37 pages • 1 hour read
Helmut Walser SmithA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
This chapter discusses the antisemitic riots in Konitz, comparing them to Jewish pogroms in other periods, from the Middle Ages to World War II. The main idea of the chapter is that in persecuting Jews, Christians are carrying out precisely what they accuse the Jews of doing: ritual murder.
One notable example that Smith discusses is that of the Polish town of Jedwabne, where in July 1941 the townspeople cooperated with the occupying Nazis in rounding up and massacring 75 of the town’s Jewish members by burning them inside a barn.
Such persecutions reenacted a drama with familiar motifs and symbols going back centuries. The antisemitic violence of the Middle Ages often occurred during Holy Week, sometimes spilling out from village Passion plays in which Jews were portrayed as the killers of Christ. In later eras, townspeople attacked not only Jews but also government officials who were perceived as protecting the Jews. Persecutions could sometimes threaten to take the form of lynching (similar to what was practiced in the southern US), although this was rarely carried out to the extreme. Even citizens who did not condone the actions of the antisemites nevertheless “tacitly supported” their actions by not stopping them (171).
After the most intense violence in Konitz dies down, with some rioters arrested, townspeople return to their regular lives and antisemitism is relegated to the more polite elements of Konitz society, such as “the bourgeois men of Main Street” (181). Jews are shunned by Christians, and businesses and hotels begin to exclude Jews. In local elections, antisemitic parties receive a third of the vote. Some liberal-minded citizens resist or speak out against the antisemitic consensus. These include Mayor Georg Deditius, Gottlieb von Zedlitz, and Paul Petras, a publisher who founds a newspaper to combat the antisemitic press. Many Jews move out of Konitz, some to Berlin, some to America, and the town’s Jewish population declines by almost a third (183). Liberal-minded townspeople also emigrate, leaving a town that is narrower and pettier than ever.
In this chapter, Smith returns to the history and symbolism of antisemitism and how it relates to the events in Konitz. He discusses the inclusion of antisemitic details in medieval Passion plays and how these directly led to violence against Jews. Smith portrays these incidents as tied with Christians’ sense of memorializing their own history.
Antisemitic symbols have “historical resonances and tacit meanings” that “like those of a text, can be interpreted” (171). Smith attempts in this chapter to bring out their meanings, much like a literary analyst.
In discussing historical incidents in which Jews or their synagogues were burned, Smith deals with the symbolic value of fire, signifying purification and the elimination of religious difference (175). Stones are symbolic too and were thrown into the houses and synagogues of Jews. Slogans play a prominent role in antisemitic riots and include “Hep, hep” (the origins of this are explained on Page 171). Smith discusses how the cruel use of language constitutes violence in itself, opening old wounds.
The persecutions in Konitz have a lasting effect in a migration of Jews and others from the town. This “exodus” leaves the town intellectually poorer than ever before. Konitz becomes “smaller, the streets narrower, and the pettiness of life stretched out that much longer” (184).