The collaborators

Dr. Raphael Vago

When discussing the implementation of the “Final Solution” and its stages of development, it is important to note that it was not only German and Austrian governmental agencies who took an active part in the persecution of Jews. The Dutch bureaucracy and The French Police, as well as the local Hungarian Gendarmerie were responsible for the roundups of Jews; Slovakia actually paid Nazi Germany for the removal of its Jews to murder sites. In other places, Nazi occupations or influence urged many of the local populations to harm Jews such as in the Baltic countries, Ukraine and Romania. In some places, local population and state organizations participated directly or indirectly in the mass murders, in others they “just” supported its existence. In one way or the other, too many European societies served Nazi genocidal goals by too many means.

What do the case of Hungary and Romania teach us about the place of the collaborators during the Holocaust?

References

• Braham, Randolph L., The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).

• Dreifuss, Havi, Changing Perspectives on Polish-Jewish Relations during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2012).

• Grabowski, Jan, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013).

• Michman, Dan, “Problematic National Identity, Outsiders and Persecution: Impact of the Gentile Population’s Attitude in Belgium on the Fate of the Jews in 1940-1944,” in David Bankier and Israel Gutman, eds., Nazi Europe and the Final Solution (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009), pp. 455 – 468.

• Vago, Raphael, “Hungary: Continuing trials of war and memory,” in Roni Stauber, ed., Collaboration With the Nazis: Public Discourse After the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 229 – 244.

• Volovici, Leon, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991).

• Zuccotti, Susan, The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).