These questions are rather popular in the media, as evidenced by movies like The Bucket List and songs like "If Today was your Last Day" (Nickelback). But do we really take the message to heart? Or do we just enjoy thinking about these questions in a rhetorical fashion? It seems to me sometimes that the question is taken too lightly or used as a way to judge people as being insufficiently family-orientated.
I watched two movies tonight: Forgiving Dr. Mengele and Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. Both films were about the Holocaust, but took completely different approaches. FDM was a documentary about Eva Kor, an Auschwitz survivor who has "forgiven" the Nazis for the events of the Holocaust, and SSTFD was a drama based on a true story about a young woman in Nazi Germany who got arrested and executed because of her involvement in the White Rose resistance group.
Both movies brought up important questions.
FDM-What is forgiveness? Do we have the authority to forgive? Does forgiveness heal? Is forgiveness more for the benefit of the victim or the benefit of the person who hurt the victim?
SSTFD-Would you have the courage to stand up for your beliefs if you knew you could get in serious trouble? Is there a point where you can turn back or is it better to just accept all of the consequences? What would you want your final words and thoughts to be?
SSTFD was the kind of movie my mother would really enjoy because there were several quotes in defense of humanity. Sophie tells the man interrogating her, "Trucks came to pick up the children at the mental hospital. The other children asked where they were going. "They're going to heaven," said the nurses. So the children got on the truck singing. You think I wasn't raised right, because I felt pity for them? "
SSTFD was the kind of movie my mother would really enjoy because there were several quotes in defense of humanity. Sophie tells the man interrogating her, "Trucks came to pick up the children at the mental hospital. The other children asked where they were going. "They're going to heaven," said the nurses. So the children got on the truck singing. You think I wasn't raised right, because I felt pity for them? "
Oh and I'm really glad American court systems are better than the ones of Nazi Germany.
For more information on the Sophie Scholl movie, please visit http://www.sophieschollmovie.com/
If you want to learn more about Eva Kor's museum, go to http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/
Dear whoever is reading this: Please post any comments you might have!!! :D
How forgiving are you would you say?
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