Doing the right thing

I admit that I get a weird thrill from my daily perusal of Consumerist.com and I can't quite place why.

Whether it's seeing that someone got royally screwed by a company I don't do business with or, worse yet, by one that I do, there's a nice feeling of relief that I dodged a bullet for that day.

No matter what happens, I didn't get a massive bill from AT&T or I didn't get taken to the cleaners when I was buying a flat panel TV (hint, buy online from a reputable dealer) and I can get a small degree of relief from that.

As I've grown fond of saying as I get older, "Things can always be worse."

The downside of seeing these stories churn through day in and day out is that you really lose faith in humanity when it comes to doing the right thing when an opportunity presents itself. Generally if there's a plausible excuse such as corporate policy or legal issues, people are more likely to take the easy route and avoid getting involved.

I'm not really passing judgment here - I'd probably do the same thing if I was a customer service rep getting screamed at over the phone - but it's disappointing to see every day.

That's why I'm happy I stumbled across this tonight. A series of letters from the Warsaw Rising appeared and a team from the Warsaw Rising Museum rushed to add them to their collection. The hitch was that despite the museum agreeing to pay the opening price in the auction, the collector who owned the letters decided he wanted to see what the open market would pay for the letters.

According to the article, there aren't that many letters still around because they weren't typical letters. These were letters that were hand delivered by a small, young delivery service (think The Postman, only not awful and too long) as the Nazis occupied Poland.

All of this was going on during the Warsaw Uprising, which was a 63-day standoff with German troops by an undermanned, novice army that lacked any sort of supplies. I'm not sure mail service would be at the top of my list at a time like that.

That service, run by teenagers and the Home Army resistance, was responsible for delivering 150,000 pieces of mail in two months. Their bravery is remembered as testament to Poland's long-held desire, even in the midst of battle, to function as a free state.

"You have to remember what it was like," said [Jerzy Kasprzak, a patron of the museum who was a 14-year-old scout in 1944], white-haired and brimming with memories. "During the Rising, after two or three days, it turns out people were not so concerned about food or other needs. They wanted to know: Is my son or daughter OK? And that's what those letters meant."

Skip to the end of the story, with the museum pleading for the collection - at what was seemingly a fair price - and the owner refusing to budge.

At 2:40 a.m.—and by this time the Poles were keeping minute-by-minute records of their high-stakes race—auctioneer Ulrich Felzmann had an epiphany.

He could not, according to his contract with the owner, change the actual terms of auction. But Felzmann told the museum team he had the power to change the time of the bidding.

The letters were set to be sold at an afternoon session, beginning at 12:30. Felzmann told curator Lang to find a seat when the morning session began at 10 a.m.

It's the first time this had been done in 32 years and the museum was able to bid unopposed to bring the letters home. Here's my favorite part - the quote from the managing director of the auction house, Axel Doerrenbach, when asked about what he'd done.

"No comment," Doerrenbach said. "But perhaps this helps you: This is the first time in 32 years—in the history of the auction house—that the course of auction was changed. ... And I will say this: We were very satisfied that the items went to the place—and people—where they originated."

Sometimes, it's not about money. Not often, but sometimes.

(Image from: Warsaw-Life.com)