Ill Literacy, Episode 140: The Collaborators (Guest: Ian Buruma)
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Tim Benson:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Illiteracy Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Benson, a senior policy analyst at Institute, a national free market think tank. We're in episode a 130 something territory. I'm not exactly sure what episode number. Never never usually know.
Tim Benson:But point being, we're not a very new podcast anymore. But for those of you just tuning in for the first time, basically, what we do here on the podcast is I invite an author on to discuss a book of theirs that's been newly published or recently published on something or someone or some idea or some event, etcetera, etcetera, than I think you would like to hear a conversation about. And then hopefully at the end of the podcast, you'll go out and, give the book a purchase yourself and, give it a read. So if you like this podcast, please consider giving Illiteracy a 5 star review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show, and also by sharing with your friends because that's the best way to support programming like this. And my guest today is mister Ian Boruma, and mister Boruma is the Paul w Williams professor of human rights and journalism at Bard College.
Tim Benson:And in previous lives, he was also culture cultural editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, foreign editor of The Spectator, and editor of The New York Review of Books. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Guardian. And he is the author of, among others, Theater of Cruelty, Art, Film, and the Shadows of War, Murder in Amsterdam, The Death of Theo Van Gogh, and the Limits of Tolerance, Year 0, A History of 1945, The The Rise and Fall of the Special Relationship and the End of the Anglo American Order and A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir. And lastly, he is the author of The Collaborators, 3 Stories of Deception and Survival in World War 2, which was published last March by Penguin Press and is the book we will be discussing today. So, mister Bruma, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Tim Benson:I do appreciate
Ian Buruma:it. Thank you. Just one correction. The last one is actually, Spinoza.
Tim Benson:Oh, that's right. I forgot about I was gonna ask you about Spinoza because I actually I actually wanted to talk to you about Spinoza
Ian Buruma:That's nice.
Tim Benson:For the podcast. Yeah. But, it was supposed to be delivered from Amazon, like, a week ago, and then I got an update that it wasn't gonna be here until 28th. So I never had a chance to read it. Right.
Ian Buruma:There's a problem with Amazon. Other people have told me that.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's it's been weird. It's it seems like every other order I've had from Amazon lately is being delayed. And not just by, like, a day or 2, but, like, a week. No.
Tim Benson:It's not something like that. I mean Yeah. So, anyway, so I apologize. I did wanna talk to you about Spinoza because I'm a big fan of the, the Jewish live series, which is from Yale University Press. That's, the the Spinoza book is one of the latest entry in the Jewish life series.
Tim Benson:So, actually, before we get to what we are talking about now, why don't you just tell everybody about, you know, just give everybody a little rundown of of the Spinoza book so they can look out for that one.
Ian Buruma:Well, I mean, Spinoza interested me, not just because the 17th century in in the Dutch Republic is interesting, but because, I think we need him more than ever because he was really the philosopher of, freedom of thought and freedom of speech. And in his day, which as I said was in the mid 17th century, the main opponents, of free speech as he saw it, were religious. So he got, banished from his, synagogue in Amsterdam for at a very young age, he was only 23, for, disbelieving in the idea that there is such a thing as God, a creator. He thought God was inherent in nature, that nature is really God. He also disbelieved, miracles and angels and the immortality of the soul.
Ian Buruma:And the, Jewish rabbis, had to be very careful not to annoy the Christians. So they were irritated enough by this what they saw as blasphemy, but they also didn't want to get into trouble with the Christians who are dominant, of course. And so Spinoza got kicked out. And, but after that, the main opponents of free speech were really the Calvinist, the Orthodox Calvinist. And there is a parallel with our own time in that the the the fight of free speech was not only political or religious, but was also very much part of the academy of the universities at the time.
Ian Buruma:And the the Calvinist, the religious, professors felt that, the way to the truth was to was through the Bible and the word of God and, Philip Spinoza's idea of finding the truth was closer to our our idea of science. And that was the use of reason, and so on. And, they the religious professors, of course, saw that as a direct challenge to their authority. And so the reason, I'm interest I was interested in Spinoza is because I think we're struggling with something similar today. I mean, not only are there still many religious people who feel that certain books need to be banned because they, supposedly, offend moral sensibilities of of of religious people.
Ian Buruma:But, also, there are secular versions, especially in the universities, museums, publishing houses, and so on, where dogmatic views, on race, on gender, and, and and so on are being imposed. And freedom of speech is again, freedom of thought is again under pressure from both the right and the left. And, Spinoza, I think, has a lot to tell us.
Tim Benson:Did you did you get a chance to read, who is it? I I think Jonathan Israel. Didn't he have a, like, a we had a yes. Doorstop
Ian Buruma:A book last year? More than a 1000 pages.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah.
