Hey everybody-
It was good to see y'all tonight. I wanted to share my thoughts on the film and I hope some of you will want to share as well by commenting here, then we can talk at the beginning of next session after we have had some time to process.
Being a camp counselor for years now, I found the most powerful part of tonight's film the focus on the story of the children. There were lots of issues going on with the adults: the struggle with the feeling that they did nort have a choice to act against the
Nazis, the struggling with the decision of whether to leave France or not when the Nazis took over, some of the French people who expressed hatetred towards the Jews and the others who couldn't care less either way; but what was really powerful for me was seeing all the children, who never did a thing to anyone in their short lives, being treated as animals. At the end of the film, when they were seperated from their parents, I knew right away that that was the end- they were going to be sent to the chambers. Seeing the innocent and naive being treated so immorally was heartbreaking, and watching them being loaded into the trucks and then onto the train was tragic. I could relate in a distant way to the feeling of knowing that you will never see someone again- friends moving away and my grandparents dieing- but the children and parents being seperated to all be exterminated is unthinkable.
The most powerful part for me was at the end of the film when the blond boy found the nurse. Their reuinion was touching and really showed how life is so precious. And then, to see the really little boy with the curly hair, who had by pure chance fallen out of the train and never reached the chambers, survive and be reuinited with the nurse by the couple that had no idea who he was- that was just incredible. I teared up then, thinking about him being so innocent throughout the whole film, not really understanding the gravity of everything that happened around him, and then making it through it all to be finally found by strangers and by fate brought to find the nurse who had cared so much for him and the others throughout their whole ordeal. I don't know what else to say, but that's what was really incredible about this film for me.
If anyone else wants to share their thoughts on the film, please do by commenting below.
