Ingo Loose, “Credit Banks and the
Holocaust in the Generalgouvernement, 1939–1945”
The article discusses the role German banks played,
through their branches in the Generalgouvernement, in the
genesis of and during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Did the
banks have considerable knowledge of the mass murder? To what extent
did their transactions in the field of blocking accounts,
identifying and confiscating Jewish property and cooperating with
the Nazi occupation authorities pave the way for total
impoverishment of the Jewish population? The article answers these
questions in connection with the policy of expropriation, the
ghettoization in Warsaw, and traces of the Holocaust in banking
correspondence and the financial aspects of “Operation Reinhard.”
The banks in the Generalgouvernement had detailed knowledge
of all aspects of property confiscation and discrimination against
the Polish Jews. Moreover, although the banks had no direct
influence on the guidelines of occupation policy, their cooperation
with Nazi authorities was the decisive basis for the plunder and
destruction of the Jews’ economic existence in the
Generalgouvernement, preceding and accompanying the Holocaust
itself. |
