The White Ribbon

This is Niya. The conclusion to the The White Ribbon was, following the fashion of the rest of the film, unsettling. Many questions went unanswered. However, it is easy to assume the schoolchildren committed the chain of mysterious crimes in the village. At the very beginning of the film, the schoolteacher and narrator proclaimed that this story would “perhaps clarify something that happened in this country”. The event he speaks of, I imagine was the Nazi regime, which would control the country of Germany years later. Thinking in this full context, knowing that these children would be the adult generation of Nazi Germany, reminds me of a quote commonly attributed to the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men do nothing”.

Often people have questioned how it could be so many good men and women would stand by as the Nazi regime came to power. Looking at this small village, I cannot discern whether the Nazi reign had more to do with a generation of good people who stood by, or deeply tortured people looking to enact the same power on others that dictated their own childhood experience. These children, raised with a very clear structure of power were susceptible to any person they perceived to be superior to them. Their strict and systematically repressed lives taught children not to question, but to simply follow.

Was that how Nazism came to power? Perhaps there was just a deep seeded anger. By the time these children reached majority, their suppression grew to a level in which they needed to inflict pain on whomever they thought possible. The abuse, both sexually and mentally, faced by all of the children led them to believe that pain was a common aspect of life. In this same respect, pain was, and should be blindly enforced from those in power, to those without. This structure, which mirrors on a smaller scale, employed by the Nazis seems to align directly with what these children have been taught since birth. For them, the absence of joy, and abundance of pain was not unusual.

While I do not agree with the schoolteacher, that this story the film tells explain the Nazi reign, it does put forth a most interesting argument.