A Place Called Eden

By Debasree Banerjee

A Place called Eden is what we all aspire for. Eden is humankind’s collective belief in everything that is bright, beautiful, pure, and innocent; everything that would remain untarnished, no matter what. The raging WW2 embroiled and entangled millions of common people, who sadly neither had much say in the situation, nor possessed the erudition to comprehend what the madness was all about. This book is the story of such next-door protagonists like Kuhlbert, Raymond, Gerta, and Alessandra, who suddenly find themselves motivated to become a part in the deadliest war of human history. They are flawed, nuanced and unsure about the outcome of the war, just as we are, about what is to come tomorrow. A story of love, hatred, delusion, fortitude, selflessness, magnanimity and a lot more, but first and foremost a message of universal hope in our quest for our own Eden…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Feb 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543706536

Debasree Banerjee

Debasree Banerjee is a winning and published author from Write India Season 1, and has several international publications to her credit. A ‘cinephile’ in true sense, she also takes pride in writing movie scripts. She considers ‘thrillers’ as her forte, and she loves to bust the myth about this genre, calling it the most versatile one. She has taken upon her a mission to write visually powerful and cinematic stories that can inspire people to take up further reading. Yes, she has herself been a ‘readaholic’ all her life, and writes with the intent of inspiring people to read, because she somehow fanatically believes in the power of healing and scope for human development in reading.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Debasree Banerjee.

ISBN:              Softcover              978-1-5437-0654-3

                        eBook                   978-1-5437-0653-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Epilogue

Further Reading

Dedicated to all those who’ve passed

on in unselfish acts of kindness

and to those who’ve instilled in

me the love for words…

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Preface

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The matter of death is always a solemn affair. One needs to respect death, in order to value life, because of its very role as the bridge between the past, present and future. A few artistic liberties have been taken while telling this tale, events seen through the eyes of someone who let imagination run wild while contemplating about a war fought more than seven decades ago. And yet, the search for a meaning has always returned absolute silence. No echo, no resonance, no reverberation!

It goes without saying that the seeds of the present were planted in the past, and we unwittingly are creating tomorrow’s history. While pondering on the causes behind the deadliest military combat in human history, no answers were found. Was it because of the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty? Was it because of the conflicting colonial interests between rival nations? Was it because of contorted ideals? Was it because of inflated ego? Was it mere retaliation? Or…. Was it a joke, a convoluted experimentation gone wrong? A monster child bred through decades of misplaced trust in absurd interlocking alliances?

Leaving aside philosophical ruminations, it wouldn’t be out of place to say that history is actually ‘his story’; the ‘he’ whose version remains to be read, discussed and pondered on, is the only important factor in true sense. The same events may be seen through different perspectives, analysed differently by different observers, and the amazing thing is that no version is entirely correct. Having said so, we still perceive of someone as a hero and of another as a villain. Why? The answer is obvious: the version written by the strongest party remains. All others vanish into obscurity. Considering that the stronger party in a war is obviously the victor, they emerge the hero, until some sceptic begins questioning: WHY?

Maybe, nobody is naïve enough not to already know the answer, which is as plain as daylight. All men were created equal, but we didn’t respect this equality. Maybe, our animal instincts have always dominated our human reasoning, or maybe, Darwin was correct after all! ‘Survival of the fittest’ is all that there is. While researching extensively for this book, interest somehow got the better of human mind, and a chance search for the ‘oldest war in human history’ returned interesting results. There are experts who believe it happened back in the Neolithic age, when any form of record-keeping hadn’t yet been conceived of. Others think such wars couldn’t actually have been there, because of very scarce human population at the time, with limited man to man contact. The logical conclusion that eventually follows is that the first war must have been fought only when early humans came in contact. Doesn’t this show something about human nature? And still, the first of the two Great wars was fought after an estimated span of more than ten thousand years after that first war, if not later. So many civilizations came and perished in the interim millennia, and we began calling ourselves civilized.

