What if They Were Jews?

        Originally published in

        the Tigard Times 1995

        Since April of 1992 we have been barraged by images of the war going on in Bosnia. Like most of you, I don't know a Serb from a Croat but they look a lot like ordinary human beings to me. One thing though, it feels like Hitler has reincarnated. This time though the “final solution” has become “ethnic cleansing” and the targeted humans are Muslim instead of Jews.

        We watch TV day after dreary day as criminals in uniform shell and bomb HOSPITALS! We watch day after dreary day as more criminals in uniform lob mortar shells into the public markets in Sarajevo. And I wonder as I know you do, at what manner of man takes up a gun and shoots at civilians running in the streets as if it were sport? We see the dead bodies, eyes open, staring, but not seeing, mouths open, in their last gasp of life, blood oozing onto the cobble stones.

        Those of us who are old enough have seen these same images before, only the criminals in uniform were Germans and the victims were Jews. We see now, and we saw before pictures of human beings standing emaciated behind rows of barbed wire, hollow eyes staring hopelessly. They look like skeletons because they are starved, treated like animals because the are Muslims. And how often have we collectively said the holocaust must never happen again, that people must never be so treated because in some monster's eyes they are ethnically incorrect. Yes, we said it, yet we see the same images of horror again. It is happening again. But somehow we are letting it happen, because it is so far away from our comfortable existence and the victims are not Jews.

        Yes, Hitler is back!

        His new name is Radovan Karadzic, and he has a head of thick gray hair and a well fed face and always wears a suit. He wants to kill off all the Muslims this time. Somehow, these people are in his way.

        So kill them!

        Even when they are in the hospital and in the town market. Kill them! Even as they scurry along the street bending over, hiding from danger, kill them! The world finally woke up to what Hitler was doing to the Jews and stopped it. Somehow I think that if the humans behind the barbed wire now were Jews we'd stop it this time too.

By Don DuPay

ABSOLUTELY NO PORTION OF THIS ARTICLE MAY BE REPRODUCED OR DISSEMINATED WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, DONALD LEE DUPAY, UNDER PENALTY OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!!