What role did bystanders play in the Holocaust?

The first refers to external or international “bystanders”—witnesses in a nonliteral sense because of their distance from the actual events. These “bystanders” range widely from the Allied governments and neutral countries to religious institutions and Jewish organizations. The second—the focus in this article—refers to “bystanders” within societies close to and often physically present at the events.

“Bystanders” as used to refer to German and European populations close to the actual events are often defined by what they were not. They were not the “perpetrators” or the “victims.” Nor were they among the tiny minority of “rescuers” of the “victims.” “Bystanders” as a group have often been characterized as “passive” or “indifferent.” They included those, for example, who did not speak out when they witnessed the persecution of individuals targeted simply because they were Jewish, or during the phase of mass murder, did not offer shelter to Jews seeking hiding places.

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