At what point does personal interest become more important than the safety of others? During the Holocaust, the Nazis were not the only group that advanced the Holocaust, and then the Final Solution. Bystanders, witnesses, passersby, and many other groups indirectly affected the victims of the Holocaust. The silence of these groups held the Jews in more jeopardy than their Nazi captors.
Hitler's slow implementation of Holocaust steps mixed with public fear gave the public time to adjust and accept his actions, which would ultimately result in little German resistance during Hitler's final solution.
Background
When classifying the types of people involved in an event such as the Holocaust, three categorical groups can be distinguished. First, and easiest to asses are the perpetrators. This category includes people directly related to the horrors of the Holocaust. The second category encompasses victims; all of the people that were killed, discriminated against, or otherwise harmed by the perpetrators. The final category defines those who watched, witnessed, or were otherwise indirectly involved in the Holocaust, without being harmed by the perpetrators. By definition, bystanders could include entire countries or other groups who ignored or neglected the Holocaust (Vollhardt). A fourth category could be argued, and would include those who actively helped victims (Monroe). As far as nomenclature, rescuer or anti-perpetrator would well define this group.
“I would like to suggest that there are usually no bystanders as such—as a trait or as a personality type, just as there are mostly no perpetrator or rescuer personality types”(Bar-On). Bar-On states that personality types are not relevant when categorizing a person into o...
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... Courage. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2006. Print.
Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Cracking The Code Of Genocide: The Moral Psychology Of Rescuers, Bystanders, And Nazis During The Holocaust." Political Psychology 29.5 (2008): 699-736. Business Source Premier. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
Priemel, Kim C. "Into The Grey Zone: Wehrmacht Bystanders, German Labor Market Policy And The Holocaust."Journal Of Genocide Research 10.3 (2008): 389-411. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
Vollhardt, J. R. and Bilewicz, M. (2013), After the Genocide: Psychological Perspectives on Victim, Bystander, and Perpetrator Groups. Journal of Social Issues, 69: 1–15. doi: 10.1111/josi.12000
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soldiers during the Jewish Holocaust, knew that the Nazi’s actions were inhumane and cruel; hence, he commanded his soldiers to not confiscate property from the Jews. Although the Nazi soldiers did not take valuables away from the Jews, they still dehumanized and exterminated the Jews, rega...
During World War II, six million Jews were brutally massacred by Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime. Several authors have written about the actions of bystanders in the Holocaust. In a poem, "The Hangman," and an allegory, The Terrible Things, Maurice Odgen and Eve Bunting described how bystanders could cause problems through their inactions.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
The Holocaust tends to be a bitter memory and an unpleasant subject to discuss. Although this event took place many years ago, repercussions are still present in the twenty first century. Especially in Germany, the Holocaust not only influences patriotism, but it also influences education and immigration policies. In contrast to other countries where nationalism is common, Germany has been forced to lessen the sense of nationalism in order to dispose false beliefs some individuals have of German racism. By allowing people from other countries to become German citizens, Germany avoids transmitting the sense of being a better and a cleaner race. A further sector influenced by the Holocaust is the education system. Approaches to teach about this event are difficult since the Holocaust is a sensitive issue and continues having vital importance in numerous families. Although the Holocaust continues conveying negative influences, the Holocaust also led to positive medical and technological improvements. In fact, numerous improvements are unknowingly implemented in societies today. Therefore, the Holocaust is one of the most horrific and influencing events in history whose repercussions are still felt in Germany today. However, in spite of the horrific occurrences, the associated medical findings and technological improvements make it intricate to look at the Holocaust as plainly evil. Thus, societies should view the Holocaust with a broader perspective.
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...eir own humanity and become killers. This is why the United States and other world powers should create organizations like the United Nations to prevent the conditions that breed desperation, by providing, in order to prevent another such holocaust from occuring ever again. Works Cited: David Adler: We Remember the Holocaust, 1989 Henry Holt & Company, Inc. 115 W 18th St. New York, NY 10011 ~ Ole Kreiberg: Jewish Eyewitnesses, 3/11/1996 The Nizkor Project. Online. Internet. Available: http://www.nizkor.org/ ftp.cgi/people/r/reitlinger.gerald/ 3/12/1996 ~ McFee, Gordon Are the Jews Central to the Holocaust?, 2000 Online. Internet. Available: http://www.holocaust-history.org/jews-central/ 9/9/2000 ~ Abraham Resnick: The Holocaust, 1991 Lucent Books, Inc. P.O. Box 2890111 San Diego, CA 92198-9011 ~ Elie Wiesel: Night, 1960 Bantam Books 1540 Broadway New York, NY 10036
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
In the 1940’s, something as horrifying as the Holocaust was unimaginable, unheard of, and un-noticed. How could someone believe that humans could kill other humans for no reason; that they would be tortured, worked until their death, or burned alive? It was unthinkable. How does someone explain that terrible event so that history doesn’t repeat itself? To believe this story, it takes more than a simple statement. It takes more than someone saying it happened for the message to be grasped. To fully understand the gravity of something like the Holocaust the reader has to be transported to the concentration camps. They have to feel the pain, the suffering that it took to survive, and the absolute fear. Only then can the human race prevent another Holocaust from happening. Elie Wiesel does this by choosing powerful words while capturing the reader’s attention with symbolism and fierce, wild imagery that instantly transports the reader to an unimaginable, unheard of, and un-noticed place.
The Web. The Web. 25 Nov 2013 Williams, Sarah. The "Genocide: The Cambodian Experience." International Criminal Law Review 5.3 (2005): 447-461.
The holocaust is the saddest thing I have ever heard about. With the Nazi's and other Germans blaming everything on the Jews to mass murders of the Jews and others. The Germans killed more than one million people altogether. The German leader was Adolf Hitler. So once everyone started to realize what was going on, they said, "hey jail time."
The Holocaust, a Greek word meaning sacrifice by fire, was the systematic, genocidal killing of over six million Jews and five million non-jews that was carried by the Nazi regime in its attempt to take complete control of Europe. During this time, Jews and other groups such as Roma, Slovaks, Russians, etc. were deemed as racially inferior and, therefore, needed to be exterminated in order to purify German society and protect the Aryan race. Ultimately, the Nazi regime took the lives of eleven million innocent people on these grounds, and, now, decades later, the world still demands justice for those who where murdered as part of this horrific plot. On these grounds, Oskar Gröning, a former SS member at Auschwitz extermination camp, is being
The Holocaust, one of the most devastating moments in history. Hitler’s mass genocide of Jews and other ethnicities had left a scar in the world that would never truly heal. During a time of death and destruction, one camp held the title for most fatalities. The Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the most infamous places during the Holocaust with its bloody history forever etched into the mind of its survivors and future generations to come.
Darley, J. M. & Latané, B. (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, 377–383