Imagendering II

11      Lilly's evolving attitude towards Jews is of key importance in contextualizing the "ordinary German" during the Nazi era. Erica Fischer alludes to this in an interview when she discusses that the film is more than just a love story: "While I was researching, I realised there was another story behind this first one, namely the transformation of a Nazi sympathising anti-Semite into a pro-Semite saviour of four Jewish women, and then the story became even more interesting. It became a very German story, capable of symbolizing the eternal German dilemma" (Interview with Erica Fischer). The resolution of this German dilemma is symbolized by Lilly and Felice's relationship. Specifically, Felice defends Lilly's anti-Semitism in several instances. First, when Inge reports to Felice that Lilly says she can "smell a Jew," Felice takes this as a challenge and it becomes the impetus for Felice and Lilly to meet. The fact that Felice falls in love with Lilly despite her blatant anti-Semitism enables identification with Lilly (and her anti-Semitism) because she is loved by the object of her supposed hatred. Later, Felice defends Lilly to Inge when Lilly blames the war on the Jews. In the movie, this defense of Lilly is articulated as well. In a conversation with Ilse,[4]The character of Ilse in the movie seems to be a composite of several individuals from the novel, most notably Inge, the domestic service worker, and Elenai, another friend of Felice's that Lilly stayed close with throughout the war. Felice defends Lilly by saying "She isn't better or worse than any of us" and in reference to Lilly's lack of political conviction, Felice berates Ilse for judging Lilly, stating that it is not a crime to have no opinion. (Taberner 233). Lilly provides an alibi for the silence of "ordinary" Germans especially because she is defended and forgiven by the very people persecuted in the name of Aryan purity. Stuart Taberner further points out that the conflict of the ordinary German is embodied in the figure of Lilly when her suffering becomes the focus of the film after Felice is taken by the Gestapo (233). The camera focuses on Lilly on the floor of her apartment, curled in the fetal position and screaming, "No!"

12      Further identification with Lilly is enabled through the fact that in both the book and the film, she is constructed as naïve and un-knowing. Lilly's "innocence" is contrasted with the active knowing and constant uncovering of knowledge by Felice and Elenai, as they work as underground spies at a Nazi newspaper. Lilly is unaware that Felice is Jewish until well into their relationship. Her obliviousness operates in defense of her anti-Semitism. The viewer can assume (from Lilly's eventual love for Felice) that had Lilly known Felice and her friends were Jewish, she would not have made anti-Semitic remarks, and furthermore, that she would have questioned and revised her attitude towards Jews. Lilly's anti-Semitism becomes part of her general naïveté and simple-mindedness, an inherited and unquestioned political compliance rather than malicious intent.

13      Furthermore, Felice defends Lilly's anti-Semitism. For example, after one particularly violent air raid, Lilly says to Inge and Felice: "It's all the fault of the Jews." Felice defends this remark to the furious Inge, yelling: "Leave her alone, Inge! She doesn't know what she's saying!" (Fischer 37-38) Here Lilly's anti-Semitism is excused through either political naïveté or the fact that Lilly is not aware that Felice is Jewish. Lilly stands in here for an entire post-Holocaust Germany. The rhetoric of "not knowing" was repeated endlessly by German citizens when the atrocities of the Nazi regime came to light after the war. Even after Felice "comes out" to her as Jewish, Lilly claims ignorance or incomprehension of Felice's underground activities: "I knew that she worked for the underground, but didn't know the what or how of it…what it all means is a mystery to me. I never found out" (Fischer 155). This ignorance was also perpetuated by Felice, who refused to disclose her underground activities in order to protect Lilly (according to Lilly). Friends of Felice tried to impress upon Lilly the degree of danger that Felice faced as a Jew, and to explain to her what exactly a concentration camp was. "Lilly often gave Elenai and Gregor the impression that she didn't really comprehend that Felice's situation fundamentally differed from hers…" (153). Again, Lilly's naïveté prevents her from understanding the danger to Felice and other Jews. Lilly's love for Felice blinds her to their differences, which will ultimately cost Felice her life. The willing German viewers are able to deduce that it was innocence, naïveté, or color-blind love that obscured the reality of ethnic cleansing in their midst.

14      Erica Fischer also documents instances where "not knowing" is impossible. After Felice has been taken to a collection camp, Lilly writes in her diary:

I had a terrible experience…Waiting at the stop for the number 41 streetcar, I saw a procession coming toward me. A procession of women prisoners was coming along Osloer Strasse. They were from a branch of the Oranienburg prison and were dressed in striped clothing, with shaved heads, and barefoot. Felice, I wanted to scream, I wanted to rush into their midst. But I didn't move, I couldn't utter a sound. It was as if I had turned to stone…Tears streamed from my eyes…It was so horrible…How am I to bear this? (Fischer 185)

Here Lilly can no longer deny the reality of Jewish persecution in Berlin, but it is too late. Felice has already been taken from her when she finally understands the gravity of the situation. Her inability to act is also rendered understandable through her grief. Further, in a manner quite consistent with her character, she personalizes the experience and projects the suffering onto herself: "I had a terrible experience." "How am I to bear this?"

15      While Lilly and Felice's relationship can be read as an instance of lesbianism as a site of resistance to heteronormative ideals of nationhood, it also becomes an example of how hegemonic power relations are reproduced in non-heteronormative relationships. At the same time that Lilly foils the Nazi agenda by refusing to have any more children and removing her body from the Aryan propagation machine, she also contributes to a history of discursive violence against Jews. This happens through Lilly's over-identification with Felice, first as a woman, then as a lesbian, and finally, after Felice's death, as a Jew. Finally, it is through the vehicle of the lesbian relationship and at the hands of Lilly's love for her that Felice's fate is sealed.