New Can I Sit With You? Story: The Banality of Evil

This story is not about having the wrong clothes or being the new kid who didn't fit in. This story is about having your friends and neighbors turn against you during war time. This story is about how thin the membrane around a community can be, when stretched by the wrong hands:

"We felt particularly committed to support our troops, those young men who were so far away, fighting in a frozen and inhospitable land. I worked very hard with my small and unskilled hands, carried by a feeling of love toward my country, which filled me with pride. But that day, a friend who I used to play with on the playground, and knew my family well, (my father was their family doctor) stood up in front of the others and said, 'Anna cannot work among us! She is the daughter of the enemy, therefore she is an ENEMY of our soldiers.'"

The Banality of Evil, by Anna Dalprato (translated by Lea Cuniberti-Duran).

Anna was nine years old at the time of this story. My own daughter is nine years old, and she will be reading this story when she gets home from school today.

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