Recently we continued our series of ‘Dialogues in Holocaust Education’ with an online session that looked at ‘Rescuers’. We were really pleased to be joined by two experts who have researched and written on the subject: Professor Ari Kohen, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Political Science and also by Dr Mark Gudgel, Assistant Professor of Education at the College of St Mary in Omaha, Nebraska.
The discussion centred around two key insights that teachers might like to consider:
- Presenting the historically accurate ‘warts and all’ account of those who rescued is both necessary and beneficial
- Recent scholarship allows us to present a more diverse picture of those who rescued
Professor Kohen opened the conversation with a stark reminder that the attention that rescuers receive in common consciousness is out of proportion with the number of rescuers themselves. The reality is that there were an infinitesimal number of rescuers in comparison to victims, bystanders and perpetrators. Nevertheless, as a shining light in a terribly dark time it may perhaps be understandable that both teachers and students are drawn to study those who displayed heroic behaviour during the Holocaust.
The field of scholarly study on non-Jews who rescued is not a new one. It has been a topic of research for a few decades with the work of Professor Nechama Tec, a Holocaust survivor who was herself saved by Polish Catholics, appearing from the 1980s onwards.
The personal narratives of rescuers, the stories that help to embed the history in the minds of young people, are limited both in frequency and depth. Scholars found that the interviews that rescuers gave after the end of World War Two did not go into any great detail. In his research, Professor Kohen found that rescuers often didn’t want to talk about their actions – a point of discussion itself. Most rescuers wanted to fit in and their heroism marks them out as different. They had broken the norms in their actions in rescuing and didn’t necessarily want to draw attention to this fact afterwards.
The discussion offered further insight into the outlook of rescuers with reference to the actions taken by the villagers of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon (see more here https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/le-chambon-sur-lignon ) . Professor Kohen related that Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon was historically a village of Huguenots, a community that was familiar with religious persecution and when faced with people fleeing persecution because of religion a ‘light switch flipped for them, knowingly or unknowingly’.
Where those who rescued are taught about in classrooms one story get more attention than others: Oskar Schindler. Professor Gudgel told us that Schindler is disproportionately taught about in American classroom – his research indicates that 1 in 3 US teachers teach about the man and his actions. Professor Gudgel further offered the view that teaching about Schindler ‘warts and all’ provides a much more powerful pedagogic approach than simply providing students with a panegyric. Allowing students to realise that Schindler was a deeply problematic, complicated human not only strengthens their understanding of the man but also the field.
Schindler was undoubtedly a hero, saving more than a thousand people from death…but he was also and many other things. He was a member of the NSDAP, he was a close associate of notorious figures such as Amon Goth, he drank to excess and his behaviour towards his wife, Emilie Schindler, was simply dreadful (see David Crowe’s biography on Schindler for more). Indeed, Professor Gudgel, informed us that Emilie Schindler was every bit as involved in the saving of Jews as Oskar Schindler was (Emilie Schindler’s memoir Where Light and Shadow Meet – written with Erika Rosenberg – provides additional insight).
Approaching Schindler in this manner is, Professor Gudgel told us, very effective with students. If an aim of education is to encourage students to adopt behaviours then telling them that only saints rescue is counter-productive. On the other side of the coin, is the more nuanced and accurate picture of rescuers as complicated, flawed, conflicted people who made mistakes on a daily basis…and yet who still did the right the right thing. That is a message that students can buy into. It is perhaps easier for students to embrace that vision of rescuers rather than heroes who do things that no mortal human could ever do….and that is not who the heroes really are. If as teachers we ignore the ordinariness of the rescuer then we forever separate ourselves from them. The more we complicate the narrative, the more students become interested and engaged in the story and the history.
Finally, The discussion then turned to the more diverse field of rescuers that scholars have brought to our attention, beyond Schindler. The complicated actions and lives of Chiune Sugihara, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Irena Sendler, Albert Goering and others also provide valuable insights into those non-Jews who rescued during the Holocaust and had lives afterwards too.
To watch the discussion please take a look at a recording of the online session here:
