Shadows Walking, A Novel
What leads men and women of good will to violate fundamental ethical principles? How do they justify their behavior? Are we all capable of such acts? And if so, how can we guard ourselves from making these choices? These are the questions at the heart of Shadows Walking, a novel about medical ethics, practices, and consequences in Nazi Germany. Shadows Walking spans nearly five decades of German history, from before World War I until after World War II. Everything in it--aside from the dialogue and situations that shape the interactions of the fictional characters-- either happened, or could have happened, exactly as described. As an historian, I pride myself on my novel's accuracy. Shadows Walking tells the story of two boyhood friends, Johann Brenner and Philip Stein. Both men are devoted to their Vaterland. Both believe wholeheartedly in the power of medical science to cure humanity of its ills. Both have become dedicated physicians. As they experience World War I, medical school, and their determined efforts to build their practices and provide for their families, they differ chiefly in only one respect: Stein is Jewish and Brenner is not. The two friends’ paths inevitably divide as Hitler comes to power. When Johann Brenner joins the Nazi Party and willingly commits “crimes against humanity,” he does so not as a psychopath like Josef Mengele or as an egotistically cruel opportunist like Carl Clauberg, just two of the novel’s many actual historical figures. Rather, Johann Brenner is an “ordinary” Nazi doctor. His understanding of the Hippocratic Oath’s first principle —“Do no harm!”—leads him to believe that his responsibility as a physician is to the entire Volk more than it is to any single patient. Meanwhile, living in Berlin under the Nazi boot, Philipp Stein’s personal and professional life is forced into a different, agonizing direction, and an inevitable, final meeting with his boyhood friend. Shadows Walking explores the choices that shaped Brenner’s and Stein’s lives. Some were beyond their control. But others, related to what E. Thomas Moran in his Foreword calls, “the skein of forces that press on an ordinary life,” were not. These choices determined their fate, and the fate of so many others.

On November 5, 2012, the College where I taught from 1972 until I retired in 2007, the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, honored my wife and me with the dedication of the Douglas and Evelyne Skopp Holocaust Memorial Art Gallery. Located in the college's library, this gallery is the site of the annual commemorations of victims of the Holocaust and genocides that I inaugurated and conducted through the latter part of my career. Two spoons brought to Auschwitz by unknown prisoners there, the gift to SUNY Plattsburgh by former Associate Professor of English Stephen Steinlight, in a metal and plexiglas cabinet by former Professor of Art Don Osborne, are on permanent display in the gallery. Now also on permanent display are two large glass sculptures, "Kristallnacht," by Jean-Jacques Duval, as well as many portrait bas relief carvings on wood panels by Dr. Herbert Savel, depicting French children killed at Auschwitz; and other works by prominent artists. Other art work will be exhibited in the gallery, too, from time to time. In addition to funding the gallery, former students and colleagues have also provided monies for student scholarships in the History Department and for an annual undergraduate essay or artistic work competition named in my honor on the theme of the Holocaust and/or other genocides. My wife and I are overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness and generosity of so many of my former students and our colleagues at SUNY Plattsburgh.