Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-44

From Library Journal
Dean, a research fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, has mined numerous archival sources to reconstruct the number, activities, and postwar fate of Nazi collaborators in the Ukraine and Belarus. Hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially Jews, were tortured and killed by these Nazi auxiliaries. Why, then, have the specific details of this story gone untold until now? Dean argues that the Cold War made it politically expedient for the Allies to forget wartime collaboration, while postwar Soviet historiography covered up the extent of the collaboration in order to paint a picture of a unified Soviet people fighting the Nazis. An impressive amount of research backs up sound conclusions. Recommended for larger public libraries, specialized collections, and research libraries.AFrederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
“Dean's book is a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust.” —Jewish Herald-Voice

“...scrupulous research, utilizing eyewitness testimony, trial records and documents only now made available...he not only helps complete the historic record of that area and that period, but he also sets the record straight...” —Martyrdom and Resistance

“Dean has written a gripping book detailing numerous acts of brutality and documenting beyond questions the role of the local population in the Holocaust...a valuable contribution to the field.” —Russian Review

...balanced, well-nuanced, and sensitive portrayal of both victims and perpetrators in all their complexity.
-Holocaust and Genocide Studies



Review
“Dean's book is a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust.” —Jewish Herald-Voice

“...scrupulous research, utilizing eyewitness testimony, trial records and documents only now made available...he not only helps complete the historic record of that area and that period, but he also sets the record straight...” —Martyrdom and Resistance

“Dean has written a gripping book detailing numerous acts of brutality and documenting beyond questions the role of the local population in the Holocaust...a valuable contribution to the field.” —Russian Review

...balanced, well-nuanced, and sensitive portrayal of both victims and perpetrators in all their complexity. —Holocaust and Genocide Studies



Book Description
What was the role played by local police volunteers in the Holocaust? Using powerful eye-witness descriptions from the towns and villages of Belorussia and Ukraine, Martin Dean's new book reveals local policemen as hands-on collaborators of the Nazis. They brutally drove Jewish neighbors from their homes and guarded them closely on the way to their deaths. Some distinguished themselves as ruthless murders. Outnumbering German police manpower in these areas, the local police were the foot-soldiers of the Holocaust in the east.



Card catalog description
"According to German book-keeping, more than a million Jews were shot by Himmler's police forces and their local collaborators in the east. Martin Dean's new book examines the participation of local Belorussian and Ukrainian police in this crime."--BOOK JACKET. "Who were these people and what were their motives? Many of 'Hitler's willing executioners' were in fact local volunteers from within these small rural communities. Their motives included greed, ambition and anti-communism as well as hatred of the Jews."--BOOK JACKET.


About the Author
Martin Dean is Research Fellow at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.



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It is a commonly known fact that local police assisted the Nazis in murdering the Jews in their communities. Dean, an Applied Research Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC moves beyond this basic fact to examine who these people were and what could have motivated them to kill their neighbors, often within earshot of their own homes. He notes that factors such as greed, anti-communism, and anti-Semitism were the main reasons these local volunteers collaborated in the Nazi genocide. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)


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