Probing the Limits of Categorization

<p> Of the three categories that Raul Hilberg developed in his analysis of the Holocaust-perpetrators victims and bystanders-it is the last that is the broadest and most difficult to pinpoint. Described by Hilberg as those who were once a part of this history bystanders present unique challenges for those seeking to understand the decisions attitudes and self-understanding of historical actors who were neither obviously the instigators nor the targets of Nazi crimes. Combining historiographical conceptual and empirical perspectives on the bystander the case studies in this book provide powerful insights into the complex social processes that accompany state-sponsored genocidal violence.</p>