The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

How does one write about the most unconscionable event in human history with triteness and humor? To start, Martin Amis will transport us into the worlds of Thomsen, Doll, and Szmul, giving us a first person point of view of the unimaginable: life in and around a camp full of suffering, lifeless bodies, and shameless tyranny. Martin Amis’ 14th novel, published in 2014, The Zone of Interest explores the themes of moral ambiguity, power, and the banality of evil. Through the lens of the daily culture of genocide, Amis recalls the history of Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a completely horrifying, yet distinct way. 

We are first introduced to Thomsen, a womanizing Nazi officer. Though his first couple of chapters don’t paint him in the most favorable light, we soon come to know him as one of the less impressionable Nazi’s, seeking solutions to the mistreatment of the prisoners, solutions other than “The Final Solution.” He describes his disagreement of the National Socialist Movement as follows: “We were Obstruktiv Mitlaufere. We went along. We went along, we went along with, doing all we could to drag our feet and scuff the carpet and scratch the parquet, but we went along. There were hundreds of thousands like us, maybe millions like us.” It is evident from this quote that Thomsen was like millions of others who disapproved, but were dissuaded from speaking out due to pressure of conformity. He is reluctant to admit blame, but is eager to redeem himself. 

A distraction perhaps, from the guilt and horrors in the life of a Nazi official. What other reason would there be for a grown man to have sex with anybody he can get his hands on, including his best friend’s wife and members of the race that his kind deemed as subhuman, or “Untermenschen.” Everyone has their way of escaping. This may be Thomsen’s. He shows no remorse or realization of misconduct. Even though his sexual thoughts flow freely within the rest of his notions, his development throughout the book is substantial. One chapter he is eloquently expressing to his Uncle that one should steer clear of the Cosmic Ice Theory because it is pseudoscientific Nazi propaganda, when previously all he wanted to discuss was his carnal escapades. In the beginning, Thomsen is portrayed as a deviant. We soon discover his true colors when his attraction to his new object of desire slowly but surely turns into love. Surrounded by evil and oppressive personalities, Thomsen finds a like minded companion in her. While Thomsen has glimpses of advocacy in him, he doesn’t stray too far from his prize: Hannah Doll, The Commandant’s rebellious wife.

Despite her immense involvement in the plot and the magnitude of her character, Hannah Doll doesn’t get the privilege of having a point of view. I believe this may have been a purposeful omission by Martin Amis. Reason being: the National Socialist Party was a movement of men. The Nazi ideology consisted of traditional gender roles. All to say, Hannah is expected to take a back seat to her husband, Paul Doll, the Commandant. Unfortunately for him, Hannah has a heart of humanity and rebelliousness. She is not shy to say “Guten Tag” to the prisoners and show them decencies and eventually make drastic criticisms and accusations towards her husband, making herself a blatant target. Hannah is described as a “humane bystander.” Though one could argue that by-standing is not humane at all, what could one woman do in her world of men who killed, whipped, and gassed at the drop of a hat. What can one person do?……millions will ask themselves. At the start of Hannah’s journey, we are made to see her as an ignorant lady. While talking about her Polish house servant, Hannah states “It’s curious isn’t it. I’m told they’re meant to like suffering. It gratifies their faith.” Hannah, like a majority of our characters, suffers from a classic case of misinformation. However, Hannah does not stay unlearned for too long. What causes her change of mind in so little time is due to a few factors. She starts to catch on to the atrocities when she catches whiff of something vile and hears the blood curdling screams from the other side of the fence. Once Hannah finds out the reality of the situation, she becomes more and more confrontational with her husband, creating a hostile environment for herself. She shows a rare form of bravery during this time that cannot be found in any other characters. Unlike the men in this chunk of history, Hannah has no desire to follow the crowd or be involved with this movement whatsoever. Perhaps, since Hannah is a woman and already discouraged from having any power whatsoever and is already an outcast from the men in her life, she has accepted this and is not motivated by power. Other explanations for her courage could stem from being sick and tired of being a second rate citizen, and relating on some level to the oppression of “lesser humans.” John Steinbeck once wrote “The only ones that help are the ones that have suffered.”- Grapes of Wrath. Despite being the commandant’s wife, expected to stand by him in his time of leadership, she does no such thing. Caught in a difficult position, Hannah does what she believes she can do to undermine him which causes much discontent in his world.

