Movies on One of The Darkest Moments in Recent Human History

I have watched two magnificent movies worth recommending recently. The background of both the movies was in German during World War II. Both of them show that there is still glory of humanism in the abyss of despair, they also show how easily human's mind can be corrupted by propaganda, be it political or religious, if human fail to think rationally for themselves and lose the curiosity to find out the truth. The price that human have to pay for getting easy, standard answers from a book, a person with authority (but not necessarily honest) or rumours is much too heavy.

When I started learning history in secondary school, I was told that the word "history" comes from "His Story"-- it's all about God's deeds. If that is true, I wonder how Holocaust could ever have happened, whereby 6 million Jews were tortured and masacred, 2-3 million Soviet prisoners of war killed, 1.8-2 million ethinc poles slaughtered, and a few hundred thousands of Romani, disabled, freemasons, gays, Jehovah witnesses exterminated. If I were to read the biography of a great, capable, all-loving, fair and just man, I wouldn't expect this kind of thing to happen under his rulership, let alone an almighty god. A country under a capable ruler would at least let his people have the chance to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity and see their standard of living increases by several folds over the course of development. At least I don't find such tragedy happening in Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew's biography or in the history of Singapore development. Is it really so unfair to expect a bit more than that from an almighty god (if there is one)?

The 1st movie that I watched was Valkyrie, starred by Tom Cruise. Valkyrie is actually an operation to remove Hitler from power by a group of people. The movie explained how and why the assassination of Hitler failed and paid respect to those people who exercised their clear conscience to oppose the brutality and insanity of the Hitler government. The movie is based on a true story, which shows that when the darkness falls, there are still people out there who are alert and not easily fallen prey to the propaganda and dogmatism imposed by the authority through media, books or rumours.

The 2nd movie-- The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas is also fantastic. It tells a story during the Holocaust through the lens of a kid, called Bruno. This movie is based on a bestselling novel by an Irish novelist John Boyne. To me, this movie really brings out the theme-- "curiosity" very well. Kids are arguably the most curious human category. In most cases, they like to ask questions, try out new things and experiment with new ideas. However, as they grow up, their curiosity is suppressed, diverted or flushed away by answers from authority that contain bigotry, lies, biases or inaccuracy. In the movie, Bruno was puzzled and unconvinced by the statements like "All Jews are evil", and guess what his teacher told him? --"You'll become the greatest explorer if you could ever find a nice Jew". The movie is about the encounter of two boys-- an innocent German boy who was curious but was not told the truth and an imprisoned Jewish boy who was tortured in a concentration camp. I must warn that this is not a happy movie as I was weeping uncontrollably throughout the movie-- sad, but reflective of the suffering experienced by the victims in the concentration camp.

Just my 2 cents about these two excellent and meaningful movies. Welcome your comment too if you have watched them.