SAVED BY AN ANGEL

Last night I took in a moving talk by LEON LEYSON,the youngest survivor on “Schindler's List” entitled SAVED BY AN ANGEL. He shared his heart-wrenching story of life in the factory of Oscar Schindler. He was 13 at the time that he was taken into Schinldler's factory as his ticket of freedom from the death camp; he is now 80 years old.

At the centre of his talk was his continual reference to the "humanity" of Oscar Schindler. He spoke of the step-by-step dehumanisation of the Jewish people in his city of Krakow, Poland - from relegation to the back of public buses to Jewish ghettos in their own city, to concentration camps and death camps. Of all the German people (mostly Nazi soldiers) he met after the war began, Schindler was the only one who had life in his eyes - as opposed to the hollow emptiness he saw in all the others.

He spoke of his life's journey to freedom as being a series of fortunate events. In the question period, a woman of faith asked him if all this good luck that he spoke about was not the hand of God. He said that with all the pain and death around him and his family, and for all the other six million Jews that were exterminated, it was too presumptuous to suggest that God had this much favour on him over all these others. I too find it hard to presume that the series of fortunate events that has allowed us to live here in Canada is evidence of God's favour on us, while many believers around the world live in such tragic situations. Diane and I talked about this last night when I returned home, and we agreed that this is something we would like to ask God about in heaven.

There is so much that I could say about the talk. I will just conclude with Mr. Leyson's unhesitating answer to a young boy's question,"What has the world learned from the holocaust?" His answer, "Nothing."