The terrible secret of the police

During the time of Nazism, the Germans knew where the Jews disappear. This was not often talked about aloud, especially with foreigners. I have a bibliographic rarity - the Olympic guide to Germany in 1936 in English. From it you can learn a lot about folk dances, national cuisine and historical attractions, but nothing - about racial laws. During that Olympiad from Berlin, inscriptions were removed, defaming Jews and compromising authorities. Judging by the diaries of those years, many of the foreign guests returned from fascist Germany satisfied, and not scared, deciding that there was nothing so terrible in Nazism.

But the Germans themselves knew where the Jews disappear. Not everyone liked it. After all, German Jews were colleagues and neighbors, teachers and students, masters and residents, buyers and sellers. Their disappearance was reflected in the usual course of life and interfered with him. But the Germans decided that they could tolerate and do without Jews. And this was the tragedy of Germany - not the authorities, but the people who knew about the crimes of his country, but pretended not to know.

On the day when Nazism collapsed, the Nazis also disappeared. They dissolved in a crowd of poor and disadvantaged. But the world did not forget that the Germans knew where the Jews disappeared. Thousands of historical studies have irrefutably proved that for all Germans - from Heidegger to the housewife - it was a terrible secret of the postgraduate. And for this I had to pay the guilty generation on which stigma of silence lay.

Recently I read the article at New York Times. Its author with restrained, as is customary in this newspaper, writes in surprise that Putin denies Russia's participation in the Ukrainian war, but, in essence, does not hide it.

I think, because there is no one from. Not only in the West no one doubts this, but there are nobody in the East. All - from Putin (for lack of Heidegger) to the housewife - know who is fighting in the Donbass. Everyone knows who shot down the Malaysian liner. Everyone knows who killed Litvinenko. Everyone knows everything, but few people admit in this, because it is easier to live with a secret with a political secret, it seems to be safer with power, and the future seems to be not scary.

There is no time that obliges people to turn a blind eye to the crimes of their country

After all, this has already happened. On the day, when communism collapsed, the Communists also disappeared, who dissolved in the crowd of indignant and offended. But then they were not very sought. In the first euphoria, freedom forgot those who knew everything, but was silent. And then the executioners were shuffled with the victims, as it happened even with Solzhenitsyn, to prevent some to distinguish from others.

Once I flew to Moscow on an Aeroflot plane named Sakharov. After looking at his name on the fuselage of the patriotic “Boeing”, I thought: those who inserted the academician of the probe for forced feeding may still live on state pension.

At that time, we were told that in essence, there were no guilty ones, because there was such a time. But this time the number will not pass. There is no time that obliges people to turn a blind eye to the crimes of their country. And now, when to truth - one click on the computer, it will not be possible to say that you did not know who was fighting in the Donbass, did not know who shot down the plane, did not know who again brought the world to the threshold of the war.

And this is the tragedy of the current generation, which has to be responsible for his linden ignorance, when it all ends.

Alexander Genis-New York writer and publicist, author and host of the Radio Liberty program "American Hour-over barriers"

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