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Conference
National Police Forces in Europe and the Holocaust
1939-1945
Academic opening conference in the framework of the Belgian Chairmanship of
the Task Force for International cooperation on Holocaust Education,
Remembrance and Research
Lamot Centre – Mechelen
Monday 25 June 2012
Organized by:
Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society, Brussels
Institut für Geschichte of the Alpen Adria University of Klagenfurt (Austria)
PAPERS AND ABSTRACTS
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Sergei Kudryashov – ‘Russians in the German police forces’
German Historical Institute in Moscow
The paper will deal with various aspects of the Russian involvement with the German police
forces on the occupied Eastern territories. Particular emphasis is made on the following:
• Structure of the German police and local population
• Recruitment of Russians and their motivation
• Use of Russians in the anti-partisan and anti-Jewish actions
• Post-war fate of the policemen
• Current debates and research difficulties
Summary.
Regardless of the initial German reluctance to use Slavic people in the war against the Soviet
Union, Russians were widely used in all German military formations. Though a great deal of
them was mobilized to Wehrmacht as “Hilfswillige”, many Russians also served in the German
police. These policemen were always subjects of particular interest for the various institutions of
the Soviet penal system, and many of them were brought to trials during or after the war.
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The ‘maintenance of order’ in 1940-1942 and the persecution of the
Jews in the city of Antwerp
Lieven Saerens & Herman Van Goethem
The special status of the Jews and their discrimination was covered in occupied Belgium in
December 1940 by the highest Belgian authorities, the secrétaires généraux. In that prospect,
every Belgian official could consider himself as being immune for penal persecution after the
war, when he took part, within his competence, in the state policy of persecution of Jews during
the occupation.
During a military occupation, the local police forces are auxiliary forces available to the occupier
(Hague Conv.) The daily police practice in Antwerp was organized by the Chief Police
Commissioner Jozef de Potter, who was directly dependent on the City Mayor, Leo Delwaide.
The Public Prosecutor, Edouard Baers, received daily reports on the activity of the police. Till
the autumn of 1942 – i.e. after the deportation of the Jews – he gave no instructions at all.
Delwaide being the disciplinary chief of the police, he was most directly entitled to give
guidance. Concerning the police forces, the maintain of discipline was indeed his main
preoccupation during the war. He stressed upon the most strict discipline and obedience, even in
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the case of acts of ‘illegal’ resistance (mainly clandestine press), and even when the Jews were
concerned.
In 1941 the city organized itself a new police school. Discipline and militarization of the police
forces were important issues. On the 1st of August 1942, Delwaide reorganized himself the
police organization of the city. The New Order police officers were concentrated in the ‘Zesde
Wijk’, the ‘Jewish’ city quarter. In August 1942, the Antwerp police ‘collectively’ cooperated on
three occasions to the raids on the Jews, in which Jews were arrested in groups. With each raid
the number of policemen was raised. Men, women and children, sick and elderly people were
arrested without distinction. The cooperation of the Antwerp police to the raids happened each
time on demand of the Sipo-SD. The Chief Commissioner of the Antwerp police and other
authorities did not oppose the Germans in any way. The cooperation of the Antwerp police to the
raids seemed almost natural. It was the logical extension of what had happened before. The term
‘accumulative aggression’ can be used here. In total, the Antwerp police was involved in more
than 2000 arrests of Jews. This was of course only a part of the total arrests. Most Antwerp Jews
were arrested later in individual actions of the Sipo-SD and other German police authorities, and
members of the Flemish SS. However, there is another aspect to the importance of the
cooperation of the Antwerp police and city authorities. Because of their behaviour, the
population lacked an exemplary function.
On the 15th of August the first raid took place in this 6th quarter, with the assistance of the
Antwerp police. During the three raids in August, every group of active police agents was
organized in order to maintain the internal discipline. One agent refused to participate with the
raid on 28 August; Delwaide punished him afterwards with a disciplinary sanction (an
admonition and three days wage loss).
The Public Prosecutor Baers changed his passive attitude in November 1942, when the Germans
began to arrest persons in the context of the compulsory labor in Germany. Delwaide acted in
accordance.
After the war none of the Antwerp actors were condemned for the participation in the
persecution of the Jews, even not for mass arrests of the Jews in 1942. De Potter remained Chief
Police Commissioner till 1947, Delwaide became an important alderman in the city
administration till he died in 1974, and Baers was honored for his resistance activities in 19431944.
