Introduction
Recovering stolen goods in Liberia
Greetings to England
Sie sind im Lager
They think we're niggers
Being captured by the Russians
Getting out of the Army in Europe
About Human Dignity
Virtuous Lies
A military version of drop-the-handkerchief
These so-called "vignettes" got their start from a suggestion made by my sister-in-law that my brothers and I should write something about our lives and experiences for younger and future members of the family. I decided the easiest approach would be to try isolating little pieces and writing them up. Maybe (although not very likely) they might later be brought together into something continuous.
Anyway, I did write a couple, but then decided there was really no audience for them and stopped. That was some three years ago. Now, this web site seems a good place to store such writings without having to search for an audience.
In January 1945 (in the U.S. Army Air Forces) I was part of an aircrew that ferried a C-47 (DC-3) from the United States to England. We went via South America and Africa (stopping at Borrinquin Field, Puerto Rico; some place in British Guiana [now Guyana]; Belem, Brazil; Natal, Brazil; Ascension Island; Roberts Field, Liberia; Marrakech, Morocco; a brief stop to top off our fuel tanks at Port Lyautey, Morocco [since renamed, it seems], finally ending at Newquay [Cornwall], England).
The first stop on the continent of Africa was Roberts Field, Liberia. I have no idea whether or not this field existed before the war or for long after. I have a vague idea that it was carved out of a great rubber plantation owned by a U.S. corporation.
It's amusing to recall now how the Army propagandized us before we arrived in Africa about the dangers of mosquitoes. I'm sure their main concern must have been malaria, but the main thing they did as far as I can remember was show us pictures of extremely advanced cases of filarial elephantiasis, such as men carrying their testicles on wheelbarrows. Anyway, they did succeed in convincing some of the more gullible of us that we must at all costs avoid being bitten by a single mosquito.
But that's not part of the story. We flew into Roberts Field one afternoon, slept one night there, and left the next morning. When one member of our crew (the radio operator) got up in the morning, he found that his watch was missing. It seemed clear that it had been stolen from the barracks.
The loss was immediately reported, and before long we--all of the crew--were taken to a room to observe the efforts being made to recover the watch. I've never been sure why they took us there: maybe so we would be assured that our crewman's interests were not being taken lightly.
There were three men in the room besides our 5-man crew (who were only spectators). One of the three was a US Army non-com (a sergeant or corporal), a second was a large black man in a uniform that I couldn't identify, the third a small black man in shorts and (I seem to remember) a sleeveless shirt.
The uniformed man was certainly in some sort of police unit--whether under the command of the Liberian government or of the U.S. forces, I have no way of knowing. I later speculated that he probably belonged to the part of the population that was descended from the former U.S. slaves who had been settled in Liberia under (U.S.) President Monroe (since this group still were politically dominant in Liberia at that time). The other man was someone whose work gave him access to the barracks. I believe he was part of the cleaning crew or something of the sort. I subsequently speculated that he must have belonged to one of the indigenous (what journalists like to call "tribal" ) peoples. But all of this speculation may be quite wrong, and in any case is beside the point.
When we entered the room, we were confronted with a sight that I found very disturbing. The small man was being forced to balance himself on one foot and the index finger of the opposite hand while keeping the other leg raised in the air behind him. The big Liberian had a large web belt with which he struck the smaller man on the thighs every time he let the leg drop a little (and at other times, as well). The blows left prominent welts. He also slapped him on the face and his cheeks and mouth had swollen to a visibly puffy state, although I don't remember there being any blood. One thing that particularly affected me were the high-pitched squeals the smaller man emitted when struck. They reminded me of squeals I had once heard from a rabbit that someone was pulling out of a hole by means of a forked stick twisted into its skin.
It was our understanding that the smaller Liberian was the first person chosen for questioning because he was the most easily available of the small number of people who would have had easy access to the barracks. When we left, we were told that there was no cause for concern if they failed to get anything out of him, that there still would remain others to be questioned.
Anyway, this episode confronted me with a dilemma. From the moment when we entered the room, I felt that what was going on in front of me was outrageous and should be stopped.
What should I do? Should I order the non-com (who I believed--very possibly wrongly, I now suspect--was in charge) to stop the procedure? I was a commissioned officer but I had only had my commission for two months, and had only a very vague idea of what it authorized me to do. (In fact, Air Corps officers in the lower ranks usually never did have much to do with giving orders). And anyway, I wasn't the ranking officer present; our pilot had more time in grade than I did, as well as being the commander of the crew.
