Number of policemen in occupied Europe and their role in holocaust

[bertamingo]

Say hello to all, I am new to this topic, but get interested in it due to reports of several European countries' police apologized for their role in Holocaust in recent years.

From what I know:
in Poland, the Blue police numbered 12,000 and worked alongside Germans and Jewish Ghetto police to guard Ghettos.
in Netherlands, the Dutch police and communal police numbered 12,000 in 1945, and was involved in roundup and guarding concentration camps.
in Denmark, the Danish police was around 10,000 and protected Jews effectively.

How about the other countries under German occupation, what were the manpowers of these countries' police systems and to what degree they were involved?

Thank you very much!

[wm]

It should be mentioned that the Blue Police and the Jewish Police generally didn't guard ghettos. Although some of them were doing guard duties at the ghetto gates, mainly doing the "papers please" job.

What they were doing wasn't regarded as something wrong, after all its the job of the police to maintain order and to guard this or that, so generally after the war nobody was sentenced simply for being a policeman. The main problem was the endemic corruption among those people; blackmailing, extortion, robbery. These and sometimes over-zealousness in duty was the main reason they were sentenced later.
Only in the last months the Jewish Border Police, and the Jewish Work Guard were created specifically to guard ghettos.

The "role in Holocaust" is generally understood as assisting in deportations, especially when it was known what it all was about.
In this role, because of lack of manpower almost everyone was used including Ukrainian auxiliaries, Latvian auxiliaries, the Labor Corps, or even fire brigades. The Nazis were very innovative in their "manpower and cost-saving measures". For example it was estimated the quarter of a million people from the Warsaw Ghetto was deported by just 50 Germans, 200 auxiliaries and several hundred Jewish policemen.

[bertamingo]

Yeah, that's what I mean, guarding ghettos at the gates for paperwork, inside the Ghettos normally only Jewish police were stationed. The Blue Police involvement was not significant.

By "role in Holocause", what I mean is everything related to Holocaust, including actively resisting Holocaust as was in the case of Danish police. Basically, I am interested to know, what's the general attitude of the police systems in occupied countries, did they do minimal work like the Blue Police, or participated in roundup like the Dutch police, or asissted the Jews to escape/hide like Danish police?

[bertamingo]

BTW, here police refers only to those formalised civil police systems, paramilitary auxiliary police battalions and various 'police' units established from fascist militia members were not counted here.

[Ypenburg]

http://www.blikopdewereld.nl/blog/63-ge ... reldoorlog :

Google-translate:
It is J.Hofman in his thesis'De collaborateur', a social psychological research into criminal behavior in the service of the Germans, which appeared spent, attention in 1981 with the collaboration of the police sphere.

However, the German occupying power possessed utterly lacks sufficient own resources and manpower to ensure a uniform and in accordance with the requirements of the system modeled conduct, detect anomalies and to exercise strict control over the behavior of the individual citizen. The Sicherheitsdienst existed in our country of no more than four hundred German employees so that they were completely dependent on Dutch assistants for its functioning.

No wonder that one of the German side tried especially the police to get her side c.q. subservient to her intentions. Unfortunately, the Dutch police that she has succeeded to a large extent and thus became a major threat to countless people, who could not count because of the particular circumstances of time to protect the existing power (p.52) in that period.

Although accommodating attitude of the police was nothing but a reflection of the attitude of the Dutch government apparatus as a whole, the consequences of its actions were more immediately recognizable. As the occupation continues paces, there was a remarkable development in the police. First, it became increasingly unreliable device because the number'foute Elements' rose within its ranks, on the other hand the number of cases of individual resistance increased, especially after the April meistakingen 1943 (p.52)

In the preface of the'Zwarte police stated 1940-1945' condition:

`There is no system to think that there are people who want uitvoeren' The Dutch police in 1940, raised arm and raised obedient, dutifully followed the above alleged authority. So write Bert Huizing and Koen Aartsma in their preface. Their book was published in 1986.

The hunt for people is in full swing. And the Dutch police is involved. All misunderstanding about whether or not actions of the Dutch police in arresting Jews makes Mr. Broersen, the trustee for the reorganization of the Dutch police, an end:'Ten order to remove all doubt I determine that orders from competent German authorities to arrest, transports, brought Jews, hostages and others followed should be given by the police, if necessary at its disposal can be gemaakt' resources used (p.141).

And so the trains are at different places in the Netherlands overnight ready for the transport of people towards Westerbork.

