One of the hardest questions raised by the Holocaust is how ordinary human beings could participate in the murder of children and other defenseless people.
There is no simple answer. Nazi camp personnel did not all feel the same way, and historians cannot know the private emotions of every individual guard. Some perpetrators were ideologically committed antisemites. Some adapted to the system around them. Others followed orders, conformed to their colleagues, pursued careers, or gradually learned to treat mass murder as routine work.
Alcohol was sometimes used by perpetrators to lower inhibitions or cope with what they were doing, but it was only one part of a much larger process of indoctrination, dehumanization, obedience, group pressure, and moral disengagement.
Children Were Among the Victims of Nazi Mass Murder
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, transports of Jews often underwent selection soon after arrival.
SS physicians and other camp authorities decided who would temporarily be kept alive for forced labor and who would be murdered immediately.
People considered unable to perform physical labor were especially vulnerable. This included many elderly people, people with disabilities, mothers with young children, and children themselves.
The majority of Jews deported to Auschwitz were murdered after arrival rather than registered as prisoners.
So when a six-year-old child was sent to a gas chamber, this was not an accidental consequence of camp conditions. It was part of an organized system of mass murder created and operated by Nazi authorities.
Did Camp Guards Know What Was Happening?
It is important to distinguish between different jobs inside the camp system.
A guard posted at one part of a very large camp might not know the identity or exact fate of every individual prisoner arriving on a particular transport.
But personnel directly involved in selections, escorts to the killing facilities, gas-chamber operations, or the crematoria were participating in a process whose purpose was mass murder.
At Auschwitz, SS doctors participated in selections. SS men escorted people selected for death toward the gas chambers. Members of the SS medical or disinfection service were among those responsible for introducing Zyklon B into the chambers.
It is therefore misleading to suggest that the personnel directly operating the killing process simply did not know what was happening.
The Victims Were Deliberately Deceived
The people selected for death were often not told what was about to happen.
At Auschwitz, the SS frequently presented the process as washing, bathing, or disinfection. This deception reduced panic and resistance and made it easier for a relatively small number of SS personnel to control large groups of victims.
Secrecy was directed primarily at the victims—not because the SS personnel operating the killing facilities were unaware of their purpose.
The entire procedure was designed to move people through the killing process with as little resistance as possible.
Who Were the Sonderkommando?
The role of the Sonderkommando is also often misunderstood.
At killing centers such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sonderkommando units consisted largely of Jewish prisoners who were forced to work around the gas chambers and crematoria.
They might be ordered to help arriving victims in undressing areas, remove bodies after killings, operate cremation facilities, and perform other horrific tasks.
They did not freely choose these jobs.
They were prisoners themselves, working under threat of death, and the SS regularly murdered members of these units and replaced them with new prisoners.
The system had another effect: it allowed SS personnel to transfer some of the most psychologically disturbing physical work onto prisoners while the SS retained control, supervision, and responsibility for the killing operation.
Why Could People Participate in Such Crimes?
Historians have studied this question for decades, and there is no single explanation that fits every perpetrator.
Several factors often worked together.
Nazi Ideology and Antisemitism
The Nazi regime spent years portraying Jews as dangerous enemies rather than as ordinary human beings.
Antisemitic propaganda described Jews as a racial threat to Germany and blamed them for political, economic, and military problems.
This propaganda did not cause every German to become a committed murderer, but within the SS and Nazi organizations it helped create a moral framework in which extreme violence against Jews could be presented as necessary or justified.
Once victims were defined as enemies rather than neighbors, colleagues, parents, or children, it became easier for perpetrators to rationalize cruelty.
Dehumanization Made Murder Easier
Mass murder becomes easier when perpetrators stop seeing victims as individual human beings.
The concentration-camp system deliberately reduced people to numbers, categories, transports, labor capacity, and bureaucratic classifications.
Instead of thinking about a six-year-old child as a particular person with parents, fears, memories, and a future, a perpetrator could be trained to think in terms such as “unable to work” or simply as a member of a group that Nazi ideology had marked for destruction.
This language did not remove moral responsibility. It helped perpetrators avoid confronting that responsibility directly.
Division of Labor Created Psychological Distance
The Nazi killing system divided responsibility among many people.
One person organized deportation trains. Another carried out selection. Another guarded a path or building. Another handled poisonous material. Prisoners were forced to perform much of the physical work around the crematoria.
This division of labor allowed individuals to tell themselves that they were performing only one small task.
But together, those tasks formed a system designed to murder people on a massive scale.
Bureaucratic distance could make participation feel routine even though the final result was mass killing.
Obedience to Authority Was Important—but Not the Whole Answer
Nazi Germany placed enormous importance on hierarchy, discipline, and obedience.
Members of the SS, police, military, and government bureaucracy were trained to follow commands from superiors.
But historians have found that obedience alone cannot fully explain participation in the Holocaust.
Research into German killing units shows that, in some situations, men who did not want to participate directly in shooting civilians could avoid that particular role without being executed themselves.
Most still participated.
This suggests that fear of punishment was only one factor. Group loyalty, conformity, career concerns, ideology, and reluctance to appear weak in front of comrades could also influence behavior.
