Chapter 09

[Freakzilla]

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological
personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the
corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a
condition to which they are quickly addicted.
-Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)

Rebecca has been brought before Great Honored Matre. She has had eye transplants to hide her spice addiction. She also has implants that meter doses of melange and sheer. She has learned simulflow. She reminisces about a conversation with the Rabbi while she's waiting for GHM to finish eating. GHM questions her about the Bene Gesserit, Miles Teg and truthsaying. GHM sends Rebbeca back home in hopes of using her as bait. She talks to the Rabbi about her Other Memory, she tells him there are no innocents.

[Freakzilla]

No revisions

[kamil.gregor]

It seems that FH got "Lidiche" in this chapter wrong. There's a quote:

It was odd, Rebecca thought, how he managed to give the impression that these events were of recent occurrence and that his eyes had seen them. Never to forgive, never to forget. Lidiche was yesterday. What a powerful thing that was in the memory of Secret Israel. Pogrom! Almost as powerful in its continuity as these Bene Gesserit presences she carried in her awareness. Almost. That was the thing the Rabbi resisted, she told herself.

"Lidiche" refers to a Czech village called Lidice (Liditz in German) that was destroyed during the Nazi occupation of the country in 1942. ("Lidiche" is translated as "Lidice" in the Czech version of the book). Curiously, the destruction of Lidice has nothing to do with the Jews. It was destroyed as a response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the deputy Reich Protector of the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (in today's Czech Republic) and the highest ranking Nazi officer in the country, by the Czech resistance movement. The assassination was not organized by the Jews and there were no Jews living in Lidice.

It seems unlikely that FH intentionally wrote Rebecca and the Jews making an incorrect connection between Lidice and the Jewish holocaust since Rebecca is referring to her Other Memories in this passage. So I would say it was FH who made the mistake.

Any information on this?

[Naïve mind]

If I were to guess, maybe there was a similar event in Belarus or Poland (or another area in Europe where Jewish people were common) and Frank got them mixed up.

[D Pope]

Just as plausible that he's illustrating the fallibility of oral history. It would make sense,
he was always less than happy with historians and Rebecca might remember the event. (in OM...)