- "Some were neighbors."
"And among them was some of the people
he went to school with,
some of his best friends,
the guys from the card club."
(gentle music)
"And out of that crowd came a friend of my father."
- "We were friends, I thought."
- "This was a boy that grew up with me
for 16 years.
And he could do something like this."
- "And that was my best friend."
- "They were neighbors."
- "The furniture and the glass was all in shatters.
Everything was—my father's butcher store—
the window was broken in, and everything was demolished.
And this was done by young people whom we knew."
- [Narrator] After the Holocaust, many survivors
recognized the roles of Adolf Hitler
and other true believers.
Ideological hardliners
who supported the Nazi party early on
and who viewed Jews as biologically inferior.
But how could so many ordinary fellow human beings,
even people they knew, have betrayed them,
taken pleasure in their persecution,
benefited in some way from their misfortune?
(gentle music)
Before the Holocaust, Jewish life in Europe was diverse.
In some places, especially in central and western Europe,
many Jews were integrated into the larger society
through school, the workplace, and other settings.
In eastern Europe, many of the millions of Jews
who lived there resided in predominantly Jewish communities,
meeting non-Jews through business and the marketplace.
After the Nazis took power in Germany, the new regime's goal
was to deprive Jews of their rights and livelihoods
and force them to leave the Reich.
During World War II, Germany conquered and directly ruled
vast areas of eastern Europe.
The marking and isolation of Jews from non-Jews
were first steps toward their destruction.
German-ruled eastern Europe became the main terrain
for the mass murder of Jews by Germans
and their collaborators—
including many Jews who lived far away
in countries allied with or occupied by Germany
whom collaborating police often assembled
for transport to the east.
- "One of the nastiest memories I have is
getting going on that journey, and people were
lined up the stairs up to the door of the apartment,
waiting to ransack whatever we left behind,
cursing at us, yelling at us, spitting at us
as we left."
- [Narrator] The Holocaust would not have happened
without centuries of the longest hatred,
prejudices, discrimination, and attacks on Jews
and Jewish property.
Jews were a religious minority in largely Christian Europe.
Other pressures and motives,
ones that affect individuals in less extreme circumstances,
also came to the fore.
Fears and pressures in school, work, and the community—
roles as students, teachers, workers, police, soldiers,
neighbors, friends— influenced their choices
to go along with their peers or to defer to authority
even when they had some moral qualms.
- "This is the real truth.
That was my girlfriend.
We used to go together, have fun together,
laugh together.
Before the last test, before the graduation
we were studying together for nights and nights,
and she did it to me, to us, to my family."
- [Narrator] Many individuals also succumbed to pressures,
risks, and age old temptations.
While it might be comforting
to think that people were simply forced to do what they did,
or that they were even brainwashed,
examples of individuals who did help those in danger
prove that people did have choices,
even in the face of great risks and temptations.
- "So Leo had a great deal of
our possessions at that point.
And we went to Leo for food.
And I must impress upon you as to the character of Leo.
Leo already had all the stuff
that he could ever get from us, except maybe for some land.
And all he had to do is tell us to get lost,
and he would've never seen us again.
He never did.
He fed us all along."
(gentle music)