Richard Rorty and the Righteous Among the Nations

Abstract

In the early hours of 2nd February 1945, several hundred Russian prisoners escaped from Mauthausen. In general, residents of the area who were approached by the fleeing men to shelter them, declined under public threat of lethal reprisals. Maria and Johann Langthaler, however - with four of their children living with them - did not. Taking in one man who came to their door, she persuaded her husband, at first alarmed at the awful risk, that they should harbour him. They then also took in a second man. Both of these hid there at the Langthalers for three months until the end of the war. We have Maria Langthaler's explanation of why she acted as she did. She was obligated as a Christian, she said, to help when someone was in need: 'The Lord God is for the whole world, not only for the Germans. It is a community and there one must help. I did not ask them to which party they belong, I asked nothing at all; that made no difference to me. Only because they were human beings." Only because they were human beings. Although the men she took into her home were in fact Russian prisoners of war, I let this story symbolize a continent-wide phenomenon of that era: against a background of the persecution and massacre of the Jews of Europe, in which very many Europeans were complicit as participants whilst very many more stood by in fearful or indifferent passivity, some-not nearly as many, but still, more than just a handful - were yet willing to take risks, often terrible risks, in their efforts to harbour and rescue those in danger. I want to address here the question of how common amongst these rescuers was the sort of reason voiced by Maria Langthaler.