The conglomeration of impossible intellect led to the birth of a Frankenstein of our own creation; the children sired by our own miscalculated ambitions. A small spark literally set an entire continent on fire when Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, assassinated the heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, during their official visit to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, on 28, June, 1914. Bosnia had been annexed by Austria and imperial troops placed there; inspection of the garrisons the main purpose of the ill-fated visit. Serbia was angry; the royal members narrowly escaped death in the morning when Serbian terrorists threw a bomb aimed at their open-topped car. However, they wouldn’t be as lucky a second time, when their car inadvertently drove past a nineteen-year-old Princip, who shot them at point-blank range. The pride of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was seriously hurt; they declared war on Serbia exactly one month later, on July 28. Serbia already having been Russia’s ally, obviously pulled in the giant into the growing conflagration. Germany soon declared war with Russia, and invaded France via Belgium. This resulted in Britain’s sense of insecurity, who jumped into the wagon, declaring war on Germany, and the scenario assumed gargantuan proportions.

Fuelling the absolutely necessary defensive measures, were each nation’s own imperialistic and expansionist ambitions, which wasn’t new to the European scenario. Industrial revolution had turned into a resource-guzzling monstrous child, that had to be fed regularly; what better ways to do that than expand one’s colonies? Iron, coal, copper, oil, rubber…. The list of requirements was achieving gigantic proportions and new contenders were hopping in. How could the great Austro-Prussian Empire just sit back and watch Britain and France take control of five continents and most of Africa, without wanting a slice of the pie for themselves? Amid all these, Italy was the shape-shifting entity that wanted to latch onto the most potent host. Impossible alliances were formed to fulfil such dreams, thus creating interlocks between Britain, France and Russia who went on to be called the Triple Entente, and Germany, Austria and Hungary, joining together, known as the Triple Alliance, and Italy joining in later.

The situation led to two competing groups in the European continent who were soon fuelled by a fervent sweep of nationalism. The concept of country, culture and ethnicity tided over everything else, and the subjects desired for a people-led rule. The arising confusion gave the most fertile ground for a potent revenge-based Armageddon, especially after France’s ignominy at Germany’s hands in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. Military might took centre stage with advent of industrial revolution, all the contenders primarily wanting to establish their superiority in any area they thought, could satiate their childish psychological requirements. Patriotism and diplomacy soon took a backseat, and the assassination acted as the catastrophic catalyst leading to the seminal war in modern history, the WW1.

The Treaty of Versailles only added insult to injury; the first war had been everyone’s choice, but Germany was made to suffer for being the perpetrator of mass destruction. Combined with their fallen economy, the incompetence of Weimer Republic and the rise of a charismatic youngster named Adolf Hitler who dared dream of a revived and resurrected Germany, the ground for another great war was laid. A strong current of revanchism swept the defeated and humiliated party, creating the totalitarian Third Reich. The far-east was important to the expansionist plans of Britain, but the Empire of Japan had begun offensive on China, having had earlier pushed back Russia from Korea and Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese War. ‘Asia for the Asians’ was a new term coined by the Japanese, which was a cause for concern to America, who had hitherto claimed dominance on China. The arising confusion laced with the newfound concept of nationalism ultimately became the behemoth of destruction for a second time; infinitely more serious and fatal than before.

The rest is history, as they say. But here we come to the most important crossroads, where we find it incumbent upon ourselves to decide what to learn from the whole episode. To do that, identification of the mistake would be the only thing of importance. The question of finding the guilty party simply doesn’t exist. Every party that participated in the madness was guilty. Every single death was a tragedy, even though history is witness that it has heard famous world leaders say that a single death is tragedy, while a million deaths is mere statistics. Can we as human beings blame someone else for our own nonchalant apathy towards our own brethren?

