Fascism: A Warning. Madeleine Albright

       THE FALL

       Podĕbrady, January 1942. People here are sad and everyone is taking the war with difficulty. This includes Aryans and non-Aryans, to use this rather peculiar naming into which God’s creation are now divided. We wear stars as you know, some proudly, some hide them even though you are not allowed to … We live in strange times and are viewed by some as members of a less valuable race. Of course, blacks are also underrated and yet the world is quiet about that, even Jews. When God enlightens our brains and we understand that we are all equal before God, it will be better.

      THE SENTENCES ABOVE ARE FROM THE JOURNAL OF RŮŽENA Spieglová, a widow living alone, mourning her daughter’s recent death, and observing from within the shackles that—during the severe winter of 1942—tightened around Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

      Her words illustrate the capacity of an ordinary person living with extraordinary stress to feel empathy toward men and women she has never met and to seek comfort in the conviction that all humans are of equal worth. This generosity of spirit—this caring about others and about the proposition that we are all created equal—is the single most effective antidote to the self-centered moral numbness that allows Fascism to thrive. It is a capacity that can be found in most people, but it is not always nurtured and is sometimes, for a period, brutally crushed.

       Podĕbrady, April 1942: We were taken for departure and categorized for work. There were four health gradations. I was in the second category which means that my health is pretty good. Now they are saying that we will soon be moved out of Podĕbrady and that is why all Jews are leaving by train to Cologne for registration … It is possible that the troubles, which await us, I will survive. Perhaps, we will see each other, dear ones, who are abroad. May God give you health. When I come back (I hope I will, a person never knows), I will write down what it was like in Cologne. [Journal ends]

      On June 9, 1942, Růžena Spieglová was one of a group of Czechoslovak Jews sent by rail transport to the Nazi concentration camp in Terezín. On June 12, they were transported farther east to a destination we do not know for sure, probably a forested area in occupied Poland. There were no survivors from that transport. My maternal grandmother was fifty-four years old when she was murdered.

      IN THE SUMMER OF 1940, AFTER LESS THAN A YEAR OF DECLARED war, the Third Reich held sway over Austria, all segments of a divided Czechoslovakia, half of Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and much of France. Between April and June, it had seized 400,000 square miles of Europe, taken control of air bases from the North Sea to Marseille, secured access to a bounty of oil and other strategic minerals, and, on the continent at least, wiped out the only significant armies that opposed it. Nothing on earth appeared equal to the Nazi juggernaut, but, contrary to all expectations including his own, Hitler would not again know such a high point.

      The descent began when, in July, Winston Churchill brusquely rejected the Führer’s offer of a peace settlement. To teach the British a lesson, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy the Royal Air Force and make possible a land invasion across the Channel. For five months, Stuka bombers and Messerschmitt fighters did battle with British antiaircraft guns, Hurricanes, and Spitfires. German air raids set sirens wailing in coastal and industrial regions and in the heart of London itself, igniting thousands of fires, destroying factories, docks, rail stations, apartment buildings, pubs—even damaging Buckingham Palace.

      These events would be among my own earliest memories. Having said our farewells to family and friends, my parents and I departed Prague soon after the March 1939 invasion, then traveled by train through Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Greece. From there we took passage on a boat that brought us to England, first to a dingy boardinghouse in London that I was too young to remember, then to a modest flat I will never forget. The apartment, with a tiny kitchen and bath, was on the third floor of a redbrick building in Notting Hill. Our neighbors included fellow refugees, some from Czechoslovakia, others from Poland, Germany, and Spain.

      During air raids, our routine was to hurry down the cramped gray concrete stairwell to the basement, which was divided into several small rooms and one larger. There were about two dozen of us at any given time, occasionally more when buildings nearby had to be evacuated. We sipped tea or coffee prepared by the volunteer wardens and shared snacks of bread and biscuits. We slept—when we could—on camp beds or mattresses in the biggest room. Although the building was new and structurally sound, the cellar had hot water and gas pipes suspended from the ceiling; they warmed the rooms, but had a bomb fallen close by, we’d have been scalded or asphyxiated. Being so young, I did not think of such possibilities and instead enjoyed every minute of the stiff-upper-lip camaraderie.

      Notting Hill lacked strategic value and was therefore not a prime target, but bombs still struck more than a dozen locations nearby, killing scores. One of our neighbors was pulled by the fire brigade from the rubble of the Freemasons Arms, a local pub. She had thought she was done for but proved tough as rawhide and lived to celebrate her 103rd birthday. Another time, a bomb came hurtling down but did not detonate, so all the buildings in the area were evacuated and an emergency team arrived. After investigating, the crew told us not to worry: the explosive had been made by factory workers in occupied Czechoslovakia and carefully rigged not to explode.

      My father’s job was to broadcast news back to our homeland on behalf of the London-based Czechoslovak government-in-exile. This was to counter the stream of lies put forth each day by the German occupiers. One morning near the beginning of the Blitz, my father—Josef Körbel—had a radio script he needed to finish and decided to ignore the sirens and remain in our apartment working. A friend who was with him later remembered:

       The whiz of a flying bomb was so loud that we both threw ourselves down and Dr. Körbel quickly jumped under the table. The airborne assault was deafening, and our house swayed so much that it reminded me of a ship on the high seas. I would never have believed a huge iron-and-concrete building could vibrate that dramatically and still not fall to pieces. When we felt ourselves out of danger, we could not resist a laugh of relief.

      From September 7, 1940, until the end of October, over fifty-seven consecutive days, an average of two hundred bombers dropped their deadly payloads on London. There was no reliable refuge. The shelters, whether in home gardens or public parks, provided protection only against collateral blast and debris. Families who retreated to basements were often crushed or suffocated by collapsed buildings. In the first six weeks, sixteen thousand houses were obliterated and another sixty thousand seriously damaged; more than 300,000 people were displaced.

      Londoners, however, are an adaptable species. Knowing that they might be stranded for days between trips home, office workers arrived at their desks with toiletries, pillows, blankets, and extra clothes. As evening approached, the parade of mattresses began moving into cellars, shelters, and the Underground. Weather data were classified, so people made their own forecasts—fair skies meant a lovely day for Hitler; clear nights at certain times of the month provided a bomber’s moon. The social divisions that defined British culture momentarily melted away as people from all walks of life wished one another well. Defiant shopkeepers displayed signs: SHATTERED, NOT SHUTTERED OR KNOCKED, NOT LOCKED. Banks and the postal service promised business as usual; enterprising streetwalkers did the same.