duminică, 10 martie 2013

People change under some conditions

 "Toivi Blatt, who was forced by the Nazis to work in Sobibor and then risked his life to escape: `People asked me`, he sais, `What did you learn?`, and I think I`m only sure of one thing - nobody knows themselves.  The nice person on the street, you ask him `Where is North Street?` and he goes with you half a block and shows you, and is nice and kind. The same person in a different situation could be the worst sadist. Nobody knows themselves.  All of us could be good people or bad people in these different situations. Sometimes when somebody is really nice to me I find myself thinking, ` How will be in Sobibor?`"

"Human behaviour is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave; it is just that for many people the situation is a key determinant in that choice."

"Just as water exists as water only withing a certain temperature range and is steam or ice in others, so human beings can become different people according to extremes of circumstance."
  
 "I remember one former dedicated member of the Nazi party saying to me in an exasperated manner, after I pressed him on why so many went along with the horrors of the regime, `The trouble with the world today is that people who never been tested go around making judgements about people who have.`"

"One becomes indifferent. Today you go, tomorrow I will go. You become indifferent. A human being can get used to anything."  

(Laurence Reese - Auschwitz, The Nazis and The Final Solution)