Protectors of Pluralism
Religious Minorities and the Rescue of Jews in the Low Countries during the Holocaust

Sheds new light on the relationship between tolerance and religion, concluding that local religious minorities are most likely to protect pluralism.

Robert Braun (Author)

9781108471022, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 March 2019

316 pages, 40 b/w illus. 56 colour illus. 56 maps 28 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm, 0.58 kg

'Braun's book should be of considerable interest to organizational scholars, who have increasingly come to situate the selection of organizational activities within a spatial and historical context.' Martin Ruef, Social Forces

Protectors of Pluralism argues that local religious minorities are more likely to save persecuted groups from purification campaigns. Robert Braun utilizes a geo-referenced dataset of Jewish evasion in the Netherlands and Belgium during the Holocaust to assess the minority hypothesis. Spatial statistics and archival work reveal that Protestants were more likely to rescue Jews in Catholic regions of the Low Countries, while Catholics facilitated evasion in Protestant areas. Post-war testimonies and secondary literature demonstrate the importance of minority groups for rescue in other countries during the Holocaust as well as other episodes of mass violence, underlining how the local position of church communities produces networks of assistance, rather than something inherent to any religion itself. This book makes an important contribution to the literature on political violence, social movements, altruism and religion, applying a range of social science methodologies and theories that shed new light on the Holocaust.

1. Introduction
Part I. Theory and Context: 2. Theory
3. Religious minorities in the Low Countries: from the Reformation: to the Holocaust
Part II. Religious Minorities in the Netherlands: 4. Minority empathy 1900–1942
5. Religious minorities and evasion in the Netherlands
6. Religious minorities and clandestine collective action in Twente
7. Religious minorities and rescue beyond Twente
Part III. Exceptions and Scope Conditions: 8. Off-the-line cases
9. Christian rescue in Belgium
10. Conclusion: minority protection across time and space
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Sociology [JHB], Jewish studies [JFSR1], The Holocaust [HBTZ1]