Religion and atrocity: the influence of religion on perpetrators, bystanders and victims during the Holocaust

Abstract

Historical accounts of the Holocaust rarely pay regard to the impact of religion on the individual decision‐making process. Yet questions about how individuals perpetrated atrocities in the Final Solution stimulated research by Festinger, Kohlberg and Milgram which have contributed to developments in our understanding of decision making. It is the contention of this article that religion played an important role in individual thinking. The Holocaust occurred in the heart of Christian Europe, in societies that were actively religious. Thus, this article explores primary and secondary sources for evidence of the impact of religion on people at the time. Hilberg’s framework of perpetrators, bystanders and victims provides the structure for consideration. In each section issues are raised about the impact of religion in both interpreting and responding to events.