Introduction: illuminating a twilight world

Eastern Europe suffered under Nazi rule much more than the rest of the occupied continent during World War II. Like western and southern Europe, its peoples found themselves subjected to harsh, punitive and sometimes ferociously savage measures inflicted in response to popular resistance. And like western and southern Europe, its foodstuffs, labour and economic resources were exploited increasingly ruthlessly as the war dragged on. However, it differed in its experience of occupation because it was populated by peoples who in Nazi thinking were racially inferior, even subhuman. This alone went a long way towards legitimising the singularly brutal, exploitative treatment to which Nazi policy subjected eastern Europe. It also often exacerbated that treatment to a horrific degree.