A while back I wrote about one aspect of an ongoing interest of mine: understanding how the world fell into the despair of WWII. The element I was reflecting on was a specific part of the overall complexity of such things. While nations make decisions and take actions that are much easier for historians to log and study, countless little things take place on the microscopic level that are lost to us when we measure the big picture. We don’t see how individual attitudes are shaped and changed over time within each person’s mind and in every community. Looking at what allows people to do horrible things, which is what that rambling addressed, after I discovered a series of holocaust camp officer’s photos online, is one way to evaluate the impact that many small movements in the larger whole can have.
I’ve recently come across two new (to me) WWII stories that highlight the opposite; places where individual decisions demonstrate the goodness that takes place on a small scale, often unseen, and which nonetheless also informs us about human nature. At its core, my curiosity about WWII is mostly about understanding human nature. As one who studied psychology, philosophy, and then religion and theology, human nature is my field, so to speak. Understanding where human nature goes south is informative, but only for a limited application. Recognizing and noting the "better angels of our nature” is important, too.
I feed my curiosity through all forms of media; fiction and non-fiction books, articles, podcasts, and movies. Both of the new stories came in the form of films that I viewed during my recent convalescing from the crud. The pair of them have stayed with me, and I've done some additional reading online to find out the whole story since both of them were based on true stories. In both cases, the fictionalized versions are not entirely factual, but still, convey the high points of the real-life events.
The first one was a well-known movie from 2002: The Pianist. I have known about the film for a long time but never managed to see it. Now that it was on one of the streaming services we use, I decided it was time to watch it. The movie tells the story of Władysław Szpilman, a Polish classical pianist who managed to survive the Holocaust. Szpilman survived the Ghetto and was also helped to escape from a train bound for an extermination camp. While none of his family survived the war, he did. And it wasn’t easy. He required the help of all sorts of persons who helped him hide and/or brought him food at one point or another. What makes his story even more interesting is that near the end of the war, not long before Poland was liberated, it was the help of a German Captain that saved him.
Wilm Hosenfeld was a Captain in the Wehrmacht who served most of the war in Poland. At one point, he found Szpilman hiding in an abandoned house and learned he was a pianist. After hearing him play a Chopin piece on a piano that happened to be in the building, he decided to help hide him in a better location and personally brought food for him to the hiding place on several occasions in addition to giving him one of his own staff winter coats for warmth. Ultimately, Hosenfeld and his unit surrendered to the Soviets who liberated Poland. Several years after the war, Szpilman learned Hosenfeld (whose name he hadn’t known at the time) was being held by the Soviets. He and others who had been helped by Hosenfeld tried to get him released, but to no avail. Hosenfeld died in a Soviet camp in 1952. In the years since, after stories of Hosenfeld’s acts to help Jews and Poles alike whenever he could, he was honored both by Poland with national recognition and through Yad Vesham who has named Hosenfeld as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Hosenfeld is only one of a handful of Nazi officers to receive such a designation.
The other film was 2016’s Alone in Berlin, which ultimately tells the story of blue-collar Germans, Otto and Elise Hampel, and their treasonous behavior that eventually led to their arrest and death sentence at the hands of the Gestapo. Their story was first told in a 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. In the book and the movie, their names are changed, but the basic plot is based on their Gestapo files. After Elise's brother (their son in the story version) is killed in the war, they begin to write anonymous anti-Hitler and anti-Nazi messages on postcards and leave them in various places around Berlin. While that seems like a relatively tame act of resistance, the story conveys the genuine danger they faced by doing such a thing, a reality reinforced by their torture, conviction, and sentencing. The real-life version is also indicative of the non-Hollywood cost of such treatment. In real life, out of fear from Gestapo pressure, the Hampel’s apparently blamed one another in a desperate attempt to save their lives, although the movie portrays the opposite. I don’t think that giving in to such fears invalidates their choice to resist, however.
For all that we think of peoples from various points in history or particular nations as being monolithic, the truth is that they are obviously not monolithic. It can be challenging to figure out how an entire country appears to condone terrible things, even though we know that it wasn't literally every person that went along with horrible behaviors. We also cannot always understand the fear and pressure that keeps people from risking their lives for others, particularly those they don't know. When the victims are strangers, and out of sight, it's much easier to stay neutral and impassive. It often doesn't hit home until they are face to face with us, or until we hear them play the piano, so to speak, that we realize their full humanity and the value of their life.
Several weeks ago the question was how we could call someone who does terrible things a fine person. Today we might also ask the question regarding a person who has been a part of appalling things has also done wonderful things, at what point are they redeemed? It's not a new question, of course, and it seems there are many facets to potential answers. Ultimately, however, redemption and forgiveness are the landing places for our wonderings. Given the teachings of Jesus, they must be. God seems to weigh our better angels a bit heavier than our worst bits, although repentance is a part of the equation to be sure.
My quest continues. I will never fully understand the width and breadth of human nature. For all my study I will never fully know what causes some persons to act one way while others do the opposite when life and death, good and evil, are on the line. Such things are known to God alone, I suppose. I’m still going to do my best to keep learning though. It’s what I do.
Tom+
O God our heavenly Father, you have blessed us and given us dominion over all the earth: Increase our reverence before the mystery of life; and give us new insight into your purposes for the human race, and new wisdom and determination in making provisions for its future in accordance with your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP p.828