Holocaust Bystanders
Bystanders may have remained unaware, or perhaps were aware of victimization going on around them, but, being fearful of the consequences, chose not to take risk to help Nazi victims. Cynthia Ozick writes,
Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away--of choosing to be passive--as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does it deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands. Indifference is as determined--and as forcefully muscular--as any blow.
Claude Lanzmann's documentary, Shoah, provides another portrait of the bystander. At first, bystanders who were interviewed in this documentary engaged in self-deception about the murder of Jews. Only after lengthy questioning did they finally acknowledge that they chose their roles deliberately, even when they could have done otherwise.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out
because I was not a labor leader.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one
left to speak out for me.
--The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp.
How could they just stand there and watch? Why did they do nothing? The largest of the “groups” in the whole drama of the Holocaust were the bystanders. They were bystanders because they were ignorant, helpless and fearful or they chose to ignore what was happening around them. Some eventually became rescuers. Many became victims. The bystanders were individuals, institutions (schools, churches, local governments) and nations.
There was no on-the-spot, 24 hour cable news, with rolling pictures; and the Nazis had effectively taken over all news outlets in Germany by the mid 1930s. They even “cleaned-up” all around the site of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, removing antisemitic posters, hiding any damage to Jewish businesses and temporarily suspending persecutions of the Jews and others, fooling many who attended the games.
The Nazi regime used tactics of fear and terror to control any resistance or rescues. By speaking up against actions, one could be placing his own family and neighborhood in jeopardy of the same or worse treatment. Often there were no means to resist or rebel, no weapons, no where to go. Some bystanders were literally paralyzed with fear or helplessness.
But those who could have done something about what they saw, often chose not to because of their own agendas and biases. The United States and other countries believed that only by winning the war could they then provide any means to stop the destruction of the Jews and others. But the United States could have opened its borders to refugees had it not been for the overwhelming sentiment, at the time, that there weren’t means to care for so many “outsiders” when the country was still recovering from the depression.
Conscience and courage would turn many bystanders into rescuers and resisters. Those attributes need to be developed to greater degrees in all of us and modeled for our children. Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
The Perpetrators
The perpetrators of the Holocaust were those who played some role in the formulation and implementation of destructive measures against the Jews. These perpetrators wore Nazi uniforms and brown shirts. Some wore business suits, and some even wore clerical collars, knickers and pigtails. Over 300,000 people in Germany and its satellite territories took part in the systematic decimation of the Jewish populations and the deaths of many other victims.
Adolf Hitler was, and is still considered, evil personified, because, as the extremely charismatic leader of the Third Reich, he lead Germany and its allies into the downward spiral of prejudice and hatred culminating in the mass murders of millions of Jews and others. He was bent on the total annihilation of the Jews. Through propaganda, intimidation, fear and manipulation of long held antisemitic feelings of the 1800s and early 1900s among the peoples of Europe, he found willing collaborators and few who would protest.
Perpetrators came from all walks of life. Some doctors, lawyers and other professionals participated in their professional capacities. Some clerics willingly gave up church records and preached the Nazi party line from the pulpits. Some teachers propagated the antisemitic messages in their classrooms. Some laborers spied on their employers. Magistrates in the towns and villages took part in the ordered registration of Jews and others. The police rounded up those destined for transport. The camp guards and specialized killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) killed persons en masse. Even children turned in their friends, relatives or those in hiding.
Without the cooperation of so many, even in small parts, the Third Reich could not have carried out the Holocaust. Each person had a choice.
