The 1967 film Marathon Man features a very young Dustin Hoffman as a Jewish New Yorker who unmasks a Nazi deathcamp doctor (named der weisse Engel after his white hair) tastefully evilly played by Laurence Olivier. Towards the end of the film, Laurence Olivier is recognised in the streets of Manhattan by a woman who was one of his victims in the camp. Screaming and pointing, she crosses the street – and is hit by a car. Sympathetic bystanders focus on and surround her. But because the attention is focused on the victim, and not on the one she recognizes, der weisse Engel again makes his escape.
There were campaigns to relieve Lesbos by transferring people to other European countries long before the Moria refugee camp was consumed by flames. At the time of the camp's destruction, Moria held about 12,500 refugees, despite having a capacity for three thousand. There was a campaign in the Netherlands aimed at taking in five hundred children. After the fire, the Dutch government was prepared to take in a meagre one hundred, on condition that they would be subtracted from the country's resettlement quota.
There is much compassion these days for the children from Moria. Nonetheless, the focus on the humanitarian side of this case ignores the political cause behind these abuses. The debate is now centred on how (un)kind we are to these children. But as long as debate is focused on this point, we are unable to talk about why these children were in that situation to begin with. Before you know it, you have accepted that it's ok for adults to be subject to such abuses.
