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ERS 2 ar Be Bolt av RESELL FE GALES PRTC RY RAOA A RAPER HOA IN : 8 Larisa ts RN ibis 4-- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, April 12, 1983 ad t | "Tiare NOT Tie tancuacE ments Nice Going The Borelians Theatre group of Port Perry has | achieved a major success in winning best production and HAD IN MIND . best production of a Canadian play in the Association: Ce NEST PAS LA of Community Theatres competitions. For community theatre, these awards mean as _ much as the Oscars do to the film industry. The Borelians deserve a very hearty congratulations for this achieve- ! ment with their production of "Nurse Jane Goes to | Hawaii," They will now take this play to Sudbury in May for A competition against theatre groups from all parts of On- | LANGUE QUE JE PEN5AIS |" De re! v h tario. We wish the Borelians continued success and con- vs gratulate them for their contribution to amateur theatre oF in our community. ly War Crimes = | It has been almost forty years since World War 2 Tre PT SEE 2] came to an end, } $9 In the months and years right after the war, the world Ad came to learn of the true horror of the Nazi regime, the 0 crimes against millions of innocent people who were Kh] _ shot, gassed, or dragged away in the middle of the night 7 ; to rot in one of the dozens of concentration camps which A) dotted occupied Europe. chatterbox by John B. McClelland A SMALL STEP -- A GIANT LEAP When the space shuttle Challenger lifted off last week for yet another foray into the high blue yonder, I reacted with an indifferent yawn. The American space program, for me, anyway, has lost all its special magic. In fact, I feel a certain sense of hositility towards it now. : There was a time when space exploration had a- firm grip on me. I was more than just fascinated by it. One of my most vivivd memories of the 1960's was the day man first set foot on the moon. Like just about everyone else that day so many years ago, I hovered in front of the television set to watch Neil Armstrong take that first step and utter the now immortal words "about "small steps for man, giant leaps for mankind." In the foolish naivety of my youth, I actually believ- ed literally in those words than mankind was on the threshold of finally exploring the last frontier: the planets, the stars, even the whole universe. oo The newspapers and magazines in those heady days" were filled with stories and pictures of man in space, and I read them over and over again, my imagination racing wild at the mere thought that in my life-time man would travel to the heavens. I believed that science was working for the purest and most noble reasons: discovery and understanding of the unknown. I believed that if man through science could reach the last and most difficult frontier, it would bring profound changes to scientific exploration here on earth. After all, I thought, if man can travel safely to the moon and back, then he is capable of doing just about anything. Solving the world food pro lerp, finding cures for disease, controlling pollution, putting an end to arm- ed conflict; these rather mundane problems which have been the curse of man on earth for decades, and cen- turies would be a "piece of cake" compared with the heroic effort and expense of sending a man to the moon. I recall at the time having long arguments with friends who claimed that man had nd right in space as long as the horrendous problem on earth remained un- solved. They called the space program a waste of money that could have been better spent to make life on this planet more tolerable. : I argued (foolishly) that man not only had the right to spend billions on space travel, he had an obligation to do so because this pure and noble enterprise would eventually lead to the betterment of all men on earth. I thought it was a pretty good argument at the time. Alas, since those marvellous days so many years ago, it has become apparent the real reason for the space program is not pure and noble in its intent. No, the thrust these days is to use space for military pur- poses here on nC The program of simply exploring space and sending men to other planets "to see what's there' has been abandoned. Those famous moon rocks, which held out such promise to the world scientific community are packed away in crates to gather dust in a warehouse. The main purpose of thie Challenger Shuttle is to put a communications satellite in orbit which has the capability of tracking and guiding missiles launched on Heck, it was just last month that American Presi- dent Ronald Reagan revealed his thinking on space ex- ~- ploration when he talked of "super defensive weapons' orbiting the earth which would zap anything out of the sky. TS . In my disillusionment, it is painfully obvious now that the space program is nothing more than an exten- sion of the Cold War and arms race between super powers. And so it is with much trepidation that I follow the progress of