What Can the Stories of Resistance During WWII Teach Us Today?
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What Can the Stories of Resistance During WWII Teach Us Today?
In 1963 political thinker Hannah Arendt coined the term “Banality of Evil” to describe how evil can flourish when good people “do their job” or “follow orders” and others simply look away. Today, almost 80 years since the end of World War II, interest in the subject is as great as ever, both among scholars and in the world of literature and film-making.
The Intertops casino bonus explores several heart-wrenching films which were based on true people and real events that show the bravery of those who resisted the Nazis and, at great personal risk, stood up for what was right. Some of the best films include:
Resistance
Many people are familiar with the great French mime artist Marcel Marceau who dazzled audiences worldwide with his performances in pantomime. Few people are aware that Marceau's introduction to the “art of silence” came when, as a Jew and a member of the French Resistance, he led groups of Jewish orphans towards Switzerland, often performing for the frightened youngsters in mime in order to keep them quiet and calm.
Resistance focuses on Marceau but the storyline covers the terror and horrors of the Nazi occupation of France. Many of Marceau's resistance colleagues are caught, tortured and executed. There’s significant French collaboration with the occupying Nazi forces which endangers Marceau, the resistance fighters and the young children who they are trying to save. The film doesn’t minimize the role of The Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie, who pursues the escaping Jews as diligently as any Nazi
When the Americans liberated France, Marceau went to work for the American army as a translator (he spoke fluent French, English and German) and as an entertainer for the American troops. American General George Patton said of Marceau, "incredible story... of one of those unique human beings that makes your sacrifices and your heroism completely worth it."
Defiance
Defiance tells the amazing true story of the Bielski brothers, Tuvia, Asael, Aron and Zus who, in 1941, fled the Nazi killing machine and escaped into the Naliboki forest where they encounter other Jews who had escaped. They establish a community of resistance fighters and over time, their group grows, with the young and strong sheltering the elderly, women and children.
As the years go by the group faces starvation and disease. The brothers split up for a time but regroup. Their focus remains on hindering the Nazi war effort whenever and wherever possible and, despite problems with supplies and the ability of such a large group to stay and move together, they manage to become a significant thorn in the side of the Germans in Belarus.
The film focuses on the struggles of the group during the first years of the war but in an epilogue, we learn that the group grew to 1200 Jews who established a school a nursery and a hospital in the forest. Three of the Bielski brothers survived and emigrated to the United States. They spoke little of their wartime experiences but today, descendants of the people that they saved numbers in the tens of thousands.
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler is the film adaptation of a number of books written about a young woman who, at great risk to her own life, traveled into the Warsaw Ghetto, where many of Poland’s Jews had been herded and were living in appalling conditions, and smuggled out children. Sendler, posing as a nurse, managed to enter the ghetto daily and, on her way out, would be carrying a baby in a bag or pushing a wagon with children huddled underneath the blankets on top.
Sendler would drug the children to keep them quiet on the way out and then, from her house, would place them with families who agreed to shelter them until the war’s end. Sendler kept track of all of the children’s names and placements on slips of paper that she placed into a glass jar as she hoped that she would be able to reunite the families after the war.
Sendler was captured by the Nazis and tortured in the Gestapo jail but she didn’t give up any names of the children, the foster families or of her resistance colleagues. She was sentenced to be executed but the Resistance was able to smuggle her out of the jail and she spent the remainder of the war in hiding.
Weapons of the Spirit
The story of Le Chambon, a village in southern France, where the entire population banded together during the Second World War to save Jews, is told in Weapons of the Spirit. Le Chambon is a Protestant town in a largely Catholic area and the history of the persecutions that French Protestants suffered over the years may well have affected their willingness to defy the Nazis in their efforts to rescue fleeing Jews.
Regardless, led by their minister André Trocmé, over 5000 people who were fleeing the Nazis – most of them Jewish children – were given shelter and as much protection as the town could offer. They hid the refugees during Nazi raids, provided them with false identity papers and involved them as much as possible in the life of the town so as to avoid suspicion.
André Trocmé and his assistant, Edouard Theis were arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and after their release, they were forced into hiding themselves. When later asked to explain their actions, village residents almost unanimously replied that there was no choice but to do what was right in the eye of God.
