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.