It is too convenient to pin the responsibility of one’s failures on someone, and the pathological analysis of the WW2 did initially find all evil pinned on the losing side. Not only were there holes in the theory, the orthodoxy in such assumption soon became evident. The immediate aftermath of the war was similar to the situation when a family feud comes to a settlement, and the responsibility is fixed on an ‘evil distant cousin’ or ‘a greedy outsider’. History was repeating itself, so to say, and since heinous crimes against humanity had been committed by the fascist Third Reich, thus leading to the ‘in’famous Nuremberg Trials, the early historians decided that this evil cousin was conveniently ready to take the blame. Germany’s foreign policies were unrealistic, Hitler the most certain Devil incarnate, whose singular delusional ambitions led to the war, ending with America’s decision of using nuclear weapons on Japan.

Thankfully, by the turn of 1970, the world had already seen the flower people and had found a new solace in the name of unorthodox or unconventional thinking. Tolerance and alternative thinking eventually began creating a better understanding about being gauche and different. This new wave of thinking actually led to reconsideration of earlier concepts, and the earlier analysis was fortunately revisited. Revisionism brought about a few startling facts, that were clearly uncomfortable for many old-school thinkers.

While old-school had always insisted that this had been a war of good versus evil, and the Allies had always been keepers of peace and democracy, new wave thinkers began seeing Adolf Hitler lesser as a mythical demonic creature, and more as an ambitious opportunist who had the momentous spark and charisma to garner a huge fan following. The shroud of supernatural surrounding him diminished by a large degree, and he was discussed as a normal Western leader, not unlike Stresemann, Chamberlain or Daladier. Hitler’s vehement anti-Semitism was also considered nothing unique; he was just a representative of millions of racially sensitive orthodox human beings, who didn’t believe in equality as a concept. The Treaty of Versailles was onerous, but the damage done therein had suitable appeasement policies adopted by the winning nations towards counter-measures. Revisionism views ended with considering the Treaty as only a mere cog in the machinations, and not the sole reason behind the WW2, which was thought of being more accidental than anything else.

The analysis from the Post-revisionist era has however prevailed the test of time. Adolf Hitler’s character-autopsy was done yet again. He was thought of as a man with no clear-cut scruples, policies or plans. His immense political career was also sometimes dissected to establish that his claim to fame had been largely by luck and ‘backstairs intrigue’.

A curious sceptic’s queries still remained answer; even more aroused than before. Wasn’t it unusual that history was always discussing about the interests, ideals or lack of them, principles, beliefs and prejudices of a single person? Wasn’t that being too unfair to the other major players? Didn’t Adolf Hitler already steal the show while he was alive? In taking our time discussing him, didn’t we simply leave out the ‘moral of the story’ part? Didn’t we fail history by failing to cultivate tolerance?

Why don’t we discuss and dissect America’s motives behind bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the same casual common-man interest? Albeit, that too, has been done more out of political and scholarly interest. Maybe, the Imperialistic rule in Japan at the time, made even the common man an accomplice in the war, unlike the situation in America or Britain. Maybe, Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused lesser loss to civilian lives than did the incendiary raids on other Japanese cities. Maybe, Japan’s aggression in China would have resulted in a much larger number of deaths, if the victors didn’t get a way to display immense power, and bring Japan to an unconditional surrender. Historians and statesmen have also lauded America’s decision by saying that the merciless meanness and viciousness displayed by Japan towards its enemies would have resulted in more civilians getting perished, than the nukes ever resulted in. But can we disagree that the bombs had been used experimentally, without really having any way to know the extent of damage that might have been there?

Maybe the Japanese National Mobilization Law instigated total war involving every citizen’s contribution in the form of cottage industries manufacturing weapons, and maybe, one party had led to a quicker resolution of the war by displaying immense power, enough to frighten the other party to surrender unconditionally. But there were other people of importance who considered that a complete naval blockade would also have led to Japan’s unconditional surrender without the atomic bombings, just as effectively. They have contended that warfare is not about killing women and children, and that the choice was barbaric and reminiscent of the Dark Ages.

