I am reading this book. I found it completely by random. I hadn't heard of it; it isn't on a bestseller list. It should be, not because of the writing quality or eloquent style. It should be a best seller so people would read it:)
It is a simple story of a young girl who's family fled Hitler's Germany for the slums of Shanghai. The author is Ursula Bacon. She and her mother and father escape Germany in 1939. The only country open to Jewish refugees at the time was China. In China's ghetto, along with 18,000 other refugees, they spend the next 6 years surviving. The story has it's shocking horrific scenes that leave the reader wishing they could tell themselves this is fiction. Oh! The retched evil that passes through the hands of men brought from the hatred they allowed to build in their heart. DEPLORABLE!! But as is true of the law of relativity, for every despair there is a hope. Ursula and her family posses hope. Their situation is made bearable by hope. Their hope, the thing that kept them looking onward and forward to tomorrow, the hope they held on too that held back depression and pushed away despairing of life, the hope that keeps their chins up and their shoulders square. That hope, that hope is in the great nation of the United States. They hoped in AMERICA!! America the great savior of the world! America the strong, faithful and just. America who wouldn't sit back and let the evil of Hitler, Mussolini, or Hirohito invade the world. America the Hero. It was through this story, the eye of these Jewish refugees that I looked with a new perspective on our nation and these historic events and it will be with these new glasses that I will now judge our actions as a people group going forward, our role in world events. I hate war! I hate death. I hate pain. I hate suffering. I hate evil!!! And with so much killing and death..war it kills the innocent and the guilty, but there are things that are worth fighting, dying and yes (big gulp) killing for. Do I understand the whys of war? No I do not. But I understand hate when I see it acted out from one man to another. I understand that there are times you can not afford not to fight. It is at those times and for the right reasons, fighting is necessary.
So when the last paged turned and I closed the book, I sat back and adjusted my new lense. The ones I would now pick up and put on when the time came again to look a my country through eyes of others. They fit well and I felt a swell of pride. I am proud to be an American and I am thankful that for that moment in history when the nation of which I draw my heritige was a nation that was looked to for hope, courage and justice. America, I am proud of you. We have stumbled, there are things in our history that we should not be proud of but let us not forget to remind ourselves and children that there are things that our nation did and does that we can be proud of!
America the land of the free and the home of the brave and the hope of many!!
