Holocaust and Schindler's List

The Holocaust was an unneeded departure of nazis and jews that should never be forgotten. There were few people that would help in hiding the troubled and beaten jews. Ordinary French farmers and shopkeepers risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Holocaust in the largest communal effort of its kind in Europe. What they did has been largely ignored and forgotten. Targeting and deporting Jews was considered patriotic, but residents of Chambon refused to follow this nonsense. They instead fed, clothed, and housed Jews; sanctioned an industry of false passports and identity papers; and developed an underground railroad to Switzerland. "Why would we ever want to forget the only people who remembered the Jews during the Nazi plague?" asks historian Patrick Henry, author of the recent work, "We Only Know Men." Mr. Henry's title is taken from the response of Chambon pastor Andre Trocme, who, when asked to identify Jews in the town, told Vichy officials that, "we don't know Jews, we only know men."

Save the popular film "Schindler's List," little attention has been given to Europe's rescuers. Jewish survivors haven't wanted the Holocaust itself reduced in scope. French rescuers were often lumped into the resistance. Yet fighting Nazis often had little to do with saving one's Jewish neighbors. "Jews" are normal people just like everyone and didn't deserve to be hauled away to live in tiny buildings and such. They shouldn't have had to hide in houses to stay alive and they shouldn't have had been killed for no apparent reason. In "Schindler's List", people were just shooting jews and nazis at random. Schindler himself just sat back and watched the chaos and stupidity of disgust going on in the streets and just sat back and collected his money. He began to realize the nonsense of the situation and it changed his view on money and the Holocaust in general.