BOOK

Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust

 

Barnett, Victoria J. Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000.  208 pages.  ISBN: 0275970450.

 

REVIEW

 

From the back cover of the book:

 

“Victoria Barnett’s book charts new ground in considering the bystander phenomenon during the Holocaust.  Drawing from a wide variety of sources, Barnett examines the historical and ethical implications of bystander behavior on three levels:  the individual, institutional, and international.  Scholars and educators will benefit from Barnett’s innovative and provocative study.”

    Mary Johnson

National Senior Program Associate

    Facing History and Ourselves

 

I purchased a copy of Victoria Barnett’s book from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Museum Shop in anticipation of my project for the Mandel Teacher Fellowship.  Originally planning to do a study of the role of bystanders in the Holocaust, I found Barnett’s book to be not only fascinating but also compelling reading.  In my mind, a book reads easily if the reader immediately tries to find more time to get back to it.  Barnett’s book rewards that consistent effort.

 

Barnett grabs the reader by the back of the neck and plunges him headlong into this morally suspect world of passive acceptance.  On page xv of the Introduction, she writes:

 

The term “bystander” does not apply to leading Nazis or guards in concentration camps, but to “ordinary” citizens.  In some fashion these people simply went about their daily lives during one of the ghastliest dictatorships the world has ever known.  They continued to work and raise their children.  Those who lived near concentration camps tended their gardens and had regular dealings with those who worked and ran the camps.  After November 9, 1938, when thousands of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany suddenly had new owners, people continued to shop in them as though nothing had changed.

 

They were people who, to their vast relief, were convinced after 1945 that they had not been directly involved in the genocide of the Jews.

 

And she continues.  Using quotes from survivors both unknown and of the prominence of Elie Wiesel, Barnett takes her readers through a discussion of the role of bystanders in other genocides, with a caution toward the universalization or generalization of the term.  Scholars, as well as those who remain with living memories of the events of the Shoah, warn against applying definitions and explanations across the board of human indecency.  To do so is to diminish the scope of the moral responsibility of the participants in the Holocaust and to allow those who perpetrated or stood by a measure of anonymity.  And this is just in her Introduction…

 

Barnett moves through a survey of institutional bystanding during the Shoah, from the Protestant churches of Germany to the Red Cross to American churches to international governments.  Within that discussion she delineates those institutions, such as banks, that not only did not protest, but actually sought to profit from the events.  Next she covers interpretations of the Holocaust and makes this statement:  Every study of the Holocaust is an interpretation of what the writer thinks happened (p. 63).  Barnett does a nice job of mixing in different opinions in constructing her examination of the following issues.  She states,

 

Three specific historical issues are crucial to understanding the role of bystanders during the Holocaust:  the dynamics of totalitarianism; the development and role of prejudice; and the underlying dynamics of the widespread “indifference” that existed (p. 69).

 

While discussing the rise of Nazification in Germany, and how the average German learned what he/she could/should do and what he/she could/should not participate in, Barnett makes the comment in regard to why so few protested when the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 – it is easier to leave a ship when it is still in the harbor than when it has reached the open seas (p. 73) -- while it could be argued that in 1935 the "ship" was still in the harbor, perhaps some saw that as a real step toward the coming events.

 

Her next discussions explore the role of totalitarianism, which would affect people not only individually but also corporately, and prejudice – the concept of “the other” as it might have existed prior to Nazi coaxing (and which helped to solidify Nazi totalitarianism).  The tendency to justify the existing order and one’s place within it leads many bystanders to turn against the victims (p. 101).  The hammer drops with this statement, by Raul Hilberg:

 

The bottom line was that most people thought that, even if Jews shouldn’t be killed, they weren’t worth saving.  Ultimately, there was nothing about the plight of the Jews that moved outsiders – bystanders – to see the Jews’ fate as linked to their own (p.113).

 

The insights in Barnett’s book are applicable to many readers.  We have all at one time been a witness to a school fight, and done nothing to break it up.  We have witnessed people being dishonest, and not called them on it.  Through her research and delivery of this important discussion, Barnett calls all humans to self-examination of acceptable, accountable behavior in service to our fellows.

 

PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE

 

Have students read the following passage from a handout or overhead:

 

Witnesses to an accident are expected, for example, to remain on the scene until help arrives.  Society expects them to render assistance to injured parties to the extent possible.  This precept is law in many countries… The failure of bystanders to aid someone in need is not just an individual sin; ultimately, it undermines the viability of society as a whole.  In 1964, a young woman, Kitty Genovese, was murdered on a Brooklyn street.  Although she repeatedly cried for help, numerous people watching from their windows did not even call the police.  The Kitty Genovese murder is still cited as an event that profoundly unnerved people at the time, for it made them aware of the breakdown of U.S. society.  It was a signal that the human involvement, commitment, and shared sense of responsibility necessary for the healthy ethical life of a society had disappeared from modern cities (p. 167).

