Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: April 23, 2017 05:27PM
Sunshine at last graces us after an exceptionally long, snowy, cold and tough winter (I vow never to go without snow tires again!)
And it's my first weekend off in many a month.
So what do I do? Watch Spencer Tracy in Judgment at Nuremberg. Good film. But I just sat down for a sec, not intending to watch TV at all.
The whole thing is hellishly sad, so beyond, that it's hard to describe in any words I know.
At the end of the movie the defendant German judge, found guilty of war crimes and convicted by Tracy, said to him, "The millions who died. You must believe I never knew it would come to that".
Tracy's character replied, "That happened the moment you convicted a man you knew to be innocent" (apparently, it had been a man who spoke out against the Third Reich; something not allowed in 1930s Germany, and this judge had sentenced him to death for that).
Great line by Tracy. A truth to be mulled over and hopefully applied.
It seems so unbelievable in the 21st century that the Holocaust could have ever happened. That such a collective madness could arise and be sustained.
Obviously, it is incomparable. Too horrific and vast to be an example or for any other circumstance to be seen as equal.
A documentary I saw yesterday traced the journey of an Auschwitz survivor from Canada back to the camp with his grandson, looking for the place where he lost many of his immediate family. He had ended up marrying a girl he met as a teenager in the camp. She had noticed him in the sick bay and knew he would be killed if he couldn't work so somehow she was able to smuggle a bit of food into him (a potato) and kept him going. Incredible that they both survived and what a miracle that the grandson even came into being, only due to the extreme unlikelihood that both his grandparents survived and then met up again, by happenstance, post-war. The survivor's trip back to Germany and through the camp was beyond poignant. He pointed out the still present railroad track and a cattle car such as the one he and his family arrived on, the huts that had been so overcrowded, the infamous shower blocks, and described many of the people there, including kids, and named all his friends from the hut in which he had been imprisoned.
In one town he revisited he even ran into an elderly German woman whose family had snuck food to some of the Jewish prisoners who were working nearby - a crime with a death sentence if they had been caught. She had been just a young child at the time but they somehow recognized each other and, of course, remembered.
I marvel at the courage shown, many of whom lost their lives for it, and worry that I would not have been so brave.
There are times in my life that looking back I wish I had reacted differently, spoken out, created change, inspired justice. Rather, I mostly feel voiceless, powerless. Worse, that too often I took no action. Even when the affront is on an obviously miniscule scale in comparison, still, instances arise that also demand justice or change.
I tend to see the big picture - if millions are starving, I can't help fix that, so all too often I do nothing, out of frustration or impotence. But maybe I could help one, or three, or five. And that's at least taking action. I tend to default to the first position though but am trying to change.
Recently, I was with "new Canadian" neighbours who hail from a wartorn region, a desperate situation in the news every day. I had heard reports that people there feel "the world doesn't care". I said to one of my neighbours that we didn't need pictures of dead children and suffering people in order to care. We cared then, we care now, I said. "But what can we do? What can we DO?"
"Help", he said. "Just help."
And so I learn that indeed every little bit does help.
At least I don't have to worry, in my country and our current circumstances, that I could be harshly dealt with for caring/helping. So that should be good impetus to carry on.
I will remember the spirit of Spencer Tracy's words in Judgment at Nuremberg: Evil consequences can occur the moment you fail to take action when you see injustice, or worse, if you actively cause grievous harm.
I have spoken up numerous times in various situations but almost always feel powerless to effect momentous change. Kinda discouraging.
While it's incumbent upon us, I believe, to remember history and honour its victims, I do think that next time I have a rare work-free/blank calendar on a sunny Sunday afternoon I will find a fun thing to pursue, just for a welcome change.
I was going to relate this somehow to religion (it being Sunday, after all, and this being the exmo board) but maybe the parallels are obvious and in any case I've run out of metaphors, or whatever.
(Not that I'm going to use WWII as a metaphor. Absolutely not).
So I'll just shut up now. And maybe go to the park...