Incident at Vichy

In Arthur Miller’s play, Incident at Vichy, a group of men have been arrested by the French police. All but one of them are Jewish. While they wait to be questioned, they talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about what is likely to happen to them. For anyone familiar with what actually happened to French Jews deported to Nazi Germany, you want to scream, “Run! Attack the guard if you have to, because once that train arrives at a death camp, it will be thirty minutes for the time the cattle car door slams open until the door on the crematorium slams shut and you’ll be part of a dirt pile in Poland!”

Family story: My uncle Terry served in the 104th infantry division in WWII. In late April 1945, his unit went through a recent liberated concentration camp. He took some pictures of what he saw there and I happened to see them when I was still quite young. They made quite an impression on me. In 1975, when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, I remember arguing with my father about the absolutely horrendous events that were taking place. My father was quite dismissive when I said that they were marching hospital patients out of their beds and into the countryside at bayonet point. He commented, “Well, maybe they’re only doing that with people who have rested up.” The point to all of this? It’s part of my worldview. Most people like my father and the detainees in Incident at Vichy, have no idea of how bad things can really get.

The only Americans who truly understand this are very elderly Jewish folks with blue tattoos on the inside of their left arms and Cambodian-Americans old enough to remember 1975. We have no idea how good we have it. I’m afraid of what is headed our way.