The English language has no satisfactory cognate pair, corresponding to the German Opferer and Opfer, to express both the active and the passive aspects of the archetype of sacrifice. It is this intrinsic two-sidedness which is the essence of Dreifuss's paper.

As a Jew who lived during the 1930s and 1940s in Switzerland, Dreifuss observed the Nazi persecutions at close hand, without being personally involved in them. While the problem of the shadow is brought into sharp focus in the experiences of the Jewish people, Dreifuss demonstrates here that it is an issue demanding urgent and universal attention.

His thesis is that persecutor and victim are opposite sides of the same coin, not two people, but two aspects of the same person, the less conscious aspect often being