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:

to forget horrors like the Holocaust,
or to redefine them as aberrations and
strip from memory facts that are too
disturbing to deal with.
In fact, the Jewish Holocaust wasn't
an aberration, but a predictable conse-
quence of centuries of anti-Semitism.
Weiss' fear that future generations will
look at the Holocaust and not realize
that fact is not unfounded.
But Lerman also is undoubtedly
right when he worries about wasting a
narrow window of opportunity to win
concessions on preserving Holocaust
sites. He sensibly insists that there are
limits to what the Polish government
is likely to accept. An Auschwitz that
stresses Jewish suffering is probably
do-able; an Auschwitz that is a kind of
Christianity-free zone is not.
Weiss says that compromise will
gradually chip away at the Jewish con-
tent of memory, and both history and
psychology support that argument.
Lerman runs a wildly successful, effec-
tive museum — an institution that is
just starting to come to terms with the
sweeping compromises that resulted in
its creation.
Making the debate all the more dif-
ficult is the fact that passions run
strong in that small, peculiar commu-
nity of people who live and breathe
the Holocaust. The debate has taken
on a bitter, personal tone. Holocaust
scholars and activists have been forced
to choose up sides; there are no neu-
trals in this war.
Lerman, a former partisan who has
devoted his life to remembrance, bit-
terly resents charges that he is dese-
crating the Holocaust or selling out
Auschwitz survivors.
Weiss, the classic outsider-activist,
is furious about what he sees as
Lerman's "self-proclaimed" role as lead
negotiator, insisting that a federal
museum has no right to enter diplo-
matic negotiations representing the
Jews.
The . two men represent conflicting
pulls in American Jewish life.
Lerman is the epitome of the suc-
cessful survivor who has made a place
for himself here without forgetting
where he came from. He's a symbol of
an American Jewry that believes that
in this country, at least, anti-Semitism
has been pushed to the far margins.
His life points to clear demarcations
between the Jewish past and present.
Weiss represents a faction that
insists things aren't as good as they
seem, that American Jews do not live
outside of the broad sweep of Jewish
history. ❑

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7/24
1998

Detroit Jewish News

37

