Was secretly pulled out of the castle-in-Bavaria lodgings where their platoon was sheltering after the end of WWII.
That man was an excellent photographer. Most excellent.
Anyway, when he returned from the US government's secret assignment, he approached my father to ask a special favor.
Apparently he had been taken to a nearby concentration camp and then to others not as close, to do some photography of both the survivors of the camps and the vestiges of the horrors. (The piled up bodies, the creamatoriums, etc.)
The end result of that conversation was that one of my dad's home office desks had a drawer that we kids were told we must never, ever open. The instruction to not open that desk was so severe in tone that neither of us adventurous youngsters ever defied it.
We came to find out sometime after we were all grown up and had left home, that that drawer was for those concentration camp photos. "Just in case anything happens and the US government backs away from releasing these, could you keep a copy of the photos?? Because, Fred, if they decide to hide this facet of The Third Reich, they may then also come after me." My dad hung on to that collection of photos all his life.
However, the fact remains of what I said and how I think in the post above is how I think. Don't fault my father for all the in's and out's of my thinking.
My father told many stories about his war experiences. Including how in the last few weeks of the war, his unit rushed to get to a certain location in a very timely manner. They arrived ten minutes too late - ten thousand Polish prisoners were burned alive in a large warehouse/barn complex.
It was not my father's comments about what is going on in America that related the comparison of the pleasantness of the German population's situation during the Third Reich to the current misery of the American middle class. Those comments were mine. Those comments come about because I am absolutely stunned when I talk to my older friends, and they discuss their struggles, "Food or medicine? Medicine or rent?" and of course, the on going inflation. Yet they have no problems voting for all the damn incumbents responsible for this mess we are in. (Even the incumbents who threaten Social Security?)
My father died before any of this craziness began. (Although he lived to watch the horrors of Nine Eleven but since he died the following summer, after his Ninety First Birthday, he never saw the development, by both tentacles of the Big Money Party, of that uber-State we are now surrounded by.) I am stunned by what has gone on in this country. I can only imagine my father's reaction!
And no, I doubt that should the shit hit the fan, that anything will happen to any one of the One Percent; they're not going to be the targets this time around. Regardless of their race or ethnicity, religion, color of their skin etc. If you are of that One Percent or willing to grovel to them, you will be safe.
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