Before, Not After

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Still the idea of BBC broadcasts that might have warned any Germans who participated in the extermination process that they would be prosecuted as war criminals, broadcasts that left no doubt in the mind of every single German, every single European (since most European nations were complicit in the execution of the Holocaust) that they would be held accountable. Even if they weren’t, the fear of it might have had some effect, the putative broadcasts might have made a difference. Still among all the stories of warnings ignored, or disbelieved, rescue action denied or delayed till too late, this struck me as a not-impossible lost chance. And a reminder that the time to stop a nation from committing genocide is before it starts not after it’s finished.