Beatrix: Bystander

This chapter presents a narrative interview with Tony's cousin, a woman called “Beatrix.” Since the two are related, Beatrix shared many background characteristics with Tony, and she spent much time with Tony's family after her mother died. In terms of behavior, however, Beatrix was a bystander, living through the war as someone politically uninvolved. She discusses her marriage to a Dutch doctor, how her husband took over a medical practice from a Jewish doctor, how she and her husband then moved into the Jewish doctor's large home in Utrecht. Yet Beatrix never seemed to make a connection between her own good fortune and the Jewish doctor's plight. In her attitudes, worldview, self-image, and other psychological characteristics, Beatrix captures the themes commonly voiced by other bystanders interviewed for this study.