Figure 1.-- The people here are not Jews. Soviet Jews were sumarily shot by the Einsatzgruppen. These are non-Jewish Sivirts cutizens that the Gerams have riunded up. This photograoh appreantly appeared in the eest and was captioned, "Nazis Round up Population of a Russian City for Deportation to Germany. Photograph shows Russian men, women, and children receiving instructions from the Gestapo prior to their journey to Germany." There are errors in the caption. These clearly are not city residents, but are rural woekers on a collective farm. And they are probably Uktanians or Bekarusians. It would not have been Gestap agents speaking to them, but members of the security forces although it is not clear just what agency. Most horrifying is that the Germans did not send children and elderly men to the Reich for war work. It is not clear what happened yo them. They may or may not have been short, but they weould have had no access to food. It is not clear to us wehen this photograph was takem probly Spring 1942.

The NAZI World War II Ausländer-Einsatz (deployment of foreigners) was one of the two largest mass utilization of forced labor since the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. The other of course being the Soviet Gulag. (The Soviet slave labor program was different in that it was primarily fueld by Soviet citizens and not foreigners.) And this was only the beginning of what the NAZIs would have done had they won the War. The NAZIs as a result of the success of Allied weakness, diplomacy, and most importantly their Blizkrieg tactics tactics between March 1938 and December 1941 occupied or otherwise dominated almost all of Europe. The NAZIs in many ways ineficiently used the occupied territories. With the adult male population conscripted for military service and an ideological reluctance to draft women for waer work, the NAZIs turned to the vast labot pool it had access to--foreign workers. Hitler would explode if any one brought up labor shortages because controllong Europe, he insisted workers could ber just rounded up. NAZI occupation authorities deported more than 10 million people for forced labor in the Reich. One report estimates that as of August 1944, there were 7.8 million foreign workers and prisoners of war assigned to the Arbeitseinsatz (labor deployment) in Germany. There were also about 0.5 million foreign concentration camp inmates. And these workers were not just used for menial jobs. One source estimates that 30 percent of the white-collar workers and laborers in the Reich were foreigners almost all of which were forcibly deported from their countries.

Created: 11:08 AM 11/5/2021
Last updated: 10:37 AM 11/5/2021