Toxic words get their own dictionary
Achtung: Understanding the power of Nazi words
KATE LUNAU | February 6, 2008 |
Last week, German television host Juliane Ziegler was fired from her job after jokingly using the phrase Arbeit macht frei while chatting with a guest on-air. Translated as "Work sets you free," these words were inscribed above the gates at the Auschwitz death camp. The saying is among hundreds of German expressions — from "degenerate" to "Final Solution" — that are taboo due to their association with the Nazi regime. Now, a new dictionary catalogues these Nazi sayings to help German-speakers navigate their linguistic minefield. "We don't mean to wipe out those words," explained co-author Thorsten Eitz. "We want to make people more sensitive to [their] power."
Titled Wörterbuch der "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (Dictionary of "Coming to Terms with the Past"), the book looks at some 1,000 expressions, from Lager ("concentration camp") to Selektion ("selecting" victims for execution), to Endlösung (the "Final Solution," which spurred mass killings of Jews). These words are specific, technical terms used by the Nazis to carry out their program of genocide, explains the University of Toronto's Jennifer Jenkins, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Modern German History. "They're toxic," she says. "They have a purely negative power. [To use them] immediately calls up that past." For example, German Cardinal Joachim Meisner faced calls for his resignation last year after he publicly described art disconnected from religion as entartete ("degenerate") — a word the Nazis also used to attack modern art.
Jenkins notes that this dictionary is part of an ongoing process in postwar Germany: grappling with a genocidal past. "This has gone on at all levels," she notes. "There's no silence or amnesia; it's a very open confrontation." But as the Third Reich drifts deeper into the history books, "people are nervous the awareness that's been so hard-won perhaps could be forgotten," Jenkins adds. A dictionary of these highly ideological words, which were used to such destructive ends, "is a monument," she says. "It makes it visible."
And...er...if they ban the word "Lager" what are they going to put on half the beer Germany produces??? Does that mean if I ask for a glass of lager in a bar I'd be arrested?
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
I wonder though does her research really amount to having
certain words be vilified? Just one more freedoms I see
we may be denied for the good of ourselves?
I would love to see the WHOLE list...and see what she has taken in their Nazi Germany context...but out of WORLD context..."Lager" being the one that leaps out already.
P.S. Surely Germany should be working to forget the secondary meaning that those words took for a time, rather than keep on reminding itself and other people? And passing the guilt on to generations that weren't even the proverbial twinkle back then?
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
In my opinion this woman is just another tenured fool, something we have far too much of in academia these days. These people stopped producing anything of relevance long ago. Look at the specialties of virtually any history faculty, and one will find the pursuit of nebulous mush to be the most prevalent "specialty".
Agreed. Around the world, too many tenures are specifically tied to the output of a fixed number of publications each year - whether journal articles (God bless JSTOR!), monographs, books, whatever...no matter of what relevancy or interest LOL I can't help but think that managing to find 1,000 words with double meanings in a 12-year period of modern VERY well-documented history was one of the easier tasks she set herself...Goebbels' Diairies and a German-English dictionary will have produced about 980 of them...
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Annelie, I would question the use of the phrase "Nazi words..." As near as I can tell, they are GERMAN words. The Nazi regime just used them in a context somewhat differently than common usage.
on this orginized tour of mainly Germans,I was the only one with a US passport. Naturally I had to take plenty of verbal abuse about the present state of the US in general.But all in a jokingly and
friendly way.On the last day one joker stood up and shouted "yankee go home",well we all just laughed
for what it was meant.But than again he said in German "Ami raus"
which is another demo slogan.So I turned around and said jokingly:"Hey that's very familiar
exept once it said "jews".There was a dead silence in the dining room.So I said then "Don't worry in two days I'll be past Europe because I will not wait for the Endloesung.
The guy got a little red faced but we all laughed it off for what it was.
I think there are a few hotheads like everywhere ells who will always find things to bitch.
War does not determine who is right,war determens who is left.
But than again he said in German "Ami raus"
which is another demo slogan.So I turned around and said jokingly:"Hey that's very familiar
exept once it said "jews".There was a dead silence in the dining room.So I said then "Don't worry in two days I'll be past Europe because I will not wait for the Endloesung.
You just gave an example how even today the Germans must
watch what they say, and even you equated it to the Jews
when he said "Ami raus". I would have just given his "ami raus"
to so many today's political views about Americans.
LOL.
