‘Reader’ author urges remembrance of past

German novelist and internationally acclaimed author of ‘The Reader’ Bernard Schlink spoke Monday night at the Photonics Center about the importance of the past for future generations.

‘We regard it as self-evident that the past has to be confronted,’ Schlink said. ‘Dealing with the past is a part of self perception.’

‘The Reader,’ now a motion picture, shows how different generations have dealt with the Holocaust and how difficult comprehension of the event is.

Sven Birkerts, editor of literary journal ‘AGNI,’ said the depth of narrative is what draws a reader to Schlink’s novels.

”The Reader’ treats the personal and collective past as a mystery,’ Birkerts said.

Schlink addresses how each generation changes its perception of history in his work, Birkerts said.

The third generation after the Holocaust is now interested in what happened but has missed the moral lessons of the event, Schlink said. Future generations can be only be warned if they realize the importance of the Holocaust, he said.

‘The Holocaust has become small change that is easily handed out,’ Schlink said. ‘But the past can become history without losing importance.’

However, Harvard University graduate student Alvaro Santana said in order for the Holocaust to be meaningless, it must be replaced by another major event.

‘We make a choice as individuals when it comes to approaching the past,’ Santana said. ‘The past is not something frozen but has a mythological presence.’

‘The past is always present but changing, never stable,’ Santana said.

Boston Globe columnist and winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for criticism Mark Feeney moderated the talk.

Schlink said there is a clear distinction between how young Germans and young Americans are impacted by the Holocaust.

‘The past is much closer to younger Germans than the young generation in America,’ Schlink said. ‘But they don’t feel guilty anymore, the young Germans. The guilt of my generation was entanglement, and it’s natural that they don’t feel that now.’

Fixation on the past is an act of repression and anyone who remembers a certain troubling event has the right to forget, Schlink said.

‘Longing not to be chained to a troubling past is not wrong,’ Schlink said.

Center for International Relations Director Vivien Schmidt said future generations should follow Schlink’s lessons of memory.

‘Each generation has to remember the past in its own way,” Schmidt said. ‘The Holocaust is a part of history and needs to be remembered rather than repressed.’

Although memories are important, they can never bring us back to the past, Schlink said.

‘We never come home,’ Schlink said. ‘Maybe we get the idea of home from our childhood which is forever gone.’