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On the other hand, contrary to what Abel says, Miss Arendt never presents him as a “dutiful clerk”; his work was important, indeed crucial, in the Nazi scheme, and he could feel that he, as an individual, was making a significant contribution to the Fuehrer’s task. He may or may not have conceived …

On the other hand, contrary to what Abel says, Miss Arendt never presents him as a “dutiful clerk”; his work was important, indeed crucial, in the Nazi scheme, and he could feel that he, as an individual, was making a significant contribution to the Fuehrer’s task. He may or may not have conceived …

What satisfaction would it have given Abel and others if Miss Arendt had accepted the word “monster” from the prosecutor’s lips? Calling someone a monster does not make him more guilty; it makes him less so by classing him with beasts and devils (“a person of inhuman and horrible cruelty or wickedn…

According to Abel, Eichmann must have thought about Nazism politically since he thought about Zionism. But Eichmann’s “thought” was a parody of the idea of thinking. Had Mein Kampf been his “Bible,” he might have pressed a flower in it. His Zionist “studies” had a function; they made him an expert,…

Time stops when someone dies. Of course it stops for them, maybe, but for the mourners time runs amok. Death comes too soon. It forgets the tides, the days growing longer and shorter, the moon. It rips up the calendar. You aren’t at your desk or on the subway or fixing dinner for the children. You’…