My "word" for this year is "do". My goal was to stop thinking about things I want to do and start doing them.
So.
One of the things I have intended to become a part of is the book club which meets monthly at our local library. I attended one meeting a few years ago and really enjoyed it, but I never made it back. February is going to be my month to get involved.
Then I found out the book to be discussed. This one.
I DID NOT want to read this book. I taught 8th grade language arts for years and part of the curriculum was The Diary of Anne Frank. This was the most important thing we read all year, in my opinion, so we spent about a month learning all about the time period and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during this time. We watched movies, researched, read fiction, and nonfiction and every year I cried.
How could people treat each other the way the Nazi's did?
How could so many normal German citizens turn a blind eye to the unbelievable horror?
How could the government leaders have brainwashed a whole society?
The whole topic makes me so very, very sad and gets my worry top spinning. There are people in the United States ready to give up their freedoms, singing the praises of socialism. It makes me sick.
Well, I gathered up my courage, downloaded the book, and started reading. For the last 3 days, I have been immersed in Germany during WW2.
And I have cried.
And been nauseous.
And shaken my head at man's inhumanity to man.
The book was good, and I learned more about the time period from the perspective of the common German.
Many of them were between a rock and a hard, hard place.
