The following passage is from the book "Believing or not believing" by Elie Wiesel (Ed. Giuntina), so I intend to commemorate Memorial Day, recalling the terrible horrors of the extermination of millions of innocent people, victims of cruelty, ignorance, brutality and violence without limits of which may be capable human being.
I've been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, and saw the Avenue of the Righteous, mentioned by Wiesel. That's why I chose this song: there is the possibility of rebel violence, to work for another perspective, not to bow to the logic the majority, when it requires to be trampled on the dignity of man. History shows that this has occurred. The courage to act for change is a source of hope.
calls them "the Righteous Among the Nations". You know their names, for most members in the register of honor at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Some trees are planted in their memory and form a singular path and disturbing: you walk and get back your faith, though sad, human.
confess that, personally, their history is not part of mine. I have not met anyone in my path, and certainly not during the war. Not one of our Christian neighbors risked their lives to receive, conceal, save a jew friend or her children. I will always remember our last march to the station: the city, under a spring sky, it seemed so quiet, not at all sad to see us leave, off into the unknown.
But elsewhere there were those who helped Jews. In the Netherlands and Poland, France and Italy: the evil raging all over occupied Europe, but everywhere the people resisted him and extend a charitable hand to the victims abandoned to the enemy and death.
[...] How to explain these human gestures? What attribute the boldness, compassion and generosity of some, while others, often a majority, they opted for collaboration with the executioner, for abetting, or simply a convenient indifference? How to understand the selflessness of a few individuals, when society was dominated his surroundings and enraged by terror, cowardice and hate?
Studying their stories, so simple and so different, you will discover with astonishment that their job, freely chosen, was both easier and harder than previously thought. More difficult? Do not forget two things: the power of the bloody and cruel regime and the solitude of his opponents. In some places, the Germans punished with imprisonment and death anyone who had housed the Jews on the run. The informers were not lacking. Reporting a neighbor was a frequent occurrence, and often well rewarded. Accept a Jewish family or a child jew various risks involved. [...]
As the victims themselves, their pimps who are vulnerable, living alone and on alert. They could not rely on a complicated environment or on an underground movement around them. Taking the side of the victims were put under their sign. Suddenly, knew the fear and trembling, but also the dignity of the sacrifice accepted.
That said, we insist that the choice of human behavior it was relatively easy. One need not be heroic or crazy to feel pity for an abandoned child. Just open a door, provide a document or a piece of bread, enough to want to watch, listen, thrilled at the sight of so much misery, so much misery and agony.
Yes, to be "right", ie for ragging the apex of the human, at times quai enough human remains, namely for those sick and those who were hurt, many who cry about it went to a certain death, reaching out to children who hunted and hungry army of steel crushed day after day.
The "Righteous", who were they? Be common to most. Priests and nuns, peasants and workers, doctors and merchants, artisans and elementary teachers: a few celebrities, No celebrity among them.
[...] "I have seen, - Anton Schmidt wrote in his latest letter to the family - I saw it as two hundred, three hundred Jews were shot, I saw how children were massacred ... By helping the Jews, I have done simply as a human being who did not want to hurt anybody. " You'll recognize this need for modesty, this sincere humility, in all the rescuers of Jews. No big words, no bombastic slogans. [...]
Yad Vashem said to have about five hundred names of "just" who tried to save Jews during the Occupation [now the number of "Righteous" recognized by Yad Vashem is 22,216]. There are many? To so many countries? For six million victims?
We are cautious. Do not exaggerate. Are these just justifying our faith in humanity, they should, on another level, equally justify the suspicion against the company. For an Oscar Schindler, many collaborators? For Raoul Wallenberg, how many viewers indifferent? For Anton Schmidt, who volunteers in the divisions of the SS? For compassionate and generous soul, who szmalcownik, these vile scum who walk the streets of occupied cities in search of Jews bear Aryan papers?
some spark sufficient to enlighten the darkness?
some man, any woman brave enough to rehabilitate a murderer universe?
course, the mystery of good is as good as that of evil, but it is the same mystery?
course, the mystery of good is as good as that of evil, but it is the same mystery?
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