Breyer

Johann Breyer volunteered to join
the Nazi SS as a teenager, and was arrested
this week at the age of 89 to face
charges in Germany. 

He was only 17, but he knew. Deep down
he knew that it was wrong to beat a naked man
into the mud or laugh at someone's Oma
stumbling off the train because she hasn't had
a bite to eat in days. The smokestacks weren't
a mystery, the bodies piling, Jewish vermin
with no value (he'd learned that lesson well,
which was the problem). Seventeen and proud
to wear the shiny-buttoned uniform and strut,
a bully who forgot too much too soon.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014