Last week, I was subbing in an English class. I’m not sure what it is that they’re reading, but it had something to do with the Holocaust. (and it wasn’t the Diary of Anne Frank) So in her absence, the teacher left a video for them to watch.
As expected, it was horrifying and sad (I cried several times), and as I always do when I watch or read these things, I have to ask myself, “how?”
As in how did this happen? No, not in my lifetime, but not so long ago. During a war that my grandfather fought in.
How can people, ordinary human beings, commit such horrible, atrocious acts of violence? How can people do such unspeakable things to each other?
This, I think, is what hell really is…not some fiery pit on some other plane of existence. It’s right here, right in front of us.
And I guess that makes us (the collective ‘us’, humanity) the devil.
It would be easy to give up on us, if we weren’t also capable of such remarkable goodness.
Was it Night by Elie Wiesel?
And related to what you said, I find it very scary that the Holocaust survivors are now dying off–in a few years, they won’t be around to tell their stories in person. Kids will have to read about them in books and watch them in videos…it’s just not the same.
No, it wasn’t any of the “typical” books…
And you’re so right. As it was, most of the survivors interviewed in this documentary were children when it happened.
Someone pointed me to
http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html> this essay, which is one person’s attempt to get at the How.
(You may have to reduce the font to read the end–they’ve got some sort of fitting problem.)
Gives one a lot of food for thought.
Hmm. not sure why the link ended up that way. Here it is again:
http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html