Logan Lampkins

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102-034
25 April 2015
Writing this reflection at 11:14 PM on the night the portfolio is due, I am happy with how
far Ive come with this. I ended up not deleting anything. I think each source has relevance and I
was very brief on each one. I hope 12 pages is not going overboard and I hope students in 100
years use this in their research!
Bystanders
It is hard to imagine myself living during a time of violence and war like the characters of
The Book Thief. Some citizens living during the time of Hitlers had a front-row seat to
massacres and severe mistreatment of minorities every day. How does witnessing the terror of
genocide affect ones mental state? When attempting to put myself in the shoes of witnesses of
genocide, it is hard to imagine what I would be thinking about and what I would prioritize.
Rather than government, soldiers or victims, the opinions of normal citizens during wartime is an
interesting topic of inquiry that I wanted to research further. Using Markus Zusaks The Book
Thief as a model, I developed an inquiry question based on the events of the story. My final
question is: What are the opinions of citizens living during wartime or genocide? What is the
level of apathy of normal citizens regarding the mistreatment of specific groups of people if
normal citizens are not a part of the danger?
In 1968, a study was conducted at Yale University to examine psychological elements of
college seniors attitudes of the Vietnam War and the results were published in the Journal of
Personality in 1970. The study was conducted by R. William Cowdry of Harvard Medical

School. The relationship between public action and private attitude was a prominent subject
matter because ones private attitude and the actions they perform can differ depending on
several factors. The hypothesis was that the elements that translate specific attitudes into actions
depend on many situational factors. The study comprised of 131 graduating seniors at Yale, most
of which lived a middle-upper-class lifestyle and had parents with college degrees. Each
participant was polled on their attitudes towards war, and later on their plans for future military
service. One of the tests involving public action required seniors to publicly declare in an ad in
the Yale Daily News, Many of us feel compelled to resist the draft openly. Those of us who do
accept military service will do so knowing that we are violating our consciences in order not to
violate the laws of our country. Many strongly anti-war participants chose not to sign this to
avoid taking public action and possible shame from society. Results from this study found that
private attitudes towards war did not always reflect the actions citizens are willing to take.
The writers discuss reasons for these contradictions, including the possibility that family
background might affect ones actions. If all the subjects had learned early in life that public
expression was successful, the data for this study might have been altered. Refusal to participate
in civil disobedience is also related to fear of the status of ones career. I think citizens can show
apathy towards inhumane treatment as long as they arent in danger of it, but I do think it can
affect someone psychologically to allow genocide to happen. The results of this study are very
accurate in my opinion because I personally believe that most citizens would not voice their
opinions aloud in an extreme government situation.
I believe wartime can change someones personality due to the traumatic things normal
citizens are exposed to on a daily basis during genocide. The Jedwabne Massacre is an example
of how citizens got involved with killing minorities in World War II and studies have been done

on how this change happened. The Jedwabne Massacre was a mass killing of over 340 Polish
Jews in the summer of 1941 consisting of physical labor followed by the victims being burned
alive. Antony Polonsky, professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University, researched the
public opinion on this massacre from reports of Polish opinion from 1941. They also interviewed
some of the few witnesses that are still alive today and reported their findings in The Neighbors
Respond: The controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland.
Polish people have a bad reputation with some opinionated war resistors because the
citizens sometimes willingly participated in the massacre. A few Polish leaders in war resistance
spoke out against the immoral behavior of their people, including Catholic novelist Zofia
Kossak-Szczucka, who reported in 1942, In many localities, the local population has
participated voluntarily in the massacre. We must oppose such disgraceful behavior with all
available means (74). He further elaborated on his experience and how the public behaved like
demons. He compares it to a disease by claiming, For now no one is raising this issue; the press
timidly passes over it, but the evil is spreading like an epidemic, and crime is turning into
addiction (74). From this research, I have concluded that some people display a shocking
change in behavior under certain conditions. Citizens of this time were observed participating in
the killing and displaying evil characteristics, similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, which I
address later.
Similar research on wartime behavior displayed by citizens who were not endangered
was done in Germany. Chapter seven of Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews, and ordinary Germans
reports the results of a survey sent to 300 German citizens in 1993. This survey asked questions
about experiences with witnessing Nazi terror, their opinions, and their involvement in illegal
activity. Many responded with hateful messages saying the questions were an abomination, but

