Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Political Tolerance and Intolerance: Using Qualitative Interviews to Understand the Attitudes of Holocaust Survivors

  • Published:
Contemporary Jewry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The attitudes of victims toward their perpetrators have not been well documented. In examining qualitative interviews of Holocaust survivors, survivors evidenced three different political attitudes. Survivors were intolerant, limited-tolerant, or tolerant toward the perpetrators. Analyzing the political factors of perceived threat, worldview, strength of in-group identity, political ideology, and voting behavior revealed the differences among the three groups. Only intolerant and limited-tolerant survivors perceived the world as a threatening place. Some intolerant and limited-intolerant survivors exhibited anger and acts of revenge toward the perpetrators and the groups they represented, while only tolerant survivors targeted their altruistic behavior to help non-Jews. Finally, more survivors in the tolerant group hid during the war than in the other two groups. They were also more likely to have survived with one or both parents and/or other key family members, which may facilitate the transmission of messages of tolerance to the survivor.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Robinson and Metzer (2000, p. 1); Robinson (1994, p. 19).

  2. In his latest research on South Africa, James L. Gibson concluded that intolerance is generated at very low levels of perceived threat, and thus one would expect intolerance to be pervasive in a group of individuals who had suffered political persecution. See Gibson (2004, p. 288).

  3. Survivor JA [pseud.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 17, 1994.

  4. Survivor WC [pseud.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, February 4, 1994.

  5. Raymond Duch and Gibson (1992, p. 239), quoting Willhoite (1977, pp. 667–684).

  6. Robinson and Metzer (2000, p. 3).

  7. Sullivan et al. (1982, p. 251); Caspi and Seligson (1983, p. 400); Mueller (1988, p. 3).

  8. Gibson and Bingham (1982, p. 604).

  9. Stouffer (1967); Gibson (1992, p. 562).

  10. Sullivan et al. (1981, p. 93); Gibson (1992, p. 562); Wilson (1994, p. 553).

  11. Gibson (1986, p. 285).

  12. Mueller (1988, p. 2).

  13. Beatty and Walter (1984, p. 327).

  14. Ibid., p. 328.

  15. Ibid., p. 328; Sigal and Weinfeld (1989, p. 137).

  16. Marcus et al. (1995, p. 9).

  17. Davis (1995, p. 1).

  18. Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle (1997, p. 220); Gibson (1998, p. 833; 1992, p. 570); Sullivan et al. (1981, p. 99); Canetti-Nisim et al. (2008, p. 90).

  19. Sullivan et al. (1981, p. 99); Quillian (1995, p. 591).

  20. Chanley (1994, p. 344); Giles and Hertz (1994, p. 317); Shamir and Sullivan (1983, p. 916).

  21. Gibson (2006, p. 22).

  22. Davis and Silver (2004, p. 34).

  23. Gibson (2006, p. 667).

  24. Gibson (2004, p. 297).

  25. Gibson and Gouws (2001, p. 1067).

  26. Mondak and Hurwitz (1998, p. 315).

  27. Gibson and Gouws (2000, p. 291).

  28. Lifton (1967, p. 576).

  29. Janoff-Bulman (1983, p. 1).

  30. Carmil and Breznitz (1991, p. 394).

  31. Ibid.

  32. Ibid., p. 403.

  33. Suedfeld et al. (2005, p. 238).

  34. Sigal and Weinfeld (1989, p. 137).

  35. Lindsey (1998, p. 245).

  36. This category of limited-intolerant speaks to the question posed in the field about intolerance, whether it is broadly or narrowly based in scope as discussed in Mondak and Sanders (2003, p. 497).

  37. The definitions of tolerance resulted from the coding of the survivor interviews through the N4 qualitative computer coding program. Any statement about tolerance or intolerance in the interviews was highlighted and coded into two overlapping categories called “people, groups” and “tolerance.” Interviews lacking any statements on tolerance, or where the statements were so vague that a position on tolerance could not be clearly discerned, were eliminated from the sub-sample.

  38. Only 50% of the original sample of survivors completed the JIS. The JIS has information about the religious observance of the survivors and also about their political beliefs. Matching the completed JIS forms to interviews that talked about tolerance yielded 18 subjects.

  39. Kotler-Berkowitz et al. (2004).

  40. Briefly summarizing the demographic findings reveals that in the eighteen cases studied, no discernable pattern was found regarding education, religion, country of origin, and socio-economic status. The only demographic characteristic that differed in the three groups was gender, with males representing five out of six intolerant survivors and no tolerant survivors. A more detailed discussion of these and other demographic factors can be found in Isserman (2005b).

