Bystanders, Collaborators and Perpetrators

Recently at MCHE we went through some “refresher” training in a curriculum series titled Echoes and Reflections.  This is a really great resource for teachers, especially if you had a class or an entire unit designated to Holocaust studies.  But, I am not one of those lucky teachers.  In fact I teach US History, so I always have to find creative ways to work in Holocaust education into my classroom during our unit on WWII.  I’ve blogged aboutways to do this in earlier posts such as comparing and contrasting Jim Crow andNuremberg Laws.  I’ve used readings from the book Race and Membership inAmerican History:  The Eugenics Movement, which was created by Facing History and Ourselves to examine eugenics programs and racial misconceptions in both the US and Germany.     

The newest lesson I introduced this year was dealing with the terms:  bystanders, collaborators, and perpetrators.  I used a lesson from the Echoes and Reflections curriculum that has students define the terms and then apply them to a document.  The document is an official report discussing one particular Jewish transport.  In this lesson, I had students first define the terms bystander, collaborator, and perpetrator.  We discussed the definitions and came to a consensus on each definition.  Then they read the report and made a list of all people who were involved or aware of the transport.  We discussed that list as a class and then I asked students to label who was a bystander, collaborator, and perpetrator based on the definitions.  

We then went over the labels and it was really very interesting to see how the students came up with different labels for most of the people.  We then had a group discussion about these three terms and how you determine who should be held accountable and how. For example, we asked if the US was a bystander and if so what was our responsibility?   My students really wrestled with these questions and I think it helped, once again, to establish the complexity of the Holocaust in dealing with the subject of responsibility and accountability. 

Training on this curriculum is available through the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education in July - and all registered participants receive a free copy of the curriculum valued at $100. If you are not able to attend a training, you can still check a copy of the curriculum out of the MCHE Resource Center. 

Only weapons: Notebook and Leica

The contemporary photographer Monika Bulaj states her aim is “to give a voice to the silent people.” After watching her TED talk, I am at once humbled and invigorated.  I am struck by her courage and conviction.  She has been traveling for over 20 years, reportedly armed with only her notebook and Leica, a wonderful little camera that she uses like a nomadic paintbrush to painstakingly recreate the light and vitality from what so much of the rest of the world might be tempted to term darkness.

Addressing the TED audience, she begins “I was walking through the [Polish] forests of my grandmother’s tales, a land where every field hides a grave, where millions of people have been deported or killed in the 20th century.”  She goes on to capture, through word and image, the places and faces she met where she simply shared bread and prayer.  And, fortunately for us, she documented.  Her stunning portraits of both person and place remind me of Georges de la Tour’s evocations in oil paint with browns and ambers, where candlelight becomes almost personified: a silent character in an intimate scene, breathing life into our primal need for hope.  Similarly, Monika’s lovely images are like hand-written invitations, to a party celebrating our humanity, inviting us to a royal feast where stereotypes are smashed, and the most humble among us are exalted and lifted up to be honored and praised for the wonders they truly are.

After showing “Through Our Own Eyes,” the documentary created by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education which features historic footage as well as still photographs and local Holocaust survivors’ testimony, from the Kansas City area, I always give my students an open-notes quiz and ask not only why, in their opinion, it is important to “remember” the Holocaust.  But I also ask them to list 3 things they can do, personally, to help make sure the Holocaust is remembered. Two of the most common responses to this last question are 1) to watch movies or read books about the history; and 2) to learn about places in the world where these atrocities might happen again, so we can speak out about them and  not become complacent bystanders.

Monika Bulaj’s art work does just that.  Her photographs are beacons.  They bears witness to her personal quest for a universal understanding of what it is to be fully human.  Like Rembrandt, she literally shines light on the everydayness of human life. After visiting a school in Afghanistan where 13,000 young women hide the fact that they are going to school, underground, among the scorpions,  Monkia recounts “their love of study was so big I cried.”  Her reportage is easily accessible, moving and excellent.  Through the clarity of her still images, we become party to both struggles and tendernesses.  We see our similarities and are presented with a portrait of not just community, but humanity.  Ms. Bulaj seeks out individuals and spotlights their personhood.  She enlightens by looking for commonalities and showcasing them. “I have been walking and traveling, by horses, by yak, by truck, by hitchhiking, from Iran’s border to the bottom, to the edge of the Wakhan Corridor. And in this way I could find ‘noor,’ the hidden light of Afghanistan.”  Her photographs are like personal, intimate offerings, luminous altars, celebrating all that we can be, and they are indeed inspiring.

