Justice.

I am sitting in Nuremberg’s Courtroom 600 where, for the first time in history, heads of state were put on trial to allow the rule of law to judge them for their actions. The Third Reich’s second in command, Hermann Göring, was found guilty along with many other leaders of the National Socialist government.  However, as time wore on and the less-sexy culprits began to be tried, the grey area of legal responsibility began to grind the momentum of justice to a halt. Certainly the highest echelons of the National Socialists are guilty, but is the conductor who drove the train cars to and from Auschwitz? What of the chauffeur who drove Himmler around to the various camps for inspection and consultation? Or the administrator who kept the vast indices of prisoners at Buchenwald, but never pulled a lever, fired a shot, or poured out Zyklon B? Where does one draw the line between perpetuation and mere cooperation, active versus passive genocide?

Last night, I watched Amen. An excellent film about a Protestant SS officer, skilled in disinfection, is brought into the task of exterminating the Jews. He is so horrified by the entire enterprise that he seeks to get the word out to the world while staying in the SS. In so doing, he works with a Catholic priest to try and convince whomever they can of what is happening, specifically the Pope.  It’s a powerful film, showing how painfully ambiguous and unbelievable the actions taken back then were, by all sides.  The SS officer, in the end, is set to be charged with war crimes for helping with the mass extermination programs. The priest, in response to the Pope’s inaction, affixes a yellow Star of David to his cassock and is taken to a death camp.

Even in the aftermath of such an epoch, the matter of justice is not clear.  Many perpetrators escaped, many were found not guilty, pardoned, or let out of prison early, more still simply went about their lives until they died at a ripe old age.  My dear friend, Matthias, sent me a New Yorker article about a low-level administrator at a camp who had flown under the radar after the war, avoiding notice until someone tried to convince him that the Holocaust was a hoax.  He then broke his self-imposed silence and told his story, for the first time, which led, ultimately, to him being put on trial. Most of this took place after the year 2000. He was found guilty, which sparked another wave of attempts to bring lesser-known perpetrators to justice, but so many have died or are dying that the efforts feel in vain.  The world has moved on, different atrocities have taken place, and questions are left perennially unanswered.

Perhaps the greatest wisdom of this place is it remains open as a court of law.  The task of justice is never complete, ever inchoate, and forever necessary.