Liberation Comes in Many Stages

Several years ago a friend of mine told me what he witnessed during the liberation of one of the death camps in Germany during World War Two.

Because his job was to disarm the mines set by the Germans, he was in the first wave of soldiers to arrive at the camps.

He said he was so overwhelmed with grief and anger at what he saw, that he and his friends immediately began letting the prisoners free.

Even as emaciated and frail as the men were, they became like wild animals and began attacking the German guards.

He said the hardest thing he has ever had to do was to round the prisoners back up and put them back in the cells . . . not for their protection . . . but for the protection of their persecutors.

He knew they were justified in their anger, to attack the guards who had robbed them of their lives . . .their freedoms, their dignity.

Our soldiers knew they had a moral obligation to protect these men .. . even as guilty as they were, from being killed by their victims.

So, the question is, do Serbians citizens today deserve at least the same protection as Nazi soldiers did 50 years ago? I would hope as a civilized country the answer would be “yes.”