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A “Liberal Gentile” Looks at Himself:
One Man's Nuremberg Trial
- Abstract
It is almost two years now since Goering committed suicide in Nuremberg. It would have served no purpose then if I had immediately confessed my peculiar reaction to his “escape.” I would almost certainly have been misunderstood. In the interval, however, there has been a growing recognition that anti-Semitic feelings may exist quite apart from conscious and deliberately held anti-Semitic attitudes, and that these feelings are often stubbornly rooted in men who would consciously prefer to live without them. This recognition has led to questions about the effectiveness of certain efforts to cope with prejudice, both here and abroad, and to a demand for more study and more facts. So there may be a little more willingness now to listen to an unpleasant testimony—on the assumption that all the facts have not yet come in, nor all the morals been pointed.
I was glad when Goering escaped the hangmen. Once, during the last week of the trial, I dreamt that I was about to be hanged myself. Long after I woke up, I still felt a bitter resentment against the judges—Lawrence, Biddle, and all the rest. I felt that they were my judges, too.
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