Writing an Editorial can be a strange business.
Some months, there is so much that you want to say, yet others leave you struggling in a
mire of emptiness with a word processor unable to travel beyond a first meaningless
sentence.
We all know that private hire licensing is almost upon us and it is no less
an important subject than it was when I gave my views in the January issue (and rightly or
wrongly, that is all an Editorial is - the views of the Editor). My views this month would
be no different than they were then, so private hire licensing goes out of the window for
this issue.
I was also thinking of writing about the cost of diesel. However, I wrote
about that in November and my views haven’t changed - I still believe that we are
being ripped off. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the cost of a litre of diesel will
go up by about 4p (18p a gallon) in next weeks Budget and that within days either side of
the Budget, the fuel companies will put their own price up by another 3p a litre (13p a
gallon). Then there will be such a furore that the following week, the price will drop by
1p a litre (4p a gallon) and drivers will go away thinking that they have won - paying an
increase of 27p a gallon!! This, at a time when the actual barrels are worth more than the
oil they contain! But I decided not to write about it because I wanted something new.
Something Strange…
As I was heading towards my deadline, something rather strange then
happened. One of our drivers approached me and said that he had left an article in the
Call Sign cubby hole for me to read. It had come from the Daily Mail. When I got to the
office the following day, I had seven copies of the same article each sent by a different
driver - which suggests that an awful lot of other drivers also read the
article. Call Sign doesn’t usually have
problems filling Mailshot - there are about six pages of letters in this issue alone - but
I had never experienced seven drivers taking the time to send me a newspaper cutting. It
may not be the right thing to do, but I cannot let the subject pass without comment…
Under the heading of The Genocide Bank, the article reveals that a large
German bank (and the account of one of our competitors) has admitted that it helped
finance the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz and that it’s founder - according to
the Daily Mail - was a Nazi. The reason I say that something strange happened is because,
due to an amazing coincidence for a taxi magazine, on the centre pages of this issue, you
can read a chilling report from one of our drivers who took a day trip to visit Auschwitz.
Suddenly, I was also being asked to look at the Daily Mail story involving the same camp -
a place surely that must be the closest man has ever come to creating a facsimile of hell.
I knew that I couldn’t print that centre page spread yet overlook the
Mail report. It would be entirely hypocritical of me and of my position as Editor. The
bank concerned have become well known in recent weeks because of their $10 billion bid to
take over an American bank who happen to be one of our largest and most respected clients.
Is There Responsibility?
The German bank’s founder may well have been - as claimed - a Nazi. In
fact, following the cessation of war in 1945, both he and the bank were declared to be
war criminals. However, it is a reasonably safe bet
to assume that no one left in the bank’s German headquarters has any connection with
the Nazi party let alone the war.
Several drivers have said to me - in fact two of them were on the radio
circuit who currently serve the bank - that war criminals should never be forgiven and
hunted until caught.
As a Jew myself, I feel as strongly as anyone about the ‘legacy’
left to the world by Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, but in this case - and as I said
earlier - an Editorial is just the personal views of the Editor and I don’t believe
that the bank concerned can be held to be responsible for the action of their founders any
more than a son is responsible for his father’s actions.
No doubt I am going to be bombarded by drivers telling me that I am wrong,
but I have thought about it as carefully as I could and that is how I honestly feel.
The bank have now admitted that their predecessors were involved with the
German war machine and have agreed to pay considerable compensation. According to Elan
Steinberg, the Executive Director of the World Jewish Congress, they (the WJC) together
with German Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach and the bank’s current Chairman have
agreed to proceed "in co-operation" towards a settlement and were now
"…on the right road."
It is a very sad situation and there is no right or wrong, but my view in
this one-off situation is that the matter should be allowed to die after the financial
compensation has been sorted out.
Adolph Eichmann should have been hunted until the end of time, had it been
necessary. This situation is different. I cannot find it in my heart to blame the
directors of this bank and feel that the matter should be closed leaving both banks to
receive the excellent service they receive from both us and the other circuit.
And that is my personal view - which as I said, is what an Editorial is…
