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Ghi



















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
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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.