This is a story about a fox and a tortoise.

One day a fox got lost in a great and vast desert. He spent many days in the desert without food or water, until he found a roaring river. On the other side of the river was a plentiful forest blossuming with food and wildlife.

"Oh woe is me!", said the fox, for he could not pass the roaring river. The river was too trecherous even for the cunning and quick fox. There was no way for the fox to ford the river.

So, even though he was able to satisfy his thirst, his belly remained empty. The fox languished below the hot summer sun, with salvation in sight, yet impossible to reach.

Until a kind tortoise heard the fox's cries of sorrow. The tortoise found the fox in such a miserable state and took pity on the fox.

"Why are you in such a state?", asked the tortoise. The fox explained, telling him of the circumstances that led him on the bank of that roaring river. And so the tortoise, after a brief moment of deliberation, agreed to bring the fox across the river upon his back.

They traveled together and when the fox came to the other side, he found many fruits to eat. The fox was grateful to the tortoise and they became fast friends. Eventually they established a village on the eastern bank of the roaring river where foxes and tortoises lived happily ever after.

The village grew in size, filled with foxes and tortoises. And other animals too! Tall giraffes. Fat elephants. Serpents of low cunning. Ferocious lions.

The village became a town. The town, a city.

Then, one day, that all changed when they built a bridge over the roaring river which had, at this point, died down to a serene stream. Foxes no longer needed the tortoises to ferry them across.

For most, life continued as it did. Yet some were not happy. One, a fox from out of town with a silver tongue, spoke out.

"What use is a tortoise? They are slow, meandering creatures with dull, useless teeth. They leech off the kindness of the superior animals!", he said, puffing his chest out with pride. "We must remove them!"

Very few people argued. There was merit in what he was saying. The tortoises were slow. It was not right for the taxes of hardworking folk to go towards sustaining them.

So the tortoises were removed.

Yet the silver-tongued fox would not stop there.

"What have the serpents done for us? They crawl on the dirt like worms writhing in the rain! The snakes have manipulated us for far too long! They seek to overthrow our fox nation and destroy us from the inside! They must go!"

And so the serpents were removed.

The elephants cried in anger. How could they do this? How could they be allowed to do this?

And so they too were removed.

Then there was just the giraffes and the lions and a nation of foxes.

They went on as they did in the peaceful days, trying to ignore the smokestacks rising from the camps dotting the outskirts of the city. Or the black-uniformed foxes that strode into the homes of their neighbors, people who they knew for years, coming out dragging women and children by their hair.

They paid no attention to the broken windows of once tortoise-ran shops. Or the constant rhetoric spewing forth from their leader's lips. Words of war and racial purity and the domination of the fox over all other animals, followed by waves of roaring applause.

They ignored it because there was nothing else they could do. They were powerless, forced to watch as their world burned around them.

And then the foxes invaded Poland.