In the Garden of Beasts & Camp Nine

I recently read two very different books set in similar times but far different places. One was historical fiction; the other, non-fiction. Erik Larson's incredibly well-researched and readable In the Garden of Beasts, took place in Germany in the 1930s as Adolf Hitler deliberately but all too quickly escalated his anti-Semitism even as many Americans there and at home closed their eyes to the brutality and ultimate genocide. The other book is a short novel, Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer, who grew up in tiny Rohwer, Arkansas, but not until several years after World War II had ended and the Japanese internment camp there was only a memory, a taint on the town's and the nation's history. Both works share common themes -- bigotry, hatred, fear-mongering and denial. How many of us have pretended we didn't see or hear a racist or sexist statement rather than confront the speaker? How many of us have been guilty of profiling -- or at least wondering about -- Middle Easterners working in our communities for no other reason than they appear to be Middle Eastern and, hence, possibly of the Islamic belief and MAYBE a terrorist? How many of us have silently given our OK to racial, gender or age discrimination? Perhaps, maybe even probably, we were not the ones to discriminate. But did we overlook the wrongdoing solely for the sake of non-confrontation or to avoid angering those who condone such actions? Did we stay silent out of fear? Such inaction is exactly what happened in the years before the United States entered World War II, according to Larson's book, replete with pages upon pages of footnotes to support his account. Americans, many of whom no doubt were still weary from the previous war with Germany, had no desire to go to war against that country again. And, indeed, while Larson's book ends before 1941, it was not the murders of thousands of Jews and other victims of bigotry, but the bombing of Pearl Harbor that led to the U.S. intervention in that war. As Larson tells it, even the U.S. ambassador to Germany in the 1930s, William Dodd, did not spend much time worrying about the plight of the Jews at first -- even though a wealthy Jewish man allowed Dodd to share his family's home as a way to afford some protection from the Nazis for that family. While Dodd fretted over such trivial matters as the cost of sending telegrams to Washington, his daughter, Martha, was having none-too-discreet affairs with the likes of Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels and Hitler aide Ernst Hanfstaengl. She met Hitler, too, but they never became romantically involved. For a time, Martha Dodd could not -- or would not -- believe the Nazis were so evil. After all, she could stroll along German streets without fear, see nothing visibly amiss, even as more and more Jews were increasingly denied such basic rights as holding jobs in order to feed their families. But eventually, even she came to see -- or accept -- the truth as did her father. The hate had been there, all around them, all along. Likewise in Camp Nine which is set during World War II, Japanese-Americans were forced to leave their homes and jobs in California to live in barracks where they were not allowed to leave without permission. They had done nothing wrong; they were not even the enemy. Rather, they were fellow Americans, some of whom joined the military and gave their lives for this country. Why do you suppose Japanese-Americans rather than German-Americans were the ones herded like cattle and put on trains to live in remote towns they'd never heard of? Granted, there probably was more fear of the Japanese due to Pearl Harbor. But certainly race was a huge factor. After all, one can distinguish easily between an Asian-American and a white American. German-Americans, also being white, no doubt were harder to profile based solely on physical appearance. Looking back, more than half-a-century later, it's easy to judge these actions during the 1930s and 40s as bigoted, wrong, evil. It's harder to make sure we do not make similar mistakes -- whether in discriminating against others or in pretending we do not know what's happening right in front of us. Left unchecked, racism, bigotry and hatred will flourish again and again....