But the other horn of the dilemma was that the purpose of the whole procedure was to recover our crewman's property. What kind of officer would I be if, so far from supporting any efforts to recover his property, I actually attempted to interfere with them?
In the end, I did nothing. And in the end--and long after--I had the feeling that I had failed a test.
Epilog:
Several days later in England we heard from our radio operator
that they had recovered the watch and returned it to him. Nothing
was said about whether or not the particular suspect whose questioning
we had observed turned out to have been involved.
At some point during, or shortly after, World War II some of the press (I have some suspicion that Henry Luce's Time and Life magazines may have had a prominent role in this) liked to speak of the American troops abroad as our "ambassadors of good will". I always thought that phrase suggested rather too optimistic a picture of their will and its effects.
As I said in the preceding "vignette", my air crew's transatlantic journey ended in England. It will no doubt be hard for Americans today, when travel to Europe is so relatively easy, to understand my feelings--to understand how miraculous this trip seemed to me. To be in South America and Africa, even though we weren't permitted to leave the airbases anywhere, seemed unbelievable enough, but to be in Europe was the wonder of wonders.
Europe was the place that all of our culture came from--the home of Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Aristotle, Caesar, the Magna Carta, and so on and on. It was known for the best scientists, the best artists, the best universities, the best museums, etc. in the world. Even if this reputation may no longer have been entirely valid, the aura of its era of cultural supremacy lingered on. Much of the architecture of the past was still there, and that past had a depth that dwarfed ours.
And, of course, I was aware of a long tradition of well-to-do Americans making the voyage to Europe, where--for those who were capable of intellectual growth--cultural horizons were greatly expanded and educations pushed to new levels. And there I was, scarcely able to believe that I was to be in some measure an heir to this great tradition--a beneficiary of this great windfall.
As best I can figure out after all these years, the flight from Morocco must have taken a night and most of a day. Anyway, tired as we must have been, we were allowed to go into town for a while. I seem to remember it being dark or nearly so, but with businesses still open. (We must have arrived in Cornwall in the afternoon; that far north, of course, it gets dark quite early in January).
The town, I am sure, was Newquay. I can only picture it very vaguely, but I remember the narrow streets and sidewalks and the centuries-old architecture that has been so carefully preserved in Europe. Everything--no, not everything, but much--of course seemed small and quaint to an American. I was fascinated. It was like being in a place outside of time.
There were several planes that had made the flight from Morocco together (or at least I think that must have been the way it was). The crews were in town together. There was one officer (I think he was an officer, but it doesn't matter) among them who at once began shouting at the top of his voice, making fun of everything he saw.
"Royal Mail, ha! ha! ha!" (on seeing a mail van), "Do you call that a fire truck? ha! ha! ha!" And so on. I hadn't expected anything like this at all. I've never been able fully to imagine what was going on in his head (although it was obvious that he was one of the many Americans who felt keenly that the English needed to be put in their place, and was assuming his part of the burden of meeting that need with as little loss of time as possible). There was no doubt that everything he said was intended to be heard by all of the English people within ear-range. I was terribly embarrassed. From that time on I was constantly aware of everything I did and how it might look to people--aware that I was representing the United States to them.
Anyway, it may have been that night that I began trying to find an alternative to being American.
During the War the Germans brought large numbers of people from all of the occupied countries to serve as forced laborers in Germany--as factory workers and much else. These people were given minimal means of subsistence, especially as shortages grew toward the end of the war. When the German government collapsed, these people were suddenly free, but without resources, all over Germany. They came to be referred to as "Displaced Persons" (or DPs).
Units (like ours) in the Troop Carrier Command sometimes had contact with these people; in fact, we were an occasional source of transport for getting them home.
My memory is very vague on where the encounter I want to speak of took place. It seems to me it must have been somewhere in Austria, and I remember it as being evening. Anyway, this young DP woman approached me and began talking to me. She was Russian, and she must have been speaking to me in German. My German was very limited, and hers was not very good either. I think I tried to escape her, but she was insistent. Her group of Russian DPs were going to be sent back to Russia, and they were (or at any rate, she was) very frightened. She was trying desperately to find a way to avoid being sent back, and she was seeking help from anyone she could find. I tried to reassure her that there was nothing to be frightened of, that the Americans would never force them to go back unless everything would be all right when they arrived. But she wasn't reassured at all. They had received word of the Russians who had already been repatriated, and she said (and her exact words are what I remember most clearly of the whole episode), "Sie sind nicht zu Haus [sic]; sie sind im lager" (They aren't at home, they're in a camp).