"Never Again" hasn't held up

Never again hasn’t held up. Eighteen years ago, I was a senior, preparing for graduation, eating at McDonald’s before going to my after school job. I can remember reading in the Kansas City Star articles about two tribes in Rwanda, the Hutu and Tutsi. It sticks out to me because it was so difficult in my mind to keep the two straight. This stays with me because I teach Rwanda in my Sociology class. Of all the genocides that the United States has failed to react to in time to prevent, this is the one that drives me. So, I share with you some text resources that I believe will help you better understand the conflict.

 

First off, in my opinion, the best overview piece on 20^th century genocide is by Samantha Power. Her book, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, is a chilling critique of America’s failures to take action to prevent genocides. Her sweep is incredible. Her first four chapters deal with the creation of the term genocide and the ramifications it should hold from a legal and government perspective. Once she has established the international role in identifying and prosecuting genocide through the United Nations, she delves into specific areas where the United States failed to act. If you teach genocide at all, you must read her first several chapters to fully appreciate the history of the term and the international response to the Holocaust.

Power’s chapter on Rwanda deals largely with the American bureaucracy and its attempt to shift responsibility. There is no hero in her book as the American government, still stinging from a media failure in Mogadishu, doesn’t properly address the issue in Rwanda. Her book does not provide one with an effective background and this chapter can be cumbersome to those seeking to personalize the actions. For a government course, though, her writing demonstrates the shaping of policy and the role of the bureaucracy in carrying out the action, or inaction, of a government and its leadership.

In contrast, Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil is the story of a Canadian general put in command of the UN force sent to Rwanda to act as mediators of the peace accords (Arusha Agreement) that presaged the genocide. This book should not be read as an introduction to the genocide, but instead as a memoir and a personal journey of one unable to do enough. Dallaire’s memoir spends the first chapter building up his personal history and how he came to Africa. Another large portion of the book is dedicated to the politics played between the two sides as he attempts to build a government under the new agreement. Not until chapter ten do we read of the spark that ignites the powder keg that he has built for us. It is at this point that the memoir pays off and the reader realizes that all his words to this point were an attempt to build a picture and to cleanse his soul. This tale is deeply personal for the general and he makes it very clear how much of himself he put into the mission, but the real story is not about him. He does not ask for sympathy but his words ring with so many signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that one can’t cut his story out of his recounting. Rather than being a distanced critique of the events, the failures of governments to act and of a detached westerner, instead, this is the story of a proud man brought to his knees and crippled by his lack of ability to do his duty. This story cannot be taken in snippets. There is no section that can be lifted without losing the power of his entire ordeal. The book is over five-hundred pages, and at times can drag. But, it is also deeply personal. Put together with the book by Power, a westerner (First Worlder, North American, European) gains insight into the failures of man to take care of his brother. There is no rainbow at the end of either book and instead, both leave the reader feeling distraught and angry. Or they should.

The third selection, Philip Gourevitch’s We wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families, is a collection of stories told by a reporter who went to Rwanda a year after the genocide. He visits the sites of the massacre, tells the stories of the survivors, and personalizes the event, as best he can. He was not there when it happened. Instead, as a reporter, he enters and tells the story of the Rwanda that survived. Not an easy read, and again, he lays the out responsibility for continuing failures on the major western powers, especially the United States. With this book at the end of the other two, one gains as close as one can get to a full perspective of the events. It’s interesting that all three are written by westerners for westerners.

 

Personally, I don’t like highly personalized stories. It has never been my interest to read biographies. That continues through this final story. As a Catholic school teacher, though, I must offer up two more books that shed light on the Rwanda genocide, and I would only recommend these after reading at least one of the previous three I have mentioned. You must have a big picture perspective of the events in Rwanda before attempting to tackle personalized stories of those in it.

Left to Tell is the story of Immaculée Ilibagiza and her survival in a bathroom protected by a family. Her story is very much a tale of her religious devotion and a faith journey. The Catholic bishops in the United States have been quick to sweep her up as a face of faith. Rwanda was approximately 95% Christian when the genocide broke out. This crime was committed not by outsiders but by self-identified believers.

Only after understanding fully the overview of the genocide in Rwanda, and the role of religion in the region, should one chance to pick up Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches. This book is a collection of essays from different authors dealing with the role of religion in the genocide. This is not an easy read, both because of its scholarly nature, but also because it demands questions be asked of the faithful that are not comfortable. Too often we have a tendency to cut off those who don’t agree with us. It is too easy to deny their faith, and claim that ours is the correct one. Too often, we separate ourselves from the perpetrators reflexively, but this book challenges a very deep tenet. Does religion make us a better person? Do we shift responsibility for our actions too often to a higher power (god) and to what consequences? It would be too easy to write off the Rwanda genocide as crazy Africans - child-like primitives, Christians in name only (rote, cafeteria, surface), or some other schema that makes them “the other”.

