A Letter from Poland: Crossing the street, crossing the river, crossing the line

This Letter looks at how ordinary, everyday transitions (like crossing the street) and extraordinary ones (like presidential pardons and death) reveal how much we really value human life (or don't). 

In Memling's Last Judgment (on display in the National Museum in Gdańsk), Archangel Michal weighs the souls like the gods in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This is a very explicit way of measuring the value of a human life.

Photo: Public Domain

Presented by Patrick Trompiz.