The Holocaust and European Societies: Social Processes and Social Dynamics (The Holocaust and its Contexts)

This book explores the Holocaust as a social process. Although the mass murder of European Jews was essentially the result of political-ideological decisions made by the Nazi state leadership, the events of the Holocaust were also part of a social dynamic. All European societies experienced developments that led to the social exclusion, persecution and murder of the continent’s Jews. This volume therefore questions Raul Hilberg ́s category of the ‘bystander’. In societies where the political order expects citizens to endorse the exclusion of particular groups in the population, there cannot be any completely uninvolved bystanders. Instead, this book examines the multifarious forms of social action and behaviour connected with the Holocaust. It focuses on institutions and persons, helpers, co-perpetrators, facilitators and spectators, beneficiaries and profiteers, as well as Jewish victims and Jewish organisations trying to cope with the dynamics of exclusion and persecution. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Beyond the ‘Bystander’: Social Processes and Social Dynamics in European Societies as Context for the Holocaust....Pages 3-14 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Fading Friendships and the ‘Decent German’. Reflecting, Explaining and Enduring Estrangement in Nazi Germany, 1933–1938....Pages 17-31 Living in an Abnormal Normality. The Everyday Relations of Jews and Non-Jews in the German-Dutch Border Region, 1933–1938....Pages 33-46 Economic Trust in the ‘Racial State’. A Case Study from the German Countryside....Pages 47-67 ‘Life in Illegality Cost an Extortionate Amount of Money.’ Ordinary Germans and German Jews Hiding from Deportation....Pages 69-85 Front Matter....Pages 87-87 Collaborators, Bystanders or Rescuers? The Role of Local Citizens in the Holocaust in Nazi-Occupied Belarus....Pages 89-103 Nationalizing the Holocaust. ‘Foreign’ Jews and the Making of Indifference in Macedonia Under Bulgarian Occupation....Pages 105-126 Genocide in Times of Civil War. Popular Attitudes Towards Ustaša Mass Violence, Croatia 1941–1945....Pages 127-145 The Pazifizierungsaktion as a Catalyst of Anti-Jewish Violence. A Study in the Social Dynamics of Fear....Pages 147-166 Slovak Society and the Jews. Attitudes and Patterns of Behaviour....Pages 167-185 Front Matter....Pages 187-187 Leadership in the Jewish Councils as a Social Process. The Example of Cracow....Pages 189-205 The Role of the Jewish Council During the Occupation of the Netherlands....Pages 207-224 Negotiating and Compromising. Jewish Leaders’ Scope of Action in Tunis During Nazi Rule (November 1942–May 1943)....Pages 225-240 Front Matter....Pages 241-241 Neighbours in Borysław. Jewish Perceptions of Collaboration and Rescue in Eastern Galicia....Pages 243-266 Beyond the Bystander. Relations Between Jews and Gentile Poles in the General Government....Pages 267-287 The Transformation of Jewish–Non-Jewish Social Relations in a Gendarmerie District of Hungary, 1938–1944....Pages 289-303 Front Matter....Pages 305-305 Returning Home After the Holocaust. Jewish–Gentile Encounters in the Soviet Borderland....Pages 307-320 The ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish Property in Amsterdam and Its Consequences After World War II....Pages 321-336 Back Matter....Pages 337-348 "This book explores the Holocaust as a social process. Although the mass murder of European Jews was essentially the result of political-ideological decisions made by the Nazi state leadership, the events of the Holocaust were also part of a social dynamic. All European societies experienced developments that led to the social exclusion, persecution and murder of the continent's Jews. This volume therefore questions Raul Hilberg's category of the 'bystander'. In societies where the political order expects citizens to endorse the exclusion of particular groups in the population, there cannot be any completely uninvolved bystanders. Instead, this book examines the multifarious forms of social action and behaviour connected with the Holocaust. It focuses on institutions and persons, helpers, co-perpetrators, facilitators and spectators, beneficiaries and profiteers, as well as Jewish victims and Jewish organisations trying to cope with the dynamics of exclusion and persecution"-- Back cover This book explores the Holocaust as a social process. Although the mass murder of European Jews was essentially the result of political-ideological decisions made by the Nazi state leadership, the events of the Holocaust were also part of a social dynamic. All European societies experienced developments that led to the social exclusion, persecution and murder of the continent's Jews. This volume therefore questions Raul Hilberǵs category of the 'bystander'. In societies where the political order expects citizens to endorse the exclusion of particular groups in the population, there cannot be any completely uninvolved bystanders. Instead, this book examines the multifarious forms of social action and behaviour connected with the Holocaust. It focuses on institutions and persons, helpers, co-perpetrators, facilitators and spectators, beneficiaries and profiteers, as well as Jewish victims and Jewish organisations trying to cope with the dynamics of exclusion and persecution