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LOOKING at the ONLOOKERS and BYSTANDERS Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Causes and Consequences of Passivity

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LOOKING at the ONLOOKERS and BYSTANDERS Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Causes and Consequences of Passivity LOOKING AT THE ONLOOKERS AND BYSTANDERS Interdisciplinary approaches to the causes and consequences of passivity. Editor Henrik Edgren PERIODICAL BOOKLET # 13:2012 Forum för levande historia The Living History Forum LOOKING AT THE ONLOOKERS AND BYSTANDERS Interdisciplinary approaches to the causes and consequences of passivity. Editor Henrik Edgren PERIODICAL BOOKLET # 13:2012 Forum för levande historia The Living History Forum 3 Looking at the onlookers and bystanders. Interdisciplinary approaches to the causes and consequences of passivity. Editor Henrik Edgren Contributors Henrik Edgren Victoria Barnett Karin Kvist Geverts Dennis T Kahn Paul Slovic Thomas Brudholm David Gaunt Dienke Hondius Mats Andersson Christina Gamstorp Project manager Christina Gamstorp Legally responsible publisher Eskil Franck Layout Ritator Coverphoto Germany, Cologne, 1937. A big crowd of Germans participating in a Nazi Party rally. Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Julien Bryan Photo Scanpix and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Print Edita, Västerås, 2012 Forum för levande historia / The Living History Forum Box 2123, 103 13 Stockholm, Sweden [email protected] www.levandehistoria.se ISSN 1653-5332 ISBN 978-91-86261-23-8 © Forum för levande historia 4 CONTENTS 6 TheME 1: The definition OF the “bystander concept” – What is A bystander? 9 Introductory remarks by Eskil Franck 13 The project “Bystanders – Does it matter?” by Henrik Edgren 35 Reflections on the Concept of “Bystander” by Victoria Barnett 53 Sweden and the Holocaust by Karin Kvist Geverts 64 TheME 2: Different EXplanatory Models relating to bystanders, E.G. norM shifting processes 67 Norm Shifting and Bystander Intervention by Dennis T. Kahn 85 “If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide by Paul Slovic 114 TheME 3: Methodological aspects OF STUdying the bystander; How do we tell the story OF passiVity OR inaction? 117 Mind the Gap(s) Between Memory, History, and Philosophy by Thomas Brudholm 143 Enforcing a Bystander Regime during Genocide: The Case of the Ottoman Empire by David Gaunt 167 Bystander Memories – Unfolding and Questioning Eyewitness Narratives on the Deportation of the Jews by Dienke Hondius 186 TheME 4: Didactical issUes; How do we approach the bystander froM AN edUcational perspectiVE? 189 How we got the bystander into the classroom by Mats Andersson 203 Who cares about the bystander by Christina Gamstorp 5 6 THEME 1 The definition of the “bystander concept” – What is a bystander? 7 Photo: Scanpix IntrodUctory REMarks Eskil Franck Director, The Living History Forum The project “Bystanders – Does it matter?” (Spelar roll) has been one of the major themes of the Living History Forum during the period 2008–2012 and is today part of the portfolio of pedagogical materials that we currently provide to Swedish school teachers and pupils in the ages 12 to 19. The project consists of a comprehensive educational material supported by teacher training, a permanent exhibition, a travelling exhibition and a research component. Taking the Holocaust as its point of departure, the aim of the project was to create awareness about the role of the bystander. What does it mean to be a bystander? What stops us from intervening against bullies or in larger contexts when human rights are violated in a more serious way? How are we responsible when we do not intervene in some way? Social norms and the normalization process are crucial factors in understanding why we become passive bystanders. The question of how norms and norm formation affect the actions of individuals and groups in situations where they can choose to be passive or active emerged as a key issue in the project. Norms and the formation of norms had a decisive impact on events such as the Holocaust, by facilitating a “production” of passive bystanders. Many institutions in the Third Reich – the education system, legislation and the legal system, the private sector etc. – acted in concert to change norms and enable a radical discrimination of German Jews. And today, norms and values have an impact on how we as human beings define what may be termed our “circle of responsibility”. The research component of the Bystander project was intended to focus primarily on society, norms and norm formation by compiling existing research, encouraging further research in this field, and making research available to people outside the scientific community, for example schoolteachers. There are many research fields that are of relevance to the explanation of bystander behaviour, and the scientific disciplines of history, political science, psychology, social psychology and philosophy are all important in this regard. 