Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II

In "Justice Matters" Mona Weissmark has made unique and critical contributions to a central problem ouf our times. How can the children of those who survived the genocidal crimes of the Holocaust come to understand the children of those who perpetrated those crimes? Can understanding bring reconciliation and lift the burden of the past from the shoulders of both groups? In this book Weissmark described her groundbreaking work whereby she brought the children of Holocaust victims face to face with the children of Nazis for discussion of their feelings - rage, resentment, guilt, defensiveness and denial - and the extraordinary consequences that followed. Compassion and forgiveness, reconciliation and recognition of past crimes emerge to point a way to the peaceful solution of intense differences of a kind that threaten the peace of the world in or own day.

If we were children of survivors of the Holocaust what would we say to children of the Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust? In this book, Mona Weissmark describes what must surely be one of the most dramatic investigations of the last 50 years. She brought together 10 children of concentration camp survivors and 10 children of Nazis; 20 people who talked together over a period of four days. The profoundly moving events of those four days are documented here with the richest moments coming in the words of these two groups of participants as they spoke of their lonely but intertwined heritages. The author places the events of these four days into a scholarly context of social psychology, developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, clinical psychology, history, psychiatry, philosophy, and theology. This book will prove hard to put down and even harder to forget.

As an author and journalist who has studied this field for years, I found Mona Weissmark's "Justice Matters" an important addition to the history of Holocaust literature, and our never-ending quest to understand the why to Nazi crimes. In her search for ultimate answers to such fundamental questions such as whether good people can pursue heinous acts, or whether there is an absolute truth to issues of morality and justice about the crimes of World War II, Weissmark successfully stimulates a vigorous and fascinating debate. She unmasks the complexity behind matters that too often are oversimplified. No student of history or the Holocaust can finish Justice Matters without being moved by her comprehensive study of the children of both survivors and Nazis, and come to the realization of how their subjective views profoundly affect our own thinking. But you don't have to be someone interested merely in the subject matter to find the exposition and discussion of the central themes of good and evil and crime and forgiveness to be fascinating and compelling.

Springing from an unprecedented meeting between the sons and daughters of the Holocaust and the children of the Third Reich, Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II takes readers on an unparalleled journey of hatred and ethnic resentments. Although more than half a century has passed, recollections of the Holocaust and WWII still sear the lives of survivors, their children and grandchildren. Weissmark's book shows how the cycle of ethnic and religious strife is kept alive generation after generation through story-telling, with each side recounting the injustice it suffered and the valor it showed in avenging its own group. Describing how these stories or "legacies" transmit moral values, beliefs and emotions and thus preserve the past, Weissmark writes: "Unjust acts that have not been reconciled are stored in legacies as if packed in ice." The lessons of Justice Matters speak to a world reeling from unhealed wounds, providing insights into myriad conflicts ranging from centuries old disputes in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, to racial strife in America's ghettos. Weissmark presents an inspiring recipe for reconciliation, asserting that it is not enough for the antagonist to agree to talk. Each side also must agree to moderate their own emotions and dispense with the notion that they are the most aggrieved. Justice Matters is about hearing the other side, seeing the other view. The story of how children of the Holocaust and children of the Nazis struggled to come to terms with their past has universal applications for any people, and culture, riven with a legacy of resentment.