She seemed too certain of her facts for me to argue further, but I may have convinced her of how completely powerless I was. (I had no idea who was in charge of the whole repatriation process, and if I had known, I would have had no access to them, and if I had somehow managed access, they would have paid no attention to my arguments).
In any case, she finally realized that I wasn't going to be any help, and gave up.
Many years later, I heard that the American authorities had indeed forcibly returned DPs from the Soviet Union, and that they were sent to the gulags, and that the forcible repatriation continued even after it became widely known what fate awaited the returnees.
Everything she told me seems to have been true. Of course, I had had an airtight excuse to offer her--my powerlessness. A lot of good it must have done her.
[This is my attempt at a written version of the non-story I told at the Linguistic Society of Hawaii's "Spring Ling Thing" in April 1997.]
As I look back on my life, I think of too many times when I screwed something up, when I did something stupid rather than what was (as I can see now) obviously the right thing to have done. The occasion I want to describe here is one that I did certainly screw up, but where I still can't figure out what I should have done. I'll leave that for the reader to decide.
It was in the summer of 1951, and I was in San Diego County, California, collecting data on the language of the Luiseño Indians. One day early in my stay there I was talking with a couple of older Luiseños when a younger man came up to us (I believe it was probably [at least ostensibly] to greet the older men, whom he hadn't seen for some time). He had recently been discharged from the army (or possibly, the marines), and in commenting on his experiences, looked meaningfully at me and said (approximately), "they think we're a bunch of niggers". "They" clearly referred to white Americans that he'd known during his time in the service, but there was a clear implication that that "they" might also include me. It was pretty obvious that I was being given an opportunity to deny the implied accusation, and I wanted to respond. However, I couldn't find the right words for doing so. I think I wound up saying nothing at all, or at most, mumbling something meaningless. I was left feeling quite dissatisfied with my failure to communicate how I felt about the issue.
One evening soon after (it might even have been the same day) there was some kind of event going on that involved the entire community (I remember it at this distance in time as having been in the nature of a carnival). I went, but had hardly arrived before I was met by one or two of the older men, who told me that the young man in question was drunk and was "looking for" me. This was clearly an aftermath of our earlier encounter, and my immediate reaction was to see it as a chance to make up for my previous failure and to explain my views on race relations to him. However, the men who were warning me had a quite different view of the matter. They were very insistent that I must get away from there before he found me. After some resistance, I took their advice and left. In retrospect, I have no doubt that they were right. The kind of incident that might have occurred if I'd stayed would certainly not have served their community well.
But in leaving I was even more keenly aware that I'd failed in the one chance that I was ever going to have to explain myself to the young Luiseño.
That, then, had been my opportunity, but what should I have said? That the Luiseño weren't "niggers"? I suppose that most people if asked what "nigger" means, would say that it was a derogatory designation for people of what used to be called the Negroid race (maybe still is, but the concept of race is so much misinterpreted, that I prefer to avoid it). Let me just say (with approximate accuracy) "people of sub-Saharan African ancestry".
With that meaning in mind, I could easily have said that the Luiseño weren't niggers (indeed, that nobody I knew of thought they were). But that would have been avoiding the issue, and furthermore, I don't think he'd have let me get away that easily if I'd wanted to. The thing is, when he said that "they" thought the Luiseño were "niggers", I didn't really understand him to be using the word "niggers" to mean people of sub-Saharan ancestry. I didn't imagine him to be claiming that anyone believed that the Luiseño's ancestry traced to sub-Saharan Africa. I understood him to be using the word "nigger" to mean something else. To explain what I take that meaning to have been--what he was accusing us of believing--I need to talk about what I take to be a presupposition of what he said.
This presupposition, as I understand it, might be described this way. There's a kind of divide among people, such that people on one side of the divide are entitled to look down on--hold in contempt--those on the other side. (Of course, I don't mean to imply that there's any basis for this entitlement other than simple arrogation by the people on the contemptuous side.) Anyway, (to continue with the presupposition) whites are on one side--the contemptuous side--of the divide, and the people of sub-Saharan ancestry are on the other--the contemptible (according to the presupposition) side.
What I take him to have meant when he said that we ("they") thought the Luiseño were "niggers' was that we put them on the "contemptible" side of the divide. That is, he was using the word "nigger" in this second meaning--"people in the contemptible category", and therein lay my dilemma. If I said the Luiseño weren't niggers, I'd be interpreted as accepting his presupposition, and it was that that I didn't feel I could do.
