7 3
THE IEWISN nom
Righteous Legacy
Continued from Page 71
much in jeopardy as those
he rescued.
Two examples of unnum-
bered episodes of self-sacri-
ficing rescue behavior. The
acts of righteousness I have
in mind are not impulsive, '
solitary gestures, but ones
involving commitment over
long periods of time and en-
tailing incredible risks. In
every country contaminated
by the Nazis, there were
events of such godliness to
be found. The philosopher
Woodbridge wrote, "There
are times when a man ought
to be more afraid of living
then of dying." Many of
these heroes possessed the
heroism of that fear.
How may such knowledge
help my children? How may
this knowledge contribute
to the moral repair of man,
Jew and non-Jew? For the
Jew who feels the mandate
to recount the Holocaust
years to his child, the record
of non-Jewish self-sacrifices
is of utmost importan& The
acts of these "hasidai umot
ha-olam," these righteous
non-Jews, lend another di-
mension to the revelations
of atrocity. The purpose of
the telling is neither to
sadden, nor frighten, nor
embitter the young, but to
strengthen them with a ma-
ture understanding -of the
human being, his limitations
and his potentialities. The
tale of barbarism is not the
whole story of the Holocaust.
The child and his parents
must come to know the
names and faces of these
valiant non-Jews. Both the
child and his parents are
susceptible to the mythic
curse of• an eternal- hatred
for an eternal people. The
malediction mush be spoken
through with the acts of
righteousness. The sweep-
ing disjunction in the
world— "Them and Us" —
us against the whole world,
falsifies history, cripples
morale, and prejudices our
future. Gentile is not a syn-
onym for German; nor, as
the late President of Israel,
Ben Zvi, taught, is German
synonymous with Nazi.
We must make use of his-
tory to restore a sense of
balance: there is a moral
oYinmetry in man. Memory
can be a healing art, but it
requires skillful uses of
materials at hand. On the
festival eve of Passover, we
eat the bitter taste of the
"maror" herbs, but we
touch it with the sweet-mix-
ture of "charoses." The hard
bread of affliction is not
avoided, but made at once
more palatable when accom-
panied by the wine which
maketh the heart of man to
rejoice.
For the non-Jew, knowl-
edge of the conduct and
behavior of his contem-
poraries who rescued is
equally vital. He who may
be deaf to the sound of ac-
cusation or to the awesome
noise of villainy is more apt
to pay attention to the voice
of heroism. He will be justi-
fiably proud of such nobili-
ty of character in rescue be-
havior as we are proud of
Jewish heroism. He may
even seek to identify himself
with such heroes and such
acts. Once that happens,
significant interplay will be
noted. Once he acknowl-
edges the existence of hero-
ism, he must admit to the
existence of atrocity. There
is no hero without a villain.
The evidence of moral hero-
ism may render more recep-
tive minds shut tight to con-
demnation. "Open for me a
door the size of a needle, and
I will broaden it so that car-
riages can go through." (T.
Berachoth)
Children, their parents too,
are hungry for moral heroes.
The world needs heroes of
flesh and blood, human her-
oes of our time and in our
circumstance, not of an an-
cient period remote from
us. The world needs heroes
whose altruism is lived out
in action; models of exeml
plary behavior who realize
our abstract ideals, human
beings to be emulated.
But will these discoveries
and documentation of heroic
episodes not serve to exon-
erate the guilt of those who
stood idly by? Will they not
function as an apologia for
acquiescence to evil? Quite
the contrary. By their risks
of life and limb, these rescu-
ers offer the most persua-
sive refutation of those who
hide behind the "I-was-just-
a-cog-in-the-wheel" argu-
ment. Here is not theoretical
preaching, or hypothetical
morality—but hard evi-
dence of real acts by real
persons. There was and al-
ways is an alternative to
passive complicity with evil.
Here are case histories of
human beings, who could
find ample rationale to avert
their eyes and plead impo-
tence, but who could not live
the lie.
Wisdom, faith, truth urge
our search to know, record
,
,
•
. A
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