many did respond. Each participant was a German citizen living during wartime at an age old
enough to have an opinion on the matter. Given the amount of extremely negative responses, it is
clear that Nazi terror had a large enough effect to still irritate these German citizens still today,
and this information is interesting when pondering what kind of psychological effects that the
war had on ordinary citizens. Central Michigan University history professor Eric A. Johnson and
German psychologist Karl-Heinz Reuband created the survey. After receiving the survey results,
Johnson reported, The results of our survey do not prove that most Germans agreed with all the
Nazis policies and initiatives. They also do not prove that most Germans had nothing to fear
from Nazi terror (262). The results of this study were suspicious because of the number of
negative reactions. However, it revealed that German citizens feared the genocide events going
on around them. Putting myself in their shoes, I understand their disturbance many years later,
since it is hard to wrap my brain around the horrors displayed by the killers of this time period.
The opinion of younger people about the war in Iraq was a topic of research for Stephen
Cushion, a journalist at Cardiff School of Journalism, who did research on young peoples
attitudes towards the war in Iraq and reported his findings in the Journal of Youth Studies in
2007. The younger generation was very active in the anti-Iraq War protesting, and this raised
questions about how informed young people are regarding the war.
This political behavior in young people could possibly have been connected to the
amount of communication they now had with the rest of the world, as Cushion writes, We often
hear from journalists that young people are more interested in watching and voting in reality
game shows than taking part in general elections (420).

A large part of the younger generations involvement with the war protests was also due
to celebrity influence. Cushion reported, The fact that 18 per cent of all articles involving young
protestors featured, in part, celebrity involvement would perhaps be seen by organizers as a
success, in managing to garner stories that might not necessarily have been written (432). This
points to the fact that young people were highly influenced to what they were exposed to in
everyday life. This data shows a lack of government knowledge in the younger generation. I also
think they were not aware of all of the effects of war on the citizens of Iraq as well as the
American soldiers there. However, this case is not a genocide as public as the Holocaust, and
these young citizens were not living alongside Jewish families being taken from their homes
daily. I would be interested to hear more about younger peoples opinions of World War II in
Europe.
Doctor R. D. Gillespie was an important figure in the study of Psychiatry during the war.
Psychological Effects of War on Citizen and Soldier is an extremely detailed report on studies
done on both citizens and soldiers during the war. The goal was to measure their mental stability
and see how the war affected their findings.
The data shows that most data of psychological instability comes from domestic
problems already existing, including a case of an eleven-year-old girl from which Gillespie
recorded, She had been miserable when evacuated, and when seen, although she had been
returned to her home, she was still unhappy and morbidly depressed (113). Family problems
and rejection from her parents already existed, so there was no evidence that the depression
stemmed from the war. When studying the mental state of children, observation showed very few
of them had psychological problems directly connected to the air raids happening around them.
There were some children that displayed dismay, however. A case was reported in which The

hostess reported that as soon as he heard a plane, or the siren, he would turn ashen, tremble
violently, become quite cold and look terrified (120).
The lack of psychological effects on citizens, old and young, has been connected to
apathy. In his research, Gillespie states, It has also been observed that shelter life (unless well
organized) can produce a major problem-apathy arising from boredom-among people of all ages
(136). The data from all of the studies I researched supports the fact that certain people are
apathetic towards the war and the horrific events that surround it. It is a natural reaction to put
oneself first, and in a world where the government and military is as powerful as it is, a normal
person can feel powerless, regardless of whether or not they are passionate enough to speak out
against corruption.
It took a while for the British and American governments to take action and provide aid
to the suffering Jews in Europe at the beginning of the Holocaust. At the start of Hitlers reign,
clues began to surface that the Jews were being treated unfairly, but because of lack of
communication and fear of chaos, action was not taken immediately. At the same time, America
began receive information through telegrams from Europe from concerned leaders such as
Gerhart Riegner, who warned the American government that Hitler would really be doing all of
these things that were formally rumors and hearsay. Arthur D. Morse, WWII Historian, gathered
data from these war signs and documented it in While six million died; a chronicle of American
apathy. The amount of time it took other countries to fight against the Nazi party is one of the
reasons normal citizens cannot do anything to help those being mistreated by government
corruption. Ordinary people have no voice in government, but even those who do possess strong
influence in government had a hard time aiding the minorities of World War II.

