-
son.
He was furious after reading the book.
"How could you?" he screamed at Mr Wyden. "You
found Stella and you didn't kill her?"
Mr. Fontheim also is disturbed by the idea that
Stella remains free while those she turned in to the
SS were murdered.
Many were tested during the war, asked to serve
as "catchers," he says. Only a few signed up. They
tersadtungshaft sonen angerechnet
werden. Nicht die geringste Gefiih -
regung rief der Antrag des Stoats-
anvvalts bei der Angeklagten her-
var. in ihrern Schluewort strict Stella
kiibler-Isaaksehts iede Schoid ob.
Starke Unruhe breitete rich unter
den dichtgedriingt sitiencien
aus als die An
must be held accountable.
In the end, Professor Bolkosky holds to the idea
that one can neither condemn nor defend someone
like Stella. And while her extreme behavior was in- cc
deed exceptional, the reasoning behind it was not. ct
He recalls a recent interview with a survivor, who L.L,
discussed at length his experiences during the Holo-
c,
caust. As he spoke, the man kept repeating one Lu
phrase — uttered, Dr. Bolkosky says, at least four
or five times an hour: "Everybody did whatever
he had to to survive." ❑