It was the Nazi period. World War II. The concentration camp at Auschwitz, among many executioners, knew one very well: he was called Herr Müeller. Mister Müeller.

It was a common name to the German people. But, the prisoners of that camp could distinguish him from any other.

He seemed to have a stone instead of a heart. Cold, ruthless. He would decide about the life and death of those poor prisoners of the arbitrariness and human folly.

Among so many prisoners, there was one who had known him long before the Nazis turned him into the executioner. He was the renowned rabbi of a Polish village, Samuel Shapira.

He had met Herr Müeller when he was still a farmer, in the 1930s, in his village.

When he took off the train of prisoners, his eyes met Herr Müeller´s and, as in those distant years, shook hands: Good morning.

The executioner indicated him to follow the right line, to become one more prisoner in that concentration camp.

The ones indicated to follow the left line, would go straight to death.

Time passed by and, despite many adverse conditions, sub-human, the rabbi survived and was able to hear, with joy, the news, in four languages, that they were free.

The war was over. Although the horror men had done, through those years, would take long to dilute from the memory of each one.

From August 1945 until 1949, a large International Military Tribunal was settled, which started to judge the criminals.

The world met it as the Nuremberg Trials and there were twenty two defendants. But, several other trials took place in the occupied territories.

In one, in Frankfurt, the rabbi has witnessed Herr Müeller. Defense witness.

Herr Müeller was a being that the Nazi philosophy had turned into a heartless and cruel one.

He had never been loved. In fact, it was not him who sent people to the gas chamber. It was the regime.

Herr Müeller was a good man.

Thus was expressed the rabbi, not for having saved his life, at the time of the initial selection, but as a Christian, and believe.

Herr Müeller was sentenced to death by hanging.

When removed from the courtroom, through the rabbi, looked at him. From his eyes, a tear trickled down and he whispered:

Thank you!

Because of the influx of love of the rabbi the stone heart was transformed. He was a man again. Feeling touched, by the affection of someone to whom, he essentially, had done nothing.

*  *  *

Love has an extraordinary strength. There is no one who is immune to its action.

When love is manifested, saves lives, feed others and has the power to change people believed to be bad into renewed creatures.

That was the reason Jesus recommended us: Love one another as I have loved you.

And also: Love your enemies.

Let us think about it.

Spiritist Moment Team, based on a fact narrated by Divaldo Pereira Franco, in Meeting with the leadership spirit, at the Federação Espírita do Paraná,  on the date 11.27.2010.

August 15.2011.