A PARABLE OF SIMPLE HUMANITY
And
they went into exile, naked and poor, on foot and in cattle cars,
thousands first, then hundreds of thousands and millions, until their
number swelled like a river in a big
flood
drowning
men,
women, and
children, thousands first, then hundreds of thousands and millions,
drowning the heart of humanity.
And now the Roumanian woman doctor was neither right nor wrong
in being what she was; for she was only a victim. And that means she
I
was nobody.
6
She survived. She lived to see her husband killed, her son killed, her
parents killed-perhaps from exhaustion, perhaps from hunger, perhaps
from asphyxiation in the cattle cars, perhaps lined up along a self-dug
ditch and shot in the neck, perhaps hung, perhaps gassed, perhaps
burned in a crematorium. But she survived; for it is also known, on
highest authority, that an individual's life is valued according to the
services he renders to those who employ him. An individual fetches a
high price
if
he can render valuable service to those who have the power
to determine what is valuable. Conversely, a person's life is worthless if it
cannot be exchanged on the market place, if there is no one who will
pay the price for keeping him alive.
Thus it came to pass, once upon a time, but still in our time and
memory, that the aged, the sick, and the young were killed or let to
die, for they needed to be fed and clothed and housed and they were
unable to render services which would pay for the watery soup, the piece
of mildewed bread, the rags, and the vermin-infested bunk.
But the Roumanian woman doctor could render useful services on
the market place of the ghettoes and the dungeons of death. And she
was right in being what she was; for it saved her life.
Since her skills were useful she survived. But she saved her life by
working for those who had killed her husband, son, and parents. And
in the name of what law, in the name of what God, did she save her
life at the price of working for those who had killed her husband, son,
and parents? Perhaps there is no answer; perhaps humanity needs no
legal sanction to save its naked life; perhaps the Roumanian woman
doctor was neither right nor wrong in doing what she did because
saving one's life is beyond good or evil as recorded in the history of man.
969
