There must be a switch somewhere deep in the mental psyche of humans that, once it is turned on, allows for atrocities of the ugliest nature to become reality. Alfred Hitchcock’s documentary on the Nazi concentration camps of World War Two display the unprecedented, wholesale death that was the Holocaust; which is perhaps the best example of subhuman atrocities throughout history.
Upon seeing the endless piles of lifeless, faceless, nameless and destroyed bodies one can’t help but ask themselves, “is this real, did this really happen?” That was my reaction to it. How could it be real? That is something you see in sick, twisted and fictitious movies. That sort of thing is suppose to be beyond human capability. How could so many people subscribe to the idea of doing those terrible things to so many innocent people? How can you feel righteous for those actions? All questions with no answer…
After learning of the evils of the Holocaust, surely this kind of hell would never again be recreated by humankind. This notion is true to a certain degree but the reality is still sad. Since the Holocaust there has not been a genocide of 11 million people but there have been numerous atrocities committed, such as the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.
In 1968, United States soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed civilians at the village of My Lai; mostly women, children and elders. Clearly, the lessons that Hitchcock had tried to convey in his documentary failed to be adhered to. How many times must we go in this circle of senseless violence and murder? Its bad enough that human nature points us so frequently toward the horizon of warfare, but must we always watch the world burn? Why destroy innocent lives? Again, questions with no answers…
Maybe an answer could be found in the way we deal with these atrocities. There is no real way to apologize for such terrible things but there is a place for the remorse that could be found on the faces of German officials and citizens who were shown the grizzly reality in those camps. Recently William Calley, the only soldier convicted for the My Lai Massacre, apologized for his actions. Lawrence Colpburn was among the three soldiers to be honored for trying to stop the massacre. He feels that Calley’s apology and remorsefulness would not go wasted:
If he would somehow be able to make the trip back to My Lai and face the survivors and apologize there, face to face, it would be a healthy thing for him to do…If he’s truly remorseful, it’s an opportunity for him to seek that forgiveness…
Through remorse and realization of the terrible things that have been done perhaps we can truly accept them and stop pushing them out of consciousness as we often do. These atrocities become taboo and soon they seem unreal and far away. I think that is why we keep repeating them. If we address them, accept them and correct them we can stop them. Otherwise they are like arguments in a bad relationship; they happen, there is no resolution and they come up again.
My Lai Soldier: Apology Could Answer Survivors
Anonymous
www.npr.org 8/23/2009
I have to agree with you one hundred percent on your reaction to the video we video. Were the people actually real and did this all actually occur? I also agree with your analysis that all the questions pertaining to this event are not answered. How could they be? When something as awful as this occurs what can someone say in their own defense? It makes it almost unbelievable that something like the My Lai massacre would actually occur? That is proof that the lessons which should have been learned through the Holocaust were temporarily learned and then promptly forgotten. The people of the world did not want to face the reality of the Holocaust therefore they tried to forget everything about it which obviously erased any potential lesson learned. If the lessons gained through the atrocity of the Holocaust are never remembered then a very similar situation will undoubtedly occur. The My Lai massacre was a simple and small example of what will happen if no one does anything. It was very effective of you to link these two situations together as they are both extremely powerful examples. They both involve the unnecessary loss of life, both of which could have been prevented. In reference to the Holocaust if someone had just stood up to Hitler he might not have had the chance to commit those crimes. With the My Lai, all that had to occur was remembrance of the Holocaust aftermath.
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While the German’s and William Calley are remorseful for their actions and publicly apologize, one thing that I was asking myself is “is that enough?” These people took everything and gave nothing but heartache and despair. I do not think that apologizing is enough. In fact, it would be an insult to the people of My Lai if Calley was to return and apologize face to face. The only good that would come from such an action would be that the people would get the opportunity to get revenge for the action that he took on their village. However, the Holocaust is a totally different story. I do believe that much of the German population was unaware of what was happening around them. In fact, there were many attempts on Hitler’s life by German people during the war. In the movie Valkyrie, the German people knew that the only way they could prove to the world that they did not condone their leaders actions was to kill Hitler themselves before Allied forces had the chance. However, should citizens be held accountable of an elected government’s actions? Yes, they most certainly should. If this were some case of a self proclaimed dictator committing genocide it would be a different story. I don’t know what the punishment should have been for Germany nor do I know what or if there was one, but one thing is for certain, it more than likely did not fit the crime.