by Maggie Miller

Created on: June 11, 2009

In a poem whose title marks the official start of World War II and one of the most notorious displays of human character, W.H. Auden writes, "All I have is a voice/To undo the folded lie...we must love one another or die." September 1, 1939 signifies the start of World War II, as Hitler marched into Poland and continued the mass genocide that began, as most genocides do, with a campaign of hatred and prejudice that quickly accumulated to large scale murder and civil injustice. Genocide begins with hatred directed at people of another race or religion, and escalates as one race gains enough power and privilege in society to call themselves the dominant or superior race. A series of events inevitably lead to genocide, and the world points its finger at the responsible party: the Janjaweed in Darfur, the Hutus in Rwanda, Pol Pot of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party. While the blame assuredly befalls leaders of these radical, oppressive parties, we have to question why the other condemnable factor usually escapes guilt free: silence.

As Richard Wilbur once put it, "how much are we the woods we wander in"? We know that Germany was suffering an economic crisis when Hitler came to power, so a vivacious, forward-thinking leader was refreshing and long overdue. So it's not surprising that German society ate up Nazi propaganda with a spoon. No one wants to squirm under the pressure of unemployment, poverty, or famine. But when a scapegoat was named and steps were taken to obliterate the entire Jewish population (among others), why did society go along with it? Is it because, at heart, we're all vacuous conformists? Why did no one speak up when the Jews were herded into ghettos and stripped of their rights as citizens and human beings? Why did no one rebel when books were burned and stores were destroyed and looted? Why did no one ask why their neighbors were suddenly vanishing and where they were going? As lower middle class citizens, it's not really possible to mobilize an army against what was then the most powerful army in the world. We can't always afford weapons and many of us aren't in positions of power, but we do what we can, and we always have our voices. Why did no one use them?

It's not just Germany that turned a blind eye to what was going on. The entire world was aware that something was up, yet no one seemed to want to move forward. It's like being in a supermarket checkout and hearing an altercation a few registers away.

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