Au revoir, les enfants

I was about 12 when I visited the Holocaust museum, and saw the film you mentioned, or one very similar, my first or second year of college. I saw Schindler's list at about 14, and this also had a great impression on me.

I don't think it would be any easier at eleven than it would be at 18! But perhaps it will have a greater impression on a younger child to personally identify with a child who died in the Holocaust. This doesn't mean you need to show certain filmed scenes to younger children. But there is something to be said for emotional identification. The potential psychological trauma is not so great when you consider the actual trauma which children have experienced in genocide throughout history.

Humanity is capable of great evil. This is not limited to the Holocaust. Today, around the world, human beings are being raped, beaten, and slaughtered wholescale because they are of the wrong ethnic or religious identity. What is chilling about the Holocaust is that culturally, Hitler's Germany was so very close to our own culture, its Jewish victims were similar to us as well, and that it was carried out with such modern efficiency.

This tendency to great evil exists in all of us. I think that learning at a very young age to identify with victims of evil will help inoculate young hearts and minds against these atrocities. It isn't very kind, but perhaps it IS necessary. Memorizing historical facts clearly doesn't cut it.

I'd add The Pianist to that list. I watched it with a friend who's, let's say, not very conversant with history. He kept saying things like, "Come on, it didn't really happen like that, did it? They didn't really just randomly stuff Jews into cattle cars to be killed, did they? Wouldn't they have put them to work, instead of fencing them away in ghettos to starve?"

Then we watched the DVD extras, which showed how many of those scenes were copied almost exactly from films that the Nazis themselves made of the work they were proudly doing, and he didn't know what to say. Pretty sobering stuff.

It would be hard to surpass the exemplary force of those few whose heroic moral witness, often from deep religious or philosophic belief, in opposition to the murderous demands of power testify to the power within all of us to say no to evil, in refusing to take "necessity" or expedience as excuses when the real of man's "law" proves impotent, locally at the least, before the ideal of higher Law. Three examples for the curriculum from among many:

Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip P. Hallie. "During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death."

The White Rose: Munich, 1942-1943 by Inge Scholl. "The White Rose tells the story of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, who in 1942 led a small underground organization of German students and professors to oppose the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazi Party. They named their group the White Rose, and they distributed leaflets denouncing the Nazi regime. Sophie, Hans, and a third student were caught and executed.

Written by Inge Scholl (Han's and Sophie's sister), The White Rose features letters, diary excerpts, photographs of Hans and Sophie, transcriptions of the leaflets, and accounts of the trial and execution. This is a gripping account of courage and morality."

Finally, the story of Franz Jägerstätter, the pacifist Austrian peasant executed for defying Hitler, and beatified by the Catholic Church last October. Canon Paul Oestreicher in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/20/comment.austria

Next Friday, at the behest of a German Pope, an Austrian peasant with astonishing insight and courage will be beatified in Linz Cathedral, the Catholic church's first formal step to sainthood. Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907 in the village of St Radegund to an unmarried farmhand, not far from Hitler's birthplace, refused to fight in an unjust war. He knew that the penalty was death.

Thanks largely to the English Jesuit Archbishop Roberts, the Second Vatican Council put on record 40 years ago that refusal to take up arms was a valid expression of Catholic faith. Nevertheless it was and still is far from the norm. Germany's Catholic bishops supported Hitler's aggressive war. Military chaplains swore allegiance to the Führer. Christians fought with a quiet conscience - on both sides. In a historic volte-face the church is about to acknowledge that this conscientious objector was a true martyr. There is no modern precedent.

Hitler's annexation of Austria had massive support. Cardinal Innitzer was there to greet the Führer. In the referendum that sealed the Anschluss, Franz was the only villager to vote no; however, the mayor reported a 100% yes vote.

