The Demographics of Genocide: Refugees and Territorial Loss in the Mass Murder of European Jewry

Abstract

This study seeks to distinguish between instances where genocide occurred and others where it might have been expected to occur but did not. Territorial loss, a corollary refugee influx, and a resulting contraction of socio-economic space are suggested to provide that distinction. Four analytic perspectives based on emotional reactions, class envy, prospect theory, and territoriality indicate the critical importance of loss. The theory is examined in the context of the mass murder of European Jewry including, of course, Germany and Austria, and all European German allies that allowed an indigenous genocidal impulse, willingness to comply with German genocidal policies, or an ability to resist German pressures for Jewish deportation. Three instances of perpetrating states - Italy, Vichy France, and Romania - emerge from the analysis. The latter two governments willingly collaborated with the Germans in victimizing their own Jewish citizenry, while Italy was on a genocidal path just prior to the German occupation. All five states mentioned above were found to experience considerable territorial loss and a contraction of socio-economic space. Bulgaria and Finland, on the other hand, actually expanded their borders at the start of the war and saved virtually all of their Jewish citizens. The importance of loss is demonstrated not only cross-sectionally, in the comparison between the five victimizers, on the one hand, and Bulgaria and Finland, on the other, but also diachronically, in the changing behavior over time of the genocidal and perpetrating states.