The tensions created
by the presence of
good and evil can be seen within all
humans and in all groups – from the highest to the lowest. Even at the
bottom of the abyss, they are clearly exposed and laid open in the horrible
conditions that exist in concentration camps.
Look for the
appearances of good and evil in the stories below. Who is doing them
to whom? Identify the relationships between them. How do those not directly
involved react? The following stories are told by prisoners who were there. The
first three stories are told by Witold
Pilecki, a Polish man who volunteered for an audacious mission –
to assume a fake identity, intentionally
get captured and sent to Auschwitz. At that time he was a
thirty-nine-year-old Polish resistance fighter – and he is not Jewish.
First Story
“On either side of the
entrance into Auschwitz, newly arriving prisoners walked past a line of German SS guards, who were often smoking and laughing among themselves. On this day, they
ordered a prisoner to run over to a fence post beside the path. The man,
confused, staggered off only for the guards to gun him down. The column of
prisoners came to a halt, and the guards dragged out ten more men from the
crowd and shot them, too. “Collective responsibility for the escape,”
one of the SS guards announced.
Second Story
New prisoners that
made it past the German SS soldiers were led into a brightly lit parade ground surrounded
by rows of brick barracks, the windows unbarred and dark. A line of men in
striped denims, wearing blazers with the word KAPO on their arms were waiting for them. The kapos were
also prisoners, but they were supervisors over other prisoners – and they carried
clubs.
One of the kapos ordered
the new prisoners to fall into ranks, where they relieved them of their
watches, rings, and other valuables. Next, a kapo randomly selected a prisoner and
asked what his profession was. “A judge,” the man replied. The kapo gave
a cry of triumph and struck him to the ground with his club. Other kapos immediately
joined in striking at the man’s head, his body, his crotch, until all that was
left of the prisoner was a bloody pulp on the floor. The first kapo, his
uniform splattered with man’s blood, turned to the other prisoners and shouted,
“This is Auschwitz Concentration Camp, my dear sirs.” Then the other kapos
began singling out doctors, lawyers, professors, and Jews to give them their
first of many beatings.
Third Story
Implicit
in and from the tortured prose of Witold emerges a recognition that the
horrors of the camp might never be comprehensible -- even to a prisoner like himself who had suffered within its walls. There
is a sense that Witold’s orientation had shifted in the passages below. No
longer does he feel the need to make his readers understand “an evil that defied comprehension.” Instead
he asks them to look within themselves
for that which they could share with those who suffer. “I have listened to many confessions of my
friends before their deaths. They all reacted in the same unexpected manner. They
regretted they hadn’t given enough to other people, of their hearts, of the
truth . . . the only thing that remained after them on Earth, the only thing
that was positive and had a lasting value, was what they could give of
themselves to others.”
Fourth Story
The
next two stories are told by Viktor
Frankl. Three young Hungarian
Jews hid the SS Commander in charge of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the
woods. Then they went to the commandant of the American Forces who had just
liberated the camp and told him they would only tell him where the man was hidden
if the American promised that absolutely no harm would come to the German
Commander. It took a while, but the American finally promised and they took him
to the man.
Why
would three former prisoners of Auschwitz, who were also Jewish, do anything
for that man? A fellow prisoner, who was also a doctor in the camp, told them something
no one else knew. “The SS Commander had paid no small sum of money from his own
pocket in order to purchase medicines for his prisoners from the nearest market
town.1 His actions saved lives, some of whom were Jewish.
Fifth Story
From the stories
above, it is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp
guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing.
Human kindness can be found in all groups,
even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.
The boundaries
between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying
that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a
guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s
influences. On the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his
own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the
prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while
they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the
guards.
I remember how one
day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved
from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which
moved me to tears at that time. It
was the human something which this man also gave to me — the word and look which accompanied the bread.
Conclusion
I
want to end by focusing on the words of Frankl -- it is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp
guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. However when we consider the
fact that everyone at Auschwitz
belonged to one or more groups – and
members held expectations about how are supposed to behave -- profound lessons
about good and evil emerge.
Take
another look at the stories above. Identify the people that did good or evil acts.
Identify the groups to which they belonged. How would their acts of good or
evil be viewed in light of “membership expectations”? How would the person have
been viewed if he had not behaved that way? See what thoughts about good and
evil emerge as you explore the above questions.
I
will share what I saw when I did that exercise in next email. I would like to
hear yours too. CLICK HERE to share
them with me. Thank you for reading this. Please share and discuss it with
others.
May
Your Life be Blessed with Health, Safety and Strong Transparent
Relationships,
Jim Myers
Jim Myers
* SOURCES &
RECOMMENDED READING
●
The Volunteer: One Man, An Underground
Army, And the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather ©
2019; HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.
●
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E.
Frankl © 2006; Beacon Press; Boston MA.
●
Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary
Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen; © 1996; Random House, Inc., New York.
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