Dear Editor,
It is difficult to know how much the public knew about the Nazi death camps or the policy of exterminating Jews during the Second World War.
Yet despite that vicious policy ever so often one hears about ordinary people who often for the duration of the war hid Jews as a matter of conscience and principle.
It is interesting to notice currently that of all the European countries Germany and Sweden are the only countries whose borders are open to refugees and who welcomes them. Other countries for whatever reason have tried to limit and control the influx of refugees, most fleeing from the some part of the war torn Middle East and from Africa.
Clearly this is a major crisis. The European Union has been unable to develop any co-ordinated and collective strategy. My guess is not only do they fear they do not have the resources to manage this influx, but states also typically want to control their own borders and decide who comes in and who goes out.
In a humanitarian crisis of this proportion though, with lives at stake, that model of state control cannot deal with this present exceptional circumstance, and national egos need to submit humbly to discussions and ask moral questions, questions that those people who hid the Jews thought about, with considerable danger to themselves.
George Jason