The behavior of a victim is mandated by the crime committed against them, and the severity of such. No two people will experience the same thing the same way; both will have reactions that no matter how similar, are still different.
The victims in The Boat is Full were in the same scenario, but all responded differently. The young woman fought and fought till the ultimate destiny she faced came about, and she then crossed the bridge with all the dignity she had left, still fighting to not be broken down by her oppressors. The old man, however, could not expend the energy to carry on in the same way. While he was terrified by the possibility of what might wait for him on the other side of the bridge, he went across, and though not with the same grace as his friend, he still maintained his dignity. .
An interesting moral dilemma comes about in the scene where the young Jewish boy trades identities with the AWOL Nazi. While it was an act of survival, and there were few other options, the ethics of such an act are questionable. As the cliche goes, desperate times require desperate measures, and we are not to judge. This dichotomy arises in a more central position in Europa, Europa, where the main character takes the act to a different extreme. While posing as a Nazi functions on while level, acting like a Nazi, working with Nazis, conspiring and supporting Nazis seems to be outside the realm of acceptable survival techniques. Is the survival of one worth the potential destruction of many? Does one have to pull a trigger to act as a murderer? Unanswerable question stack up as ethical scenarios arise.
The Swiss couple in The Boat is Full who aided them were a sample of the general population, and went through several revolutions of mind before the end of the film. At first, the Swiss wife went out of her way to protect and care for the refugees, inventing a charade for them to play before the police and acting along with it.
