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Saving the Forsaken: Religious Culture and the Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe

Online ISBN:
9780300130409
Print ISBN:
9780300100631
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Book

Saving the Forsaken: Religious Culture and the Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe

Published:
8 March 2005
Online ISBN:
9780300130409
Print ISBN:
9780300100631
Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract

Does religion encourage altruism on behalf of those who do not belong? Are the very religious more likely to be altruistic toward outsiders than those who are less religious? This book examines data on Christian rescuers and nonrescuers of Jews during the Holocaust to shed light on these important questions. Drawing on interviews with more than five hundred Christians—Protestant and Catholic, very religious, irreligious, and moderately religious rescuers and nonrescuers living in Nazi-occupied Europe—the book offers a sociological perspective on the values and attitudes that distinguished each group. It presents several case studies of rescuers and nonrescuers within each group and then interprets the individual's behavior as it relates to his or her group. It finds that the value patterns of the religious groups differ significantly from one another, and it is able to highlight those factors that appear to have contributed most toward rescue within each group.

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