HOLOCAUST BENEFICIARIES: THE ROLE OF “NEIGHBORS” IN THE ROBBERY OF THE VOLHYNIAN JEWS DURING THE NAZI OCCUPATION

Authors

  • Petro Dolhanov Rivne State University for the Humanities

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15407/mics2020.09.046

Keywords:

Holocaust, political economy of the Holocaust, plundering of Jews, Holocaust in Ulraine, Western Volhynia

Abstract

The article deals with the robbery of Holocaust victims in three small towns in Western Volhynia: Dubrovytsia, Korets, and Kostopil. In addition to financing the German military regime and enriching the Germans, the robbery of the victims here served to legitimize the genocide among the local population and encourage it to collaborate.

The research has managed to establish that economic factors motivated the behaviour of a part of the local population during the organization of the crime in Kostopil, Korets, and Dubrovytsia. At the initial stage, the inhabitants of these towns joined the plundering of their Jewish neighbours during the pogroms in late June – early July 1941. During the creation of the ghetto, legalized by the Nazi occupying authorities, spontaneous looting of the victims’ dwellings and trafficking of their property (mainly clothing and household items) took place.

During the ghetto operation period in Kostopil, Dubrovytsia, and Korets, the local population (mainly peasants) actively engaged in unequal trade exchanges with Jewish captives. In exchange for clothing, shoes, jewellery, and money, the peasants brought food to the Jews. When the money ran out, the Jews resorted to offering their own labour in exchange for food. Such interaction was much easier to arrange for prisoners of non-fenced ghettos in Korets and Dubrovytsia. The starvation in the ghetto was becoming the most terrible when its inhabitants were running out of valuables, which they could exchange for food, and the peasants were losing interest in bringing food.

At the stage of ghetto liquidation, in all three towns, spontaneous plundering of the houses of the murdered Jews took place. Each time after the liquidation actions, the sales of Jewish property (mainly clothing, furniture, and real estate) started. The Nazi occupation authorities legalized the trade-in Dubrovytsia and Kostopil, which was carried out by town officials (they were mostly local Ukrainians). The beneficiaries of the trade were mainly neighbours of the Jews (Ukrainians and Poles) who lived in these towns and surrounding villages. In Korets, the district administration organized the sales of the property of the murdered Jews, and Ukrainian peasants from the surrounding villages took part in it. In addition to individuals, Ukrainian organizations (village branches of the “Prosvita” Society, Ukrainian schools, etc.) also took part in the purchase of furniture and houses of the Holocaust victims.

Jews managed to escape from ghettos or places of execution and for some time to hide in the surrounding areas. In this case, their fate depended on the attitude of the local population. The residents of the surrounding villages displayed a wide variety of behaviour patterns while hiding victims outside the ghetto. In particular, peasants and locals could in rare cases hide victims without any material interest (the behaviour of rescuers), occasionally provide shelter or food and help Jews for some benefits (use of Holocaust victims as labour, unequal exchanges of food for tangible goods), hide for money or other valuables, deliver victims up to occupation authorities in exchange for material benefits (usually scarce in wartime goods such as kerosene, alcohol, salt, and sugar), or even be actively involved in identifying places of refuge of Jews for material dividends and minor career preferences. According to the Holocaust victims’ memoirs, many Ukrainian and Polish peasants developed various models of interaction with the Holocaust victims, guided by incentives for material gain. In some cases, it helped the victims to survive (assistance in exchange for material gain). In others, it led to disaster. Anyway, “righteous” behaviour was much less common than that which was motivated by economic motives.

References

Bajohr, Frank. (2001). Parvenüs und Profiteure. Korruption in der NS-Zeit. Frankfurt: Fischer.

Bajohr, Frank. (2002). “Aryanisation” in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of Jews and the Confiscation of Their Property in Nazi Germany. (George Wilkes, Trans.). New York: Berghahn.

