Recently I found the following sentence at the end of a novel which I was reading in translation (i.e. it’s the German translation of an English-language novel).
Dann mache ich mir eine Liste im Kopf und verzeichne darauf jeden Akt der Güte, den ich je erlebt habe.
To me, this means “… every act of good which I have ever experienced”, i.e. which has ever been done to me. But the original turns out to be:
That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. Suzanne Collins: Mockingjay
The English version also includes act of goodness which the speaker has witnessed. For example if you have seen someone giving your brother some cake, it would be included on the list in the English-language version. But when I was reading the German, it did not seem to me that such an act would be included on the list in the German version. Whereas, if someone had given you some cake, then it would be included on both lists.
I would like to know how a native speaker would translate this use of erleben. Does it suggest only those good things that the writer has experienced, or does it also encompass good things which the writer has witnessed someone else experience?