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Why Do Victims of Massacres Go to Their Deaths?

I often hear that it’s a moral imperative to learn from the great 20th century atrocities, that these events are a window into what humans are capable of, and we must find those impulses in ourselves to make sure we do not follow in their footsteps.

I often hear that it’s a moral imperative to learn from the great 20th century atrocities, that these events are a window into what humans are capable of, and we must find those impulses in ourselves to make sure we do not follow in their footsteps. We’re told that people are cowards out of a desire to save their own lives, but when passive cowardice was very obviously a certain path to extermination, and the only slim chance at life was through some desperate action, approximately nobody tried anything. Never mind the one-in-a-thousand chance that it somehow helps, that those behind you also run and a few slip away in the chaos, at least it’s better to disrupt the orderly factory lines of the death machine and mildly inconvenience those who operate it.

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