When an act performed by a “requisitioned worker” is described as though “automated,” habitual, without a foreign giver of orders, it seems devoid of any responsibility. Of course, the diggers dig and the fillers fill. But the rare accounts that do describe the presence of the German architect give back a certain autonomy to the conscripts; the surveyor shows, explains, outlines the dimensions of the grave—but, without the skill of local labor, it would never be ready on time. The diggers are not mere labor. They are not simply living excavators. At the base of the hierarchy in the Shoah by
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