The Holocaust In Maurice Ogden's 'The Hangman'

In Maurice Ogden’s poem The Hangman, Ogden writes a story of a man who chooses to not stand up for others. He does not speak “out of the fear of his Hangman’s cloak”(Ogden 2), but in the end, “the scaffold was raised for none but you”(Ogden 4). The narrator was killed because he failed to stand up for others. This story was published in 1954 which was only 9 years after the Holocaust. The situation in which the narrator was put in is similar to a person who chooses to stand by during a tragic event such as the Holocaust. Ogden chose to write this story to persuade people who are placed in this situation to act differently than the narrator did. In order to convey his message, Ogden writes to a specific audience, parallels his story to the Holocaust,

When the Hangman first came to the town, he came ”smelling of gold and blood and flame”(Ogden 1). The gold represented “the twin goals of racial purity and spatial expansion” that both parties sought (History.com Staff). The blood represented the blood that would be shed in the story and Hitler’s goal of “‘the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany’”(History.com Staff). The flame represents the very definition of Holocaust as it comes” from the Greek words “holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burned), was historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar”(History.com Staff). The narrator expresses his emotions during the time “and innocent we were, with dread we passed those eyes of buckshot lead”(Ogden 1). In both cases, the victims knew that they were innocent but did not have a chance to prove it. The scaffold represented the power over all of the people just like Hitler did. “The wings of the scaffold opened wide till they covered the square from side to side”(Ogden 3) The scaffolds continued to grow until no sunlight shone through. The power that both Hitler and the scaffolds had over the people was unsurpassable. Similarly to how the narrator helped the Hangman, many people believe that ” the leaders of the Protestant churches—had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.”(United States Holocaust Memorial

In The Hangman, the narrator and the rest of the city “ceased, and asked no more as the hangman tallied his bloody score”(Ogden 3). No one wants to watch another person get hurt or suffer. The narrator is in a state of self preservation because every time they asked if he was done the Hangman took another man’s life. By the end of the story, the narrator is all alone with the Hangman. The narrator is puzzled as the Hangman explains that “the scaffold was raised for none but you”(Ogden 4). Because the narrator never spoke up, he was the last to die and there was no one there to stand up for him. Many people fear dying alone or before they can do something significant. In this story, the narrator dies alone and knowing that he could have stopped the murders from