Paladin5150

8/10

Three minutes of a grainy black and white and color movie, are all that could be salvaged from a roll of deteriorating film, found in a dusty attic, forgotten by the photographer, but discovered by the photographers grandson. Within those three minutes, we see glimpses of 150 or so faces, mostly of children, along with a sprinkling of adults, laughing. smiling, mugging, and clowning around for the camera, which at the time, was a never before seen marvel in this small Polish town. Home movies, taken by an American, on a European vacation to remember where he had come from. Never could any of them have imagined that less than two years later, all but a few of those filmed would be evicted from their homes, rounded up and beaten like cattle, crammed into the very Synagogue pictured in the background. Then, those who had not already died or been executed, were shipped off to die at a place called "Treblinka" in the burgeoning of what was to be known as the "Shoah" or more common parlance, "The Holocaust". Three minutes..., a 180 second glimpse into lives unfulfilled, destroyed by the unbridled hatred and demonic appetites of despicable EVIL men, as well as the cooperation and disregard of the thousands of complicit "citizens" who watched, and often mocked, jeered and laughed aloud, as their former neighbors were marched to their doom. They were quick to ransack the homes of the displaced of any valuables, or, would simply be given their neighbors homes, as a reward for their complicity. Three minutes..., a minute glimpse at the calm before untold numbers of people from a multitude of backgrounds lost their sense of reason, their innocence, and their humanity May we never forget, and may it never happen again. Shalom!