Most of the fiction I have read in recent years has focused on mysteries and thrillers. Most recently, earlier this week I finished Faye Kellerman's Grievous Sin. But the recent visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC got me thinking about some of the literature that looked at the World War II years and, pardon the cliché, "man's inhumanity to man."
One of the books I saw in the museum shop that day was John Hersey's The Wall, which was first published in 1950. The New York Times described it in part as "the inspiring story of forty men and women who escape the dehumanizing horror of the Warsaw ghetto." I have just begun reading this fascinating historical adventure.
It is crucially important that we remember the tragedies of war and genocide. I would like to believe that remembering the worst moments in history will enable us to become better people and avoid the atrocities of the past. Unfortunately, the years since World War II are rife with examples of just how cruel and inhuman people and governments can behave. But we must remember! We must work toward a time when the atrocities diminish and eventually end.
1 comment:
Although I have not read that book Leon, I think I would like to. I'm not sure if a movie was made years ago along the line of "The Wall" I vaguely remember seeing something like that.
I grew up through the war years as a child, so can remember some of the reports & film footage that came out in the English "Pathe News" at the movie houses.
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