The “Grey Zone” of Collaboration in Court

This article focuses on two legal events: the trial of Elsa Trenk, a former Blockaelteste in Auschwitz-Birkenau who was tried in 1951 in accordance with the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, and the testimony of Vera Alexander, also a former Blockaelteste in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the Eichmann trial (1961).

The two trials represent the difficulties of liberal criminal law in dealing with the Holocaust in general and with the issue of collaboration in particular. I examine the various ways in which criminal law dealt with the phenomenon of collaboration, from the legal, social, and historical aspects. Through analysis of the legal texts I hold up a mirror to criminal law as it dealt with the complex issue of collaboration, revealing the influence of both legal rules and extra-legal circumstances, such as social and gender perceptions. From the historical point of view, the article presents daily life in Auschwitz-Birkenau’s women’s camp, drawing on legal and other testimonies of former prisoners, including those who had an official function. Through textual analysis I examine the linkage between law and community as it appears in the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law and I suggest that this law undermined the established linkage. I further suggest that this undermining, in turn, reduced the law’s ability to deal with the phenomenon of collaboration.