I might have said, "nobody's a nigger" (meaning that no such contemptible class exists). That was really the point I wanted to make. But what would have been his reaction to that? I'm sure he'd have interpreted it as saying that no one was of sub-Saharan ancestry, which would have made it appear that I wasn't treating what he'd said seriously. He could naturally be expected to take offense at that.
The only other alternative I can think of would have been to enter into a longer discussion in which I'd try to lay out my view of race relations. But there were two reasons for not doing that. First, I was trying to get some work done with the men who'd been there before he interrupted. I didn't want to abandon that and give the necessary time to what might turn out to be a prolonged discussion. But, secondly, I'm not sure I could have made myself very convincing to him. I picture him, on hearing such an explanation, as seeing me as some kind of liberal dealing with abstract principles while he lived in the real world, where saying that all races were equal didn't cut much ice. I picture him as saying whatever was equivalent in the language of those days to "Get real!".
In sum, I know that I screwed up the opportunity that I had, but I still don't know what I wish I'd said and done.
Not long after the end of the war in Europe we (members of the 304th Squadron of the 442nd Troop Carrier Group) were ordered to fly replacements for another Troop Carrier unit to Halle, Germany. Some of our unit had been in touch with members of the unit in question (I seem to remember that it was the 301st Squadron), and knew that it had recently moved from Halle to Berlin. But our job was to follow orders rather than, say, to evaluate how much sense they made.
In fact, Halle had originally been captured by the American army, but was in the zone that had been assigned by previous agreement to the Russians. The transfer had taken place and when we arrived, no Americans remained. It became increasingly clear that there was a problem when we were unable to contact the airport control tower (which was operating on a different frequency from ours) and when we saw Russian vehicles and troops on the field and elsewhere in the area. We were uncertain what to do, but the pilot decided we could hardly return without completing our assigned mission, and accordingly went ahead and landed without instructions from the tower. Since there was little or no air traffic at the field, this presented little danger. But when we got on the ground, there was no one we could talk to. Some curious Russian officers--none above company-grade, if I remember--emerged. Several soldiers armed with submachine guns appeared in positions around the plane--they behaved inconspicuously, but their presence wasn’t easily ignored. I was always somewhat susceptible to motion sickness, and the flight there had been rough. The plane was not tossed widely around; rather it got a persistent jack hammer-like bumping. Anyway, the fact that my stomach felt very shaky when we landed and continued that way didn’t dispose me to enjoy the situation. There was a period of several hours when there was very little communication between us and them. Finally in the late afternoon, they produced an officer--a 3rd lieutenant--who had lived in England and spoke English well. He was effectively no more than an interpreter for his superiors. (I even thought he seemed a little intimidated by them and wondered if maybe they didn’t fully trust him because he spoke English). And now they fed us (we hadn’t eaten for hours and I was feeling very hungry). The main dish was a cabbage soup (I was disappointed afterward to learn that this wasn’t the famous borscht that I’d heard of as a major Russian dish). And they brought us big glasses of beer. Beer was the last thing I wanted with my shaky stomach and aching head, so I didn’t touch it. However, that didn’t stop the German waitresses, who soon brought another round, and then another. They had received their orders, and seemed in no mind to provoke their masters through the slightest deviation. I no longer remember how many glasses were finally lined up in front of me, but I’m sure it was no less than three. The rest of our party had similar accumulations. I wasn’t asked as many questions as the pilot and maybe others, but the one question I remember was about the state of our army--whether we were actively training. I asked why we would possibly be doing that since the enemy was defeated. (In fact the US forces were in a chaotic state--people were permitted to go home according to a point system, and virtually everyone went whenever they had accumulated enough points. This meant that those of us who remained were operating as best we could with whatever skills chanced to remain). The interpreter hastened to assure me that it was simply an old European tradition that armies were kept in fighting order, and the matter was left there. It was only much later that I realized that many Russians at that time considered the West to be their implacable enemy and expected us to turn on them sooner or later after Hitler was disposed of. The higher-ups eventually reached a decision--I presume there was communication with American authorities, and we were permitted to continue to Berlin where we delivered our replacements to their assigned unit. Incidentally, at some point in the proceedings I was told that there had been a similar intrusion at Halle by an American plane somewhat earlier. It seemed that a pilot in an American fighter unit that was based there shortly before the Russians took over had a German girl friend there, and he had returned to pay her a visit. The Russians appear at first to have suspected that our pilot might have had a similar motive.
