The psychologist Verena Berthold heads the association “Civil courage for everyone”. He shows people how to intervene in tricky situations without endangering themselves.
from
Joachim Molter
You have to know the story of Kitty Genovese to understand Verena Berthold’s. So then: Kitty Genovese was the manager of a bar in New York, and when she came home from work a little after three o’clock one morning, a guy was stalking her. A few meters from the front door he stabbed her twice in the back, the 28-year-old screamed for help, lights went on in the surrounding residential buildings, a man called out the window: “Leave the girl alone!” Then the guy ran away and the lights went out again. Genovese dragged himself into the hallway of her apartment building, where no one could see her, when the guy returned a few minutes later. He had been waiting nearby to see if anyone had called the police, and when they didn’t come, he finished off the badly injured woman with his knife. While Kitty Genovese lay dying, he raped her and stole the $49 she had given her had with him.