Ok, another page of pics from Jazzfest down. Only one day to go with words and pics and I'm done with it. While I was waiting for pictures to scan I was flipping through some old work I had sitting by my desk. I picked up a copy of War Criminals. This was going to be an ongoing comic book based on, well, you can guess the subject. I was given pretty much free reign to pick which war criminals I wanted to do. I was planning to do the first few issues on World War II and I had delusions of seeing it packaged in a trade paperback. I thought the potential for this series was very great...I could see it being used in schools. Ok, maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself but I really believed in this series. It came out during the black and white boom of the early ninties and lasted exactly one issue. The one issue I managed to get done featured Adolf Eichmann. I thought it was one of the best things I have ever written. I thought I'd copy the text page I did for this issue here, to give you a sample of some of my writing (that is writing away from this blog that is).
Okay here it is (I had called it Wreck on the Highway, but it appeared without title):
Our interest in criminals and the desire to know as much about them as possible is akin to that wreck on the highway. Everyone always slows down to glance at the accident at the side of the road. But after that quick glance and the image of the front of the car smashed into the front seat and glass and metal all over the street, everyone steps ont he accelerator and tries to hurry away. Who wants to see such gruesome sights?
That same rubbernecking priniciple remains at work when we hear on the news about the latest serial murderer and how horrible he went at his task. At first we sit mersmerized and want to hear more. But once the voice continues to list the sickening details, most of us turn away a little sick at heart as well as stomach.
Besides the first amendent there is a greater reason to publish stories of such atrocities. It has almost become cliched to say that those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it, but cliches are formed due in part because they capture a universal truth and do so often enough to be repeated until they become cliches.
Today as the youth become more distanced from such history and the name Eichmann or Bormann enlists a "huh?", it is more important than ever to continue to tell the stories. We read everyday in the newspapers and hear on tv or the rise in racism and the violence committed in its name. We need to remember the terrible toll such actions take.
There is nothing noble in classing a people different based on race as inferior. To most this may seem like common sense, but unfortunately there are too many that the crimes of world war two are either forgotten or ignored.
During the research for this issue I had to chance to read many interesting books, one of the most fascinating was the the Agent directly responsible for the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the book is EICMANN IN MY HANDS and is by Peter Z. Malkin with Harry Stein. I'd like to end with a quote from the book. Malkin's associate and co-leader of the group that spirited Eichmann out of Argentina askes the leader of the Israel secret service what will happen to Eichmann's wife and small child now that they have taken their income and support. In the end it is decided that no provisions are made for the family of an ordinary criminal sent to prison and thus nothing is owed to them.
"Yet I have never been more impressed with an uzi. In the end it was he who understood best of all of us what this whole thing was about: the need to hold on to one's humanity even if, all around, others have surrended theirs."
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