New Archive:
March 2001 Issue
Face to
Face with the Photos on the Wall:
A
Response to the Resurfacing of Nazi Propagandist Leni Riefenstahl
By
Charlotte Honigman-Smith
Most of the time, I feel safe as a Jew. I'm aware of what a precious thing that is. Historically, many Jews never did. Today, a great number still don't. But for me, living in a racially diverse neighborhood in a big California city, concern for Jewish safety is a concern for other communities, other individuals.
Then, one day, while I was rummaging through the calendars at my favorite neighborhood bookstore, trying to find an appointment book, I glanced at a cover showing a pretty blond woman with a 1930's wave in her hair. When I read the lettering across her forehead, I realized what I was looking at. The calendar read LENI RIEFENSTAHL. And, as simple as that, I no longer felt safe.
Leni Riefenstahl is best known to the world as the director of Triumph of the Will and Olympia, two films that formed the cornerstone of Nazi propaganda. Riefenstahl is now a spry octogenarian who continues to charmingly insist that becoming an eloquent propagandist for a fascist government could have happened to anyone.
Early last year she released a thick, coffee-table book of her photographic work. This book was spun off into an oversize wall calendar and an appointment book. The work is carefully chosen, representative without using any obvious Nazi images. You could use either of them for a year and not realize the photographer was a fascist.
Even if you noticed the one shot of Hitler, it's impossible to tell that Riefenstahl is on his payroll--she is looking away from him, staring madly into space, separated by velvet ropes from his rostrum. The cover notes make vague reference to Riefenstahl's 'controversial' career; It is possible to tell a lie with twelve photographs. It was a week later before I pulled myself together and called the bookstore.
The assistent manager was young, pleasant, and self-assured; The conversation was tense and charged. I found myself wondering insane things like: is it better if he knows I'm Jewish, or if he doesn't? Will this seem more serious, and less ethnically motivated, if he only hears my father's gentile name? Am I actually thinking like this?
The bookstore manager didn't say anything inflammatory. He was pleasant and reserved. I tried to sound firm and relaxed, but I was anything but. I was terrified. I may protest easily at all kinds of political malfeasance and prejudice, but realizing that my local bookstore was selling Nazi art had provoked a rush of pure terror.
I didn't feel as though I was talking only to the man on the phone, but to a lot of young men I've spoken to over the years who mask their anti-Semitism in a variety of political rhetorics, but turn ugly about 'how sick they are of hearing only about the Jews in the Holocaust, and not all the other genocides.'
I was actually apprehensive about presenting myself as a Jew to this guy, lest my anger about Nazi kitsch be chalked up solely to my religion. I've been conditioned to be afraid of being loud, of being angry as a Jew. And realizing this conditioning made me furious.
I wanted them to remove the Riefenstahl calendars from stock, and I managed to say so without my voice trembling too much. "Okay, Charlotte," he said cheerfully, "I'm going to have to talk to the owner about this, but I have to say, we're probably not going to do that. It's, like, censorship."
He called back a few days later. He'd spoken to the owner, and they had agreed that it would be censorship to take the Riefenstahl calendars down. But they understood my concern. People had objected years ago when they decided to sell Nixon's memoirs. At that time they had agreed to give a portion of the proceeds to some free speech organization; perhaps they could arrange something like that here. Or maybe, if I talked to the owner and we came to some sort of agreement, I could put up a flyer explaining why I objected to the calendars. But, they were not willing to take them down. Letting someone dictate what they could sell in the store would be censorship.
"Let me ask you something," I said in a calm voice. "Would you sell contemporary Nazi art in the store? Would you be willing to sell calendars for Aryan Nation or Stormfront?"
He sounded honestly shocked. "Of course we wouldn't do something like that."
"Okay, I didn't think you would. But I don't think that the Riefenstahl calendars are morally different from that. What they are is prettier, and less obvious. But it's still Nazi propaganda being sold as art. I could see your point about censorship, barely. But the calendars are being sold as art objects, and their political context is being censored by their editor. Censoring their political context is what makes most people buy them at all."
"Look," he said, "I don't want to debate this with you. We've made a decision to go on selling them, but if you want to talk to the owner about some of the options we've offered--"
"I may give him a call," I said, ending the conversation. And I didn't call back. I let it drop instead.
Was this the wrong thing to do? I might have been able to educate some people in my community if I had pushed the bookstore to go with their flyer idea. I could have pushed, won some small victory. Maybe.
But the more I thought about it, in the days following that phone call, the more I realized that doing anything like that would have been allowing my Jewish fear to manipulate me into making compromises that I didn't find acceptable. I believe, flat-out, that it is immoral to make money retailing something like the Riefenstahl calendars. If I went ahead and let the bookstore send some money to a worthy cause, or allowed them to post my opinion of the calendars in the store, I would be validating their belief that they were, in fact, supporting free speech by carrying that merchandise.
If I had worked with the bookstore owner on one of the compromises he offered, it would have been out of fear. I would have done it because I was afraid of those calendars, afraid of their being sold as art, afraid that their presence in this bookstore meant that the memory of the Shoah was fading. If I had accepted the compromise, I would have freed the bookstore to think that they had resolved the 'controversy' without having to remove the merchandise, and without having to examine why they were stocking the calendars to begin with. They also would have lost nothing--neither their profits nor their time.
I feel myself obligated to speak up about anti-Semitism. But in this instance, I realized that if the bookstore were going to hear me out and then make no changes, I would either need to take them on in a big way, with a picket line and bullhorns, or accept the realization that not all anti-Semitism can be resolved with good intentions and earnestness. I didn't have time in my life just then for bullhorns; I had other work to do. So I swallowed hard and let it go. It didn't feel great, but it was better than pretending that what was wrong could be fixed with a handful of flyers.
The safety I feel in my neighborhood is rare--a gift, a blessing. It brings with it a responsibility to speak up for those who never did feel safe, and for those who still don't. It also brings with it a freedom, to choose battles wisely.
Charlotte Honigman-Smith is a writer and activist in San Francisco. Her
work has appeared in magazines ranging fromJewish Currents to Alice, and
she is currently working on a book about the challenges facing Jewish
feminism in the twenty-first century. She edits Maydeleh, a zine for nice
Jewish grrls, which has a brand new website at www.geocities.com/maydeleh
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