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The Holocaust causes and effects
Holocaust effects
The Holocaust causes and effects
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When individuals think about the Holocaust, most place the responsibility of the terrible events on the perpetrators. However, bystanders played one of the largest roles in the Holocaust (Evans, Carrell) simply by staying safe for way too long (Florida Center) and the world wants to make sure it never happens again (Shriver Jr., Donald W).
If the individuals, governments, and countries would have stood up for what they knew was right, the Holocaust would have ended before it did. Just like society now, we don't care about something if it doesn't directly impact us.
Background
A great deal of bystanders tried to stay ignorant to everything that was going on during the Holocaust. Although they knew what was going on, a handful overlooked it
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Many of them say they were just minding their own business (Bystander in Relation) but according to Raul Hilberg, they had all of the clues right in front of them and made the choice to look past it. (Bystanders and Upstanders) Many saw the horrors then went right back to their dinners because they didn’t truly care (Shriver Jr.).
People that lived near the concentration camps remember the stench they smelled in the air from flesh burning as well as ashes and hair and bone fragments in the streets (Bystanders and Upstanders 15). You didn’t necessarily have to read the reports to know what was going on. Railroad employees also claimed to not know what was going on even though they maintained records and knew the tickets were one way (Bystanders and Upstanders 2). The outcome would have been less severe had they not ignored the events involving the
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People lowered their responsibility because it had nothing to do with them or their families. They weren’t being tortured, so they were safe (Shriver 1). Even now our morals and values have declined because a large amount of society just doesn’t care anymore. (Bar-On 3) Martin Niemöller says:
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 quote solely describes the selfish nature of not only those that were bystanders, but those effected in the events of the Holocaust. Donald W. Shriver Jr. says that the “American government as well as people in Germany had no care for minority rights.” (Conscience and Complicity). People stood back because it had nothing to do with them so no one was standing up for the Jews. This type carelessness from society helped to further the events in the Holocaust.
Media and
Bruno Bottelheim, “Helpless Victims,” in The Holocaust Problems and perspectives of Interpretation, ed. Donald L. Niewyk (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 54-59.
Not even the most powerful Germans could keep up with the deaths of so many people, and to this day there is no single wartime document that contains the numbers of all the deaths during the Holocaust. Although people always look at the numbers of people that were directly killed throughout the Holocaust, there were so many more that were affected because of lost family. Assuming that 11 million people died in the Holocaust, and half of those people had a family of 3, 16.5 million people were affected by the Holocaust. Throughout the books and documentaries that we have watched, these key factors of hate and intolerance are overcome. The cause of the Holocaust was hate and intolerance, and many people fighting against it overcame this hate
“The Holocaust: 36 Questions & Answers About the Holocaust.” 36 Questions & Answers About the Holocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014
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 Aftermath of the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
"History of the Holocaust - An Introduction." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 8 July 2010. .
Orlando: Houghton Publishing Company, 2012. 510-564. Print. The. Achieve 3000 “Remembering The Holocaust” 13 Mar. 2006.
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.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, last modified June 10, 2013, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005425.
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
On the night of Kristallnacht, many German citizens were bystanders, either out of fear or approval for what was happening. Another example of bystanders on this day were the firefighters. Although they cannot be considered perpetrators because they did not directly attack the Jews, they only prevented the fire from reaching non-Jewish properties. Through these actions, bystanders only affirm the perpetrators and fuel the fire. In some cases, like the firefighters, they are even more dangerous than the perpetrators by allowing the fire to reach Jewish properties.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
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.
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 one of the three categories....
The bystander effect plays a key role in society today. More and more people ignore a person in distress.