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WHEN I WAS A CHILD, my mother periodically talked about her father dying in a Nazi concentration camp. I remember vividly how tears would well up in her eyes whenever she spoke about her father. On those occasions, I felt a tremendous compassion for my mother and an inarticulate helplessness to make her feel better or bring her father back to her. During my growing-up years, the Nazis and their death-dealing camps came to personify the ultimate, incomprehensible evil.
As an adult I have been intensely curious about the psychology of the Nazi-Jewish relationship. What are the underlying meanings and fantasies of Nazi ideology? How do Jews and what they represent fit into that ideology?
One could say that I have sublimated my fury about those who hurt my mother and killed my grandfather into an inquiry about the whys and wherefores of Nazi genocide. When we disagree with someone, we often attempt intellectually to destroy the integrity of his hated or unacceptable behavior by analyzing it into its constituent parts—its hidden motives and reasons. The psychoanalytic quest for knowledge in the subterranean depths of the unconscious is based largely on this sort of “civilizing” of aggression. Although I can be infuriated at the Nazis, I also must find a way to balance my indignation with my ethic of psychological mindedness, and not put the pursuit of understanding on hold.
I believe, however, that for many people who eschew understanding in favor of condemnation, there is a fear that knowing why someone does something is tantamount to excusing or condoning that person’s actions. After all, explanations sometimes sound too much like rationalizations, even justifications, of wrongdoing. When a smooth-talking person