First they gathered up the foreign Jews. Took them all on a train out deep into the forest, had them dig ditches and then shot them. One survived and through great hardship made it all the way back to town. Where he told all the others what had happened. They didn't believe him. Said he was nuts. Laughed at him.

When they gathered up all the Jews onto the cattle cars, one woman screamed that she saw a fire, they gagged her and finally beat her to make her shut up while her very young son held on to her.

What sort survived compared to what sort didn't?

It appears things didn't work out so well for the optimists. But then for sanity's sake, one must become an optimist. And they so routinely faced persecution that all this, at first, must not have seemed so new. And with their optimism they assumed that surely the Germans were basically still human...

So you ignore the negatives. You ignore, you ostracize, you dislike... those who aren't optimists. And usually this makes life mostly tolerable.