ABSTRACT
The majority of the estimated 300 million people under German rule during the Holocaust were neither victims of the camps nor perpetrators. They were bystanders of various degrees and types. Some belonged to Greater Germany, and their kin were either fighting for Hitler or running his camps. Others belonged to Germany’s allies, and more likely than not were more supportive of the partnership with the Third Reich in the early phases of the war than toward the end. Others still belonged to the occupied nations, and stood a good chance of becoming victims themselves, especially if they resisted Nazi policies or tried to protect those slated for extermination. But by and large, those who did not carry out genocide and related atrocities, and those who were not subjected to these policies, namely, the vast majority of German-occupied Europe’s population, mostly watched in silence or did their best not to see at all. If, as Mao Tse-tung claimed, the guerrilla fighter must feel like a fish in the sea, so too, the perpetrators of genocide must feel that their environment, if not supportive of their actions, is either indifferent or sufficiently terrorized not to dare to act against them. Genocide cannot take place without a majority of passive bystanders.
