July 19, 2003
Light eyes/hair and Holocaust Survival
Lethal stereotypes: Hair and eye color as survival characteristics during the Holocaust
Suedfeld, Peter et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Vol 32(11), Nov 2002, pp. 2368-2376
Abstract
Notes that in spite of many false negatives and false positives quite familiar to the people of Nazi-dominated Europe, dark hair and eyes were salient among the physical stereotypes of Jews that the Nazis promulgated along with psychosocial ones. Many narratives of the Holocaust refer to someone surviving because he or she "did not look Jewish," and others being caught and killed because they did. A quantitative test of the validity and impact of this attribution showed that a higher proportion of Holocaust survivors than of a North American Jewish control group had light-colored hair, eyes, or both during the relevant period. The paper discusses possible reasons why these were survival characteristics under the conditions of the Holocaust, the possible short- and long-term effects of such selectivity, and implications for stereotyping in other situations of ethnic persecution and genocide.
Update:
I haven't read the full article yet, and I wonder if it considers the other possibility, namely that the self-selected immigrant control group was darker-eyed and darker-haired than the Jewish population at large.
Posted by Dienekes at July 19, 2003 09:52 PM | PermaLinkExcellent find, Dienekes!
This ( partially ) explains why Israeli Ashkenazic Jews who immigrated after the war seem lighter than American Ashkenazic Jews who immigrated in the 19th century.
Posted by: Melnorme at July 20, 2003 01:39 PMwow, i'm linking this....
Posted by: razib at July 20, 2003 04:55 PMInteresting.
I’ve read a similar account in John Toland’s biography of Adolf Hitler where he relates an episode that took place in occupied Ukraine. Heinrich Himmler arrived in the Ukraine to inspect the local situation, etc. While he was witnessing a round up of Jews, he spotted a young, tall, blond, and blue-eyed Jewish male. He became fascinated with the said Jewish male who seemed to be Aryan in appearance, and decided to ask him the following questions:
Was he Jewish? -- Yes.
Were his parents Jewish? – Yes.
To his knowledge, were all of his ancestors Jewish? – Yes.
Finally, Himmler replied: “in that case, I’m sorry but I'm afraid that I cannot help you.” And left.
One of Himmler’s hair-brained schemes was to “kidnap” nubile blonde females from Nazi occupied Europe and have them marry brown haired German males, this was to be done with the objective of eventually turning Germany into a land of purely blond Ubermenschen.
I meant "hare-brained", of course. :)
Posted by: friedrich braun at July 20, 2003 07:41 PMInteresting. As son of Holocaust survivors, I always wondered what kind of selective pressures were applied. Right age, health, resistance to starving and diseases, family support. But I doubt Nordic appearance helped to survive. Ashkenazic Jews are very Nordic looking, and there was never a selection on that basis. Racist Nazis made no distinction.
Posted by: jaime at October 6, 2003 10:00 AM