But it is not only arrest to lead away and remained Jews. The crime of the Dutch police against Jewish citizens had become bulky. The Amsterdam police commissioner K.H.Broekhof after the war:

'The number of Dutch police officers that the fingers could not keep at home when they came has been staggering in an abandoned Jewish property (...) "(p.144).

The transfer of arrested Jews at the Westerbork transit camp was almost exclusively by non- NSB'ers (p.145). Jews Hunters were also found in rural areas: police officers with a sense of duty so joined the nazie ideas that Jews were constantly afraid of the Black police or gendarmerie which went by the often anonymous reports that stayed in hiding somewhere. There are also police officers who not miss the extra income from a'koppengeld'. In addition to their salary they were paid a fee for each arrested. In 1943 the decision was announced that the premium system would also apply to the police.

The Special Court of Appeals during the Purification:

Navigation Control as one takes hold of the difficult circumstances in which they had to carry out its tasks, the Dutch police in general very geschoten' deficit during the occupation. The Board has become increasingly clear that'in many police forces, even in the highest ranks, heavily against the homeland and its people has sinned by excessive compliance against the occupying forces (...) and - what is worse - by shifting personal responsibility as multiple for the operations wished the occupier, on subordinates who finally do the dirty work kregen'. (P.246)

Langemeijer judge-advocate at the Special Court of Appeals on the arrest of the Jews'Lang not all police officers are punished for and those who are punished, sometimes the superiors who gave the originally derived orders from the Germans, often with impunity remained '.

In 1999, the thesis Guus Meershoek'Dienaren appeared the gezag' The Amsterdam police during the occupation. The book seeks G. Meershoek to explain why ordinary agents led by ordinary inspectors for a month in September 1942, often with great reluctance but without real opposition, took six thousand Jews from their homes and uitleverden to the Germans. The main explanation is Meershoek which changed the power relations from 1934 to the police. The leadership of the corps was centralized abolished accountability at the municipal council and the individual agent stricter controls. In such a climate increasingly strong anti-Jewish measures could thrive. All 2,400 policemen signs the Aryan declaration. Furthermore, it would not go. But the February strike of 1941 led to the resignation of the College of B & W and the Commissioner of Police. The changing of the guard is a turning point. The new Mayor Voûte and the new police chief Tulip work so bad if the Germans leave in the summer of 1942 know that the corps should help in retrieving Jews. Mayor Voûte had only two words:'The moet.

Tulip police chief announces to Rauter:'Hier Amsterdam geht alles wohl und wir sind fertig zu einer Glatten Durchfürung of Judenmassnahmen'.

On Sunday, July 5th, 1942 Amsterdam placing agents for the first time notices to Jews who are required to report for work in Germany. If the method does not produce enough Jews to go to the cops issue the call to the Jews when they should pack a suitcase and then take away. So they worked just to bring a few things to run smoothly.

is all the more insistent than the question of why. Why the whole corps helped anyway, reluctantly but painstakingly, with the persecution of the Jews of Amsterdam eighty? The fact that the leadership of the corps was able centralized in this environment flourish increasingly strong anti-Jewish measures. Chief Constable Tulip is idolized by his men. He makes no attempt to force to impose the Nazi ideology. But strike his popularity and his presence at the home of Jews, he gives his subordinates the idea that they have to obey. With Tulip available to the police about a chef who went independently in response to the abrupt German intervention work for the implementation of measures. They are servants of authority Amsterdam agents and thus apolitical. If Tulip dies in October 1942 it has quickly ended with the commitment of ordinary citizens.

An inspector declared after the war, 'Because it still could not be stopped, they decided to take on assignments, in order to voeren' work out as smoothly as possible. So 80,000 Jews eventually deported. The only one who immediately refused to get Jews out of their homes, superintendent of the Shoreline Jan, was fired immediately. He came after the war in the service, but left within eighteen months since he was frozen out by colleagues.

In 2008, Frank Reed published the thesis'Handhaven under the new orde' The political history of the Rotterdam police during World War II.

In the first years after the liberation of the Dutch and hence the Rotterdam police were not (yet) considered'fout'. This was a consequence of the general picture about the attitude of Dutch during five years of oppression, in which National Socialism as'fout' and the others were labeled as'goed'. This view was long maintained and supported by the literature in the sixties of the last century. By the appearance of Pressers'Ondergang' changed that image. Those who had had to deal with the Germans intensively during the occupation, and so had made dirty hands were now the culprits. The Dutch police did not escape the image. In new studies, particular attention was paid to the cooperation of the Dutch police in retrieving the Dutch Jews. This was certainly true of the scientific publications.

