No is a magnificent word, when it concentrates in its single syllable the clear force of a consciousness. In a few months, three historic films made us hear an irreducible “no”. First there was A Hidden Life by Terrence Malick. An obscure Austrian peasant opposed to Nazism a resolute, absolute refusal, from the first moment he reached his country: in 1938, Franz Jägerstätter voted no to the referendum on the Anschluss, and never pact with Hitlerism until his execution, in 1943. He did not have much education, but he saw the depth of Evil with the intelligence of the Christian faith which animated it. And having seen it, he considered it impossible to lend a hand, whatever it might cost him and his family. He did not judge those who occupied another place, held other reasoning, acted differently. He simply maintained this "I cannot" against all temptations to accommodate. In fact, Franz Jägerstätter remained ignored for a long time.
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