The Reader: Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The next time Michael sees Hanna, it is in a courtroom at a trial concerning the concentration camps. Michael’s professor at university is researching the Nazi past and decides to make the trial the focus of his seminar. The students consider themselves “radical explorers” of the past, zealously committing themselves to uncovering the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Not only do the students condemn camp guards and enforcers, but they also condemn “the generation that had been served by the guards and enforcers, or had done nothing to stop them, or had not banished them from its midst as it could have done after 1945.” Many in the generation preceding Michael’s had been involved in the Third Reich, some as army or SS officers, and others as government officials or judges. Michael recalls, “We all condemned our parents to shame, even if the only charge we could bring was that after 1945 they had tolerated the perpetrators in their midst.”

Michael’s class becomes known as “students of the camps.” Reflecting back on his zealousness, the narrator views their behavior as “repulsive.” They became convinced that it was their responsibility to make others aware of the horrible atrocities of the Nazi regime: “Even when the facts took our breath away, we held them up triumphantly. Look at this!” As time moves forward, Michael becomes more and more engaged with the horrors he discovers in his class and enthusiastically takes part in the class’s fervor.