Ian Buruma:I've I've read big chunks of it. Yes. It's it's very difficult to read the whole thing,
Tim Benson:in one go. But Sure. Of course. No. Your biography is not quite that large.
Tim Benson:No. The Jewish live series are they those are books that you can read in, you know, one setting or two setting. They're, they're meant to be brief biographies, but they're, they're fantastic. I like I said, I have you can't really see on camera, but right over here, I got a whole shelf of them. I think I have practically everyone.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. But, so I'm looking forward to that one. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to to read it, beforehand, but, we'll have to blame Jeff Bezos for that because, he bricked on the delivery. So, so, unfortunately, nothing we can do about that. Anyway, now on to the collaborators.
Tim Benson:Or, actually, before we get to that, one thing, I know, in your background or you studied, Japanese cinema. Correct? In your
Ian Buruma:Yes. I did. I I studied fur I first studied, Chinese, literature and history. And then I went to Tokyo, on a scholarship and, studied Japanese cinema over there. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So, my son, who will turn 4, tomorrow Hi, Robbie. Happy birthday. Like, he's he was in, like, he's in his dinosaur, phase, you know, like most kids have, like, a dinosaur phase. So, like, 6 months ago, just we were just sort of lounging before we're getting ready for bed, and I was just going through.
Tim Benson:And I saw on HBO Max they had all like, they have all the, old, like, Toho, Godzilla films from the fifties sixties seventies. So I put on the original Godzilla movie for him, and I was like, well, let me just see how this is gonna go. Probably not gonna work because it's in black and white. It's entirely in Japanese. So he can't understand a word anything anybody's saying.
Tim Benson:But he loved it, and now he is like a giant Godzilla freak. Like, he is we have watched practically all those old Toho Japanese films. He doesn't like the new Godzilla's very much, the American ones. But, like, the old ones, he absolutely adores them. And now I have, I've gotten them, like, Godzilla figures.
Tim Benson:So, like, Godzilla and Mechagodzilla and Mothra and Rodan and Gigan and and Gyrus and, King Ghidorah and all these other things. And he plays with them all the time. And so I probably now know more than, like, 99% of humanity, about Godzilla movies, which was something I never just some, like, just from having to watch these movies all the time. And, it was something I never thought would happen in my life. And, it's just amazing how, kids just get attached to something.
Tim Benson:And now I'm like, well, you know, who knows? Maybe my my son's gonna be, you know, one of those kids that's, like, massively interested in my Japanese culture, and I'm gonna have to, like, take him to Japan in a couple years or something like that all because I turned on a turned on a Godzilla movie when he was 3a half. Anyway, so, yeah, it's just strange how that kind of stuff happens. Yeah. Have you watched, one more thing.
Tim Benson:Have you watched that, Tokyo Vice show at all on HBO?
Ian Buruma:No. No. We haven't?
Tim Benson:Oh, I just started. It's pretty good. So, I don't know how realistic it is. I mean, it deals with, like, Yakuza and all that stuff and Right. And everything, but, pretty well done, I gotta say, for the HBO stuff.
Tim Benson:So if you ever get some spare time, check it out.
Ian Buruma:Right.
Tim Benson:Alright. Anyway. Alright. So to the book itself, the collaborators. So what made you wanna write this book?
Tim Benson:What was the genesis of it? Because it never would have occurred to me to write about these 3 people, first of all, because I didn't know who any of them were. And I know I mean, I'm not the smartest guy in the in the world, but, you know, I I pay attention to a lot of the World War 2 stuff. And I just if I had heard of any of these 3 people, it'd only been in passing. And, like I said, so it's something that never would occur to me to write about it.
Tim Benson:How did you fix on this idea for this book and what you explore in it and on these three individuals, that you feature?
Ian Buruma:I think there are various things. One is that, grew up I was born in December 1951. So I've obviously, was not alive during the war. But I did grow up in the shadow of the war and especially if you grow up in a country, like the Netherlands where I grew up, which had been under Nazi occupation, you couldn't avoid it. And when I was a school kid, the narrative was almost like a myth.
Ian Buruma:I mean, it was very clearly divided between heroes and villains. Mhmm. And all one's teachers, of course, have been resistance heroes and, and you didn't go and shop in a certain candy store because the lady working there apparently had an, affair with a German soldier and so on. So we we had a very clear division in who the heroes were and who the villains. And, only gradually did it, occur to us sort of some decades after the war, really, that there were a lot of gray areas and people collaborated for all kinds of reasons and keeping their heads down.
Ian Buruma:Mhmm. And in fact, most people have tried to survive as best they could by, keeping keeping their heads down.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ian Buruma:And so I got more and more interested really in the gray areas. And also because I I feel that very few of us, are likely to be great heroes, in a in a crisis because few people are.
