英文小說連載《朗讀者The Reader》Part 2 Chapter 2

　　WHEN I saw Hanna again， it was in a courtroom.

　　It wasn’t the first trial dealing with the camps， nor was it one of the major ones. Our professor， one of the few at that time who were working on the Nazi past and the related trials， made it the subject of a seminar， in the hope of being able to follow the entire trial with the help of his students， and evaluate it. I can no longer remember what it was he wanted to examine， confirm， or disprove. I do remember that we argued the prohibition of retroactive justice in the seminar. Was it sufficient that the ordinances under which the camp guards and enforcers were convicted were already on the statute books at the time they committed their crimes？ Or was it a question of how the laws were actually interpreted and enforced at the time they committed their crimes， and that they were not applied to them？ What is law？ Is it what is on the books， or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society？ Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed， whether or not it is on the books， if things are to go right？ The professor， an old gentleman who had returned from exile but remained an outsider among German legal scholars， participated in these debates with all the force of his scholarship， and yet at the same time with a detachment that no longer relied on pure scholarship to provide the solution to a problem. “Look at the defendants—you won’t find a single one who really believes he had the dispensation to murder back then.”

　　The seminar began in winter， the trial in spring. It lasted for weeks. The court was in session Mondays through Thursdays， and the professor assigned a group of students to keep a word-for-word record for each day. The seminar was held on Fridays， and explored the data gathered during the preceding week.

　　Exploration！ Exploring the past！ We students in the seminar considered ourselves radical explorers. We tore open the windows and let in the air， the wind that finally whirled away the dust that society had permitted to settle over the horrors of the past. We made sure people could breathe and see. And we placed no reliance on legal scholarship. It was evident to us that there had to be convictions. It was just as evident that conviction of this or that camp guard or enforcer was only the prelude. The generation that had been served by the guards and enforcers， or had done nothing to stop them， or had not banished them from its midst as it could have done after 1945， was in the dock， and we explored it， subjected it to trial by daylight， and condemned it to shame.

　　Our parents had played a variety of roles in the Third Reich. Several among our fathers had been in the war， two or three of them as officers of the Wehrmacht and one as an officer of the Waffen SS. Some of them had held positions in the judiciary or local government. Our parents also included teachers and doctors， and one of us had an uncle who had been a high official in the Ministry of the Interior. I am sure that to the extent that we asked and to the extent that they answered us， they had very different stories to tell. My father did not want to talk about himself， but I knew that he had lost his job as lecturer in philosophy for scheduling a lecture on Spinoza， and had got himself and us through the war as an editor for a house that published hiking maps and books. How did I decide that he too was under sentence of shame？ But I did. We all condemned our parents to shame， even if the only charge we could bring was that after 1945 they had tolerated the perpetrators in their midst.

　　We students in the seminar developed a strong group identity. We were the students of the camps—that’s how the other students described us， and how we soon came to call ourselves. What we were doing didn’t interest the others； it alienated many of them， literally repelled some. When I think about it now， I think that our eagerness to assimilate the horrors and our desire to make everyone else aware of them was in fact repulsive. The more horrible the events about which we read and heard， the more certain we became of our responsibility to enlighten and accuse. Even when the facts took our breath away， we held them up triumphantly. Look at this！

　　I had enrolled in the seminar out of sheer curiosity. It was finally something new， not contracts and not property， torts or criminal law or legal method. I brought to the seminar my arrogant， superior airs. But as the winter went on， I found it harder and harder to withdraw—either from the events we read and heard about， or from the zeal that seized the students in the seminar. At first， I pretended to myself that I only wanted to participate in the scholarly debate， or its political and moral fervor. But I wanted more； I wanted to share in the general passion. The others may have found me distant and arrogant； for my part， I had the good feeling all that winter that I belonged， and that I was at peace with myself about what I was doing and the people with whom I was doing it.