Bartov, Omer. (2008). Eastern Europe as a Site of Genocide. Contemporary Issues in Historical Perspective. The Journal of Modern History, 80 (September), 557–593. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/589591

Bartov, Omer. (2013). Communal Genocide. Personal Accounts of the Destruction of Buczacz, Eastern Galicia, 1941–1944. In Shatterzone of Empires. Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (pp. 399–420). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Bartov, Omer. (2018). Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Simon Schuster.

Browning, Christopher R. (2001). Ordinary Men. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Confiscation of Jewish Property in Europe, 1933–1945. New Sources and Perspectives. Symposium Proceedings. (2003). Washington DC: Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Dean, Martin. (2008). Robbing the Jews. The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Dolhanov, P. (2018). “Svii do svoho po svoie”: sotsialno-ekonomichnyi vymir natsiotvorchykh stratehii ukraintsiv u mizhvoiennii Polshchi. Rivne: Volynski Oberehy.

Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. (2012). Volume II. Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe. Part B. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Feldman, Gerald, & Seibel, Wolfgang. (2005). Networks of Persecution: Business, Bureaucracy, and the Organization of the Holocaust. New York: Berghahn Books.

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonan. (1997). Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: A Division of Random House, INC.

Grabowski, Jan. (2008). Rescue for money. Paid helpers in Poland, 1939–1945. Yad Vashem; Jerusalem: Search and Research.

Grabowski, Jan. (2013). Hunt for the Jews. Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Gross, Jan T. (2017). Opportunistic Killings and Plunder of Jews by Their Neighbors – a Norm or an Exception in German Occupied Europe. In Lessons and Legacies XII. New Directions in Holocaust Research and Education (pp. 3–30). Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47w5zs.5

Icchak, Cukierman. (2000). Nadmiar Pamięci (siedem owych lat). Wspomnienia, 1939–1946. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Ionescu, Stefan Cristian. (2016). “Californian” Colonists versus Local Profiteers? The Competition for Jewish Property During the Economic Colonization of Bukovina, 1941–1943. Yad Vashem Studies, 44 (2), 121–145.

Kapas, І. (2012). Hetto u Dubrovytsi za materialamy arkhivno-kryminalnoi spravy Khaima Syhala. Holokost i suchasnist. Studii v Ukraini i sviti, 1 (11), 78–103.

Marchuk, I. Napersnyi khrest sviashchenyka Mykhaila Pavlovskoho ta persha prysiaha UPA na Volyni. Volyn, 1094. Retrieved from: http://volyn.rivne.com/ua/2212?act=print.

McBride, Jared Graham. (2014). “A Sea of Blood and Tears”: Ethnic Diversity and Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Volhynia, Ukraine, 1941–1944 (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles.

Pavlovskyi, М. (1942). Ukraina I Zhydy. Kostopilski Visti, 15 Liutoho, 2.

Rozsharuvannia ukrainskoho suspilstva. (1942). Kostopilski Visti, 18 Zhovtnia, 4.

Slavni ukrainski kuptsi-chumaky. (1942). Kostopilski Visti, 27 Veresniasnia, 2.

Spector, Shmuel. (1990). The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941–1944. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, Federation of Volhynian Jews.

Struve, Kai. (2016). Anti-Jewish Violence in the Summer of 1941 in Eastern Galicia and Beyond. In Romania and the Holocaust. Events, context aftermath. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag.

Tooze, Adam. (2008). The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. New York: Penguin Books.

Ukrainska sluzhba pratsi dbaie pro dorist remisnykiv. (1943). Kostopilski Visti, 11 Lypnia, 2.

Wylegala, Anna. (2016). About “Jewish Things”. Jewish Property in Eastern Galicia During World War II. Yad Vashem Studies, 44 (2), 83–120.

Published

2020-07-23

How to Cite

Dolhanov, P. (2020). HOLOCAUST BENEFICIARIES: THE ROLE OF “NEIGHBORS” IN THE ROBBERY OF THE VOLHYNIAN JEWS DURING THE NAZI OCCUPATION. City: History, Culture, Society, (9 (2), 46–87. https://doi.org/10.15407/mics2020.09.046