Tim Benson:We all think we will be.
Ian Buruma:But Well, we might have. But to think that is already rather an assumption.
Tim Benson:Right.
Ian Buruma:Right. Very few few of us probably would be out in our villainous collaborators either. I think in most countries under Nazi rule, I think that probably goes for most dictatorships. The the the fairly small number of people are brave enough to resist and and relatively small number of people, out in our villains. Most people, again, try to survive.
Ian Buruma:So I was interested in that. And at least 2 of these characters were well known to me. 1 was a Hasidic Jewish immigrant in Holland, who came over after World War 1 as a child. And it was one of these people who thought he was smarter than everybody else. And, he was a con man, really.
Ian Buruma:And, and during World War 2, his con was that he promised fellow Jews under Nazi occupation who were in danger of being deported to death camps, that he had this list that was backed by the German army. And if you paid him money, you could be on the list and then be taken to safety in, in Switzerland or Portugal or Spain. So that's the con man. Then the the the other person that who was well known to me because she's again a sort of legendary figure in in Japan and in China to some extent was a Chinese or Manchu princess. And she collaborated with the Japanese, had affairs with Japanese generals and so on, and was executed after the war as by the Chinese after as as a as a traitor.
Ian Buruma:And then the third one, again, a well known figure in certain circles, there's even a movie, apparently, in the make with Woody Harrelson playing him, was a Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS his personal master who was a Finn, and was not an out in our collaborator, but he made, Himmler's life more comfortable as he murdered 3 together not because they had a great deal in common, but they all, of course, tell a certain part of the history of World War 2. But also, this is where I think, again, where there is a there are echoes today that, what happens under dictatorships or military occupation is the truth is the first thing that disappears, because everything is propaganda. And these are great periods, for fantasists, people who make up the truth, often opportunistically because they they can invent reinvent themselves, and become, collaborators with the dictators or authoritarian rulers or foreign occupiers, and play roles that in normal the contemporary echoes in which, again, we live with politicians who are, in many respects, fantasists, and so are their followers. Mhmm.
Tim Benson:Yeah. You were back on the issue of collaboration, and, you write in the book, that you're probably paraphrasing, but there's, you know, a thousand reasons for resistance just as there are a thousand reasons for collaboration. And it's, it's hard, as you said, it's hard to say what we would do when faced in that putting the pressure of that situation. You know, there's so many different factors, whether you have a family to worry about or children or where you are geographically, etcetera etcetera. So so try try not to judge people based on their actions because you just don't know, again, what you would do in the situations.
Tim Benson:But it seems to me, of the 3, Weinreb, who is an active collaborator, I mean, because there's degree of collaborations too. I mean, as you said, most people just sort of, you know, carried on and tried to keep their heads down on some of those. So maybe for the most people, there was some sort of soft collaboration or just, you know, going along to getting along, that sort of thing. But FineRev seemed to be contemptible in that he actively actively collaborated, was what the Germans call, was it, Vertraundsman? Yes.
Tim Benson:SOPD man or a trusted person. So so, he actively betrayed other people. He actively betrayed his fellow Jews to save
Ian Buruma:him out. That's in some ways, was was the most contemptible. I mean, that he, he himself, of course, was was in constant danger of being deported to the death camp. But, then to calm other people who are in the same boat is particularly contemptible. But the the the figure who circumstances were, of course, completely different.
Ian Buruma:But the figure who came to mind as I, read about Vineyard was really Bernie Madoff. Mhmm. They they they were con men who used the same technique, which doesn't make Madoff perhaps as villainous as Weinreb. But they they Madoff too and his victims were mostly fellow Jews. And he used, confidence in him as as a man to be trusted, as as a weapon.
Ian Buruma:And he even would tell people that there was no more room on his list, which, gave them even more incentive to want to be on it.
Tim Benson:And Yeah, to give it a like an air of exclusivity.
Ian Buruma:That's right. And Violet did the same thing. Now, in minor case, it was worse because the victims of Bernie Madoff, were basically greedy. They just wanted to make more money.
Tim Benson:Right.
Ian Buruma:But people the victims of Vine Reb wanted to stay alive, and to exploit that, of course, is is is is is much worse.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. I maybe we should go back, to the beginning, just on these 3. We mentioned Vine Rib. The Manchu slash Japanese woman featured in the book is Yoshika Kawashima, and then the Hitler's masseuse is a Estonian slash Finn. I he's Estonian, but he's a Finnish national.
Ian Buruma:Mhmm. That's
Tim Benson:why his name is Felix Kerstin. But they all seem the 3 of them, at least, all have something in common or, that they all sort of had, in their opinion or in their recollection, an idyllic childhood or in their memories their child is is up is idyllic that ends up being it's a childhood or early adulthood that ends up being completely upended, by war or revolution. And all 3 of them, sort of experience living essentially as exiles. So they all outside of their country of birth or, you know, where they grew up. So they they all 3 have that in common together.
