Language:
English
Year of publication:
2012
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
40,1 (2012) 49-74
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
World War, 1939-1945 Collaborationists
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
The liquidation of the ghettos in Poland, started by the Nazis in summer 1942, set in motion also the "Judenjagd", the manhunt for those who fled the doomed ghettos before or during the roundups and found shelter in the rural vicinity. Taking the wartime Dąbrowa Tarnowska county (east of Kraków) as a case study, examines the organizational framework set up by the occupiers in the Polish villages, with the aim that local residents would do the dirty work for the Germans, searching for Jewish refugees in the villages and nearby forests. This framework included local members of the Polish "blue police"; the "night watches" and "section leaders", recruited from local peasants; village elders and their deputies; firefighters; couriers; hostages held responsible for the success of the manhunt; and, in some places, ethnic German formations. This type of organization safeguarded the involvement of large masses of peasants in the "Judenjagd". Although the German system was buttressed by brutal reprisals against Poles who sabotagednthe manhunt (including executions of hostages and village elders), the deadly efficiency of this system depended first and foremost on the willingness and zeal of the participants, which cannot be explained by fear of reprisal alone or even by greed. Peasants increasingly failed to regard the Jews as human beings. Manhunts for Jews were more efficient than those for other "enemies of the Reich", e.g. Poles evading the draft for forced labor in Germany. The peasants exposed much brutality during the "Judenjagd".
Note:
In English and Hebrew.
URL:
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