Friday, April 17, 2009

A good lesson

Here's the other side of the "Crimes and Compassion" coin. If it's hard to know what to do with a John Demjanjuk, it is easy to know what to do for an Irena Sendler.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend watching the Hallmark Hall of Fame about her on Sunday, "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler" (9-11 Eastern, on CBS). I don't know if it's any good. But it's a story that I wish more people knew, and almost any way the story is told is for the good. It's the story of the people in Poland who, at great personal risk, worked to save thousands of Jewish children from the ghettos and transportation, and the fate that people like John Demjanjuk would have had in store for them.

I don't really know what justice for a guard at Sobibor would be. But it's easy to say what to do in response to a woman like Irena Sendler: if you are called upon, go and do likewise.

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