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Approximately
half of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust perished in
extermination camps run by the SS. About a quarter of the victims
were shot by the Einsatzgruppen and their accomplices – SS
brigades, police formations, units and members of the German armed
forces, and on occasion, unlikely groups such as construction crews
and musicians. The entire Jewish community of Serbia was annihilated
in a joint operation of the regular German army and the SS.
Many
victims died in concentration and labor camps run by the SS, or in
ghettos. Ghettos were generally run by civilian German
administrations that included lawyers, engineers, physicians, and
other officials. Tens of thousands of Jews escaped from various
forms of incarceration and were painstakingly hunted down, one by
one, by armed German formations. German industrialists put millions
of people to slave labor, and the death rate of Jewish laborers, who
were at the bottom of the social ladder, was exceptionally high. In
all stages of the murder, many non-German civilians voluntarily
participated in the killing operations.
At
no stage was there a shortage of individuals willing to participate
in the murder of Jews. |
