Now, I am not asking the victims to forgive the General; I merely believe that it is important for a society to be able to demonstrate mercy. Polish society is as tolerant and wise as the mercy it can bestow upon humans like the General. Why am I calling for mercy? Because, in my opinion, it would be important for this society to realize that the General was defeated long ago—and one does not beat a dead horse. In his case, would it not be better to demonstrate some benevolence and let him continue to live in moral condemnation instead? Politically, he has already been a loser for twenty years now. Leave the final sentence to history. In doing so, you would show the compassionate side of the Polish government and society in whose name you act. I remember what Adam Michnik, the dissident imprisoned under the General with whom I tend to agree, once said about the whole affair of the triaclass="underline" “It’s a subject for historians, writers, priests, moralists, and confessors, not for the courts.”
On the other hand (because there is always the other side to consider in such matters), there is an argument that says: The tribunal in Nuremberg did more to pronounce Nazism than generations of historians…
But there is something else that worries me, too. To prosecute the General in a criminal court is simply an act to humiliate that person. Moreover, by humiliating the General, the Poles would be humiliating themselves, too. They would be spitting on forty-five years of their own past, their own lives—like two people after a bitter divorce. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why so many Poles accept his justification of martial law as a “lesser evil”? The others, those who insist on his trial, however, perhaps believe that all their sins would be redeemed once the sentence was passed—as if the General were Jesus. Does this sound like a metaphor to you? A literary gimmick of mine? Well, I love literature, but this is not the case here. No, in the case of the General, redemption is the cultural matrix we are looking at in this society, Catholic to its core. Redemption of their Communist sins would come in very handy, because it would divest them of their own responsibility. Was the General the only one to blame for martial law? No, there were thousands and hundreds of thousands who aided and abetted military rule for more than a decade. What about them? Not every Pole was a member of the Solidarity movement. Once the General is sentenced, others can wash their hands.
In saying all this, what am I actually proposing for you to do?
First and foremost, I ask you to make your decision quickly, whatever it might be. I am not suggesting you suspend the trial, although clearly I would prefer this solution as the wisest. I think I have presented my arguments for this option, but you may find them inadequate and decide for the trial to go on. If so, please, do it! But order the court to proceed quickly. The General is an old and very frail man. In my opinion, if you don’t speed it up, he has no chance of seeing the end of the trial. It is my worst nightmare that he will die before the trial is over. Of course I would be devastated by his passing; I am his pet after all. But his death would present society with another problem: If you allow it to happen, there won’t be any closure for society—and that is what is expected of his trial, to close the chapter on Communism. You know what happened with the Slobodan Milošević case in the Hague? Not that I compare these two; in my opinion there is no comparison between the General—a tragic believer in Communism who made a pact with the devil in good faith—and an opportunistic manipulator, a thug, and a war criminal. Milošević died way before his trial was over. And because of that, the Serbs were never confronted with their responsibility for the wars in the Balkans. Denial rules in Serbia today; it is as if he and his murderous nationalist politics were never on trial. No truth, no justice, no closure or catharsis… nothing.
For the sake of Poland, I would like you to avoid this happening here! Your responsibility is great and I urge you to be aware of it. Even Napoleon agrees with me on this, although I am not sure that he understands the problem at all.
With this appeal, I salute you in the hope that you will not disregard my letter just because I was fortunate enough to be born a cat, and not a human being.
V
THE LEGEND OF THE BERLIN WALL—AS PRESENTED BY A MOLE
Dear Members of the Learned Society, Distinguished Guests,
Many, many generations of Moles ago, near the place where we are right now, there stood a massive concrete structure called the Berlin Wall. The well-known Mole Legend tells us that it was erected at several periods during ancient times, starting in anno domini 1961. When it was finished in anno domini 1975, it was 3.6 meters high and 140 kilometers long. As a collector of old Legends, and being interested in archaeology, I was curious to find out how much truth (if any) this Legend contained. For example, I find it particularly interesting that Men used to dig tunnels under this very Wall, as if they were Moles themselves. Was this only an invention of our ancestors? Apparently one such tunnel is said to have been 145 meters long—an admirable achievement and length, even by our standards. A Mole like me would need some seven to ten days to dig it, but then it would not be 70 centimeters high, as this one supposedly was. We Moles don’t need such high passages, as we would call them, because, quite obviously, we are much smaller than Men. Also, it was not the habit of us Moles to “escape” from one side of the then existing Wall to the other, which, according to the Legend, was evidently what triggered the digging of the tunnel in the first place. Living in the Underland, even then we Moles used to move everywhere, politely greeting our neighbors from what Men from the Overland used to call the “Other Side.” Of course, we never cared much about their different sides, but while investigating this part of the Legend about the tunnel, I slowly came to realize why they did. Men did not descend into our world without a reason.
Why did this long tunnel fascinate us Moles? I guess that we Underland creatures felt some kind of solidarity, even pity, because to dig with clumsily built bodies and without proper tools to make up for such a shortcoming must have been an exhausting job. Moles are by nature equipped for such work; we have paws adapted for digging. But poor Men must rely upon various kinds of substitute paws, like shovels and a variety of frightening, noisy machines that—for the very specific reason of secrecy—were not available to those who dug the legendary tunnel under the Wall. It had to be dug by hand, and therefore our forefathers must have felt sorry and tried to help Men by digging in front of them, making the soil more porous—or so the Legend goes.
Allegedly, Men started to dig this tunnel in anno domini 1964, soon after the Berlin Wall was erected. Except that it was not a concrete Wall right away, but a wall made out of barbed wire. As you know, normally, when we hear people digging, we run away. They produce vibrations that are very disturbing to us. Since we don’t see very well, we are very oversensitive to sounds. We are used to silence, and to the ordinary sounds of Overland life, which we experience as a dull and hushed noise. But on that occasion the sound of their digging was almost as inaudible as ours—although, in my experience, Men are too prone to chat—and the Moles were hardly disturbed by it. I guess that our old ones were grateful for that. If I remember correctly what I was told as a youngster, and I believe that I do, the entrance into the tunnel was in a backyard toilet in the then Eastern part of Berlin. One had to descend to a depth of twelve meters! The exit hole was in the cellar of a former bakery in Bernauer Strasse, situated on the Western side. My grandma told me she heard that Moles from the surroundings would come together in order to marvel at the diggers and their commitment, while they were busy filling push-carts with earth and then taking them up to the cellar and emptying them there. According to these Moles, it took the diggers six long months to accomplish this admirable job!