German Scholar Examines Justice, Revenge and Reconciliation in Post-Holocaust Play

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Questions of revenge and reconciliation explored by a Holocaust writer after World War II are worth considering today, according to University of Arkansas German scholar Jennifer Hoyer.

Hoyer’s study was presented at the annual conference of the German Studies Association in October. Her work stems from a scholarly approach of examining the relationship between 20th century authors and their use of literary tradition from Greek and Roman times through the French Revolution, or as she puts it, “how they pick up, change and decry” earlier traditions. World War II produced some profound questions.

“There were those looking at canonical works and saying 'What happened? We can’t keep writing like this. It can’t work anymore; the world isn’t the same,’” Hoyer said. “For example, one volume of Nelly Sachs’ poetry is entitled Nobody Knows What To Do Anymore.”

Her examination of a play by Sachs, a Holocaust poet, considers the themes of revenge and reconciliation in light of an 1810 novella by Heinrich von Kleist. Kleist, a writer in the early 19th century, was widely known by German readers of Sachs’ time.

Sachs’ first post-war play, “Eli: A Mystery Play on the Suffering of Israel” takes up many of the key issues of Kleist’s story Michael Kohlhaas (Based on an Old Chronicle). Even more than Michael Kohlhaas, “Eli” leaves readers with more questions than resolution. In fact, Hoyer argues, the play emphasizes the process of questioning over the certainty of answers.

Not only is Michael Kohlhaas a well-known work, but it appears to have been one of the few books that Sachs preserved during her persecution in Germany before she and her mother fled to Sweden. Hoyer examined a “dog-eared and heavily marked-up copy” of Michael Kohlhaas in the collection of Sachs’ personal library held in the Royal National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.

While Sachs’ play is not a remake of Kleist’s story, “many of the overarching themes of Kohlhaas resound in Sachs’s play, and it is not at all surprising to see which passages of Kohlhaas are marked, because they resonate with the circumstances under which Eli was written: individuals cast out, verstossen [pushed out of society], denied justice by a corrupted state,” Hoyer said.

Despite similarities in such themes, showing that some elements of Kohlhaas are still relevant for both Jews and gentiles in post-war Germany and Poland, the themes have been pushed to an extreme appropriate to the world after World War II..

“In 'Eli,’” Hoyer said, “the audience is presented with a Michael Kohlhaas for a post-war, post-Holocaust era.”

Both works feature a main character named Michael who is denied justice by a corrupted state, and both Michaels suffer the loss of the woman they love. Readers of both works, Hoyer observed, contend with issues of grief and guilt and questions of revenge or reconciliation. By the end of Michael Kohlhaas, the main characters are brought to some form of justice, and Kohlhaas’ actions have led to a degree of restitution for the community at large. Not so in “Eli.” In “Eli,” restitution is left to the future.

“There is no clear position of revenge or reconciliation in the play,” Hoyer said. “They are both represented; they are both criticized.”

Unlike Kohlhaas, with its “continual presence of a Christian ideal of forgiveness,” the play “Eli” is set within Jewish tradition and ethics that emphasize justice. Yet, Hoyer said, in Sachs’ play, “The Jews have no recourse to earthly justice in this post-Holocaust landscape and are left hoping only for a sign of divine justice.”

Although “Eli” is seldom performed due to its “traumatic material” and difficult staging, Hoyer believes it is a play that speaks to today.

“While it is said that we have to forget in order to move forward,” Hoyer said, “what we learn from the World War II era is that it is always good to ask questions and to be critically aware, because the path to absolutism and tyranny is easy to fall into. When people are not willing to confront and ask questions, forces move into place.”

Hoyer is an assistant professor of German in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas.