Occupation, collaboration and resistance

How foreign rule changed everyday life

1939–1945

Military occupation subjected territory to foreign power. In the Second World War, it brought exploitation, persecution and differing possibilities for survival alongside control of government. Some local people and institutions collaborated with occupiers; others sought to help those threatened or resisted. The particular regime and a person’s position profoundly shaped their choices.

Ruling conquered territory

Occupiers did not use the same system everywhere. Germany annexed part of Poland and administered another part as the General Government. Northern France, including Paris, was occupied, while the administration of the unoccupied south was based at Vichy. A protectorate was established over Bohemia and Moravia. These administrative names describe different arrangements, not necessarily freedom for their inhabitants.

Germany extracted money, products and raw materials from occupied countries. In Poland, occupation brought the killing of social leaders, displacement and forced labour. Conquest changed not just borders, but who could work, remain at home or live at all.

Persecution and collaboration

Jews were segregated in ghettos, subjected to starvation and forced labour, and deported to camps. The Holocaust also included mass shootings; there was no single identical route for all European Jews from ghetto to camp.

Collaborating regimes, institutions and individuals participated in Nazi crimes. Collaboration here means concrete participation in occupation and persecution, not simply living in occupied territory. The extent of local cooperation affected persecuted communities’ experiences.

Survival and resistance were not the same

Possibilities for hiding, escape and resistance depended on local administration, the military situation and other conditions. The persecuted did not have the same freedom of choice as those deciding their fate. Reading these stories therefore means asking who held power, what resources were available and what risks people faced.

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising in April and May 1943 was armed resistance against the ghetto’s liquidation. In the Czech lands, Operation Anthropoid struck the Nazi official Heydrich and was followed by repressive decisions by the occupiers. These were different forms and situations of resistance, not interchangeable episodes.

Asian experiences and the end of occupation

Under Japanese rule, civilians and prisoners of war were used for forced labour. In Nanjing, diplomatic reports record killings, sexual violence and refugees’ fear of returning home. The propaganda label “co-prosperity” therefore does not describe subjected people’s experience.

The arrival of Allied armies ended the occupiers’ power without removing the harm already done. At Auschwitz, many prisoners had been forced onto marches before liberation. Survivors still needed care, homes and a future after victory had been declared.

Explore further

• Warsaw Ghetto

  Forced segregation and armed resistance.

• Auschwitz

  Imprisonment, forced labour, killing and liberation.

• Japan’s empire

  Occupation in an Asian setting.