Mary Fulbrook’s new book attempts to answer a persistent, pointed question: how complicit were Germans in the Holocaust? Bystander Society draws on a set of fascinating first-person accounts held at Harvard University, collected for a 1940 competition inviting essays on the theme: ‘My Life in Germany before and after January 30, 1933’.
Yielding some 263 autobiographical texts provided by about 230 individuals, the competition was judged by Harvard faculty members Gordon Allport, Sidney B Fay and