Suffer the Little Children

Elberon, NJ April 30, 2000
Aaron H. Schectman

THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

I don't know why the image of little children suffering is so much more
horrific than the suffering of other age groups. Last Friday night Temple
Beth Miriam had as a guest a man when a child of ten had survived the
concentration camps in Germany during World War II. These were notorious
but their existence is denied by some. Many of the young of today have been
spared the images of uniformed prisoners of these camps who committed no
other crime than being of a different race, religion or political belief.
Our speaker was in a special group that was treated differently.

They were no less hungry, no less lice ridden, and no less spared as slave
laborers. Because their parents were "others" they were punished by
soldiers and workers of the Nazi philosophy and, in the end, most were
exterminated as though they were insect pests.

I had never heard the intimate stories of children in the death camps. We
all know the story of Anne Frank who wrote of her experiences while hiding
from the fate suffered by this survivor. He, too, lived as a refugee from
Germany in Holland and knew Anne Frank. He was spared because of the
courage of an uncle who appealed to the commandant of the camp to consider
his niece and nephew as members of a unique group who were to be deported to
Palestine. The death sentence was delayed and then pronounced on even these
fortunate ones when the approaching armies of the Allies caused desertions
among the guards at the trains and camps which functioned as designed almost
to the last day of the war.

I don't know why the suffering of children resonates with so many of us.
The philosophy seems to be, protect and love them until they grow up and
then cease caring and let them take their chances. We haven't yet learned
how to prevent the wars that followed the Holocaust. Remember the fight for
the independence of Israel? Then there were Korea, Viet Nam, the Gulf War,
Barbados, Afghanistan and the ones in Europe, Kosovo and Chechnia. This
terrible record is one where the people of one country have tried to
annihilate their neighbors in another. Suffer the poor people. Carol's
Evaluation: 10 out of 10