Ian Buruma:Yeah. I think that's right. I wouldn't call Kawashima Yoshiko the Manchu princess in exile necessarily, but they they were all 3 were children of collapsed empires. Mhmm. And they grew up in the last years, of of empires where at least everything was seemed stable.
Ian Buruma:Kawashima grew up as a Manchu princess in the the last years of the Qing dynasty, and the Qing dynasty in China was, of course, Manchu dynasty. Mhmm. Her family lost everything. And, Kirsten grew up at the the end of the Russian empire in in, in in Estonia, at least. And Weinreb grew up in at the end of the Austro Hungarian empire.
Ian Buruma:So, yes. And so nothing was stable anymore. And I think that although not technically perhaps exiles, all 3 felt displaced, didn't quite know where they belonged anymore. And the wartime circumstances or the circumstances of of in Kerstin's case of the Nazi regime, the 3rd Reich, gave them an opportunity to reinvent themselves according to their imagination. Mhmm.
Ian Buruma:And, that I find that a fascinating aspect of human behavior.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Speaking on that theme, reinvention, you write in the book that, you could that these these 3 thrive in World War 2, but you could easily imagine them becoming social media avatars that they're they're what they present to the world is really essentially like all social media websites is not true. It's fake. That's right.
Ian Buruma:That's the that's the one of the echoes today and that we live in a in a in an age where inventing yourself, fantasizing about a different self, and so on is basically, actively encouraged by the opportunities, of technology and social media.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Alright. Let's, go I guess, let's start with, Kirsten first. And how did he end up becoming the the personal masseuse to Heinrich Himmler?
Ian Buruma:Well, he he had a talent, obviously, for massage. He moved to Germany. He was although born in Estonia, he was basically a German speaking, person with German ancestry. So he was sent to Germany to to to train as a as as a masseur. And, according to him but everything he wrote in his memoirs and so on is to be distrusted.
Ian Buruma:But according to him, he met a a Tibetan master in Berlin, who taught him, particular techniques. Now I don't know if such a person really existed, but it is true that Berlin in the 19 twenties was, it was a time because of the defeat in World War 1 because of poverty and violence and so on, times of deep uncertainty. And again, we can look at our own time as as a parallel. People start to believe in anything, especially things that they feel can better their lives and so on. And so 19 twenties Berlin was full of seekers after spiritual, answers to to their lives and all kinds of mumbo jumbo, variations of vulgarized variations of Buddhism and so on.
Ian Buruma:We're all popular. Gita, the Hindu epic in his pocket and, and believed a lot of this stuff too. Yes. Karsten became a popular master to people who are powerful and rich, industrialists, aristocrats, and so all over Europe. And, Himmler heard about him, and Himmler had terrible stomach cramps.
Ian Buruma:And there was no doctor that could relieve his pain. Kersten, somehow, by manipulating him, could relieve it, for for short periods, not permanently, but for short period. And so Himmler insisted that, Kerstin become his personal man matter. Now Kerstin always claimed that he was sort of forced into this. He had no choice, so on.
Ian Buruma:I don't think that's true for a moment. I think he lived very well. He was a great sort of bon vivat, lots of girlfriends. He was a guru ma. He was a big big man and and had a great life in Berlin before the Nazis came to power and after the Nazis came to power.
Ian Buruma:I don't think it made much difference to him whether he took care of a pre war industrialist or prince or aristocrat or whether it it was a Nazi party boss. They were powerful. And like certain kinds of hairdressers and so on who become confidants of powerful people, he became Himmler's confidant. He became closer to Himmler than many other much more powerful Nazis. Because Himmler felt he could trust him in the same way that sort of very rich ladies sometimes trust their their hairdresser.
Tim Benson:Sure.
Ian Buruma:And so he was in an odd position, but he liked being in that position. I think he liked being a fixer and somebody who was important and knew important people and, the The Machar.
Announcer:The Machar. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. The one thing I noticed you going back to, you know, the, Berlin in the twenties and, just all the weird ideas that were floating around. The more I read about the Nazi inner circle, I'm always, like, fascinated about how strange a lot of these guys were. And I just I'm reading the book and I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, these guys they all sound like, like a bunch of, like, new age California hippies. Like, these these Nazis, like, they're they're all, like, tree huggers who are into astrology and, like, eastern mysticism and and yoga and, homeopathy and and
Ian Buruma:Well, some some of them.