　　我又見到漢娜是在法庭上。

　　那不是第一次對集中營罪犯的開庭審判，也不是規(guī)模很大的一次。有位教授就這次審判開了一門課，他希望借助學生們的幫助對整個審判過程進行追蹤并對此加以分析。他是當時為數(shù)不多的對納粹歷史及有關(guān)的審判程序進行研究的人士之一。我已記不得了他要考查、證明或者駁斥什么。我記得在課堂上我們就禁止追加懲罰進行過討論。根據(jù)他們犯罪時就業(yè)已存在的刑法的有關(guān)條款來審判那些集中營看守和劊子手就足夠了嗎？或者視其犯罪之時人們?nèi)绾卫斫膺\用這些刑法條款，并要看這些條款是否也涉及到他們？什么是法？是法律條文的規(guī)定還是在社會上真正被實施和遵守的東西？或者，法就是在正常情況下必須加以實施和遵守的東西，不管它們是否已被寫進法律條文？那位教授是一位流亡國外后歸來的老先生，但在德國法學界仍是一位局外人。他以他的淵博學識，但同時又保持一定距離地參加了關(guān)于一些問題的討論，不過，那些問題都是些不能靠學問解決的問題。"仔細觀察一下那些被告人，您將找不出任何一個真的認為他當時可以殺人的人。"

　　我們上的那門課在冬季學期開始，法庭的審判在年初，審判持續(xù)了很長時間。從星期一到星期四法庭開庭審判。教授每天都指派了一組學生做文字記錄。星期五大家坐下來討論，把一周來的審判情況清理出來。

　　清理！清理過去！我們參加這門課的學生把自己看做是清理的先鋒。在過去的可怕歷史上已經(jīng)積滿了一層塵埃，我們用力地把窗戶打開，讓最終能卷起這種塵埃的風進來。但是我們還要為人們的呼吸、人們的視覺而負責。同樣，我們也不完全依賴我們的法律知識。必須要進行審判，這對我們來說是確定無疑的。到目前為止，對這個或那個集中營的看守或劊子手的審判流于膚淺，這我們來說同樣是確定無疑的。那些利用看守和劊子手的人，那些沒有阻止他們的人，或者至少在一九四五年該揭發(fā)檢舉他們而沒有這樣做的人現(xiàn)在被送上了法庭。我們在清理工作中對他們進行審判，譴責他們的可恥行為。

　　我們這些人的父母在第三帝國時期扮演的角色也完全不同。有些人的父親參加了戰(zhàn)爭，其中有兩位或三位是德國國防軍的軍官，有一位是納粹黨衛(wèi)軍兵器部的軍官，有幾位在司法、行政機構(gòu)發(fā)跡升遷。我們的父母中也有教師和醫(yī)生，其中一位同學的叔叔是和帝國內(nèi)政部長共事的高級官員。我敢肯定，只要我們問起他們而他們又給我們答復(fù)的話，他們所要告訴我們的會是五花八門。我的父親不想講他自己，但是我知道，他哲學講師的位子是因為預(yù)告要開一門關(guān)于斯賓諾莎的深而丟掉的。做為一家出版旅游圖和導(dǎo)游手冊的出版社的編輯，他帶領(lǐng)我們?nèi)�家度過了那場戰(zhàn)爭。我怎么能譴責他是可恥的呢？但是我還是這樣做了。我們都譴責我們的父母是可恥的，如果可能的話，我們還起訴他們，因為一九四五年之后他們?nèi)萑塘怂麄冎車�的罪犯�?/p>

　　參加我們這門課的學生形成了一個擁有自己的明顯特征的小組。起初其他學生稱我們?yōu)榧�中營問題研究班，不久之后我們自己也如此稱呼起來。對我們的所作所為，一些人不感興趣，更多的人感到驚訝，另一些人感到反感�，F(xiàn)在我想，我們在了解這段可怕的歷史并在試圖讓其他人也了解這段可怕歷史的過程中所表現(xiàn)出的熱情，的確令人反感。我們讀到、聽到的事實真相越可怕，控訴和清理的任務(wù)也就越明確。即使是令我們窒息的事實真相，我們也要勝利地高舉著它們。瞧這！

　　我報名參加這個研討班完全是出于好奇，因為這樣就可以換點其他內(nèi)容了，否則一味是買賣法、犯罪和參與犯罪、德國中世紀法典或古代法律哲學。我把已經(jīng)養(yǎng)成的傲慢自大、目空一切的習慣也帶到了班上。不過，在那個冬季里，我越來越不能自拔，不是不能從我們所讀、所看到的事實真相中自拔，也不是不能從研究班的學生們所表現(xiàn)出的熱情中自拔。起初，我只想分擔一點同學們的科學、政治或倫理道德方面的熱情，但是，這不過是自欺而已。我越來越想更多地參與，想與他們分擔全部熱情。其他人可能還是覺得我仍！日與他們保持著距離，認為我高傲自大。可我在那個冬季的幾個月里自我感覺不錯，覺得已屬于那個研究班了，覺得我了解了自己、自己所做的事和與我共事的同學。