I never thought that I could feel sorry for a Nazi. But that’s exactly what happened when I watched the movie “The Reader” last year.
“The Reader” tells the story of a woman named Hanna who has a sexual relationship with a boy only 15 years old. Later in the movie, it is revealed that Hanna was once a guard at Auschwitz. She is put on trial for sending women and young girls to their death every week at the camp, and for leaving a group of 300 female prisoners to die in a burning building. It soon comes to light that Hanna was not an anti-Semitist and only worked at Auschwitz not because she was illiterate and ashamed of it. Being a guard allowed her to hide her illiteracy. By the end of the movie, I was shocked with myself for actually feeling sorry for Hanna. Didn’t she work for the Nazis? Didn’t she let innocent people die? Didn’t she seduce a 15-year-old boy? I hate Nazis with a passion, so how could I forget my morals to feel compassion for this woman?
I think that you have to think about such situations by immersing yourselves in that time period, instead of using the present time to judge the past. I say this because while reading Ruined, I also felt conflicted between my morals and my feelings for the characters. For example, I don’t think that it is right for a man to beat a woman. I thought that Fortune was an inhumane bastard when I read that he rejected Salima after she’d been raped. And yet, when he came back, and stood outside in the pouring rain for days just to see her, my heart softened towards him. I kept reading the play, looking for something to make me angry with him again. But when I read that he brought the little black pot with him, I decided that I couldn’t hate him any longer. I also kind of understood why he did what he did when I realized that he had probably been brainwashed by his customs to reject Salima after she was raped. He was (wrongly) taught at that time to reject raped women, so that was exactly what he did.
Don’t get me wrong though, I thought Salima made the right choice. I fought with myself for feeling sorry for Fortune, but I realized that he still did not deserve Salima. He turned his back on Salima in her darkest hour, when she needed him the most. Brainwashed or not brainwashed, he should not have been so cruel to her. I commend him for learning the error of his ways, which not many brainwashed people are able to achieve. It is especially remarkable that he gained this newfound feeling of guilt at a time when all around him, women were being used like pieces of tissue and then thrown aside as trash. I think when you’re surrounded by such wickedness, it grows on you. It takes a very strong person to be able to resist that.
Another morally ambiguous character in this play is Mama Nadi. Mama Nadi is the strong, caring businesswoman. She gives her girls a bed to sleep in, food for their stomach, and a safe place to stay. And then she makes them have sex with men for money. Whaaat??? Mama Nadi runs a brothel and I never would have thought that I could like such a person who did this. However, I liked Mama Nadi. Mama Nadi only does what she does to survive. Why shouldn’t she do things like cheat the soldiers out of coltan? What good have they ever shown her? Besides, what else could Mama Nadi do if she left her brothel- get killed? She could just escape, but then all those girls who come to her brothel would have no where else to go. And the girls are safer with Mama Nadi. She doesn’t take sides and she makes it clear that she’s just running a business, so her clients don’t harm the girls as they would outside the brothel. In this way, Mama Nadi is able to protect the girls in a way that they cannot be protected outside her four walls. Perhaps Mama Nadi understands the girls because she has been through the same things they have.
Mama Nadi does something that helps the girls. But this play made me think, what about people like us? Do we have a responsibility to help these victims now that we know their story? One of my goals when I am older is to do such things. If I thought about such terrible things all the time now though, I think that I would go insane. I even watched a documentary last year about a man who gives tours at a concentration camp and becomes a depressed alcoholic after taking up this job. I probably sound like a terrible person for not taking any action right now, but I do think that people who have the resources (time, money, compassion), should take action. One reason why I want to earn a lot of money when I grow up is specifically so that I can have the time and resources to help victims like these.
Even though I don’t do anything now, though, these women are always in my heart. And I know in my own heart of hearts that I will one day grow up to fight for these women and for everyone else who has been hurt around the world.
