LONG SHADOWS

A Canadian writer visits places with dark histories to find what people know and feel about them.

“I could imagine nothing more compelling,” writes Paris (The End of Days, not reviewed), “than to hunt down the ways that the past is managed to suit the perception of our present needs.” And “hunt down” she does—in ways ranging from enlightening to superficial. She begins with WWII, visiting Germany and interviewing a variety of people, including Martin Bormann Jr. (now a Catholic priest). She notes that Germany not only acknowledges its wartime atrocities but requires their study in the school curriculum. In France, she views some of the trial of Maurice Papon, a former Nazi collaborator during the occupation, and again interviews a wide range of people (including a group of high school students who are skeptical about the French myth of a pervasive resistance movement during the war). In Japan, the author finds an unwillingness to examine war crimes committed by the Japanese (e.g., the 1937 Rape of Nanking) rather than those committed against them (such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki). In the shallowest section of her survey, Paris goes to the US and considers the lingering legacies of slavery. Here, she points out the obvious, cites the well-known (e.g., de Tocqueville’s prescience), and regrets that Congress declined to issue an apology for slavery. In South Africa, her interviews range from the guy who sat next to her on the plane to Desmond Tutu. Included is a riveting account of a hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Lusikisiki. She also tells the story of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, dives into the murky historical waters of the Balkans, and discusses the history of prosecutions for war crimes.

Paris raises uncomfortable questions of enormous importance, but the complexities of the situations often demand far more analysis than she offers—or appears capable of offering).