grade, you know...What did you think of Frau Heidenreich saying that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves? Were you surprised that she still thinks this, even today?
Silence.
Is her attitude typical?
Silence.
Did anybody do the assigned reading?
Silence. Then, from the rear, a phlegmy yawn that sounds like a marble rattling in a vacuum cleaner hose.
Ms. Meyerson, Trudy says. If you must insult me in this fashion, please cover your mouth. I am tired of seeing your tonsils.
Some titters from the class. So they are awake, Trudy thinks.
Sorry, the offending student mutters. It’s just that—Just that what?
Of course the anti-Semite was typical, the student says, scowling ferociously at her notebook. All those women were antiSemitic. They were, like, part of the whole war machine. They were the perps.
Excuse me?
The perpetrators.
Ah, says Trudy. So, German women were perpetrators. And you know something? I agree with you, to a degree. Many of them were. But was it entirely their fault? Were they not products of their culture—which as we’ve seen was rabidly anti-Semitic—as much as you or I are? Might they not have been forced into doing what they did by the war? Don’t desperate times call for desperate measures?
Silence. A bead of sweat trickles down Trudy’s ribcage.
All right, she says, walking out from behind her lectern to stand in front of the class. Let’s try it this way. Let’s make it personal. Let’s say . . . you’re an Aryan German woman, circa 1940, 1941. About the age most of you are—twenty, twenty-one. Your normal life has been rudely interrupted by the war. Your husband is off fighting for the Vaterland, or already dead. Perhaps you have a small child to care for. And suddenly the Jews in your community start disappearing. Maybe you see it happening, maybe—as many of these women claimed—you don’t. But you hear the rumors. You gossip, as women do. You know. And you know too that the price of resistance, or helping Jews—hiding them, feeding them, whatever—is death. What do you do?
Now they are listening.
The right thing, somebody calls.
Which is?
Well, duh. Helping the Jews, obviously. Any way you can.
Oh, come on, scoffs another student. That’s, like, so naive. It sounds good, but like you’d really help if you knew you’d die for it. But not just, like, die. Be tortured first. And they’d kill your kid too.
I’d still do it, insists the first.
No, you just think you would, argues the second. It’s easy to say you’d do something when you’re just, like, sitting here in your chair.
You see? Trudy interjects. It’s not so simple, is it? Most of us are drawn to this time period thinking it was a war of absolute good versus absolute evil—qualities rarely found in their purest form—and that’s true. But don’t forget that history isn’t just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades.
Every face is uptilted toward Trudy, attentive, even rapt. In the front row, a pale boy is nodding.
In her excitement at having snared their attention, Trudy continues: Now, let’s take our hypothetical situation a step further. You’re still the same young woman, but the tide of the war is starting to turn. There’s no fuel. You’re cold. Rations are increasingly scarce. Your child is starving before your eyes. You’re bombed every night by the British. The enemy is advancing, and all anyone talks about is how the Russians will rape and kill you when they arrive. But then, suddenly, you have a chance to be protected. By a, a high-ranking officer. An SS officer, even. What do you do? Do you use what you’ve got, as a woman, in the time-honored fashion, and become his . . . his mistress, say?
Somebody snorts. No, she says.
Not even if it means a better life for you and your child?
No, the student repeats. That’s just wrong.
Yeah, says another student.
But—
All you have to do is hang on until the war is over. Most of them survived, didn’t they?
Well, you know that in hindsight, says Trudy. It’s easy enough to say now, but—
Being the guy’s mistress, that’s, like, proactive evil. It’s as bad as turning in the Jews.
But you’re not thinking , says Trudy, thumping the lectern in frustration. Or rather, you’re not putting yourself in that woman’s shoes. Aren’t there some situations in which the ends justify the means . . . ?
She falters and puts a hand to her throat, which is suddenly tight. The key to being an effective teacher, Trudy has always thought,