When I was a little girl in Chicago, my entire family was invited to a barbecue at the home of one of my father’s co-workers. There were 10 of us, so this was a rare invitation. We were warned to be on our best behavior.
Harold Brier, a chemist, and his wife, Elizabeth, a classically trained musician, were warm, wonderful hosts. I was so comfortable that I forgot my shyness and my manners when I blurted out: “Why do you have your phone number on your arm?”
I still recall The Look I received from my horrified parents. But Mrs. Brier was too kind to embarrass a nosy 8-year-old, even one who had just reminded her of the most traumatic event of her life. She quietly replied that the couple had gotten their tattoos “in the war” – and deftly changed the subject.
It would be years before I learned that the Briers were survivors of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp located outside Krakow, Poland. I often wondered how 1.5 million German Jews – men, women and children – could be loaded onto box cars like cattle and sent to their deaths in the gas chambers without any large-scale protests from their former friends and neighbors.
I got to thinking about the Briers after reading a story on the Sept. 6 quarterly report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear activities. The IAEA report said that Iran is not diverting nuclear material to non-peaceful activities (i.e. making nuclear bombs).
Yet the same report documents “a number of incidents involving the breaking of seals,” indicating the unauthorized movement of nuclear materials. As a result, IAEA inspectors admitted, they “cannot confirm [Iran’s] nuclear material balance.”
And for the first time since IAEA began its inspections, enrichment levels of Iran’s nuclear material were significantly higher than required to fuel nuclear reactors used for domestic power generation.
The U.N. Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions in June when Iran barred two experienced IAEA inspectors from the country. Meanwhile, Iran continues to stockpile low-enriched uranium (which increased at least 15 percent since sanctions were imposed) and continues to enrich uranium in its 3,772 working centrifuges while refusing to answer IAEA’s questions about possible weaponization.
Everybody knows where this is going. The only surprise is the paucity of global reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad’s threats to have Israel “wiped off the map.” What will it take – a second Holocaust in the form of a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv? – to convince the rest of the world that Iran’s intentions are anything but peaceful?
On Sept. 30, 1938, after meeting with Adolf Hitler at the Munich Conference, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain reassured Britons that his policy of talk and appeasement after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia had averted a wider war. “I believe it is peace for our time. … Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Less than a year later, on Sept. 1, 1939 Hitler, invaded Poland and Chamberlain’s unprepared nation was sucked into war anyway.
As those events recede into the distant past, two great lessons from World War II are being lost. One is the futility of appeasing an ideologically driven adversary. The second is the moral imperative to speak out against such aggressors so they can be stopped before they acquire the wherewithal to carry out their threats to annihilate their neighbors.
A long time ago, I promised myself I would not remain silent if such evil ever resurfaced in my lifetime. In memory of the Briers, I add my voice to those now condemning Iran.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
