Column: Comparisons emerge from a trip through the past

Kay and I recently returned from a river cruise with Grand Circle Travel. The cruise portion began in Hungary and ended in Romania on the Black Sea. An extension brought us to Transylvania as well.

Before we left I pictured writing a sort of travelogue about the pleasures of such a cruise and the interesting sites visited. As it turned out the trip, combined with an awareness of events taking place at home, provided fodder for a much different story:

The shoes. Upon arrival in Budapest, I wanted to get in a “power walk” and set off from the ship along the waterfront in the direction of Hungary’s startlingly beautiful Parliament building. I wasn’t five minutes off the ship when I came across a group of perhaps a hundred of what I took to be bronzed shoes of all sizes lined up beside each other on the bank of the Danube. I later found out that this was a memorial known as “The Shoes on the Danube Promenade.” They memorialize the hundreds of Jews in Budapest who, in 1944-45, were forced to sites like this, forced to give up their shoes (a valuable commodity in war-torn Europe) and summarily shot. The riverside sites were chosen so that the Danube would conveniently take the bodies away. These actions were the work of the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian allies of the Nazis), a “militia.”

The Croat couple. We had a “home-hosted lunch” in a small village in Croatia. Our hosts told us the story of how, after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbian forces overran their village and told them to pack their bags and take what they would need for about three days. They were out of their home for seven years. When Croatian forces retook the land and they returned to their home there was virtually nothing left. The ethnic Serbians who had been given the house had taken all the valuable contents with them.

It should be noted here that we happened to hear a story of Serbian savagery. Had we had the same lunch in Serbia we likely would have heard of the horrors inflicted on Serbs by Croats during the same time period.

“The Families.” In Novi Sad, Serbia, one of our guided tours took us once again to the banks of the Danube and to another memorial to the victims of man’s inhumanity to man. It is called “The Families” and consists of a sculpture of an emaciated man, woman and child and a series of bronzed tablets simply listing names. It was suggested we look more closely at the names. There were many, many identical last names. This was because entire families of Jews, Roma and “dissidents” were rounded up by Hungarian troops in January of 1945 as Russian troops were closing in, forced to the banks of the frozen Danube, and shot.

The Blue Highway. The “Blue Highway” is a canal built by the Romanian dictator Ceausescu that allows for river ship traffic from the North Sea to the Black Sea. At first blush one would say that it was quite an engineering feat. It was, but it will never pay for itself and, more importantly, it was built with slave labor and somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 of these forced laborers died during its construction. Essentially, Ceausescu was building a monument to himself with no consideration about its effect on society.

While pondering these experiences and asking how human beings could do such things to each other, a comment often heard in America came to mind. Many like to refer to the United States as “an exceptional country” or “an exceptional people.” My background in studying and teaching American and world history kept calling up unflattering comparisons:

The shoes and Wounded Knee. In 1890, U.S. Cavalry units herded together a band of Lakota Sioux made up primarily of old men, women and children. They surrounded them and machine-gunned them, killing up to 300. General Philip Sheridan was said to have said “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” He denied saying that but Teddy Roosevelt did say virtually the same thing.

The Croat couple and the Trail of Tears. In 1830 the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. President Andrew Jackson signed the law. Jackson is, by the way, a hero of the current occupant of the White House.

This law resulted in the forced relocation of most of the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, clearing former Native American lands for white settlement (and more slavery-fueled plantations). As with Croatia, the more powerful force essentially threw the Croats and the Cherokee out of their homes.

“The Families” and My Lai.  In 1968 United States troops of the Americal Division entered a hamlet in Vietnam and methodically massacred between 347 and 504 people, many being mothers trying to shield their infants and toddlers. 

The “Blue Highway” and U.S. public buildings. The White House, The U.S. Capitol building and many universities, North as well as South, were all built using slave labor.

Thus I came to the conclusion that horrific events and the brutalizing of other human beings is:

— a universal fact;

— a result of a mindset that belittles and dehumanizes groups of people;

— that mindset is, at the very least, reinforced by too many political and religious “leaders;”

— my country is not an “exceptional” country, but rather, like all others, a country capable of great good and great evil; and

— the “leaders” who sometimes create, but more often prey upon and reinforce mindsets, remain primarily self-serving politicians and religious leaders.

We are indeed, in one respect at least, a somewhat exceptional nation in that the United States Constitution has almost always governed us. It is an imperfect document written by imperfect human beings, but it remains the road map for the voyage to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.

We do, however, need to keep in mind that human slavery and the slaughter of innocents occurred here despite the Constitution as, for many, many years its protections were not universal. We need to fear that these things could easily happen again. We, all of us, need to guard against letting our own prejudices and tendencies to scapegoat whoever we might see as “other” give carte blanche to any amoral demagogue who may (or has) come along.

Brendan Walsh is a resident of Salem.