Moral Exclusion In In My Hands, By Hitler And The Nazis

Moral Exclusion Moral exclusion occurs when certain people are excluded from our moral concern. In the book In My Hands, Hitler and the Nazis believed the Jewish community were lowly creatures, no better than dogs, and they treated the Jews as such. This was demonstrated on various occasions throughout the novel. The most disturbing example of moral exclusion was when an SS officer tore a Jewish baby from its mother’s arms, threw it into the air, and shot it to death with his pistol. He then executed the screaming mother. Had the SS officer witnessed someone murder Germans in such a way, or members of his own family, he would have been horrified – but because the family was Jewish, he felt no moral concern about the atrocity he had committed. Not only were the Jews excluded from the moral compass of the Nazis, the citizens of Poland were also morally excluded. The Germans invaded Poland and reclaimed it as their own. They treated the Polish citizens with disdain. The Germans rounded them up in lapankas and forced them to work against the Allies. Irene’s father, a non-Jew, was murdered for not stepping off the sidewalk when SS officers passed by. The Soviets also had no

This is due, in part, to the bystander effect. When more people witness someone in need of help, that person is less likely to be helped due to conformity and the diffusion of responsibility. The non-Jews of Europe knew that if they did not conform to the demands of the Nazis that they would face severe punishment, so many chose not to help them. Herr Schulz embodies the bystander effect; the man saw Jews lined up and murdered several times over, and he never raised a hand to help them directly. He thought others would help the Jews, like Irene – and he was not incorrect. But had the Herr Schulz’s of the world stepped forward, more Jews would have lived through the