Judenjagd

The German Order Police "Orpo" descending to the cellars on a "Jew-hunt", Lublin, December 1940

Judenjagd (German: “Hunt for Jews”) were German-conducted searches, beginning in 1942, for Jews who were in hiding in German-occupied Poland. The term was introduced by Christopher R. Browning. Targeted in the searches were Jews concealed among the Polish gentile population or in the forests—generally escapees from ghetto liquidations and deportations to Nazi concentration camps.^[1][2]

Victims

By some estimates, in these circumstances, as many as 200,000 Jews may have been killed, may have died of starvation or exposure, or may have been delivered to German occupiers.^[3][4] From October 1941, persons helping Jews in occupied Poland were punished by Germans with the death penalty.^[5]

In 2018 Tomasz Frydel reviewed and reassessed the "perpetrator role" of ordinary Poles, discussed in Jan Grabowski's book, Hunt for the Jews. Frydel described the whole Nazi German terror system that was directed not only against Jews but against non-Jewish Poles, including the Polish underground, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma, and others. German police in occupied Poland used sting operations, sometimes employing Jews, to find and kill rescuers of the Germans' quarries.^[6]

References

1. "Hunt for the Jews". Indiana University Press. Archived from the original on 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
2. Longerich, Peter (2010-04-15). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780191613470.
3. Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, Indiana University Press, Jan Grabowski, pages 2-3
4. Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence: Action, Motivations and Dynamics, edited by Timothy Williams, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Routledge
5. "Kara śmierci za ukrywanie Żydów - wywiad z prof. Andrzejem Żbikowskim". dzieje.pl. Retrieved Oct 18, 2022.
6. Frydel, Tomasz (Jan 1, 2018). "Judenjagd: Reassessing the Role of Ordinary Poles as Perpetrators in the Holocaust (2018)". Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence Action, Motivations and Dynamics. doi:10.4324/9781351175869-11. Retrieved Oct 18, 2022 – via www.academia.edu.