By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
Some time back, I was browsing You Tube after a harrowing experience answering a single module. The title was surprising as it read “Humanizing Hitler”. The video was based on the movie “Downfall” based on a true story I remember making a review of for one of our subjects last year. The movie focused on the German perspective on the latter part of the second world war when the tides had turned and the Nazis received defeat after defeat, from the Communists to the east and the Allies to the west.
I didn’t think much of it at first, just another good movie, I thought. But after reading that title, it made me look back on the film. And it certainly did humanize the Fuhrer. From the first scene when Adolf was late for his meeting of candidates for a secretarial job, he did not fit the dictator stereotype. Instead, he was late because he was busy with his dog. And when the candidates made mistakes, he did not resort to anger but showed a forgiving nature instead.
Not just anger and forgiving, the movie showed Hitler emitting multiple emotions. From anger to happiness, frustration and sadness, the movie did not portray him as a tyrant. Rather a human, a person with multiple emotions.
I had not watched many movies at that point so the format and the content of the movie seemed strange to me. After all, movies with dictators as the center pieces were scarce in my library of films watched.
Yet, Hitler’s evildoings were not absent in the film. He was still a dictator and rewarded child soldiers for their supposed bravery and service.
Eventually, the Soviets reached Berlin, and the Allies shortly. Hitler was found dead with his wife and dog in a bunker. History as we know it became reality.
However, when there’s darkness there is light. Under the immense tyrannical shadow cast by Hitler’s reign there was Schindler. The man which the movie “Schindler’s List” (a true story) was based on. His list included Jews numbering over a thousand who were saved from the holocaust. An act of which one man is responsible for, Oskar Schindler.
Hitler and Schindler were humans. Humans are capable of being saints that can rival angels and sometimes, get transformed into the devil himself.
Being good or evil is our choice. We are not immune from the factors that made Hitler a tyrant. Nor are we capable of being saints that would be worthy of a spot in heaven.
The human heart is fragile, easily broken by external and internal forces. But we must always remember, our fragile heart has an ability bestowed upon by God Himself. The ability to change. We can be holy for years and instantly turn to become a devil. And from scum we can elevate ourselves to a person worthy of respect. Change cannot be given and received. Change is created. And from within, it transforms us inside out. Whether that change will bring goodness or wickedness into the world is up to us to decide.**
