So the other day I was watching "The Nazi Officer's Wife" (yes eons after everyone else) and I found the story so very sad. Even though the main storyline was fairly strange albeit interesting (probably why they made a movie of it in the first place) my points of concern were 2: (and here I issue a spoiler alert)
To remind you, the woman was living happily in Austria before the war broke out. But just before it did, they had an inkling that it might. In fact if I remember right, it was the day before all went to hell that her sisters got on a train and moved to safety's. She stayed on. Why you ask? What would make a woman risk her all? Yes you guessed it right, a man. The woman was in love with a man. A man she thought all wonderful and who had promised her that he would protect her and always be there for her. The selfish bastard was aware of the fact that she was not moving because of him. Probably encouraged it; putting her safety in his hands. And what does the idiot do when it matters? What does he do when shit has well and truly hit the fan? He not only turns his back on her, but does it by hiding in the folds of his mother's skirts! (He was partly jewish and his mother had ensured that all his papers hid that fact - this mother apparently ensured that he had nothing to do with his love). (Grow a spine!)
Abandoned and alone (her mother who had been the other (although lesser) reason she'd stayed on had been sent to a camp) our protagonist risks life and limb in traveling to Munich where she sets up a life for herself. Here she meets another man (a Nazi Officer - hence the title) who within the span of a week or two proposes. She is turmoiled for what can she do? How is she to accept the proposal yet she embodies the very antithesis of his beliefs? How is she to deal with the loneliness she carries in her heart? So what does she do? The Jewish woman who has through the grace of God escaped certain death in a refugee camp through fake documents purporting her to be Aryan confesses the secret of her identity to a Nazi Officer. As she is loved by God, the man keeps her secret and the story goes on (they get married and even have a kid during the height of the 2nd World War).
Women, what is wrong with us? What is this thing called love that pushes us to go against every grain of reason in our beings? Why do we risk so much for the ones we love (regardless of whether the love is reciprocated)? Why can't we learn to do things in good measure? That for me was the teaching of Edith Han's story. That and that we must pray and trust in God.
