Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust
Editorial Reviews
Review
“...an excellent model of a psychohistorical study that has been informed by the conclusions derived from experimental psychology. Her study of the psychosocial dynamics behind moral decision making can also help historians look for the patterns of primary data that can prove fruitful in understanding the behaviors of bystanders as they confront such assaults on humanity as those set in motion by the Nazis. She helps historians to answer the questions of why and how normal people watch political murder from the sidelines."”–
“Bystanders is a powerful argument...The theoretical conclusions of Barnett's final pages are so pertinent, so powerful, that I would gladly have seen them all printed in italics. Indeed, were I now teaching an introductory course on Christian ethics in either a church or a seminary I would include this book as mandatory reading.”–
Book Description
The 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.
Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust
Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust,Victoria J. Barnett,Praeger Paperback,0275970450,General,History,History - General History,History: World,Holocaust,Religion / General
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