News from Belgium and the Belgian Congo
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VOL. IV, No. 6 FEBRUARY 12, 1944 NEWS FROM BELGIUM AND THE BELGIAN CONGO BELGIAN INFORMATION CENTER 6 3 0 FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK, N. Y. CIRCLE 6 2450 AM material published in NEWS FROM BELGIUM may be reprinted without permission. Please send copies of material in which quotations are used to this offlo*. THESE PERIODICAL BULLETINS MAT BE OBTAINED FREE ON REQUEST. One Story: Bataan and Louvain The Germans commit atrocities in Eu• It is scarcely believable that the lesson of rope. So do the Japanese in Asia. Why do the facts which resulted in atrocious suffer• they behave like this? Apparently there is ing for some members of mankind should no excuse. There must be an explanation, be lost on the rest of the race of men. The however, which does not diminish the re• Greek drama, which contains more solemn spective responsibilities of the culprits, but and solid human wisdom than any other which may tell us ivhere the roots of the evil writing, portrays almost without exception are, so that in a common effort the free the most horrible happenings of the mytho• peoples of the world may in the future erad• logical world, from the incestuous horror of icate this growth of evil, or at least circum• Oedipus to the nocturnal mass slaughter of scribe it. the 49 husbands of the 50 daughters of Da- What is an atrocity? It is an enormous nam (Zeus must have blessed the one and wickedness, an outrageous cruelty, an ex• only sentimental damsel who spared her tremely heinous deed. The Latin adjective groom). Why did the Greeks, who knew that ater, from which it is derived, means black. wisdom consists essentially in avoiding ex• For the Romans, an atrocity was a black cesses — and everyone should determine his deed, a fact to be considered a national cal• individual measure, — why did they indulge amity, and for many centuries ater and atrox in such horrible spectacles, such monstrous have been used almost exclusively in con• atrocities? They wanted, as Aristotle puts it, junction with war and warlike horrors. Ci• to "effect through pity and terror the correc• cero called war a "res scelesta, atrox, nefa- tion and refinement of our passions." ria," an accursed, atrocious and abominable Through pity and terror! Those are the thing. two sentiments which atrocities still evoke NEWS FKOM BELGIUM FEBKUABY 12, 1944 in all those who have already to a certain ternity ward in Berlin. She sees a crucifix extent corrected and refined their passions. and says: Of course the first reaction to the recently "Take that out of here. I do not want my released story of the treatment inflicted by son's eyes to rest on that Jew's face." It was the Japanese on the American and Filipino some time before the nurse and doctor could prisoners resulted, on the part of most pacify her. Hours later, when she was re• Americans, in very violent feelings. Such a turning to consciousness after the birth of reaction is a safety valve and quite justified, her child, her eyes again turned to that spot but nowhere has the disclosure of these hor• on the wall, and she cried in the strength of rible facts given rise to indiscriminate cries fury, "You have not removed it! Take that for reprisals, or for any action that may be Jew out of here. My son's eyes must not rest even remotely compared to the level of on that Jew's face!" With a wry smile, the beastliness the Japanese so naturally attain• doctor approached the bed. "Madam, you ed. It is even to be noted that only a week have had your wish. You have a son, but after the Japanese atrocities were revealed. there is no need to remove tlie crucifix. Your Life published a moving photograph of a son has been born blind." Nisei soldier who, fighting on Italian soil in In the etymological sense of the word this the American army, lost his eyesight. story is an atrocity tale. It is a story of ex• To a foreign onlooker the reserve and dig• treme cruelty. But furthermore, it is revolt• nity observed by American public opinion ing and evidently false. It will do far more on this occasion is a great lesson and ex• harm than good. This tale not only implies tremely comforting from the human stand• that the Lord objects to being called a Jew, point. It shows that in times of crisis Amer• which is rather amazing, but likens the Deity icans know how to correct and refine their to a barbarous, ignominious scoundrel who own passions. would strike a newborn child blind, in order During the first World War a good deal that its mother may be cured of her hit- of Allied