Organizing Crime as a Method of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape during the Holocaust

• In Event: Organized Crime at the Intersections of Oppression

Abstract

What happens to persecuted individuals and groups when many aspects of daily life are regulated and/or criminalized to the point one must break the law in order to survive, evade, resist, or escape an oppressive regime? Such was the situation faced by European Jewry in Nazi Germany and in German occupied and allied lands before and during WWII. Richard Rubenstein called the situation faced by these people “total domination” which “ultimately systematized not only mass murder on a scale never known before, but also mass slavery on a level of bestial cruelty.” He further observed, “This was a form of bondage in which the victim was forced to work for a carefully calculated period…and then, through methods of deprivation calculated with equal care, allowed to die.” Historical research allows for a case study approach that provides examples of the illicit social networks utilized by European Jewry for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape in the face of Nazi oppression. This research addresses the serious deficiency of criminological research studying the persecution of groups and individuals targeted by oppressive regimes. Lessons learned identify opportunity structures that can help the persecuted survive, evade, resist, and escape oppressive regimes in today’s world.

Author

• Jeffrey S. McIllwain, San Diego State University