THE PERPETRATOR SECTION 3: INTRODUCTION CATEGORIES OF Irena Steinfeld argues that: The Nazi state practised a reversal of ethics PARTICIPANT and values in which murder became an ideal. INVOLVEMENT IN Large segments of German society continued to cling to old moral precepts, however, even THE HOLOCAUST if they did not object to the murders. Why so many people with moral codes became Integral to this project is the students’ executioners remains an open question to knowledge and understanding of the this day…the motivations behind the actions of the perpetrators were complex. In following categories of participant addition to pursuing “the ideal” other factors involvement in the Holocaust to think about include obedience to 1. Perpetrator authority, opportunism, peer pressure, careerism, sadism and economic gain.8 2. Bystander 3. Resistor This ’marrying’ of murder and morality in Nazi ideology is illustrated in the extracts provided. 4. Victim See Appendix E for an explanation of these PERPETRATOR CORE ACTIVITY categories. (STAGES 3, 4 & 5) Students may work through the following Read the following extract for an understanding core activities for each category or they of Himmler as a ‘perpetrator’ and respond to could be allocated one to ‘teach’ to the rest the questions that follow. of the class. Himmler’s Speech SS Chief Heinrich Himmler gave the following OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES speech in October 1943 before senior SS officers in Posen. In his speech, Himmler There are additional optional activities for claimed that one could conduct mass killings each of the categories of participants in the and still remain a decent human being. By the Holocaust – Perpetrator, Bystander, Resistor time he gave this speech, the majority of and Victim – please see Part 4: Optional Europe’s Jews had already been murdered. Activities. Teachers may select a range of these for students to consider according to their needs, interests and abilities and the time available. 8 Steinfeldt, I., How Was it Humanly Possible? A Study of Perpetrators and Bystanders during the Holocaust, The International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem Jerusalem, 2002, pg. 41 13 DEVELOPING AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK – Pre Visit Section 3 ‘I want to mention here, in complete frankness, infected by that germ and die from it. I will not a particularly difficult chapter. Among us it stand by while a slight infection forms. should be mentioned once, quite openly but in Whenever such an infected spot appears, we public we will never talk about it … I am will burn it out. But on the whole, we can say referring to the evacuation of the Jews to the that we have fulfilled this heavy task with love extermination of the Jewish people. This is one for our people, and we have not been damaged of the things that is easily said: “The Jewish in the innermost of our being, our soul, our people are going to be exterminated,” that’s character.’9 what every party member says, “Sure it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination Questions: –it’ll be done.” And then they all came along, 1. How does Himmler justify the ‘right’ of these the 80 million worthy Germans, and each one actions? What ‘moral stance’ or ‘moral has his one decent Jew. Of course, the others are argument’ does Himmler take? swine, but this one, he is a first rate Jew. Of all 2. How do you respond to Himmler’s speech those who talk like that, no one has seen it and his justifications? happen, no one has had to go through with it. Most of you men know what it is like to see 3. Imagine this is Himmler’s speech as first 100 corpses side-by-side, or 500 or 1000. To speaker on the affirmative side in a debate have stood fast through this and – except for on the “difficult chapter” of “the extermination cases of human weakness – to have stayed of the Jews”. As an opposing speaker how decent, that has made us hard. This is an would you rebut his arguments? unwritten and never to be written page of glory 4. How does Himmler’s definition of morality in our history, for we know how difficult it differ from the definitions you developed in would be for us to if today-under the bombing the ‘Key Concepts’ section of the program? raids and the hardships and deprivations of war Do you agree with Steinfelt’s assessment of –if we were still to have the Jews in every city as ‘why’ such a reversal of ethics took place in secret saboteurs, agitators and inciters. If the Nazi Germany? What other factors may have Jews were still lodged in the body of the been at play? German nation, we would probably by now 5. Research any organisations, treaties, laws, have reached the stage of 1916-17. agreements or other universal actions that The riches which they, (the Jews), owned we have been created or put into place in an have taken from them. I have