Justice

Although I love the movie "Defiance," the scene in which the Jews in hiding beat the German soldier (I'm not sure whether he was an SS or regular army) always disturbs me. A lot. Perhaps it's because I do not understand war and have never lost anyone close to me to the brutality of war (or anything other than cancer and horrific car accidents, actually), but when the bereaved mothers start yelling the names of their sons and cry, "Justice!" I cannot view their bashing in of the man's head with rifle butts as justice, but rather as murder. How does one justify the life of another? I do not understand how one can view the taking of a life as justice. In war, both the guilty and the innocent, both civilians and combatants, perish. But, perhaps it is because things are different in war.