I didn’t go overseas in World War II until the beginning of January 1945 when the war in Europe was nearing its final phase. A couple of months later we crossed the Rhine and began the race across Germany. Once the war ended, virtually everybody wanted to be released from military service and get back home as quickly as possible, and so an elaborate “point” system was devised to determine the order of release. It wasn’t until the summer of 1946 that I finally had enough points to qualify. Of course, most of the other men in this situation could think of nothing but getting home.
However, I wasn’t ready to end my European adventure yet. I should explain that in the era before World War II, people like me simply didn’t travel to Europe. We read about the famous ocean liners and the wealthy people who voyaged on them, but the voyagers were not people like us. They were presumably the kind who lived mostly in the northeast, went to Ivy League colleges, and generally inhabited a world that people like us couldn’t imagine. Consequently, for me to be able to go to Europe and see people actually living in other countries and in other languages had been no more than a distant dream. Therefore, when the Army decided to send me there, it had seemed almost too good to be true. And after only a year and a half, I wasn’t at all ready to leave--especially without experiencing life in Europe in a more immediate way, without the Army interposed between us. I knew it was possible for a person to get out of the Army in Europe instead of returning to the States. I knew that some people had done so (incredible as that would seem to most); I don’t know who they were--I don’t think I ever subsequently met any of them. Anyway, we were entitled to ask for and receive instructions as to how to proceed. I’d chosen Switzerland as the best place to go. One reason was that both French and German, the two languages I’d been trying to learn, were spoken there. Another was that it was one of the few countries that were functioning fairly normally. Of course, I was attracted by the relative comfort of heated houses and plenty of food, soap, etc., but also by the prospect of experiencing Europe as it normally was--I’d already seen enough of the misery for it to have lost its exotic appeal. The instructions I received seemed pretty causal and no one I talked to had had any experience with their use, so I followed them as best I could. I was told to get approvals from the US legation in Bern and the Swiss government. What these were actually intended to do, I realized later, was meet the passport and visa requirements. Getting the Swiss visa was no problem as long as I could show that I’d been accepted into a program of study in a University there. This I accomplished easily by enrolling in the summer program in the French Language at the University of Geneva. There were no academic requirements for enrollment in those summer language programs, so that was automatic. I figured (rightly) that once I got there, I’d be able to go through the steps--transcripts, etc.--to enroll for a regular program. Anyway, I quite promptly received notification from the Swiss government that my visa had been approved, and that I could receive it at my point of entry into the country. The American side of this (the passport) didn’t go so well. The legation in Bern apparently didn’t know what to make of this letter from a military address, so they routed it to their military attaché. He in turn didn’t know what to make of it, but he wrote me that although he didn’t know what they had to do with my coming to Switzerland, as far as he was concerned, it was ok. I didn’t feel very assured by this reply, but the Army accepted it (things were very casual in those days), and I headed off for the Swiss border at Basle. When I got to the border, the Swiss confirmed that I had been approved for a visa, but pointed out that they needed an identifying document from me. What, in fact, were they to stamp the visa onto? This presented me with a real problem. I was a man without a country. I no longer had the protection of the military, and I had no proof of my identity or nationality. What recourse did I have to keep from becoming just another stateless person wandering the roads of Europe? Well, someone told me they’d heard that the US had just opened a consulate in Strasbourg some miles north of Mulhouse, where I then was. I took the train up there, and found the newly-opened consulate. But after arriving there, I was told that a passport couldn’t be granted to anyone without proof of citizenship. I pointed to my service in the Army, but found that that was no proof of citizenship--citizens and non-citizens were equally welcome to the Army. I still remember that the new consul was a youngish Virginian with the (at that time at least) prominent name, Byrd. He was very sympathetic with my problem, but nonplussed. At this point I need to interrupt the story for a minute and go back to something totally different that happened a few months earlier. At that time the US wanted to send in a unit of military police to take over the German embassy in Madrid. However, Spain was not an ally. On the contrary, although it had never entered the war, it had actually been friendly with the Axis powers throughout. Therefore, the entry of US forces into the country was a delicate matter. The plan, therefore, was that our troops would enter as civilians. They were to be flown in by a plane of the Troop Carrier Command, the crew of which also had to be outfitted as civilians. The way I came into the picture was that they decided to prepare a backup crew in case something made it necessary (I never knew just what circumstances they envisaged as requiring it). Anyway, I was one of the members of the backup crew, and we had to be prepared. This meant going to London and buying clothing (at government expense). I got a suit, one or more shirts, a hat, a topcoat, and maybe more. But beyond that, we needed documents, and we were issued US passports that were validated only for a very short period--I seem to remember it was 4 months. I never heard anything more about the Madrid project--presumably the original crew carried it out. However, they never reclaimed the clothes we’d bought; and furthermore, since I’d never seen a passport before, I kept mine as a souvenir. Anyway, while I was trying to figure out how to establish my bona fides for the Strasbourg consul, it occurred to me to mention this no-longer-valid passport. Of course, the passport had never been intended to vouch for my citizenship except in one very narrowly-defined eventuality. But it provided Mr. Byrd with an expedient that he was willing to use: he re-validated the passport for another short period. After that, I had no trouble. The Swiss visa was applied, and I proceeded to Geneva. Of course, when I went to the American consulate there to apply for a permanent passport, they were a bit shocked by what Mr. Byrd had done. But it was a fait accompli, and so I have since been able to experience life as a bona fide man-with-a-country.