How many Rwandan lives are worth one American life? That is a good question, because 800,000 Rwandans died while no Americans did. I go back to the Primo Levi poem, Shema. “Whether it be a curse or a question, there is no question that it is a call to action that too many of us ignore.”

Concept of the "other"

I teach Sociology, as well as American history. Teaching an elective allows me the freedom to stretch my wings and look at standard history from different angles and through different prisms. I have become enchanted with the concept of “the other.” “The other” is anyone who is not like you. We all create a concept of the “the other” in our heads. When we group ourselves with like-minded people, whether based on performed race, economic status, performed gender, or countless other divisions, we band together because of some form of commonality. We find those whose values we share in some way. We join with others who reinforce our beliefs. Those who don’t share our beliefs are in one way “the other.” It is difficult for us to see the world through the eyes of “the other.” We assume that those we agree with view the world with the same eyes we do, those that don’t must not have anything in common with us. When we walk into a crowded room of people we don’t know, we look for someone that we assume is like us. It is a survival mechanism and quite natural. But it is also very base. By choosing others that we think will share our interests, we are pushing away those that don’t look like they will “get” us, hence we lump them up as “the other.” (As a point of clarification, in Sociology, we discuss the fact that we are all performers, acting out a role. We perform our gender to varying levels: hyper masculinity, as seen on football teams; hyper-femininity, as witnessed on the cheer or dance squads or in modeling; Eminem is a white man who performs black culture. President Obama has been derided as a black man who “acts” white. While culture is somewhat fluid, we must understand that we all “perform” or “act” out certain traits that we wish to personify to fit in to a group. As a white male, I perform to standards that are beyond my control as a father, teacher, role model, and husband.)

When I am teaching the concept of the development of racism to a predominantly Caucasian student base, I explain the difficulty in doing cruel things to someone that I may see as a potential mate, sister, daughter, mother, etc. When I look in the mirror, or at a family portrait, is this someone that could ever be a part of that? If yes, the bar is higher, and it is more difficult for me to minimize their feelings, to do them harm. If the answer is no, though, it is much easier to act without regard to them. They are the embodiment of whatever I am not. The Kansas City Star ran an article about slavery several years ago. In a part of that article, a historian said that if it hadn’t been for African slavery, the English colonists would have enslaved the Irish. I disagree from a sociological perspective. The Irish, with white skin, would not have faced the same brutality or lasted as long in bondage as did blacks. A good history teacher will take me to task on that and describe the conditions in Ireland at the time and the cruelty inflicted. Which will bring me to my next point: The concept of “the other” works best when you have a clear, visible, physiological/physical difference that can be exploited. It can be extrapolated to neighborhoods, class, religion, or any number of culturally created cleavages. Once these cleavages have been identified, they are often exploited.

Building on Dr. Gregory Stanton’s “Eight Stages of Genocide”, we can see the development of "the other" is a process of dehumanization. As much as we attempt to say that we respect all equally, often we place our concept, our values, our norms on others, assuming that what we hold true must be universal. When others don’t share those views, we can marginalize the target. The process of dehumanization is a slippery slope, and we too often engage in it without realizing. It is our duty to help our students guard against this process in everyday life through examples from the past.

Complicate Your Thinking

When I signed up for MCHE’s four-day summer education seminar, “Responses to the Holocaust: Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders,” I assumed it would be a chance for me to review and solidify my understanding of the Holocaust.

Well, the seminar ended up being a good reminder that it’s not wise to make assumptions, because I spent most of it “complicating my thinking.” Mitch Braff, executive director of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, used this phrase to encourage us to embrace the Holocaust’s complexities. The presenters made me question basic assumptions I had about the Holocaust. Here are some examples:

· By analyzing actual train shipments, noted historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt challenged the commonly held belief that the Germans diverted resources from the Eastern Front to murder Jews. According to his research, in 1944 at the height of the Hungarian deportation, only ten of every 25,000 trains running each day in Europe were designated for the deportation of Jews.

· Dr. Severin Hochberg, a former historian with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, discussed the extent to which the Catholic Church, and specifically Pope Pius XII, was a bystander.

· On the final day, we explored the role of Jewish partisans in the war and the ethical issues they faced.

This seminar did complicate my thinking, but in a good way. Participating in these discussions reminded me that history is about real people, and it must be understood with all of its complexities to do it justice.