The first systematic study of bystanders during the Holocaust analyzing why individuals, institutions, and the international community remained passive while millions died.
Introduction
Who Is a Bystander?
Individual Behavior
Collective Behavior
Interpreting the Holocaust
The Role of Totalitarianism
Attitudes Toward "The Other": Prejudice and Indifference
The Dynamics of Indifference
A Broken World: Religious Interpretations of the Holocaust
Acts of Disruptive Empathy: One Village
The Individual as Ethical Being
Bibliography
Index
VICTORIA J. BARNETT is a consultant for the Department of Church Relations, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She has written numerous scholarly articles on religious topics. An authority on the history of the churches during the Holocaust, she is the author of For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (1992).
"The ethical questions [Barnett] raises are as relevant and searing
for the bystanders of today as they are for those of the past.
Extremely well written, interesting and clear, the book should
appeal to students in college-level Holocaust studies courses as
well as the general public. It provides a great deal of information
about Holocaust history while simultaneously provoking the reader
toward moral self-scrutiny."-Pearl Oliner Professor of Education
Research Director Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior
Institute
"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
"Victoria Barnett's new book is a welcome and necessary addition to
the scholarship on the holocaust, in particular on its implications
for Christians and Christianity....Barnett's lucidly written,
accessible book will find a receptive audience in undergraduate and
graduate classes as well as among the broader interested
public."-Doris L. Bergen Professor University of Notre Dame
"Without flinching, and with sharp distaste for any apologetics,
Barnett scrutinizes the behavior of the "bystanders," those who saw
and did nothing and then claimed they bore no responsibility. This
book is a great achievement and will disturb the complacency of all
those who thought they already knew the history of the
Holocaust."-Susannah Heschel author of Abraham Geiger and the
Jewish Jesus
.,."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."-American Historical 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.?-American Historical Review
?A good, broad-based introduction to an important but
often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust, this book should find a
place on the shelves of undergraduates and social scientists,
humanists, and humanitarians of every stripe.?-Religious Studies
Review
?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.?-Christian Century
?This is an important book on the dynamics of indifference and on
the ethical implications of the Holocaust on the eve of a new
millenium. Highly recommended for all libraries and Judaica
collections.?-Jewish Book World
"A good, broad-based introduction to an important but
often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust, this book should find a
place on the shelves of undergraduates and social scientists,
humanists, and humanitarians of every stripe."-Religious Studies
Review
"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."-Christian Century
"This is an important book on the dynamics of indifference and on
the ethical implications of the Holocaust on the eve of a new
millenium. Highly recommended for all libraries and Judaica
collections."-Jewish Book World
..."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."-American Historical Review
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