I wasn’t sure how to describe the experience I want to report here. I thought of saying it was about how we make judgments of human worth, or again about how we can sometimes perceive people’s humanness as a matter of degree. But finally I decided just to call it “About human dignity”.
During World War II the Germans brought large numbers of people from all of the occupied countries to serve as forced laborers in Germany--as factory workers and much else. The means of subsistence afforded these people were minimal, especially as shortages grew toward the end of the war. Then when the German government collapsed, they were suddenly free--without resources and in various states of health--all over Germany. They came to be referred to as “Displaced Persons” (or DPs). Units (like ours) in the Troop Carrier Command (U.S. Army Air Corps) sometimes had closer contact with the DPs since we were an occasional source of transport for getting them home. It was on a particular such occasion that I experienced a reaction that, when I was brought face-to-face with it, shocked me. That moment more than any other made me stop and wonder about my own values. And strangely, that moment was a particularly uneventful one. Nothing exciting was going on. It seems most likely to have been somewhere in Bavaria, but that doesn’t matter. As I now picture the scene, there was a large open field filled with Dutch DPs who were to be returned to the Netherlands. We weren’t close to them but they didn’t look all that much like typical DPs. Their dress was less ragged than that of most DPs--in fact, they looked fairly presentable, not entirely without some dignity. (This should not seem too surprising. As was explained to me later by a Dutchman who had himself been a slave worker, the Dutch were at the very top of the slave labor continuum in Germany--they and the Scandinavians being the most racially acceptable of all. And they had been treated much better than any others--although certainly not well!) What I saw that evoked the reaction was simplicity itself. A woman in the middle of the crowd lifted her skirt and squatted to relieve herself. None of the other DPs paid any attention. The immodesty of this act came as a shock to me. Of course if I had thought about it, I probably would have been aware that they were in an open field with no furniture of any kind, much less such luxuries as toilets. And it might even have occurred to me that they could easily have already been kept standing in that field for hours. But such considerations had had no place in the scene as I was seeing it. My immediate reaction--the reaction that shocked me when I became aware of it--was that these people had somehow hit bottom; that they had been forced so low that they could never hope to attain the status of real people again. Their very humanness had been compromised in such a way that there could be no return. But what I then also realized was that this feeling wasn’t new--its sudden impact had come from its unexpectedness--its incongruity in the scene my mind had constructed. Otherwise, it was pretty much the feeling I’d been having about most DPs so much of the time, but now I suddenly had to face the question: “What’s going on in me?” One question that anyone with such feelings needs to face is: What is the proper fate for those whose humanness has been irretrievably compromised? Well, there was simply no place for them among the living so, if one followed the logic to its end, the only prospect had to be for their lives to cease. But it certainly wasn’t my responsibility to follow the logic to its end, or imagine what consequences it called for, or indeed to worry about such matters at all! But that experience made me think a little more honestly about DPs. The allied armies initially encountered them as emaciated, ragged, filthy, stinking people (of course, rarely able to communicate through English), walking the roads, trying to make their way to somewhere better--most hoping eventually to find a way back to their home countries. It was hard in looking at these dehumanized creatures to bring oneself simply to say “There but for the grace of God go I”. A person seems to need to believe that s/he him/herself possesses some interior quality--some element of character--that would be proof against such dehumanization. At least I think that was true of us American troops. In other words, we seemed to need to believe that these people were lacking in some important human quality to begin with. (It might be worth mentioning here that, during the episode I’ve described in the Vignette, “Getting out of the Army in Europe”, I came to wish I could feel more confidence that I possessed such a quality.) Maybe I should also mention that some of the feelings in my unit were affected our own encounters with those we were transporting back to their home countries. They often came across as unruly mobs: for example, there were times when it was necessary to use physical force to prevent their scrambling onto a plane after it had a full load. (In fairness to the unruly ones I should probably mention that they had probably been given no reason to believe that this wasn’t their last chance to get home, and also that we had no way of knowing what people dear to them might be already on board and being separated from them. But my outfit had no say in this operation, and it was much easier not to think about such things). Anyway, it seems that we (whomever this “we” applies to) perceive humanness, or whatever the quality I’m grasping for should be called, as a matter of degrees. I’ve asked myself what qualities were required for a non-American in Europe at that time to be seen by us American troops as more fully human--less dehumanized. It seemed clear that the ability to communicate effectively with us was of paramount importance. In practice, this generally meant the ability to speak English. But failing that, other indications of the right