When I initially picked up Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, I wanted to incorporate it into a course alongside Anna Seghers’ Transit, Magda Szabó’s Katalin Street, and other novels focusing on texts by European writers written during or following the Holocaust. However, as I read the five stories collected in Rezzori’s text, I discovered that it may be a difficult text, for various reasons, to teach in a course. I do think, however, that it needs to be taught, specifically for the ways that it details the narrator’s acquiescence, and really his obliviousness, to the impending atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust. It is this aspect that I want to touch on today, continuing the discussion I began last post in my examination of Mr. Ekeles in Szabó’s Katalin Street.

In her introduction to Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, Deborah Eisenberg highlights that while the narrator does not know the cataclysmic events that occur in the dates the narrator drops in the stories — 1919, 1923, 1933, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1943 — we, as readers looking backwards, understand the enormity of these moments on the path to genocide and war. Apart from these signifies, the levity in the stories become “painfully callous, or contemptible, but not exactly shocking,” as Eisenberg argues. The years inform us of the political machinations at work in the stories, even if the narrator is apolitical. However, the deep seated anti-Semitism that served as part of the narrator’s upbringing creates a space for him to fall into line with the wave of fascism and oppression occurring around him even as he navigates relationships with Jewish friends and lovers.

The lack of the narrator’s political leanings or interest is important because it shows the ease with which individuals can fall into group think without challenging what occurs around them. Unlike Mr. Ekeles, Gregor, the narrator, does not have any strong feelings one way or the other about the Nazi’s rise to power or their ideology. In many ways, they fit with the Semitic views that he already has, views passed down to him from generation to generation. If we did not know what took place, historically, in the years that Gregor references, we could pass off his views as not much more than troubling beliefs, and we could argue that he, alone, holds these views, not linking them to broader systemic cultural issues.

Gregor’s apolitical stance, coupled with the use of the first-person “I” throughout the stories, makes the reader complicit in the narratives, bringing us into his confidence but also causing us, as readers, to turn a reflective eye upon ourselves. Eisenberg points out through these aspects “we are compelled also to recognize the portrait, or reflection, of a comfortable person in a period social deterioration or economic crisis, a period of political fragility.” Through this portrait, we come face to face with “the consequences of our own unexamined attitudes or biases.” It also causes us to question our own roles, through inaction or inattention, in the atrocities that arise and the victims of those atrocities.

Numerous moments exist, over the course of the five stories, where Gregor comes into contact with his deeply rooted prejudices and anti-Semitism, and every time he comes into contact with them, he pushes them aside, justifying them in his own mind as he still interacts with Jewish friend and lovers. One of these moments occurs in the second story, “Youth,” the second story in the collection where Gregor has a Jewish lover and deals with the conflicting ideas floating around in his head. One section in this story epitomizes the contagion that infects Gregor and how his apolitical nature makes him extremely susceptible to the events following the Nazi’s rise to power, the annexation of Austria, and the Holocaust.

In the story, Gregor works as a window display salesperson for Aphrodite Company. He goes to stores and asks them if he can create window displays of Aphrodite products. As he relates the intricacies of his job, he complains about the “arrogance” of shopkeepers who look down upon him, and he comments that “[b]ack home, no Jewish ragpicker would have been dealt with so rudely.” Gregor feels that the shopkeepers treat him less than a “Jewish ragpicker,” and in this manner, he begins to position himself as a victim of oppression. This feeling increases when he thinks about anyone being able to see him as he works on teh displays. He dreads having someone he knows come across him as he stacks products in the window, and this causes him to feel extreme “shame.”

Gregor asks himself why he feels so much “shame,” and he concludes that it stems from his childhood and what he learned about commerce. Commerce, in and of itself, was not deemed shameful; however, “anything connected with the selling in a store was below social acceptance.” This, according to Gregor, “was a privilege of the Jews,” and as such viewed as inferior because “no one with any self-respect” would deal in such commerce. Gregor undercuts this anti-Semitic moment by claiming that his parents taught him to “not consider [himself] anyone special,” but to also hold himself in high esteem. They taught him to respect others, except for Jews, who they deemed beneath them. This rhetoric is strikingly similar to Lillian Smith in Killers of the Dream when she tells us that her parents taught her to love everyone, and then they undercut that by telling her she was better than a Black person.

Gregor feels inferior because he does window displays in Jewish owned shops, thus becoming beholden to the shop owners for his work. This position “cut sharply into [his] richly prejudiced self-esteem.” For all of his prejudices, Gregor feels angry about his thoughts: “And yet at the same time my prejudices angered me.” This anger caused him to rebel against those who taught it to him; however, Gregor does not alter his positions or his attitudes; he continues to feel superior to his Jewish friends and lovers and he constantly looks down upon them.

The deep rooted anti-Semitism lingers, even when he has interactions with Jews and befriends them. Gregor questions his beliefs, but he doesn’t change them. He continues to feel superior, and this feeling of superiority also stems from his feelings of victimhood, as if everyone is out to get him and make him suffer because of his lot. This is thread that runs throughout fascism, the positioning of oneself as the victim, and Gregor’s feelings throughout the stories embody this because he feels that Jews will take his place.

Gregor shows us a reflection of ourselves and causes us, as Eisenberg points out, to think about our own biases and face them head on. This is not easy, and this is partly why I think Rezzori’s novel would be difficult to teach. Yet, this is also the novel’s brilliance and what makes it important. Through Gregor, we come face to face with ourselves. We could pass Gregor off as an anti-Semite who, while not being a Nazi, assisted in the Holocaust. Thus, we could dismiss him as a character from a specific period. However, I’d argue that we need to think broader about what Gregor’s anti-Semitism tells us about our own beliefs in relation to African Americans, LGBTQ individuals, or others. We need to be able to link these things within ourselves, and that is not always an easy thing to do.

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham