From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com
wrote in message
news:1168118515.552716.100920@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
aspidistra101@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> georgeorwell@email.com wrote:
> > aspidistra101@yahoo.co.uk a écrit :
> >
> > > With the recent demise of S*****m H*****n in mind I looked to see what
> > > comments, if any, Orwell had made about the Nuremberg Trials.
> > >
> > > Apart from being a co-signatory to a letter to the editor of Forward
> > > dated 16 March 1946 (CEJL IV) - which focussed specifically on using
> > > the trial and captured German documentation to establish the
> > > historical
> > > truth of charges in the *Moscow* show trials of the 30's of treasonous
> > > collaboration between the accused (and Trotsky) with the Germans - I
> > > found nothing at all.
> > >
> > > This seems, to me, a rather curious omission on George's part.
> > >
> > > Is there anything at all? (In the Collected Works?) I see that Bayle
> > > asked this same question a few years ago but no one at the time
> > > replied.
> > >
> > > N
> >
> > There is a brief mention in 'As I please' 15 November 1946,
> >
> > "The newspaper accounts of the Nuremberg hangings
> > were ambiguous. There was talk of a drop, but there was
> > also talk of the condemned men taking ten or twenty
> > minutes to die. Perhaps, by a typically Anglo-Saxon piece
> > of compromise, it was decided to use a drop but to make
> > it too short to be effective...."
> >
> > Wicked... Other comments in this article:
> >
> > "Hanging is a barbarous, inefficient way of killing anybody..."
> >
> >
> > "For if people are being taught to gloat
> > not only over death but over a peculiarly horrible form of
> > torture, it marks another turn on the downward spiral
> > that we have been following ever since 1933."
>
> Thank you. The index to Orwell in Tribune did not reference this,
> neither under Nuremberg (for which there are no references) nor under
> "War Crimes".
>
> Orwell goes on to say "...and at least one fact about it - quite widely
> known, I believe - is so obscene as to be unprintable."
>
> >
> > There is really not much else in the CWGO, except in reference to the
> > letter you mention. However, though not about Nuremberg, "A
> > Hanging", 1931; 'Revenge is Sour', 1945; and 'Who are the War
> > Criminals?' 1943 might show what Orwell would think of the trial and
> > execution, especially in the latter:
> >
> > "Well, if it were left to me, my verdict on both Hitler and
> > Mussolini would be: not death, unless in is inflicted in some hurried
> > unspectacular way..."
> > " And, above all, no solemn hypocritical 'trial of war criminals',
> > with all the slow cruel pageantry of the law, which after a lapse of
> > time has so strange a way of focusing a romantic light on the accused
> > and turning a scoundrel into a hero."
> >
> > So, we open 2007 wondering if *he* "stepped slightly aside to avoid
> > a puddle on the path." Happy New Year.
> >
> > B.
>
> And to you.
>
> Yes, of course one thinks of "Revenge is Sour" and of "A Hanging". I
> had overlooked "Who are the War Criminials?" In which I see that
> Orwell also states:
>
> "When tyrants are put to death, it should be by their own subjects;
> those who are punished by a foreign authority, like Napoleon, are
> simply made into martyrs and legends."
>
> We shall see.
>
> N
I should have also mentioned this (a blog I saw today reminded me)
and for shame - as I just recently reread the thing several times:
"Mrs Parsons' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children,
and back again. In the better light of the living-room he noticed with
interest that there actually was dust in the creases of her face.
'They do get so noisy,' she said. 'They're disappointed because
they couldn't go to see the hanging, that's what it is. I'm too
busy to take them. and Tom won't be back from work in time.'
'Why can't we go and see the hanging?' roared the boy in his huge
voice.
'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!' chanted the
little girl, still capering round.
Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the
Park that evening, Winston remembered. This happened about once a
month, and was a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be
taken to see it."
"'Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?' said Syme.
'I was working,' said Winston indifferently. 'I shall see it on
the flicks, I suppose.'
'A very inadequate substitute,' said Syme.
His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. 'I know you,' the
eyes seemed to say, 'I see through you. I know very well why you
didn't go to see those prisoners hanged.' ...'It was a good
hanging,' said Syme reminiscently. 'I think it spoils it when they
tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above all, at
the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue a quite bright blue.
That's the detail that appeals to me.'"
That classic Orwell humour - I mean Winston's observation of Mrs
Parsons' face. The rest borders on gruesome slapstick, and yet it isn't
- because of its essential truth.
B.
You remind me of priests - Bridegam's the same: if we're (the ooman race)
all so sodding evil, why do you keep wagging your finger and trying to save
us?
ROBBIE
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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