Pure Evil
A Story from WWI
We sometimes call our political enemies evil. But they are nothing like the evil we have seen in the past. Like all human qualities, evil is relative.
This is a story of evil:
Henry Morgenthau Sr. was the American ambassador to Turkey who tried to prevent the Armenian genocide during WWI. In 1915 Morgenthau was talking to the Turkish minister of the interior, Talaat Pasha, trying to stop the deportations of Armenians to the death camps. During the conversation, Talaat Pasha interrupted him with an ‘innocent’ question: “By the way, Mr. Ambassador, on some of the Armenians we found insurance policies, and even reassurance policies from companies in the American city of Hartford, Connecticut. Since they are Turkish citizens, could you help the Turkish government to cash these policies?”[1]
Not only are they murdering multitudes. That is not enough. They want their insurance money as well.
That, my friends, is evil.
(and no… I am not contrasting to Epstein and all that. That is evil too.)
[1] Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin, Raphael Lemkin and Donna-Lee Frieze, (Yale University Press, 2013), 184-185