Written by two
professors of modern social history, “The
Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior”
by George Kren and Leon Rappaport (1980) is a
well-written book and serves as a solid historical
introduction to the Holocaust's causes and effects.
It examines the origins, operations, victims,
and effects of the Nazi concentration camps. The
book can thus be seen as contributing a valuable
insight on the anti-Semitism that was the basis
of Nazi history, and on the implications for postwar
historians in coming to grips with wartime crimes
against the Jews.
The term "Holocaust" is of Greek origin
meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Holocaust
was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately six million
Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators
during the Second World War (1939-1945). The Nazis,
who came to power in Germany in January 1933,
believed that Germans were "racially superior"
and that the Jews, deemed "inferior,"
were "life unworthy of life."
Though it is widely believed that the Jews as
a race were the only targets of Hitler’s
Nazi Regime, during the era of the Holocaust,
the Nazis also targeted other groups because of
their perceived "racial inferiority".
Thus the gypsies, the handicapped, and some of
the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others)
were also unwilling victims. Other groups were
persecuted on political and behavioral grounds-among
them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses,
and homosexuals.
In the book, Kren and Rappaport contend that
the primary purpose of the disciplines of history
and psychology is to increase understanding of
human behavior. A better understanding of the
present may be gained by reconstructing and analyzing
the past.
The book delves into the discipline of psycho-history,
seeking to explain the Holocaust (or Shoah as
the Jews remember it) as an event in human history
that was brought about by hidden factors and repressed
tendencies which came to the forefront following
Hitler’s perception of Germans as a superior
or Aryan race- and deeming all other peoples as
inferior.
His victory was spurred on by the influence
of economic circumstances and a Germany wanting
to escape from depression. Modern psychoanalysis
seeks the sources of adult behavior in early experiences
centralizing upon sexual development. Thus a theory
has been postulated that the Germans were repaying
the Jews for the injustices done to them earlier.
They saw the Jews as relentless exploiters and
capitalists; the reason for Germany’s economic
failures. They wanted to exterminate the Jewish
race. Starting from Hitler’s rise to power
in 1933, the Nazi party systematically worked
to deprive the Jewish population of all their
rights, property, freedom and self-respect.
Laws, decrees and obtrusive actions were undertaken
to this effect. This was aided by the fact that
most of the Nazi leaders had disturbed child-hoods
and reveled in the power they had come into. By
a relentless display of hatred mainly for the
Jews, other parties willing to aid or shelter
them were forced into inaction for fear of the
same wrath being visited upon them.
Even before the 2nd World War, Germany had gone
through an era where thousands of useless or bad-
meaning unproductive- German children and mentally
or physically disabled adults were killed in an
effort to reduce the masses only to productive
members of society.
Most German children were abused or maltreated
in these times of economic hardship- and grew
up with a taste for vengeance. The sad part of
the story was that the rest of the world decided
not to intervene until Hitler’s ambitions
became clear and he attacked neighboring countries-
declaring war upon them with the view of establishing
a new and larger German empire.
In facing up to the Nazi persecution, the Jews
had decided to confront Nazism with an attitude
that, for them, was virtuous traditionalism: “Obey,
do not provoke, and the crisis will pass"
was the thinking- except in some few cases where
ghetto leaders and Nazis cooperated.
The Holocaust, meaning genocide of a particular
class of people, is not unique in history. Modern
times have witnessed apartheid in South Africa,
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and other parts of
Yugoslavia, Rwanda and most recently the crisis
in Darfur, Sudan. But undoubtedly, one of the
longest unresolved problems concerning the systematic
annihilation of a people and their rights is the
Middle East crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is amazing how the Jews, themselves victims
of the Holocaust just fifty years ago, could take
over land from the Palestinians by force and then
seek to drive the Arabs from these lands. Before
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israelis owned only
6% of the land and comprised just a third of the
population.
Memory is short, so it seems. In a classic example
of assymetrical warfare- the Palestinians are
forced to retaliate against the latest technology
with the only weapons available to them- sticks,
stones and human suicide bombers.
Fearful of the growing Arab population, the
Israelis under Ariel Sharon have erected both
physical and economic boundaries and barriers
along the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protect
themselves- taking away more Arab land in doing
so. Even the condemnation of the International
Court of Justice in the Hague did not serve to
make the Israelis relent.
Under the leadership of Sharon and Netanyahu,
the Middle East peace process begun under Rabin’s
rule is once again on the back-burner, reduced
to a shambles. Once again the world is watching
and waiting. Let us hope that history does not
repeat itself and the victim of yesterday relents
from becoming the aggressor of today.
It is only in this hope that the hotbed of activity
can be cooled and hopefully, Palestine can look
towards the establishment of a proper state in
the near future.
Bibliography
1. Kren, George M. and Rappaport, Leon: Holocaust
and the Crisis of Human Behavior (Holmes and Meier,
New York, 1980).
2. Israel and the Palestinians: A History of
Conflict (from BBC News).
|