Varying generations tend to perceive events differently compared to each other. In Bernhard Schlink’s book “The Reader” published in 1995, the generation difference is one of the major topics. Bernard Schlink uses guilt as a motif in Hanna and Michael’s relationship in order to highlight the dichotomy of the want to love and the horrors of the holocaust between the WWII and post-war generations.
The exploration of generational guilt motifs starts in the second part of the book when Michael meets Hanna again during the trial. Before being condemned, it can be seen that Hanna didn’t feel guilty for her actions that she has committed when being a part of SS . While the trial is being held, she receives slight ideas as to why she is being judged, however,
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Her question indicates how she didn’t know how she could have acted differently when the church with 300 Jewish women had been bombed during the evacuation of the camp. However, understanding that people are judging her decisions that she believed to be correct, made her feel doubtful and uncertain. She then follows with the question, whether she was supposed to join the SS. The questions which Hanna asked during the trial show that many who were part of Nazism were indoctrinated that they were committing right actions. In many cases the Nazi generation when causing deaths to hundreds of Jewish prisoners, didn’t feel guilty or ashamed throughout the novel since they could justify the receiving of orders and therefore blame the authority (superiors). Hanna was one of the SS guards who refused to open the church with prisoners by blaming the orders she received; “We couldn’t just let them escape! We were responsible for them”, (Page 126). She makes a statement on page 125 that she and the SS guards had no other alternatives to the situation which, then, shows a lack of moral