To Sing Frogs Chapter 34a

Chapter 34

 

What Could Be Done?

 

  “You guys mind if I change the movie?”

The boys laughed. Amy had just sent Jack and the little ones to bed and Disney’s version of Hercules continued to play on the television. We bought that one and several others in Russia so we could switch between languages, hoping it would help Sarah. The bilingual movies didn’t accelerate her learning curve but she did like the English versions. Hercules was her favorite. She enjoyed seeing someone else who wasn’t afraid to take on the world.

The boys spoiled their little siblings and almost always let them choose their favorite animated movies during T.V. time. No one could have been happier for a change of entertainment than they were.

I took the new disk I had hidden behind the player, plugged it into the machine and took a seat next to Amy.

Mike, Cory, and Steve were shocked as they watched the holocaust play out through the eyes of Oskar Schindler. The atrocities were staged in graphic detail and they devastated my sons. Steve, the youngest, cried shamelessly. Mike and Cory wiped tears from their eyes when they thought I wasn’t looking.

The end of the movie showed Schindler’s Jewish business manager presenting him with a gold ring they made out of fillings extracted from the teeth of some whom he had saved. Schindler was distraught. He was sure they could have rescued others if only they had made more money. His business manager assured him, they could not have been more profitable. Consequently they could not have rescued additional people. “What about this?” the Nazi asked, referring to a gold lapel pin. “He’d have given me two more for this. At least one. Surely he’d have given me one!” The business manager remained silent. Schindler’s tears flowed freely as he turned to the car that would whisk him away to safety. “The car… He’d have given me ten more for the car! Why do I still have the car?”

Soon after, the movie ended.

“What was the point, guys?” I asked my sons.

They all remained silent, as did their mother. Her red and swollen eyes looked down at her clasped hands.

“Mike, the movie made a point right at the end. What was it?”

“You can’t save everybody.”

“Your words are true, Mike. You missed the point.”

“Steve, how about you? What was the point?”

“You can always save one more?” Even Steven asked it hopefully, with wide eyes and raised brows. He was not desirous of providing the correct answer as much as he was hopeful that a principle of perpetual rescuing might be possible.

Perhaps Steve could have been correct if only there were infinite resources.

“The point of the movie was somewhere in between you two,” I responded. “Mike is right. We don’t have access to enough resources to save all of them. Steve is right. We want to save everyone. The point of the movie is what Schindler went through knowing he could have saved others. He did more than any other Nazi to save Jews. Eventually he drank himself to death, unable to forgive himself because he knew he could have saved more. That was the point.”

The rest of the family remained silent. “You have heard Mom and me talking. You know that Sarah and Celeste have three older sisters in orphanages. Our family has a choice to make. We can play the part so many German families did and pretend like we don’t know what is happening on the other side of the wall. Or we can decide to do something about it.”

Silence.

“These other girls will be more difficult than the little ones are. They’ve been through a lot more. So—what are we going to do?”

At first there was indecision. Without the older boys help and commitment we didn’t have the resources to do more. They knew that. Their refusal to support the effort would stop it. They understood that too.

“Remember one thing, guys. It could have been those girls sitting here in this room trying to decide if we would give you a chance.”

 

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