Who was Franz Jägerstätter? As a young man he had been quite a tearaway, had made a village girl pregnant, and was a worry to his by-then married parents. Yet he read assiduously and married Franziska, who was deeply devout. He turned into a dedicated father of four daughters. Sacristan of the village church, the life and teaching of Jesus increasingly determined his priorities. With an independent mind, the priests he respected were those who confronted the new paganism and went to prison.

Once war started he had a brief period of military training but was allowed to return to his farm. That experience ripened in him the conviction that he would not fight. He rejected the lie that this was a war to free Europe from atheistic communism. No, he wrote, it is a war to dominate the Russian people. When called up again, he declared: "I cannot serve both Hitler and Jesus."

Every conceivable pressure was brought on him to change his mind, from family and friends and the church. Franziska stood by him. She knew him too well. Even challenged by his bishop, he stood firm. Who was he, a simple farmer, to decide the rights and wrongs of war? An intelligent Christian who knew his Bible. Surely his first duty was to his family, who would be left without husband and father? He argued back: was the answer to kill other husbands and fathers? He held the line. "My hands in chains," he wrote, "but not my will."

From the local prison they took him to Berlin. The supreme military court also made every effort to change his mind. He did offer to serve as a medical orderly, saving life, not taking it. That was rejected. The judge had no choice but to sentence him to death like countless deserters. Conscience was no defence. Franz was given a final 20 minutes with Franziska and his parish priest. Shortly after the trial, as in some classic tragedy, the judge committed suicide.

Franz was beheaded in Brandenburg prison with 16 others on August 9 1943. After the war, a group of nuns brought his ashes to his home village. An embarrassed silence ensued for many years. Neither the community nor the church wanted to know. The bishop who had tried to change his mind now forbade any public recognition. It might shame those who had fought.

That only began to change when Gordon Zahn, an American sociologist, published his story, In Solitary Witness, in 1964. Pilgrims began to make their way to his grave. New times, a new bishop, a growing sense of pride. Austria issued a postage stamp in his memory. Next week Franziska, steadfast in old age, will be there when he is held up as a model for today by a church that is slow to learn. Unjust wars are not past history. Where are the Jägerstätters now?

· Canon Paul Oestreicher is a counsellor of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship

Perhaps it was because I read all about and understood the absolute horror that was Nazi Germany when I was in grade school that causes me to to be so incredibly intolerant of bigotry, prejudice, and injustice now. Of course, I also read lots of books about the same kind of persecutions all over the world... The reformers (some call them heretics) burned at the stake, the slaves, the victims of unjust wielding of power are too numerous to count.

There are an awful lot of people who are unwilling to wholesale condemn Nazi Germany, instead, they justify, excuse, or just try to shy away from the horrors. I think these people never faced the notion of evil, and didn't fathom the depths to which evil people will sink. One need not fall into the chasm to realize the depths. Just staring over the edge, through the eyes of someone who DID experience it is enough.

Sarkozy's idea is probably on the right track, but perhaps a bit too much based on being a solution in search fo a problem. The problem is that schools now tend to teach everything in the gray monotone light of moral relativism, and hide the bright light of true and steadfast principles about what is right and what is wrong.

We have become utterly paralyzed by some stupid politics, and are afraid to call "evil" by its name.

oops -- www.mercatornet.com/articles/moral_sense_and_non_sense/
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The best book on The Holocaust outside of Primo Levi's books is Jean Amery's At The Mind's Limits. It also has one of the best essays ever written on torture. I must add that Amery was not a believer in any sense, and wrote two other interesting, but tough to read, books. Those books addressed aging and suicide. He also wrote a book called Radical Humanism which includes one of the earliest critiques of the European Left's move toward hatred of Israel and Jew-Hatred. I mention this great writer precisely because he was, unlike myself, not a believer, and yet his books haunt me to this day. I approve of what Sarkozy is trying to do because he is forcing the French to remember the past in order to forestall an unpleasant future. I am also heartened by how many Christians are moved by The Holocaust and respond with empathy and determination to fend of other such tragedies today. I would like to recommend Dan Vittorio Segre's Memoirs Of A Fortunate Jew and Levi's Moments Of Reprieve. In those books you will find decent people not unlike yourselves. The question of what to do about Islam's trend toward Jew-Hatred is simply above my pay-grade. I speak as someone who respects Islam enough to be reading the Quran in Arabic. I hope that the followers of Islam as well as all others in France who take these classes will respond with such empathy for Jews as well as all others. Surely that is worth Sarkozy's attempt.

