PBS Masterpiece’s current series, World on Fire, is a riveting and disturbing story of the lives of European civilians during World War II. It opens with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and quickly expands geographically to introduce viewers to civilians in France, England, and Germany itself. Those caught up in the war respond in various, sometimes conflicting, ways to the chaos around them. It is not difficult to feel the emotional anguish of ordinary people forced to make decisions they never dreamed they would have to make.
We have been watching World on Fire since it began, and we intend to continue. But it is not easy to watch, not only because of its unsettling storylines, but also because of our own COVID-19, pandemic-ignited, “world on fire.” Of course, the pandemic’s dislocation of so much that we thought was secure is nothing like the absolute destruction of everything at the hands of the German army. But as I watch I cannot help but wonder what lies ahead for me and for us all in the face of a virus’s invasion of our ordered lives and times. World on Fire touches and heightens my daily sense of unease.
The ruthless cruelty of the Nazi-driven German military and bureaucratic apparatus challenges all humane impulses. In one scene, the doctor in charge of tearing “unfit” children away from their parents to be killed justifies what he is doing in the name of science. I wince…how science can be misused to make evil look good! Yet how dependent upon science we are for our survival in this world.
When I hear and see reports of people carrying hateful signs about Jews and others, or displaying swastikas, I wonder if they really know what demons they unleashing upon the world, what suffering they are inflicting. Maybe, I think, they just don’t understand, or perhaps they don’t intend to be that cruel or heartless…surely they would stop short of a 21st century “final solution.”
I would like to think they do not know what they are doing, but I know better. I wonder what it is like to live by hate.
