Archive for the ‘Rosenberg’ Category

« Older Entries

Thoughts on justice & lustrace

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

I’ll admit that prior to reading Rosenberg’s “The Haunted Land” I was definitely in favor of some form of Lustrace, as an aid to removing Communists from positions of power post 1989. However, after reading the accounts of people like Rudolf Zukal, I have no option but to oppose a blanket Lustrace in favor of individual procedings which take into account the conditions of any action which could be perceived as treasonous under the new government, but merely as survival under the previous Communist government. In Zukal’s case, to be rated the 265th enemy of socialism out of the entire population of Czechoslovakia, and still be a target of Lustrace is mind-boggling. Despite being an essentially useless spy and a victim of blackmail at the hands of the STB, Zukal would be declared a collaborator.

Examples like the one above, and others the Rosenberg discusses in “The Haunted Land” go on to reveal the double edged sword of Lustrace and some of the injustices inacted in the spirit of it. The releasing of 160,000 names in a 1992 issue of Red Cow, an incomplete and inaccurate list, released with the intent of damaging some innocents with the hope of hurting even more former communists being just one example.

Rosenberg points out that the majority of the nation at that time were communists, and that change had been attempted within the system. By that rationale, do all communist officials deserve to be labled as evil? Is it right that many of the people who advocated Lustrace were in their early 20’s and consequently were not placed in positions where they had to choose between going to prison or becoming a useless informer?

These issues are what make carrying out/bringing justice in post-communist times so difficult in Central Europe. The fact that they are not black and white issues, but individual cases, each with it’s own specific set of conditions and results.

Posted in Bryan, Rosenberg | No Comments »

How can we decide

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

How can a person possibly make a decision to go against everything that they have ever learned?  Rosenberg seems to be asking us this when talking about Poland, and I really am not sure what to think.

I know that we discussed in class that the leaders should be blamed for things, but I don’t think that Jaruzelski could be rightfully punished.  He was making the best out of a terrible situation.  He was a true believer, a man who wanted the best for his people.  I have trouble faulting a person who was trying to save people from the wrath of Moscow.  On the other hand, I can completely agree with the need to hold someone accountable for the deaths of Polish citizens.  And I think that there needed to be a scapegoat.

In Kenny’s book, it is even mentioned that in Poland, the soldiers weren’t hated, that protesters would even stop throwing rocks when the soldiers showed up, they only hated the riot police, not the soldiers.  I don’t think that martial law was necessarily a bad thing.  I think, as Rosenberg set it up, that the Poles would have almost fought to the last man had the Soviets invaded, and so Jaruzelski really did save more people than were harmed.

This entire subject is gray area, and I really don’t know where to turn.  I am more confused on this subject than I have ever been in my entire scholastic experience.  I know it is just a basic question of right and wrong, but I just can’t apply black and white principles to an area of many shades of gray.

Posted in Rosenberg, Ryan | 1 Comment »

Post-Communist Justice, Jim

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

I found one of the most interesting aspects of Rosenberg’s choice of countries was that most of the southern tier states are dismissed as lacking any justice, the new boss is the old boss just the ideology of the totalitarianism has changed, from Communist to nationalist. So, the book is a survey of the differing levels of injustice in comparison to the vast lack of it elsewhere in the region. Not very promising for progress, yet she wrote in 1995 and much has changed.

I like her quotation of Marx, “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”, this statement is such an artful and concise way of conveying the difficulties of the region.

A reference in the begining of the Czechoslovakia section refers to another transfer of authority and need for justice in the liberation of Cz from the Nazis by the Soviets, that “in 1946 the Communists’ promise that Party membership would be considered payment in full for Nazi collaboration.” This smooth transition seems a very reasonable way to get past grievances though the positive or negative results are unknown due to Stalin’s showtrials that followed. I liked her reference to the fine lines between concepts, most potent the one between “amnesty and amnesia”. I feel this is influential because amnesty seems the best way to heal and move forward, but for many simply letting go was not possible.

