Gratuitous cruelty timed to victims’ holy days shows hatred originates within perpetrators
Evidence
Furthermore, to intensify their suffering, in many cases large-scale actions against the Jews were timed to coincide with their religious holidays. For example, the deportation of the Jews of Warsaw began on the eve of Tisha B’Av (July 22, 1942), the day of mourning that commemorates the destruc tion of the Temple in Jerusalem (Bauer, 1982). … The histori cal evidence on the spontaneity, inventiveness, and enthusiasm with which the Nazis degraded, hurt, and killed their victims also argues against explain ing their behavior as simply responses to an authority’s commands despite the perpetrators’ abhorrence toward their own actions, and without hate to ward their victims. It must have come from within. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 627
Categorization
- XREF: Speaks directly to the reader’s question of what internal motive — beyond obedience — drives perpetrator violence against a targeted outgroup. — connects to: Violent hatred need not spring from the victim’s power and abuse — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 66; Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147
- DEFINE: Draws a sharp analytic line between compliance-based killing and hatred-based killing, a distinction central to scapegoating theory.
Broader Connections
- Violent hatred need not spring from the victim’s power and abuse
#corroborates(0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 66 - Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim
#expands(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147