What is good? What is evil? Even though it might seem obvious we have to put time and effort into answering these questions. In this essay we will understand evil as consciously causing somebody pain. Good should therefore be understood as removing or reducing pain or at least supporting the person in pain.
In Nazi-ruled countries, such as Poland, we can see there were acts of good. One of the well known proofs of this is the testimonies from the Jews saved by Oskar Schindler. The testimonies are well documented in the book Schindlers Ark written by Thomas Keneally (1982) .
Born in Zwittau, then Czechoslovakia, Schindler moved to Kraków in 1939 to work and live a good life. Despite the political situation in Poland and being a member of the Nazi parti, Schindler treated Jews like anyone else. He hired them to work in his factory in his subcamp to KL.Plazów which came to be named Deutche Emailwarenfabrik (D.E.F). In 1944 around 1000 of his 1,750 workers were Jews. Schindler saw his work force being forced out of the ghettos and violently abused both psychologically and physically and in worst case scenarios killed.
When he realized the war is going to proceed longer than he thought Schindler said to one of his Jewish engineers Adam Garde: ”We’ll have to wait a little longer for our freedom” (Keneally, 1982, p.190). This indicates that he saw the bad the regime did to everyone, including the Nazis themselves.
He saw the Nazis as prisoners to the regime as well, considering all the time and effort they put into their mission to exterminate the Jews. Schindler was a man who tried do to good for humanity.
Hiring Jews put Schindler in danger of being labeled as a ”Jew-lover” and a traitor by the Nazis, which could get him killed if one Nazis got provoked enough by the fact the Jews were relatively well treated in D.E.F.
When a rumor is spread that the Russians are on their way to liberate the prisoners in the concentration camps, Schindler knows what he must do. He have to put himself in danger and ask for permission to permanence his labor force and take them with him to Czechoslovakia to a new fabric named Brinnlitz. Just bringing them with him Schindler had to pay for them with both money as well as his integrity. One example of risking his integrity is when he insists on keeping the children in his work force and argues that they are the only ones with small enough fingers to polish the inside of the shell casings he will be manufacturing for the army. Under no other circumstance would anybody insist on forcing children to work, not even the Nazis. Only Schindler and his Jews knew this was for a good cause. Schindler understood from the start of his mission to save Jews that he risked being seen as evil as Amon Goeth, since he after all drove a concentration-camp and had prisoners in the eyes of the outside world.
So what is evil in the story of Schindler and the Jews he saved? Which people caused which other group of people suffering? The Nazis actions definitely brought pain to the Jewish people.
The good here, you could argue, is Schindlers way of supporting the Jews. At first Schindler treated them as ordinary people, without any intention of a rescue mission. Only later the idea of actively saving them came to his mind. Is to simply treat people as they deserve to be treated ”good”? Under the circumstances when nobody else did, you could argue that it is.
Although Oskar Schindler might be one of the most famous people for his good deeds there are more. In the book The Rape of Nanking (Chang, 1997) a leader of the Nazi Party in Nanking named John Rabe came to be know as ”the Oskar Schindler of Nanking”. Rabe gave shelter to many people during Japan’s occupation of China. Japanese soldiers killed and tormented as well as raped many women even though the army had outlawed it. Rabe sheltered people and thereby saved many women using his status as a Nazi to do it, just like Schindler. He said it would be very unlikely that the Japanese would kill a German since it would reflect badly on them. Rabe, just like Schindler felt responsible for his employees’ safety.
Many victims of assault and rape are expected to have defended themselves. Screaming for help, fighting back, calling the police etcetera. So what did the victims of the World War II crimes do? The TV series Holocaust (Chomsky, 1978) touches on this theme. You can see in the series how they support each other by holding hands and hugging when they are walking into certain death (the gas chambers) and help each other to avoid getting caught by the Nazis. For example a kid gets advised to stop smuggling because the Nazis will take him if he gets caught.
The Jewish character Joseph Weiss is a doctor who, like Schindler and Rube, saves some of his own by telling SS officers and Wachmeisters that they are sick and need to be treated in the clinic instead of going with the selected to Treblinka. He to uses his status as a doctor and appealing to the Nazis’ fear of the Jews by saying they would only infect others with their typhus if they are let out. Overall the prisoners stick together, and when some of them are fighting over bread others reminds them that Jews don’t fight Jews.
One conclusion you can draw from the stories in The Rape of Nanking, Schindlers Ark and Holocaust is that sometimes it is alright, good even, to be illegal. When the law is hurting someone, it can be something that is good to non-conform to.
References
Keneally, T (1982) Schindlers Ark
London: Hodder and Stoughton
Chang, I (1997) The Rape of Nanking
New York: BasicBooks
Chomsky, M (1978) , Holocaust
New York, NY: CBS