Europe discusses Grass's admission

Julianna R. Szekely draws parallels between the debate about Günter Grass and the scandal when Istvan Szabo's past as a Stasi informant was revealed, and she defends both artists: "It's a terrible mistake to let an event in the life of an artist overshadow the value of his life's work. One of the things that make both Grass' and Szabo's works so wonderful is that they portray guilt and sin, defeat and triumph over life's problems, and not from a distanced, objective point of view but in a moving and intensely involved way." Szekely reserves her criticism for those who condemn Grass and Szabo. In her eyes they are hypocrites who act as if "they were born with pure souls, the products of an immaculate conception." Szekely argues that they, too, have sins on their conscience but unlike Grass never asked themselves the question: "Could you have understood back then the full implications of what you were doing?"

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