Publication Details

Abstract

Despite our growing knowledge about the mass killings and genocides, we are still uncomfortable with the fact that these mass killings were committed by ordinery, decent, normal, and even everyday people. Inhumanity is often seen as an overcome with extreme ideology or falling into the “animal” part of human being, but it is rather a consequence of an uncritical subordination to a false authority, and the desire to build a personal or national „Paradise“ at the expense of the suffering of the othhers. On the other hand, there are studies that examine the characteristics of the people who stood against the inhumanity and rescued Jews during the Holocaust. These people expressed so called “banal heroism” and their characteristics paradoxically contradict the ideal and obedient citizen. This study will therefore focus on criticism of „normality“ rather than on criticism of the extreme ideologies.