i wanted to comment on cassandra's first post. in the most of the holocaust books i've read, alot of the germans didn't know that the jews were being sent to concentration camps. atleast the younger people didn't. i don't know if any of you have read "Behind the Bedroom Wall" by Laura Williams (which is a super good book!! if you like holocaust books, this one's the one to read), but the young german girl goes to a youth group called Hitler Youth which promotes the fatherland, and puts down jews, so they are brainwashed into thinking all jews are bad. alot of it was the media too, i believe. hitler himself also played a huge roll in convincing the entire german population by radio. i found a quote at

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/hitleryouth/
(there's also alot of good information on hitler youth, such as the activities they used to do, the banner song, the flags they used for the groups, some interesting quotes, and some really good pictures)

"My program for educating youth is hard. Weakness must be hammered away. In my castles of the Teutonic Order a youth will grow up before which the world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth. Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication...That is how I will create the New Order." -- Adolf Hitler, 1933.

i don't know as much about what the adults thought, but i think alot of them were fine with talking to jews until hitler started to persecute them, so acting as though they hated jews might have made them look like "real germans" under societies eyes. i read the first chapter or so of The Cage, and i was shocked at how people were giving up their former jewish friends just to save their own lives, but once i read cassandra's blog, i started to really think about why it might have been like that.

-megan