Description
Book Synopsis Of the three categories that Raul Hilberg developed in his analysis of the Holocaust—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—it is the last that is the broadest and most difficult to pinpoint. Described by Hilberg as those who were “once a part of this history,” bystanders present unique challenges for those seeking to understand the decisions, attitudes, and self-understanding of historical actors who were neither obviously the instigators nor the targets of Nazi crimes. Combining historiographical, conceptual, and empirical perspectives on the bystander, the case studies in this book provide powerful insights into the complex social processes that accompany state-sponsored genocidal violence.
Trade Review “Although not all Central and Eastern European countries are discussed in this work…the volume offers great insight into the bystander position and how it can be interpreted in different societies, cultures, and historical situations… This pioneering excellent book should encourage new – hopefully, transnational comparative – studies and contribute to further develop Bystander Studies as new field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.” • Journal of Contemporary History
“Scholars interested in the conceptual and research methodological approaches to bystanders will find great sources of research inspiration in a number of chapters… This rich, multidimensional book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the limits and difficulties of categorising bystanders. It advances the field and, crucially, provides a roadmap for future research into this complex, unsettling figure, not just during the Holocaust, but also beyond.” • BMGN Low Countries Historical Review
“This collection stands as an extraordinary and incisive contribution to understanding the processes of extreme violence. Probing the Limits of Categorization is an important book that promises to provoke fruitful discussion.” • Peter Fritzsche, University of Illinois and author of An Iron Wind: Europe under Hitler
“With its disciplinarily diverse contributions, this book offers a captivating and discerning overview of the ‘bystander’ in recent Holocaust studies, rethinking questions that have intrigued historians of the Holocaust for decades. This volume is a thought-provoking and important contribution to the field.” • Caroline Mezger, Center for Holocaust Studies, Institute for Contemporary History
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Introduction: Probing the Limits of Categorization
Christina Morina and Krijn Thijs
PART I: APPROACHES
Chapter 1. Bystanders: Catchall Concept, Alluring Alibi or Crucial Clue?
Mary Fulbrook
Chapter 2. Raul Hilberg and His “Discovery” of the Bystander
René Schlott
Chapter 3. Bystanders as Visual Subjects: Onlookers, Spectators, Observers, and Gawkers in Occupied Poland
Roma Sendyka
Chapter 4. “I Am Not, What I Am.”: A Typological Approach to Individual (In)Action in the Holocaust
Timothy Williams
Chapter 5. The Many Shades of Bystanding: On Social Dilemmas and Passive Participation
Froukje Demant
Chapter 6. The Dutch Bystander as Non-Jew and Implicated Subject
Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans
SECTION II: HISTORY
Chapter 7. Photographing Bystanders
Christoph Kreutzmüller
Chapter 8. The Imperative to Act: Jews, Neighbors, and the Dynamics of Persecution in Nazi Germany, 1933–1945
Christina Morina
Chapter 9. Martin Heidegger’s Nazi Conscience
Adam Knowles
Chapter 10. Natura Abhorret Vacuum: Polish “Bystanders” and the Implementation of the “Final Solution”
Jan Grabowski
Chapter 11. Defiant Danes and Indifferent Dutch?: Popular Convictions and Deportation Rates in the Netherlands and Denmark, 1940–1945
Bart van der Boom
Chapter 12. The Notion of Social Reactivity: The French Case, 1942–1944
Jacques Semelin
SECTION III: MEMORY
Chapter 13. Ordinary, Ignorant and Noninvolved?: The Figure of the Bystander in Dutch Research and Controversy
Krijn Thijs
Chapter 14. Hidden in Plain View: Remembering and Forgetting the Bystanders of the Holocaust on (West) German Television
Wulf Kansteiner
Chapter 15. Stand by Your Man: (Self-)Representations of SS Wives after 1945
Susanne C. Knittel
Chapter 16. “Bystanders” in Exhibitions at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Susan Bachrach
Epilogue I: A Brief Plea for the Historicization of the Bystander
Norbert Frei
Epilogue II: Saving the Bystander
Ido de Haan
Index
