I SPENT THE summer after the trial in the reading room of the university library. I arrived as the reading room opened and left when it closed. On weekends I studied at home. I studied so uninterruptedly, so obsessively1, that the feelings and thoughts that had been deadened by the trial remained deadened. I avoided contacts. I moved away from home and rented a room. I brushed off the few acquaintances who spoke2 to me in the reading room or on my occasional visits to the movies.
The winter semester I was much the same way. Nonetheless, I was asked if I would like to spend the Christmas vacation with a group of students at a ski lodge3. Surprised, I accepted.
I wasn’t a good skier4, but I liked to ski and was fast and kept up with the good ones. Sometimes when I was on slopes that were beyond my ability, I risked falls and broken bones. I did this consciously. The other risk I was taking, and to which I succumbed5, was one to which I was oblivious6.
I was never cold. While the others skied in sweaters and jackets, I skied in a shirt. The others shook their heads and teased me about it, but I didn’t take their worries seriously. I simply didn’t feel cold. When I began to cough, I blamed it on the Austrian cigarettes. When I started to feel feverish7, I enjoyed it. I felt weak and light at the same time, and all my senses were pleasingly muffled8, cottony, padded. I floated.
Then I came down with a high fever and was taken to the hospital. By the time I left, the numbness9 was gone. All the questions and fears, accusations10 and self-accusations, all the horror and pain that had erupted during the trial and been immediately deadened were back, and back for good. I don’t know what the doctors diagnose when someone isn’t freezing even though he should be freezing. My own diagnosis11 is that the numbness had to overwhelm my body before it would let go of me, before I could let go of it.
When I had finished my studies and began my training, it was the summer of the student upheavals12. I was interested in history and sociology, and while clerking with a judge I was still in the university often enough to know what was going on. Knowing what was going on did not mean taking part—university and university reforms were no more interesting to me than the Vietcong and the Americans. As for the third and real theme of the student movement, coming to grips with the Nazi13 past, I felt so removed from the other students that I had no desire to agitate14 and demonstrate with them.
Sometimes I think that dealing15 with the Nazi past was not the reason for the generational conflict that drove the student movement, but merely the form it took. Parental17 expectations, from which every generation must free itself, were nullified by the fact that these parents had failed to measure up during the Third Reich, or after it ended. How could those who had committed Nazi crimes or watched them happen or looked away while they were happening or tolerated the criminals among them after 1945 or even accepted them—how could they have anything to say to their children? But on the other hand, the Nazi past was an issue even for children who couldn’t accuse their parents of anything, or didn’t want to. For them, coming to grips with the Nazi past was not merely the form taken by a generational conflict, it was the issue itself.
Whatever validity the concept of collective guilt18 may or may not have, morally and legally—for my generation of students it was a lived reality. It did not just apply to what had happened in the Third Reich. The fact that Jewish gravestones were being defaced with swastikas, that so many old Nazis19 had made careers in the courts, the administration, and the universities, that the Federal Republic did not recognize the State of Israel for many years, that emigration and resistance were handed down as traditions less often than a life of conformity—all this filled us with shame, even when we could point at the guilty parties. Pointing at the guilty parties did not free us from shame, but at least it overcame the suffering we went through on account of it. It converted the passive suffering of shame into energy, activity, aggression20. And coming to grips with our parents’ guilt took a great deal of energy.
I had no one to point at. Certainly not my parents, because I had nothing to accuse them of. The zeal21 for letting in the daylight, with which, as a member of the concentration camps seminar, I had condemned22 my father to shame, had passed, and it embarrassed me. But what other people in my social environment had done, and their guilt, were in any case a lot less bad than what Hanna had done. I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed23 at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence24 in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible.
And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents. I envied other students back then who had dissociated themselves from their parents and thus from the entire generation of perpetrators, voyeurs25, and the willfully blind, accommodators and accepters, thereby26 overcoming perhaps not their shame, but at least their suffering because of the shame. But what gave rise to the swaggering self-righteousness I so often encountered among these students? How could one feel guilt and shame, and at the same time parade one’s self-righteousness? Was their dissociation of themselves from their parents mere16 rhetoric27: sounds and noise that were supposed to drown out the fact that their love for their parents made them irrevocably complicit in their crimes?
These thoughts did not come until later, and even later they brought no comfort. How could it be a comfort that the pain I went through because of my love for Hanna was, in a way, the fate of my generation, a German fate, and that it was only more difficult for me to evade28, more difficult for me to manage than for others. All the same, it would have been good for me back then to be able to feel I was part of my generation.