The opinion of Muslims is as the squeaking of mice. The problem is that such efforts have a bad habit of really backfiring in ways that are hard to predict. The children, depending upon their age and background, may have reason to compare the Jews who were quietly carted away very unfavorably with the French Resistance who left their homes to fight in the hills.

I'm reminded of the comment made by a Jewish professor at the University of Chicago that he could never understand why the Jews of Europe could not find one man to get up on a rooftop with a rifle in 1930 and end the problem of Hitler once and for all.

More needs to be done to assimilate Muslim immigrants right here and now in America. Encouraging respect for different cultures. I've already started to hear stories of Muslim groups protesting and trying to ban the traditional Christmas 'Holiday' concerts at local schools. Even stories of Muslim kids vandalizing/Smashing an Easter display on a front lawn and running away laughing. Troubling stuff. (It's not Halloween. It's Easter!)

We should be doing more to heat up our own melting pot. Ya think?

With all due respect, why you are assuming that Muslims want or even capable of assimilating?

Who gave you that strange idea?
Just because Poles and Jews and Swedes and Latvians have assimilated does not follow that Muslims will do also.

Koran teaches Muslims that it is their religious duty to impose Koran on whole Humanity. That other religions may convert or pay dhimmi tax or must be killed.

How assimilation (to what? McDonalds?) fits into this?

You let folks who do not mean well into your home and now you want to re-educate them?

How?

Would not it be easier to not let them in in the first place?

At least stop let new ones in since you know that previous ones are not making good roommates.

At our school we were told a lot about atrocities of Nazis in concentration camps such as Osventsim, Buhenavld and Dahau, seen horrible pictures, read diary of Anna Frank, but we didn't hear such a word 'Holocaust' and i don't know if it is correct to use it referring only deaths of jews or it should refere to all victims, regardless of nation. According to our teachers natzis proclaimed inferior race not only jews. Gypsies and slavs were shot and gased too, and btw, comparing percents of gypsies in europe before the war and after, it might be possible to say that they became almost extinct, and strangely there was no much talking about it, as if 'holocaust' against gypsies didn't happen.

With all respect to victims, it is difficult to understand how the fact of extermination of jews (or any other nation) by nazis can define the one's attitude to the state of Israil or that nation generally. Nazis killed millions of soviets, did it define anyone's attitude to USSR as state or made more sympathetic to its inhabitants? Doubtful.

I'll agree with Sarkozy here, but suggest that his approach is incomplete. You can't just teach children about one aspect of a historical event and expect them to suddenly "get it". Noble effort, but at best it will fall short. Now on to the real point I want to make. Everyone on this board is using the wrong term. I know that popular convention has anti-semitism defined as being against the Jewish people, but there's more to it than that. Historically, the Sumerians were also a semitic people. Here's where the confusion sets in:

Semitism comes from the bible, where a semite is one who is of the line of Shem, per Gen 11:10-26. Shem had as one of his descendants Abram (aka Abraham). Abraham had as his descendants Ishmael and later Isaac. From Ishmael is descended Mohammed, and consequently, from a religious perspective, all Muslims. From Isaac is descended Jacob (aka Israel), and from a religious perspective, all Jewish people. Take the Jacobian line a few steps forward and you get David. From David (by his ethically interesting affair with Bathsheba, per Matthew 1:1-17) is descended Jesus, and from a religious perspective, all Christians.

