The issue of the Judenräte in Arendt’s Report

opening paragraph the question of the tone of her book Gershom Scholem accused her of being malicious

Key objections Scholem presented in an open letter: 1) Lacking love for her people 2) Questioned her account of the role of the Judenräte, the Jewish councils appointed by the Nazis to organize the Jewish communities and carry out the Nazi directives. – this was the part of the report that caused the greatest uproar, especially in the Jewish community. 3) He expressed his disdain for Arendt's "thesis concerning the banality of evil", a phrase which he said was a slogan and catchword

Arendt’s Discussion of the Judenräte Read 117, 125 (54, 55) although this discussion took up only a few brief pages, it is here that she seemed soulless, apparently blaming the victims for their own destruction. Members of these councils were typically selected from local Jewish leaders who were given the responsibility of regulating their own communities. There is extensive documentary evidence detailing the Nazi directives for establishing these councils: who was selected, and what they did and did not do. Despite objections, protests, and even suicide by some council members, the Nazis were very successful in organizing these councils and seeing that they function properly.

Moral judgment on Judenräte? Is Arendt passing moral judgment on the reasons or motives of the members of the Jewish councils? It seems she is not even denying that millions of Jews would have been murdered even if there had been no Jewish councils.

Read 11-12 (51-52) One of the ironies of the accusations brought against Arendt is that quite early in her report she criticized the prosecutor for "asking witness after witness – why did you not protest?" she thought this question was "cruel and silly“ This question ignored the terrible consequences of any protest or resistance, the totality of Nazi terror.

Where should we draw the line? Is the cooperation of the Jewish councils with the Nazis a “choiceless choice”? Arendt would draw the line when members of the council decided who shall live and who shall die

Criticism of Arendt’s discussion Her discussion does not do justice to the ways in which some leaders sought to subvert Nazi directives. In this context she does not mention what she shows later in her report: that when Jews found themselves in situations in which they had the support of surrounding population , their leaders acted quite differently. In Denmark, Jewish leaders were able, with the cooperation of the Danes, to save most of the relatively small Danish Jewish population who escaped to Sweden.

summary The question if the Jewish people were leaderless and unorganized would have decreased the number of victims is almost impossible to confirm or falsify by an appeal to hard evidence. But today there is scholarly support for her claim that there would have been fewer victims if the Jewish people were not organized.

Support for this claim is found even in the discussion of Arendt’s sharpest critics. For example: But if in many cases mitigating circumstances can be found, if some leaders in fact behaved heroically, the Judenräte phenomenon, as a whole, has acquired a negative connotation, and rightly so. From the moment at the very latest that the Jewish Councils were used by the Nazis to help in the "final solution" their action became indefensible. (Walter J. Laqueur, "Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem: The Controversy Revisited" 118)

Why did Arendt raise this issue? In an unpublished document Arendt explains that since the Judenräte came up in the trial she had to report on that as she reported on everything else. she states that within the context of her report it plays no prominent role, neither in space nor in emphasis

Why did Arendt raise this issue? Read 125-126 (55-56) 2) Arendt emphasizes the totality of moral collapse. She criticized what she called the "post-war fairy-tale" repeated by many Nazis and by other Germans, that they were always "inwardly opposed" to Hitler, and were only trying to "mitigate" worse horrors. She wants us to confront the totality of moral collapse not only among the persecutors but also among the victims.

Arendt’s interview – Judenräte 46:44