The Return Of The Phantom

In his Twilight Zone books Rod Serling, who took part in the liberation of Corregidor, in the Philippine Islands, wrote the story “He’s Alive.” It behooves us to remember Martin Luther King’s admonition not only against racism, but also anti-Semitism.

Serling concludes, “Where will he go next, this phantom of another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare — Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, every place, where there’s hate, where there’s prejudice, where there’s bigotry. He’s alive. He’s alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that, when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He’s alive because through these things we keep him alive.”

That phantom, of course, is Adolf Hitler.

Michael E. Peterson

Eugene