Collaboration in the Holocaust

According to German book-keeping, more than a million Jews were shot by Himmler's police forces and their local collaborators in the east. Martin Dean's new book examines the participation of local Belorussian and Ukrainian police in this crime. Much has been written about the role of the Einsatzgruppen in the initial wave of killings in 1941. During the 'second wave' in 1942, however, in many areas the death toll exceeded that in 1941. Local police assisted the Germans in the murder of their neighbours within earshot of their own homes. The numbers of indigenous police personnel involved in the atrocities outnumbered their Nazi German colleagues. Who were these people and what were their motives? Many of 'Hitler's willing executioners' were in fact local volunteers from within these small rural communities. Their motives included greed, ambition and anti-communism as well as hatred of the Jews. Some collaborators displayed especial zeal in searching out victims hiding in the ghettoes and forests. Practical realities as much as ideological convictions determined the implementation of Nazi genocide in the vast expanses of the east.