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Complicity Found
ti
Metro Detroit's Jewish
Assisted Living Community
CMU professor's book shows Gestapo
had help from the "ordinary"
German citizen.
HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer
:BE
Ron Coden, family member
with mother, Evelyn Sipher
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one of my favorite gals!"
Ron Coden
Family Member
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6/16
2000
14
Preferred Provider of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
e found proof of what many already knew.
What started as a one-year fellowship at the
University of Cologne in Germany, turned into a
10-year quest for a non Jewish academic from
Central Michigan University. History professor Eric A. Johnson
eventually wrote a book that shows the complicity of ordinary
German citizens in the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis.
"I read over 1,000 Gestapo case files froth three German
cities [Cologne, Krefeld and Bergheim] and put these com-
munities under a microscope," Johnson told a crowd of some
225 at Temple Shir Shalom on June 6.
His work, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary
Germans (1999, Basic Books), was prompted in part by the
torture and imprisonment of his father by the Nazi secret
police. The book tells a story of the Gestapo as a small orga-
nization reliant on the help of the ordinary German citizen.
"People from all sectors of German society were involved,"
Johnson said, citing more than 200 face-to-face interviews.
"Common citizens ran the trains that transported Jews to
camps. Bankers and insurance companies dealt with the
finances of deported Jews. Even the cleaning ladies at the
deportation centers knew what was happening.
"The BBC reported repeatedly on the murder of Jews,
and most German citizens listened to the BBC even though
it was illegal," he said.
Gestapo records showed that of those caught listening to
the BBC, 85 percent were sent home and their cases were
BOOK on page 16