Fred Herzog

[sdwilsonsct]

Street photography --

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/fred-herzogs-unique-eye-for-vancouver/article2421595/

article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/the-collision-fred-herzog-the-holocaust-and-me/article2423030/

Scott

[Trevor Murgatroyd]

I have been a great admirer of Herzog's photography for a few years. I have two (both?) of his photography books and look at them frequently. I saw the exhibition of his photographs at the National Gallery in Ottawa last year. He seems to have lead an modest, exemplary, and admirable life and without seeking it has finally achieved a position of great respect in his field. You will see that I am somewhat biased.

In her article, Lederman questions how his unfortunate remark will affect how the world sees him. Had she not decided to make it public, the world would not know that he made it and I do question the value of her doing so. It seems that no sooner had the expression "so-called Holocaust" left his mouth that he began to apologize for it, continued to do so for the rest of the interview, soon withdrew it, and struggled to make amends. Clearly, I believe, from his other comments, he is not a Holocaust denier nor is he an anti-semite . He is another unfortunate who was much hurt by the war and still struggles to understand it.

I had a German friend a few years ago who insisted that the allies had not won WWII, that Churchill was a villain of the first order, and hated all the English. He was a lovely man who liked me very much (though I am English) as I liked him. I came to understood and discount his attitude because he had survived a very difficult war, and he gave me a view of being a survivor in post-war Germany that never emerges from the accounts of the victors.

This was a difficult exchange for both Herzog and Lederman, and to their credit that they struggled to resolve it. I just wish Lederman had kept it as a private discussion, rather than choosing to bring it to public attention. Perhaps that is too much to expect from a journalist, but I see no purpose served her article except to but a black mark, in a happy stage of his career, on the reputation of an admirable man.

Trevor

[bdosserman]

In her article, Lederman questions how his unfortunate remark will affect how the world sees him. Had she not decided to make it public, the world would not know that he made it and I do question the value of her doing so. It seems that no sooner had the expression "so-called Holocaust" left his mouth that he began to apologize for it, continued to do so for the rest of the interview, soon withdrew it, and struggled to make amends. Clearly, I believe, from his other comments, he is not a Holocaust denier nor is he an anti-semite . He is another unfortunate who was much hurt by the war and still struggles to understand it.

I had a German friend a few years ago who insisted that the allies had not won WWII, that Churchill was a villain of the first order, and hated all the English. He was a lovely man who liked me very much (though I am English) as I liked him. I came to understood and discount his attitude because he had survived a very difficult war, and he gave me a view of being a survivor in post-war Germany that never emerges from the accounts of the victors.

Very interesting article. I think you undermine your own argument a bit when you mention the untold story of the German survivors -- this article touches on that in a not insignificant way, and I think it's reason enough to publish it. It's also fascinating to realize that early on there was a substantial amount of German denial, and that people who left before the trials may still carry it. My take is that (having decided to write about it, which was probably a no-brainer given that it was presumably an interview slated for publication to begin with) the author bent over backwards to try to portray Herzog in as positive a light as possible.

Superficially, Herzog comes off OKish, but to me there are two more disturbing aspects of the article: first is that although he never explicitly engages in denial, his phrasing is practically a textbook example of how to deny while denying you're denying (this doesn't just apply to the Holocaust; cf the Obama -wasn't-born-in-the-US debacle). Second and more substantively is that the article emphasizes how quick he was to acknowledge the error of his doubts when confronted with the interviewer's own story. That's all well and good, except that the entire subject only came up because he couldn't resist complaining about all the Jews who couldn't shut up about how their relatives were treated during the war. Given the percentages, it's hard to imagine that many of those conversations didn't include people who said almost exactly what the interviewer ultimately said to him, and yet somehow instead of being convinced by them he was annoyed by them. This raises the possibility that the only reason he takes the interviewer's story more seriously is because he is being recorded, he knows what he says will be published, and he suddenly realizes he's been expounding on his views to the wrong person. That doesn't mean that ultimately he wasn't sincere in changing his mind, but it's a far cry from the superficial impression of "well, he was misguided, but when he was confronted with the facts he came around" that I got on first reading it.

Brian