How to explain the attitude of Delwaide in 1940-42? The city administration and the maintain of
law and order in the insecure war period certainly played a major role. Formally speaking, as an
administrator, Delwaide had indeed arguments to defend his attitude. On the other hand, having
excellent contacts with the German occupier, he did not use at all the real margins he had, in
order to negotiate with them and to oppose to some measures (cf. Brussels). Ideological factors
played a major role too in the attitude of Delwaide in 1940-1942.
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Niklas Perzi, The “Czech” police before, after and during the
Second World war or the question of continuities”
As we all know, the Czech lands have already belonged to the most industrialized and developed
parts of the empire during the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, so that the 1918 founded
Czechoslovak Republic was able to continue from very good conditions.
But not only the industry, also the administration had been developed on a very high level.
Therefore, we can speak of the Czech police during the war and occupation of the Czech lands
and the establishment of the so-called “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” in March 1939 of
“Auxiliary police” rather in a functional way than in way of organisation or level of instruction.
Like most of the administration and a great part of the political life, also the police had been
invited to continue their work after the German occupation. Therefore almost all fields of
security administration and the executive stayed in “Czech” hands, except for the state police
(=intelligence service). Of course, this has been limited in two ways: On the one hand strong
German units had been established under the command of “The Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer”
Karl Hermann Frank (Frank served in personal-union also as German “state secretary”, the
“number 2” after the “protector” in German administration). On the other hand, these German
units had been instructed to supervise the Czech security-administration and executive.
As well as the organisation, also the staff continued after the occupation doing their job. The
Germans replaced only some top-ranking officials shortly after the occupation. Of course, who
decided to support or even to join the resistance movement had been punished and displaced.
The first big step of personal replacement took place in 1940, when Frank decided to replace the
so-called “legionnaires”, Czech soldiers, who fought in the First World War against the Austrian
army.
The second change in manpower took place after the so-called police reform in 1942, when the
whole police had been adapted, corresponding to the German model. But while the first level
security administration was now occupied by Germans, on the second level now Czech officials
and officers got the possibility to put long-cherished plans into reality, especially in regard to the
unification and centralization of the judicial police.
At the same time the so-called “Protektoratsbataillone” had been installed in Bohemia and
Moravia, which has been in fact the only time that a bigger number of newcomers have entered
into the police.
After 1945, all police members had been investigated and had to give a report of their
involvement in the protectorate-police. While only a very small number of high officials had
been put on trial, 64% of the members of the new founded police had already been active in the
years before.
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The impact of citizens opinions on Dutch police participation in the
deportation of the Jews 1942-1943
Guus Meershoek (Twente University, Dutch Police Academy)
Although the fact that the Dutch police joined the German occupier in deporting Jews from The
Netherlands has always been public knowledge, until the mid-1960’s mainly tacit knowledge,
the character and scale of their assistance is still not fully clear. Recently, some research has
been done that contains building blocks for a deeper analysis.
Dutch police participation was first of all the result of the German police strategy. Two elements
were basic. The February strike had convinced the German police authorities that they should
rely on local, trusted institutions for the execution of their policies. Secondly, the concentration
of Jews in Amsterdam and The Hague and their wide dispersal in the countryside forced them to
a scissors movement in their territorial strategy of rounding up Jews: first concentrate on both
major towns, then comb out the countryside and finally return to the major towns to finish the
job there.
Dutch police was engaged on a larger scale in the deportation in August 1942, when the Jewish
Council became unwilling to urge Jews to come to the trains on their own. During September
1942, the local police in Amsterdam and The Hague rounded up Jews by force. They contributed
significantly to the German objectives, offering hardly any resistance. From October 1942, local
police in the countryside, first of all those in the Northern provinces, were engaged in rounding
up Jews. In some towns, there was resistance. Resisters were dismissed and often went in hiding,
for fear of arrest. In February 1943, when the archbishop incited Catholics to refuse cooperation,
resistance grew fast, most strongly in Utrecht, the seat of the archbishopric. Although Dutch
police participation didn’t fully stop, it then became far less effective and the German police
authorities had to rely on a national-socialist auxiliary police and their own Ordnungspolizei.
In the 1930’s, the Dutch population was well-informed about Nazi-Germany and many abhorred
the repressive regime. Although there was some anti-Semitism, public expression was not
tolerated socially. Most people realised that the Jews were the main target of the occupational
regime. Disgust was expressed publicly and loudly during the February-strike of 1941. However,
the repression of the strike also made clear to the population that the occupier would fiercely
repress any opposition to achieving its main goal. In the summer of 1942, a Dutch, Londonbased radio station and some clandestine newsletters reported that the deported Jews waited
mass-murder in Poland. These rumours were taking seriously by many Jews and quite some
policemen. When in August 1942, however, this reporting stopped and the local institutions,
among them the police, joined in the deportation, policemen complied and Jews waited in fear.
