In 1999 a retired Ohio car worker (but Ukrainian by birth), John Demjanjuk, was accused of being one of the Trawniki at Sobibor concentration camp. These were Eastern European collaborators who assisted in the extermination of Jews on behalf of the Nazis.  He was extradited to Germany to stand trial for war crimes and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

But it has always struck me that all our high minded principles aren't worth a can of beans unless they come at a price.

A re-post.

 

They took us near Vinnytsia in 1941

Supply lines long since severed, ammunition all but gone.

We numbered 97 boys, all from Podillia’s lands

They shot a half of us right then as we raised our hands.

 

They ordered us to strip our dead beneath that wintery sun

I’ve asked myself a thousand times, “What would you have done?”

They shipped us north to Poland along with thousands more

And onwards to this barbed-wire Hell that’s known as Sobibor.

 

Inside these walls of horror there is no Wrong, no Right

Just wake at dawn; make sure that day you live to sleep at night.

And do just as they bid you to, as all of us have done

I’ve asked my friends a thousand times, “What would you have done?”

 

I’ve ripped the women’s clothes off to show the guards their tits

Then hauled the bodies on the cart and heaved them in the pits.

I’ve beaten aged Jews to death to give the guards their fun

And begged their souls a thousand times, “What would you have done?”