From the mouths of children

One of my daily routines is to tell a story at bedtime to my child. I decided to tell her about Che Guevara, the man in Latin America, who wanted to help the poor by throwing out the rich and cruel landlords, and the evil dictators. “You have got it all muddled up pop,” my child protested. “That is Robin Hood you were talking about, and he and his men no longer exist.”

I then picked up one of her books to begin to read. The story we were reading was about a young man, called Jeff, who when not at work, was sought after by kids and adults in the neighborhood for his infectious sense of humor, his innumerable anecdotes, and his uncanny ability to take a dig at himself.

Jeff, it turns out, was a favorite because he was always around to help kids fix up their broken toys. He also helped the elder in the neighborhood with their chores, when he could

My child, interrupted me midway to ask, “These days, where do we find a person like this ?”. “Read me something about people we know”, she demanded.

Vowing to be as close to reality as possible, I began:

There was a man called Kirk who was the head of a company. He wore swanky suits, and was driven to work every morning in a luxury car. He was a man of many words, usually about his company, and its products, and how well they sold. In fact, he never passed up an opportunity to talk about these things.

His duty was to make money for the people who owned the company – they call them shareholders – and he did that very well.

He must have been an important man, because he had lots of people working for him. Everybody laughed when he said something funny. There were a lot of newspaper reporters and TV camera men running behind him. He was a “thought leader” and what he said was considered very important. He was always dressed right, always with a smile for the cameras.

He had people – they call them a public relations firm – that reminded newspapers all the time about his company, his work, and yes, his thought leadership. He traveled a lot, worked a lot, his company organized functions where he gave speeches a lot, he was away from home a lot. His company rewarded him with vacations in exotic locations, lots of money……..

My child was snoring before I could finish the story. She never asked me again to read to her at bedtime.

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A new photo album, and reflections on Hannah Arendt’s “The banality of evil”

The phrase “ the banality of evil” was used by philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt to refer to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi criminal, arrested and put to trial by a court in Israel.

Arendt, who covered Eichmann’s trial, raised the questions whether evil was something radical, or as banal as people just following orders, playing safe, or going along uncritically with mass opinion.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday unveiled a new addition to its collection — a personal photo album containing 116 pictures taken between May and December, 1944, chronicling the life of SS officers and other officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

The images capture SS guards and Nazi officials relaxing and enjoying time off—hunting, singing, trimming Christmas trees, and more –— all while Jews were being murdered at rates as fast as anytime during the Holocaust. The album was created and owned by Karl Höcker, an adjunct to camp Kommandant Richard Baer, according to a statement by the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

When you browse through Höcker’s album you come across pictures as ordinary, and as banal, as SS officer Karl Hoecker shaking hands with his sheep dog Favorit, SS officer Karl Hoecker lighting a candle on a Christmas tree, Nazi officers and female auxiliaries, called Helferinnen, posing on a wooden bridge in Solahutte, and sing-alongs with an accordion player.

The lives of these SS and Nazi officials is in glaring contrast to the massacre of Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau. To be sure, these men and women frolicking, indulging in normal human pastimes, must have been aware of the inhumanities, the Holocaust perpetrated by them and their colleagues on the Jews!

Did they not feel guilt for what was happening in Auschwitz-Birkenau ? Were they cruel monsters pretending to lead normal soldiers’ lives ?

Or was it just the banality of evil again – the uncritical following of orders, and going along with the others that Arendt warned us about.

I say warned, because it can happen again, anywhere in the world.

“He did his duty…; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law,”, wrote Arendt in “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, a book that emerged from her coverage of the trial of Eichmann for The New Yorker.

A lot of the crimes against humanity today come from such banal people….who were just obeying orders.

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