Neighbors
Many people across Europe joined the Nazi regime’s persecution and murder of European Jews during the Holocaust. Even in once-peaceful, tolerant communities, people turned against their Jewish neighbors. Why? And what moved a rare few to help those in danger? Amid the turmoil of war, ordinary motivations—fear, greed, compassion—led people to make choices that had life-and-death consequences.
Background: Dutch Jews are forced to assemble for transport to the Westerbork transit camp, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1942.
Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam/Dutch Resistance Museum
1. Looting Businesses Owned by Jews
Looting Businesses Owned by Jews
Oral History: Walter Tick
Walter (Tikotzki) Tick’s parents owned a successful store serving shoppers in the German capital of Berlin. In November 1938, the Tikotzkis’ store was one of many Jewish-owned businesses looted during a wave of violence targeting Jewish people in Germany. In this oral history, Tick describes the attacks of what came to be known as Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”The brutality organized by Nazi leaders against Jews in November 1938 marked a dramatic escalation in anti-Jewish violence in Germany. Like thousands of other Jewish people in Germany, the family fled to the United States in 1939.
USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education
Looting Businesses Owned by Jews
“Screams and Shattered Glass”
Local people raid a Jewish-owned store during the anti-Jewish violence of November 1938. Nazi Party members and paramilitaries led most attacks on synagogues and businesses owned by Jews. Encouraged by authorities, many ordinary Germans joined in the destruction.
Dessau, Germany, November 10, 1938
Stadtarchiv Dessau-Roßlau Signatur: FI 86c-0001, Bildautor: Otto Leyse; title quote from Walter Tick oral history.
Isidor Tikotzki's store in Berlin, Germany, pre-1938.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of S. Walter Tick
Looting Businesses Owned by Jews
Forced Sale
As part of an effort to exclude Jewish people from the economy and drive them out of Germany, the Nazi regime aimed to strip them of their property. Assets owned by Jews were placed under the control of so-called “Aryan” Germans.
Following Kristallnacht, Walter Tick’s father, Isidor, was forced to sell his store to a non-Jewish employee. Isidor received only a fraction of the store’s value, casting his family into poverty.
Location: Nazi Germany
Beginning in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis transformed the country into a dictatorship. New anti-Jewish policies met with support among some Germans. The regime’s economic and foreign policy successes helped many ordinary people accept attacks on Jews. By early 1939, Nazi Germany had annexed Austria and the Czech lands.
2. Neighbors Watch—and Profit—as Jews Are Deported
Lörrach, Germany, October 22, 1940
Stadtarchiv Lörrach
Neighbors Watch—and Profit—as Jews Are Deported
In Plain Sight
One October morning in 1940, Nazi authorities in the small German town of Lörrach notified Jewish inhabitants that they had two hours to pack. The town’s Jewish residents were then deported to the Gurs internment camp in France.
This photograph shows Nazi officials carrying out the deportations. Children peek from behind the line of deportees. Onlookers watch from a balcony above.
Most of the 65 Jewish people deported from Lörrach that day were later transported to Auschwitz, a killing center in occupied Poland. Few survived.
Location: Nazi Germany
Beginning in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis transformed the country into a dictatorship. New anti-Jewish policies met with support among some Germans. The regime’s economic and foreign policy successes helped many ordinary people accept attacks on Jews. By early 1939, Nazi Germany had annexed Austria and the Czech lands.
Neighbors Watch—and Profit—as Jews Are Deported
Selling Stolen Goods
After the deportations in Lörrach, ads appeared in local newspapers promoting an auction of deportees’ property. Residents showed up to buy the belongings of their former neighbors.
In auctions across Germany, auctioneers, Nazi authorities, and the German state collected large sums from the sale of Jewish people’s possessions.
The people watching these auctions could not have known that most of those deportees would later be murdered. However, the auction signaled that they would not return to the town.
Lörrach, Germany, November 1940
Stadtarchiv Lörrach
Newspaper from Lörrach, Germany, November 22, 1940.
Stadtarchiv Lörrach, Oberbadisches Volksblatt
Neighbors Watch—and Profit—as Jews Are Deported
Advertising the Pillage
Many reading the newspaper in Lörrach on November 22, 1940, would likely have seen this announcement for an auction of goods at 29 School Street. The apartment had belonged to two Jewish German women, Fanny Grunkin and her daughter, Marie. German officials had already deported the two Jewish women to a detention camp in France.
A neighbor later recalled: “The Grunkin family had a beautiful apartment on School Street; the apartment was very well furnished. Nicest of all was Marie’s sewing machine.”
With the help of French authorities, German officials sent Marie to the Auschwitz killing center about two years later. She did not return. Fanny survived.
