IN THE INTRODUCTION TO THIS BOOK, I asserted that the narrative spaces of novels create something like laboratories for thinking through moral choices. Of course, they don't always do so. Indeed world literature is replete with examples of novels that would seem to have little relevance to conceptualizing or reflecting on the moral choices individuals make. There are, however, moments in history that seem to demand such moral reflection from us. They call on us not only to reflect self-critically on our own behavior and on that of the groups to which we belong, but also to come to terms with how we structure our choices. The Third Reich and its efforts to exterminate Europe's Jews represent just such a colossal moment in human history.

Social psychologists tell us that it may take as many as twenty-five to thirty years before we have the emotional and intellectual distance to a particular crises that is necessary to engage with them collectively in an effective way — “effective” in the sense of causing lasting changes to how we as groups view the world. Thus, it should not surprise us that Christa Wolf, Ingeborg Drewitz, and Grete Weil all published works about the Nazi era that found particular resonance with readers in the 1970s and 1980s. They had published other works, of course, that included this time period and even explicitly questioned personal responsibility in the face of these over-whelmingly catastrophic events.