I suspected you weren't into the whole "It's all God's plan!" idea, but figured I'd throw it out there as an example of people sometimes trying to put a happy spin on things. Really, I figured you meant more what you said--it's like, why am I reading this story? There has to be some kind of transformation even if it's a small one.
It's weird because of course the Holocaust is a huge weight to drop into any conversation but this post made me think of this movie I just loved that was a documentary about these two guys, one of which was in a Communist labor camp after having escaped to England in WW2. The other guy had spent his adolescence in Auschwitz. I just loved this second guy. He was like...he was just so great. Anyway, he would always make these comments on life being absurd that could be cynical maybe but they totally weren't because he obviously saw all this potential in the absurdity. Like he was showing the cameras these train tracks nearby what used to be a labor camp. He had been in the camp before he was sent to Auschwitz and he was proudly saying, "This is my work! I made these tracks!"
He starts talking about how train tracks are so wonderful because they make him so happy. The other guy walks buy and says with great conviction, "They mean freedom," (because he got away on a train, of course). He agrees that yes, they're freedom, but it's more like this possibility that you are here now but you could be somewhere else, that there are other places in the world to go on them that could be better etc. They remind you there's always someplace other than where you are. And when he finishes the interviewer says, "Where do the tracks go?"
And he smiles and says, "They go to Auschwitz." Then he adds what he usually says to explain his musings, "I am one stupid Jew."
You can see why this guy was like my hero. He was just always seeing life as chaos and people making order in the chaos and his universe kept turning out exactly the opposite of a way that would be described as just that just made it all the more great for him.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-10-03 07:09 pm (UTC)It's weird because of course the Holocaust is a huge weight to drop into any conversation but this post made me think of this movie I just loved that was a documentary about these two guys, one of which was in a Communist labor camp after having escaped to England in WW2. The other guy had spent his adolescence in Auschwitz. I just loved this second guy. He was like...he was just so great. Anyway, he would always make these comments on life being absurd that could be cynical maybe but they totally weren't because he obviously saw all this potential in the absurdity. Like he was showing the cameras these train tracks nearby what used to be a labor camp. He had been in the camp before he was sent to Auschwitz and he was proudly saying, "This is my work! I made these tracks!"
He starts talking about how train tracks are so wonderful because they make him so happy. The other guy walks buy and says with great conviction, "They mean freedom," (because he got away on a train, of course). He agrees that yes, they're freedom, but it's more like this possibility that you are here now but you could be somewhere else, that there are other places in the world to go on them that could be better etc. They remind you there's always someplace other than where you are. And when he finishes the interviewer says, "Where do the tracks go?"
And he smiles and says, "They go to Auschwitz." Then he adds what he usually says to explain his musings, "I am one stupid Jew."
You can see why this guy was like my hero. He was just always seeing life as chaos and people making order in the chaos and his universe kept turning out exactly the opposite of a way that would be described as just that just made it all the more great for him.