A Reflection on European Humanism A Lampoon


           World War Two was winding down. The defeated Third Reich was on its last legs. The Allied troops were about to storm into Germany proper any day now.
           The subsequent events most likely would have followed the customary scenario: military occupation; meting out just deserts to the instigators of the worldwide slaughter; denazification and other outrages of a similar nature. In all likelihood that’s exactly what would have happened had it not been for the intervention of the prestigious International Human Rights Defense League.
           The League came out with an angry denunciation of the “disproportionate use of force by the Allies.”
           …A little earlier, the Nazis had used on the Western Front one of their most potent weapons: placing hordes of their children in the line of fire. Peering through their gun sights the Allied tankmen recognized who was in their crosshairs and stopped firing. And when the tots were joined by their wailing mothers, the offensive was decisively stopped in its tracks.
           The newspapers and newsreels on either side of the Atlantic were dominated by the faces of the German women raising their arms to heaven and the pathetic pictures of children on the ruins of Dresden. Angry curses rained down, as is the custom of civilized societies, on those who, in the heat of battle, was tardy discerning the children through their gun sights rather than on those who had placed them in the line of fire.
            And to add insult to injury, the impressionable public was struck speechless by the news of an outrageous revolt of the Jewish inmates in the German Labor Camp of Auschwitz. The rebels brutally beat up one Otto Brill, father of four angelic little children, husband of poor Frau Elsa and son of a sick mother. Otto Brill’s blood-stained and scarred face graced the front pages of all Western newspapers. The sleeve of his SS tunic was disgracefully torn, his defaced armband with the swastika trampled underfoot.
           The berserk Jews, having beaten Otto to death, left destitute his whole family (and his poor sick mother, too!). That honest busy bee had been unstintingly doing his guard duty without regard to his comfort, even to the extent of sacrificing sleep sometimes. And here he was - dead! The orphaned widow Frau Brill and her charming little angels were deprived of their breadwinner and defender (and so, too, was his grieving sick mother!)
           Blinded by hatred, the Jews tried to justified their beastly crime by insisting that their victim had personally tortured and executed over two hundred inmates… But that alleged accusation was brushed aside as unproven in the usual way of civilized society, complete with a trial, examination of witnesses and arguments of the lawyers on both sides.
           The European and American public opinion incensed with indignation demanded unanimously: Stop the bloodshed immediately! Enter into negotiations with Messrs. Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and other legitimate, democratically-elected rulers of Germany. Do everything to achieve a meaningful compromise with them! Apologize for the harm inflicted on their country! Pay the damages!
            One particularly insistent demand: make the Jews publicly repent of their dastardly deed in front of Otto Brill’s widow and his orphaned angels (and his grieving sick mother, too!)
            Riding the wave of public indignation, Congress impeached President Roosevelt and sent into retirement his ham-handed underlings. Sane, compromise-ready people finally came to power in the U.S. and Europe. Under the weight of world public opinion, fighting was ended.
            The Fuehrer presided at the International Human Rights Forum in Berlin. Extending his arms with clearly seen scars on the wrists he demanded to bring to justice the Jews and their cohorts, initiators of all bloodshed on Earth. To the horror of the audience Hitler related a heart-rending story of how he, languishing in his Berlin bunker under the rain of aerial bombs, was contemplating suicide (and even started slashing his wrists) when suddenly he heard on the radio the welcome news: the angry declaration of the Human Rights activists who managed to put an end to the bloodshed.
            The participants who jammed the conference hall of the Bundestag were tearfully listening to the German leader. And when he reminded them of the death of Frau Goebbels’ children, who were martyred by their mother, many broke down and wept.
            After the Fuehrer’s impressive speech the screen behind his back lit up with scenes of the Nuremberg Trial of the Auschwitz Jews who had cruelly dispatched the poor Otto Brill. The ringleader of the killers was being examined.
           “How can you, Abraham Kantor, justify your actions to this supreme tribunal?” - asked the presiding judge.
           Instead of giving a substantive answer, Kantor, with the low cunning typical of Jews, silently opened his shirt and demonstrated the dubious scars on the chest. The judge indignantly brushed aside the ploy.
           “Can you prove that you could not have suffered wounds of this kind way back when, as a child? But even if what you are implying is true, so what? Let me repeat: even if we accept that these marks of battery were indeed inflicted by poor Otto Brill, they did not give you the right to kill in such brutal fashion the father, son and breadwinner of a German family.”
            Inspired by this turn of events in postwar Europe, the leaders of the remainder of the Reich immediately appealed to the world public to bring to justice all commanders of the Allied armies who had violated the chief commandment of the Christian faith: “Thou shalt not resist evil by force.”
            Whereupon the fathers of the Third Reich sighed with relief and proceeded to build up their resources for further good deeds. The officials of the Gestapo and other charitable organizations, shielded from dishonor and slander, returned to the offices. Ad as a sign of the final triumph of tolerance, it was decided to erect, on Manhattan Island in the heart of New York City, a memorial named The Teutonic Sword commemorating the SS men who had heroically fallen on the fields on battle.
            …”I can’t imagine anything like this!” cried out the novice Innocent.
           The two monks were discussing the news from Europe belatedly delivered to their Jerusalem monastery.
            “This kind of thing is impossible!” repeated Innocent.
            “True, it is impossible, - agreed his mentor, father Methuselah. - It is indeed impossible today, in the year of our Lord 1944. But who knows? If you live as long as I have, there is no saying you will not see something like this - the world turned topsy-turvy, with the killers triumphant and their valiant human rights defenders on a rampage.
            And the old monk crossed himself. At this hour of prayer, the last thing he wanted was to turn out to be a prophet.
                                                                                                                    © V.Razdolsky                    Translated from Russian by Victor Volsky

Victor Volsky, political analyst:

          At first sight the following spoof might look absurd. But reality far surpasses in absurdity any product of the most feverish imagination. In response to a plea of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, complaining that Muslims have become victims of terrorism and demanding that the country’s President decisively condemn Islamophobia, Francois Hollande declared that “Muslims worldwide are the first and principal victims of radical Islam.” In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, it would be tempting to brush aside the French President as a blithering idiot, but alas, his words are in total harmony with the prevailing Western sentiments.
          The perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the “enlightened public opinion” in the West beats any parody. The innumerable depredations and crimes committed by the Palestinians are covered up or justified as a “legitimate reaction to Israeli atrocities,” while the extraordinary, unprecedented precautions taken by the Israeli military to minimize collateral damage, often at the risk of their own soldiers’ lives, are totally ignored or ridiculed. Against this background, Razdolsky’s parody looks more like a factual report than theater of the absurd. And that’s exactly why it deserves notice: it is the diagnosis of a sick era. As the saying goes, “When the Lord wishes to punish someone, He takes away his reason.”
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