GOEBBELS'S CHARGES
SIR,—It is with great surprise that I read the following words in your issue of April 23rd on the subject of the murdered Polish officers: " There is more to be said for leaving the dead to their sleep. No amount of investigation will bring them to life." Surely this is a very extra- ordinary attitude to be taken up by such a responsible publication as yours.
In Britain, and indeed in all civilised countries, the discovery of one murdered corpse leads to wholesale investigation by the police in order to track down the criminal. Why? Seeing the victim is dead and no amount of investigation can bring him to life, why all this trouble? Presumably it is in the name of Justice and the rights of the individual. Yet, when it is made known that thousands of defenceless prisoners of war have been murdered in cold blood and the fellow nationals of these victims wish to investigate the matter they are the subject of cruel gibes in certain sections of the British Press, and other more serious papers, such as The Spectator, advocate a peace-at-any-price policy, neither of which seem to me to give any expression to our much-vaunted sense of justice and fair play.
If it is not considered politic to support the Poles in their endeavours it would be more honest and kinder to write nothing rather than lacerate the feelings still further of those who have already suffered so much.— Yours faithfully, E. R. RUSSELL. [There may be a logical case for investigation, but what matters is which course will make for victory over Hitler and which will gratify Goebbels, who started the whole story.—En. The Spectator.]
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