“We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.”
– Charles Peguy
The other day I read about a meeting.
And it disturbed me.
From its inception, the meeting seemed enlightened enough. Charismatic, well-coiffed people with lofty titles sat across from one another in an orderly, but engaging fashion. Against the backdrop of cutlery clinking against fine dinnerware, smiles were flashed. Humor was exchanged. Fine wine was poured. It was an ideal setting for business that seemed like friendship; friendship that seemed like business.
But this meeting was definitely about business.
Before much wine or food was consumed, the conversation turned grim. That is not surprising…Because the nature of the business was grim.
It was about death.
More specifically, the meeting centered on a population of human beings who had been deemed subhuman, if not inhuman. And their fate was being decided. It was not whether they should live or die – that was a foregone conclusion. This meeting was a surreal attempt to consider the systematic frustrations, legal loopholes and financial nuance involved in death and its aftermath. It treated the population as a cattle-like commodity: valuable only insofar as it could be exploited. Various questions were asked along the following themes, “What are the institutional roadblocks to achieve our goal? What public appetites do we need to be sensitive to in our public presentation of our efforts? Who will play ball and who won’t? Can money be made in the process?” Points ranged from the grandiose to the mundane.
And while there was a jarring frankness to the exchange underway, in the end one thing was very clear: This is an “inside conversation” subject to revision or denial if and when it emerges on the public stage. This stance was not because of shame. Oh, no. It was about expediency and management of inconvenient blowback.
But this meeting was not a time to fret about repercussions. Let the wine and delicacies flow. Let wit and personal anecdote emerge with ease. But the macabre business was always at hand. Shamelessly. Efficiently.
It was the most disturbing meeting imaginable.
How did I learn about the meeting?
From Nazi SS Lieutentant Colonel Adolf Eichmann. He told about it at his trial fifty-four years ago this week in Israel.
What was the meeting he referred to?
The 1942 Wannsee Conference of senior Nazi officials centered on the means of systematically implementing the annihilation of the Jews, also known as The Final Solution.
On July 24, 1961, Eichmann testified about the conference in the following way (Q is the Court, A is Eichmann):
A: I know that these gentlemen stood together and sat together, and in very blunt words they referred to the matter [The Final Solution], without putting it down in writing. I would definitely not be able to remember this, if I did not know that at that time I said to myself: Look at that…Stuckart, who was always considered to be a very precise and very particular stickler for the law, and here the whole tone and all the manner of speech were totally out of keeping with legal language. That is the only thing, I would say, which has actually remained imprinted on my mind.
Q. What did he say about this topic?
A. In detail, Your Honour, I would like…
Q. Not in detail – in general.
A. There was talk about killing and eliminating and exterminating.
In the midst of sharply dressed, high-titled people drinking fine wine, eating exquisite fare and exchanging professional and personal pleasantries, a whole population of people were callously dismissed as “life unworthy of life”, off-handedly condemned to death and oblivion and valued only insofar as their lives or deaths could offer profit to their executors.
Huh.
Thank God we don’t have meetings happening like that anymore…
Or do we?
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