Tim Benson:And they're all on dope and you know what I mean? Like, and Himmler, maybe the the strangest
Ian Buruma:of that of that whole crew. Well, this is the whole crew. Himmler was considered by other Nazis to be a little bit of a crack. Yeah. And they were also, of course, opportunistic Nazis who are only interested in power.
Ian Buruma:Hit Himmler Himmler did have a lot of very strange beliefs. So did Rudolf Hess, who was Hitler's deputy, who actually had terrible headaches. And he believed that having a a magnet, over his head could somehow pull the headaches out of his skull. There were other ideologues who were sort of nuts. But, you can be a nut and also a completely ordinary person.
Ian Buruma:I mean, if it hadn't been for the 3rd Reich and the Nazi movement, Himmler probably would have ended up as a minor high school teacher at best or, you know, the manager of a of a provincial bank branch. Sure. So but, yes. Well, Nazi ism itself is, of course, a load of mumbo jumbo and Mhmm. Completely irrational.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So the thing about Kirsten, I may be wrong here. I'm not sure how it worked, but I feel like Kirsten's sin and, apparently, he might have done some good, during the war. He might have actually saved some people, from death at the hands of the Nazi regime. But I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong, as as a Finnish citizen, that he could have just if he wanted to, if he was that uncomfortable with what the Nazis were doing, he could have left and just gone to Finland and and sat it out.
Tim Benson:I mean, am I wrong about that? Or No.
Ian Buruma:I think he could. Absolutely. And, I don't think he was uncomfortable particularly. That was claimed after the war, but I don't think think it was true.
Tim Benson:Right. So how much how much information about the final solution and the the the holocaust? How much of that was he was Kirsten Privy to?
Ian Buruma:Well, Privy to probably quite a lot because if you were close to Himmler and traveling through Lithuania and and and Poland and so on. You couldn't have avoided it. The question, of course, is how much did he want to know? And if he you can you can know and not knowing and and and realizing and understanding, they're all slightly different things. He it may not have been something he wanted to discuss.
Ian Buruma:It may not have been something he wanted to hear too much about, but, he certainly, would have known, a lot of the facts. There's there's absolutely no question.
Tim Benson:How much
Ian Buruma:detail he knew, how much he saw, all that we don't know. Right.
Tim Benson:But, as I said, there he and, of course, he makes up a lot of these Fantasias that, you know, he saved the entire Dutch population from, from deportation to the east, that he saved the entire you know France and Belgium and and the Dutch and the Luxembourgers I guess from starvation that, there was a Nazi plan to starve, the west and he, you know, did his magic on Himmler and got Himmler to change his mind or got Himmler to change Hitler's mind, you know, that sort of stuff, which
Ian Buruma:That, of course, is why it's that's the drama of the story he told. Right. What he what he claimed is that he made a deal with Himmler, and he could say, look, I can relieve your pain, but here's a list of people I would want you to release from a camp, or here's what I want you to do. Now, again, I mean, it's if you could see why Woody Harrelson would wanna play Kirsten in a in a heroic version of this story because it's a great story.
Tim Benson:Yeah. From e Howard Hunt to
Ian Buruma:But probably not quite true.
Tim Benson:Yeah. But there is some circumstantial evidence that Kirsten actually may have done, some good in that regard. He might have saved I mean, not millions of people or maybe even thousands of people, but, there there is there is evidence that he did go out of his way and maybe be maybe at his own peril went out of his way to try to, to save people, from their fate.
Ian Buruma:Yes. And, again, because of his role as a fixer and a and a a well connected person and so on. And so when it started to become clearer in in sort of the last 2 years of the war that Germany was not gonna win the war. People began to put out feelers to see if they could save themselves by making deals with the allies. And Himmler was was was secretly open to such deals.
Ian Buruma:And, unlike Hitler who was so fanatic that he would rather have died than than protect any Jews or let alone release them.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ian Buruma:There was was a more corrupt figure. I mean, he was open to to that kind of wheelie wheeler dealing wheeler wheeling and dealing. And so Kersten, who also wanted to protect himself, of course, when he saw things were not going Germany's way, managed to give himself a role in as an intermediary between neutral Sweden and Himmler. And, so he acted as a kind of intermediary between the World Jewish Congress based in Stockholm and Himmler to see whether some kind of deal could be made where people would be released from from some of the camps. And in exchange, Himmler might get preferential treatment from the allies and so on.
Ian Buruma:Now, all of this was pie in the sky. Himmler was never gonna get that kind of treatment. But a certain number of Jews were indeed released as a consequence of these negotiations. Now at the same time, the Swedes themselves were make trying to negotiate these kind of deals.
Ian Buruma:And, of course, the the main figure there was Fulkert Bernadotti, who was the head of the Red Cross, and, later was assassinated in in Israel by Stern Gang. Stern Gang. Yeah.