Why wasn’t the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 discussed with the same sense of hatred? Why weren’t Britain’s lethal decisions, especially preferential appropriation of resources including food grains ever seen in the same light as a war crime in itself? Maybe because such decisions are considered justified when there is a bloody war going on. But what purpose is served when we decide what a war crime is and what is not? Why don’t we unanimously agree that there are no separate war-crimes? War is a crime in itself. The rest is a question of might and innuendoes…

The story might be a subject of discussion and debate in itself; we have generalized our opinion for too long. All Germans were mean fascists at the time! Americans were snobs because they dropped bombs on Japan! Saying such things is childish and impulsive. ‘A place called Eden’ merely tries to look into the war from a different perspective.

The attempt to remind everyone that each war costs the lives of nameless millions, and that most of them are common people like us, who have very little say in their countries’ home or foreign policies, is what the book is all about. The gradual whirlpool that sucks in several commoners, into a political quagmire of flawed and debatable ideals; two parallel stories having very little in common, albeit a lot in common too. The characters have been inspired by a number of real people; bits and pieces of them joining together to give credibility and depth to each of the main protagonists. The results were surprisingly nuanced, flawed and troubled people, unlike many famous literary characters who were so sure about their hopes and aspirations.

Readers who have always sighed that they didn’t have the grit to manoeuvre and manipulate life like Scarlett O’Hara from ‘Gone with the Wind’ or lacked the same conscientious decisiveness as Atticus Finch from ‘To kill a Mockingbird’ are invited to tuck themselves in to read about very real people, whose motivations are paved by turn of very real events. The extensive preface thereby comes to an end with a hope that the piece of work may touch readers, at least as fiction that bolsters belief in values of humanity and compassion, and aims at keeping alive the search of ‘A place called Eden’ in each of us…

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Acknowledgements

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They say everything we have invented as humankind, is actually a two-way sword. Each of our discoveries and inventions can be used both for constructive as well as destructive purposes. As a child, I was often asked to deliver extempore speeches about whether the television or the radio have proved to be boons or curses to the development of human society. By the turn of the millennium, India found herself transforming under the effects of her new-found economic reforms like liberalization and globalization. This was evidently supplemented by globalization of information too. Therefore, by the time I was a teenager, the subject of never-ending debates on curse-boon changed from television-radio to the Internet. Students were already participating in symposia where internet was being thoroughly discussed, even before many of them ever had the chance to really know what it was!

It has been many years since then; more than two decades, to be precise. The debates haven’t ended, but I would express genuine gratitude towards every person involved with dissemination of knowledge through whatever means they opt for. Internet, so to say, has proved to be the greatest boon in this regard. The enormous numbers of online books, articles – scholarly or otherwise, journals, blogs and clippings that have been made available to curious and excited learners like me, all thanks to the free availability of this essential curse, is unbelievable. Cinema has also played an immense role in moulding my thought process, and that’s the second essential curse on my gratitude list.

I feel grateful towards my parents, for everything, especially for nurturing in me the passion for reading and for encouraging me to keep on creating, and towards my brother for teaching me how to ride a bicycle, because that was how I learnt that life needs to move on, or our very existence would inevitably tumble down without the motion. I would like to express gratitude towards my husband, for never trying to dissuade me in whatever fanatical endeavours I engage in, and for always nudging me back on correct path (for I’m prone to wander off more often than not). My in-laws would definitely be the next in line, for everything they have done to keep my household in shape, while I was busy whirring away on the keyboard. My biggest inspiration, however, has been my son, who has thrown at me new challenges each day, for the last five years we got to share the sizzling-fizzling-freezing-thawing-angry at times-loving always relationship with each other. He has given me experiences and outlook towards life that I would never have been blessed with, if not for him.

I would like to thank my grandparents, three of whom have already passed on, with my maternal grandmother, the only surviving member. They were probably the earliest audiences (a.k.a. victims) of my unending story-telling sessions, who used to hearten me by appreciating my awful tales out of sheer unadulterated love. All other members of my family must know that I love them with all my heart.