Paul Doll, the commandant, takes his responsibilities in stride. His blatant nonchalance throughout the entire book is disgustingly comedic. If there is a stroke of humanity or guilt in Doll, it must be buried so deep in him that one would need a borehole drilling machine to unearth it. Here is a quote from Doll that sums up his belief system: “It bears repeating that I am a normal man with normal feelings. When I’m tempted by human weakness, however, I simply think of Germany, and the trust reposed in me by her Deliverer–whose vision, whose ideals and aspirations. I unshakably share. To be kind to the Jew is to be cruel to the German. ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ ‘good’ and ‘bad’: these concepts have had their time; they are gone. Under the new order, some deeds have positive outcomes and some deeds have negative outcomes. That is all.” Doll’s need to express that he has “normal feelings” seems more like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact. It is concerning that he sees empathy as “human weakness.” That doesn’t align with “normal feelings.” The human weakness that he most prevalently exhibits is the susceptibility to extreme indoctrination. How is it that nobody seemed to have these ideals on such an intense level, until they had an effective speaker to guide them to perform such heinous acts? It is no surprise that the word Deliverer, referring to Hitler, is capitalized when Doll is speaking, indicating that Hitler is seen as a God figure by Doll. Who else is there for Doll to look to? In hideous times like this, what could possibly keep one grounded other than “unshakable ideals and aspirations” shared between a subordinate and his God. Doll’s short lived glimpse of humanity comes in a thought he has unexpectedly: “If what we’re doing is good, why does it smell so lancingly bad? On the ramp at night, why do we feel the ungainsayable need to get so brutishly drunk? Why did we make the meadow churn and spit? Why, here, do conception and gestation promise not new life but certain death for both woman and child? Here at the camp, in the cremas, in the pits, they’re dead. But then so are we, those who obey.” One might read this and have hope for his character. However, he shortly follows by saying, “The questions I asked myself on the Reich Day of Mourning: they must never recur.” The commandant is able to open his mind for a few minutes to ask these questions then immediately shuts it, because in his world there is no possible way that these beliefs he shares with the Fuhrer can be wrong. Not after everything they have already done, and at this scale? How can his devoted leader be wrong? It is inconceivable to him. How many others have had these same questions run through their mind, and how many ignored them? Doll can easily oppress his Jewish underlings, but there is one person who tends to give him a faint heart: his wife. While Doll has reservations about disciplining Hannah himself and seeks other means to do so, he continues to shamelessly express his power and importance over his prisoners, one of them in particular.

Our most innocent, yet somehow most devastating dramatis personae is our Sonderkommando, Szmul. Szmul has a unique authority among his Jewish prisoners. He is the head honcho of The Sonders, a group of Jews responsible for disposing of their comrades via furnace or gas chamber in exchange for the privilege of saving their own life. Szmul says “When he was still with us, my philosophical friend used to say, We don't even have the comfort of innocence. I didn’t and don’t agree. I would still not plead guilty.  A hero, of course, would escape and tell the world. But it is my feeling that the world has known for quite some time, How could it not, given the scale.” Regardless of the fact that he believes he is innocent, one caught in this position cannot help but feel guilty. He mentions several times that as things now stand he does not wish to see his wife again, even though he does love her dearly, indicating that after what he’s done, he cannot face her. Szmul fights a daily battle that nobody can understand, not even him. As he tries to understand himself and his actions throughout the book, he understandably presents timidness in the face of Doll. Doll becomes an unwelcome mentor to Szmul. Unlike Doll, adhering to every whim his leader enforces, Szmul has the intestinal fortitude to break away from his mentor, and seek his own path. This path is a threatening and desperate one, but he will stick to it. Some could say Szmul was accepting his role as Sonder in an act of self preservation so in fact he is innocent. He was trying to save himself. But then would we be expected to apply that same logic to the vast majority of Germans and a handful of men of the Third Reich? Would they not be disposed of if word got out about their disapproval? Moral ambiguity at its finest.

In a world where laws and government are supposed to reflect the moral values of society, one would expect a sudden resistance against Hitler’s new world order. We know that this was not the case, and it is easy for us to say now that we would stand against the tragedy. So how did so many folks convince themselves that being a bystander, not actively participating, was enough? It is difficult to argue this point on a basis of morality due to the reality of the bystanders being essentially powerless against the Third Reich. A German who publicly opposed the Nazi party faced a number of possible outcomes, including but not limited to: imprisonment, social ostracization, and execution. Arguably, being anti-Nazi would have put people in the same position as the Jews they wanted to help. Theoretically, if every member of the population who disapproved spoke out, that would leave a Germany full of Nazis with nobody to check them. On the other hand, one could argue that doing absolutely nothing to stop Nazi progress is unacceptable. There were a number of Germans who were martyrs for the cause. For example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor who was involved in resistance efforts, including plots to assassinate Hitler. He was indeed executed by hanging. But we can’t expect everybody to have this sort of bravery. While a majority of people will agree that the Holocaust was not morally ambiguous-it was in fact a complete and total moral failure- Szmul and the other Sonder’s situation may create a split of opinion. To save their life, the Sonders facilitate the selection of Jews, the pulling of gold teeth, the shaving of heads, the confiscation of goods, and the killing of their own. One can only try to imagine what it is like to endure suffering at the hand of somebody in the same striped uniform as oneself, somebody who is supposed to be suffering by your side in solidarity. One would be furious I imagine. The circumstances are reminiscent of Django Freeman’s character in Django unchained. The idea of their being levels and billets to slavery is bound to create animosity between the group being enslaved. But how can we blame the Sonders for their act of self preservation and their instinct to stay alive for a slim hope of seeing the outside world again, seeing their family again? Being thrust in a situation like this and expecting all individuals to band together may not be fair. There is, however, an argument for the opposite. Many of the Sonders feel guilt for their involvement in the killing en masse. Szmul especially can feel his involvement growing increasingly more intimate. He and the others are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to die, nobody wants to kill. There is really no clear cut answer. It’s simple to say that they should have stood in unity and perished with their fellow prisoners. Everything is simple until we are placed into that situation. The theme of moral ambiguity when applied to the Holocaust could be construed as morally ambiguous in itself, but perhaps this theme is the only way we can assess and begin to understand how humans, who were made of the same material as us, could be brought to do the unspeakable. 

