Lamp of Love under the Nazi Shadows

 

There is crime and there is punishment. The crime, full stop. A lethal abstract. It cannot be reversed. It's a criminal act spinning out of hate, lust and greed, and all the wrong colors of the soul. Punishment cannot right the wrong. There is hardly any redemption. Punishment is a poor instrument of deterrence, and most often it fails even in that.

Going above the man-made instruments of punishments, we have the divine system of justice. For crimes, where the man-made system of justice fails to deliver redemption, we expect the divinity to set it right. But what of mass crimes? What of Nazi Holocausts, communist purgings, and religious, ethnic and racial genocides? The equation of right and wrong loses its meaning. These are the black holes. They suck any semblance of justice. It spins in its own gory world of hate and blood. No light of justice escapes. It's just a dark monolith, a crime. A massive wrong.

Forget about mankind's justice, even the wildest stretch of faith in divine redemption fails to get even an iota of justice. Does it mean that the mass crime stands unredeemed? Forever. Does it just keep casting its shadows over the present, creeping into the future, almost forever? Just hopelessly waiting to be redeemed. And forgotten finally. Or forgiven more suitably.

There seems to be no answer. But there is a possibility of a full stop. Love and forgiveness. It leaves the whole equation redundant. It nullifies the vectors of hate that were otherwise casting their shadows till eternity. Well, only till there arrives the ultimate checkmate: Forgiveness. And forgiveness comes only from a loving heart.

Take some time to read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. To me it sounds like a song of humanity amidst mass crime. A ray of hope for the lost. Redemption for the innocent millions who were wiped out because they attracted the greatest affliction of the human mind, someone's unchecked hate. A tale of a small lamp of love under the furious winds of hate and lust for power in Nazi occupied France during the Second World War.

France is virtually menless. Almost all the men are in prison. The women hold the baton of life. They have to keep love alive in their wombs. It's loss and loss everywhere. And monstrous brutalities. They have to hide fistful of love, humanity and forgiveness deep inside their tortured selves. It will be required to rebuild life after the devastation. All major destruction is caused by the criminal acts of men. It's for the women to pick up the scattered pieces and again make a home for the men, for a husband, for parents, for children, for brother, for sister, for everybody in fact. These deeds stand out as a eulogy for womanhood. Beyond blood and death, you see the sun of love rising.

It's a dark cloud hanging over, taking their smiles away. They are wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and lovers. But only in memory. The males who define them as such are missing. They have to survive alone. When they can no longer fight to save their bodies, they fight to save their souls. For future. For the victory of humanity over monstrosity. For their men. To give them fresh lease of life, food, shelter and the strong love of a woman, if at all they return after the war.

Forget about redemption. The survival of love in a woman's heart for her man, despite all the wrongs to her body in his absence, is far better a right than millions of wrongs committed by criminal souls. It is here that the question of redemption becomes irrelevant. Like a small lamp drives away millions of particles of darkness with its tiny flicker, the women of France keep the torch alive. They hold the beacon of hope, of love, of a possibility to restart life in the times to come. They keep their treasure of love bound by an urge to relive the moments that sound farther than the wildest dreams. In the backdrop of Nazi holocausts, they move silently, unheroically, carrying love in their eyes, hopes in their laps and seeds of humanity in their womb. Such stories help us in being a still better human being, a more loving person.

Such stories reaffirm the power of love. They teach the lesson of love and rejuvenation. Read more of such stories for they help us in recalling the true nature of our essentially loving self. They reinvigorate the feeling of love. 

William Shakespeare: “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”

Well, the great bard has no doubts about love. Lesser mortals like you, me and anyone around are safe in following Shakespearean belief.