Van Riet believes that the question of Meershoek why ordinary cops pulled under the leadership of ordinary inspectors for a month along with Police Battalion Jews from their homes and uitleverden by Meershoek answered very carefully to the occupier, but he is in his opinion not deep enough examine the backgrounds, social conditions and the particular plight of the individual police officer.

The book of Van Riet will be nothing but a complete history of the Rotterdam police force. This is not the place to discuss the book. I confine myself to the role played by the police and involvement in retrieving Jewish citizens. Van Riet said that a different approach to the occupation history in his eyes is desirable.

Which was already raised by prof. Blom already in his inaugural speech in 1983. Blom expressed the hope that historians themselves captivated by it would be able to wrest political and moral question of right and wrong coupled perspective of collaboration and resistance.

Van Riet embraces all in his introduction'accommodatie' understanding. This concept used by prof. Kossman, according prof. Blom could be a useful tool for other approaching a subject as cooperation with the occupying power. Kossman found that certain forms of contact, consultation and cooperation with the occupying forces differed clearly from the political beliefs, striving for power or material profit gathers collaboration.

In Chapter 9 of the book describes the persecution of Jews.

During the first interviews the image was created that the Rotterdam police modestly has been involved in the collection and transportation of the Rotterdam Jews. In fact there was little preserved on the Rotterdam situation. During the day and night reports is nothing back on the assistance of the police fetches c.q. Raids. The question of how had cooperated partially answered the Rotterdam police by data from a number of files from the Central Archive for Special Criminal.

Before confidence in the police in the second half of decreased occupancy, the occupant could count on the cooperation of virtually the entire police force of Rotterdam (Van Riet p.706). During and after the treatment was one difference between'goed' and'fout' or between resistance and collaboration. Went there for the last out of the literal meaning of the word then it could be concluded that almost all (Rotterdam) police collaborated to do with the occupiers, because someone who has worked deliberately with the Germans during the war, according to the definition, a collaborator.

After the total isolation of the Jews was complete, end received July, early August 1942, Rotterdam six thousand Jews call. Spread over three days, they had to report to the central assembly. The willingness to report decreased day by day and new measures were announced. Jewish men were required to labor camps. In the evening and night of 2 to October 3, 1942 disadvantaged families were picked up during a'grote' action. Without giving any reasons were given three hundred of the Rotterdam police personnel message to volunteer at 20:00, many thought it was an emergency drill, but were told that they had to bring Jews home that evening. From a meeting of inspectors, which took place shortly after the first fetch shows that solidarity, which is an important condition for a collective refusal was not there. Only eight of the seventy inspectors indicated their willingness to refuse a next job. Under the motto'allen or niemand' the proposal was dismissed. (P. Van Riet p. 383).

The following command all came within a week on Thursday, October 8th 1942. Instead of reporting to a central reporting the participating police officers had to report to their own department, where she received the instructions above to get the elderly Jews. In this action were essentially picked up the Jews in the age group between sixty and ninety years.

During the first action happened implementation by uniformed personnel from different departments during the second action under the leadership of the division commanders by staff of the divisions and at the third operation by the police.

After the second large fetch of 8 October remained relatively calm. This did not mean that all Jews from Rotterdam were gone. On a small scale, there were still arrests and especially Group 10 (a mysterious, not uniformed component) are increasingly interfered more with the Jewish measures. A review of Van Riet shows that for Group 10 from March 1942 until February 1944 3,732 people imprisoned including 857 Jews.

The investigators of the political department were responsible for the arrest of at least ten percent of the Rotterdam Jews. The assessment should take into account the fact that have been involved also and above all other parts of the Rotterdam Corps by the end of 1942 to collect and transport of Jews.

On February 26, 1943 three Jewish institutions were emptied. Over two hundred residents and sixty employees of the Jewish hospital in the Schietbaanlaan, the Israeli old executives Founded at the Claes de Vries Avenue and the Jewish orphanage Mathenesserlaan were deported.

The third last major action involving the police was involved took place on Friday, April 9, 1943. It would have been arrested a total of eight hundred Jews.

Accompanied by Rotterdam police found from early August 1942 to mid-March 1944, at least ninety registered transportations. The retrieved Jews by the police were brought to the meeting by using personnel and equipment of the RET.

Whether the Rotterdam police officers with regard to getting the Jews have contributed more or less than their colleagues from other corps, is difficult to answer (Van Riet p. 397).

