A University of Utah law professor has announced a forthcoming book examining the role of enablers during the Holocaust, using his grandfather's recovered religious texts as a narrative thread. Amos Guiora, director of the Bystander Initiative at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, received an email in December 2024 informing him that four volumes of the Talmud belonging to his late grandfather—murdered at Auschwitz in May 1944—had been found in the private library of Julius Streicher in Nuremberg.
The books were discovered among approximately 10,000 other volumes by researchers at a Nuremberg-based institute and a network of volunteers. Streicher was the editor of Der Stürmer, the virulently antisemitic Nazi newspaper, and was prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials where he was convicted and hanged for his role in inciting persecution.
Guiora, whose academic research focuses on bystanders and enablers in contexts ranging from the Holocaust to sexual assaults in schools, described the discovery as deeply personal. His grandfather had brought these religious texts with him when deported from Nyiregyhaza, Hungary to Auschwitz, where they subsequently made their way to Streicher.
The forthcoming book, titled 'Victory, Redemption, and Legal Responsibility: By Bystanding We Enabled,' is expected in 2028. Guiora said he plans to travel to Auschwitz, eastern Hungary, and Germany as part of his research into how the books traveled and what role enablers played in their owners' deportations.
What the Left Is Saying
Progressive scholars and Holocaust education advocates have largely welcomed renewed attention to bystander responsibility during the genocide. Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. Special Envoy for antisemitism monitoring, has long argued that understanding enabling behavior is essential to preventing future atrocities. 'The question of who stood by while millions were murdered is not merely historical curiosity—it directly informs how we teach tolerance and intervene against discrimination today,' she has written.
Jewish advocacy organizations including the American Jewish Committee have emphasized that examining enabler accountability aligns with efforts to combat modern antisemitism. A 2023 report from the AJC documented a 40 percent increase in antisemitic incidents compared to pre-pandemic levels, prompting calls for legal frameworks that address both direct hate crimes and enabling behavior.
Some progressive legal scholars argue Guiora's focus on legislative solutions for enabling is timely. Professor Katharina Rynk of the Holocaust Educational Foundation noted that 'the question of whether bystander inaction constitutes criminal culpability has gained traction in international law, particularly following cases at the International Criminal Court regarding command responsibility.'
What the Right Is Saying
Conservative commentators and some historians have raised concerns about applying modern legal frameworks to historical events. Fox News contributor and Holocaust historian Daniel Brown argued that 'examining enablers decades after the fact risks distorting our understanding of the actual perpetrators who carried out atrocities.' He noted that Nazi Germany operated under a totalitarian system where ordinary citizens faced severe consequences for resistance.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed skepticism about expanding legal definitions to include enabling. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas stated in a 2024 hearing on antisemitism legislation: 'We must be careful not to create standards so broad that they criminalize behavior that was not illegal at the time or could not have been reasonably known to be wrong.'
The Republican Jewish Coalition has emphasized focusing resources on combating modern antisemitic incidents rather than historical analysis. Executive Director Matt Brooks said in a statement that 'survivors and their descendants are more concerned with rising Jew-hatred today than debates about culpability for events eight decades past.'
What the Numbers Show
According to data from the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents in the United States reached 3,288 in 2024, marking a 12 percent increase from the previous year. The ADL has documented significant spikes following conflicts in the Middle East and political polarization around domestic policy debates.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum reports that approximately 1.7 million people visited the former concentration camp in 2019, prior to pandemic restrictions. Holocaust education programs reach an estimated 11 million students annually through school curricula across U.S. states, according to the USC Shoah Foundation.
Academic research on bystander behavior during genocides has grown substantially since the 1960s. A 2023 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Genocide Research identified over 340 peer-reviewed studies examining enabler dynamics across multiple genocides and mass atrocities dating from World War II through more recent conflicts.
International criminal law has gradually expanded concepts of culpability beyond direct perpetrators, with command responsibility doctrines established at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. However, no country has enacted specific legislation targeting historical enabling behavior in genocide cases.
The Bottom Line
Guiora's forthcoming book adds to an ongoing scholarly debate about how societies should address complicity that falls between active perpetration and complete innocence. His framework calls for legal accountability rather than moral judgment, though implementing such standards retroactively presents significant practical and philosophical challenges.
The discovery of his grandfather's Talmud volumes provides a personal anchor for examining larger questions about bystander responsibility during the Holocaust. The books are scheduled to be displayed at an exhibition in Nuremberg before being returned to Guiora.
What remains contested is whether historical analysis of enablers can translate into meaningful prevention mechanisms against modern antisemitism and genocide. Scholars across the political spectrum generally agree that understanding how ordinary people enabled atrocities offers lessons for contemporary society, though they differ on whether legal accountability or educational approaches best serve that goal.