values--for example, neatness, dignity of bearing, evidence of pride in one’s dress and personal appearance (especially personal hygiene)--were helpful. Of course, the DPs generally did very poorly on all of these counts. But wasn’t as easy as that--at least as far as my own personal feelings were concerned--because there was another, almost opposite, aspect of my feelings about human dignity. It seemed to me that people who were at an intermediate level of security, those who were above the level of desperation but whose lives were governed by real concerns--food, clothing, shelter for themselves and those under their protection--had a dignity that was lacking in those with ampler security. Here I’m speaking of those of us (at least sometimes I’ve been one) whose basic needs were already generously met and whose remaining concerns were refined--accumulating choice goods, status, and the like. But maybe “dignity” isn’t the word--maybe what I have in mind is genuineness: they seemed more genuine, more real. Anyway, I sometimes felt that our pursuits were trivial, and that the triviality of these pursuits lends us, ourselves a kind of triviality.
What I want to describe here are two somewhat similar acts of mine that should have made me feel quite virtuous, or so I thought at the time, but in fact left me with a nagging uncertainty. I wound up with an unexpected measure of something bordering on shame competing with whatever pride I felt.
Both of these incidents occurred when I was a student at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, after I had gotten out of the Army in Europe (as described in another of these Vignettes). In each case, I told a lie with the intention of putting a person who had demonstrated prejudice toward some group in her place. The first was a Polish girl. We were in her room; probably she’d invited me for coffee or something. Anyway, she somehow got onto the subject of Jews, of whom she was expressing a distinctly unfavorable view. After she’d gone on a bit, I said, “Oh, I suppose you didn’t know I was Jewish”. Needless to say, that put a damper on the whole occasion, and I left very soon after. I should explain that I was lying; I’m not Jewish. (Or maybe, after the revelations concerning such people as Madeleine Albright and George Allen, I should say only that I did and do assume I’m not--that nothing I’ve ever heard about my ancestry has suggested any such possibility.) Anyway, I believed I was lying and was doing so intentionally. The second case was a woman from the American South who was living in Geneva. She frequently encountered us American students in cafés and such places. We didn’t welcome her interventions--she didn’t see the world much like we did, and she didn’t fit easily into our conversations. I suppose we sort of dismissed her as belonging to a kind of idle well-to-do class who complained a lot and contributed little. Why she had chosen to live in Geneva, I didn’t know. However, maybe the incident I want to describe suggests the reason. On this occasion she had encountered me alone--entering a café, if I remember right. Anyway, in the course of the conversation she found out I was from the South. Thereupon, she lamented that the South had fallen on bad times, and complained that the “poor white trash” had taken over. I probably gave her a rather blank look, and she continued, “You know what poor white trash are, don’t you?” It was here that I replied, “I guess so, I suppose I’d be one”. She answered, “Well, I certainly hope not!” But she left forthwith, ending the conversation (and as far as I can remember, all conversation between us). Now once again I had lied (or made a statement that I believed to be a lie, which is presumably its moral equivalent). It’s true that the expression “poor white trash” had never had a natural place in my working vocabulary, and I would hesitate about trying to define the concept very precisely. Moreover, it’s true that our family was far from wealthy. On the other hand, I’m quite confident that no one would have thought of calling us “poor white trash”. So this time again I at least considered myself to be lying. As I said at the outset, I felt confident that each of these women deserved to be put in her place. Certainly society would approve my effort to punish prejudice against Jews (a prejudice that is conventionally recognized under the rather inappropriate label “anti-Semitism”). Although it seems apparent that prejudice against Southern whites is viewed less severely by right-thinking society, Southern poor white trash might constitute something of a separate case. In any case, I felt that the same principle was involved in both cases, however weakly some might feel it to apply in the second. But if these acts were such worthy ones why did I not, as far as I can remember, tell any of my friends about them? (I do remember that one of them subsequently found out because the Polish girl had asked him if I were indeed Jewish). Why was whatever pride I felt in the righteousness of my acts tinged with doubt? I think the answer has something to do with a feeling that both were acts of fruitless cruelty. Fruitless because I could see no reason to believe that what I had done would cause either woman to change her future behavior. Cruel because the only worthy objective my behavior could have had was to induce such a change But what understanding did I have of what the appropriate change would demand of either of them? In other words, I think I must have experienced a lurking awareness that I couldn’t really know the world in which either woman lived and to which she must adapt. Had I more nearly acted as a defender of just causes or a bull-in-a-china-shop? Of course, it’s still possible that one or both of them learned something useful from the experience. In any case, I have no basis for speculating about what, if anything, it might have been. After all, I can’t even say what, if anything, I learned.