审判过后的那个夏天我是在大学图书馆阅览室度过的。阅览室一开门我就来，关门时我才走。周末我在家里学习。我是如此一心只读书，不闻窗外事，以至于审判给我的感觉和思想造成的麻木一直没有恢复正常。我避免与人接触，我从家里搬了出来，在外边租了一间房。仅有的几位熟人，也不过是在阅览室或偶尔在电影院相识的点头之交，现在我也不与他们点头了。
在冬季学期里，我的行为举止几乎没有什么改变。尽管如此，还是有人问我是否愿意和一些学生在圣诞节期间一起去滑雪。奇怪的是我竟然答应了。
我滑雪滑得并不好，但我喜欢滑，而且喜欢滑得很快，愿意和那些滑得特别好的人一起滑。我的下坡技术实际上还不过硬，但有时我还是冒摔交和骨折的危险从山上往下滑。然而，我冒的另一种风险——后来这个风险兑现了，我却全然不知。
我从未觉得冷。当其他人穿着毛衣和夹克衫滑雪时，我和穿着衬衫滑，其他人对此摇头不已，并对我进行劝告。但是，我对他们深怀忧虑的劝告不当回事，因为我没有觉得冷。当我开始咳嗽时，我把它归罪于奥地利香烟。当我开始发烧时，我反倒感觉那是一种享受。我感到虚弱，同时感觉轻飘飘的。我的感觉变得迟钝起来，但却感觉良好：惬意、充实。我好像在腾云驾雾。
随后，我因发高烧被送进了医院。出院时，我的麻木不仁消失不见了。一切问题、恐惧、控告、自责，所有在法庭审理期间出现而后又麻木了的惊恐和痛苦又出现了，并在我心里停留下来。我不知道当一个人该感觉冷却又感觉不出冷时，医生会对此做出什么样的诊断。我的自我诊断是：麻木不仁在它摆脱我之前或在我能摆脱它之前制服了我的肉体。
当我在夏季结束了学业并开始作为候补官员工作时，学生运动开始了。我对历史和社会学感兴趣，而且作为候补官员我还有足够的时间呆在大学里去经历所发生的一切。经历并不意味着参与，高校和高校改革对我来说归根结底就像越南的游击队和美国人一样无所谓。至于学生运动的第三个主题——实际上也是最基本的主题，即如何对待纳粹历史的问题，我感到自己与其他学生之间存在着非常大的距离，以至于我不愿意和他们一起宣传鼓动和一起游行。
有时我想，就纳粹历史进行辩论并不是学生运动的理由，而是两代人之间的冲突的表达方式，这种冲突显然是这场学生运动的推动力量。父辈在第三帝国，或者至少在第三帝国结束以后没有做他们应该做的事，这让年轻一辈感到失望。每一代年轻人都要从对父辈的这种失望中解脱出来。那些或犯下了纳粹罪行，或对纳粹罪行袖手旁观，或对之视而不见，或在一九四五年之后容忍和接受罪犯的父辈该对他们的孩子们说什么呢！但是另一方面，纳粹历史对那些无法或不愿意谴责父辈的孩子也是一个值得讨论的问题。对他们来说，就纳粹历史进行的这场辩论并不是两代人之间的冲突的外部表现形式，而是问题的症结所在。
不论集体犯罪在道德和法律方面应承担什么责任，对我们这一代学生来说它都是一个确凿事实。不仅仅在第三帝国所发生的事是这样的事实，就是后来发生的事，诸如犹太人的墓碑被涂上纳粹标志；许多老纳粹分子在法院，在管理部门或在大学里步步高升；联邦德国不承认以色列国；流亡和抵抗的故事流传开来的少，而由于适应变化了的情况而活命的故事居多……所有这些都使我们感到羞耻，尽管我们有权对负有责任的人进行指责。虽然对负有责任的人指责并不能使我们摆脱羞耻之心，但它却能消除由此产生的痛苦，它可以把由羞耻引起的被动痛苦转换为力量、积极性和进攻行为。正因为如此，与负有罪责的父辈较量起来显得劲头十足。
我不能对任何人进行指责。我不能指责我父母，因为我对他们没有什么可指责的。当年参加集中营研讨班时所具有的那种为澄清事实而指责自己父亲的热情，对我来说已成为过去，并令我难堪。我周围的其他人的所作所为，即他们所犯的罪行，与汉娜的所作所为比起来都算不了什么了。实际上，我必须指责汉娜，但是，指责汉娜的结果是搬起石头砸自己的脚。我爱过她，我不仅爱过她，我还选择了她。我极力这样自我安慰：当我选择汉娜时，我对她过去的所作所为一无所知。我努力使我自己认为自己无罪，说自己当时所处的状态与孩子爱父母的状态没有两样。但是，对父母的爱是谁一不需要人们承担责任的爱。
也许人们甚至也要为爱父母承担责任。当时，我很羡慕那些与他们的父母，同时与整个一代罪犯——旁观者、逃避者、容忍着和接受者划清界限的同学，因为，他们至少可以解除由耻辱产生的痛苦，如果不能解除耻辱本身的话，但是，我经常在他们身上见到的那种自我炫耀式的自负是从何而来的呢？怎样能够在感到有罪和耻辱的同时又自负他自我炫耀呢？难道与父母划清界限仅仅是一种雄辩和吵吵嚷嚷吗？难道想通过这种吵吵嚷嚷宣告：出于爱父母之心而纠缠其罪责的运动已经开始且无法挽回？
这些都是我后来的想法，即使到后来这对我也并不是一种安慰。它怎么能是一种安慰？我爱汉娜的痛苦在一定程度上是我们这代人的命运，是德国人的命运。我比其他人更难摆脱这种命运，比其他人更不容易战胜这种命运。尽管如此，如果当时我能把自己融入同代人之中的话，那会对当时的我深有益处的。
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obsessively
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| ad.着迷般地，过分地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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skier
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| n.滑雪运动员 | |
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succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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upheavals
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| 突然的巨变( upheaval的名词复数 )； 大动荡； 大变动； 胀起 | |
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Nazi
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| n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的 | |
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agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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Nazis
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| n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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voyeurs
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| n.窥淫癖者（喜欢窥视他人性行为）( voyeur的名词复数 )；刺探隐秘者（喜欢刺探他人的问题或私生活） | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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