Bystanders’ Attitudes Towards the Jews During the Antonescu Regime (1940-1944): Revisiting the Diaries of Holocaust Survivors from Romania
Bystanders’ Attitudes Towards the Jews During the Antonescu Regime (1940-1944): Revisiting the Diaries of Holocaust Survivors from Romania

Summary/Abstract: In addition to perpetrators and victims, bystanders represent a major category of analysis for the study of human behaviour during the Holocaust. Scrutinizing the diaries of Jewish survivors from Romania, this investigation uncovered three main patterns of gentiles’ attitudes towards the Jews during the Antonescu regime: sympathy and help, hostility and hatred, and indifference and opportunism. Although there was sympathy and help that coexisted with the hatred and hostility, it appears that most of the gentile bystanders were indifferent and opportunistic towards their Jewish counterparts. The fate of the Jews seemed to concern them only when their own interests were directly involved.

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