Auschwitz or how good people can do evil: an ethical interpretation of the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust in light of the French thinker Tzvetan Todorov
TitleAuschwitz or how good people can do evil: an ethical interpretation of the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust in light of the French thinker Tzvetan Todorov
Author
Call number940.5318/0271
Object number04659f
Place of publicationLanham, Maryland, United States
PublisherUniversity Press of America
Year of publication
1997
Physical description91-118
MaterialArticle
Series titleStudies in the Shoah; v.19
ISBN0761807268
NotesArticle from the book'Confronting the Holocaust: a mandate for the 21st century' pp91-118
Description
Explores the question of what Auschwitz can teach us about the origins of human evil. The Nazi's did not violate the social contract of their time by killing the Jews; by their participatiion, Germans did not break the law, but were obedient to it. There is a physical boundary to the amount one can kill out of hate, fanaticiasm or sadism. Goodness was not completely absent.