Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five
Issue 59 - Widening the Aperture
Welcome to Issue 59 of Deep Life Reflections, where I share five things I’ve been enjoying and thinking about over the past week. A special welcome to new subscribers.
In this week’s issue, we explore Dan Stone’s compelling examination of one of history’s darkest chapters in The Holocaust: An Unfinished History. We also revisit the infamous O.J. Simpson trial through the documentary film, OJ: Made in America. Both works urge us to ‘widen the aperture*’—to broaden our perspective and deepen our understanding of these and other complex events.
*Widening the Aperture: For those unfamiliar with this term, in photography, ‘aperture’ refers to the opening in a lens through which light passes to enter the camera. By adjusting the aperture, a photographer can change the amount of light and the depth of the field in the photograph. Metaphorically, ‘widening the aperture’ means to open ourselves up to more information and diverse perspectives, allowing us to see a broader and clearer picture of a situation, much like a lens capturing more of a scene.
Join me as we explore this week’s Friday Five.
1. What I’m Reading
The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, by Dan Stone.
“Of the 9,600,000 Jews who lived in the parts of Europe under Nazi domination, it is conservatively estimated that 5,700,000 have disappeared, most of them deliberately put to death by the Nazi conspirators.”
From the indictment, International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 7 June 1946
In his remarkable book, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, Dan Stone offers both a narrative overview and a scholarly analysis of the Holocaust, challenging much of what we think we know about this dark chapter of history, often highlighting how this terrible history remains “unfinished”. Stone, a Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London, draws on decades of research and harrowing testimony throughout this intelligent, sombre account. It’s one of the best historical books I’ve read.
One of the book’s key themes—and challenges to current thinking—is that the Holocaust was a “continent-wide crime” with many perpetrators, not just Germans. Stone is careful to emphasise that the Holocaust was obviously initiated by Germany—with the Nazis driven by their destructive ideology towards race and culture—but they found willing and often enthusiastic collaborators right across Europe. “Collaboration is most obviously evident in countries such as France, Norway, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, where killing Jews fitted with long-held nationalistic aspirations to create ethnically homogeneous nation-states.” Stone also points to “the disturbing fact… that many perpetrators appear to have taken part because they enjoyed doing so.”
The book also reveals how the idea of ‘industrial murder’ through its network of infamous concentration camps is incomplete. The Holocaust is sometimes seen as “characterised by the modern efficiency of factory-line murder.” However, in reality, as the book makes clear, many Jews were killed where they lived in the most brutal ways. They were shot in mass face-to-face killings or starved to death in ghettos. Not all these mass killing were carried out by Germans. In one story, in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, a local man—soon to be known as the “death-dealer”—picked up a crowbar and beat to death dozens of Jewish men one by one. After each murder, the crowd, including women and children, clapped. They also sang the Lithuanian national anthem.
There is also a powerful chapter exploring what happened after the war ended. Liberation “needs to be understood in inverted commas,” says Stone. Many died soon afterwards and remained captive in ‘displaced persons’ camps, unable to go where they wanted (the last of these camps didn’t close until 1957). Liberated Jews “felt rejected by Europe, which they rejected in turn.” This helped generate support for the creation of Israel in 1948, with ramifications that still resonate all-too clearly today.
As critic Matthew Reisz concludes, “Stone provides a compelling account of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath. But never does it let us believe that the events are now safely in the past.”
2. What I’m Watching
OJ: Made in America. Directed by Ezra Edelman.
“I’m not black, I’m O.J.”
OJ: Made in America is an exceptional documentary. Weighing in at nearly eight hours (split into parts), director Ezra Edelman expertly charts the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial in the mid 90s exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation that hasn’t appeared to have healed much in the intervening thirty years. The film won Best Documentary at the Academy Awards in 2017.
With the recent death of O.J. Simpson, who remained a highly divisive figure, I rewatched the documentary, which is currently showing on Netflix. The documentary is a sophisticated piece of investigative journalism that places its subject—Simpson—into the broader context of the second half of the twentieth century in America. Thus, the early part of the documentary focuses on the Watts Riots of 1965, which were motivated by anger at the racist and abusive practices of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) before turning to the contemporary case of Rodney King who was a victim of police brutality in 1991, but saw his four white accusers all acquitted by a white jury, sparking the Los Angeles Riots of 1992.
This backdrop sets the stage for the central narrative of the film: Simpson’s trial, which came to be known as ‘The Trial of the Century.’ The filmmaker forensically examines Simpson, who stood accused of brutally and cold-bloodedly murdering his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson wasn’t your typical defendant. He knew how to play the game, organising and marshalling his legal defence team. We learn about a man who didn’t see race as a factor in his life, who spent his time with white friends, hanging out with other celebrities. And in the greatest irony, when he was acquitted, he was shunned by this trusted community, and he instead turned to the black community, who overwhelmingly stood by him throughout the trial (70% of black people polled believed he was innocent).
OJ: Made in America is cinematic in its scope. It’s an examination of race, domestic abuse, celebrity, rolling television news pre-social media, civil rights, the LAPD, the legal process, and murder over the last fifty years, using the O.J. Simpson story to reflect and comment on American society.
While O.J. Simpson’s story may be over, America’s is not.
3. What I’m Contemplating
In reflecting on Dan Stone’s book, The Holocaust, and the award-winning documentary OJ: Made in America, I'm struck by their commitment to widening the aperture in the analysis of historical events. Both works not only provide contextual background but also engage in a thorough exploration of diverse sources, stories, and perspectives, many of which are not widely known today. However, this comprehensive approach presents its own challenges.
As Dan Stone insightfully notes, the events we refer to as the ‘Holocaust’ involved people from an array of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. “It is easy to forget that very few people involved in any way with the events we now bring together under the name of ‘Holocaust’ could even read or speak English. From Greece to Estonia, Italy to Ukraine, Hungary to Belgium, historians of the Holocaust in fact have to grapple with a wide range of national settings and traditions, different types of occupation or collaborationist regimes and many different languages. No historian can master all these languages.”
Similarly, in OJ: Made in America, the filmmaker grapples with a complex set of issues by examining the trial within the larger context of American racial tensions. These are systematic issues that are complex, deep-rooted, and provide no easy answers.
Yet, widening the aperture to understand how individual events are influenced by existing social, cultural, and political structures can give us, as readers and viewers, a greater understanding. To enhance that understanding further, we might today ask ourselves: Where and how do wider societal systems and structures shape what might initially seem like isolated events? And where can I widen the aperture to enhance my understanding?
4. A Quote to note
“The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.”
- Aldous Huxley
5. A Question for you
In what areas of your life could you benefit from widening the aperture to see a broader perspective?
Thanks for reading and being part of the Deep Life Journey community. If you have any reflections on this issue, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend.
James
This week's featured image was taken during my visit in 2009 to the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. I remember it being a wet, bleak day. Our guide, a dignified woman who had lost relatives at Auschwitz-Birkenau, shared her stories. People listened. Few spoke.
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