I have a directory which (I think) has many many small files in it.  I'd 
like to remove these files, however every attempt I've tried fails.  For 
example:

cd <dir>; rm *
rm -r <dir>
ls <dir>
find <dir>

All quickly consume my 8GB of memory and grind to an apparent halt.  I 
haven't been able to even determine the name of a single file within 
that directory, let alone delete anything.  Does anyone have any ideas?


Notes:

1) I'm assuming the problem is a large number of files, but as I can't 
get any info about the contents of the directory I don't know for sure 
if this is the case or it's some other problem.

1) This is on NFS, in case that matters.

2) I don't have root privileges.

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