Group Pressure Could Be Extremely Powerful
A man who refused to participate risked separating himself from his colleagues.
In military and police organizations, membership in the group mattered greatly. A person might fear being regarded as unreliable, cowardly, weak, or disloyal.
Historian Christopher Browning's study of Reserve Police Battalion 101 showed how ordinary policemen could gradually become participants in mass murder through a combination of obedience, conformity, adaptation, and changing moral norms.
A small minority attempted to avoid direct killing. Many others adapted.
The frightening lesson is that perpetrators did not all need to be sadistic fanatics for a system of mass murder to function.
Did Alcohol Play a Role?
Yes, in some cases—but it should not be exaggerated into the main explanation.
Accounts from German and collaborating killing units show that alcohol was sometimes available before or after mass killings.
For some perpetrators it reduced inhibitions. For others it may have been a way of coping afterward. Drinking could also become part of the social culture surrounding killing units.
But alcohol did not create the Holocaust.
The killings required organization, ideology, transportation, bureaucracy, guards, police, administrators, medical personnel, camp staff, and political leadership.
A drunk individual might commit violence, but the Holocaust was a state-organized genocide involving institutions and thousands of people performing coordinated roles.
Were All Perpetrators Emotionless?
No.
Historical evidence shows a range of reactions.
Some perpetrators displayed enthusiasm or cruelty. Some became accustomed to killing. Others experienced distress, revulsion, or psychological strain.
But personal discomfort did not necessarily lead someone to stop participating.
A person could feel disturbed and still obey orders the next day.
This is an important distinction. Feeling bad about committing a crime is not the same as refusing to commit it.
How Could Killing Become “Normal”?
Repeated exposure can change what people perceive as normal.
An individual who would initially be shocked by violence can gradually adapt if everyone around him treats that violence as routine, officially approved, and necessary.
Within the Nazi system, murders were recorded through schedules, transport lists, work assignments, duty rosters, reports, and administrative procedures.
The bureaucratic language surrounding the killings helped hide their human reality.
Over time, perpetrators could begin viewing murder as another assignment rather than as an extraordinary moral crime.
Why Didn't More People Refuse?
Some people did resist Nazi policies. Some hid Jews, helped prisoners, refused certain orders, or attempted to avoid participation in killings.
But such behavior required an individual to reject the expectations of the organization and often the attitudes of colleagues around him.
For many people, conformity was easier.
Others agreed with Nazi goals, benefited from the system, sought career advancement, or simply placed obedience above moral responsibility.
The Holocaust therefore cannot be explained only through a handful of exceptionally cruel individuals.
It required a large system in which many people accepted different levels of responsibility.
The Gas Chambers Also Created Distance Between Killer and Victim
Earlier phases of the Holocaust included enormous numbers of mass shootings in occupied Eastern Europe.
Face-to-face killing required policemen and SS personnel to shoot men, women, and children directly.
Gas chambers allowed Nazi authorities to murder larger numbers of people while reducing direct personal contact between some of the perpetrators and individual victims.
That psychological and physical distance did not make the crime less deliberate.
It helped turn murder into an organized process.
Responsibility Cannot Be Shifted Onto the Sonderkommando
Another important point is that responsibility belongs to the Nazi authorities and personnel who created, controlled, and operated the extermination system.
The Jewish prisoners forced into Sonderkommando units were victims of that system.
They worked under coercion and the constant threat of death.
Using prisoners for parts of the killing process was itself one of the cruel features of the Nazi system: victims were forced to participate in tasks connected with the destruction of their own communities.
So How Could Someone Murder a Child and Then Live Normally?
There was no single psychological mechanism.
Some perpetrators genuinely believed Nazi ideology. Some dehumanized their victims. Some obeyed authority. Some followed their peers. Some separated their official role from their private life. Some drank. Some rationalized what they were doing. Some became emotionally hardened through repetition.
Several of these factors could exist in the same person.
The Holocaust demonstrates that terrible crimes do not require every participant to be mentally abnormal or constantly consumed by hatred.
A murderous political system can make extreme violence appear acceptable when ideology, bureaucracy, conformity, authority, and personal interest reinforce one another.
Conclusion
It is therefore inaccurate to explain Nazi participation in the murder of children simply by saying that guards drank alcohol or did not know what was happening.
At Auschwitz, the personnel directly involved in selections, escorts, gas-chamber operations, and crematoria were part of an organized extermination system. Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners were forced to perform many of the physical tasks, but the SS controlled the process.
Perpetrators reacted in different ways. Some were ideologically committed, some became accustomed to violence, and some experienced psychological discomfort. Alcohol sometimes helped reduce inhibitions or numb feelings, but the deeper causes included antisemitism, dehumanization, obedience, conformity, careerism, division of labor, and the normalization of mass murder.
The most disturbing lesson is not that all perpetrators were uniquely monstrous people. It is that institutions and ideologies can train ordinary human beings to rationalize extraordinary crimes when personal responsibility is surrendered to authority and the surrounding group.
Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia; Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum; Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.