Translation
Movables – Auction By order I will auction the following items in Lörrach on Saturday, November 23, 1940, at 10 AM in the house at 29 School Street: 1 bedroom suite consisting of 2 complete beds (steel), 1 wardrobe with double doors, 1 nightstand, 1 washstand, 1 table, chairs, 1 console, 1 two-door cupboard, 1 rolltop desk, 1 small table, 1 large table, 1 rattan chair, 1 rattan table, 1 couch, a dressmaker’s sewing machine, 1 dress form, mirror, fire screen, ironing board, 1 shoe rack, 1 dresser, 1 clothing rack, 1 kitchen buffet, 1 kitchen table, 2 stools, 1 gas range, 1 heating pad, 1 table clock, bedside lamps, 1 boucle rug, household and kitchen appliances, and ceiling light fixtures. Officially appointed and sworn auctioneer: W. Pfister Lörrach. 22 Palm Street. Telephone number: 2884
3. A Town Gathers to See Jewish Neighbors Deported
A Town Gathers to See Jewish Neighbors Deported
Oral History: Manfred Wildmann
In October 1940, German authorities ordered all Jewish people aged 10 to 80 in Philippsburg, Germany, to pack their belongings. Neighbors gathered at the station as the humiliated Jewish families were forced to board trains destined for a detention camp in France.
Manfred Wildmann and his family were among the 21 Jewish Germans deported from Philippsburg that day. Wildmann describes how one neighbor among the crowd reached out to his family as they were expelled from their hometown.
For many in Manfred’s family, it was the last time they would see their home. Within three years, his mother, father, and brother all were murdered in the Auschwitz killing center.
USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education
Manfred Wildmann around age ten.
USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education
A Town Gathers to See Jewish Neighbors Deported
A Turn Towards Hate
As a child, Manfred Wildmann played with both Jewish and non-Jewish friends in his hometown of Philippsburg, Germany. He recalled that he was never the target of anti-Jewish racism until the attacks of Kristallnacht in 1938.
Less than two years later, most of Manfred’s neighbors stood by as his family—along with more than a dozen other Jewish Germans—was deported.
Location: Nazi Germany
Beginning in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis transformed the country into a dictatorship. New anti-Jewish policies met with support among some Germans. The regime’s economic and foreign policy successes helped many ordinary people accept attacks on Jews. By early 1939, Nazi Germany had annexed Austria and the Czech lands.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Manfred and Sylvia Wildmann
A Town Gathers to See Jewish Neighbors Deported
Sketches from Childhood
While imprisoned in the Gurs camp in France, Manfred passed time making drawings. This drawing depicts a young prisoner (possibly Manfred himself) and a French camp guard.
Cold, disease, and hunger took a deadly toll on prisoners in Gurs. Of 21 Jewish Germans sent there from Philippsburg, 6 died in the camp.
By early 1942, aid workers at the Red Cross had helped place both Manfred and his sisters in children’s homes in France. This effort and others by international aid organizations prevented the children’s deportation to the Auschwitz killing center, saving their lives.
4. War Fuels Local Violence against Jews
War Fuels Local Violence against Jews
Film: Massacre on the Beach
When German forces invaded and occupied Liepāja, Latvia, in 1941, local townspeople, police, and militia helped round up Jewish men and transport them to pits dug on a local beach. A German sailor captured this footage, which shows crowds of other sailors and Latvians watching as a German killing squad shoots them into mass graves.
In the first months of the German occupation of Latvia, more than 5,000 Jewish people were murdered in Liepāja. The shootings were carried out openly, mostly in open places like city parks and public beaches.
How might witnessing these killings have affected the local population’s behavior toward Jews?
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Henny Wiener
Riga, Latvia, July 1941
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L19397 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
War Fuels Local Violence against Jews
Celebrating the Invasion
Some Latvians saw Germany’s invasion of their country as a liberation from an enemy: the Soviet Union. In this photograph, Latvian women join parading German soldiers as they march into the capital city of Riga.
About a year before the German invasion of 1941, the Soviet Union had taken control of independent Latvia. Soviet authorities had unleashed a wave of terror, killing and deporting those who opposed them. Many Latvians hoped that Germany would restore Latvia’s independence. They also falsely blamed Jews for their suffering under the Soviets.
Location: Occupied Eastern Europe
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941. German authorities introduced brutal occupation policies and began isolating, shooting, and deporting Jews. Nazi leaders relied on ordinary people to help carry out their plans to murder all European Jews.
Riga, Latvia, July 1941
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Bernhard Press
War Fuels Local Violence against Jews
Inviting Brutality
Amid the chaos of the German invasion, Latvian civilians unleashed a wave of ruthless attacks on Riga’s Jewish people. At least 400 Jews were murdered in a matter of days.