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Tim Benson:Let's move on a little bit, because I know we don't have much more time, but we talked about Vainbreb for a bit but maybe the most interesting or at least as interesting part of the story of his life opposed to what you know he did during the war, was what happens to him after the war where he becomes this sort of, cause celeb. Yes. And so, tell us a little bit about, about that.
Ian Buruma:Immediately after the war, he he was fingered by in fact, by by former by Jews who had been victim had been taken in by him, as somebody who who collaborated with the Nazis and and was responsible for some Jews probably, not only being tortured, but taken to their deaths. And so he was tried as a as as a as a fraudster and a and a traitor and spent some time in prison. Now he would have become obscure if he hadn't become a spiritual cult leader. He became a cabalist. He set himself up as a sort of cabalistic wise man.
Tim Benson:Like a guru, basically.
Ian Buruma:A guru. Yeah. For for wealthy, mostly gentile ladies. And he promised that he could tell them the secret of life because he could decode the Bible and that kind of thing. And, wrote a a a a memoir of of his time in the war and saw himself as a victim of antisemites.
Ian Buruma:And he saw himself as a kind of Dreyfus figure who had been persecuted by gentiles who themselves had been, much too close to the Nazis during the war and and made him into a scapegoat. Then there was the very important. It was the first book written after the war, specifically about the holocaust in the Netherlands by a history teacher. And it was called the downfall. And it was really this was in the sixties.
Ian Buruma:And the and the it was the same time that student protest began, that it was the Vietnam War and so on. And this book had a chapter in which Weinreb was indeed depicted as a kind of scapegoat, for Gentile collaborators who wanted to sort of wanted to blame a Jew for for what had happened. And, then it it became a not only a co celebra, but he became a kind of, heroic figure for the student, and for the sort of student and youth protesters of the sixties, who saw him as somebody who had had fooled the establishment, who was a sort of a non violent resist and so on and so forth. And he played up to this, in the way that conmans do. They always know what people want to hear.
Ian Buruma:And so then it really became a question of sort of the left adopting him as a kind of heroic, Dreyfus like figure.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ian Buruma:Whereas conservatives, were much more doubtful. And, it became and I remember this, I was still at school, but I remember when this was taking place. It was very heated debates, in intellectual journals and so on, whether you were pro or anti vine rep. Then the, the the there was a real attempt to get to the bottom of the whole thing and. A group of historians and legal scholars were, asked to get to the book to to really find out what what had really happened, what was what the truth of the whole Vine Reb saga.
Ian Buruma:And after some years, they had to conclude that he was guilty. Yeah. And, but the the the political role he played as a kind of hero to the left was was indeed very interesting.
Tim Benson:Yeah. And I guess maybe we should point out too, just, just because I feel like dumping on the guy while we're here, but he not only was he, an active collaborator, but you you mentioned his list and they're they have lots of, evidence and testimony that he was essentially sexually assaulting, yes, many women that are if he was putting people on the list, he said, okay. Well, we gotta make sure that you're I have to, you know, let me check out your wife or your daughter to make sure that she's healthy enough to be on the list and then would, you know, subject him to this.
Ian Buruma:Problem with weird injections and that kind
Tim Benson:of I
Ian Buruma:mean, he yes. That was, of course, another one of his fantasies. I mean, he had a a document which is completely for fraudulent. But he'd studied medicine in Vienna and was a was a doctor. And, clearly had strange sexual, kinks.
Ian Buruma:And, and again used totally, fake persona, to assault these, these female victims.
Tim Benson:Okay. Moving on again, I mean, there's much more to that Vine Ripped story. I mean, we're just basically scratching the surface with it. It's really, an interesting story how he basically thought all this stuff up and conjured, this big elaborate lie, and and managed to fool so many people for so long. I mean, you'll have to read the book, everybody.
Tim Benson:But, in the interest of time, let's move on to, the 3rd person in the book and, and that is, Kawashima. And to me, I don't know if this is my, male chauvinism showing through, but to me, she seemed were the other 2, whereas Feinrib's clearly a creep and you know I think, Kerstin could have made a decision to walk away that he didn't make. Kawashima seems more of a tragic figure.
Ian Buruma:Yes.
Tim Benson:Or there is, obviously, there's a lot of trauma in her in her childhood, sexual trauma. Most likely, we don't know for sure, but most likely. But she's, her whole story and, the course of her life just seems more, like I said, extremely tragic. Something about her that didn't seem to be what's the word I'm looking for? She didn't seem to be malignant in the other 2 or or or her crimes exactly were just sort of harmless in a way or compare comparatively.
Ian Buruma:Well, I I don't know about that. I mean, again, so much is unclear. I mean, that's the other thing the 3 stories have in common that we'll we'll never know the exact truth about any of them. There are so many lies told by them and by others and so on. I certainly agree that she was the most pathetic.
