A few days later, he sent me a link about an event that happened during WW2, when Hitler was rounding up and exterminating all the Jews he could find. The trains came to a prisoner of war camp that had about a thousand men that were captured. Most were Americans and other allied soldiers, intermingled with assorted Jewish ones. The German guards ordered all the Jews to come forward and be taken away. When the order was given, all 1000 of the prisoners stepped forward and exclaimed...
" We are all Jews "
The camp Commander pulled out his pistol and put it to the lead POW's head, demanding that the non- Jews step back.
He refused to give that order.
Every man standing, held that line. The only reply given by all was
" We are all Jews "
Not wanting to personally execute every single prisoner and be held accountable for war crimes after the war, the base Commander walked away...
This was the first time I'd read about or even heard about this story.
It gave me Hope.
We are a mess, as a species. The majority of our history can be summarized by the relationship between Cain and Abel. Our capacity for good is amazing, given the right heart set, but sadly, we don't see it, ignore it or flat out deny its presence, most of the time....
And in that, we underestimate the most wonderful part of our spirit.
When battle hardened men can see that there is a " right and wrong" and are willing to die for those believing differently, even those whom they hold their own personal predjuces against, maybe, just maybe, we can too...
By being open to what is right, or just flat out refusing to do what's wrong to our brothers and sisters, so different from us...
So similar, also...
I think about a battle that occurred during the first World War.
Across a battlefield a few hundred feet wide, on Christmas Day, the soldiers from both sides stopped throwing grenades and firing bullets at each other, and began volleying Christmas Carols, instead...
It happened that the Americans recognized the melody to one of the songs that the Germans were singing, and began singing along with them in English...
One fellow walked out on the field with no gun, simply singing..
Others joined from the other side.
Soon, both battalions were singing together, sharing food and tending to their own, and the others wounded. They helped each other burying the fallen, from both sides...
They celebrated Jesus, spoke of their families and mourned their dead...
Together...
We can be so much more than what we usually choose to be.
Of course, orders were soon given and that gentle reprieve taken, was soon ended...
Once again we played Cain and Abel.
As we do till this day.
No answers, here.
Just hope.
Naive, stupid, unrealistic hope that maybe we can learn these lessons again, and maybe extend them for a few more days...
If we could stop this nature for twenty four hours, we could stop it for thirty six.
That's almost two days.
Perhaps we are destined to destroy each other in the spirit of hate and persecution. Maybe it is inescapable.. I read the " Book" and it certainly seems to be...
But maybe, in the " in-be tweens" we can learn to stop a few moments and simply love each other, until the "orders" return...
Maybe we can listen to the orders of our own destructive natures, ignore what they compell us to do, and simply step forward in defiance of the dark side of our humanness.
Step forward together and simply say
"We are all Jews"...
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