Friday, June 08, 2007

HATE is EVIL...

I could not sleep tonight so I watched Oprah from Wednesday. And I am sitting here in tears...She had stories of hate....one was a young gay man between to almost death as a teenager who ended up working for the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Who ran into the man who did the beating. He was white aryan who changed his ways and works at the Museum as well. And how they forgave each other and now lecture together.

But the story that left me in tears was the story of 2 women. One was a holocaust survivor and one was the daughter of a Nazi General who killed thousands of Jews. The Jewish woman worked in Monica's father's house for 20 months. Monika found out that Helen was alive and wrote her letter. She wanted to ask for forgiveness. They met in Krakow, Poland for the first time. I think I had tears and cried through the whole piece.

Monica learned how dangerous her father was from the movie Schindler's List and it touched home for me.

See my great great uncle was on Schindler's List but we did not find out till the movie came out. By that time my uncle was in his 90's and did not get out much...so one of is great niece's wrote a letter to Steven Speilberg about him. Well, he sent a representative to my uncle's house with the movie so he can watch it.

They went back to the home were Helen spent 20 months in the house as this evil man's slave starting at the age of 14. She would hear shots from the house this man was shooting innocent people in the streets just because they were Jews. Helen said she felt like she was there all those years ago...

At the end she said Hate is evil and we need to work past and forgive. With out forgiveness there will be always be hate.

And then they did a test at the end on how you respond to words and different colors of people......The Prejudice Test.

An Oprah that should not be missed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh Dori. I must admit that I missed most of this show. I did glance here and there but I was so busy finishing....or trying to finish, what turned out to be a more difficult blog build.

Hate is ugly.

The things people have endured in the past, and still experience today....are awful.

I don't understand how some cultures can treat certain members of their community like garbage. I can't even begin to grasp the motivation behind ethnic cleansing. I have a copy of Schindler's list, I was required to buy it for a college course the year it came out. It was the most difficult thing I ever saw.

I remember watching stories and reading books about Anne Frank...and they always made me so sad.

The things humans are capable of doing to others baffles my mind. I just don't understand it.

I can't imagine knowing relative, or friends that actually experienced the wrath of Hitler, but I can only say how amazed I am with their strength, with their determination to survive. I'm sure it wasn't easy, not even after the whole thing ended. The nightmares and memories of those awful camps...oh, it's so sad so sad to think about.

Hugs to you and Aviva this morning. I'm so sorry I haven't had more time to comment, but I do read often. I have been so busy with my family and work.

Much love to you Dori...have a fabulous Friday. Call me sometime, I'm almost always here.

xo