The House at Number 48 - March 30 2026

 

The House at Number 48

March 30 2026



Future historians will be scratching their heads

about the rise of the Reich

and the Hitler youth

goose-stepping down Kurfürstendamm

in the torch-lit shadows 

of Kristallnacht. 

Because apparently

no one was a Nazi back then.

The war generation

who seemed positively offended

the question had even been asked;

of course they opposed the Nazis

even resisted,

and instead of stealing from their Jewish neighbours

insist that they hid them

like the good Christians they were.

And the following generations

who are genuinely ignorant 

that their forbears were complicit

or had simply looked away;

going about their business

like any good German

who follows the rules.

Yet these descendants still quietly live

in the houses that were stolen

and never returned

to the dispossessed Jews,

admire the paintings

that were the ill-gotten gains

of their Aryan overseers.

All perfectly legal, of course,

because such regimes

are scrupulously by-the-book,

as if ticking-off every box

absolves them of their crimes;

a bureaucratic army

of diligent scribes

documenting every detail

of the 1000 year Reich,

never imagining a future in which

they’d incriminate themselves. 

Fortunately, while individuals forget

the nation doesn’t.

There are monuments, memorials

and laws against;

an exemplar to the world

of owning up to history.

Collective guilt

as cover,

official remembrance

for the many injustices

never punished or made good.

Of course, the world goes on

as it rightly should

so why not forget?

Why not bury old hates

instead of disinterring skeletons

resurrecting bad blood?

Why give the laid-to-rest a second life

and let grievances fester

instead of letting them lie?

Because if truth is the first casualty of war

and its progeny are stillborn

then history gets rewritten,

revision distorts,

and impunity wins.

And because if history’s not to rhyme

let alone repeat

we must not only remember the past

but also acknowledge

our common humanity.

That we, too, would have owned slaves

condemned the gays

and murdered Jews,

slaughtered Tutsis

and rounded up the Kosovars. 

Or pick your own atrocity,

so many come to mind.

Because it’s too easy

to demonize the perpetrators;

they aren’t the devil’s spawn

or the progeny of aliens,

they are us.

And like us, they were products of their time,

immersed in the culture

as are fish in the water

in which they swim.

After all, accepted norms have changed

and the past was a different place.

And even now, enlightened as we think ourselves

human nature dictates

that the tidal force

of conformity and contagion

too easily swamps our better angels

and sweeps us out to sea;

blaming “the other”

and seduced by purity

 — purity

the great bugaboo

of true believers.

But even if we had gone along to get along

and kept our heads down

could we claim innocence?

Isn’t wilful blindness

just as complicit?

Bystanders

not denying, as the bad actors will

or pretending to have resisted,

but simply deflecting

as if we didn’t know;

shoulders shrugging and hands turned up.

Conveniently forgetting

so the judgement of posterity

will not fall on us.

When historians dissect the body politic

like forensic pathologists

searching for what went wrong

how will we defend ourselves?

Will the blood be scrubbed from the killing floor

the murder weapon disappear?

All the circumstantial evidence,

prepared for burial

in a mass grave

or unmarked plot.

https://www.bbc.com/audio/series/m002l4ys

Not the kind of poem I want to write. Because it sounds preachy and self-righteous. Because it’s a topic better suited to prose. Because there’s too much to say and it goes on too long. And most important, because it should be self-evident. 

I was certainly raised with an unambiguous knowledge of the Nazi atrocities and their loathsome ideology. But we live in an unfortunate age of gross historical revision: of forgetfulness, denialism, and vile prejudice; of anti-semitism and revisionist apology.  Amazingly, a generation is coming of age ignorant of this seminal event in human history. The educational system has failed, and social media has poisoned what’s left. 

So unfortunately, a poem like this is a necessary corrective. And as I listened to this podcast — which distills the history of Naziism into one small personal story — realized that while it was interesting enough to me, there are so many young people for whom this story would come as a revelation. I can just hear them saying “who knew?”!!

Are the people living in 48 guilty of wilful denial? Or are they genuinely unaware, protected from the truth by previous generations? The podcast makes the point that while Germany as a nation is an exemplar in acknowledging its historical guilt (btw, putting Japan to shame), the granularity of history is missing:  the individuals, who are still benefiting from their forbears’ complicity. To quote Faulkner: “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

So many possible titles I might have chosen: ones that might tempt a reader, or one that would highlight my most heartfelt point. But instead, I chose to pay homage to the story that inspired this. An intriguing title in itself, one that I imagine might arouse a potential reader’s curiosity. Which is one thing a good title should do.