Linda,
there’s an interesting Polish film called Dekalog, whihc looks at the ten commandments and shows how they work, or fail to work, in modern society.
The commandment Thous shalt not bear false witness is the theme of one of the hour-long films about a catholic woman who was presented with a Jewish girl in hiding from the Nazis in occupied Warsaw. The girl’s parents sought to pass her off as a Catholic, but the woman turns her away because she would be breaking the commandment on false witness.
The film opens with the Jewish girl, now a grown American woman, visiting the university in which the Catholic Professor teaches ethics. It’s a deeply moving film, and makes you think about things more deeply (as do the other nine films).
I would hope that if I had been in that situation, I would have taken the girl in and brazenly given false witness to the SS when they called around, making the sign of the cross over the girl’s head and smiling at the Germans as though I were totally on their side in the hunt against Jews.
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