Watching Evil is Worse than Evil

     The title is actually something that Einstein said, but I think it is true.  I have to take my hat off to Jodi Picoult for The Storyteller, a story of a young woman whose grandmother is a holocaust survivor, and she meets a man in his nineties, who claims to be a former S.S. officer, a Nazi.  He wants Sage to kill him, but she gets in touch with the F.B.I. and Leo Stein, an agent specializing in this area, goes to visit her grandmother with her, because she is the only one who could possibly truly identify him, in case he was lying, for whatever reason.  The grandmother, Minka, has never talked about the camps, ever, but tells her story, which is horrific.
     There has never in history been anything as horribly strange as the holocaust.  I know that people have been persecuted many times over, such as slavery, genocide in Africa, the twin towers, the native Americans, but I do not know if people realize that the Jews have never been given a public apology by Germany.  And, I realize others have not had that either.  I also hate it when Meher Baba followers try to make up pat answers, and claim that Meher Baba said this or that.  I really do not care about that, or care to hear it.  I do not like A Course in Miracles interpretation either.
     When you really think, nothing is as insane as rounding up Jews and at first taking their homes away, and sending them to ghettos, and then putting strict rules on them, like not walking on the sidewalk, wearing yellow stars, and not going to school.  Jewish children had to sew those Nazi symbols onto shirts, etc..
     Then in the camps, it was starvation and murder.  Only by luck or strength, some survived, and those who survived were never the same.  It makes you want to cry when help finally came, the English, Russians or Americans, depending on which camp, the red cross. 
     I find that among some liberals, there is almost an anti-Semitism nouveau, and you may not agree or understand, and perhaps it is not only liberals, but some conservatives too, but people do not seem to care anymore.  As I said before, there is no statute of limitation on murder, and any Nazi still alive, no matter how old, should have consequences.  However, unlike Law and Order, this is not always the case.  They are, if sent back to Europe, rarely contended with there, and we have not the jurisdiction to punish them on American soil. 
     It is difficult for me not to hate the Germans, although I am one quarter gentile German, I am also half Jewish.  Anyone should find the holocaust despicable.  Please note that any anti-Semitic remarks will be removed from my blog.  Freedom of speech has limits, not legally, but in this type of forum. 
     The good is that ethnic cleansing was not successful completely, and the Jews are still viable and worship in temples, have lives in many countries.  Still, the idea that you should blame a people for your economic or social problems, take everything they own and eliminate them, taking away every human right, is preposterous, and I cannot believe they got away with it, until the war ended, and they were found out, the people surviving rescued.  I think Picoult did an amazing job of researching and accuracy, and she is a world class writer in my book now, and although I have always liked her books, The Storyteller is her very best work.