The cowardly are the ones who fell for the fear propaganda. But that meant they were the ones who found it hardest to back out: once the initial lockstep took hold, it required enormous courage to say you were wrong in the face of such overwhelming group conformity and peer pressure.

The wickedness of what was done to these people has no excuse. Nonetheless, evil is a thing, and the lesson is that we need to be on constant watch for new schemes to bypass our defences and subvert us "in our own best interest". A missold sense of duty to one's fellow man is deadly.