Tim Benson:Yes. Metathetic. That's the word I was
Ian Buruma:looking at. And, and that began, I think, before her stepfather possibly, raped her when she was a teenager. The the first thing that happened is that, the family moved to what what was once called Port Arthur and is now called Dalian, in in Manchuria, now northeastern China.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ian Buruma:And her father, who was a Manchu prince, had a friend who was a a Japanese ultranationalist, who then later became Yoshiko's stepfather. And, and but that happened in a very weird way And that, for whatever reason, her father, her real father, the Manchu prince, basically gave her as a child to his Japanese friend as as in as he put it as a toy to raise in Japan and to be handed over by her own father to to another man as as a kind of toy when you're a child is already must be Horrifying. Deeply traumatic.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Sure.
Ian Buruma:That so she grew up in Japan in this household of an ultranationalist whose ideals because they were similar to her father's, because, there were Japanese ultranationalists, imperialists who believed in Asia for the Asians and that they were fighting China, but not the Manchu. So they they, Manchuria became part of the Japanese empire supposedly as an independent Manchu state. So Japanese nationalists promised the Manchus that they could have their own state and then eventually go back and rule China again. Mhmm. But anyway, so so she grew up in that weird household of these ultranationalists in Japan.
Ian Buruma:And her entire life was really a story of being passed from one man to another. And but in a way in which it's not clear to what extent she was complicit. Because she was a bit like there's a famous play by Veda Kent called Lulu, in which which is also an opera, in which there's a woman who has young woman who first in Germany, and she ends up in London being killed by Jack the Ripper. And she's she goes from one man to to the next. But all these men project their own fantasies on her as though she's a sort of blank screen.
Ian Buruma:And Kawashima Yoshiko is a little bit like that. These men were all fantasized, had their own fantasies about her. She but and so she was a victim of men in one sense. The others on in another way, like Lulu, she cooperated in all this and let herself become an object of fantasy. And, she only had really had affairs with men who were very powerful and and and rich.
Ian Buruma:And so it's not entirely clear who's manipulating whom in her life. But that she was, in some ways, a tragic figure, is undeniable. Yeah.
Tim Benson:And she's sort of caught between these two worlds, the her Manchu upbringing in in Manchuria and then, and then obviously in Japan. And and so she has this strange relationship with the 2 of them and a strange relationship with anshu culture and and Japanese culture. And she's also, something of a tomboy.
Ian Buruma:She dress dressed up as a man. Right.
Tim Benson:Yes. And, again Not exclusively, but, I mean Exclusively,
Ian Buruma:but but mainly. And, again, we don't know exactly what the story was. Would would she have been trans in our own time? Possibly. She herself said she'd you know, she was so badly treated by men that she couldn't trust them anymore, and she realized that living life as a man was a better option.
Ian Buruma:We don't know. But you're quite right. The the tragic quality that she had is not really knowing where she belonged. Right. Was she a woman?
Ian Buruma:Was she a man? Was she a Japanese? Was she a Manchu? Was she Chinese? And all that got mixed up in our head.
Ian Buruma:And so she lent herself to Japanese propaganda, which was that here was a Manchu princess who was cooperating with the Japanese to restore Asia to the Asians, to to kick out, you know, the western imperialists, to restore the Manchus to their rightful place in China, and so on. And, she was certainly manipulated to to that end, but she was also manipulator herself.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. And unlike the other 2 men or Vine Reb and Kirsten in this book who, sort of escaped justice for whatever theoretical crimes they, were guilty of, were moral crimes, She then go on to live full lives or, she is actually executed by by the Chinese after the war.
Ian Buruma:The very strange circumstances. So she the after, Japan lost the lost lost the war in China, the nationalists took over before they lost to the communists in the in the civil war. And she was arrested by the nationalists, but and then was tried as a traitor. But what was very peculiar is that they use as evidence in her trial, the fantasies that she herself had helped concoct. So while she was still active during during in the thirties and early forties, a fictionalized kind of novel about her life was written, totally, invented stories about all kinds of daring do that she supposedly engaged in, where, published in the Japanese media and so on.
Ian Buruma:I mean
Tim Benson:propaganda films too.
Ian Buruma:Correct? Propaganda films. So she'd already become a
Tim Benson:a base Which is which are used as evidence against her. Right.
Ian Buruma:That's she got a legendary figure. And these legends, when then were then used in her trial as evidence, against her, which which, of course, is highly irregular.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Yeah. It's just there's something, since you called her, pitiful, and, that was the word I'm looking for, that she just her story seemed or her story made me feel, pity and sadness for her. Whereas Vine Rib, you know, obviously contempt and and, anger.
