Don’t tell me Hitler wasn’t all that bad,
that he wasn’t crazy or half-mad,
because, he was.
Don’t make him seem somewhat reasonable,
and say that he’s readily redeemable,
because, he’s not.
And don’t defend him with some greater good he may have done,
before he shot the light out of the sun,
because, he’s indefensible.
He may have wanted Volkswagens for every family,
but don’t fool yourself, there were no cars for Jews, and actually,
they were built with labor from the camps.
Don’t argue he had Jewish blood,
reversing reality only drags us through the mud,
turning victims into criminals, and cleansing criminals of their guilt.
Contending Latvia and Ukraine were victims too,
while celebrating their fighting in World War II,
is deflecting their responsibility for the Holocaust.
It’s like saying, residential schools taught useful skills
to Indigenous kids taken from the hills,
while ignoring their design for cultural genocide.
Like saying Canada was a refuge for African Americans who were enslaved,
who boarded the underground railway to be saved,
while ignoring the slave ships made in Newfoundland.
Or like celebrating Robert Monckton in the Seven Years’ War,
for capturing Fort Beausejour on the eastern shore,
but leaving out his part in the expulsion of Acadians.
You can’t whitewash these chapters of our history,
because the darkness bleeds through the mockery,
just like you can’t re-make a gaping gash into a minor mole.
The songs of history that you sing,
with rewritten lyrics which you string,
are like putting lipstick on a pig —- they don’t change a thing.
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Good poem. I don,t know what Moncton did to the expulsion of the Acadians. I thought it was mainly Gov. Lawrence in Nova Scotia.