The municipal police of Rotterdam after the war had a very bad name and the war was not a negotiable issue. This bad reputation was partly due to the involvement of the police in retrieving Jewish citizens. there are 6,790 of the 8,368 registered Jews from Rotterdam were arrested and taken away and returned after the war, 23.6% returned from camps or hiding. Compared to most other major cities and the national average, which was between 27.1 and 29.6 is significantly lower (Van Riet p. 425).

Not least the police were identified with the actions of members of the Intelligence Service and the so-called "Group of 10" that existed both from sympathizers with National Socialism. It is not surprising that the civilian population associated the entire corps with these dedicated agents of the occupiers. After the war showed that even members of the Group of 10, in German uniform nota bene, had taken part in executions in March 1945 (in which three police officers were among the victims).

That the police was seen as one of the most important links in Van Riet is understandable, but without the other bodies the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands could not have been as successful (p.711).

I believe it does not affect the Rotterdam police, by cooperating in the implementation of the expulsion of Jews from Rotterdam society, has a debt load on its own. Link that others'in the error gingen' is no justification for the'accommodatie' chosen by the Rotterdam police. Maintain order is different than removing permanently from society.

In Chapter 6'De Dutch police ', their thesis'Gif published in 2004, let us not voortbestaan' write Marnix Croes & PeterTammes:

"One of the key supporting roles in the persecution of Jews was played in the Netherlands by the Dutch police. The police is considered here to'medeplichtigen'. Not because the cops would have been behind the action of the occupying forces, but because they are in practice at the executive level in the contribution collection and removal of Jews to the transit camps Westerbork and Vught were betrokken'.

The survival rate of Jews hung according Croes and Tammis not together with the percentage of local NSB supporters whether or not there is a pro-German mayor. However, with the radicalism of the regional office of the German Security Police, the presence of'foute' Dutch agents and local levels of segregation.

The conclusion of Croes and Tammis:

'Gezien The small percentage of Dutch officers was a member of the NSB, the cooperation does not appear to be attributable to an ideologically motivated consent to the removal of the Jews from the Netherlands. The example of the senior leadership who barely resisted the persecution and took pleasure with a regulation that limited liability, the tradition of law abidance and the threats of the Germans with redundancy and concentration indicate other processen'.

The hypothesis that municipalities and state police had a lower percentage of Jewish survivors, because in these municipalities were special investigation departments involved in the investigation of Jews in hiding, and police battalions were stationed which were also involved in the persecution, is supported by research.

The hypothesis that when a relatively large municipality'foute' agents were the percentage of Jewish survivors would have been lower is also supported by research.
During the Second World War of the 140,000 Dutch Jews more than 100,000 Jews fell victim of the implementation of the Final Solution. Long the question was avoided how it was possible that such a high number of Jews living in the Netherlands, died in the death camps.

A comparison with other European countries, such as Belgium (40,000 Jews were deported) and Denmark, shows that the number of Jews killed was much higher in the Netherlands. One of the factors that had played a role in the fact that the Dutch police played a major role in identifying and arresting Jews in hiding in the Netherlands. Already there are books in the Netherlands written on this subject. In 2006 published Marnix Croes and Peter Tammes'Gif let's not voortbestaan', An investigation into the survival of Jews in the Dutch municipalities. In 2008, the work of Frank Reed'Handhaven under the new orde' The political history of the Rotterdam police during World War II. Guus Meershoek in 1999 wrote the book'Dienaren the gezag', The Amsterdam police during the occupation.

Sytse van der Zee writes in his book'Vogelvrij' The hunt for the Jewish onderduiker' Let me preface that the Germans were responsible for the Holocaust. Which does not mean it still mainly ordinary Dutch police - including the military police - in the first phase was the greatest threat to the Jewish community.

In his book'Kopgeld', Dutch bounty hunters looking for Jews, Ad van Liempt describes the role of the Colonne.

Recently Ad van Liempt together with Jan H.Kompagnie'Jodenjacht' the book, The disconcerting part of the Dutch police published in WWII. 'Jodenjacht' In the conduct of the Dutch police is investigated on the basis of more than 250 criminal cases of police officers who have dealt with the Jews Hunt. Their research shows that it was mainly hatred against the Jews who drove them. Most of conviction, in which not less than 96% of the surveyed police officers, member turned out to be the NSB. But money played a big role (in bonuses). From the description of the authors, however, that the police not only used excessive violence, but there was often talk of robbery and theft. After the war, they had few regrets and one even tried to evade the special justice, by stating that they had conducted a'ambtelijk bevel' and did not know that the Jews were heading for their destruction. The disconcerting part of the Dutch police, even the Germans found it sometimes go too far, it appears more than 66 years after the end of World War II, only now first be very clear. That it should have done much earlier.

