“Good souls” and the other side of history

Abstract

For the Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit, who writes about the Shoah, there is an ethics of memory and obligation to remember people and events of the past. For whom the Shoah is, moreover, a personal reference, the duty of, at least, remembering, is more than obvious. There are no aesthetic or ethical barriers that prevent the confrontation with the theme that seems to defy our ability to cope with the past. Anashim Tovim [free translation: “Good Souls”], by Nir Baram [Am Oved, Tel Aviv, 2010], the novel which will be discussed in this communication is one of the most recent and daring literary models that has catastrophe as its background. Focused on Germany in World War II, behind the events of the Shoah, the book also covers in his fictional universe Soviet purges and persecutions, conjunction valid for dealing with moral dilemmas generated by almost simultaneous events. The drive of the novel indicates that over the characters of both universes hangs the recognition that each one is responsible for his actions and life, even when confronting circumstances for which there are no other ways out.