Good and Evil

This is what I believe, exists everywhere I may go. Whether it is on my way to school, or walking to a friend’s house, it is everywhere. Evil can not be eradicated from this earth, but we, as a society, always try. There will always be evil where hate exists. Hate always exists where there

is conflict and I know conflict is apart of everyday life. However, in the same way as evil, good exists everywhere as well. Where there is compromise, peace, and compassion, there is also Good.

My grandmother, along with my other relatives, lived through the Second World War. She always tells us, my siblings and I, the same story, about how the Germans occupied my home town, Cieszyn, following the Invasion of Poland. One of her numerous stories go how she witnessed, as a five or six year old, the execution of a young Jewish boy who was being hidden by her neighbors. My grandmother had been hiding in the alley as the events unfolded. After ordering her neighbors into a truck to be driven off to an unknown location, the Germans turned to the young Jew they, the neighbors, were hiding. The Germans told the boy to walk down the street without looking back. A shot was fired. After which, a German had spotted my grandmother and she ran for it. My grandmother had narrowly escaped this German who had, for an instant, pointed his MP-40 at her.

My Grandmother always regards this as a miracle. Neither my grandmother nor I will ever know how she was able to flee from the scene. Perhaps it was a sign of compassion by the Gestapo or more likely laziness. Her neighbors are just one example of how, even in the darkest of times, compassion can still be shown. They took the risk of saving this Jew and although the Germans had found out there was a Jew being hidden in their house, the fate suffered by the young Jewish boy was no doubt better than what he would have suffered in a labor or death camp. This young Jew died a short and quick death, rather than an agonizing one. At the end of each of my grandmother’s numerous stories about the Second World War stories, she asks, “How could people have done such evil things?” Hate fuels anger which becomes Evil, while compassion fuels contempt which becomes Good. Both Good and Evil are expressed in my grandmother’s accounts. How could people have done such evil things? It was because not enough people actually did something. “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”- Albert Einstein.