I showed this movie to the group I subbed for all week today. I'd seen it before and believed it taught a vital lesson.

I've told students before that you one does not have to like someone to treat them decently. This movie is a grand example of what happens when people stop doing this.

The German people were convinced that "the jew" was their enemy, the cause of betrayal and the defeat of Germany in world war 1.  In the motion picture one of the main characters tells his young son that jews aren't really people, and insinuates that, in order to make a better world, they need to be eliminated.  And being the commandant of a concentration camp, he makes it his business to make sure this happens.

The young son meets a young jewish boys resident of the camp and strikes up an unlikely friendship. Neither he nor has mother particularly buy into the "final solution."  Neither does the paternal grandmother who, they say, is mysteriously killed in a "bombing raid."  They didn't say, but I am left with the notion that her demise was due to other causes and to her politics.

Not all Germans approved of Hitler or the Nazis.

The words and attitudes displayed throughout were chilling and I sense a similar outlook on the loose now in this country.

Westboro Baptist would execute homosexuals in a moment, if they could.  Some preachers have openly advocated it in other places.

I will readily admit that I am not always comfortable with either Jews or homosexuals, but no way would I ever advocate harming or sanctioning them. Nor do I have the right or the inclination to judge them.

Truth.