In class today we read a short story called "The Mysterious Major". The story is about a holocaust up- stander named Schmahling. Schmahling was the Nazi occupation governor of the Haute-Loire district (including Le Chambon). Schmahling helped hide Jewish people and gave calls to various districts before the Nazi raids. This was done to alert all the people in danger of being taken away and give them time to hide. Schmahling had a few experiences that led to his choice in helping the Jews and not joining in with the discrimination.
When Schmahling was a teacher, he had an experience with one of his students. He was teaching a class on Lions when one of the boys in his class stood up and said "Yesterday, yes, yesterday I saw a rabbit. Yesterday I really saw a rabbit.", Schmahling looked at the student, angry for interrupting the class, and said "Sit down, you little jackass". Schmahling's actions caused him to crush something inside of himself. I think that Schmahling meant that he crushed his kindness, respectfulness and his good nature. By Schmahling saying this he also crushed the boys freedom of thought and speech. He destroyed this young child's self confidence. The boy may of believed that what he had to say was not worthwhile and not important. This was similar in what the Nazi's were doing to the people they ruled/controlled. The Nazi's made people that they found "not good enough" feel like their opinions and ideas were not worth hearing and that what they had to say was not important.
Wow, reading this I can tell Schmahling was a very considerate person. He also sounds like an interesting person that sometimes speaks before he thinks. He should not have used that language with his student, but on the bright side, it gave him a change in perspective and if that never had happened, he might not have even begun to think about helping the Jews in their time of need. There should have been more people like this man, helping the Jews for they did not deserve to die.
ReplyDeleteI also like how a lot of this relates to people's opinions and freedom of speech, you're right, the Jews didn't get much say in anything. In fact, they couldn't say anything for they could have been severely punished. Most of the time they didn't have to do anything to get punished. I love our you explained this story so well, now I don't really have to read it to know what it's about. It had lots of back drop about the story and I liked that for it gave me an idea on what was really going on.
Awesome job Stephanie! I always enjoy reading your blog posts because they keep me interested. Yay, Go Stephanie!