A large focus of Holocaust Studies has been dedicated to spreading awareness of the Holocaust in hopes that this awareness will help to prevent more genocide. At the root of this issue is the “bystander” -- the onlooker, witness, collaborator etc. This thesis asks how the term “bystander” is used in Holocaust discourse to reflect larger, national aspects of Israeli and American narratives of the Holocaust by closely analyzing the two national Holocaust museums from these countries, Yad Vashem, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It explores how the term “bystander” became popular in relation to the Holocaust by examining its development in social psychology, historiography of the Holocaust, and practical applications in international law policy. By examining the main exhibit, museum book and website of both Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum this thesis shows how these two institutions’ use, or omission, of the “bystander” in their most popular materials reflects national ideas about the Holocaust in their respective countries. This thesis argues the idea of the “bystander” is in fact presented differently in Israel and the United States, and that neither narrative presents an understanding of the term that can help encourage its museum visitors to engage with the topic in a meaningful way.

Supervisors:
Prof. Tamar Katriel
Dr. David Silberklang

Liberation photography has been for a long time recognized as an important part of the visual record of the Holocaust, but its scholarly analysis was limited to pictures taken by the allied armies’ photographers or photojournalists. This thesis introduces a new material into the debate: photographs taken in 1944 at the Majdanek death camp by local inhabitants of the Lublin area and eyewitnesses to the Holocaust at the same time. Three collections of such photographs will be the subject of visual analysis, the key assumption being that they mediate distinctive experience of Polish bystanders and can thus provide new information about their perception of both the liberation and the Shoah itself. Firstly, the thesis discusses historical-cultural context in which the photographers operated and addresses the problems of: Polish-Jewish relations during and after the war; emerging memory narratives in the Soviet-controlled state; and visual experience of the local people as well as imagery to which they were exposed at the time. In the second part of the thesis, selected photographs are analyzed as unique documents of rarely ever captured scenes or distinctive means of documentation. Focusing on different representational strategies of the authors, the thesis presents bystanders as active agents who developed autonomous positions vis-à-vis the Holocaust, rather than passively adapted to the externally imposed reality. A closer look at respective collections will be a basis for broader conclusions on elision of Jewish victimhood, lack of discursive frame for the interpretation of the Holocaust and the ways in which the genocide might have been inscribed into individual and collective narratives of the liberation in postwar Poland.

Supervisor:
Prof. Roma Sendyka

The persecution of the Jews under the National Socialist regime began in 1933 and ended with the destruction of European Jewry in 1945. During the years of Hitler’s rule, Jews were excluded, segregated, haunted, and finally, annihilated. Such happened at first in Germany and later in the occupied territories all over Europe. This study focused on three historical periods in search of markers of empathy in the emotional responses of “ordinary Germans” to the persecution of the Jews. At the time, the Nazi administration had under its control, a network of 30,000 agents and informants that reported on the opinions, reactions, and mood of the German public with regard to the administration’s actions in general and its anti-Jewish measures in particular. Historians’ analyses of the reactions of Germans as they were portrayed in the “secret” reports were the foundation for the overall agreement between Holocaust scholars, that the German public at large was indifferent to the fate of the Jews in Germany. The indifferent apathetic population was seen therefore, not merely as innocent bystanders to the ongoing persecution, but rather as passive partners to the active Nazi mass murder of the Jews. Empathy is an inborn, vicarious socio-emotional response that is evoked in an observer when seeing another in distress. The empathic response is composed of three major components: an emotional component which is expressed through feelings of concern, the feeling for the other person, sympathy or compassion; a cognitive component that includes all attempts to inquire and/or better understand the other’s situation and state; and a behavioral component which is usually expressed through pro-social helping behavior, assisting, rescuing, or exhibiting altruism. In the present study, personal accounts of a hundred “ordinary Germans,” including letters, memoirs, diaries, interviews, testimonies, and surveys were reviewed and analyzed in search of markers of empathy. These primary sources were compared and contrasted with the Nazi secret reports, in order to uncover discrepancies, if exist, between what the official documents suggest was the overall response of the German public and what individuals felt and experienced in response to the Jews’ maltreatment. In all three periods, comparison of the sources suggested that while the secret reports portrayed a picture of an indifferent public, in fact, “ordinary Germans” expressed concern and sympathy towards the Jews’ situation and have also inquired and searched for information on their whereabouts. This study proposes therefore, that ordinary individuals in Germany between 1933 and 1945 felt empathy towards the Jews. These emotions were kept secret, were expressed in private writings, or discussed only in close and secure circles of friends and families. Since no overt pro-social actions were taken nor was protest expressed in the open, the German population was perceived and tagged by historians as indifferent participants in the genocide of the Jews.

Supervisors:
Dr. Laura Jockusch
Prof. Eli Somer

This thesis examines the Dutch Reformed Church (NHK) during World War II and its response to Jewish persecution, the Holocaust, in the Netherlands between 1940-1945. The thesis focuses entirely on the actions and words of NHK leadership: the General Synod and the General Synodal Commission. This research is divided into three chapters: the NHK’s reaction to anti-Jewish measures, its involvement in the persecution of the Jews affiliated with a Christian church, and NHK’s resistance, adaptation, or cooperation. Each of these sections is presented in chronological order, providing a historical context before delving into the reaction of the NHK. This research is based on archival material and involves secondary literature dealing with a related topic. After the two chapters it is being asked what the differences are between the reaction of the NHK towards the anti-Jewish measures and their involvement with the Christian-Jewish persecution, which concludes that the NHK prioritized avoiding persecution of Christian-Jews over the Jewish population in general. The third chapter questions the research of early postwar historians who claimed that the NHK was a resistance church and examines which actions, in relation to the Holocaust, would categorize them as adapting to new circumstances, resisting the occupier, or working with the occupier. The chapter concludes that the NHK was not a strong resistance church, but neither was it a church that collaborated with the occupier. The declaration of the Dutch Protestant church about their part in the Holocaust, introduced in the introduction, comes back in the conclusion where it is connected to the findings of this thesis.

Supervisor:
Prof. Bart Wallet