I learned that this description was without emotion, and while an accurate description of the events I felt that our tour guide's description caused this photograph to hit me. This picture was taken minutes after the Nazi, pictured in the bottom left, killed his family and then himself because he knew that the war was lost. He first shot his daughter, in the head, followed by his son and then wife before finishing himself, all because he was too scared of the consequences that may face him at the end of the war. As we learned later, this likely meant that he was guilty of war crimes and couldn't deal with his own guilt and/or knew the consequences of his actions. But what amazed me is how he let his family, likely completely innocent, die with him.
That's screwed up.
2 comments:
You note that the family of the Nazi soldier were likely "completely innocent". Do you really think we can qualify such people as completely innocent if they did in fact have knowledge of the complete brutality of the war, a brutality that their family member was participating in? There is a saying that goes, if you don't do anything to stop the problem, you are in fact adding to the problem. These family members could almost be seen as accomplices as they likely just turned a blind eye to the evil actions of their family member. Given these circumstances would you still consider these German citizens completely innocent?
I agree with both of you in a sense. I don't think there is such a thing as an innocent bystander. However, it is hard to fully judge someone in a situtation you have never been in. I think that his wife probably knew what was going on and was therefore not innocent, although she may have felt there was nothing she could do. The girl looked barely old enough to really understand what was going on and the son, maybe he knew but how much blame can we place on a child raised in such a situation. Honestly, I feel like labels are hard and this just proves it.
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