Ervin Staub, PhD

Dr. Ervin Staub: A Life in Service of Humanity

We invite you to explore Dr. Staub's memoir, Evil, Goodness, and Active Bystandership. Published on March 17, 2026, this is a profound examination of human morality and the power of individual and group action. From a child survivor of the Holocaust to a global leader in peacebuilding, Dr. Ervin Staub’s life tells a powerful story of moral courage, healing, hope, and activism. Order on Amazon.

Dr. Staub is a Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the Founding Director of its Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence. His work has been driven by his journey—born in Hungary, he lived through Nazism and communism, experiencing firsthand the devastation of oppressive systems. At 18, after the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he escaped to Vienna, and later to the United States, where he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota and earned my Ph.D. at Stanford University. Dr. Staub has taught at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Hawaii, and the London School of Economics.

About “Evil, Goodness, and Creating Active Bystandership” by Ervin Staub

In “Evil, Goodness, and Creating Active Bystandership,” renowned psychologist Ervin Staub reflects on a life shaped by both unimaginable cruelty and extraordinary human courage. A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary who later escaped communist rule and built an academic career in the United States, Staub has devoted his life to understanding why people harm others — and why some choose to help instead.

Blending memoir, psychology and social insight, Staub traces how his personal experiences led to groundbreaking research on the roots of violence, genocide and altruism. From studying “altruism born of suffering” to promoting reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda and helping train police officers to intervene when colleagues misuse force, his work explores how ordinary people can become agents of change.

Through powerful stories and decades of research, Staub offers a hopeful message: when individuals step forward as “active bystanders,” they can interrupt harm and help build a more compassionate world.

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY REVIEW

Drawing on his childhood experiences in Hungary during the Holocaust, Staub shares his understanding of evil—and details a pathway of compassion and altruism instead. As he recounts the atrocities his family faced while living in Budapest—abuse, discrimination, starvation, forced hiding—he also shares inspiring stories of those who fought back and protected their Jewish friends, neighbors, and loved ones. In examining the psychology of trauma and reflecting on his work advocating for the erasure of violence, Staub uses the term “Active Bystandership”—which he defines as "taking action when witnessing a need to help an individual or help on a group level.”

Though a heartrending account of the everyday experiences Jews faced during the Holocaust, Staub’s raw, detailed memoir swells beyond that singular event. He touches on universal themes that resonate—grief, unresolved trauma, spirituality, aging, advocacy for others—and encourages readers to understand that impermanence is a fundamental truth in life, connection to others carries significant weight, and the suffering around us can be reduced by becoming “active bystanders in realms in which your heart and mind move you.” Reflecting on his own work as an educator and advocate—including reconciling and rebuilding in Rwanda following its 1994 genocide and improving relations between the “ethnic Dutch and Muslim Dutch” people of Amsterdam in the early 2000s—Staub outlines his findings on human behavior and concludes that healing must be achieved through acceptance, compassion, and “ideologies that go beyond the self.”

Staub’s message is both powerful and timely, and he sagely observes that the focus on “human rights and individual rights and work toward equality” is waning in contemporary America. His answer starts with turning inward to analyze our values, before reaching out to “people on the other side” for conversation, connection, and to “discuss roots of division and hostility.” Only then, he urges, can change truly occur.

KIRKUS REVIEW

As a young Jewish child in Hungary, Staub survived the Holocaust alongside his family due to what he later termed “active bystandership,” or the choice to intervene on behalf of those in danger. He credits several people with saving the lives of himself and others—most notably his family’s Christian caregiver, Macs, who hid them at enormous personal risk, and the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, whose letters of protection saved thousands, including Staub’s father.

Liberation did not bring immediate peace, with the subsequent communist occupation of Hungary introducing new forms of repression and fear, reinforcing the author’s understanding that cycles of violence can persist even after one regime falls. This realization followed him as he fled to Austria and eventually immigrated to the United States.

Though he didn’t initially set out to become a psychologist, his academic interests led him to explore the psychological and social conditions that give rise to mass violence and genocide (“I was about to embark on a lifelong study of good and evil”). Staub moved beyond theory when he became deeply involved in applied peacebuilding efforts, traveling to Rwanda and working with leaders in Amsterdam to promote interethnic relations. Part memoir, part psychological treatise, this work blends personal testimony with decades’ worth of scholarship to offer a heartfelt meditation on moral courage while calling for individual people to resist indifference in the face of injustice. Though the division of chapters into numerous subsections can at times feel disjointed, the larger arc of Staub’s narrative remains compelling. This structural choice, in addition to the work’s detailed descriptions of research findings and experiments, give the book a slightly academic tone that might distance readers seeking a more traditional memoir, yet these elements also emphasize the depth and rigor of Staub’s project.

Learn more at https://staubervin.com