DAY 60 (Dec 1) The Pianist

We continued watching the Pianist today.  Some of the points we discussed include:

Judaism vs. Being Jewish - we made the point that generally religious affiliation is a choice, albeit a choice often made by parents for their children early in life based on family tradition or regional/cultural/social norms. In the case of the Holocaust, Jews were targeted by the Nazis not so much for a religious affiliation, although this was obviously part of the story, but for what the Nazi's called racial inclusion, that is, Jews were Jews by birth and nothing could change that.  Therefore they were of an inferior race, according to Hitler, and thus should be eliminated because of the harm that the Nazis said Jews were responsible for in Germany and the rest of Europe.  I pointed out the statistic that in 1939 Europe's population was approximately 0.5 percent "Jewish" - it does not stand to reason that such a small proportion of the population could be responsible for the harms for which they were accused by the Nazis.

Instilling Fear - one of the strategies used in any conflict is to instil fear into the local populations.  In this case the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were witness to daily killings at the hands of the Nazis which frightened everyone and decreased their sense of control over their own lives.

What Can Be Done About Injustice? - we discussed the fact that under the Nazis it was extremely dangerous to resist or comment or mount any kind of resistance, therefore most of those witness to injustices were helpless to change the situation.  Hopefully by witnesses some of these atrocities in a film like this you are more willing to stand up for injustices anywhere in the world - in Canada we have freedom of speech and association and it is, generally, very safe to stand up for what is right in a free country like ours.

Family - near the end of today's viewing we witnessed the death of Szpilman's family - he was rescued at the train transfer station while the rest of his family was sent on to Treblinka, an extermination camp in occupied Poland.  Every Jew today has family that was killed during WWII.  Yesterday I recounted a time when I met Spilman's daughter after she commented on a piano player's playing of a particular song that her father played often when she was a child, that is, Szpilman himself.  He was this woman's father.