Cycling as usual to work I come up to a stoplight and see this woman yelling at a man down the street:
If you’d have said that to me during wartime, you’d be headed for the gas chambers!
I see the man is Indian, maybe Roma, I can’t be sure.
I turn around and say to her: Such behavior on the street!
Oh yeah? she shoots at me. He called me an asshole, what do you expect?
You’re not an asshole, I tell her. Gas chambers? You’re a NAZI asshole!
Light turns green, off to work.
The banner photograph shows the town of Britannia Beach, BC, Canada, where I grew up. It's home. But I don't live there anymore.
Mean world. I think I’d jump in on that one, too.
Ach du Schande!
Way to go, Ian.
WTF?!?!?!
What a Nazi Asshole!
I’m glad you spoke up.
Man. Unbelievable what lurks under the surface here. Not that I am saying we don’t have a problem where I’m from (as our most recent election shows to a certain degree). But your example clearly identifies a lack of SHAME. Isn’t it embarrassing to say such a thing out loud on the street? Don’t you know that it’s wrong? Doesn’t it hurt you to say it? I guess not.
Good on you, Ian. We heard far too many similar stories while in Germany last spring.
Gosh, that’s amazing! Well done for telling her!
WTF? Who threatens people with gas chambers???
Unglaublich!!! D:
I must learn German. I am missing too much.
I can’t believe that you managed to think of a retort so quickly. Even reading your post it took me a few seconds to start breathing.
i know it’s true. I just can’t believe it.
It’s amazing how fast you can get angry. It all happened in about 15 seconds, no more.
What I like to think is this generation is dying out.
My husband says that woman would have been fined or even jailed if she had been caught saying that. Is he just a naive German?
I suppose if someone wanted to pursue the matter far enough, it might happen.
Wow. I found your blog at Charlotte’s Web. The Nazi legacy fascinates me for all the tentacles it still has, how unquiet it is, maybe dying out, but who knows. Good for you for saying something. That’s the surest way to guarantee sentiments like hers don’t survive.
That generation is dying out, like I said, but unfortunately there are a lot of neo-nazi groups still leaving their slug trails wherever they creep.
That generation itself may be dying out, but I think it’s naive to think a culture changes so quickly. What has Europe’s human rights record been like for the last 1000 years, after all?
Jaysus. Nice call on your reply. Of all the rude comments I have heard in a long, long time, that is the most f*ed up of them all.
Wow! Wonderful that you could think of the perfect retort. Doesn’t often happen, but sometimes that bit of adrenaline just fires you up. Well done!
Touché!
Verrückt. Yeah, that generation is dying out, but there’s a new generation alive and well and willing to take over from the last one. It’s not just a German problem either – I’m afraid the Nazi philosophy of moronic intolerance has found it all too easy to thrive elsewhere.