the shuttles knowing that thé real purpose is to bolster the military capability. I am saddened at the thought that I will not see in my lifetime exploration of the planets. But I will pro- bably live to see the day when space bristles with all kinds of marvellous and ingenious weaponry, whose purpose is no different from the sword and cross-bow of the Middle Ages. Just as he has so often in the past few centuries, man is putting the magnificent forces of scientific discovery to work for the wrong reasons. As I get older and the idealism of my youth is replaced with pragmatic reality, nothing disappoints me more than the realization that the last great frontier open to man is being brutalized by science. About 25 years ago, when the space program was in its infancy, man was I comes along just one. That was the chance to use the power of science for all the good reasons rather than the evil ones. And he blew it, just as he did with the discovery of gun powger, the splitting of the atom and learning how to fly. As science continues to travel down the same time worn path, there are many serious thinking people who are convinced that man's continued survival on this planet is tot! at best, and unless there is a dramatic shift in emphasis away from the development of big- ger and better weapons systems, the days for all of us may be numbered. '"That's one small step for me, one giant leap for mankind," Famous words uttered by a mortal man at a moment in history which happens only once. It is strange how Hollow and silly they sound today. in 1983. As the super powers push further into space to ~ bolster their military power, that small step for man has become a giant leap backwards for mankind. ng at an opportunity which Many of the so-called "big cheese" Nazis either kill- ed themselves or were brought to trial shortly after the war, and the most famous of these was in Nuremburg where more than 20 Nazis went on trial. Several were executed for their crimes, others sentenced to prison terms. . As the story of the Nazi terror.began to unfold, it . became clear that the extent of the crimes against humanity was unprecedented in scope and barbaric nature. It has also become clear that these crimes were not just the work of a very few fanatical Nazis inside Germany. } The terror stretches into every corner of Europe oc- cupied by the German military during the war; from deep in Russia through Poland and Western Europe, Scan- dinavia and the south of Greece and Yugoslavia. Just how many people lost their lives in this systematic terror is open to historical debate. The figure of six million Jews is widely accepted, and upwards of another million innocent human beings of non-Jewish origin. x The task of rounding up, transporting, killing and disposing of the bodies of so many people required the efforts of a great many individuals, and today, there are disturbing reports that many of those who had a part, large or small, in the systematic murder of millions, not only were never brought to justice, but in fact allowed .to go free with the assistarice of Allied Powers in Ger- many right after the war. Some of those who may have committed alleged war crimes are now said to be living quite openly and freely in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. Canadian solicitor-general Robert Kaplan has acknowledged that the RCMP in this country is in- vestigating requests from Western European countries for the extradition of about 100 individuals living here who are accused of alleged war crimes. About half that many requests for extradition have also been filed from Communist bloc countries. There are many questions being raised at this time that beg to be answered, the most obvious of which is -whether there are mass murderers living freely in our midst. Did the Allied military and intelligence forces in post- . war Europe conveniently 'overlook' syspected war . 'criminals and offer them some kind of deal? If so, why? Why has it taken almost 40 years-for this informa- tion to start coming to light? What are the chances that alleged war criminals will be brought to trial to face charges in connection with events that happened so many years ago? - ea - Do the governments of Canada, the United States, Great Britain and other countries want to go through the time and expense to see that justice is served? Do the people of these countries want their governments to pro- ceed on this course? Obviously, if the answer is yes to the above ques- tions, then haste is of the essence. Most of the alleged criminals would be in their sixties and seventies. The same is true for those witnesses who are still alive. The passing of almost 40 years has not lessened in any way the horror of what went on during World War' @ in the name of the Nazi Reich. If there are those in our midst suspected of playing a roll in crimes against humanity, they should be brought to face their accusers to prove that justice did not die at the end of World War 2, '