Rev. Konstanty Michalski’s reflections on beastliness and heroism

Abstract

The history of humanity is a spectacle difficult to understand, in which the actors break the boundaries of beastliness and heroism. There are moments, such as the Second World War, when a sea of evil and cruelty, but also of good and heroism, are at war with each other on a metaphysical scale. A thinker competent to grapple with this subject is Rev. Konstanty Michalski, a respected scholar who spent several months in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during the war. He presented his profound analysis of the essence and sources of the struggle between love and hatred in his book “Between Heroism and Beastliness”, which was first published after the author’s death in 1949. Although more than 70 years have passed since then, the reflections it contains are still relevant today.