The boy in the striped pyjamas

I watched "the boy in the striped pyjamas" tonight with my family. It is set during World War II in Germany. The movie is told from the perspective of a little 8 year old boy, who is a son of some high up German Nazi soldier.  You see this little boy Bruno leave his friends and move to the country because his dad is in charge of one of the concentration camps (although Bruno doesn't realize this). Bruno sneaks out of his house one day to explore. He finds the "farm," which is the concentration camp. He meets a little guy his age and they develop a friendship through the electric fence. Anyway, the whole time I am watching it I keep wondering if I would have seen it as an injustice if I lived back then. Would i have reasoned that the Jews were just evil and things would be better without them? I don't think i would, how could i think that way if i have value humankind in any way? But then, I got to thinking about the Genocide in Rwanda, the terrible things in Zimbabwe, the treatment of people with AIDS in Ethiopia, the apartheid in South Africa and i see that these are all symptoms of the same things that happened  in the concentration camps. 

how can we be so quick to devalue human life? this isn't just a problem from back in the day, it is a problem in the present. But am i recognizing it? Sex trafficking happens in the United States, pimps bring internationals in, but they also traffic local American girls. We have such a demand in our sex culture, in our sex world, that little girls, teenagers, are being sold for sex. This is a devalueing of human life right before my eyes, but I feel helpless in what i can do. I know it goes on, but i have no idea how and where it goes on. i hear it happens in our neighborhoods, but i don't ever see it. In some ways i can sympathisize with the Germans who heard rumors of the atrocities that happened in concetration camps, but did nothing to protect their fellow neighbors, because they probably felt helpless and clueless as to what they need to do to fight the injustice. That is where i find myself tonight. i recognize this problem, i recognize this injustice, but  I feel powerless to do anything. i want to rescue those girls, i want to find them and bring them to a safe place, but i don't know how to find them. 

i want Oprah, MTV, dr. phil. . . any tv show that has a platform to get behind this. i want them to rise up in arms that this is happening 1) worldwide 2) in our own neighborhoods! I want public service adds to broadcast it. I want messages of hope and justice to reach these girls in oppression so they realize they have people who are trustworthy fighting for them. i want those girls to know there are people trying to find them and rescue them. . . but i don't know how. I don't know how to rescue them. I don't know how to get people fighting for them.

so now i know. now i am aware. but what good does awareness do if i cannot follow with action?