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Monday, 8 April 2013

hitler - the ultimate revenge?

if you can forgive the mother pride, sharing a bit of my child's wisdom.
a few years ago, it was the first time i had to explain the holocaust to Y. i think he was probably about 5 or 6. i gave him an edited version, as one would tell a child that age, drawing heavily on his prior knowledge of the purim story. when i finished, he asked what Hashem did to hitler to punish him. i said that at the end of the war, he killed himself. and i waited for him to respond that that was not really fair.
instead Y said 'that';s so stupid! what a stupid thing to do, to actually kill yourself! that's a big punishment.'

it's funny. lots of people 'complained' when arafat died of natural causes, and maybe also complain that hitler didn;t suffer as he should have. but sometimes children see things more clearly than adults do. To Y, at age 5-6, the idea of ending your own life is a very big punishment.
(pls note this is not a comment on any other people who may have killed themselves.)

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