Ian Buruma:I I I totally agree, but I try to keep my sense of condemnation and some, I didn't I I didn't want to overdo that because I felt very strongly when you're writing about people like this, it's it is more interesting to try and understand them and see what made them tick and so on, than to use them, as people to condemn.
Tim Benson:Right. Absolutely. And the reader can make those determinations themselves.
Ian Buruma:Exactly right. I mean, that that's not a fashionable view now. I mean, most, many novels and nonfiction books now I definitely written with a purpose of, either to build people up as moral saints or to, condemn them as villains. I I that is not an approach I find interesting.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. There's definitely a lot of, spoon feeding going on with, at least in the nonfiction
Ian Buruma:And fiction, I think.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Okay. Well, I've already kept you 5 minutes longer than I I said it would be. That's okay. So just one more question just to wrap it up before we go.
Tim Benson:And, and then, like I said, I'll I'll let you get out of here. But the same sort of exit question I ask everybody that comes on the podcast, and that is, you know, what would you like the audience to get out of this book? Or or I know we just talked about spoon feeding or whatever. You're not interested in teaching. But if I mean, if there's one thing you'd want a reader taking away from having read the book Well,
Ian Buruma:I think three things. I think it's a deeper understand human understanding of of of people who are deeply flawed, better understanding of certain aspects of World War 2. I'm very very cherry of of saying that lessons should be drawn, but I think it should be also read as a book that can comment a little bit on our our own age of myth making and and self reinvention and so on. But, finally, I just wanted people to enjoy, these three stories as stories.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Tim Benson:Yeah. The thing I was struck by is well, as an American is, you know, the concept or having, being born in a country that was occupied during the war and, you know, the whole collaboration, versus resistance and meddling. Like, it's something Americans it's very alien to us. It's not something we've ever had to, like, really grapple with in our country. You know, maybe after the civil war Yeah.
Tim Benson:Or something like that, but, not really because we weren't occupied really well.
Ian Buruma:Even in even in my my mother's native country, Britain, there's much less of that than in in the continent on the continent of Europe. I mean, that it's a very basic divide, I think, countries that were occupied and countries that weren't. And Sure. That, you know, gets has has consequences including the the history of of Britain and the EU. I mean, it's in some ways one of the things that explains possibly the sentiments behind Brexit.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. It's just, like I said, it's just something we've never had to grapple with. And I don't think as I don't think many Americans really understand how much that still sort of even, you know, 70 years later at this point, how much that still, takes place in in Europe, just the fall or, I mean, even, you know, the fallout from, the great war itself, you know, and then the breakup of the empires and all that thing. We really don't I don't think we really appreciate how much, for lack of a better word cirrus that that takes up in the the European imagination.
Tim Benson:So it was rather illuminating to to see that in the book. And the book again for all you out there it's a really fascinating story of these 3 people and 3 unique different circumstances and, the idea behind collaboration, you know, the difference between con man and hero is thinner than you would think. But anyway, it's just a fascinating, fascinating book. So I highly recommend it for everybody out there. The name of the book again is The Collaborators.
Tim Benson:It's 3 stories of deception and survival in World War 2, and the author is mister Ian Verma. So, mister Verma, thank you so so much again for coming on. Thank you.
Ian Buruma:It was a guest.
Tim Benson:Oh, before we go, just one more thing. Is there anything, anything you wanna plug while you're here? Website or appearances or anything that you can work on or something like that?
Ian Buruma:My new book, Spinoza, Freedom's Messiah.
Tim Benson:There you go. Spinoza. The the other book we were supposed to talk about, which we didn't get a chance to. So, yeah, so go check out the collaborators and make sure you also check out, Spinoza 2. I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure it's pretty great.
Tim Benson:Mister Bruma is a a great writer. I have a few of his books, beyond this one, and I have most of the Jewish lives series, which the Spinoza book is a part of, and they're all pretty much universally fantastic. So make sure you check those out. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. So, again, if you like this podcast, please consider leaving us a 5 star review and sharing with your friends.
Ian Buruma:And if
Tim Benson:you have any questions or comments or books you'd like to discuss with us in the podcast, you can reach out to me at, tbensonheartland.org. That's tbenson@heartland.org. And for more information about the Heartland Institute, you can just go to heartland.org. And we do have our Twitter account for the podcast. You can check us out there.
Tim Benson:Again, if you have any questions, comments, or there's any books or anything, you'd like to see on the podcast, check us out there. Our, what is our Twitter handle? Twitter x whatever. It's at illbooks@illbooks. So make sure you check that out too.
Tim Benson:And, that's, again, pretty much it. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you guys next time. Take care. Love you, Robbie.
Tim Benson:Love you, mom. Bye bye.
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