There were attempts by congress members for political action, but the United States and
Britain were very cautious in dealing with the Axis Powers. At the Bermuda Conference in 1943,
the United States and Great Britain announced that the problem was too great for the two
countries to handle, and the only way to stop the mistreatment of Jews would be an Allied Power
win in the war. The London Observer responded, We have been told that this problem is beyond
the resources of Britain and America combined If Britain and America cannot help, who can?
(54). As result of Bermuda conference, Polish National Council member Szmul Zygielbojm
committed suicide and left a message in his suicide note: By my death I wish to make my final
protest against the passivity with which the world is looking on and permitting the extermination
of the Jewish people (63). Impatience from activists against the American governments apathy
became obvious.
In 1944, Congress and President Roosevelt finally declared that it is the responsibility of
the government to provide the Jews with aid. For the first time since Hitlers accession to power
in 1933, United States policy called for the rescue of the innocent. Seventeen months had passed
since Gerhart Riegners revelation that Hitler was carrying out his threat to eliminate every Jew
in Europe. At least four million had perished during the period of Allied apathy (98). For the
genocide of World War II, the government was the head of the operation, so the only thing that
could change it was the combination of even larger governments. This fact plays a role in public
action during wartime and causes a sense of hopelessness. Ordinary citizens can do nothing
about the issue, so they learned to just ignore it, as displayed in Gillespies research on the
psychological effects of normal citizens. The amount of psychological instability was less severe
than he thought because of the mindset that citizens should adapt to wartime and not worry about
things that do not directly affect them.

All of this statistical data on public opinion, apathy, and psychological states was put to
the test with the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. Philip Zimbardo, psychology professor at
Stanford, proposed this experiment to simulate psychological torture by putting volunteers in the
roles of prisoners and guards. The purpose of the experiment was to measure the subjects mental
states and determine the psychological effects of being a prisoner or prison guard. The
experiment took place over the course of only six days in the basement of the Stanford
psychology building, and produced results that have been pondered and discussed even 40 years
after the matter. The guards became sadistic and displayed evil behavior, while the prisoners
became very stressed and depressed. Data from this experiment is interesting to analyze for my
inquiry project because it puts normal citizens in the shoes of people who were mistreated in
times of World War II. Of course it is less severe than the events of the Holocaust, but now that
they had a taste, would they show apathy if another genocide happened today?
Everything done in the basement of the psychology building was intended to simulate
real prisoner conditions. For example, push-ups were a common form of punishment for the
prisoners, similar to that of the concentration camps during the Nazi genocide. One prisoner in
particular began to suffer psychological stress as he began to cry, curse, and beg to be released.
He was eventually released early, making this prisoner is a good example of how different
individuals react to events differently. Over the course of the 6 days of the experimentation, the
guards were harsher and the prisoners were psychologically tortured more and more. The
accuracy of the experiment was astounding because prisoners displayed extreme depression
thinking everything was real, while guards showed a change in personality. Some guards were
fair to the prisoners while some were unnecessarily cruel and forced their prisoners to do acts of
severe humiliation and psychological stress. These guards enjoyed their power and it was

baffling to the directors because there was no real-life evidence that would suggest this behavior
possible among the guards. How could smart, middle class students become so evil in such a
short time? This is shocking data at how normal people can change when put in certain
situations, and it can be connected to the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland, in which citizens
voluntarily participated in killing and torture. Because of the level of severity of the experiment,
it ended early after 6 days, even though it was planned to last 2 weeks. It is important to note that
some prisoners begged to be released, while no guards ever showed desire to leave, nor did they
ever ask for time off. They even worked overtime and the tougher guards even escalated their
punishment to the prisoners during the night when they thought the cameras were not watching.
Of course guards had a less horrible experience than the prisoners, and I wonder if this has a
connection to the level of apathy of normal citizens during wartime. Guards addressed after the
experiment that they never felt guilt or remorse for their cruel actions, and they were baffled by
the fact that they were capable of behavior so different from their personalities.
This is great insight on the characteristics of human mistreatment during war times such
as World War II as it provided psychological data on how prisoners were treated. It is likely that
Jews and other minorities of the Holocaust time period were treated in an even harsher way, so
data from this mere six-day planned experiment is enough to suggest that the psychological
effects on war prisoners are massive, and it is also what normal citizens and bystanders were
watching from their safe homes. The Stanford Prison Experiment does not analyze the opinions,
mental state, and apathy of normal citizens, but it is relevant because it places normal citizens in
the shoes of people similar to Nazi soldiers and mistreated minorities. Because of how the
volunteers reacted to their positions in such an extreme way, the data is very insightful on how
normal citizens feel about war and genocide: the prison guards for carried away because they

