My wife and I were having a cup of coffee this morning before I went to work at the airport. We have a little weekly meeting about ethical issues, trying to bone up on core concepts, and the philosophy of ethics in general.
She read an account of a retired FBI agent, Vince Pankoke and others, that researched and concluded that Jewish member of the Amsterdam Jewish Council, Arnold van den Bergh, may have given up Anne Frank and her family to save his own family from deportation to concentration camps.
Her question was: was Pankoke correct in forgiving and excusing Bergh of giving up Frank to save his own family--if he did so--and can he being exonerated of being treacherous and guilty of being an accessory to murder, for pushing the Frank family forward to be murdered, to save the lives of his own family? It seems that Pankoke cut Bergh some slack, citing that he was a victim too.
My response: if Bergh was guilty, and we do not know for sure that he was, if he was guilty of being an accessory to murder, then he is quite blameworthy for his treacherous, selfish, craven appeasement towards and cooperation with the Nazis.
Yes, he is a victim, put in an impossible position--to save the Franks or his own family. I think that God would want us to take the moral high road, and refuse to reveal the hidden families, even if it cost him the lives of his own family members. It is very painful to make such choices, but her family cannot be sacrificed for moral gain.
In all honesty, in that position, I likely would do what Bergh is accused of doing.
My recommendation is to seek to never put any human being in such an impossible moral dilemma. Most of us will do the wrong thing to save our own family.
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