You know people get called Nazis every day, but then there's the real thing.
Did anyone see 60 Minutes last night, and the report on the Nazi archives? I’m still reeling. These people gave obsessive compulsiveness a bad name. This is the banality of evil taken to a new level of banality.
The Nazis kept records of the number of head lice on each new arrival at Buchenwald and probably at other camps too. These records have been kept in the archives. There are entries for the number of lice found and their size: small, medium or large. Can you imagine having that job: head lice inspector, tabulator and record-keeper? Did these people ever stop for a minute and wonder: what on earth are we doing? Apparently, they kept such meticulous records to show they were working hard. Civil servants!
They also had index cards to record the delivery of mail to inmates. Like anybody in Buchenwald ever received any mail. They showed a card to one survivor. It had his name and particulars on it, but he never received any mail. The man was blunt: “how could I?” he said. “They killed all the rest of my family. We were a family of eight and they killed everyone but me”. It was shattering. Index cards for mail delivery. Wow.
With another guy, they showed him his index card with a number along the top: A11832. He still knew it by heart. Why? He rolled up his sleeve and there was the same number on his arm.
They also had a record of executed prisoners on a certain day, Hitler’s birthday. There was a list of names and times. The times were listed every two minutes. 2:40, 2:42, 2:44, 2:46. They shot a prisoner every two minutes for 90 minutes, as a birthday tribute. That is beyond twisted, and yet they kept a meticulous record of it.
2 comments:
the fact that someone, many thousands of someone's, had these sort of cog-in-the-wheel jobs shows how easy it was to keep genocide going year after year
I know. I realize if the 2nd assistant head lice inspector one day said "This is evil. We must stop it at once", he would've been shot before the end of his shift.
Nothing changes. Everybody is out to save his own ass.
I just don't know how they could sleep at night, after doing this all day.
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