Ghi
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NOTES
GERMANY & ON THE WAR
A Pedagogy of Hatred
Displays
of hatred are even
more obscene and denigrating than exhibitionism. I defy pornographers
to show
me a picture more vile than any of the twenty-two illustrations that
comprise
the children's book Trau keinem Fuchs auf gruener Heid und keinem Jud
bei
seinem Bid [Don't Trust Any Fox from a Heath or Any Jew on his Oath]
whose
fourth edition now infests Bavaria. It was first published a year ago,
in 1936,
and has already sold 51,000 copies. Its goal is to instill in the
children of
the Third Reich a distrust and animosity toward Jews. Verse (we know
the
mnemonic virtues of rhyme) and color engravings (we know how effective
images
are) collaborate in this veritable textbook of hatred.
Take any page: for example,
page 5. Here I find, not without justifiable bewilderment, this
didactic
poem-"The German is a proud man who knows how to work and struggle.
Jews detest
him because he is so handsome and enterprising" -followed by an equally
informative and explicit quatrain: "Here's the Jew, recognizable to
all,
the biggest scoundrel in the whole kingdom. He thinks he's wonderful,
and he's
horrible." The engravings are more astute: the German is a
Scandinavian,
eighteen-year-old athlete, plainly portrayed as a worker; the Jew is a
dark
Turk, obese and middle-aged. Another sophistic feature is that the
German is
clean-shaven and the Jew, while bald, is very hairy. (It is well known
that
German Jews are Ashkenazim, copper-haired Slavs. In this book they are
presented as dark half-breeds so that they'll appear to be the exact
opposite
of the blond beasts. Their attributes also include the permanent use of
a fez,
a rolled cigar, and ruby rings.)
Another engraving shows a
lecherous dwarf trying to seduce a young German lady with a necklace.
In
another, the father reprimands his daughter for
accepting the gifts and
promises of Solly Rosenfeld, who certainly will not make her his wife.
Another
depicts the foul body odor and shoddy negligence of Jewish butchers.
(How could
this be, with all the precautions they take to make meat kosher?)
Another, the
disadvantages of being swindled by a lawyer, who solicits from his
clients a
constant flow of flour, fresh eggs, and veal cutlets. After a year of
this, the
clients have lost their case but the Jewish lawyer "weighs two hundred
and
forty pounds." Yet another depicts the opportune expulsion of Jewish
professors as a relief for the children: "We want a German
teacher;' shout the enthusiastic pupils, "a joyful teacher who knows
how
to play with us and maintain order and discipline. We want a German
teacher who
will teach us common sense." It is difficult not to share such
aspirations.
What can one say about such a
book? Personally I am outraged, less for Israel's
sake than for Germany's,
less for the offended community than for the offensive nation. I don't know if
the world can do without German civilization, but I do know that its
corruption
by the teachings of hatred is a crime.
[1937]
Jorge
Luis Borges: Selected
Non-Fictions, Penguin Books
Người dịch: Suzanne Jill
Levine
*
Note: Tình cờ vớ được bài trên, Sư
Phạm của Hận Thù, đọc, Gấu bỗng nhớ
đến bài viết Còn Lại Gì? của PTH, thí dụ, những
đoạn dậy toán bằng đếm xác Mỹ Ngụy...
I don't know if
the world can do without German civilization, but I do know that its
corruption
by the teachings of hatred is a crime.
Cái việc dậy
con nít hận thù là một tội ác. Cái sự thắng trận và băng hoại sau đó,
chính là cái tội ác vì dậy con nít thù hận.
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