Samuel and Paul Oliner’s research on rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe complements the work done by Eva Fogelman (see my previous post). They questioned over 400 non-Jewish Germans who at great personal risk, rescued Jews with whom they had no personal connection. Over 125 Germans who were not rescuers were also interviewed as a control group to see what differences there may be between those who acted heroically and those who did not.
As a group, the rescuers had a greater degree of empathy for the common humanity of all people. They were more accepting of pluralism and of various groups. They believed that the values that they prized most highly—justice, equality and respect—were to be applied universally. The extent to which they cared and were moved by pain was significantly greater than that expressed by non-rescuers.
The Oliners note that rescuers could be divided into three groups, each with a different ethical orientation. About half were moved to action because they believed that they could not live with the guilt and shame that would ensue if they did not live up to the standards and expectations of those most important to them, their family and friends. Their concept of what it meant to be a human encompassed being a moral person. They were moved to act within the virtue school of ethics.
Another group of rescuers, representing about 10% of the total, put their lives on the line because they were moved by ethical principles. They were mainly indifferent to the opinions of those around them. Instead, they had firm ideas about the correctness of moral principles, and their own integrity as thinking, independent people required that they act upon those principles. Since the principles were reasonable in the first place, they couldn't exempt themselves from the duty that flowed from those principles. These rescuers acted within the principled approach to ethics.
About a third of the 400 became rescuers because they couldn't deny that Jews who entered concentration camps did not come out. They knew that when one person is taken away, arbitrarily, brutally, no one is safe. They identified with the strangers they saw marched off. Their sense of sympathy, compassion and pity moved them to risk their own lives to save theirs. They acted within the school of ethics that rests upon beneficence, namely, the consequentialist approach.
The Oliners conclude that whatever the underlying motivations, rescuers were people who believed they could influence events While they couldn't completely control their destinies, neither were they pawns in the hands of Fate. Many other Germans viewed themselves as victims, subject to the psychic wounds of defeat after W.W.I and the ensuing economic chaos.
Furthermore, the Oliners write, "An examination of the early family lives and personality characteristics of both rescuers and non-rescuers suggests that their respective wartime behavior grew out of their general patterns of relating to others."
Non-rescuers hunkered down and closed up; rescuers opened their arms and took others in.