Tuesday 6 January 2009

What would I have done?

David Aaronovitich in an article in The Times today writes about how maybe we shouldn't make judgements on people who have behaved in a way that, now, we might condemn. He points to a film called "The Reader" in which the character played by Kate Winslet is brought to trial for Nazi crimes and when asked why she did a certain vile act she replied "What would you have done?"
About 20 years ago this thought came to me when I was in the pub one night: I looked at some of the men there of a certain age who might have been alive during the 2nd World War and I wondered what they might have done if this country had been under Nazi occupation.
I wrote a poem on the subject called IF THE GERMANS HAD COME TO WALES :

If the Germans had come to Wales
Would Tom and Mel and Bert and Dave have been collaborators?
Would Tom have stayed in local government
And helped with transportation of the Jews?
Would dear old Mel, ex training officer,
Have lectured on indocrination of the young?
Would Bert, smart Bert, who once (he said)
Had walked to John O'Groats - would he
Have walked behind them to the trains?
Would Dave, who's full of fun and jokes and puns,
Would Dave have closed the door on them?

Would I have helped?
Would I have given talks?
Would I have walked behind them to the trains?
Would I have closed the door?

Sometimes I feel the guilt of knowing what I would have done
If we had lost the war and Germany had won.

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