By Mary Jester
Asst. Campus Editor

Disputes continue about who should be included in the list of Holocaust victims, said a professor from the University of Chicago who spoke Sunday at the Holocaust Remembrance Conference.

Peter Novick, professor of modern history at the University of Chicago, spoke on the controversies, ambiguities and lessons of the Holocaust.

Novick said one reason for disputes about who should be included in the list of Holocaust victims is because, of the 11 million deaths, five million were not Jewish. For example, approximately 5,000 to 10,000 homosexuals died in the Holocaust.

Instead of standard maxims and common analogies, people derive various lessons from the Holocaust, said Novick. Analogies that have meaning for some individuals may not have meaning for others. "It sensitizes us to oppression and atrocity," he said.

He said people wonder why so many children could have been allowed to die in the Holocaust and why there were bystanders who did not intervene. However, he looks to deaths of children today from malnutrition and disease in developing countries and wonders why bystanders do not help. He said the incredulity is the same despite the difference in risks.

During the war, the consequence for helping victims of the Holocaust would have been physical danger, while the consequence for helping those dying from malnutrition and disease would be foregoing luxuries, he said.

However, Novick says in both situations we look to bystanders who are not helping and wonder why they do not help.

He said people look back to the Holocaust to draw lessons from it when trying to understand issues such as abortion, capital punishment, animal rights, hate crimes and racial conflicts.

Novick is the author of "The Holocaust in American Life."