I've been remembering an incident at Hammer Field in Fresno CA where I was going through basic training for the second time (out of a total of three, some more thoroughgoing than others). That would put it in the summer of 1943. What happened was that the sergeant in charge of our detail once set us to playing a game that was like drop-the-handkerchief except that a belt was substituted for the handkerchief, and the person with the belt was supposed to try to chase whoever had given it to him, hitting him repeatedly with the belt until he reached the safety of the empty slot in the ring.
That is, we formed a circle, holding our hands behind us. Then, whoever had the belt (I'm not sure exactly how it was determined who was to start off with it), ran around the outside of the circle, and eventually placed the belt in the hands of one of the circle. The one who had received the belt immediately took off in pursuit of the one who had given it to him, trying to hit him with the belt. Meanwhile, the latter ran as fast as he could around the circle to try, after as little punishment as possible, to reach the safety of the spot his pursuer had just vacated. That was the game. My problem was that I thought it was outrageous. I felt that something vital to my self-respect would be compromised if I cooperated, and I made up my mind not to cooperate. But I found the prospect intimidating and hoped that we’d manage to get through the game without my being handed the belt. In the meantime, everyone was playing the game. Moreover, they seemed to be enjoying it. I felt rather isolated as I nervously awaited the test. In due course it did come: someone put the belt in my hands, and dashed away with (if I remember right) appropriate cries of alarm. With great misgiving, I adhered to my plan. I jogged slowly (or possibly even just walked--this was a long time ago and my memory isn't entirely clear) around the circle behind (far behind) him. There were some protestations, I believe--at least from the sergeant in charge. I think he wasn't exactly sure what to make of what I was doing. If it wasn't a direct refusal of an order, it was at least something of a challenge to his authority. I felt very conspicuous, but the worst was yet to come. After approximately one complete tour of the circle, I had to put the belt into the hands of someone else. This was where the real test would come, because I was determined not to move any faster no matter how much of a beating I had to take. What happened was that the guy with the belt didn't know what to do, he couldn't bring himself to hit me, although the sergeant was yelling at him to do so. He (the sergeant) was shouting, "Hit him, hit him", and finally, "Give me the belt, I'll hit him". However, by the time he actually got the belt, I had gotten safely back to the open slot in the circle. At that point, the game immediately resumed as if there had been no interruption. The man with the belt passed it on to another, and took off, yelling, while the other chased him with equal eagerness. And so on. The sergeant never brought the matter up with me (after all, I suppose, it was clear that whatever threat might have existed of a challenge to his authority had dissipated on its own). In retrospect, I’m not sure to what extent I was objecting to the game itself and to what extent it was the fact that it was involuntary. It was being imposed on us by the sergeant (although I suppose the idea could have come from someone higher up), and I couldn’t see that it contributed in any conceivable way to our training. On the contrary, I saw him (or the army) as imposing a gratuitous indignity on us. I was a little surprised that not only did the sergeant never say anything more about the incident, no one else--no one in my unit--did either. It was as if it had never happened. (It is true that the members of that unit hardly knew one another at all. We were just there temporarily until we scattered to more permanent assignments, and so there was little incentive to develop relationships.) On the one hand this silence was a relief. At least I was not struck down by a thunderbolt from on high. But at the same time it left me wondering. It’s important to remember that the army at that time was pretty much a cross-section of the American population so their judgment would amount to something like the judgment of humanity--or at least the American portion of it. So I wondered. Did none of the others feel any objection to what was happening? Did they think I was a trouble-maker, or an elitist who felt too good for their games? Or, on the other hand, did some of them understand where I was coming from, feel a covert sympathy? I’ve never known the answer.
Put on the Web 20 May 1996
Latest addition 19 December 2006
