Brian Palmer: Courage can be almost as contagious as fear

Listen to Brian Palmer’s TED-talk on courage and answer the following questions:

Brian Palmer talks about four courageous persons – Malala Yousafzai, Sophie School, Witold Pilecki and Wesley Autrey. Describe what they did and what happened to them. What do you think about what they did? What does it show about human beings?

Notes to “Courage can be as contagious as fear” – Brian Palmer

Malala Yousafzai

2009, Pakistan. 11 years old.

Talibans throwing acid.

Began writing a blog for the BBC.

Talibans came on Malala’s school bus and asked who of them was Malala – she said ”I am” and then they shot her in the head.

She received the Nobel Peace prize in 2014?

Sophie Scholl

Ohm, Germany.

1942. University.

She learned about the Holocaust.

Wrote pamphlets against Hitler with her brother.

1943. A guard saw them handing out leaflets. They were beheaded.

The greatest German of all time.

Witold Pilecki

Germany invades Poland in 1939 starting the second world war.

Witold joins the resistance movement.

Goes willingly under cover in Auschwitz to smuggle out information about the situation in the concentration camp for 947 days.

Manage to escape. Took a bullit. Survived the war.
Joined the resistance against the Soviet Union. Got killed.

Wesley Autrey

Construction worker. A man collapsed on the train tracks in an epileptic seizure. Wesley jumped down on top of him to keep him down when the train drove over them. They both survived.

Quotes:

To be human is to suffer for others.

Courage could be almost as contagious as fear.

Go to places that scare you.