I recently saw some films about people who resisted the Nazis during World War II. Some were Jews who worked with resistance groups to defeat the Germans; others were people who worked to smuggle Jews out of Europe to Palestine. These were brave people who overcame their fears to do very important things, to bring down evil and to save lives. I wonder if I were in their situation would I, could I be as brave.
But perhaps the people who touched me the most were Christians who lived in a small French village, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, whose residents saved the lives of 5,000 Jews during the German occupation. This Huguenot village provided shelter for fleeing Jewish refugees and hit them from the Nazis. The film, first released in the 1990s, shows the aged inhabitants of Le Chambon being interviewed by a mature filmmaker who originally had been born in that village to which his parents had fled. The people of Le Chambon were all very modest and did not think that their actions were extraordinary. They answered that they provided shelter because they believed it was God’s work to do so. Their modest stunned me and gave me renewed hope in the capacity of human beings to do good at a time when evil pervades.
In a talk after the movie, an elderly Jewish man who lived two years in the village during the war said that all the elderly people shown in the movie have since died, and that the village is not the same as it was so many years ago. The children have departed to live in the big cities. And, I thought to myself, what a loss to the world of such people with such Godly values. We are in such desperate need today for such people who carry such love and decency in their hearts. I am thankful to have learned about these people.
What about you? Do you know such kind, good people, too?

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