Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Czech Story

I believe Czechs are a very special, unique nation. Not necessarily in a good way. We have been conquered several times and had our share of collaborators. Only very few people have survived without a peck of dust on their soul (or reputation).
One movie says it all. In "Musime si pomahat", there is no positive (good) Czech character. The story goes like this:
Czech family (Marie and Josef Cizkovi) agrees to hide a Jew during second world war. Josef is pretty nasty towards him (jealous and mean). Their "friend" Horst is a collaborator with Germans and convinces Josef to work with him for Germans. Local "good guy", a member of the revolutionary guard who after the war decides who was a collaborator (to shoot them, not to give them a trial), won't help the Jew and is willing to scarify his life in exchange for an illusion of safety for his family. The Capitan of Czech legion is willing to shoot an innocent men based on a single witness, without any evidence or trial.
There are only two positive characters - Marie (she is Slovak) and possibly the Jew (German). Everyone else collaborates in one way or the other. All of them can be viewed as "good" people - they want to help others, but not at a too great risk for themselves. The good nature usually wins at the end, but the fight is difficult and the behavior is often morally suspicious to an external observant.
I can imagine that other nations like Americans (or any other nation who was never occupied for a significant period of time) can hardly understand the problem. Since we had to deal with it many times throughout our history (last, but not least during 40 years of Russia's influence during communism ), it defines us and our behavior. It makes us unique, aware of the parts of soul other nations never saw.
I hope it will help us in the future. We are not any worse (or better) than nations. We just know what we are.

P.S. This post is dedicated to my grand-mother, who was born in the year when the Czechoslovakia was established (1918), witnessed the First World War as a very little baby, survived the Second as a 20+ year old, and 40 years of occupation by Soviets. She had 4 children, 7 grandchildren and 3 grand-grandchildren. She died today.

No comments: