ABSTRACT
Regardless of the degree to which they were involved, perpetrators, collaborators, and bystanders shared accountability for the planned annihilation of a people. Ordinary citizens within Germany became collaborators, in that they were expected to report suspicious behavior by Jews to German authorities. The German State Railway supplied train cars that transported countless victims to the camps. The German Central Bank held stolen currency and gold that funded mass murder. In some Axis countries, paramilitary organizations, military and police were responsible for terror, deportation, or murder. In certain areas, collaboration extended to auxiliary units that were used as perimeter guards or who served within the camp system. Collaborators may not have been as directly involved in the effort to destroy the Jews, but they were not without responsibility in the process. Countries throughout Europe played a role by depleting their Jewish populations.