I would make a special mention about my colleagues and seniors at Damodar Valley Corporation, who have always supported my eccentricity, to their level-best, sometimes even humouring me and cheering me up, while I would languish from the delays caused by long periods of writers’ block. It would be unfair if I didn’t mention a few well-wishers who always fed my passion by repeating that they would be happier than me, if I ever completed my book, which would often look like slim chance. They are – Mr. TKC from AYCL who has always pampered me with praise, even when I didn’t deserve any, Mr. SM Sr., once my boss in office, forever my boss in life, Mr. SM, in whom I’ve found a steadfast pillar of strength, a reliable guide, and a friend for life, Mr. PKG, my ever-patient colleague who endures my often-meaningless ramblings, Mr. CD, who has always shown enormous faith in my capabilities, Mr. JPS, with his unending support for me, Mr. KA, a wonderful poet himself and a great critic, my awesome girl squad (Mrs. MB, Miss. RNK, Miss. SN, Mrs. TM, Mrs. SM, and Miss. MD – I wouldn’t have known what to do without them), Mr. AS, my awesome friend since college days, Mr. RM, whom I’ve come to know just recently, in spite of being batch mates at engineering, and Mr. BKJ, renowned author himself, who has boosted in me the confidence to keep on writing no matter what. I preferred using only the initials because these are a shy bunch of people, who don’t crave spotlight, but prefer buttressing idiots like me, whenever I’m in need of their support.

There are a number of honourable mentions, who might feel let down by me, because I obviously missed them out. Apologies are sincerely solicited from them, especially from my teachers who stoked in me the hunger for learning and the art of expressing, my childhood play-pals, the extended Write India family, and anybody and everybody who endured (often painfully) my story-telling, even with big smiles pasted on their faces.

I would like to thank all the wonderful authors who have written such beautiful things for generations to come, and have taught us to live and dream breathing words, and of course, the Almighty by whatever name, one may call Him, for bestowing me with the capability to appreciate such finesse…

The credits for the photographs go to Pixabay and Getty Images, while unending thanks are extended towards every website I ever visited, every article or book I ever read, the most notable of them, having found special mention under ‘References and Further Reading’.

Lastly, the publishers get an enormous hug for being so patient with such an indisciplined and temperamental writer like me, whose sporadic ventures with hitting the keyboard, could find a form in this book because they stuck by me till the very end.

*

Just so we remember…

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A poppy plaque fashioned after the famous epitaph written by John Maxwell Edmonds, commemorating the fallen in the Battle of

Kohima, fought in Nagaland, India, in 1944. The commonwealth nations played an important role in the World Wars, helping

the Allied cause economically as well as by fighting for Britain, but their efforts remain largely unnoticed beyond United Kingdom.

Battle of Kohima is often referred to as the ‘Stalingrad of the East’ due to its crucial nature as the turning point of the Japanese U

Go Offensive or the Operation C into India. Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, (Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army)

once said that the British couldn’t have come through both wars [World War I and II] if they hadn’t had the Indian Army.

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Berlin is bathed in a sea of Red Swastikas, the Nazi emblem adopted in the early years of its establishment. The Swastika is

primarily the symbol of divinity and spirituality in oriental philosophy, while it represents auspiciousness and good luck in occidental

philosophy. The Nazis adopted a slightly modified version of the Swastika – The Hakenkreuz or the hooked cross, which was a

black Swastika on a white background, tilted to 45° angle. It soon became the representative insignia of Nazi propaganda.

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‘Untermenschen’ or racially sub-standard human beings was a term used widely in Nazi propaganda. The degree of violence inflicted

upon people the Nazis considered ‘undesirable’ and unfit for living, kept on increasing, resulting in the most shameful holocaust in

modern history. Prisoners are herded in Warsaw, ca. 1940, to be transported to one or the other Concentration Camps, many of which

infamously doubled as Extermination Camps. An estimated 17 million people were killed in ‘mass ethnic cleansing programs’.

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The city of Rome is being bombed. The Eternal City was bombed a number of times in the years 1943 and 1944, primarily by Allied

aircrafts, albeit to a smaller degree by Axis aircrafts too. The bombing of Rome was controversial, both due to its cultural as well as

religious importance. Several parts of Rome had been standing for nearly 2500 years, and the Vatican City also sat within Rome.

Although Vatican City had a precinct separated from the rest of