The hunt for the resistance is a follow-up study on'Jodenjacht'De disconcerting part of the Dutch police in the Second World War. Five researchers who worked on this extensive project, have continued at an even more extensive research: the way sections of the Dutch police, under the direction of the Security Service and Security Police, during the war, contested the resistance. In more than two hundred criminal records of convicted war criminals, Germans and Dutch, they have also sought the names of the victims of the hunting: people who were arrested in the war activities the occupiers were displeasing.

The'Jacht the Verzet'beoogt to give a clear picture of how the Security Service, with the help of special police units and key organizations like the Country Storm, the opposition tried to suppress in the Netherlands. A striking feature is the massive escalation of violence that may emerge from the April to May strike of 1943. The German terror is getting harder. At last, from the autumn of 1944, the occupying power exceeds all limits of humanity. It is apparent from the court files that the atrocities were committed in total beverage shelf. The book further highlighted some of the leaders of the German terror, which made the fellow human life secondary to their desire for power. The book describes an outspoken black page in Dutch history: the effort of the German reign of terror and his Dutch collaborators in an unwinnable battle, fighting the people who are not picked up in one way or another that their freedom was abolished. 'the Hunt for the verzet' thus making a valuable contribution to the historiography of the Second World War.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Jo Swaen

[bertamingo]

Dear Ypenburg, thank you very, very much for the valuable information! It's very detailed description of the Dutch picture, being both informative and historically important. My profound gratitude!

[wm]

Wasn't a census run in the Netherlands by the Nazis early in the war that clearly identified all the Jews and their place of residence? This and because the Jews generally gave away the required information willingly (there weren't any good reasons not to) made their identification easy later.
Especially that it was claimed it was a relocation for security reasons, people weren't aware it was genocide.

So really the role of the Dutch police wasn't that decisive, the Nazi could have done it themselves by allocation a thousand or two their own personal to that task.
There were countries where it was known it was all about genocide, and their police took direct part in executions like in Ukraine and Lithuania.

Generally the large and efficient Western bureaucracies, the fact that people had been already registered and identified, the pre-war requirements for residence permits, work permits, national IDs, the various existing paper databases made Holocaust easy and resistance hard.
It was harder in countries like Poland where there were no IDs and the bureaucracies were small.

[bertamingo]

Wasn't a census run in the Netherlands by the Nazis early in the war that clearly identified all the Jews and their place of residence? This and because the Jews generally gave away the required information willingly (there weren't any good reasons not to) made their identification easy later.
Especially that it was claimed it was a relocation for security reasons, people weren't aware it was genocide.

So really the role of the Dutch police wasn't that decisive, the Nazi could have done it themselves by allocation a thousand or two their own personal to that task.
There were countries where it was known it was all about genocide, and their police took direct part in executions like in Ukraine and Lithuania.

Generally the large and efficient Western bureaucracies, the fact that people had been already registered and identified, the pre-war requirements for residence permits, work permits, national IDs, the various existing paper databases made Holocaust easy and resistance hard.
It was harder in countries like Poland where there were no IDs and the bureaucracies were small.

Yeah，there were many reasons for the scale of success in holocaust in Western Europe. Thus it is not my intention to determine the "efficiency" of local police in this regard, or how important their participations were to Germans. Instead, I am trying to figure out what work these police did, like guarding ghetto gates or roundup etc.. For killings, so far I haven't seen any reference of local civilian police participation. These were committed either by Germans or paramilitary formations. The so called hilfspolizei in Eastern Europe were more like paramilitary troops than real police.

[Vpankoke]

Does anyone know where I could find a list of the wartime NSB members in Holland? It would also be interesting to see a list of the WA members from the same time period. I was able to locate a partial list (15,000 names) of NSB members from Yad Vashem, details name, address, and DOB. https://portal.ehri-project.eu/units/il ... 1#desc-eng

Considering reports that NSB membership peaked at 100,000 people in 1943, I'm missing 85,000 names. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm recently retired U.S. law enforcement and working on a research project dealing with WW2 informants in occupied territories, starting with Holland. Part of the learning curve for me is to understand groups like the NSB and WA. Reading through this site has been a great resource for me so far, especially understanding the Dutch Police during the occupation.
Vince P.