given strict attempt to ensure that human beings are orders, which Obergruppenführer Pohl has treated humanely. For example, see The carried out, that this wealth should naturally be Geneva Convention, United Nations’ Human delivered to the Reich. We have taken nothing. Rights and Children’s Rights Declarations, Individuals who have transgressed are being mission statements for organisations such as punished in accordance with an order, which I Amnesty International, The Red Cross etc. gave in the beginning, and which threatened What ideas do they have in common that anyone who takes just a single mark is a about human rights? condemned man. A number of SS men – not Why do you think such organisations many – have (sic) transgressed against the order and agreements are needed? and they will be condemned to death How do you think these treaties and mercilessly. We had the moral right; we had the other such agreements can be enforced? duty towards our people to annihilate this What do you think is a just punishment people, which wanted to annihilate us. But we for perpetrators and those people who have no right to take a single fur, a single watch, break these agreements? a single mark, a single cigarette or anything whatsoever. We don’t want in the end, just 9 Steinfeldt, I., How Was it Humanly Possible? A Study of Perpetrators and Bystanders during the Holocaust, The International School for because we have exterminated a germ, to be Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem Jerusalem, 2002, pg. 42 DEVELOPING AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK – Pre Visit Section 3 14 A. Letter of complaint from Mrs THE BYSTANDER Eleonore Gusenbauer of Ried, the village above Mauthausen, September 1941 (Stages 3, 4 & 5) INTRODUCTION ‘Inmates from the Mauthausen concentration The British statesman Edmund Burke claimed, camp are constantly being shot at the Vienna “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil Ditch worksite. Those who are badly struck still is for good men to do nothing”. Burke’s insight live for some time and lie next to the dead for draws attention to the fact that it is often hours and in some cases for half a day. difficult to distinguish between Bystanders and Perpetrators. Is there such a thing as a “passive My property is situated on an elevation close to onlooker”? Perhaps not taking action is also a the Vienna Ditch and therefore often becomes decision and therefore a form of action in itself. the unwilling witness of such misdeeds. I am sickly in any case and such sights make such For example, in her recent study, “Bystanders – demands on my nerves, that I will be unable to Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust”, bear it much longer. Victoria Barnett has found that Perpetrators and Bystanders often use the same I request that it be arranged that such unhuman justifications.10 Bystanders, like Perpetrators, deeds will cease or else be conducted out of 11 create a distinction between public and private sight.’ life, maintaining silence about acts they would consider unacceptable in the private world of Questions: home and family. 1. What is Mrs Gusenbauer’s main cause for complaint? Some Bystanders explain their conduct by referring to authority or compliance to majority 2. How do you respond to this letter? What is opinion. These two factors allow Bystanders to your opinion of Mrs Gusenbauer and her separate themselves from direct Perpetrators request? and thus escape moral responsibility. The texts 3. Using this letter as your evidence what do and activities below illustrate how complex the you think categorises Mrs Gusenbauer as a connection between Perpetrators and bystander? Bystanders can be. 4. How do you think she would justify her actions or refute being categorised as a BYSTANDER CORE ACTIVITIES bystander? Read the following extracts for an understanding of different Bystanders and their responses to events occurring around them and respond to the questions that follow. 11 “Dokumentationsarchiv des osterreichischen Widertand” or Horwitz, Gordon J., In the Shadow of Death – Living outside the Gates of Mauthausen, The Free Press, 1990, pg. 35 cited in Steinfeldt, I., How Was it Humanly Possible? A Study of Perpetrators and Bystanders during 10 Victoria J., Bystanders—Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust, the Holocaust, The International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Greenwood Press, Barnett, 1999 Vashem Jerusalem, 2002, pg. 165 15 DEVELOPING AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK – Pre Visit Section 3 from the group and struck him with the B. Report of a photographer crowbar with one or more blows on the back (Stage 5) of the head. Within three quarters of an hour he had beaten to death the entire group of forty ‘At the beginning of the Russian campaign on five to fifty people in this way.