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PART 4: Crimes against humanity |
Bread and a Pension Louis Johnson It was not our duty to question but to guard, for the day of retirement. I never could wind like a wife outside. There were cards much it was for the quiet life. You cannot hold |
INDEX the first world war
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INFORMATION
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HISTORY Concentration camp leaders and prison guards were among the Nazis brought to trial after the war. Some others committed suicide; many escaped and changed their identities. In 1995 the International Committee of the Red Cross apologised for its 'moral failure' in not openly denouncing atrocities carried out against Jews during the Second World War. The ICRC administration had 'taken another look at its share of responsibility for the almost complete failure by a culture, indeed a civilisation, to prevent the systematic genocide of an entire people and of certain minority groups'. Among these minority groups singled out for persecution, imprisonment and death were Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.
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IDEAS In a way this poem is brave in presenting the prison guard's point of view. Perhaps it was true that many guards did their job because it was a job, and did it without asking questions of their bosses or their consciences. Maybe in other respects many were 'decent' men, grateful for each other's companionship, the warmth of the guardroom fire, or escape from an unhappy marriage. 'Bread', yes - but a pension too? The guard 'speaking' in this poem seems to think he's in a secure job, a career for life. Yet all the guards must have known that the camps would not go on for ever. The war would end, and so would the secret labour camps; in time, anyway, there would simply be no Jews left to kill. Or did their complicity in atrocities mean that most prison guards did not look beyond tomorrow? And would this man's work-mates have stuck by him if he had fallen foul of the authorities they feared and obeyed? The most significant phrase of the poem (and its strongest critique of its submissive 'speaker') is in the last verse - and it's even possible to overlook it. 'Did as they were told'. To the guard, that's praise. In 1960, Adolf Eichmann, the chief organiser of the deportation and imprisonment of Jews, went on trial in Israel. He explained to the court that he was only 'obeying orders'. For many of Germany's war criminals, this seemed to be an adequate justification. Is it? Outrage says No. Wisdom and humanity says No. But how often do we look closely into the significance of things we're told - and paid - to do? How often do we hear, 'I couldn't say no to the boss, could I'? Or: 'I know it's bad, but if we didn't do it, someone else would'? - a common defence put up by people who work in armaments manufacture. (Though there are plenty of people in parts factories who don't even know they are working in the arms business.) The guard in this poem doesn't ask questions, but he certainly raises them. Might the words of this poem be part of an imprisoned guard's defence? What might be the defence of people who committed genocide later in the 20th century - in Rwanda in 1994, for example, where the military and radio broadcasts urged them on? |
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