Chapter 2, The Gray Zone Summary and Analysis

Survivors simplify the past for others to understand—stark we/they, friend/enemy, good/evil divisions—but history is complex. SS ritual dehumanizes newcomers and veterans treat them as competitors. Most survivors come from the tiny privileged minority who get more food. Privilege defends and protects privilege. Privilege is born and spreads where power is in few hands, and power tolerates a zone where masters and servants diverge and converge. Collaboration springs from the need for auxiliaries to keep order as German power is overtaxed, and the desire to imitate the victor by giving orders. Individual motivations are many, and collaborators may be judged only by those who have resisted such coercion. One may absolve those who are heavily coerced and minimally guilty: functionaries who suffer with the masses but get an extra...