I watched the first episode of the Ken Burns documentary last night. It was interesting but it didn't grip me like The Civil War did (Vicksburg was the key!!!). I did however learn alot about the Bataan Death March and Guadalcanal.
In other WW2 news, how about those photos of Auschwitz guards and secretaries eating blueberries and sunning themselves at the beach. What were they supposed to do in their spare time? Twirl their moustaches and cackle evilly? Of course they did mundane, normal things. What are we supposed to make of this? That Nazis were evil? Gee, and all this time, I thought they had such a good reputation. The thing about these photos is that they show these people were just regular guys, just like us.
One person in a thousand would stand up against something like this. But I'm not a hero, and I wouldn't rebel. I'm a physical coward. I'd be afraid, so I'd go to the beach, eat my blueberries and go back to the office and file paperwork about how many Jews were gassed today. I ain't proud of it, but that's what I would do. I'm not brave, and there's no point in kidding myself otherwise.
2 comments:
you're right-we only all think we'd be heroes but most likely we wouldn't
the scary thing about nazis or the kimer rouge or mao's red guard or stalin and the boys or the generals in burma or the guards at guantanamo bay is that they're all normal people-and they could be us and if we didn't live in this safe, quiet country: we could be them
..well who wouldn't want to sit outside and eat delicious blueberries?
I'm willing to be ol' Hitler was looking out the window thinking "ah, I wish I could be out there eating blueberries, but alas, I have a war to run!"
JAW fan
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