Bookends

We recently returned from a tour that included several cities in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and The Netherlands. We began in Budapest, where we visited the “Shoes on the Danube Bank” memorial to 800 Jewish people who were forced to give up their shoes before being shot and thrown into the river. Seeing the pairs of metal shoes, interspersed with candles and flowers, attended by a group singing Jewish songs, and several people praying or just sitting or standing without saying a word was, to say the least, a moving experience. I took a few photos, one of which is included with my new short story, “The Shoes.” As that photo reflects, among the last things these people saw were the Christian churches of Buda, across the river from Pest.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, some Christians provided justification for the persecution and extermination of Jewish people. Ghettos, “work” (death) camps, and summary executions were only part of the picture. The whole of it involves irrational hatred, cruelty, and a false sense of superiority. We must never forget that these things happened. And we must not minimize or deny what was done to millions of people in the name of the Third Reich.

When we took a walking tour of the Jewish area of Amsterdam near the end of our visit, our guide identified himself as member of the Portuguese Jewish community. He was extremely knowledgeable and pointed out many of the important locations and events in WWII Amsterdam. We mentioned that another tour guide told us a German court convicted a woman in her late 80’s of holocaust denial, but she died before she was to be imprisoned. He told us he has had a few holocaust deniers on his tour. We wondered why a holocaust denier would take a tour of Jewish historical sites, originating at a Jewish Museum, and led by a Jewish guide. I suppose some people want to debate their “research” as often as they can.

It is significant that we encountered important pieces of Jewish history as the bookends of our visit. We must remember the horrors so many people experienced and witnessed. It’s important to recall the stories of heroism, hope, and resilience as well. Nevertheless, the would-be “rulers of the world” perpetrated overwhelming loss of life and massive destruction. The consequences of their actions must also be remembered. It took generations to rebuild after the war. And the human losses are still being mourned.

Some rulers see people as pawns in their game. They believe war is necessary, and not necessarily evil. Others shrug and say war is just “the way of things.” Apparently, we have acquiesced to periodic slaughter and devastation as the price we must pay for “greatness.” The rationale is simple, and cynical: If we break things, just think of all we can gain by fixing them! This is the reasoning of Oscar Wilde’s “man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” Dictators and their propagandists may claim that a glorious future is worth a little suffering, but generally it’s much more than a little and they are not the ones who are called upon to endure it.

This is not an anti-war manifesto, but it seems clear that the only “winners” in war are the weapons manufacturers and the ultra-wealthy who are insulated from the worst of it. Those who fight and do the hard work become the “losers” because it is mainly their blood, toil, tears, and sweat that make the future possible. It seems to me it’s not a lot to ask that our leaders resist the temptation to throw the world into chaos. There’s enough chaos in the universe already.

Why is it that barbaric acts must be committed to make a nation great? I’m not just thinking of Nazis here, although they wanted to make Germany great again. My country has sanctioned barbarism and has rationalized it as “in the national interest.” The Trail of Tears, lynch mobs, Jim Crow laws, internment of citizens, and covert regime changes hardly make a nation great. I have written essays on greatness, so my views are not secrets. In short, greatness depends on the path we choose to follow as well as the character of our leaders.

Some leaders stir up conflict for personal or tribal gain. Many may be persuaded to follow them. Others just want to watch the world burn. Yet, nothing is inevitable. We can choose chaos or peace. Every day we make choices which can either hasten tragedy or avert it.

Like Anne Frank, “I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.” Anne believed that people are good at heart. If what she believed is true, maybe we will choose peace more often than war and one day “confusion, misery, and death” will no longer be options.