Engineers of the Final Solution

There is currently an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Berlin on J.A. Topf & Söhne. One of the things that never seems to get mentioned in all of the “when and how individuals involved in crimes of society take responsibility for their own actions” discussions is simply this, when fascist thugs takeover you don’t stand up and object without being killed. I’m not talking about the people who manufactured (and profited from) implements of destruction, or the people who worked for them (although, in a really creepy way, you’d have to cut the employees more slack...one couldn’t exactly fill in ‘Reason for leaving last job’ with, ‘They were making Continuous Operation Corpse-Incineration Furnaces for Mass Use’)...but rather, Joe Blow, or Joe-not particularly hateful, ignorant or vile-Blow (to be exact). If people with discriminatory ideas are allowed to gain power, it’s too late for the average citizen to do anything. It's heroic to become a martyr (if it is done for a truly humane and, hello, non-discriminatory cause), but it’s not the path most people will choose when it comes to beliefs vs. survival.

You don’t even want to know when Americans got around to outlawing lynchings. Where was the Christian right, guardians of life, at the time...surely not in the South.