To Answer the Unanswerable

Yosefov, Poland (Shtetl)

We davened Mincha in the library that used to be the town shul. Then we made our way upstairs where Rav Brown addressed us yet again. He gave us a brief history of the shtetl. The following event from World War II was discussed. 

Unit 101 was a police unit in Poland who hadn't really been in combat. Their job issued from the German army was to keep order. Most of the soldiers were from the Hamburg area. Of the solders, 63% were from the working class. Average age of the unit is 37, and 25% is part of the Nazi party (Hamburg was known to not be such a big city of Nazi supporters). One day they were told that they had a mission in Yosefov: to gather all of the Jews and and kill them in forest. The soldiers were offered a pardon from the mission, and only ten took the chance. A doctor trained them how to kill them with their rifles. Each soldier marches a Jew to the forest and shoots them. People started sneaking away as it went on but 80% carried out the mission. 

Many investigations done into this after the war. How did these people, who didn't come from a pro-Nazi background, were middle aged, and were not in the anger of war, willingly commit such crimes? There are two accepted opinions today. 

Goldhauser- the Germans did what they did because they believed what they were doing was right. Since the Nazis came to power there was almost a brainwashing process that out Jews in an inhuman category. Contrasts traditional anti-Semetism of conversion to German anti-Semetism of annihilation. He does not think that any random person could carry out these acts, but only people with specific backgrounds. 

Browning-he was asked were the perpetrators ordinary men or ordinary Germans? Every person in this situation has the potential to commit such crimes. Not all Germans were in line with the Nazi party and Hitler, but they were the leaders of the German regime, which is why many assume that all of Germany falls under this category. No distinction between German regime who made policies and the ordinary men who were harnessed to carry out such policies. 

In light of these opinions two groundbreaking psychological studies were done in the mid-20th century. 

Milgram study done by a Jew, Dr. Stanley Milgram, at Yale University. His hypothesis: how could people allow for the destruction of the Jewish people. Every time someone did something wrong, the person asking questions had to give a shock with every mistake and the voltage increased until deathly levels. The people being shocked were actors, but the teachers thought they were really shocking the students. We then watched a video explaining the experiment. 65% of the people shocked the learner until the very end. 

The Stanford Prison Experiment by Dr. Zimbardo. Chose people who gave the most normal answers to the survey and made half guards and half prisoners. Guards were given whistles, clubs, and sunglasses. Prisoners were stripped and put into smocks with no underwear and were given numbers and chains- lost sense of identity. Guards authority was charged right away and they began to reassert their authority. The guards began to brutalize the prisoners and the prisoners started having a nervous breakdowns. Only when his girlfriend told him he was losing himself did he realize that he needed to shut down the program.

These experiments answer the questions of how could normal people do this to other human beings and why didn't victims fight back-- two very important questions of the Holocaust. 

Banality of Evil:

1. Mindlessly taking first small step

2. Dehumanizations of others

3. De-individualization of self

4. Diffusion of personal responsibility

5. Blind obedience to authority

6. Uncritical conformity to group norms

7. Passive tolerance of evil

Banality of Heroism:

A result of banality of evil that causes ordinary people to do extraordinary things or causes people to be guilty of inaction by becoming bystanders. 

"The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

With this new insight we made our way to the forest with this horrible act was carried out by unit 101. As we surrounded the grave, a new wave of understanding washed over me. There were so many psychological aspects to the Shoah and everything we had just learned made it harder to understand this atrocity. We said yizkor and then marched back through the forest, united and singing "Six Million Voices," our adopted anthem for this trip. 

The Shul-turned-Library (where the aron was is still visible)

March to the Mass Grave

The Mass Grave of Yosefov