Hannah Arendt Page #7

if you have any decency left.

You ban books,

and lecture me about decency!

I'm warning you.

Wrong. You're threatening me.

We wanted to ask Kurt Blumenfeld

to reason with you,

but his doctor said he's dying.

And we didn't

want to be that cruel.

I thought you knew.

Rivka, why

didn't you let me know sooner?

Kurt didn't want that.

Kurt.

What are you doing to me, my dear!

This time you've gone too far.

Let's not argue today.

The cruelty...

and ruthlessness you show.

You won't think that

when you've read it.

I tried to.

Since when did you listen to others

about me?

You have no love for Israel?

No love for your own people?

I can't laugh with you anymore.

But Kurt, you know me.

I've never loved any people.

Why should I love the Jews?

I only love my friends.

That's the only love

I'm capable of.

Kurt...

I love you.

These think your articles are terrific.

These think you're absolutely wrong

and should never have written a word.

Anyone I know?

Yes. A few friends.

And these want you dead.

Some of them are quite colorful.

I'll get it.

Oh, Lotte...

Come in.

Am I too late?

No.

Good.

Oh, Hannah, I didn't know...

Lore, how nice to see you.

I came to help Lotte.

No, no, first come

and sit with me.

Here.

You were here yesterday?

I didn't want to

leave Lotte here alone.

Thanks.

It goes without saying.

- How's Hans?

- He...

Why didn't he come?

He doesn't feel well.

Oh, God!

What does it say?

Oh, nothing.

Come here, Lotte.

Read it to us.

"Your picture

is of a face hard as rock...

and cold as ice

in the North Pole.

Contempt hovers on the lips, and an

iron brutality is seen in the eyes.

I felt that that page

on which your picture is on...

contaminated

the whole of the review.

I put on a glove. I felt it revolting

to put my bare hand on that page.

Ripped it out from the review,

and not wanting to give it the...

dignity of burning it,

I threw it in the garbage can.

I do not carry hatred

in my heart,

nor do I take delight in vengeance,

but this I know:

that the souls of our six million

martyrs, whom you desecrated,

will swarm about you

day and night.

They will give you no rest.

It cannot be otherwise."

It's sweet of you...

to stay with me this evening.

You had such a bad day.

When I was a child

my father was very sick.

He died when I was seven.

After a long fight.

I only knew him as a sick man.

And in the dream where he appears

he is healthy.

He's handsome.

I love you.

What are you doing with the letters?

Answering them.

No, you will not.

If you start, this will never end.

I've hurt these people badly.

I have to take that seriously.

We've been here 20 years and I'm

not packing my bags ever again.

They won't kick you out

because of a few articles!

Are you so sure about that?

The nice, old man on the 10th floor said to give

you this right away.

Thank you, Freddy.

DAMN YOU TO HELL,

YOU NAZI WHORE:

We've discussed it at length

and arrived at a unanimous decision.

We respectfully advise you

to relinquish your teaching obligations.

Under no circumstances

will I give up my classes.

You may not have enough students

who are willing to study with you.

Perhaps you have not been in

communication with your own students,

but I'm entirely

oversubscribed at the moment.

And because of the extraordinary

support of the students,

I've decided to accept their invitation,

and I will speak publicly...

about the hysterical reactions

to my report.

That's Hannah Arendt,

all arrogance and no feeling.

Perhaps just for today

you will allow me to smoke immediately.

When the New Yorker sent me...

to report on the trial

of Adolf Eichmann,

I assumed...

that a courtroom

had only one interest-

to fulfill the demands of justice.

This was not a simple task,

because the court that tried Eichmann

was confronted with a crime...

it could not find in the law books...

and a criminal whose like was unknown in

any court prior to the Nuremberg trials.

But still, the court...

had to define Eichmann 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 a Nazi criminal

like Eichmann...

was that he insisted

on renouncing all personal qualities...

as if there was nobody left to

be either punished or forgiven.

He protested time and again,

contrary to

the prosecution's 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 plea...

makes it clear that the greatest

evil in the world...

is the evil committed by nobodies-

evil committed by men without motive,

without convictions, without

wicked hearts or demonic wills.

By human beings

who refuse to be persons.

And it is this phenomenon...

that I have called the banality of evil.

Ms. Arendt.

You're avoiding the most important part

of the controversy.

You claimed that less 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 Eichmann'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 Eichmann's

offenses as crimes against humanity?

Because Jews are human,

the very status

the Nazis tried to deny them.

A crime against them is by

definition a crime against humanity.

I am, of course,

as you know, a Jew.

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 Eichmann.

But I did try to reconcile...

the shocking mediocrity of the man...

with his 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 the subject.

Since Socrates and Plato,

we usually call thinking...

"to be engaged in that silent dialogue

between me and myself."

In refusing to be a person,

Eichmann utterly surrendered...

that single most defining human quality:

that of being able to think.

And consequently, he was no longer

Rate this script:3.0 / 1 vote