The point of this: Muslims, Jews, and Christians are, religiously speaking, Semitic. To be anti-Semitic, one must be against the Semites, and therefore against Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It's alot more difficult than one would think to really be anti-semitic. The people in the article and those brought up by other posters in the comboxes are clearly anti-Jewish, but we have no idea whether thay are also anti-Christian and anti-Muslim (though i think we can assume they are not anti-Muslim). Or for that matter, if they are against the other descendants of Shem, who are nameless in Genesis.

That said, there is more to the story of the holocaust than simply, "oh, the poor Jews". Yes, they got a very, very raw deal. So did everyone else. Does that mean we should exclude everyone else's suffering during that time to appease one group of the suffering?

I think this was a brilliant imaginative concept on Sarkozy's part. He would give each child a story that would become part of them, a shadow child that would follow them through life to remind them of what must never happen again. I'm not sure it would work that perfectly, however. As some of the comments here demonstrate, when people who have not received enough compassion in their own lives are urged to sympathize with the misfortunes of others, there is often an oppositional reaction of hostility and resentment. It makes sense in a way--they are being asked to give to others what they never received themselves. They recoil angrily from this demand.

An old friend of mine used to say, "You cannot give what you did not get." There is a punitive aspect to forcing knowledge of evil on the unready--rubbing their noses in it, as it were. Children who have been shamed and punished a good deal already may react violently against another helping of this, and their reaction may well involve dumping their hurt onto some other convenient victim. Thus you could create the very hate you're trying to inoculate against.

One can see a certain amount of this happening already, right here, though we're all grownups. "Let's not talk about the Holocaust! Why should Jews get all the sympathy? Muslims are just BAD! Jews are cowards! There's no such thing as anti-Semitism!" And so forth . . . .

The safest and best way to make children compassionate is to bring them up with love and compassion in their own lives. Lead by example. My old friend's statement is not completely accurate. There are some people who overcome the bad treatment they received and are somehow able to recover their ability to love others. Those are my heroes.

"That said, there is more to the story of the holocaust than simply, "oh, the poor Jews". Yes, they got a very, very raw deal. So did everyone else. Does that mean we should exclude everyone else's suffering during that time to appease one group of the suffering?"

When it concern the Jews, yes. One of the reasons that Israel is such a staunch ally of Turkey is that they both want no consideration whatsoever of the Ottoman massacres of Armenians as "genocide" or "holocaust." They want this all to themselves.

I thought Kim was banned here? Oh well.

That said, the Nazis, so far as I can tell, were equal-opportunity oppressors. You're a Jew? Too bad for you. You're a gypsy? Same song. You're a homosexual? Well, to the gas chambers for you. You're a Christian who opposes the regime? Too bad for you too. You're a Pole who just opposes having your land seized? Same song, second verse.

Current mythology to the contrary, it wasn't just the Jews.

So....genocide by the Turks would be OK because...?

I guess I'm objecting to the appropriation of what was really a wholesale outrage by one group of victims among many. Perhaps the majority of victims were Jews. (Actually we have no way of knowing this.) But it is certain that not all victims were Jews, that there were very substantial numbers of victims who were not Jews, who were destroyed for other reasons.

Did Mein Kampf also include homosexuals and gypsies, etc., among those for whom a "final solution" was warranted?

Susan: "I'm in the United States, which I gather you are not, ....
And you, who are not a Muslim, nor even, apparently, an American, would know about American assimilation how exactly?"

Over the past few days, Rod has commented on the situation with Muslims in, let's see, the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Rod's American, but it's unacceptable for me to make any comment??

If these are meant to be an Americans-only comboxes, fair enough, I'll stop adding comments, but I'd be grateful if you'd let me know.

"Americans have always had transient difficulties with immigrants."
"Good luck, and I mean that, in Europe, assimilating immigrants."

