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Lesson 8: Stand Out
Note: This lesson became the topic of a Reflection that I shared at church on Sunday, January 17, 2021. This is the verbatim text that I shared with the congregation.
Back in early 2018, a friend gave us the pocket-sized book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century by Dr. Timothy Snyder, published in 2017.
As I witnessed the insurrection of January 6 from afar, my knees literally knocking together, I was inspired to return back to this book. It’s 20 lessons speak directly to what is going on in the United States right here in the 21st Century. Lesson 8 is the one that calls to me, and to us, about being brave in the face of so much fear and destruction.
Lesson 8: Stand Out.
Dr. Snyder uses this phrase “stand out,” which has become problematic as we all grow more aware of the way language can exclude some of us. I’m going to leave his language as is, but let’s translate his “standing out” to “rising up—since that’s clearly in body OR in spirit,” or we can think of it as “being willing to be different for the good of the community.”
Here’s what Dr. Snyder has to say about “standing out”:
“Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can be strange to do or say something different. But, without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the status quo is broken, and others will follow.”
Dr. Snyder lifts up the examples of two individuals who stood out during the Second World War: one a world leader and the other a high school kid.
By May of 1940, when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain, many European countries had already adopted some form of right-wing authoritarian government. Following the destruction and suffering of WW 1, the continent of Europe was ripe for Nationalist, authoritarian style leader figures to try and restore their lost dignity and pride. In short, Democracy had become less important during this period. What was working for the Nazis in Germany was more easily accepted in many parts of Europe as well. But, certainly not everywhere in Europe.
The Polish government, for example, resisted the Nazi invasion, which brought France and Great Britain into the war because of their previous agreements.
This in turn led Winston Churchill to stand up to Hitler. By refusing to concede, Churchill and the British people forced the Germans to change their plans. Instead of halting all resistance in Western Europe, the Germans would have to fight on two fronts.
Winston Churchill and the British people took a stand. They took a stand because the Polish people took a stand. These actions by the British and the Poles changed the outcome of the war. The world was spared from Nazi domination because this person, these people, took a stand.
That’s the example of the world leader. Here’s what the high school girl managed to do.
Teresa Prekerowa was supposed to finish high school in 1940. But the Nazi occupation of Poland forced her family to lose its property and move to the capital city of Warsaw. Her father had been arrested, two of her brothers sent to Prisoner of War camps, and one of her uncles killed in battle. Teresa’s family was under siege. In fact, the German bombing of Warsaw had already killed nearly 25,000 people.
Instead of cowering in the face of all this horror around her, Teresa chose to stand out. One of Teresa’s brothers had been friendly with a Jewish girl and her family before the war. Now the Germans were gathering up Polish Jews and isolating them in ghettos around the country. The Jewish family that Teresa knew was trapped in the ghetto in Warsaw.
Teresa chose to enter the Warsaw ghetto a dozen times in late 1940 to bring food and medicine to Jews that she knew and Jews she did not. Eventually, she persuaded her brother’s friend to escape with her. Then, in 1942 Teresa helped the girl’s brother and parents to escape, too.
That very summer, the Germans cleared the ghetto and deported 265,040 Jews to the death camp at Treblinka. By her courageous actions, Teresa, a girl who’d just been hoping to graduate from high school, saved a family from the fate of so many other European Jews.
Teresa went on to become a Holocaust historian. She called her actions normal.
Two people. Two normal people. Each decided to take a stand and do what they thought was right.
Maybe you or someone you know will grow up to be a world leader in the model of Winston Churchill.
Churchill’s actions affected the entire world. Teresa’s actions affected one family. Most of us are more like Teresa in the scale of our impact on the world. Yet, each one of us should be proud to follow the model of Teresa Prekerowa and Stand Up in our own way to make the world a better place, one person, one family, one church community at a time.
Let me finish up by saying that here’s the message I get from reading Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” in light of what is going on in our country now: It can happen here—in fact, it is happening here, the rise of fascism. We must all take responsibility for the world and what happens here. Standing out, rising up, being willing to be different for the good of the whole, each in our own unique way. Together we can find the courage we need to stand out.
