P1 Collaborators, Bystanders and the Holocaust – Comprehensive Study Notes

Mapping the Nazi Empire and Jewish Demography

1933 map: Jewish population concentrations across Europe (e.g.
- Poland, USSR borderlands, Hungary, Romania = largest clusters
- Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia = mid-sized communities)
1942 map: limits of the “Nazi empire” (blue shading)
- West: Atlantic coast from Spanish border through occupied/Vichy France, Low Countries, Denmark & Norway
- Center: Greater German Reich, annexed Austria, Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, General Government of Poland
- South: Axis allies Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Independent State of Croatia (NDH)
- East: Occupied Soviet territories up to 1941 front line (Operation Barbarossa)
1950 map: post-war Jewish population collapse virtually everywhere except (relative) pockets such as the USA/Palestine (not on map) – visual evidence of Holocaust impact and post-war emigration.

Two Types of States Inside the Empire

Conquered/occupied: Poland, France (north), Low Countries, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, parts of USSR, etc.
Cooperative/Axis partners: Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, NDH-Croatia, (Vichy) France – sometimes both conquered and cooperative.

Why Did Cooperative States Join the Axis?

Long-standing ties to Germany/Austro-Hungarian legacy (e.g. Hungary)
Home-grown fascism & ideological affinity (Arrow Cross, Iron Guard, Ustaša, etc.)
Convergent expansionist dreams (Italian “Mare Nostrum”, Hungarian revisionism, Croatian ultranationalism)
Common anti-communism—fear of Soviet influence in Balkans, Central Europe

Axis Europe – Country Case Studies

Italy

$\approx50,000$ Jews in 1943; many resident for millennia, largely integrated.
Mussolini: racism present but race not central until German pressure (1938 racial laws: definition, job expulsion, ban on inter-marriage, arrest of foreign Jews).
Enforcement initially lax → emigration wave.
Sept 1943: Italy surrenders; Germans occupy north, create Republic of Salò.
Oct–Nov 1943: mass round-ups Rome, Milan, Genoa, Florence; ~ $9,000$ deported → $\ge8,000$ murdered (mostly Auschwitz).
Survival rate ≈ $80\%$ ; illustrates decisive role of local compliance & German presence.

Hungary

Pre-war Jews $\approx445,000$ (plus converts).
Arrow Cross fascists vs Regent Miklós Horthy (not a party member).
1938–41 “Jewish Laws” modelled on Nuremberg: occupational quotas, racial definition, inter-marriage ban.
Jews barred from army; sent to brutal labour battalions → $\approx27,000$ deaths.
1941: $20,000$ non-citizen Jews expelled to Ukraine → shot by Einsatzgruppen.
March 1944 German invasion (fear of separate Hungarian peace);
- Apr: Jews outside Budapest into ghettos;
- May–Jul: >400,000 deported, chiefly Auschwitz.
Oct 1944 coup: Arrow Cross rule, Budapest ghetto, shootings on Danube.
Total deaths (Hungary + annexed territories) $\approx500,000$ .

Romania

Pre-war Jewish pop. $750,000!\text{–}!980,000$ ; large Roma minority.
Dictator Ion Antonescu + Iron Guard fascists.
Pogroms (e.g. 1941 Bucharest slaughterhouse atrocity).
Army massacres while advancing into Bessarabia/Transnistria (1941–42).
Jewish/Roma victims under Romanian control:
- Jews $\approx375,000$ killed
- Roma $25,000!\text{–}!30,000$ deported & killed.

Bulgaria

$\approx50,000$ Jews, $\approx150,000$ Roma inside 1939 borders.
Joins Axis 1941 (monarchical dictatorship).
Anti-Jewish job quotas; May 1942 Roma forced-labour registration.
Strong opposition by MPs, clergy, public – successful halt to deportation of Bulgarian-citizen Jews.
Non-Bulgarian Jews in Bulgarian-occupied Greece & Macedonia: ~ $11,000$ deported → murdered.
Result: most pre-war Bulgarian Jews survive.

Yugoslavia / Independent State of Croatia (NDH)

April 1941: Axis invasion after anti-Axis coup; territory carved up, NDH under Ustaša.
Ustaša ideology: Catholic, ultranationalist, anti-Jewish, anti-Roma, intensely anti-Serb.
Jasenovac – only non-German extermination centre:
- >12,000 Jews, $\approx15,000$ Roma, $35!\text{–}!40,000$ Serbs murdered onsite.
Wider NDH genocide: Serb deaths $\approx300,000$ (some estimates $\sim500,000$ ), majority of $30,000$ Roma & $\approx30,000$ Jews in region killed.
Overall Yugoslav Jewish loss: $\approx80\%$ of pre-war $70,000$ .

Occupied Western Europe – Country Snapshots

Norway

Jews $1,500!\text{–}!2,500$ .
Anti-Jewish measures begin 1942; $\approx1,000$ escape to neutral Sweden; $\approx700$ deported & perish (mostly Auschwitz).
Collaborationist Vidkun Quisling regime – symbolic of treason.

Denmark

Jews $6,000!\text{–}!7,000$ .
Little local anti-Semitism; no Star of David rule; synagogue arsonists arrested.
Sept 1943 German martial law → planned deportation.
Massive popular/governmental rescue: ferries & fishing boats to Sweden; < $500$ arrested, $120$ deaths total.
Illustrates power of united civic resistance.

Belgium

Jews $60,000!\text{–}!70,000$ (Antwerp, Brussels hubs).
1942: Star, confiscations, forced labour; $25,000$ deported 1942–43 (Auschwitz).
Widespread sympathy; est. $\approx50\%$ of Jews hidden at some point; nonetheless $\approx29,000$ die.