Across the Eastern Front, German forces encouraged this kind of violence in areas they occupied. Locals were openly urged to harass, beat, and even murder Jews in city streets.
In this photograph, men attack a Jewish man on a street in Riga.
5. Neighbors Buy and Sell Jews’ Belongings after Killings
Neighbors Buy and Sell Jews’ Belongings after Killings
Oral History: Regina Prudnikova
Born to a Christian family in Lithuania, Regina Prudnikova had once worked for a local Jewish family as a nanny.
Following the invasion of 1941, Lithuanian soldiers helped the Germans shoot Jews near Regina’s town, Pilviškių. Regina watched as her neighbors then broke into Jewish people’s homes, seizing anything of value.
Regina describes some Lithuanians’ prejudices toward their Jewish neighbors, recalling how she and others took advantage of attacks on Jews to steal their belongings.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation
Utena, Lithuania, July–August 1941
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Saulius Berzinis
Neighbors Buy and Sell Jews’ Belongings after Killings
Benefiting from Bloodshed
In this photograph, Lithuanian civilians auction property once owned by Jews murdered in mass shootings nearby. Some locals had helped German authorities round up and kill Jews; others looted and sold Jews’ furniture, clothing, and other possessions.
Location: Occupied Eastern Europe
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941. German authorities introduced brutal occupation policies and began isolating, shooting, and deporting Jews. Nazi leaders relied on ordinary people to help carry out their plans to murder all European Jews.
Lithuania, June 28, 1941
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration
Neighbors Buy and Sell Jews’ Belongings after Killings
Sorting Looted Goods
Before the German invasion of 1941, many of Lithuania’s people made a living on small farms or worked in trades. Some saw the country’s Jewish minority as a wealthy, privileged class.
When German authorities rounded up, shot, and deported their Jewish neighbors, many Lithuanians saw an opportunity to improve their own quality of life. They raided Jewish people’s homes, businesses, and offices in search of valuables. In this photo, two young men sort through a pile of looted shoes.
6. Locals Loot Jewish Homes
Locals Loot Jewish Homes
Oral History: Marsha Taplin
Marsha Taplin’s parents owned a butcher store in the small Polish town of Zdzieciol. After occupying the town in 1941, German authorities forced Marsha and her family into a ghetto. In 1942, German killing squads and their local helpers shot hundreds of Jews there, including Marsha’s three sisters. Marsha survived by hiding in nearby forests.
Marsha recalls overhearing her neighbors express sympathy for the murdered Jews even as they entered her home to steal the family’s belongings.
USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education
Locals Loot Jewish Homes
Her Sister’s Needlepoint
Locals in Zdzieciol, Poland, took this linen from Marsha’s home after members of her family were shot nearby. After the war, Marsha visited the home of a former neighbor and noticed the cloth, which had been embroidered by her younger sister, Sonia. She took the linen back, keeping it close for the rest of her life.
Many non-Jewish people profited from the deportation and murder of Jewish populations in Poland. Often, immediately following mass shootings, locals seized clothing, jewelry, furniture, and entire homes owned by their Jewish neighbors.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Marsha Taplin
Zdzieciol, Poland, 1936
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Harold Minuskin
Locals Loot Jewish Homes
A Family Portrait
Marsha (middle left) poses with her sisters, cousins, and grandmother before the war. German authorities shot Marsha’s older sisters, Frida and Leah (top left), and her younger sister, Sonia (bottom right), in 1942.
Along with a few photographs, Sonia’s hand-worked linen remained one of Marsha’s only lasting connections to her murdered sister.
Location: Occupied Eastern Europe
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941. German authorities introduced brutal occupation policies and began isolating, shooting, and deporting Jews. Nazi leaders relied on ordinary people to help carry out their plans to murder all European Jews.
7. Documenting Deportation
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1942
Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam/Dutch Resistance Museum
Documenting Deportation
Watching Neighbors
A resident in a nearby building captured this photograph of Jewish neighbors ordered deported from Amsterdam in 1942. Other neighbors watch from a window. Children gather nearby.
After transport to the transit camp of Westerbork, most were sent to Auschwitz or another killing center in Poland. Few survived.
German authorities and their collaborators in the Netherlands banned photography of these deportations. Getting caught could mean imprisonment or even death. Why might a neighbor risk taking this photo?
Location: Collaboration with Nazi Germany
Most of Europe was under Nazi Germany’s control by 1942. In their efforts to deport and murder Europe’s Jews, German authorities found willing helpers across the continent. Police, public officials, and workers played a critical role in the Holocaust. A rare few took risks to aid the victims.