We pass our days
in pleasant ways
with here and there
some sadness.
But
wait!
there is something
terrible
in some corridor
of the human mind
evokes
a horror
unspeakable.
The Greeks
blamed Pandora
but curiosity
is more than forgivable.
The Hebrews
blamed Lucifer
but even the dark
son of light
had respect for
the hand of heaven.
But from what lair
of the human mind
came
the beasts of
Auschwitz
Belsen
Buchenwald?
Somewhere
committees met
and planned locations
barracks
poison gas chambers
ovens
personnel
logistics
and
train timetables.
Someone kept notes
mailed instructions
made phone calls.
Architects and engineers
chemists and physicians
were assembled.
The agenda:
to annihilate
en masse
millions
of fellow humans:
to murder
day after day
millions of times
over.
Without excuse
of war
or profit
or angry revenge.
Without recourse
to mere
confiscation
imprisonment
deportation
enslavement.
To annihilate
fellow humans
for their presumed
difference
of racial character.
This is a madness
no
diagnostic manual
can code.
A planned
premeditated
calibrated
madness
that has no insanity
defense.
More than madness -
an evil,
a chosen evil
generated
by some capacity
of the human mind,
a monster
from a lair within
given birth to and schooled
to serve only
torture
and
death.
Can the Ariadne thread
of reason
bring
Theseus
back
from encounter
with this
Minotaur?
Is there faith enough
in the armamentarium
of any faith
to ensure survival
of encounter
with this dark Lord
of the flies
and of death?
An aged and bearded Jew
bends to embrace
the child beside him
and points upward
as the firing squad
pull the triggers.
A dark-haired Gypsy
plucks the strings
and sings:
Why do they hate us?
That Why?
echoes
through the corridors
of the
human mind.
John Hoad
Posted by John Hoad on April 29, 2003