Sorry its going to be a long one, but I watch documentaries on the Second World War often. Never stopping the learning process.
I used to believe that most knew as well but I've come to believe its far more complicated than that unfortunately, some far more guilty than others. We'd like to have an easy explanation and lay collective blame but it's very fuzzy in many cases. Also, there was little poor farming families could do regardless. I'm not excusing, I'd like to think I would join the Resistance if I could. Much easier to say than do, especially if one is a 60 year old. It was the role of Western militaries to fight and win.
The camps were primarily hidden from the local population unless they lived nearby and then they would only really know about the atrocities when they saw men, women and children marched out to their deaths in a field or something. In other cases they could smell the strong, unusual smell from the chimney soot. Still in other cases, the local population helped round up Jewish people. Did they know they were sending them to their deaths? I would think they would suspect that.
Those who did know and didn't find a way to spread the word will have to pay for their sins. G-d will decide who was on which side of the ledger, there were plenty who fell on either side.
These camps were situated hundreds of miles from civilization. Guarded from peering eyes even if you did wander nearby. When those who lived close by knew and/or suspected, far more didn't. Even those who did suspect were living in the boonies. Places that didn't even have telephones or running This isn't to excuse it, but not unlike people today who live in big cities and don't understand the poisoning of some former manufacturing and industrial communities in rural towns, or don't see a problem with illegal immigration (until they were sent by bus up north).
There were multiple instances in which even Jews themselves, the prime objective of the Final Solution who didn't believe the stories they were being told, as confirmed when two men escaped Auschwitz I believe and made their way to Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community at first thought the stories couldn't be true, they were skeptical at first. The head of the Jewish congress there was murdered in Israel in the 50s for not believing and doing enough to save the Jews. People were enraged.
This man foolishly tried to make a backroom deal with the Germans to try and save some, but he was slow to publish the whistleblower escapees accounts of what happened there. Finally BBC read the report and ran the story and the U.S expressed condemnation .
People also shouldnt forget that the U.S, Canada and others rejected boats of Jews, many eventually captured again and sent to their deaths, that is highly offensive to me and does make my blood boil. This man saved I think 1500 people while 10s of thousands were murdered due to his delays and negotiating when he should have encouraged people to leave before the nazis starting sending them on trains He was a controversial figure and despised by many, still praised in other corners for those 1500 who lived.
We look back and take for granted that we know the depths of their evil. At that time no one could expect these radical, industrialized murder, it was incomprehensible. Who would do this to human beings?
This war and its evils have been an interest of mine since High School. We should educate ourselves as much as possible. Including finding some glimmers of hope in humanity to those who risked their lives or even lost it by not collaborating.
Courage is in short supply today, which does worry me greatly.