The simple would rather tread the path laid out for them, warning, "Don't cross the masters or you will be whipped for your insolence." The simple are the conventional who still believe that if they avert their eyes and keep their heads down, they will be spared. But denial only delays the inevitable. Maybe by pretending not to see you can soften the blow; buy yourself some time, though the deniers never escape. They stick around thinking they are special. They will not be swept up in the net of a helpless humanity as a fish is snatched from the sea. Yet history reveals they were not judged as special because they agreed with the brutes, but duped and lulled into a false sense of security until it was too late to save themselves or to offer help to anyone else.
These I call simpletons, for they are like children who can be manipulated by lies and deception. Even when they have been caught like a fish that goes into the oven, they still defend their captors, insisting that they will not be dinner. Of course, I do not mean that there is a real oven, though The Nazis had real ovens that baked human bones by the millions. But first they stripped their dignity away which left bare corpses, by shaving their hair and by robbing them even of their spectacles, shoes, and gold teeth—mountains of teeth that demented dentists mined for the gold. Such horrors were never imagined by the average person, for sane individuals do not dream of wearing gold jewelry fashioned from corpses' teeth. But the Nazis were only demons wearing tight-fitting skin and swastikas. Among those who marched without questioning to the showers to be seen again only as the rotten smell of ash in the sky were simple men, women, and children who should have believed that there are demented demons that smile, that make empty political promises, and that shake hands.
Until it was done to them, simpletons could not allow themselves to believe that such horrific plans existed. Afterward, when the world saw what the German people had hidden, the only question that hung in the air like the stench of burning flesh was: "how could an entire nation of decent people allow this to happen?" But you see, violence silences dissent. In this war and in all others, the fear of becoming one of the piteous causes the average citizen to make excuses for monsters. "They will only take the illegals," they answered. In fact, those who were legal they made illegal, one group after another, until most of the frightened Germans found themselves twisted in the net. It was not until they were swept up and standing in line, naked and trembling, waiting their turn in the showers, now one of the illegals, that they hated themselves for not speaking up. But then it was too late. They had been thinking in simple terms because they were trying to be inconspicuous.
To not believe what is happening right in front of your eyes is to excuse yourself from taking part in it, true. But it also means that you are wasting what precious time you have left. You could be planning your escape. You could be doing your all to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You could be involving yourself in political activism. Instead, you are spending the most precious moments you have left pretending that what your eyes see isn't really before you. But you are only fooling yourself, because everyone outside of your circle is telling you, so listen to them. There is no hiding from the tidal wave that is coming. Either prepare now, or you will drown. And some reading this will say, until the very last minute, "I do not have to worry about that because I am legal and one of their own." Yet know that at any minute your safe status could be revoked by something you say or do that they do not approve of, or even how you look or what you believe. Nothing and nobody are sacred now or safe. Only simpletons refuse to believe what their eyes see and their ears hear. It is time to wake up. Don't be a simpleton.
With Love,
Frida