Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times Highlight

To claim Paul Grüninger’s conduct was the norm would be preposterous. Yet it is equally difficult not to see something unremarkable about him. The former schoolteacher from Au met with refugees, he listened to them, he saw the fear and desperation in their eyes, and so he devised ways to let them stay. His job was to protect people from harm and, guided by nothing more than a capacity to see the refugees as people and a belief that he was honoring his country’s founding principles by treating them humanely, this is what he did. The fact that he was not a figure of pristine virtue who seemed destined for heroic things does not detract from the magnitude of his achievement. It makes it more poignant—and, as a commentary on the spirit of his times, more damning.