Bargaining for Survival in a Nazi Camp

Across Europe, Jewish administrative bodies were established by the Germans during World War II. These so-called ‘Jewish Councils’ were forced to implement the anti-Jewish Nazi policy in cities, camps, and ghettos. Bargaining for Survival in a Nazi Camp presents the first comprehensive account of the Jewish Council of Camp Westerbork, which was the largest Nazi camp in the Netherlands. The ‘Contact Committee,’ as the Council came to be known, played an important role in organizing (often counterfeit) documents for Jewish camp inmates to prevent their deportation to the death camps in the East. This book examines the activities, strategies, and moral dilemmas of the committee’s four members in the face of the deadly onslaught. Sonja Weinberg shows that these functionaries were by no means simply instruments in the hands of the German occupiers. Rather, they attempted to make full use of the means at their disposal to help as many Jews as possible. Doing so inevitably meant cooperating with the perpetrators. This precarious position was shared by most Jewish Council members across Europe and created much controversy both during and after the war. Yet the functionaries’ actions contradict the still widely accepted view of the alleged passivity of the Jews in the Holocaust – that they went ‘like sheep to the slaughter’ – with its implication that they bore some responsibility for their own deadly fate.