9 One contribution to highlighting this field of research was an interdisciplinary research conference hosted by the Living History Forum in collaboration with the University of Uppsala. The conference was held at Uppsala University on October 17–18, 2008. Four main themes were central: the definition of the bystander concept; the norm shifting process and its implications for individual behaviour, methodological aspects of studying the bystander – from a specific to a more general approach, and pedagogical/didactical issues. These broad themes also form the basis for this bystander anthology. Again, “Does it matter?” (Spelar roll) is truly an educational project and it has also been embraced by a large number of Swedish teachers who have taught their pupils about the causes and consequences of passivity. That is also how this anthology should be used, to enhance the knowledge of those who teach on these issues, thus bridging the gap between research and education. 10 11 The proJect “Bystanders – Does IT Matter?” Henrik Edgren This, this was the thing I had wanted to understand ever since the war. Nothing else. How a human being can remain indifferent. The executioners I understood, also the victims, though with more difficulty. For the others, all the others, those who were neither for nor against, those who sprawled in passive patience, those who told themselves, The storm will blow over and everything will be normal again, those who thought themselves above the battle, those who were permanently and merely spectators – all those were closed to me, incomprehensible.1 In September of 2005 the Living History Forum started a project with the title, “Bystanders – Does it matter?” (Spelar roll). The project’s aim was to discuss, analyze and understand “the bystander”, whom Eli Wiesel above finds so incomprehensible. The project’s target groups were primarily comprised of teachers and students at Swedish secondary schools and further education. Taking the Holocaust as its point of departure, the Living History Forum wanted to illuminate all individuals who, in Wiesel’s words, “were neither for nor against, those who sprawled in passive patience and those who told themselves, ‘The storm will blow over’”. Important questions to be examined by the project included: Why were people bystanders while the members of groups such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and the disabled were harassed, deported and killed? Who were the bystanders and did they really have any opportunity to choose to intervene and make a difference? How did bystanders legitimize the perpetrators? In what way did changes in norms and attitudes influence the passivity of the bystander? 2 The main focus of the project has been directed at the bystander as an individual, as a group or in the form of societal institutions, such as newspapers, radio, TV, the school system and the church. The project has resulted in exhibitions, school material, conferences and educational programs for both students and teachers. One important purpose has been to discuss and analyze the bystander in different historical and 13 present day contexts, and thus not only during the Holocaust. There are obviously many differences between a bystander of today in a “bullying situation” in a school yard or at a work place as compared to a bystander who watches people being deported and killed in a genocide. However, there are also a number of similarities, for example that a bystander passively watches and does not intervene when a fellow human being is attacked or offendend in one way or another. Accordingly it has been important for the Living History Forum to emphasize both similarities and differences between bystanders in various historical and present day contexts. It has also been crucial not to moralise about the bystander’s passivity. Sometimes the bystander is almost seen as being more responsible for vicious crimes than the actual perpetrator and it is therefore important to stress the fact that the purpose of the project was not to put blame and guilt on the bystander. Instead, the aim has been to discuss why people become bystanders, the role of the passive bystander and the consequences of his or her inaction, and also whether there are feasible opportunities for the bystander to intervene in various situations. In the initial phase of the project, it quickly became evident that the definition of the concept “bystander” needed to be scrutinized and perhaps modified. Bystanders in different contexts have different motives and different opportunities to intervene. It is also quite misleading to say that a bystander always remains in the same bystander position. In history, there are many examples of bystanders who have turned into rescuers and also, more tragically, who have become perpetrators. Accordingly, Eli Wiesel’s blaming judgement
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