 

Have students answer the following questions individually.  Some students may volunteer to discuss their response with the class.

 

1. What are the obligations of a community?
2. Do you feel compelled to fulfill your half of the responsibility towards a community even if it is not reciprocated?
3. What are the opportunity costs of “getting involved”, for example in the Kitty Genovese case?
4. What are the opportunity benefits?
5. Can someone get into trouble for not getting involved?  Are there certain situations where legal retribution is an issue?
6. How would you feel about signing an official document or affidavit that states your knowledge about a particular crime or incident?

 

RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE

 

I spend a great deal of time in our study trying to get my students to look at the decisions people (at all levels of involvement in the Holocaust) made based on the choices they were given.  Barnett’s book on bystander mentality, both at the individual and societal levels, works well in almost any discussion on victims or perpetrators.  Of course, it specifically ties into a unit on the role of the United States and/or the Vatican and their lack of response to the events of the Shoah.

 

CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE

 

This material fits best with group discussion.  I would use material from this book for group reading, or perhaps I would simply read relevant passages to the students.  From there I would lead the students to explore their own experiences and feelings.  Ideally, there would be students in the room who have been perpetrator, victim, and/or witness, and appropriate delving could draw forth some real-world situations for evaluation.  The individual instructor should be able to “read” their students to know best how to deal with this material.

 

STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE

 

I have used the following activity for several years.  It is one of the things we do about which students always make positive comments on the course evaluation.  I originally got the assignment from Warren Marcus of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Education Division while attending a teaching seminar at Spertus College in Chicago.  I allow the class to divide themselves into groups of three or four students, and give them at least 45 minutes to discuss amongst themselves the short case studies.  They must come to a consensus within their group before we come back to class discussion.  My experience has been that students will sometimes find it easier to come to agreement if instead of varying degrees of responsibility being assigned, they can instead think of their task as handing down a sentence (4 being the death penalty, 3 a lengthy prison term, even life, 2 a short prison term or perhaps a fine of some amount, and 1 either nothing or perhaps some length of probation).

 

Assessing and Defining Responsibility

 

If you were a judge at a post-war trial, how would you assess the “responsibility” of these people for what happened to the Jews and other victims of the Nazis between 1933 and 1945? Indicate one of the following:

 

1. Not responsible                                    3. Responsible

2. Minimally responsible                        4. Very responsible

 

1. One of Hitler’s direct subordinates, such as Heinrich Himmler or Joseph Goebbels
2. A German who voluntarily joined Hitler’s special elite, the SS
3. A German industrialist who financially supported Hitler’s rise to power and continued to support him verbally
4. A judge who carried out Hitler’s decrees for sterilization of the “mentally incompetent” and internment of “traitors”
5. A doctor who participated in sterilization of Jews
6. A worker in a plant making Zyklon B gas
7. The Pope, who made no public statement against Nazi policy
8. An industrialist who made enormous profits by producing Zyklon B gas
9. A manufacturer who used concentration camp inmates as slave labor in his plants
10. An American industrialist who helped arm Hitler in the 1930s
11. A person who voluntarily joined the Nazis in the 1930s
12. A person who agreed to publicly take the Civil Servant Loyalty Oath (swearing eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler in 1934)
13. A person who complied with the law excluding Jews from economic and social life
14. A person who regularly, enthusiastically attended Hitler rallies
15. A person who always respectfully gave the “Heil Hitler” salute
16. A person who served as a concentration camp guard
17. A person who turned the lever to allow the gas into the chambers
18. A driver of the trains that went to the concentration camps
19. A diplomat for the Nazi government
20. The American Government, which limited emigration of Jews to the U.S. in the 1930s
21. The “little guy” who claimed “he doesn’t get involved in politics” and thus went about his business as quietly as he could in the Hitler regime
22. The soldier who carried out orders to roust Jews from their homes for “evacuation and resettlement”
23. The German couple who took up residence in a home evacuated by Jews
24. The non-Jews who took over a store just abandoned by Jews
25. The German who refused all pleas to participate in hiding and smuggling of Jews
26. The policeman who helped round up escaping Jews
27. A teacher who taught Nazi propaganda
28. Children who joined the Hitler Youth
29. Parents who sent or allowed their children to attend Hitler Youth meetings
30. The Protestant clergyman who gave to the Nazis lists of members of his congregation who were “non-Aryan.”

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Flaim, Richard F., and Edwin W. Reynolds Jr., eds. The Holocaust and Genocide.  New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1983.

(http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/guidelines/pdf/assessing.pdf -- accessed April 13, 2005)