“It sounds like you are saying it was all okay,” stated Ed strongly, noticing the tunnel was veering on a curve slightly to the left.
“I’m not looking to justify it at all. The most we can ever hope for now is to understand it. How could such negative brainwashing be possible in an educated society? What strands of weakness can be common to so many individuals? I put it down to power and greed at the top and subservience, fear and denial at the bottom. These elements went hand in hand not only with the Nazi regime but also with the kidnapping and victimisation of my distant relatives. They were taken without mercy or conscience, ripped from their homeland and separated from their bloodline and soil. Inspired by greed and condoned en masse with subservience, fear and denial, we had plumbers, postmen, lawyers and janitors becoming death camp perpetrators. They killed me, murdered my mother and destroyed my country, along with god knows how many other innocent people. Nothing can change that. It is history and in the past. What we have to do now is put ourselves in a position where we can prevent that happening again, for a whole society to become completely brainwashed into a belief that can create a pseudo justification for mass murder and slaughter,” replied Yedida emotionally, slightly raising her voice.
“Well isn’t religion the same in that it brainwashes whole swathes of the community?”
“Exactly. Power, fear, guilt, manipulation, obedience, self-negation and servitude. They all play their part. However, we can’t confuse all religions with mass negativity such as the Nazi ideology. Of course the human pattern of subservience is similar but the outward message can be very different, even sometimes positive,” replied Yedida.
“I hear you there. You’ve really got a well-rounded and wise attitude to it all. One question though. I noticed there was an SS guard in the crowd yesterday. How can you possibly interact with him?”
“Like I say, you can’t hang onto things too long or else you’d never be free. It was never easy to speak with him or share any space with him to begin with but that’s no different to what a lot of the Jewish survivors had to go through when they returned to their homes in Germany, Hungary and Poland. I’m sure they walked down the street concerned that every postman and policeman had previously been a Nazi. Truth is that Niklas, the SS guard, was as much a victim of the whole thing as everyone else. He was so damaged by everything he saw that he killed himself. He had been studying medicine when he got drafted into the army and suddenly found himself in a position to obey orders or die. When the orders got beyond the realm of his personal morality he felt suicide was the only choice.”
“You’re probably right. Jews returning to Germany and Poland would have found it tough but there were a lot relocated by the British in Palestine. That all got a bit confrontational. What did you think of all that when you heard it?”
“Well the first I heard of that was from an English soldier who had been killed in a Jewish terrorist attack on the British at the King David hotel in Jerusalem. He told me about a Jewish group called the Irgun who had carried out that attack, and many more, trying to force the British out and assure an armed Israel state in Palestine. Apparently it is still one of the largest terrorist attacks in Israel ever. I was shocked and disappointed. After all the violence and oppression we had endured, we were doing the exact same thing to others. I felt we had lost our innocence and had been perverted away from the righteous peaceful path and onto one that demeaned our wisdom and depth as a people. It’s only my personal standpoint, but I was frankly disappointed.”
“Do you think it’s wrong then?”
“It’s not about right or wrong. Being oppressed and persecuted gives a deeper understanding of how painful it is to be in that situation. We should rise above it with wisdom and an understanding of how it should never be inflicted upon others. Anger is an emotion of unwise stupidity whilst oppression and persecution is the language of the fascist. There’s no place for any of that in a civilised world.”
“I agree. It would certainly be an improvement if people took an ethical lead rather than a physical one based on brute force,” replied Ed, noticing the breeze in the tunnels getting stronger as they proceeded.
“It’s certainly a complex issue. Anyway, what about yourself, Ed? What sort of life did you have?” enquired Yedida with a gentle, but authoritative tone, changing the subject.
“Well I have to say, my life has nowhere near as much shocking content. In fact, you’ll probably nod off if I even begin telling you about it,” reflected Ed ironically. Yedida, however, was having none of it and soon Ed was into the whole saga of solar-powered lamps and tortoises. Before they knew it, they were approaching their first major obstacle on their route.