Lest we forget

[Thorne]

Sometimes it makes you wonder, why does a group o0f people that is so small stir up so much hate? Could it truly be possible that the Bible is right, the Jews were chosen by God, and the rest of the world wantas to wipe them out to prove that God does not exist.

"I know we are the chosen people, but once in a while couldn't you choose someone else?" (Tevya, "Fiddler on the Roof", movie version)
Jews and Arabs have been fighting over the Holy Land since the Exodus, at least. Their hatred of one another has become almost ingrained in their philosophies. I think the early leaders of the Catholic Church have to bear a large part of the blame for Christian hatred of Jews. They needed to distance themselves from the Hebrew faith and making the Jews responsible for the death of Christ was one of the ways they went about it.

There were some powerful stories that came out of the Holocaust to, the most stirring of which is "Schindler's List." Why would a womanizing profiteer take it upon himself to preserve the lives of 1100 factory workers? That is a question that makes no sense unless you factor something bigger than him into the equation.

Actually, I think it's a testament to the basic goodness of mankind. The vast majority of Germans knew nothing of what actually went on in the concentration camps. It wasn't until he started using slave labor that Schindler learned the reality of the "Final Solution". By working with the people in his factories he learned that they were not the subhuman animals that the Nazis portrayed them as. They were people, just like anyone else. It doesn't minimize the enormity of what Schindler did, but I think guilt was the primary driving force behind his actions.