The Netherlands

Jews $140,000!\text{–}!160,000$ ; high assimilation (41 % inter-married).
Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart: bans press, dismisses civil servants, Aryanises businesses.
Feb 1941 deportations ⇒ general strike – German reprisals.
1942: $\ge100,000$ deported (Auschwitz, Sobibor).
$25,000!\text{–}!30,000$ in hiding (Dutch underground aid).
Church protest Jun 1942 – further crack-downs (e.g.
200 Jewish converts deported).
Death toll $\approx105,000$ ⇒ $60!\text{–}!70\%$ of pre-war community – highest W. Europe.

France (Vichy & Occupied)

1933 Jews $\approx225,000$ ; late-30s total $\sim350,000$ (½ foreign-born).
June 1940 defeat ⇒ Marshal Philippe Pétain’s Vichy state (southern ‘free zone’, north directly occupied).
Pétain’s “National Revolution”: authoritarian, Catholic, anti-liberal; motto changed to “Travail, Famille, Patrie”.
Jewish Statute: racial definition, purges from civil service/military, professional bans; foreign Jews interned, Algerian Jews stripped of citizenship; Jewish community fined for Resistance acts.
Deportations start Mar 1942; > $40,000$ by end-42 (mostly foreign Jews, Auschwitz bound).
Total French victims $\approx77,000$ (two-thirds foreign-born); majority of French-citizen Jews survive by 1944 liberation.

Overarching Patterns & Lessons

Nazis located eager collaborators everywhere—from governments (Italy 1943, Hungary 1944, Vichy France) to local fascist parties (Arrow Cross, Iron Guard, Ustaša) and individuals.
Standard sequence exported across Europe:
1. Legal definition (racial laws).
2. Economic/professional exclusion.
3. Concentration (ghettos, forced labour).
4. Deportation & killing.
Degree of destruction depended on local context:
- Pre-existing antisemitism vs high assimilation
- Conception of nationhood (ethnic vs civic)
- Strength of civil society/church opposition (Denmark, Bulgaria)
- Presence of German troops & SS (Italy + Hungary after occupation)
Organized or spontaneous resistance saved lives; but where opposition weak or Nazis faced little risk, mortality soared.
Collaboration also occurred below state level: police auxiliaries, militia units, civilian informers, volunteers for Waffen-SS divisions (Nordic, Baltic, Balkan).

Bystanders – Concept & Debate

Raoul Hilberg’s tripartite model: Perpetrators • Victims • Bystanders.
Quote (paraphrased): hundreds of millions of non-Jews witnessed disappearance of Jews; indifference grew with wartime hardships; people viewed themselves as victims of war & fate.
Example testimony – Steven Fenves (Sombor, Yugoslavia): neighbours lined up on staircase, spitting & waiting to loot apartment once family expelled to ghetto.
Analytical issues:
- "Bystander" implies neutrality, yet many passively benefited (looted property, took jobs, apartments).
- Awareness gradients: rumours, visible confiscations, train transports – even without full knowledge of gas chambers, populations sensed catastrophe.
- Historians now emphasise spectrum between complicity and rescue; “interlocking genocides” perspective foregrounds local agency.
Ethical reflection: war hardships did not negate moral choice; indifference indirectly enabled Nazi aims by lowering social/political costs.

Connections to Previous Lectures

Echoes of earlier topics:
- Nuremberg Laws template replicated across Axis Europe.
- Operation Reinhard camps in Polish General Government central to deportations.
- Earlier discussion of concentration/death camps clarifies Italian/Hungarian deportees’ fate at Auschwitz & Sobibor.
- Continuity of nineteenth-century racial antisemitism (Dreyfus, Russian pogroms) into twentieth-century fascist policy.

Ethical & Philosophical Implications

Collaboration shows genocide is rarely a single-state enterprise; it thrives on transnational networks of like-minded regimes & opportunists.
Variability in outcomes (Denmark vs Netherlands) underscores importance of civic courage and institutional resistance.
Bystander debate probes limits of moral responsibility: is passive benefit or silence a form of complicity?
Post-war justice and memory (e.g.
Righteous Among the Nations, but also trials of Quisling & Pétain) hinge on these distinctions.

Key Numbers & Formulae (for quick recall)

Italian survival ≈ $80\%$
Hungarian dead $\sim500,000$ → loss rate $\frac{500,000}{445,000+} \approx 1$ (virtually entire community outside Budapest)
Romanian Jewish death toll $\approx375,000$ out of <= $980,000$ (≈ $38!\%$ )
Bulgaria: 0 citizen deportations but $\approx11,000$ non-citizen deportees.
Denmark: $120/7,000\;\big(\approx1.7\%\big)$ killed – lowest in Europe.
Netherlands: $105,000/150,000 \rightarrow 70\%$ mortality – highest W. Europe.
France: $77,000/350,000 \rightarrow 22\%$ , two-thirds foreign.

Take-Away Themes for Exam Revision

Memorise each Axis/occupied state’s trajectory: initial laws → timing of German intervention → scale of deportation.
Understand four motive clusters for collaboration (history, ideology, expansion, anti-communism).
Be able to contrast Denmark/Bulgaria (successful rescue) with Netherlands/Hungary (late occupation, rapid annihilation).
Articulate scholarly debate over “bystander” term and why neutrality is ethically contentious.
Remember “interlocking genocides” idea: Holocaust as framework that enabled local radical projects (e.g.
Ustaša anti-Serb campaign).