My Brother's Blood [jenna]

The other night I saw a holocaust movie called Everything is Illuminated. It made me cry. Holocaust movies will do that to a person.

The horrors done to the Jews—and whoever helped them—and whoever got in the Nazis’ way at all—outstrips the power of imagination. To read Corrie ten Boom, visit a museum, hear a Jew or someone else close to the situation speak, or hear any description of something that went on during those terrible years is to be moved with grief and a sort of repentance, even if it happened before your birth, as it did before mine.

I wonder what it would have been like to be a German German—as opposed to a German Jew—during that terrible time. Surely not all of them were in favor of Hitler’s ideas; surely, those who dissented did not all hide Jews in their homes; surely, they did not all speak publicly against Hitler and his guns. What would have been the responsibility of someone living out her life in a German town, someone who didn’t know any Jews, who had no real voice with the government?

Was it easy to ignore the situation? Was day-to-day life reasonably secure? Were all average people unwilling to speak the least word against the Nazis, for fear of retribution?

What does it mean, now, to live in a country where it’s legal to take a life merely because it is unwanted, or because its mother was impregnated in circumstances of trauma?

It’s easier to ignore this situation than that of Jews versus Nazis because it’s so hidden. Because the little ones have the same story, all of them, and without the character development that can be drawn up for a remembrance montage on television; their fear is sudden, silent, and then over. It’s easier to ignore this situation because so much of the psychological damage is hidden in the hearts of mothers tormented and burdened by their sense of guilt.

But it is easier to understand, and harder to condemn someone like Pope Pius XII (especially when we look at actual history, and not at the nonsense now often thought of as fact), when we look at what it means to be for the right to life, against abortion in this day.

Our decision of when it’s morally okay to abort a human baby is completely arbitrary; as I’ve heard several people say lately, the unborn can be disposed of silently within yards of a place where round-the-clock personnel and the very best technology are used to save lives at the same stage of development.

In Hitler’s time, speaking or acting against the regime could get a person killed. Nowadays, it just gets you marginalized. You have no voice; you’re labeled as an extremist.

It’s easy enough to marginalize those who criticize abortion as comparable to Nazism; the cold Nazi mentality seems so unlike the presumed compassion of abortion-rights advocacy. But if we actually believe that the unborn are human and alive, regardless of whether we believe in immortal souls, is the comparison really so extreme?

“I want the children”, said Mother Teresa so memorably some years back. She was not the only one who would have cared for the little ones. I will take that ‘unwanted’ baby—I and the thousands and thousands of other women throughout the world who long for motherhood. I will take it regardless of race, gender, or handicap. No child is ever truly unwanted; they’re just arriving at difficult times, and in our country at least, there is help for almost any situation nearly everywhere.

What, then, is my responsibility, living in this land of holocaust? The duty will be different for each person. What is that duty for me?

“God doesn't value people and things like we do. Jonah loved a shade tree more than an entire city of sinful people. We love our dogs more than a terrorist. We love our cars more than a beggar on the side of the road. And sometimes, we love our money more than a child growing in a desperate teenager's womb.

But God isn't like us… His love for us is greater than His love for a plant, an animal, or any other created thing. And the book of Jonah tells us that He loves even the most sinful people and seeks to bring them into His merciful arms. And it's a love that seeks to touch all of his created children: that desperate teenager, the baby growing in her womb, even tyrants and terrorists."
—Dennis DiMauro, Lutherans for Life representative to the National Pro-life Religious Council