24-26 September 2015, Amsterdam

German Studies Institute Amsterdam, Jena Center 20th Century History,
Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute of Contemporary History,
Munich, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Deadline: 31.01.2015

The aim of the conference is to thoroughly review the stereotypical
‘bystander’ and to think beyond the existing scholarly approaches in
Holocaust historiography. It is intended to encourage the formulation of
innovative concepts, which might enable historians to consider hitherto
overlooked or marginalized aspects of historical reality or to view
familiar processes from entirely new angles.

Hilberg’s triangulation

Among the three categories used to analyze the role of individuals in
the Holocaust, the ‘bystander’ is the broadest and vaguest. According to
Raul Hilberg, who coined the term, it refers to all those who were ‘once
a part of this history.’ Generations of Holocaust scholars have used
Hilberg’s triangulation or variations thereof to analyze, systematize
and narrate the wealth of historical experiences under Nazi rule.
Whereas it seems relatively easy to define who belonged to the category
of perpetrator and victim, analyzing the thoughts and actions of the
other contemporaries remains a challenging task for international
historiography. In recent years, increasingly sophisticated studies
have introduced various intermediate categories and concepts referring
to ‘onlookers’, ‘auxiliaries’, ‘accomplices’, ‘Mitläufer’, ‘ordinary
people’ or ‘profiteers’ to describe the various attitudes and actions of
contemporaries during the persecution of Jews and other minorities in
Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

Shifting

Yet, a sense has emerged that the conventional triangular
categorization, even in its most refined versions, has certain
limitations. A close look at the daily experiences and interactions of
those who can be seen neither as perpetrators nor as victims of
systematic persecution reveals that these peoples’ thoughts and actions,
attitudes and decisions cannot be categorized and pinpointed easily.
Often they took on malleable, context-dependent, changing social roles,
shifting between active and passive participation in the events that
they lived through and adapting to circumstances in various and varying
ways.

Without deploying basic theoretical concepts and analytical categories,
however, it seems impossible to grasp the Holocaust as a complex social
process. They are needed to analyze and explain the ensuing dynamics of
segregation, disintegration, and brutalization on the one hand, as well
as continuities in ‘ordinary’ peoples’ lives, and perhaps even the
persistence and growth of new forms of social cohesion, on the other.

Papers

Bringing together scholars
of Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories across Europe, the organizers invite
papers addressing one of the following themes:

1) Concept History
Invention, genesis and uses of the concept/term ‘bystander’, including
its national adaptions and translations within the historical, cultural
and social sciences as well as in literature and art dealing with the
history of the Holocaust.

2) Concept Revision
Alternative concepts and theories aimed at exploring the thoughts and
actions of those many other contemporaries who cannot be clearly
categorized as victims or perpetrators, how these thoughts and actions
might have changed over time and how they relate to one another. Are
there new methods that could be employed, and (hitherto neglected) types
of sources that could be consulted? Interdisciplinary approaches
adapting theories and methods from disciplines such as sociology or
psychology are especially welcome. Papers can also address the
integration or conflation of the ‘bystander’ concept with other concepts
and theories about the societal dynamics of the Holocaust, such as
Volksgemeinschaft, exclusion/ inclusion, brutalization or normalization.
Does the ‘bystander’-category remain useful if combined with other
approaches stressing the social, structural and/or individual dimensions
of Nazi extermination policies and practices?

3) Concept Adaption
General reflection on the potential and limitations of the categorical
system in light of the various tasks Holocaust historians see for
themselves: if the aim is to narrate and thus represent the Holocaust as
a complex historical event and human experience, which categories and
concepts are up to the task? Are concepts and categories needed at all?
If the Holocaust is taken as the most extreme case of genocide in
history, a genocide that is still not fully understood and explained,
can we deduct a typology from it? Could historians move towards a
historical behavioural science, daring even to formulate
socio-psychological and anthropological assumptions? Could the Holocaust
thereby be related to or compared with other genocides in the past and
present?

Since the focus of the conference is on conceptual and methodological
issues, it has no regional focus and papers can span the pre-war era,
the war years, as well as – if relevant – the immediate postwar years.
Conceptual papers should refer to specific examples in order to
illustrate the proposed approach yet pure case studies will not be
considered if they lack a conceptual dimension. Publication of the
conference papers is intended. The conference language is English.

Confirmed speakers

Confirmed speakers are Frank Bajohr, Mary Fulbrook, Norbert Frei, Jan
Grabowski, Ulrich Herbert, Peter Romijn, Tatjana Tönsmeyer, and Abram de
Swaan.

Contact

Dr. Christina Morina & Dr. Krijn Thijs

German Studies Institute Amsterdam
Prins Hendrikkade 189 B, 1011TD Amsterdam, The Netherlands

0031-(0)20-525 36 90
0031-(0)20-525 36 93

bystander-dia@uva.nl

Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam