Documentary teaches how to overcome hate at Cranberry library
CRANBERRY TWP — A documentary director and a former Holocaust denier are traveling America to teach the public about the horrors of the event and how to cure hate in their own communities.
Cranberry Public Library hosted a screening of “The Cure for Hate,” a documentary on Tony McAleer, a former neo-Nazi and present day anti-hate advocate, and his trip to Auschwitz.
A few dozen people attended the screening Tuesday evening, March 17, which featured a Q&A with McAleer and documentary director Peter Hutchison.
McAleer is a former member of the White Aryan Resistance who ended up having change of heart. He helped found the Life after Hate organization, which Hutchison created “Healing for Hate,” another documentary, around.
“It’s a group of half a dozen violent extremist group reformers who created this organization to help people exit hate groups,” Hutchison said at Tuesday’s screening.
McAleer made a trip to Auschwitz, the site of the former Nazi concentration camp in modern-day Poland, as a “tshuvah,” or as a means of atonement for the life he led prior. While Hutchson followed McAleer’s trip and life story in the documentary, he said it wasn’t his primary reason for making it.
“His journey to Auschwitz is a really wonderful lens to be able to tell a much larger story. Yes, the film does follow Tony’s journey to Auschwitz, but more importantly, it tells the broader story of how men get in and out of hate groups,” Hutchison said.
He said the documentary also serves to document Holocaust history, which has become ever more important as more and more of the survivors — and their stories — become lost to time.
He noted the importance of expanding the ways people can access this history.
“A lot of Holocaust organizations and Holocaust centers are looking for other ways to tell the history of the Holocaust. Obviously, with the younger generation, film and video is a great vehicle,” Hutchison said.
He added he believes the film is important now due to a paralleling rise of authoritarianism in the modern day.
“I think it’s crucial for us to be watchful and really be thoughtfully self-reflective on the ways in which we may (influence) other people, even in subtle ways. These are the gateways toward the more extreme ‘othering,’” he said.
McAleer said he believes it requires each individual person to combat hate in their own person and lives to overcome it as a community.
“This is not a big thing that someone else is going to do. It starts with each and every individual and who they choose to be in every moment of every day and them inspiring the people around them,” he said.
He said the only answer to dehumanization is “rehumanization,” which comes through compassion.
The film has also created an impact program which uses McAleer’s story as a pathway for youth to understand what causes people to join hate groups and to combat “othering” in their own life.
“We help kids learn how to engage with other people with curiosity, compassion and courage,” Hutchison said.
The group also partnered with Classrooms Without Borders to offer a community program evaluation that surveys attendees on the community understanding of the societal roots of dehumanization.
More information on the documentary and impact program can be found at the film’s website, www.thecureforhatefilm.com.