There was some small scale opposition, mainly religiously inspired. A majority of the population
went into inner emigration. At the turn of the year, resistance among still participating policemen
was growing, partly out of reluctance against the abhorred job, partly in reaction to the news of
German military defeats. For the Dutch police, February 1943 was the turning point. For the
population, that moment came somewhat later, at the end of April when the Dutch military had
to return in captivity.
The impact of citizens opinions on the attitude of the Dutch police during the German occupation
was small. Institutional factors like the well-functioning governmental apparatuses and the
decision of the local authorities to assist in the deportation proved far more important. There
were reports that the deported Jews waited mass murder, but the occupational situation offered
many arguments to brush them aside. The enforced estrangement from society made opposition
of individual policemen difficult. When the population turned into inner emigration, police were
not addressed on their illegal actions anymore. Only the incitement of the Dutch archbishop had
a serious impact on their behaviour, but for most Jews that came too late.
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Hungarian Law Enforcement Agencies and the Holocaust in 1944
László Csősz
In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, which had hitherto been a relatively safe haven for
Jews in Hitler’s Europe. What followed was in many respects unique in the history of the
Holocaust. The Nazis and their local accomplices destroyed Hungarian Jewish communities with
unprecedented speed and efficiency. It took only 56 days to complete the disenfranchisement,
plunder and isolation of the Jews in the provinces and another 56 days to deport more than
435,000 people, mostly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The efficient and sometimes
enthusiastic collaboration of the Hungarian quisling government and various local state agencies,
including the police and the gendarmerie, proved essential for the success of the Nazis’ plans.
Recent work supports this general conclusion of the early students of the Holocaust in Hungary.
However, local case studies have highlighted a wide range of behavioral patterns and
responsibilities. The attitudes and activities of Hungarian perpetrators actually varied, from
zealous collaboration and opportunism through simple obedience to passive resistance and even
instances of rescue.
In their post-war accounts leading Nazi officials repeatedly argued that without the enthusiasm
of their Hungarian henchmen, the “offspring of the Huns” as Dieter Wisliceny put it, they would
have not accomplished their mission. Of course, we should not forget that Eichmann’s men
strived to minimize their own responsibility with these statements. The occupiers undoubtedly
took the lead in the campaign. They firmly controlled and directly instructed local forces. Still,
several Hungarian gendarme and police officers could perform without any German order or
control and they quite often took initiative. Instead of acting merely as tools of Nazi policy, they
became active agents of destruction with a cumulative impact on the process.
Yet, local case studies have also proven that some Hungarian law enforcement personnel acted
as mitigators, sympathizers, and even rescuers. Evaluating motives presents analytical problems.
Some officers opposed mass murder due to humanistic considerations, personal motives, or out
of fear of postwar retribution. Some helped in exchange for material gains, others sought to
create an alibi for their previous deeds. At times a perpetrator became a rescuer, which makes
evaluation even more difficult. Of course, explanation for this lies in the twists and turns in the
war and with Hungarian internal politics: the general conditions and chances for rescue and
resistance improved significantly after summer 1944.
I aim to offer a comparative overview of the Hungarian case and to present preliminary findings
of my research in local archives, concerning wartime administrative documents, the investigative
materials and records of postwar trials as well as survivors’ testimonies. Only few studies have
so far compared the activities of the Hungarian state apparatus with other administrative and law
enforcement agencies, most of all their counterparts in other countries in the Axis orbit.
The situation in Hungary differed from the conditions in the Nazi-occupied territories in eastern
Europe, where German authorities largely destroyed and reorganized local administration, even
when they recruited collaborators who, for example, had previously worked in Soviet offices.
The history of Hungary after March 1944 also differed from some of the cases of occupied or
satellite states, where pro-Nazi paramilitaries played a key role in anti-Jewish actions. Existing
administrative and law enforcement agencies, heirs to the conservative-liberal pre-World War I
era, constituted the main agents of the genocidal campaign sweeping the Hungarian provinces in
the spring and summer of 1944. Despite the arrests, replacements and transfers initiated by the
occupiers and their collaborators after March 1944, the organizational structure and leadership
(as well as the rank and file) of these agencies remained basically the same.
In this respect, the Hungarian case shows similarities to the western European (for instance the
French and the Dutch) model. However, other factors, including prevalent xenophobic and
antisemitic drive at various levels and the tradition of discriminatory practices (as demonstrated
by several excesses and massacres against minority groups in the territories re-annexed by
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Hungary between 1938 and 1941) bring the activities of Hungarian policing agencies closer to
eastern European examples, most of all the Romanian case.
