Life Would Be More Beautiful If Children Were Detained with Their Parents
Who will protect them from the harsh reality we’re creating?
It’s so much easier — and safer — to romanticize fictionalized accounts of historical horror. But we have to remember how real detention is for children in concentration camps. (No, I will not argue with you about whether or not the current concentration camps are concentration camps. Do your research and stay on topic: the children.)
Don’t the “It’s better than what they’re used to” folks think parents want to protect their children from the confusion, filth and implicit hatred they’re encountering here in the US the way Roberto Benigni’s character did in Life Is Beautiful?
We cried and ooh-ed and aww-ed over the selflessness of a devoted father who fictionalized reality for his son when it came to the point he could no longer protect him from it. I still remember him smiling as the guards led him away, the last time father and son would see each other.
But Rubino Romeo Salmonì was a real person. His prisoner number was A15810. He survived Auschwitz and wrote a book titled I Beat Hitler.¹
