April 21, 2008
Review: Good Neighbors, Bad Times
There's a good story out there about the history of Christian-Jewish relations in a small German village called “Benheim.” But, I'm not sure Mimi Schwartz captured it in her new book, “Good Neighbors, Bad Times.”
Schwartz, a professor emerita at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey and the author of five books, including the 2003 collection of essays, “Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed,” set out to explore the stories she heard from her father about growing up in a German village before the second World War. For most of her life, she paid little attention to her father's anecdotes. But then she learned from someone else that the local Christians rescued a Torah from the village on Kristallnacht. It was her 'a-ha' moment:
I was surprised. I never thought of ordinary Germans rescuing a Torah or anything else Jewish back then. My images were of black boots marching across the Hollywood movies I grew up watching at the Queens Midway Theater, ones full of Nazis I hated and feared. I looked at the old Torah, almost four feet in length, and wondered who grabbed it from the fire and why? And how many helped to carry it, a heavy thing, to safety? And did the neighbors see them? And were they denounced? Echoes of my father's nostalgia came back. In Benheim we all got along! But he had meant a boyhood before Hitler, not during Nazi times.
And so, Schwartz began a 12-year journey to discover more about her late father's stories. She interviewed former villagers living in New York, Baltimore and Israel and she took several trips to Germany to talk with those who never left. She also visited a few German archives to see what the documents might say.
She's a good writer but, unfortunately, the interviews never went too far. Schwartz appears to have become too friendly with her subjects and she's assumed the role of distinguished village guest by the end. At one point towards the end of the book, she admonishes herself for “being so damn diplomatic” right after she squirms at the suggestion that she should be more direct and ask the Christian villagers what they did during the war and how they live with the terrible things their country did.
Forcing honesty in others is not an easy task. But it's an important one if you're going to use their stories to teach others about morality, bravery and other universal values. If the story's not true, your lesson might not be either.
The worst sin of Schwartz's “being so damn diplomatic” is that she decided to disguise people's names, the name of the village, two other place names and “some identifying details” in order to “protect the privacy of the nonfamous.”
This fact upset me the most. I thought I was going to feel some kinship to Schwartz because my grandfather, Fred Hess (his real name), grew up in a small German village called Burgeln (sp?) where there were tales of Christian-Jewish cooperation before the war and, to some extent, during the war. A local Christian family hid my aunt for some time before she was sent to Auschwitz. She survived the war and now lives in Baltimore.
So, I was dismayed when I leafed through “Good Neighbors” looking for a map to see where “Benheim” was located but instead found Schwartz's lame excuse for why I wouldn't find one.
I'm befuddled as to why Schwartz did this. Certainly, the people she interviewed knew they talking to her for the book. If not, the tape recorder, pens and pads of paper should have aroused some suspicion. I feel fairly confident that Mimi Schwartz is not the kind of writer who would blindside her sources. What worries me more is that she may have told these sources beforehand that they would not be identified in the book. If that's the case, then the interviewees could have said whatever they wanted to. Who would really know the difference?
If you look carefully, Schwartz left a telling clue in the book about the true identity of the village. I entered the village name into Google and from what I could see there was nothing that needed protecting. I'm not sure if Schwartz expected the publication of her book to bring hordes of tourists upon the village or what.
It's a shame because her father's stories could have had even more meaning for the rest of us. Instead, we're left to wonder what else Schwartz might have left out of her book.
Good review, Steve, and from what you wrote, I’m befuddled at Schwartz’s tactics, also.
thanks, JewWishes.
Nice review, thanks.
thank you, andre. i appreciate you reading it.
Ms Schwartz may have recieved little help if she warned that names would be used. I think that she did well.
I’ve just finished Schwartz’ book and think you’re right about the book’s irritating weakness. Knowing that the village is Rexingen, however — and anyone 40 or younger could and would do the Google search you suggest, the photo credits offering only the most obvious clues — only calls further attention to a problem with this kind of memoir: narcissism. Schwartz’ self-indulgence here is on par with the sorts of autobiographical reflections one hears on “This American Life”, and while the style may be entertaining when the subject is going to the grocery store (etc.) it becomes perverse when the subject is Germany during WWII.
thanks for your thoughts, Bill. as you may expect, i disagree.
barak, thanks for writing. i think it would have been a good book if the author would have put everything out there and not changed place and people names.