Shimon Wincelberg's Resort 76: The Concept Of Morality

When studying atrocities such as the Holocaust, the concept of morality is often questioned. However, as the medieval morality play illustrates, there are those that will decide, during these times, to make a free and conscious decision to do the right thing instead of following the temptation to commit a wrongdoing. The plays that have been read thus far in the semester have supported this assertion.

In Shimon Wincelberg’s Resort 76, there were several instances in which one man was willing to sacrifice himself to save the life of another, including Schnur’s voluntary surrender to the SS to ensure that no one else would die on account of his own actions and the willingness of Blaustain to care for Madame Hershkovitch’s illegal cat even though he knew it would endanger his own life, so that they could eventually trade it in to feed her five children and take care of his ill wife, Ester. If these two men would have sided with temptation and attempted to save their own lives, then they would not have been able to have the satisfaction of knowing that they

When Schnur was outed as the teacher, he knew that he would inevitably face execution for his crimes. Even though he had every chance to run and was even encouraged to run do so by his fellow survivors, he decided that he would face his crimes as a man because he did not want someone else to sacrifice their own lives so that he could live. He was even asked if he wanted to take his own life by swallowing poison but his response was, ”And if I cheat them of the pleasure? Who is to stop them from taking someone else”(Wincelberg, 107). He was not willing to be the reason that someone else had to die; especially considering it was his own illegal activities that placed him into this particular