Donald L. Niewyk's Argumentative Analysis

Donald L. Niewyk’s fifth and sixth chapters both deal more with outside perspectives and outside reactions than it does with those who were persecuted. The fifth chapter, “Bystander Reactions,” offers four different arguments as to why bystanders acted they way they did during the Holocaust. The sixth chapter, “Possibilities of Rescue,” discusses three different viewpoints on what foreign governments could have done to prevent the Holocaust. These two chapters conclude Niewyk’s book The Holocaust and wrap up the final sequence of events surrounding the Holocaust and the camps.
The fifth chapter, “Bystander Reactions,” compiles different perspectives from six different scholars on the role played by bystanders. Yisrael Gutman and Schmuel Krakowski focused mainly on the relationship between the Polish people and the Jewish people, and they make the claim that while some Polish people tried to help the Jewish armed resistance, many “tended…to regard the catastrophe of the Jews and Jewish appeals for assistance as something remote from their immediate concerns.” Gutman and Krakowski compiled a list of
I don’t agree with the other two perspectives as much because there was absolutely more that could have been done to save the lives of all those who were killed in the Holocaust, and while I don’t see Pope Pius XII as Hitler’s priest, I do believe he should have done more—as a figure of God and as someone who represented peace and justness, he should have done more. Laquer’s perspective was the best for me because he breaks it all down psychologically; he acknowledged how things could have been done better, he discussed the horrific chain of events that came from the propaganda, and he wrapped it all up by discussing the reactions that came from individuals all around the world. His argument makes the most sense to me, and I believe it is the most accurate and the clearest perspective out of the three