Posted in Czechoslovakia, Jim, Rosenberg | No Comments »

9/25/07 Class Blog

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

What is justice in post-communist Eastern Europe?  Why does it matter?

Justice in post-communist Eastern Europe is mostly about punishing people who actively cooperated with the communist regime to make innocent citizens’ lives miserable and who took personal benefits throughout this process. Many of Eastern Europeans in post-communist era wanted to start the process of normalization and the way back into the European communities, both economically and politically, through dealing with their history to bring back justice in their societies. Eastern Europeans in former Soviet bloc wanted to punish people who allied themselves with the Communist regime for their own interests to make sure their past tragic history would not be repeated for their next generations and to encourage start of the new nation building by the people, vast majority population, who initially suffered by their past repressive regime.   

Posted in Rosenberg, Saeil | No Comments »

Justice after communism

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

The idea of justice was relative – the nature of and those to whom it applied. Many individuals weren’t necessarily brought to justice so much as they were viewed as people doing what was necessary for self-preservation. During the early post-communist period, no one seemed to know what was going on – a political and martial vacuum. Leadership of the old communist regimes were not held to account for the crimes they had committed. From the old leadership and the old regime, those who were in power wanted to hold on to the power they had lost. So, in several instances they started or joined criminal syndicates and other less reputable organizations. Others who weren’t so lucky were tried at the Hague or are imprisoned. From the readings I got a sense that the network and information created by informers, whether criminal or not remained in the files, except for those communist hold-overs who had their own files removed so nothing would be uncovered. This matters for several reasons. Mentioned above, there was a lack of accountability, which often stemmed from the power vacuum. Individuals were brutalized by interrogators in East Germany and other Central European countries, and the individuals who did this are never brought to justice. What the lack of accountability and investigation does is it effects the lives of those who had these crimes committed against them. The fact that many of those who did these interrogations and other aggressive acts were never brought to justice is an important reason why we study this. The “justice” after the fall of communism wasn’t as extensive as the Nazi hunt by Mossad and the Nuremberg Trials. Many of these leaders are still alive, while others sit in prison. Ultimately they didn’t desire to destroy the system they had in place, they instead effectively eviscerated the old leaders (exile, prison, fleeing the country, etc). Many were left in charge from a middle to lower management perspective. Look at the dock workers in Danzig/Gdansk. Without those learned/experienced people to run the groups and government and infrastructure, the whole system would collapse: people would starve, etc.

Posted in Rosenberg, Vince | No Comments »

Justice?

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

First of all, I would like to state that this book reminded me that justice, like democracy, comes with different definitions and different practices depending on the society, the situation and the beliefs of people.

In post-communist Europe, justice, by in large, was the attempt of the regimes to right past wrongs through democracy.   In post-communist Europe, the attempt to achieve justice seemed to me, for the most part, the exact opposite of my definition of justice.  However, for example, as the Czechoslovak government claimed, their attempts enforce justice was necessary to keep communists out of the government. Lustrace condemned people for appearing on a list, when the list itself was riddled with errors and false claims about “crimes” that one may or may not have committed.  It did NOT offer the people the assumption of innocence until proven guilty (the regime, claimed, that since there was no evidence to prove the list was wrong, it was right).  As I stated in my previous post, this concept of a “single truth” sounded slightly familiar – a “direct descendant” of communist ideology.

Posted in Colleen, Rosenberg | No Comments »

Post Communism Justice

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Who is to blame for all the acts of the soveit union?  It’s a hard question to answer.  If you look at the common soldier, just doing what he was told, can he really be held accountable for the acts he did?  If he didn’t do it, punishment could be severe, and someone else would have done it.  If you move higher up the chain, the same dilehma holds.  Ultimatly though you can’t hold just one person for crimes committed by an entire army/population.  Justice therefore looses it’s concret self, and begins to wiggle.

In my opinion, serving justice in Eastern Europe would involve not only finding the commanders/leaders/master minds of crimes commited, but also finding those who took active participation in them.  A soldier following orders is one thing, however a soldier following orders gladly, or going “beyond the call of duty” to commit crimes would need to be punished.  Having these members of communism involved in forming a new country would only lead to more of what already happened.

At the same time, one can not force people into an addmission of guilt.  As we saw in the clip from “The Lives of Others” such interrogations might lead an innocent man to a guiltly plea just to escape his current situation.  An independent tribunal/court should be set up and allow those in “grey” areas to present there case, and defend themselves.  Known leaders and admissions of guilt however, could be handled in a manor worthy of there crime.

Posted in James, Rosenberg | No Comments »

Justice in the Post-Communism Era in Eastern Europe

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Justice in the Post-Communism era in Eastern Europe can be defined simply as searching for the truth. Most of the countries in Eastern Europe released their private secret police documents to the public following the collapse of their respective Communist regimes and within in these documents, the truth of who spied on who and who informed on who could finally be fully known. This knowledge would prove to be a double edged sword. Almost everyone that lived in an Eastern European country during the Communist regimes had a file with their name on it in their country’s secret police records. When the Communist regime in their country fell and many of these secret police records were released, people began looking into their own file only to find out that a close relative or even their own spouse had informed on them to the Communist regimes. This would ruin many marriages, friendships and families over the next decade as more and more people looked into their files. Whether it be through the simple release of certain documents to the public or through judicial hearings and inquisitions into the actions of the previous regime, the early nineties was a period of great revelations to the people of Eastern Europe and many people began to realize the full extent of what all took place during the Communist regimes time of power. I believe that the true justice is not what happens to those who are responsible but the fact that the people were able to learn what really happened when these people were running the government. Those that lived through the communist regimes of Eastern Europe have a right to know who betrayed them to the authorities and why. In the post-communist era, this finally became possible.

Posted in JustinCz, Rosenberg | No Comments »

O’Donnell: Justice in Post Communist Europe

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

After a communist regime has fallen people will have many different opinions on how to atone for the injustices committed during the course of the regime. The people of the state would also have to establish a new justice system that wouldn’t make the same mistakes as the past. From my reading I get the sense that even today there are many people who are in debt some way or another because of the regime. In class we talked about the situation where an apartment was taken from a Jewish couple, then passed on from party member to party member, then after the regime falls there is a dispute over who owns the apartment.

I’m sure there are systems in place to deal with these kind of situations, however it seems like whoever is willing to pay the most money to the government officials who oversee these procedures is the one thats going to come out on top. I know that doesn’t apply to infractions committed during the communist regime, but current infractions such as traffic tickets etc. If you pay off the police officer the correct amount it seems like you can usually get out of most things. I think bribery is not only tied to the officials low wages and the need for a supplemental income, but the collective acceptance of bribery by the individuals which make up the society.

Posted in Rosenberg, William | No Comments »

Justice in Post Communists Eastern Europe

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

To me, justice in Eastern Europe is difficult to solve because there seems to be too many crimes committed by the Communists regime prior to 1989. I think it would be impossible to go through every cases and try to find the justifiable punishments for all. It is also difficult due to the long history of the Communists’ regime, since many of the crimes took place as long as a few decades ago. Therefore, it is impossible to find some of the proper evidences to prosecute all those who committed crimes.

I think obviously there should be a way to narrow these cases in some way. The questions would be “how” though. To me, some of the crimes that these post communists’ regime should go after are the one that involves murders, assassinations, or any sort of crimes that would deed inhumane. Also, some higher profile cases should take precedence as well. That being said though, it would be extremely difficult to figure out who is the one that’s “really” responsible for the crime. I can imagine some people would use the “I was told to do so…” defense in their case. This only complicates the matters even more.

There is an old-saying that “time heals everything.” However, not everything can be ignored and passed by. I think it’s important for the post communists regime to investigate some of the criminal events that took place during the Communist’s regime, but with the understanding that no one will ever get the full satisfaction. It’s important that these post-communists regimes should focus on moving on, but obviously, not everything can be overlook and justice needs to be served so that history won’t repeat itself again.

Posted in Jerry, Rosenberg | 6 Comments »

« Older Entries