Jewish Rescue in Holland and France during the Second World War: Moral Cognition and Collective Action

Abstract

In this article Jewish rescue is analyzed as a collective action problem rather than as a question of altruism. Data were collected from 174 rescuers in France and Holland to measure rescue along three dimensions: the motivations of rescue, the cognitive structure of rescue motivations, and the relative importance of personal motivations and incentives in the context of collective action. Three principal conclusions emerge from this study. First, two broad sets of motivations were distinguished: parochial motivations based on material, religious, and social norms and postmaterial motivations based on social justice. Second, each motivation was linked to a distinct cognitive structure. Parochial motivations were rooted in stable, conventional moral reasoning while postmaterial motivations were characterized by an immature but principled cognitive structure. Finally, motivations themselves provided only a weak explanation of rescue. Infrastructural variables and micromobilization contexts — organization, material support, and supporting social networks — are necessary to sustain collective action and proved more significant than personal motivations.

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