Giving thanks for the miracle of survival

[Steely Dan]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/26/giving-thanks-for-the-miracle-of-survival/?hpt=hp_t1


(CNN) - Leon Gersten could not bear to watch “Schindler’s List,” the movie about Czech industrialist Oskar Schindler who saved 1,200 Jews from Nazi extermination camps. It was too painful for the Holocaust survivor, too close to reality.

But now, almost 70 years after his village in Poland was liberated by the Soviet army, Gersten is meeting the man who is the Oskar Schindler of his own life: Czeslaw Polziec.

Like Schindler, Polziec is Catholic. His family secretly sheltered Gersten in rural Poland for two years during World War II.

As though such a reunion between survivor and rescuer were not emotional enough, this one is taking place Wednesday on the eve of Hanukkah, which coincides this year with Thanksgiving. Two celebrations of gratitude....

 

[Steely Dan]

From the article;

...One night, Nazi collaborators raided the farm and heard the footsteps of Gersten’s family scurrying into the bunker. They questioned Stanislaw Polziec, who blamed the noise on children in the attic. The collaborators beat Stanislaw, bloodied him without mercy. Gersten could hear the Polziec family’s screams. Still, the Polziecs did not betray the Jews....

 

[Reader]

Wonderful, moving story, thanks for posting, Steely.

I believe there were many unknown stories of courage like this from that war.

 

[Herding Cats]

Yes, there are many and many again of stories where folks hid others, both Jew and non-Jew but wanted, alike. There was a lot of humanity in the midst of the worst imhumanity the world has ever encountered.

It reminds me that flowers grow without fanfare, and wither the storm, and bloom...that kindness is done a million times each and every day, whether we see it for that or not...and that kindness, that kindness is what allows us to keep loving and hoping and doing the right thing.

Even in the midst of hell, God is still present.

Best-
Herding Cats