I once heard Nazi Germany referred to as “the kingdom of night.” This called to mind the image of a nation where it is dark all the time, even during the brightest noon. Where behind, alongside every sunny day there is the darkest night, all the time, because of what was happening, what was being done. (Once, a German man saw his young son walking along a road, smoking a cigarette and carrying a rifle, and it was then that he knew that he needed to take his family and leave Germany).
As a law student exclaims to his professor (who clearly lived during this time) in The Reader, “And once you knew, why didn't you all kill yourselves?” Why didn't the people see the darkness behind all their sunny days?
And then I thought: it is dark even in daytime here, now. As Mary Wollstonecraft once asked, "Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? – Hell stalks abroad."
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