propaganda had an emotional bias. lerism! Use was made of emotional material as an Those who write have a terrible responsi• incentive to patriotic indignation, and in the bility in war time. It is all too easy to stir madness of the hour some abuses were com• people's emotion under the pretext of pa• mitted. Third-rate journalists turned out triotism. When nurse Edith Cavell died, her stories simplifying the issues, dramatizing last words were, "Patriotism is not enough." to the extreme conditions which were al• Many people have carped about this phrase. ready horrible enough, and sometimes even They have explained that Miss Cavell refer• bluntly inventing "facts." The most cele• red to religion. In that supreme moment she brated incident is the story of the little girl may also have felt that above patriotism, whose hands had been chopped off by the even above religion and religions, there are Germans. They had not done this, but they a few universal human sentiments which had done far worse. On account of this one must be respected if we are to live in a de• falsehood, the entire crime record of the cent world. Those ivho invent atrocities or Germans in 1914 was discredited, and up to stories like the one cited above may consider the revelation of the Japanese atrocities, the themselves good patriots, but they are poor very term "atrocity" was rarely used by the writers and poor men. Patriotism is certain• average American without a connotation of ly not enough. unbelief or a mild distrust. The American public seems to have un• Again some people, giving free course to derstood this perfectly well. Its reluctance their imaginations, are getting out of hand. to accept the news of atrocities in Europe, A widely circulated monthly brings us the however painful for those who knew that story of a German woman who enters a ma• these stories were true, was justified to an [46} NEWS FEOM BELGIUM FEBEUAEY 12, 1944 extent. When the unimpeachable testimo• stant and certain threats. At daybreak they nies of the victims of the Japanese in the were not executed but shoved on the road to Philippines were published, the reaction Brussels. This is only a minor incident in a therefore was all the stronger. Some people series of thousands of murders committed said, "Please, don't tell us such things. They by the Germans, but it demonstrates the sim• are too horrible. We should not dwell on the ilarity of their technique to that applied by horrors of war, any more than we want to the Japanese. read the details of lust murders in our news• They both believe that the only way to papers. Men behave sometimes in a beastly subdue a human being is to scare the day• way, but that is an exception and it doesn't lights out of him. If he is of no further use, prove anything." This kind of response you kill him. So believes Hirohito, so be• sounds strange to European ears. Europeans lieves Hitler, and so believed Wilhelm II. believe and have plenty of reasons to be• Is there a way to avenge these horrible lieve, notwithstanding Jean Jacques Rous• excesses? For civilized nations there is none. seau, that man is not good. Therefore they We can perhaps bring justice to bear on a are all too willing to accept atrocity stories. few individuals who committed the crimes, Some Americans, reflecting the basic opti• although we will be lucky if we find them. mism of American culture, believe that man But we must punish the nation which allow• is essentially good. If he goes ivrong in such ed such things to be done, whose moral a terrible way, that is an accident. The ex• standard was so abased that such beastliness planation for that accident is now Nazism; became part of its war tactics. We must treat in the Orient it is Japanese imperialism, or the vanquished as vanquished, and we what-have-you. However, those who studied should not consider them poor neurotics the events of the last war know that wanton who, unfortunately for us, escaped from the cruelty, extreme wickedness, is the logical hands of their international wardens. outcome of every philosophy based on the The martyrs of Bataan will watch our worship of force. The Japanese beat and statesmen. The martyrs of Louvain, Vise, killed American and Filipino prisoners. It Tamines, Aerschot, and many other places is a shameful thing to do. The Germans in have been insulted in their graves because 1914 herded together hundreds of innocent German propaganda has cast doubt on the civilians of Louvain, mostly priests, women story of their sufferings. In the invisible and old men, in the railroad station at night• background of this war they stand side by fall.