She didn't know. Having been in a similar situation myself, your initial, gut reaction is to stay alive second to second, minute to minute. You do what your captors want hoping to postpone the seeming inevitable. This woman just saw two of her colleagues shot dead in front of her. She believed with good reason that these animals would do the same thing to her and her kindergarten-age child and would suffer a similar fate within seconds. You do what they say or die immediately along with your child. Anything that prolongs your life one second more is preferable to an immediate execution.
These are normal human reactions under extraordinary circumstances. During the Holocaust, millions of Jews and other prisoners went fairly docilely to their deaths hoping that somehow that by prolonging their lives minute by minute, there would be something that could possibly spare them from death. Some of the prisoners even helped the Germans by clearing out the corpses from the gas chambers and sorting out possessions and other items from the dead. Hope of survival is a basic human instinct that cannot be overcome except by an extraordinary few for various reasons.
i don’t blame her, but try not to disparage those who think this IS the catalyst that allowed these sub-humans entry.
What this woman did was typical and ordinary. What some on this thread are demanding is that she do something atypical and extraordinary, i.e., sacrifice the life of her child and herself for her colleagues. And she was supposed to make this decision within milliseconds after watching two of her colleagues shot dead right in front of her. These people are unreasonable and unrealistic. This woman is not a "catalyst" for what happened. She is an innocent victim who, successfully as it turned out, tried to survive along with her child under very trying circumstances. I can empathize with what she faced and in no way connect her with the death of her colleagues. The animals who did this are totally responsible. What's next? Blame the driver who had his car hijacked because he did not fight back?
Lenny Bruce had a routine about a man who is brought to a room where he proclaims that he would never betray his country. Then he says (I'm paraphrasing from memory), "What are they doing to that guy over there? Why are they putting that funnel in his ass? What are they doing with that molten lead? They're pouring it in the funnel? The funnel that's in his ass? They're pouring hot lead in his ass? They're giving him a hot lead enema? Okay, I'll tell you anything. I'll tell you about my mother. I'll make up secrets."
“If you can take the hot lead enema, then you can cast the first stone.”
~ Lenny Bruce, b. 13 October 1925
