i watched a movie yesterday that really really affected me.
it was called, jakob the liar, and it was a story that took
place during the holocaust.
i can never quite get over the awfulness and can never quite
understand how it happened or what it is inside us all that
can lead to this kinda thing.
it was just a few weeks ago when we were visiting bob's uncle
that we sat and looked at photo albums of all the relatives.
bob pointed out his great aunt and his great uncle who had
both lost all their families in the camps. they found their
way here, found each other, and built another life for themselves.
looking at this picture of this man and this woman and their
sons at some family event, i just couldn't wrap my brain around it.
i looked at bob later kinda just amazed....told him how i had
learned all about the holocaust in school, had been incredibly saddened by it,
horrified, and yes, had cried about it more than once.
and yet, it was history to me. it was history.
'it's family to you.' i said as i looked at him.
what a difference that would make.
i thought of all that as i watched this movie.
i thought of all the stuff that happens all over the world.....
all the time.....
i don't know what's inside of us that makes us capable of doing what we do.
and it scares me.
and then i think of some of the stories that have come out of all that,
the strength, courage, the will to live...
the rebuilding of the lives....
never underestimate the human spirit....in either direction....good or evil....
still tryin' to wrap my head around it......
1 comment:
I've been to Auschwitz, the concentration camp in Poland twice.
There's a quote on a wall in one of the barracks that reads:
"The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again." George Santayana
As I stepped through that gate, passed under that sign, and walked those roads that saw so much pain, suffering, and hate- I felt the weight of a thousand sorrows. I still cannot work it through my mind
how.that.happened.
I watched as one of the women in our group fell to the ground weeping as she saw her family name on one of the suitcases in the room that's full of luggage. My first thought was that it had to be so much harder knowing that someone in your family- your own blood and history, suffered so much horror. I don't know if I had family that passed through those camps. But somehow walking through that place... I felt the loss just as keenly as if it were. Perhaps it was the physicality of being in that place, surrounded by so many ghosts. Or maybe it was just the realization that it so easily...
could have been my family.
And in alot of ways, that's haunted me since. What is it that makes a soul capable of such evil?
It's scary...
Post a Comment