ABSTRACT
Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman delivered a poignant critique of sociology. It described how modern bureaucratic decision-making can produce moral indifference, dehumanize victims and rationalize processes involving violence and atrocities on a massive scale. Bauman instead chose to approach the Holocaust as a historical event that consisted of normal elements, all of which he found to be part of modern society. Bauman clearly made an important contribution to closing the gap between Holocaust studies and criminology/sociology with Modernity and the Holocaust. In 1893, Durkheim described the division of labour as one of the key features of modern society. For criminologists, and prison researchers from other disciplines who have an interest in techniques of Othering, the most fundamental lesson of the atrocities committed at the Eastern Front and as part of the Holocaust during World War II.
