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.
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“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
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.
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
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.
In Miles Lehrman's documentary, Witness to the Holocaust, he argues, “A perpetrator is not the most dangerous enemy. The most dangerous part is the bystander because neutrality always helps the killer”, This is not a logical claim because bystanders merely witness it; however, they are not committing any crimes against laws or humanity. They may want to help the victim, but they may not do so because being a bystander is simply not illegal. Since forcing someone to be an upstander is illegal, people choose to not be an upstander because it puts them in an undesirable position. After all, standing up for the victim may put the upstander in danger along with the victim. Additionally, becoming an upstander does not guarantee that the victim will be safe and sound afterwards; the perpetrator may continue, perhaps with the upstander as another victim.
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 was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi Regime and its collaborators ("Introduction to the Holocaust."). Once Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor-President, the second most powerful position, of Germany, in January of 1933, he immediately started to attract the attention on many Germans by being an eloquent speaker. As a result, he began to gather followers, which started the major formation of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party), which later became the Nazi Party. Hitler and his National Socialist movement belong amoung the many irrationally racist mass movements after the social desperation that followed World War 1. On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler began World War 11 by invading Poland, where he immediately followed with the liquidation or slaughter of Jews; this is when the Final Solution began.
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.
The Holocaust is a subject familiar to most people around the world. They either learned about it in school or on TV. The word “Holocaust” comes from the Greek words “holos” and “kaustos. “Holos” which means whole and the word “kaustos” meaning burned. Originally it is historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar. Throughout history the word has taken a whole different meaning. The modern definition of the word means the mass murder of some 6 million European Jews and other groups by the German Nazi “regime” during World War ll (History, 2016). The Holocaust was one of the darkest times for both Germany and the Jews who were targeted because Hitler believed that they didn’t meet his standards that would compromise
Academic Search Premier -. Web. The Web. The Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Bystanders can be someone who is surrounded by a situation they do not necessarily approve of but they are fearful of the consequences that come with them opposing. During the Holocaust the citizens of Nazi Germany and other European countries knew about the cruel and irrational treatment of the Jews by the Nazi Regime. During the Holocaust many people had to grow accustom to the new Anti-Semitic government. They could not voice
Darley, J. M. & Latané, B. (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, 377–383