ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL COMPLICITY:
REFLECTING ON MY FELLOWSHIP AT AUSCHWITZ
Adam Shen, FASPE
“When evaluating something as horrific as the Holocaust, it is very easy and even comforting to imagine yourself as one of the victims. Indeed, you may make parallels between what happened to the Jewish population during this period and injustices you have personally suffered or witnessed. During our time together,
I encourage you to instead see yourself through the lens of the perpetrator, which is usually a much more difficult approach to take.”
That was the challenge laid out by Thorsten Wagner, Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics’ (FASPE) principal scholar on my first day in the program. Along with a few dozen fellow graduate students and early-career professionals across business, design & technology, and law, I embarked on a two-week excursion to Germany and Poland. There, I had the opportunity to learn about the history of the Holocaust, discuss the ethical failures of professionals who designed and executed Nazi policies, and draw insights for our own professional journeys.
As we learned, the progression of ethical lapses began gradually at first until they all seemed to happen at once. The Nazi regime, although racist throughout its history, was gradual in introducing its ideals and policies after it took power—what started as economic and social limitations eventually led to mass killings within a decade. Visits to various German and Polish museums, labor camps, euthanasia centers, and death camps provided a visceral and emotional backdrop to our experience. Images and testimonials from Auschwitz survivors left a particularly harrowing impression, made all the worse by the realization that the stories we heard were from the “lucky” ones who made it out alive.
As we grappled with real situations that German businesses addressed in the 1930-40s and contextualized the brutality of the concentration camps, we
Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) promotes ethical leadership for today’s professionals through annual fellowships, ethical leadership trainings, and symposia, among other means. Each year, FASPE awards 80 to 90 fellowships to graduate students and early-career professionals in six fields: Business, Clergy & Religious Leaders, Design & Technology, Journalism, Law, and Medicine. Fellowships begin with immersive, site-specific study in Germany and Poland, including at Auschwitz and other historically significant sites associated with Nazi-era professionals. While there, fellows study Nazi-era professionals’ surprisingly mundane and familiar motivations and decision-making as a reflection-based framework to apply to ethical pitfalls in their own lives. We find that the power of place translates history into the present, creating urgency in ethical reflection.
Each month one of our fellows publishes a piece in Memoria. Their work reflects FASPE’s unique approach to professional ethics and highlights the need for thoughtful ethical reflection today.
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