I will also investigate the timing of the Holocaust in Hungary, in the larger context of World War
II and in the smaller context of the German occupation of Hungary, the relations between
Hungary and Germany, and the link between extreme nationalism and antisemitism in Hungary
as framed by the dynamics of a global war.
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‘Why the Holocaust does not matter? Explaining the (non)participation of policemen in the arrest of Jews in Belgium during
World War Two’
Benoît Majerus
For the first thirty years after the war, the narrative about Belgium during World War Two was a
narrative that did not give any specific function to the Holocaust. It was about the importance of
the resistance, the ambiguous position of Leopold, the role of the communist during the
liberation, the status of the secrétaires généraux, and very quickly the so-called répression of the
Flemish collaboration after the war. And even on the specific topic of today i.e. policing, the
persecution of Jews was a “non-topic”. Looking at the pioneering work of Albert de Jonghe or
Rudi Van Doorslaer, the Holocaust does not occupy a prominent place when they explained how
the police did work between 1940 and 1945. In the last twenty years, the situation did completely
change: the persecution of the Jews became the central element around which a new narrative
about the Belgium society during World War Two was organised. And this time, Holocaust and
policing are intimately interwoven. The commission created in 2004 by the Belgium government
proposed a new “story” on how to tell the Second World War, based on the persecution of the
Jews, by calling their results: “La Belgique Docile”.
This trend is valid for Western Europe as a whole. The fate of the Jewish population in France,
Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxembourg was for a long time a footnote in the history. Today,
the specific national war narratives are organised around this element. This is true for academic
history writing as well as private and public commemorations.
In my presentation, I will argue that we have do decentralise the persecution of the Jews if we
want to understand this persecution. The goal is therefore not to marginalise its importance but to
reintroduce the history of the Holocaust into the larger history of World War Two. This has been
recently done for the Eastern Front: it is also necessary for the occupied territories in the West.
My paper will place the history of the arrest of the Jews in Belgium into the a more general
policy of arrest by Belgian police forces under occupation.
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The participation of the indigenous local police in the ghetto
liquidation ‘Aktions,’ 1941-1943
Martin Dean, PhD Cantab
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract
The aim of the presentation will be to answer the following questions with regard to the
participation of the local police in the ghetto liquidation Aktions:
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How many local policemen were there?
Who were the local policemen?
How many ghettos were there and when were they liquidated?
What was the role of the local police in the ghetto liquidations?
Why did the local police participate and was there any resistance?
What happened to them after the war?
The paper will deal with the ghetto liquidation Aktions in the following 5 regions of German
occupation:
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Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien
Eastern Belorussia
Generalkommissariat Wolhynien-Podolien
Generalkommissariat Shitomir
Distrikt Galizien
Summary
The participation of the local police in the ghetto liquidation Aktions consisted mainly in
rounding up the Jews and cordoning off the killing sites in support of the German Security Police.
Occasionally members of these local units participated directly by pulling the trigger at the pits.
However, the indigenous local police and other locally based forces (mainly the German
Gendarmerie) were usually left to finish the job afterwards; they searched diligently over the
following days for any Jews who had escaped the roundup, murdering those they found. These Jew
hunts sometimes went on for weeks after the main liquidation Aktions. A consistent pattern of local
police participation has been clearly identified for the selected five regions: covering much of the
area of Jewish settlement in Belorussia and western Ukraine.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 19331945, vol. 2 Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, vol. ed. Martin Dean, series ed.,
Geoffrey Megargee (Bloomington: Indiana University Press in association with the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2012),
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The role of the Serbian Police in the Holocaust in occupied Serbia
Milan Koljanin
At the end of April 1941, when the work of Serbian police in Belgrade was reestablished,
in its Department of Special Police there was established a section for Jews and Gypsies (Section
No.7). The section was directly subordinate to the Jewish department in the Gestapo. The
section’s task was to implement German orders about the Jews, which included: registration,
organization of forced labor, registration of property, wearing a yellow strip control, respecting
of the prohibition of practicing certain professions, the prohibition of visiting public premises,
public events, swimming and many others. Some arrested persons suspected of being Jewish,
the Gestapo sent to the Special Police for review, which included a medical check also. The local
authorities, districts and district offices of the city administration had the same task. The Special
Police independently carried out arrests of the Jews who violated the Order of 31 May 1941
(Order concerning the Jews and Gypsies-Verordnung betreffend die Juden und Zigeuner), led the
investigation and handed them over to the Gestapo.
