Integrating the New Psycho-Social Research About Rescuers of Jews into the Teaching of Holocaust Courses

Volume 10, No.2 Winter 1992 FOCUS ON PROGRAMS AND TEACHING 97 We welcome responses, dialogue, and discussions of experiences in this regular column. Teaching the Holocaust The following discussions were presented at the Third Annual Conference of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association in Madison, Wisconsin, October 13, 1991. Integrating the New Psycho-Social Research About Rescuers of Jews into the Teaching of Holocaust Courses Lawrence Baron Director, the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies San Diego State University Psycho-social interpretations of the behavior of the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust have long been central to the study and teaching of the Shoah. In reference to SS conduct, Holocaust courses usually refer to the Milgram or similar clinical experiments to provide one possible explanation for why seemingly normal Germans obeyed their murderous orders. When discussing survival in the concentratiOn camps, Bettelheim's or Frankl's analyses of the coping mechanisms employed by camp inmates have been contrasted to the theories advanced by Des Pres or Langer.1 Until recently, there was no body of psycho-social literature on the motivations of Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Thus, the rescue of Jews was taught from a comparative national perspective which usually focused on Denmark as the atypical case of collective solidarity with the persecuted Jews.2 Coverage of "righteous gentiles" in class lectures and readings 1For example, see Margot Stern Strom and William S. Parsons, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior (Watertown, MA: International Educations , 1982), pp. 137-157,228-229. 2Strom and Parsons, Facing History, pp. 285-290; Yehuda Bauer,A History ofthe Holocaust (New York: Franklin Watts, 1982), pp. 289-295; Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth,Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy (Atlanta: John 98 SHOFAR tended to be limited to narratives about their good deeds, but failed to probe further into their backgrounds, beliefs, and personalities.3 Students learned something about rescue activities, but almost nothing about the traits and values of the people engaged in such efforts.4 Philip Hallie's Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed stands out as one early notable exception to this rule precisely because it delves deeply into the prior lives and moral convictions of its protagonists.5 Perry London's 1970 pilot study of "Christians who saved Jews" heralded the beginning of serious sytematic inquiry into the psychological and sociological origins of ethical courage under life-threatening conditions.6 The past decade has witnessed the publication of a spate of significant articles and books that have examined which qualities and experiences distinguished the rescuers from the vast majority of their neighbors who abandoned the Jews to their genocidal fate in Nazi-occupied Europe. The bestknown scholars involved in this research are Eva Fleischner, Eva Fogelman, Knox Press, 1987), pp. 216-223. Much more extensive coverage of comparative national rescue experiences can be found in Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate ofEuropean Jewry, 1932-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 573-652. 3Strom and Parsons, Facing History, pp. 290-292; Bauer, History, pp. 286-289, 324--325; Rubenstein and Roth, Approaches, pp. 223-228. Two popular books which exemplify the narrative approaches to rescuers are Philip Friedman, Their Brothers' Keepers (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978), and Peter Hellman, Avenue of the Righteous (New York: Bantam Books, 1981). 4For an earlier review article on this problem, see Lawrence Baron, "The Holocaust and Human Decency: A Review of Research on the Rescue of Jews in Nazi Occupied Europe," Humboldt Journal ofSocial Relations, Vol. 13, No. 1/2 (1986), pp.237-251. 5phillip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There (New York: Harper and Row, 1979). 6perry London, "The Rescuers: Motivational Hypotheses About Christians Who Saved Jews from the Nazis," in Altruism and Helping Behavior, ed. J. Macaulay and L. Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1970), pp. 241-250. For the first study of rescuers based on survey data, see Manfred Wolfson, "Zum Widerstand gegen Hitler: Umriss eines Gruppenportrats deutscher Retter von Juden," Tradition und Neubeginn (Munich, 1975), pp. 391-407. Volume 10, No.2 Winter 1992 99 Douglas Huneke, Mordecai Paldiel, Pearl and Sam...