Collaboration during the Holocaust in Kremenchuk: The Role of Local Administration and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

• In Event: Legacies of WWII and the Holocaust in Ukraine: New Research, Archival Discoveries, and Local Memory

Abstract

The study of collaboration in genocide can be examined from two perspectives: individual actions of local residents and institutional cooperation that directly implemented Nazi policy at the local level. In this paper, I focus on institutional collaboration, particularly the involvement of the local administrative structures and the Ukrainian auxiliary police in the Holocaust in the city of Kremenchuk.

These institutions played a crucial role in implementing genocidal policies, and their involvement can be understood within the broader historiographical framework of local collaboration. While the processes in Kremenchuk followed the general patters observed in other occupied territories, here they also exhibited specific local peculiarities.

Preliminary findings indicate the following:

• Women, alongside men, were involved in running local administration and police, and thus participated in the Holocaust.
• Members of the city administration and auxiliary police could collaborate together with their family members, and in some cases, the persecution of the Jews became a family affair.
• In Kremenchuk, protectionism and nepotism can be observed in action.
• Local collaborators, particularly those in administrative and police roles, continued to persecute Jewish survivors of mass executions through police operations, systematic searches, and bureaucratic mechanisms, such as the passport office. However, in certain cases, clerks at the passport office assisted Jews in obtaining legal documentation, which was crucial for their survival.

Author

• Tetiana Borodina, National U of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" (Ukraine)