Das Wissen um Auschwitz : Täter und Opfer der "Endlösung" in Westeuropa

Analyzes wartime correspondence and postwar testimony of officials of the SS, Sicherheitspolizei, and military and civil administrations in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, especially those concerned with deportation of the Jews, in order to gauge the extent of their awareness of the aim of the deportations. Officially they were not informed, and most of their superiors in Berlin adhered strictly to the euphemistic "language regulations"; but they could have heard of the murder of Jews through rumors, from the BBC, from officials who had served on the front in the East, and from soldiers on furlough. In particular, they were alerted by the inclusion of children, the elderly, and the infirm in the transports for "labor service". From the postwar testimony it appears that there was a great deal of talk and speculation amongst them. Concludes that although none had accurate knowledge of the means or the all-inclusiveness of the Final Solution, all could guess that the deported Jews were going to their deaths. Afterwards, the few who tried to explain why they continued to cooperate in what they recognized as a crime attributed their collaboration not to antisemitism but to bureaucratic habituation. Seeks clues in the testimony of Belgian survivors who were interned in the Malines transit camp and in diaries of Holocaust victims. The survivors testified that, until 1944, officials and guards in Malines reassured the Jews with accounts of the good life awaiting them in the East; by 1944, the guards openly taunted the Jews with their coming deaths. Deals, also, with what the Jews knew and how they felt about the persecutions and deportations. Includes bibliographical references (pages 200-236) and index. 238 pages ; 24 cm