Implementation of measures against the Jews led to their rapid social isolation. It has
contributed to an effective advertising campaign in which anti-Semitic stereotypes played a key
role. The basic message of propaganda was that the killing of Jews was just punishment for their
destructive work. At the time of preparation of the occupation and quisling forces for an attack
on uprising territory, the Serbian authorities made preparations for the internment of prisoners
expected, among them Jews. In the Department of State Security of Ministry of Internal Affairs
on 22 November 1941, the following was stated: "In Kruševac, Valjevo, Kragujevac and
Požarevac the camps were established for detaining: Jews, Gypsies, gamblers, drunkards,
vagrants, idlers, morally troubled people and all anti-social types of other sorts. Immediately
compile and arrest all these people in your area and put them into one of these camps which is
closest to you and most convenient for transportation."
Behind these formulations there were ideologically driven propaganda images of rebels
and Jews as their leaders. At the time of issuance of this circular Jewish men had already been
interned and mostly shot, so this was practically an order for the internment of all remaining
Jews out of Belgrade. In Belgrade itself, the internment in the newly opened camp at the
Belgrade Fairgrounds (Jewish Camp Zemun, Judenlager Semlin), began on 8 December, 1941,
and during the coming months all Jews from other parts of Serbia were deported in the camp .
The Section for the Jews and Gypsies in the Special Police had a list of Jews sent to a camp on
the Fairgrounds.
Sources indicate that the main activities of the Special Police in the persecution of Jews in
relation to the violation of the Order concerning the Jews and Gypsies, were to discover the true
identity and / or investigation of communist activities. After an order for all Jews to come to the
Jewish police on December 11, 1941 where they were interned in the camp at the Belgrade
Fairgrounds, the main activities of the Special Police in respect to the "Jewish question" was the
search for hidden Jews. Captured Jews were delivered to German authorities, or were sent
directly to the camp in Banjica where they were quickly taken to be shot at shooting range near
the village Jajinci. Serbian police was probably aware that the Jewish prisoners from the camp
on Belgrade Fairgrounds were murdered because multiple sources indicate that this was an open
secret. Special police was, on 9 May 1942 or a day before, informed by the Gestapo that the
process of killing Jews was ended or at the very end. In internal correspondence, the Chief of the
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Jews and Gypsies section used the typical term "relocation". It is the Serbian translation of one
of euphemisms for killing Jews, "Umsiedlung”.
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Indigenous Auxiliary Police Formations in Nazi-occupied Belarus
(1941-1944)
Leonid Rein
International Institute for Holocaust Research Yad Vashem
During the German occupation of Belarus a number of indigenous auxiliary police formations up
to battalion size operated on Belarusian territory. Some of these indigenous police forces were
recruited on the territory of Belarus itself, others were brought from outside, primarily from the
neighboring Baltic region and Ukraine. The initial aim of the organization of local auxiliary
forces by German occupying authorities was to put an end to the chaos that reigned in Belarusian
cities in the period between the retreat of the Soviets and the entrance of the Germans. In the
countryside initially the auxiliary police forces were often self-defense units created
spontaneously by local residents to protect the villages from the assaults of armed gangs.
Initially, also, the recruitment of auxiliary policemen proceeded on a voluntary basis, in the cities
mostly via wall posters or newspaper announcements. Later, with the expansion of auxiliary
police in Belarus due to the growing partisan activity, compulsory mobilization was resorted to.
The wide variety of motives for joining auxiliary police forces ranged from nationalism to the
understandable desire to survive physically. The attitude of the German authorities toward local
police forces in Belarus fully reflected racial stereotypes and prejudices. The prejudiced attitude
toward "Eastern people" on the part of German occupiers made them reluctant to supply the
auxiliary policemen in occupied Belarus with quantities of weapons. The German adherence to
racism was also expressed in a differentiation between policemen of various nationalities
operating in Belarus with regard to their service conditions. The main German tendency in
recruiting locals was to get maximum cooperation for a minimal price. In practical terms this
meant, inter alia, placing responsibility for the maintenance of local auxiliary police as much as
possible on the shoulders of local collaborationist authorities and the local population. This
certainly did not enhance the popularity of local policemen in the eyes of the population of
occupied Belarus.
The local auxiliary police formations in occupied Belarus were actively involved in implanting
the repressive policy against all those branded as "undesirables" by the German occupation
authorities. These formations willingly participated in the persecution and mass-murder of
Belarusian Jews. With equal fervor they also participated in the persecutions and murder of
those castigated as "partisans" or "suspected of partisan activity." The auxiliary police in Belarus
played a significant role in the brutalization of life under the German occupation.
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