Defiance, Hope, and Life

Brothers Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber) argue about taking in "one more" in Defiance, a newly released picture from Paramount Vantage.



It's a miracle. Hollywood has produced a movie with such a profound message of hope and the sanctity of life, I'm in a state of shock. In Defiance, four Jewish brothers take to the forests when their village is massacred by German troops in occupied Belarus in 1941. As the persecution of the Jews increases, awe-inspiring rumors of the Bielski brothers' community of hiding Jews also grow. Several times Tuvia Bielski is asked by his brother Zus how they can take in any more- they don't have enough food, they can't protect them, how will they do it?

These questions are hauntingly familiar to those a dear friend asked me when she explained why she and her husband had decided on an abortion for her unplanned pregnancy. They felt they could not take in "one more." Even though my husband and I offered to adopt the baby yet to be born, they went ahead with the abortion. When my sweet friend lost her five year battle with breast cancer, my heart cried with grief. But I also mourn the death of a child she and her husband would surely have loved as they loved their other two children.

In Defiance (based on a true story) the eldest Bielski struggles through the worst conditions imaginable to take in all who come to hide in the forest. Tuvia has doubts, he suffers with illness, he suffers from indecision, he suffers from his revengeful actions, but he perseveres. He never refuses any who come to him to find refuge. (see photo below)

We look back at the Holocaust and are amazed and appalled that the German and Russian people could have sat by or participated in such horrific crimes to humanity. As many as 10 million Jews and other "unwanteds" murdered. I wonder if in the distant future, our society will consider the history of Roe vs. Wade and FOCA in the same light. How could the people of the United States have sat by or participated in such horrific crimes as partial birth abortion, abortion of babies 9 months in the womb, and the sale of fetal body parts?

The Lord calls upon us to give refuge to those he sends us, and a woman's womb was created to be a place of refuge for the most vulnerable of all human beings. The Bielski's used guns to defend the innocent, but we are to use prayer, love, and compassion as our weapons in this battle.