Power is a drug so addictive that those who obtain it often can never get enough. Our most extreme example of that is Hitler, but his subordinates are often overlooked when the subject of power is talked about. Martin Amis does an excellent job of focusing on this theme with Doll, the commandant. Doll is intoxicated with the power he is given as Commandant. As he loses his grip of power at home with his wife, daughter, and gardener, he becomes even more power hungry at work. He uses Szmul to demonstrate his abusive power and it satisfies him for a moment, but he cannot help but want power in every aspect of his life. This need to keep his power leads him to make dreadful decisions, on top of the already dreadful situation that he has accepted. By allowing his lower ranking officials to have a bit of power of their own, Hitler keeps them motivated and feeling of major importance to a crucial movement. With this equation, Hitler created a perfect storm for the continuation of the murders. In the eyes of the Nazi officials, they have all of the things that power provides: control, social status, ambition, opportunity, and a feeling of importance. Going against the National Socialists means abandoning their power, which at this point is their means of survival. 

The most extensively expressed and often explicit theme is the banality of evil. We become aware of this theme very early on. In the first couple of chapters alone, the reader is shocked by the nonchalant discussion of what some would consider unspeakable. The following is an example of said conversations:

“What about the selection?”

“There was no selection. They were all certainties for the gas.”

“I’m thinking, what don't we do to them? I suppose we don’t rape them.”

“Much. Instead we do something much nastier than that. Much, much nastier. We get the pretty ones and we do medical experiments on them. On their reproductive organs. We turn them into little old ladies. Then hunger turns them into little old men.”

“Would you agree that we couldn’t treat them any worse?”

“Oh, come on. We don’t eat them.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t mind being eaten. Unless we ate them alive.”

“No, what we do is make them eat each other. They mind that…who in Germany didn’t think the Jews needed to be taken down a peg? But this is fucking ridiculous, this is. And you know the worst thing about it? You know what really rots in my claw?”

“I suppose I do.”

“Yeah. How many divisions are we tying up? There are thousands of camps. Thousands. Man hours, train hours, police hours, fuel hours. And we’re killing our labor! What about the war?”

“Exactly. What about the war?”

“How does all this connect to that?....Oh, look at her. Her with the dark crew cut in the corner. That’s Esther. Have you ever seen anything a tenth as sweet in all your life?”

For the characters who are carrying out this conversation, the issue of Jews being killed en masse is a matter of workplace pleasantry. They speak in jests, that is until the issue of the war effort is brought up. The only problem they have with “The Final Solution” is that it uses up their war resources and killing the Jews is killing resources. They also seem unawares to the fact that the war effort was rooted in Hitler’s belief of a racial superiority. It doesn’t take too long for them to abandon the war talk and move on to lusting over one of their prisoners. The banality of evil is clearly displayed here. The Nazi officials are completely desensitized to the violence and devastation around them. They don’t even realize that this is something that should bother them. To them, this evil is just another day at the office. Martin Amis drives this theme home, page after page until the reader themselves is desensitized.  The reader will even find this book comical at times, which is a testament about the banality of evil in and of itself. 

Martin Amis’ completely unique approach to this novel made it a stand out work of contemporary fiction.  He uses comedy in a setting where comedy is typically frowned upon, helping us understand the mindset of the Nazi’s. Amis uses real life events, political, and pop culture references that one might miss if not reading with intention. However, these tie-ins paint a complete picture of the times, provide context, and are a necessary addition to his work. A few examples of these are: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf, Nuremberg Race Laws, Kurt and Willi, Das Schwarze korps, Cosmic Ice Theory, and many others. The somewhat ambiguous nature of the novel may leave certain readers at a loss if not familiar with intricate details of the Holocaust and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. While it would serve the reader well to have prior knowledge of Nazi Germany, it is not absolutely necessary. However, the reader should be ready to Google in order to have a full understanding of the happenings of the book. While the start of the book is abstruse at times, it becomes more explicit as the book goes on. I want to believe this was intentional. Perhaps it was a way for us to slowly discover the truth of the matter, much like the world did in the 1940’s. 

We will never be able to grasp the true nature of this event and how its occurrence is even possible. However, Martin Amis’ The Zone of interest is one piece in a one million piece puzzle. It takes balls to write a book like this with the confidence that Martin Amis did, and for that I commend him. We will forever need authors pushing the limits of literature and challenging the mind of the reader. His characters, themes, and writing style build us a world to jump into, and a chilling one at that.  He invites us in to learn, to try and comprehend the incomprehensible.