were in a safe position. It also arises an uncomfortable question: How would normal citizens
react to another event similar to the Holocaust, in which people were captured, tortured, or
killed? The Stanford Prison Experiment put normal middle-class students in the shoes of the
tortured minorities of World War II, so what would their level of apathy be if a similar tragic
event happened again in real life? It is safe to assume that after being placed in the situation
themselves, the volunteers of the Stanford Prison Experiment would have the most insight and be
the most knowledgeable and aware of the issues.
With this flood of tests and results in mind, what is the true answer? What toll does war,
genocide, and social horrors take on normal citizens who are not directly affected, and do they
display apathy? In general, the answers to this are both good and bad, and the results of these
studies provide a clear answer. In the case of events such as the Jedwabne Massacre, citizens
voluntarily participated in killing the minorities. This is a scary thing to think about since the
evidence does not support the fact that they disapproved of unfair treatment. However, in these
same cases, there was nothing that regular people could do against the military, as Zofia KossakSzczucka exclaims, We look on passively, witnesses overcome with terror. We cannot intervene.
There have been heroes who tried to stand up for and protect the condemned and paid for it with
their lives (73). Research from R. D. Gillespie shows that a few normal citizens were disturbed,
but the vast majority of them were in no danger of being dragged into the genocide. They may
not have approved of the harsh government, but it would have been putting themselves or their
families in danger if anything had been said about it. All of these public opinions depended on
the location as well. Some places had a very strong public hatred towards minorities while some
stayed very quiet to avoid shame or legal trouble. These opinions are also similar in all wars or
genocides, not just the Nazi party terror of World War II. I think that the publics opinion on war

is entirely up to the individual, so there is no clear answer on how they feel about unfair policies.
The majority of European citizens at the time of the Holocaust stayed quiet and protected only
themselves, and I think I would be the same way. There are cases of every day people such as
(give example) who spoke out against the Nazi party, only to be killed gruesomely for treason.
These people are remembered and appreciated forever as heroes, but it was not worth it for the
majority of the population at the time.
I think if another genocide happened today, most people would stay quiet in order to
protect themselves, but I do not think they would be apathetic. Within the last few years, human
rights in the United States as well as many other countries have evolved immensely to
accommodate things such as homosexual marriage, for example. Society today also has a tool
that citizens of wartime did not have: the Internet. I think a large number of people would be
very opinionated on the Internet and speak out against the government. Internet users say things
online about President Obama that would get them tortured and killed if they said these things at
another point in history. It is for this reason that I think genocide might be able to be stopped
with help from the world over the Internet. Powerful people would be influenced by a large
public response. However, I think militaries and weaponry might be more evolved now, so even
more trouble could spark over a disagreement on a worldwide scale. It is very unclear how an
event like the Holocaust would happen again today, but I think most normal citizens across the
world would be very sympathetic instead of apathetic.
For the question of psychological effects of citizens and public opinion of war and
genocide, we only have data from several years ago, and since the data differed among
individuals back then, it will definitely differ even more among individuals in todays time.

Works Cited
Cowdry, R. William, Kenneth Keniston, and Seymour Cabin. The war and military obligation:
Private attitudes and public actions. Journal of Personality 38.4 (1970): 525-549. Print.
Cushion, Stephen. Protesting their Apathy? An Analysis of British Press Coverage of Young
anti-Iraq War Protestors. Journal of Youth Studies 10.4 (2007): 419-437. Print.
Foster, D., S. Davies and H. Steele. The evacuation of British children during World War II:
a preliminary investigation into the long-term psychological effects. Aging & Mental
Health 7.5 (2003): 398-408. Print.
Gillespie, R. D. Psychological Effects of War on Citizen and Soldier. New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, Inc., 1942. Print.
Johnson, Eric A. Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews, and ordinary Germans. New York: Basic
Books, 1999. Print.
Morse, Arthur D. While six million died; a chronicle of American apathy. New York: Random
House, 1968. Print.
Polonsky, Antony, and Joanna B. Michlic. The Neighbors Respond: The controversy over the
Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Print.
Zimbardo, Philip G., Mike Lestik and Scott Plous. Stanford Prison Experiment. Stanford
University. Web. 11 April 2015.