Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the HolocaustThe Holocaust did not introduce the phenomenon of the bystander, but it did illustrate the terrible consequences of indifference and passivity towards the persecution of others. Although the term was initially applied only to the good Germans—the apathetic citizens who made genocide possible through unquestioning obedience to evil leaders—recent Holocaust scholarship has shown that it applies to most of the world, including parts of the population in Nazi-occupied countries, some sectors within the international Christian and Jewish communities, and the Allied governments themselves. This work analyzes why this happened, drawing on the insights of historians, Holocaust survivors, and Christian and Jewish ethicists. The author argues that bystander behavior cannot be attributed to a single cause, such as anti-Semitism, but can only be understood within a complex framework of factors that shape human behavior individually, socially, and politically. |
Contents
Individual Behavior | 15 |
Collective Forms of Behavior | 35 |
Interpreting the Holocaust | 63 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust Victoria Barnett No preview available - 1999 |
Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust Victoria Barnett No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
anti-Semitism Arendt argues Auschwitz became become behavior of bystanders brutality bystander behavior Chambon Christian church citizens Cohen complicity concentration camps conformity confronted conscience created culture Eichmann Elie Wiesel empathy Ervin Staub ethical Europe European Jews example factors Gellately genocide German society Gestapo Gleichschaltung groups Hannah Arendt happened historical Hitler Holocaust human behavior Ian Kershaw Ibid ideological indifference individual insights institutions interpretations involved issues Jewish Jews Kershaw Le Chambon leaders lives Marrus Mauthausen Milgram Miroslav Volf Modernity moral murder Nazi Germany Nazi Holocaust Nazi policies Nazi regime Nazism neighbors non-Jews normal notes Oliner ordinary parallel worlds passivity perpetrators persecution phenomenon political powerlessness prejudice protest psychological question racial refugees religious rescue rescuers resistance responsibility role Roots of Evil Rosenfeld scholars sense significance silence social Sonderburg theological Third Reich traditional Tremendum Trocmé understand victims village Volf writes Yehuda Bauer Zygmunt Bauman