Justice Everywhere: Bystanders, ‘Upstanders,’ and behavioral classification of people during the Holocaust

• In Event: 2129 - Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Collective Memory, Politics, and Representation

Abstract

As we responsibly explore and share Holocaust and Human Rights Education, we seek to advance ‘justice everywhere’ and to critique ‘injustice anywhere.’ As we study and share histories of inequality and injustice, we face the challenge of working with behavioral categories that imperfectly describe those who tolerate injustice and others who accept opportunities to stand for justice. This essay explores systems of classification for people and groups who lived during the Holocaust (1933-1945). Simplified symbolic classifications were and are inadequate and harmful; symbolic classifications were used for eugenics and mere reflections of common prejudices. Symbols were used to stigmatize and to systematize, facilitating discrimination, ghettoization, and subsequent mass murder. Cultural classifications (by religion, nationality, ethnicity, and/or race) were and are more descriptive but are also limited as tools in understanding historical contexts. In contrast, historians have developed and debated behavioral classifications conducive to more just and less racialized categories. We explore how behavioral groupings, in addition to cultural categories, are helpful to insightful and sociological understandings of the Holocaust and genocide.

Author

• Michael F. Polgar, Penn State University