The Boy in the Striped Pajamas


galtgulch

Recommended Posts

I didn't really want to see this movie which was recommended by a woman who grew up in Germany during the twenties and thirties and lived through the war as a non Jewish German who wished the Allies bombing raids would bomb a building in her town where she knew people were being tortured. When a particular bombing run dropped a long line of bombs but stopped just short of that building she told me she became an atheist.

The movie does require that you suspend disbelief to some extent. It was for me bearably unbearable as my childhood dread of the horrors of Nazi Germany persists. There were touching moments as when the boys hold hands as they face their world together.

We do not learn how things happen after the movie ends. One can only imagine that the mother contrives to poison her husband to death.

I can only hope the movie has a wide audience around the world.

galt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Galt:

When I was teaching at night at Queens College, I saw it from a different set of eyes, one of my adult students who was in his 30's had been trapped at the age of 5 for several days in his home in a German City that was being hammered and reduced to rubble late in the war by our bombers.

He hated Americans and hated me because at the height of the Vietnam War, I was still lauding the hope and future that America represented. All he could carry with him was the horror and fear that he went through at the "hands" of those Americans.

He had no connection or loyalty to Nazism, just to the horrible experiences that he suffered at our hands.

It took me most of the semester to bring him around.

I have heard some amazing stories from survivors of the German insanity.

My good and one of my best friends father was shot in the back of the head and left to die with about 50 other Jews in a field in Germany. A Christian German Doctor from the nearby hamlet found him barely alive and hid him and nursed him back to health.

He connected him to the underground and Mr. Lev, my friends father liberated his wife from one of the death camps. She was pretty much insane for the rest of her life, suddenly exploding in a horrified anger or being reduced to a wailing person in fetal position in the living room of their Queens house, but we all understood and supported his family.

I think I will see this film on your recommendation.

Thanks

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adam,

You know, I was reluctant to even read We The Living, but I did finally.

It is hard to accept the utter innocence of childhood which you will encounter in this movie not to mention the unfathomable evil of those who carried out the unspeakable horrors of genocide and bigotry.

I doubt that those who would ever behave in such a despicable manner are likely to watch this kind of movie. Right now that kind of creature is probably being indoctrinated in some madras in some god forsaken desolate slum while being promised rewards in an afterlife if he or she kills innocent people as we have just witnessed in India.

I wonder what atrocities Obama will encourage us to accept in order to fulfill his altruistic ambitions.

I fear we are in a race against time. Those of us who have grasped in full clarity the philosophical perspective gained from Ayn Rand's works know what is at the root of the evils of our time as well as the antidote.

I should think that a sense of urgency should exist in the souls of those who are attempting to make a movie of Atlas Shrugged. I think the guiding principle should be to dramatize the contrast between the prevailing philosophy and Objectivism enough to prompt viewers to read Rand's books.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is worth seeing but will not really accomplish what Atlas Shrugged on screen might if done well.

Wm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Galt:

I do not know how old you are, but I was born in 1946 and I have been struggling with the refusal to give my ample abilities to be taxed by a State that is going the wrong way since I first read Atlas at 14.

I believe, unfortunately, that we are most likely toast and well past the point of no return on the road to serfdom.

I just do not have much hope, but some hope, that a mass media movie might wake up enough folks.

However, it might be my vision from my 6 decades that is coloring my perception with pessimism. I just do not see individual people having the courage to refuse to submit to the state's authority.

I sure hope I am wrong.

Hope and change, lol that is our future? Hmmm seems like we are surely fucked if that is the rest of the path.

I will e-mail you when I see the film.

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Galt:

I just do not see individual people having the courage to refuse to submit to the state's authority.

Adam

Selene,

I am far more hopeful as time goes by. First of all we have the antidote in the form of Objectivism and Austrian economics. That gives us, to borrow from Ayn Rand herself, the intellectual ammunition to help anyone who is willing to listen to reason an understanding of what is wrong and what is necessary to correct it.

There are more and more of us who thirst for freedom in this country. There are more organizations

think tanks, publications and professors today than there were sixty years ago. I keep hoping to hear more candidates for office engage in dialog which would enlighten the citizenry which is why I support the www.campaignforliberty.com.

The day does not go by in which I tell someone about Atlas Shrugged and the Campaign for Liberty and encourage those who despair to join with us.

My optimism and enthusiasms have led some to suspect that I am a teenager who will grow up and get over it, so I am reluctant to reveal my true age.

galtgulch@charter.net

Edited by galtgulch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now