Think As Historian: THINK AS A HISTORAIN: [7.8]

Gerda Weissmann Klein, Polish-American Holocaust survivor, questioned why the Jews in Germany did not fight back.

“Why did we walk like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse? . . .

Why did we not run away and hide? We might have had a chance

to survive. Why did we walk deliberately and obediently into their

clutches? I know why. Because we had faith in humanity. Because we

did not really think that human beings were capable of committing

such crimes.”

All But My Life: A Memoir (1957)

What does it take to make people “capable of committing such crimes” as genocide? Historians have looked for answers to this question by relating genocide to other historical developments, such as the following:

• War—has an influence on people’s psyche that makes them more likely to kill members of an “outgroup” which is perceived to be a threat

• Economic crisis—fosters a need to scapegoat others as being responsible for the economic problems, softening a resistance to killing them

• Enlightenment thinking— focuses on the perceived perfectibility of society, sometimes in terms of removing biological threats. Jews were referred to as a “virus”; Armenians were called disease- carrying “microbes.”

Draw a relationship between genocide and the historical develop- ment of imperialism. Use one or more examples from Topic 7.8.