Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Bystanders in the

Holocaust

Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was instrumental in implementing the Final Solution, organizing transports of Jews from all over Europe to the killing centers. As SS lieutenant colonel and head of IVB4, the Jewish department of the Office for Reich Security, Eichmann served as secretary at the Wannsee Conference. He was arrested at the war's end in the American zone of Germany, but escaped to Latin America and disappeared. In 1960, members of the Israeli Secret Service discovered Eichmann in Argentina and through a covert action, transported him to Israel for trial. In December, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death and executed in Jerusalem.

Perpetrators

Adolf Eichmann

Hans Frank (1900-1946) Governor-General of occupied Poland from 1939 to 1945. A member of the Nazi Party from its earliest days and Hitler's personal lawyer, he announced, "Poland will be treated like a colony; the Poles will become slaves of the Greater German Reich." By 1942, more than 85% of the Jews in Poland had been transported to extermination camps. Frank was tried at Nuremberg, convicted, and executed in 1946.

Perpetrators

Hans Frank

Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) held the title of Reich Minister for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 until his suicide in May, 1945. He had total control of the radio, the press, publishing houses, and the cinema. He was highly skilled at mass persuasion and played an important role in creating and maintaining the Führer's image. He staged the book burning in Berlin in 1933 and instigated Kristallnachtin 1938. He committed suicide after poisoning his children in Hitler’s bunker.

Perpetrators

Joseph Goebbels

Perpetrators

Hermann Göring (1893-1946) was Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia, and Hitler's designated successor. He created the secret police and helped set up the early concentration camps for political opponents. In 1936, as Plenipotentiary for the implementation of the Four Year Plan, he had dictatorial control in directing the German economy, and personally amassed a fortune. Göring directed the Luftwaffe campaigns against Poland, France, and Great Britain. Hitler blamed Göring for Germany's military defeats. Göring was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty and sentenced to death. He committed suicide while in prison.

Perpetrators

Hermann Göring

Perpetrators

Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was the mentally unstable number three man in Hitler's Germany. On the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, where he was arrested and became a prisoner of war. He was sentenced to life in prison at Nuremberg. He died in jail in 1987.

Perpetrators

Rudolf Hess

Perpetrators

Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) became the chief of the SD. His more notorious achievements included the establishment of ghettos in Poland, his leadership of the Einsatzgruppen, and the convening of the Wannsee Convention. His assassination in 1942 caused merciless German reprisals, continuing after his death the terror and intimidation that characterized his life.

Perpetrators

Reinhard Heydrich

Perpetrators

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was an unsuccessful chicken farmer and fertilizer salesman who became a leader in the Nazi party in the mid-1920s. As head of the SS as well as the Gestapo, he was a cold, efficient, ruthless administrator. He was the organizer of the mass murder of Jews, the man in charge of the concentration and death camps. Shortly before the end of the war, he offered to surrender both Germany and himself to the Western Allies if he were spared prosecution. After being arrested by British forces on 22 May 1945, he committed suicide the following day before he could be questioned.

Perpetrators

Heinrich Himmler

Perpetrators

Jürgen Stroop (1895-1951) was the SS major general responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Later that year, as Higher SS and Police Leader in Greece, he supervised the deportation of thousands of Jews from Salonika. He was sentenced to death and executed in Poland in 1951.

Perpetrators

Jürgen Stroop

Perpetrators

Joseph Mengele(1911-1978?) SSphysician at Auschwitz, notorious for pseudo-medical experiments, especially on twins and Gypsies. He "selected" new arrivals by simply pointing to the right or the left, thus separating those considered able to work from those who were not. Those too weak or too old to work were sent straight to the gas chambers, after all their possessions, including their clothes, were taken for resale in Germany. After the war, he spent some time in a British internment hospital but disappeared, went underground, escaped to Argentina, and later to Paraguay, where he became a citizen in 1959. He was hunted by Interpol, Israeli agents, and Simon Wiesenthal. In 1986, his body was found in Embu, Brazil.

Perpetrators

Joseph Mengele

Perpetrators

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was leader of the Nazi Party and Reich Chancellor of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945. His tyrannical reign was marked with a passion for destruction, ruthless hatred, and the massacre of millions of innocent people. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945—less than two days later—the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned.

Perpetrators

Adolf Hitler

Perpetrators

See handout - Collaboration

Collaborators

How could they just stand there and watch? Why did they do nothing? The largest of the “groups” in the whole drama of the Holocaust were the bystanders. They were bystanders because they were ignorant, helpless and fearful or they chose to ignore what was happening around them. Some eventually became rescuers. Many became victims. The bystanders were individuals, institutions (schools, churches, local governments) and nations.

Bystanders

There was no on-the-spot, 24 hour cable news, with rolling pictures; and the Nazis had effectively taken over all news outlets in Germany by the mid 1930s. They even “cleaned-up” all around the site of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, removing antisemitic posters, hiding any damage to Jewish businesses and temporarily suspending persecutions of the Jews and others, fooling many who attended the games.

Bystanders

The Nazi regime used tactics of fear and terror to control any resistance or rescues. By speaking up against actions, one could be placing his own family and neighborhood in jeopardy of the same or worse treatment. Often there were no means to resist or rebel, no weapons, no where to go. Some bystanders were literally paralyzed with fear or helplessness.

Bystanders

But those who could have done something about what they saw, often chose not to because of their own agendas and biases. The United States and other countries believed that only by winning the war could they then provide any means to stop the destruction of the Jews and others. But the United States could have opened its borders to refugees had it not been for the overwhelming sentiment, at the time, that there weren’t means to care for so many “outsiders” when the country was still recovering from the depression.

Bystanders

Conscience and courage would turn many bystanders into rescuers and resisters. Those attributes need to be developed to greater degrees in all of us and modeled for our children. Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”

Bystanders