Did you actually read my comments? A recent commenter said that the USA is better at assimilating immigrants than Europe. I argue that the UK, at any rate (I would say France as well), is actually quite good at assimilating immigrants, certainly not markedly worse than the USA (nobody's perfect, of course).

I also think that the situation with Muslims is radically, qualitatively, different from that with any other ethnic group. I explained about this at some length.

"I am 99% certain that they would take serious offense at your statement that they are "not" Muslims."

Do they want to impose Sharia? No? Then they're not Muslims. A Muslim is someone who aims for every country on earth to be subject to the will of Allah, as found in the Koran and Sunna. Muslims have different strategic approaches to that goal, but unless they share that goal they are not Muslims.

"News flash, over here we don't demand that everyone be exactly alike!)"

And we do over here? Grow up.

A recent commenter said that the USA is better at assimilating immigrants than Europe. I argue that the UK, at any rate (I would say France as well), is actually quite good at assimilating immigrants, certainly not markedly worse than the USA (nobody's perfect, of course).

I hope you are right.

I read with dismay stories of people who have been in the UK for three or four generations who are plotting to blow up airplanes in the name of Islam. (I actually got stranded in the UK during one of these scares.) I'm hoping all this is dust in the wind.

I'd challenge you to come up with equivalent stories about the US. We have trouble sometimes with first-generation immigrants, but our difficulties with third-generation immigrants (besides wearing their iPods in their heads too much) are hard to find.

As for my observant Muslim clients:

"I am 99% certain that they would take serious offense at your statement that they are "not" Muslims."

Do they want to impose Sharia? No? Then they're not Muslims.

I'll be sure to pass this on to them the next time we get together. I'm certain they'll be appreciative of your (a non-Muslim's) evaluation of what they ought to believe.

A Muslim is someone who aims for every country on earth to be subject to the will of Allah, as found in the Koran and Sunna. Muslims have different strategic approaches to that goal, but unless they share that goal they are not Muslims.

Remind me to recommend your evaluation to the Imam the next time we meet. He's certain to be interested in the opinion of a non-Muslim Brit on this topic.

I was ten when I read Anne Frank's diary for the first time. It left me in tears, but it definitely made the Holocaust far more real than a textbook. I think this is a quite reasonable lesson plan for fifth grade children. Kids learn best when history comes alive for them. If the Muslim kids are actually learning that garbage, they should be given a double dose of this Holocaust lesson in school.

Susan: "I read with dismay stories of people who have been in the UK for three or four generations who are plotting to blow up airplanes in the name of Islam. (I actually got stranded in the UK during one of these scares.) ...
I'd challenge you to come up with equivalent stories about the US. We have trouble sometimes with first-generation immigrants, but our difficulties with third-generation immigrants (besides wearing their iPods in their heads too much) are hard to find."

How many times do I have to say it - this is not a British problem or a European problem, but a Muslim problem.

In my original post, I actually went through, quite carefully, all the major immigrant groups in the UK, and showed that, apart from Muslims, they have all assimilated reasonably well, certainly no worse than in the USA. Did you read my post?

"Remind me to recommend your evaluation to the Imam the next time we meet. He's certain to be interested in the opinion of a non-Muslim Brit on this topic."

A Christian, almost by definition, believes in the need to proselytise - the Great Commission. There are different approaches - there are hellfire preachers on soapboxes, and people who think that good works and personal virtue will draw people to the faith - but a body that rejects conversion is not Christian. That's my evaluation as a non-Christian.

Islam also teaches that everyone should ideally be Muslim. However, it goes further than Christianity, in saying that Islam is not purely religious, but is a system for the whole of human life, including the legal system. This really is about as basic as you can get in a definition of Islam.

Great post, as usual, AnotherBeliever. But, I also think Sarkozy's idea is really excellent. Anti-Semitism needs to confronted head-on, but not with violence, with acknowledgement of the problem, with education, and enforcment of the rule of law.