The fog of war, war’s effect on children, antisemitism, when is enough, enough?

Commentary

78 years ago the events of a bombing mission over Copenhagen is eerily similar to the conflict in the Middle East.

I recently watched a Danish movie on Netflix, “The Bombardment.” (The film’s original Danish title is, Skyggen i mit øje or “The Shadow in My Eye.”) The film deals with, among other things, Operation Carthage, a bomber raid carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1945 in Copenhagen, Denmark during the last months of WWII.

Perhaps, not so coincidentally, I’m also reading a book called “Hamlet’s Children,” which deals with the runup to Nazi Germany’s occupation of Denmark in 1940 and the trials and tribulations of the citizens of a small Danish town during that occupation.

As I watched “The Bombardment,” I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between the events in Denmark in 1945 and the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza almost 80 years later. Of course, while the origins of the conflicts in these widely separated places are different, many of the actual events are eerily similar.

Similarity One –– The Fog of War

The film opens with a wonderfully happy scene of three young Danish women preparing for their roles as bridesmaids at a friend’s wedding. As the taxi taking them to the wedding drives down a rural road, a warplane appears above and behind them. The plane strafes the taxi killing all inside. We learn later, that attack was perpetrated by the RAF, the pilot believing that the taxi was a Nazi staff car.

As much as some (and I use the word “some,” thinking about Hamas and Putin, in a very direct and pointed way) belligerents in a war might try to target enemy troops while attempting to discriminate between hostiles and innocent civilians, the fog of war is very thick. Mistakes happen. And the results of those mistakes can be tragic. (More on that later)

Similarity Two –– The Effect of War’s Brutality on Children

The attack on the taxi is observed by a Danish teenager, Henry, riding his bike on the same road. As he gets closer to the car, he sees the mutilated bodies of the victims, their beautiful, white bridesmaids’ gowns stained with their own blood. Henry is so traumatized by what he sees that he loses his ability to speak. His parents send him to Copenhagen with the hope of improving his mental health.

In Copenhagen, Henry lives with his aunt and his younger female cousin, Rigmor, to recuperate. At about the same time, Rigmor’s best friend, Eva, while walking on the street with her mother witnesses the execution of a Danish resistance member, Svend, by two Gestapo agents. Although initially shocked and unable to comprehend what she saw, Eva recovers from the trauma. Seeing Eva’s recovery, Rigmor enlists her to help rehabilitate Henry, believing that even though Eva saw somebody die in front of her eyes, she could still speak, so Henry would be able to speak too, if he tried. In this case, Henry and Eva have different reactions to the horror they observed –– Henry’s extreme and long term, Eva’s shock only momentary.  

Think about the Henry and Eva (while the events are real, these characters may not be) as you watch the news coming out of Gaza and Israel. Recognize that children on both sides are experiencing immeasurable trauma witnessing the death and destruction around them. Will the psychological effect on these children be short-term like Eva’s, longer term like Henry’s or, even worse, will it never leave them, virtually guaranteeing that their hatred of the other will result in never-ending conflict?

Similarity Three –– Where is God? And Antisemitism

With war and its brutality all-around, Sister Theresa, a young Catholic nun who teaches Henry, Rigmor and Eva at the Institut Jeanne d’Arc, a Roman Catholic school, is in search of God. Theresa questions God’s inaction at a time when the world needs “him” the most.  When told by her mother superior that “God is everywhere,” Theresa replies, “But he can’t be with everything that’s happening. Does God really not care at all about us humans?” When the mother superior replies, “God loves us humans,” Theresa challenges her, saying, “Aren’t Jews human then?” Another, older nun overhearing the conversation retorts, “Maybe it’s because the Jews don’t believe Christ is the son of God.” To which Theresa responds, “So they’re punished with death? And the children being bombed in London and Berlin? And the ones who are taken to camps and killed? Aren’t they human? Not having an answer, the mother superior can only say, “We don’t know anything about that. But know that God is both in you and in those who suffer. He can’t ease their suffering but can offer them comfort.” Theresa, unsatisfied, turns and leaves, crying.

In a film whose focus is not about the treatment of Jews in Denmark but the fog of war and the collateral damage that fog can result in, that one line, “Maybe it’s because the Jews don’t believe Christ is the son of God,” stands out. In a film that is not about antisemitism, there is antisemitism. And in the current conflict, one that is all about antisemitism, we know that it’s not just in the Middle East, but has metastasized, energizing anti-Semites throughout the world and, perhaps most disturbingly at elite colleges in the U.S.

To the question where is God, one might add, “whose God” as both Muslims and Jews believe in this thing called God, but different Gods, I guess, and with different points of view. But make no mistake, whichever God it is, and wherever this thing called God holes up, why are they are sitting by idly as their acolytes destroy each other.

Similarity Four –– The Fog of War/Human Shields/Collateral Damage

I began this piece by mentioning Operation Carthage, a bomber raid carried out by the RAF in 1945. What was Operation Carthage?

On 21 March 1945, at the behest of the Danish Resistance Movement, the British RAF initiated a mission to bomb Gestapo’s headquarters in occupied Copenhagen. The Gestapo HQ was in a building called Shellhus (the Shell Building). The British and the Resistance, fully aware that the Gestapo kept resistance movement prisoners on the top floor of the building to act as human shields, decided that the prisoners would be “collateral damage,” sacrificing them for the greater good.  

Little did they know what collateral damage Operation Carthage would cause.

The raid destroyed the Gestapo headquarters, severely disrupting Gestapo operations in Denmark, as well as allowing the escape of 18 prisoners. Fifty-five German soldiers, 47 Danish employees of the Gestapo and eight prisoners died in the headquarters building.

The raid was carried out at rooftop level and at that altitude, during the first attack, a RAF bomber hit a lamp post, damaging its wing and ultimately crashing into the Institut Jeanne d’Arc, about a mile from the target, setting it on fire. Several bombers in the second and third wave attacked the school, mistaking the burning school for their target. You remember the Institut Jeanne d’Arc – the school Henry, Rigmor and Eva attended and where Sister Theresa taught? In all, 86 children and 18 adults (10 nuns, 2 firemen, 4 civil teachers and 2 fathers who tried to save their children) died as a result of the raid. In addition, 67 children and 35 adults were wounded.

The fog of war that caused the collateral damage, the use of human shields in Copenhagen in 1945, the trauma inflicted on children, the bit of antisemitism in the film, as tragic it was, is nothing compared to what’s happened already and what will inevitably happen in the next weeks and months in Israel and Gaza.

When will we learn? When we will stop? When will this thing called God finally step in and say “enough?”

I’m not holding my breath.