ABSTRACT
This chapter includes an examination of the ethical questions ghetto diarists grappled with in their assessment of the wide array of perpetrators who caused their suffering in the ghettos. It discusses the ways in which they responded to and interpreted these people and their behaviors, concluding that these interactions led to their complete reassessment of prewar definitions of humanity and moral universe. In the face of persecution from Germans, locals, and Jews alike, they were forced to reexamine their conceptions of right and wrong, responsibility, and personal choice. In so doing, they attempted to maintain their own sense of ethics, often at the expense of others who they saw committing acts of moral failure. In this way, they presented the ghetto as a place constantly in flux, during which behaviors changed and community disintegrated. As moral human beings, they used their words to attempt to maintain their human agency against their crumbling world.
