"The German goes and we remain silent, although we are a little ashamed of our silence. It is still night and we wonder if the day will ever come."
"...nothing happens, and nothing continues to happen. What can one think about? One cannot think anymore, it is like being already dead."
In reading this, I recall a tale of German christians during the time of the holocaust. As they worshipped in their churches, the trains were taking the Jews off to the camps. When the trains neared, the Christians sang louder, to drown out the screams and wails of the hopeless.
I think of the unimaginable horrors inflicted on these people, and the silence of those who could be the light. When at first they were beaten, the Jews were shocked one could be beat so savagely without anger. It brought their oppressors joy to inflict harm.
I think of Pascal, in the bits of philosophy that are capturing the author's mind. He is seeing the human condition, stuck inbetween two infinites. They were unable to live, unable to die; unable to thrive, barely able to survive. That's all that this game had become--survival.
And, to the Germans, this was a game.
Not only in the stories of the Holocaust do I see the malicious depths of a political state founded on athiesm, but also the depravity of man when he ignores morality. How sickening we, as humans, become in sin. On the inside, we are as cruel as the Nazis.
It becomes even sweeter to hear the stories of Corrie Ten Boom, who was able to see how God protected her in the camps, although through lice, kept her safe from lustful men. In the end, she even forgave her prison-guard. This is only through grace.
The sad stories of these lives remind me of one final thing--that this world isn't the only reality. It is only a broken image. In our excess we are blinded to it, and we rather long for this delusion to never end, but for these people, pain and excruciating death was a reality everyday.
What is the purpose of it all?
"Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from out human condition which is opposed to everything infinite....It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and after. It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation; for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity."
These were people like you and me. People who loved, felt, were passionate, who cried, who had joys, who had sorrows, who had angers. They were all human, just under different conditions. I still don't have the answer, that of all of these people were put in the same conditions, the ones who survived didn't become like the Nazis, not to my knowledge. What caused the Nazis to hate so?
____
I commented on Becca's and Jamie's posts
"...nothing happens, and nothing continues to happen. What can one think about? One cannot think anymore, it is like being already dead."
In reading this, I recall a tale of German christians during the time of the holocaust. As they worshipped in their churches, the trains were taking the Jews off to the camps. When the trains neared, the Christians sang louder, to drown out the screams and wails of the hopeless.
I think of the unimaginable horrors inflicted on these people, and the silence of those who could be the light. When at first they were beaten, the Jews were shocked one could be beat so savagely without anger. It brought their oppressors joy to inflict harm.
I think of Pascal, in the bits of philosophy that are capturing the author's mind. He is seeing the human condition, stuck inbetween two infinites. They were unable to live, unable to die; unable to thrive, barely able to survive. That's all that this game had become--survival.
And, to the Germans, this was a game.
Not only in the stories of the Holocaust do I see the malicious depths of a political state founded on athiesm, but also the depravity of man when he ignores morality. How sickening we, as humans, become in sin. On the inside, we are as cruel as the Nazis.
It becomes even sweeter to hear the stories of Corrie Ten Boom, who was able to see how God protected her in the camps, although through lice, kept her safe from lustful men. In the end, she even forgave her prison-guard. This is only through grace.
The sad stories of these lives remind me of one final thing--that this world isn't the only reality. It is only a broken image. In our excess we are blinded to it, and we rather long for this delusion to never end, but for these people, pain and excruciating death was a reality everyday.
What is the purpose of it all?
"Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from out human condition which is opposed to everything infinite....It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and after. It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation; for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity."
These were people like you and me. People who loved, felt, were passionate, who cried, who had joys, who had sorrows, who had angers. They were all human, just under different conditions. I still don't have the answer, that of all of these people were put in the same conditions, the ones who survived didn't become like the Nazis, not to my knowledge. What caused the Nazis to hate so?
____
I commented on Becca's and Jamie's posts
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