There's a wonderful twist in today's comic that very nicely deals with an aspect of the generational trauma of the Holocaust in a way that I've not seen done in comics, though I'm sure it has. The trauma I'm speaking of is the trauma of the collaborator. While there might be those who say that this trauma is deserved, it's difficult to say unless one is in a particular situation whether or not one would break. The character in this story is revealed to have betrayed a resistance group to the Nazis under torture, and has tortured himself for 50 years since.
In our present time, we're seeing a lot of men revealing, or having revealed, damning behaviours for which they are, rightly, being called to account for. The conversation I'm not hearing, and maybe it needs to not happen for a little while, is how do these men, should they truly want to, recuperate their lives and reputations? How do they make amends? Today's comic raises a similar question: how long should someone punish themselves, or be punished, and what constitutes the kind of restitution that is required?
I'm sure I could have articulated that more clearly, but it's late and I'm tired. One more Peter Milligan Detective tomorrow.
More to come...
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