As a resourceful adolescent in occupied Poland, I produced Aryan identities and sold them on the black market. While I survived, my mother and grandparents were killed at Belzec.

I eventually left the dangers of Lwow, leaving my younger brother in the care of my father and uncle. I was captured and taken to a concentration camp. I insisted I had valid work papers proving an ethnic German heritage. Speaking fluent German, Russian, Polish and English, I became a personal translator for an SS officer and was later released. I traveled to Warsaw only to learn that my father was killed, and my uncle and brother, who was only 13, took poison.

I was alone in the world at age 16.

In May 1945, after evading the SS, I eventually found myself also outrunning the Russians. I collapsed at the feet of an American soldier, and I was quickly put to work with the Americans in the Counter Intelligence Corp.

I ended up in NYC where I started my career as a successful film producer. But I will never forget my adolescence.

And are the moral relativists so far afield from the way you teach your students (or at least taught this one) to critically assess well-held beliefs?

My sense is that you're attacking the mythical historian Tzum Tse. He's usually quoted as "Some say . . ." Maybe I'm just insufficiently familiar with the counter narrative you're decrying. Like I said, waiting for the rest of the story before I judge the premise.

The problem Rob is addressing has less to do with a concern about people introducing new information, or even concern about coming up with new interpretations. His major problem, and mine, is when people "reinterpret" facts to the point that the actual historical truth is unrecognizable.

The problem you see with much "revisionist" history is that in an attempt to "correct" perceived issues in the historical narrative, it often goes too far, as you very correctly stated. This is a very significant problem, as historians must always start with the truth, the fact, aka, what happened, and work from there. If the facts are unknown, then we research them. When new information becomes available, we assess and analyze it and thereby gain new insight to the question. However, we cannot change the facts (or leave some out), to fit our own personal perspectives.

And that is where I agree with your ending, wherein historians should always strive for a truthful, full, and accurate telling of events.

I can't say I agree with all the points you make. I know a number of oral historians, for example, who do not necessarily consider themselves post-modernists.

Let us agree to agree on one point you make, however: "Traditional history has always been easily sanitized and manipulated into propaganda. Hearing from all the participants is essential if the truth is to be discovered."

Right on to that.

–RC

The postmodernist approach you describe ("no such thing as reality" etc) originated from, and applies to, the narrow world of the creative arts. It's a theory of art criticism which says:

"There is no one single criterion, or 'reality' by which we can critique all works of art. There is no such thing as "good" vs "bad" art, the distinctions are meaningless. We all experience works of art differently, because art is a subjective experience, and each of our interpertations of art are equally valid."

We're talking about Picasso or Warhol, not Kursk or Midway.

These ideas about art criticism have never been seriously conflated with history. Art and history are not the same thing, and they cannot be studied and analyzed the same way.

Instead po-mo historians might say that history has almost always been written by – and focused almost entirely on – the ruling elites. But the truth is that history is a mosaic of many different narratives which when assembled together, create a more complete picture of history.
This is why it's necessary to include the stories of ignored and marginalized people. The lives of women, peasants, the poor, the working classes, non-white cultures, and religous minorities all contribute to history's mosaic.

As do the narratives of ordinary soldiers.

One of the ways to hear them is with oral history, which is a very "postmodern" method. It's especially good for veterans' and their stories of war.

Traditional military history never bothered with oral history because warfare was studied primarily from the general's perspective, and soldiers were treated as mere casualty statistics. All of the "important information" was recorded by HQ and deposited in the archives.
Traditional history ignored the narratives told by the soldiers who fought at Kursk, and the stories told by the civillians of Lenningrad, because their narratives weren't as "valuable" as the narrative put forth by the authorities. In fact, those soldiers and civillians had things to say that the Soviet authorities did not want to be heard. Traditional history has always been easily sanitized and manipulated into propaganda. Hearing from all the participants is essential if the truth is to be discovered.