  41. Survivor LE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 8, 1996.

  42. Survivor BL [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, August 13, 1995.

  43. Survivor DH [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, October 6, 1994.

  44. Survivor SO [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 25, 1995.

  45. Carmil and Breznitz (1991, p. 402); Sigal and Weinfeld (1989, p. 137).

  46. Suedfeld et al. (2005, p. 240).

  47. Survivor LJ [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 15, 1995.

  48. Survivor KS [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, December 8, 1994.

  49. Suedfeld (2003, p. 133).

  50. Survivor PE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, 1994.

  51. Survivor DH [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, October 6, 1994.

  52. Survivor RA [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 7, 1994.

  53. Survivor JA [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 17, 1994.

  54. Survivor PE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, 1994.

  55. Survivor SD [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 22, 1995.

  56. Survivor RE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, March 5, 1996.

  57. Survivor BL [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, August 13, 1995.

  58. Ibid.

  59. Survivor LE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 8, 1996.

  60. Gibson and Gouws (2000, p. 278).

  61. Gibson (2004, p. 288).

  62. Taylor and Moghaddam (1994), quoted in Gibson and Gouws (2000, p. 280).

  63. Groth (2003, p. 116).

  64. Survivor LE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 5, 1996.

  65. Survivor LJ [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 15, 1995.

  66. Survivor SO [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, May 25, 1994.

  67. Survivor RA [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 7, 1994.

  68. Survivor JA [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, November 17, 1994.

  69. Survivor PE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, 1994.

  70. Survivor RL [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, July 31, 1996.

  71. Beatty and Walter (1984, p. 327).

  72. Ibid., p. 328.

  73. Moore (2000, p. 288).

  74. Moore (2000, p. 304); McCutcheon (1985, p. 481); McClosky and Brill (1983, p. 274).

  75. Isserman (2005a, p. 565).

References

  • Beatty, Kathleen Murphy, and Oliver Walter. 1984. Religious preference and practice: Reevaluating their impact on political tolerance. Political Opinion Quarterly 48 (1): 318–329.

  • Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and Michael Argyle. 1997. The psychology of religious behaviour, belief, and experience. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Canetti-Nisim, Daphna, Gal Areily, and Eran Halperin. 2008. Life, pocketbook or culture: The role of perceived security threats in promoting exclusionist political attitudes towards minorities in Israel. Political Research Quarterly 61 (1): 90–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carmil, Devora, and Shlomo Breznitz. 1991. Personal trauma and world view—Are extremely stressful experiences related to political attitudes, religious beliefs, and future orientation? Journal of Traumatic Stress 4 (3): 393–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caspi, Dan, and Mitchell A. Seligson. 1983. Toward an empirical theory of tolerance: Radical groups in Israel and Costa Rica. Comparative Political Studies 15 (4): 385–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chanley, Virginia. 1994. Commitment to political tolerance: Situational and activity-based differences. Political Behavior 16 (3): 343–363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Darren W. 1995. Exploring black political intolerance. Political Behavior 17 (1): 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Darren W., and Brian D. Silver. 2004. Civil liberties vs. security: Public opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science 48 (1): 28–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duch, Raymond M., and James L. Gibson. 1992. ‘Putting up with’ fascists in western Europe: A comparative, cross-level analysis of political tolerance. The Western Political Quarterly 45: 237–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L. 1986. Pluralistic intolerance in America: A reconsideration. American Politics Quarterly 14 (4): 267–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L. 1992. Alternative measures of political tolerance: Must tolerance be ‘least-liked’? American Journal of Political Science 36: 560–577.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L. 1998. A sober second thought: An experiment in persuading Russians to tolerate. American Journal of Political Science 42 (3): 819–850.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L. 2004. Overcoming apartheid: Can truth reconcile a divided nation? Cape Town: Russell Sage Foundation, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation

  • Gibson, James L. 2006a. Do strong group identities fuel intolerance? Evidence from the South African case. Political Psychology 27 (5): 665–705.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L. 2006b. Enigmas of intolerance: Fifty years after Stouffer’s communism, conformity, and civil liberties. Perspectives on Politics 4 (1): 21–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L., and Richard D. Bingham. 1982. On the conceptualization and measurement of tolerance. The American Political Science Review 76 (3): 603–620.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L., and Amanda Gouws. 2000. Social identities and political intolerance: Linkages within the South African mass public. American Journal of Political Science 44 (2): 278–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James L., and Amanda Gouws. 2001. Making tolerance judgments: The effects of context, local and national. Journal of Politics 63 (4): 1067–1091.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giles, Michael W., and Kaenan Hertz. 1994. Racial threat and partisan identification. The American Political Science Review 88 (2): 317–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groth, Alexander J. 2003. Holocaust voices: An attitudinal survey of survivors. New York: Humanity Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isserman, Nancy. 2005a. Identifying individual determinants of intolerance in holocaust survivors. In Beyond camps and forced labour, ed. Johannes-Dieter Steinert, and Inge Weber-Newth, 557–565. Osnabrueck, Germany: Secolo Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isserman, Nancy. 2005b. I harbor no hate: A study of political tolerance and intolerance. Unpublished dissertation, Political Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York

  • Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie. 1983. A theoretical perspective for understanding reactions to victimization. Journal of Social Issues 39 (2): 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kotler-Berkowitz, Laurence, Lorraine Blass, and Danyelle Neuman. 2004. Nazi victims residing in the United States. United Jewish Communities Report Series on the National Jewish Population Survey 2000–2001, report 2, April 2004

  • Lifton, Robert. 1967. Death in life: Survivors of Hiroshima. San Francisco: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsey, Elizabeth. 1998. The impact of homelessness and shelter life on family relationships. Family Relations 47 (3): 243–252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcus, George E., John L. Sullivan, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, and Sandra L. Wood. 1995. With Malice toward some: How people make civil liberties judgments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCutcheon, Allan L. 1985. A latent class analysis of tolerance for nonconformity in the American Public. Public Opinion Quarterly 49 (4): 474–488

    Google Scholar 

  • McCloskey, H., and A. Brill. 1983. Dimensions of tolerance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mondak, Jeffrey J., and Jon Hurwitz. 1998. Values, acts and actors: Distinguishing generic and discriminatory intolerance. Political Behavior 20 (4): 313–339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mondak, Jeffrey J., and Mitchell S. Sanders. 2003. Tolerance and intolerance: 1976–1988. American Journal of Political Science 47 (3): 492–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Dahlia. 2000. Intolerance of ‘others’ among Palestinian and Jewish students in Israel. Sociological Inquiry 70 (3): 280–312

  • Mueller, John. 1988. Trends in political tolerance. The Public Opinion Quarterly 52: 1–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Quillian, Lincoln. 1995. Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: Population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe. American Sociological Review 60: 586–611.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, Shalom and Sara Metzer. 2000. What do Holocaust survivors feel today toward their perpetrators? Echoes of the Holocaust 6: 1–3

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, Shalom, Michal Rapaport-Bar Server, and Sara Metzer. 1994. The feelings of Holocaust survivors towards their persecutors. Echoes of the Holocaust 3: 9–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Shamir, Michal, and John L. Sullivan. 1983. The political context of tolerance: The United States and Israel. The American Political Science Review 77 (4): 911–928.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sigal, J.J., and Morton Weinfeld. 1989. Trauma and rebirth. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer, Samuel A. 1967. Communism, conformity, and civil liberties. Science ed. New York: Wiley

  • Suedfeld, Peter. 2003. Specific and general attributional patterns of holocaust. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 35 (2): 133–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suedfeld, Peter, Erin Soriano, Donna Louis McMurtry, Helen Paterson, Tara L. Weiszbeck, and Robert Krell. 2005. Erikson’s “components of a healthy personality” among holocaust survivors immediately and forty years after the war. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development 60 (3): 229–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, John L., George E. Marcus, Stanley Feldman, and James E. Piereson. 1981. The sources of political tolerance: A multivariate analysis. The American Political Science Review 75 (1): 92–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, John L., James Piereson, and George E. Marcus. 1982. Political tolerance and American democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, Donald M. and Fathah M. Moghaddam. 2000. Theories of intergroup relations: International social psychological perspectives. Westport: Praeger. Quoted in James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws. 2000. Social identities and political intolerance: Linkages within the South African mass public. American Journal of Political Science 44 (2).

  • Willhoite, Jr., Fred H. 1977. Evolution and collective intolerance. Journal of Politics 39: 667–684.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Thomas. 1994. Trends in towards rightist and leftist groups 1976–1988: Effects of attitude change and cohort successio. Public Opinion Quarterly 58 (4): 539–556

    Google Scholar 

Interviews

  • Survivor BL [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. August 13, 1995.

  • Survivor DG [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. October 31, 1996.

  • Survivor DH [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. October 6, 1994.

  • Survivor HS [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project. May 8, 1996.

  • Survivor JA [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. November 17, 1994.

  • Survivor KS [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. December 8, 1994.

  • Survivor LE [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. May 8, 1996.

  • Survivor LJ [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project. January 15, 1995.

  • Survivor PE [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. 1994.

  • Survivor RA [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. November 7, 1994.

  • Survivor RE [pseudo.], interview by TTP, interview transcript, Transcending Trauma Project, March 5, 1996.

  • Survivor RL [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project, July 31, 1996.

  • Survivor SB [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. February 15, 1996.

  • Survivor SD [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. May 22, 1995.

  • Survivor SO [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. May 25, 1994.

  • Survivor SS [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. July 7, 1994.

  • Survivor WC [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. February 4, 1994.

  • Survivor WM [pseudo.]. Interview by TTP. Interview transcript. Transcending Trauma Project. May 1995.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Council For Relationships, 4025 Chestnut Street First Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Nancy Isserman

Authors
  1. Nancy Isserman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nancy Isserman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Isserman, N. Political Tolerance and Intolerance: Using Qualitative Interviews to Understand the Attitudes of Holocaust Survivors. Cont Jewry 29, 21–47 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-008-9003-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-008-9003-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation