I attended an event where the film Besa: The Promise was being played on Thursday 9/22/2016

This film was about a man named Normon Gershman who started his film journey by interviewing some people that were known to have had rescued Jews during the time of the Holocaust and World War Two.

Norman's interviewee was a man from Albania who's family was known for sheltering a jewish family during the Holocaust. His father allowed a small boy to live with them and take him essentially adopt him into the family. Once the family left, they had left being three books in the family's house in Albania. The promise made in the family is that thesis books were to be returned to the Jewish family one day in the future.

This takes Normon and his Jewish rescuer to Islam where they tracked down the young Jewish boy that once lived in Albania with his family. They met up with each other and talked about how he and his family were so thankful to be living with the rescuers at the time.

The meeting was very emotional, the Jewish boy, who was now an elder man, explained how he never liked to talk of what happened back during World War Two. He didn't even tell his own son the tragedy of this time period.

This spoke a thousand words to me, seeing the pain in his face as the subject of the Holocaust was drawn back to his memory. It was like he was coming out of dark place in his past.

When the Jewish rescuer produced the three books to the elder man, he looked confused at first. He then opened it and saw that the books belonged to his family and that they were really all that he had left of them. He let out a bunch of tears and apologized because he never cries.

The meeting was concluded with a long hug

This journey of returning the books was almost like closing the wounds of the past. The Rescuer felt that the books didn't belong there in Albania with him anymore. By returning them to the elder man, it almost like a symbol of his parents that are now gone. This made me think of how many Jewish survivors went through this for the rest of their lives, not knowing when to let go or how to stop thinking about the terrible things that happened. How even talking about it or thinking about it still brings tears to their eyes. This film really opened up to me and showed that people still go through this pain everyday. It makes me sad that we couldn't do more for them, to help them during this tragedy.

Man's Search for Meaning Part 1

Reading Man's Search for meaning was disturbing, and gave me a haunting image. The use of words in the book have a total different meaning to them than what we would think when they came to mind. Words that were used just as shoes, hair, Capo and cigarettes have such a cruel and inhumane story behind them to the jewish prisoners involved in the Holocaust. 

Shoes were given to the prisoners when they arrived to the camps along with a work suit. Most of the time the shoes would not fit the men's feet and this would cause them to swell. This would force the men to go barefoot throughout work days and cause frostbite during the winter. 

When showering, shoes were often taken by other prisoners that needed that size. Some prisoners were left with the wrong size, or two right foot shoes or two left foot shoes.

Hair was literally taken from them when the jews were admitted into the work camps. In one way you can see it as taking away someone's identity. Also when the jews were outing camps, they were tattooed with a number on their arm as if they were a piece of property to keep track of. Almost like branding a cow.

Men also had to shave their beards every day to look younger. They did this so they looked fit and able to work, because if they didn't look presentable they would be considered not useful and killed by the Nazi's. Shaving would make their cheeks look pinker, as a young man's would. They made shaving a top priority, if they had to give up their bread for the day to shave, they would have to. Prisoners would use anything sharp they could find to shave, often times pieces of glass.

Capo's were prisoners that were picked by the Nazi leaders to be cruel to other prisoners. They would chose the cruelest men, or people that also hated jews to torment them. Capo's job was to go onto the busses of new prisoners and drag them out of the bus and separate them form their belongings. 

Cigarettes were given to the men or traded for their bread. Men would smoke the cigarettes when they knew they were going to die, because they wanted something small to enjoy. Something as small as a cigarette gives the prisoners happiness, even when they are facing the reality of death every day.

From Cruelty to Goodness

Summary: The article written by Phillip Hallie focuses on what cruelty and kindness mean to him. The author seems to struggle with what he thinks cruelty and kindness are, as he compares them in many ways connecting to the Holocaust. He believes that people are cruel but also kind in the same way. He explains this by describing a man in power as a Nazi and the relationship to a prisoner. The Nazi guard could be both kind and cruel, he is kind to the jewish prisoner by giving him small pieces of bread and a penny. But the prisoner only got this reward after he was put threw physical exhaustion. In this way, Hallie describes the guard as cruel but kind for giving him his small reward. He says "kindness can be the ultimate cruelty" meaning that to the prisoner getting the small reward, he still knows that the guard will make him do the tiring work again only to get a small something in return. Hallie then goes on to write about the French Protestant village of Le Chambon who was able to save and shelter 6,000 jewish children after they were separated from they parents. He says "the opposite of cruelty was the kind of goodness that happened in Le Chambon." He continues to write that maybe survivors wouldn't be so bitter id someone had shown them kindness like the people of Le Chambon had shown them. At the end of his article he acknowledges that there were cruel things in the world going on during the time of then Holocaust, but not to forget about the kindness that was given by Le Chambon. He gave the readers a choice or perception, to see the cruelty in everything or to look at the good in one thing.

Comment: I find it interesting how Hallie connects the Nazi's name calling of the Jews is the same to how white Americans call African Americans "nigger". It is the same cruelty that Hallie wants us to realize that we are essentially being as cruel as the Nazi's were when they called the jews name to make them feel powerless and small. It was like a lightbulb turning on in my head because I hear the word "nigger" in everyday vocabulary from my peers around me. I don't think they know how they make someone feel by calling them that. It can be dehumanizing to someone but yet people still use "nigger" in everyday vocabulary without a care. It also makes me astonished as Hallie compared the Nazi's to todays white Americans because I never realized that that's what we are looked at as, and I don't want my culture to be looked at as Nazi's or African Americans to feel anything less than White Americans in today's society.

YAY!!!! I'm done !(: