The denial of an obvious reality is a sign of psychosis. Usually, however, reality or at least its meaning is not so obvious, and differing interpretations are possible. As I noted, the Nazis’ own motivation for genocide evolved with increasing mistreatment of Jews. An accurate perception or reality in the Germany of the mid-1930s would have suggested extreme danger, but not impending genocide. However, adding consideration of Hitler’s written and spoken words would have made genocide a realistic possibility.
When the Nazis came to power, Jews were uncertain about their fate. Uncertainty creates great anxiety. Thus, they even welcomed the initial laws that “clarified” their status – the Nuremberg laws. According to Hannah Arendt, many Jews continued to cling to the belief that the original program of the National Socialist Party, enunciated in 1920 and never officially abandoned, expressed the Nazis’ true intentions.36 This program contained provisions that in 1920 expressed severe anti-Semitism, but now seemed mild: second-class citizenship for Jews and their exclusion from the civil service and the press.
We do not know the extent that defenses distorted the Jews’ perception of reality. Given the progressive increase in persecution, it was possible to see each anti-Jewish measure as the last one. Most likely, defenses delayed the attempts of some Jews to leave Germany and face a new, unfamiliar world and contributed to disbelief of the initial rumors and fragmentary information about the camps and the killings and even of more specific information about the fate of the deported. Such information was so threatening that it had to be kept away from the center of consciousness.
The knowledge that an enemy intends to kill us and there are no effective means to protect ourselves can be unbearable. Belief in a just world, that innocent people do not suffer intense persecution, also entered as a defense. Dutch Jews believed before the war that the German Jews, whom they disliked, must have done something terrible to bring about such persecution.37 Accounts by concentration camp survivors indicate that even in the camps many could not take in the reality of their situation and kept themselves psychologically removed from it.38
The behavior of bystanders contributed to despair and hopelessness.e In Germany, where Jews regarded themselves fully German, they felt deeply betrayed. Isolated in many countries, abandoned and without support, often persecuted by their own countrymen, facing a brutal enemy who did everything to weaken life drives and inhibit Jews from uniting, they had to feel utterly helpless. People rarely act if they believe that their action will have no effect in reaching a desired goal. A goal itself – escape, resistance, or revenge – does not usually arise without some hope that it can be fulfilled.
In animals as well as humans, the inability to protect oneself leads to a state of helplessness – for example, dogs stop attempting to avoid or escape electric shocks if they have been repeatedly unsuccessful. Many studies show that humans also learn to give up unsuccessful efforts and become passive and depressed.39
The psychological state and behavior of victims was also affected by the German practice of collective retribution. In 1942, five Germans were killed in Berlin by a group of Jewish communists. In retaliation, the Gestapo executed 250 Jews, deported another 250, and threatened to kill 250 more for every German killed in the future.40 In 1941, Jewish action groups killed a member of the Defense Troop created by the fascistic National Society and Movement of the Netherland. The Germans arrested 425 Jewish men, deported them to Mathausen, tortured them, and worked them to death.41
All along the Jews were deprived of individuality, treated as an anonymous mass. I have pointed out that deindividuation freed perpetrators from moral constraints. But the effect of the loss of individual identity in a group depends on the context. It can ease killing or it can lead to passively marching to a gas chamber.f
When Jews had support or opportunities, for example, allies in the native population, they became active in evasion, escape, and resistance. Certain conditions, as in the Warsaw ghetto, fostered unity and group action. But conditions were mostly conducive to passivity. Many Jews must have progressed along a continuum of victimization and abandoned themselves to the currents that invariably led to destruction.
The power of heroic bystanders
Many lines of evidence indicate the tremendous potential of bystanders to influence events: in emergencies, the words and actions of witnesses affect others’ definition of the situation and response; the population brought the euthanasia policy to an end in Germany; different attitudes and behavior by local populations and their leaders in European countries resulted in Jewish death or survival.
The extraordinary power of bystanders was apparent in the village of Le Chambon. The inhabitants of this Huguenot village in Vichy France saved several thousand Jews, most of them children, despite a penalty of deportation or death for sheltering Jews. They were led by their pastor, Andre Trocme, who had a firm belief in nonviolence and the sanctity of life. Their willingness to sacrifice themselves had great impact even on would-be perpetrators, such as the police and the military. It became common for strange voices to call on the telephone in the presbytery to tell of an impending raid. This enabled the inhabitants to send the refugees they were harboring into
