Deliver us from evil... Matthew 6:13
None of us knows until we have been through difficult problems and tragedies what we would do in a challenging situation. Once I attended a panel discussion of people who had suffered during the Holocaust and other barbaric oppressions of this century. One woman on the panel had survived the Holocaust, but her parents had been killed. She had started a humanitarian organization to prevent such horrors from being repeated and mentioned casually, "You know, I couldn't have started that organization unless I knew that, with the situation just a little different, I could have done the same things that the Nazis did to my parents and the others in the concentration camps." This woman, it seems to me, possessed true humility -- the knowledge of one's self that clearly perceives that with just a little change of circumstances, one is capable of any evil.
Matthew 6:13
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory, for ever. Amen
2 comments:
Your story about this woman reminds me of a German woman I worked with many years ago. She met and married an American soldier when she was 17, wanting desperately to leave Germany, though it meant leaving her family behind. I was only 21 or 22 then, and asked her about Hitler. She told me, with some embarrassment, that she has been an "adorer" of Hitler. She told of how she waited in a crowd of jostling people behind a gate, waiting to catch a glimpse of him and toss to him the bouquet of roses she had brought for him. She said she had no idea then, what he was up to. She just viewed him as a hero. She told me her father was one of Hitler's soldiers, not by choice. Their family and their way of life had been threatened if her father did not follow Hitler. She told me stories of how the Russians came into their homes and trashed them, taking anything they wanted, including the women. I can only imagine the horror of the situation both for the Jews and for the innocent German non-Jews. Margot, my coworker and friend, did not care to share more than that with me. She just did not want to remember the horrors or to admit to just anyone that she was a part of it. I was young and naive. Maybe that is why she shared with me. I appreciated that much.
Kaye,
Thank you for your comment and sharing that story with me. My mother grew up under Hitler. She immigrated to the US in 1952 after marrying a british soldier who wanted to come to America. Her brother was captured by the Russians and put in a camp and never made it out of East Germany after the war. Like your friend, My mother thought a lot of Hitler as well, because her family got a house and food from the government when he was in power.
I am amazed at the lives that the folks of my parents generation lived. You must be a very special friend to Margot for her to have shared that burden with you. Thanks for sharing the story with me.
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