When people think of Thomas Harris and Hannibal Lector, they seldom think of the circumstances that made Hannibal a cannibal. They think, instead, of the gruesome crimes he has committed, and the psychological, monstrous genius he had become. They think of The Red Dragon and the Silence of the Lambs, they think of the first noel, Hannibal.
But seldom do people actually look into the reasons behind which Hannibal was actually created. Thomas Harris did write a book explaining that too. he wrote Hannibal Rising, which showed the circumstances behind the transformation of an innocent boy into a monster.
I was watching the movie, Hannibal Rising today, that that showed me vividly how Thomas Harris meant the book to turn out. In most cases, books are often better than the movies, but this was a rare exception. While the story of a young boy and his sister ran through my head, I could not help but think about Cannibalism in general, and why it was carried out extensively during WW2.
WW2 was a bloody war. We had the Holocaust at the time, genocide and a million other atrocities to deal with. the allied powers tried, and to some degree, succeeded to curb the growing Nazi power, but they could not save the millions of civilians and soldier who lost their lives, their homes, their innocence and finally themselves in this terrible war.
Before I launch into the words that have been bothering me for the whole day, you ought to know about the cannibalism that took place. In some cases, it was the necessity to stay alive. In others, it was darker.
On the eastern Front, Cannibalism was carried out because people did not have enough food to eat. People began killing each other, and hiding food supplies just so they could keep their loved ones alive through the terrible havoc that was all around them. In Russia, parents killed each others' children just o their young ones could stay alive. Those were dark times, when people began to forget all about society, even humanity, just so they could survive the war.
With the Japanese, however, cannibalism had taken its darkest form. Japanese soldiers ate the flesh of their enemies to somehow impose their victory over them. Their bodies, instead of being honourably laid to rest, were being thrust inside their oppressor's body and then being excreted as the lowest form of defilement, human feces, before it returned to the dust from which it had been shaped.
Many bodies of the allied soldiers could be found on Japanese soil, with their arms, legs, buttocks, face and chest neatly carved out. Only the face and the feet remained uneaten by the Japanese. Even their own comrades turned to food if they perished in the warfare. Horror stories of entire villages being given human remains to sustain themselves were actually true.
Reports tell us of Japanese barracks that were found littered with the carved out bodies of enemy soldiers, and mess tins had been found filled with cooked, raw and dried human flesh, all used to nourish the Japaneses soldiers. One Indian soldier tell of how, when in the clutches of the Japanese, one man was chosen everyday to be slaughtered like a pig so that the Japanese captors could feast on his flesh. That terror still plagues him, to this very day.
There were other instances of cannibalism too, this time in Nazi concentration camps. Some of the crueler and darker Nazi oppressors encouraged cannibalism in their camps, using it both as a physical and psychological weapon. Jews were often slaughtered, their flesh was given to their family members as food. This was often done in families where there were small children. In desperation, the family would feed the children their mother's of their father's or their sibling's flesh, all to keep them alive.
Of course, there are other reports of cannibalism, but it was at its peak during WW2.
Now that you know all there is to know, perhaps the bare bones of the matter, I can say what I want to say. Express myself on this matter.
Cannibalism, for a very long time, has been the ultimate taboo. It is the ultimate taboo. It is beyond the boundaries of basic human decency to partake in the flesh of another human being, not matter what the circumstance.
But in WW2, for the Russians and the Jews, the circumstances were dire enough. they had to eat, or they would die. they had to feed their children, even if it meant killing others. Even babies were sometimes killed so that another child could be fed.
Many novels, documentaries, films, books and historic accounts have tried to give an account o all the horror that was unleashed upon the people during this time. Some accounts have tried to explain the circumstances, and justify the act of eating human flesh while the others have self righteously condemned it, and condemned the people who practiced it.
In the case of the Russians, and the Jews, not all, but the few who really were driven by necessity, I think that it was justified. All of us who sit at home now, and read about this can find it very easy to pass judgment on them. Now, we have a clear view of whats right and whats wrong. But in a war, nothing is right, and very often, everything is wrong. Boundaries are blurred, and only survival matters. When that happens, there are no more rules. Everything is free game.
What the Japanese did, however, was something atrocious. It wasn't necessity. They had food supplies. They weren't starved. Their act of cannibalism, in most cases, was born out of a need to fully overpower the enemy, and establish superiority. It was a way in which only the coldest human beings could behave, and those human beings were so cold that they were monsters They did not have a shred of humanity left in them. The war had taken away everything they had, and then some.
But that doesn't excuse them from the crimes they committed.
Those of you who are religious may believe that they will be punished in the afterlife. For people like me, who don't believe in God, all I can hope is that they lived with the guilt till the day they died. I hope they were able to actually feel guilt for all they had done, for all the live they had taken, and more importantly, for everyone they had eaten. They had despoiled the sanctity of the dead, and I hope they were plagued by the consequences of their actions for the rest of their life.
As for what took place in the German Concentration camps, making other people forcibly resort to cannibalism was actually worse than partaking in such a venture themselves. Just death wasn't enough for them.
I have a lot more to say, but, I guess it all boils down to how strongly I feel about this. I can;t find the words to express what I'm feeling, so I will leave it at this.
Adieu.
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