National and local leadership attempt to persuade the people that the intrinsic value of their own humanity is somehow different from and dependent upon the destruction of other segments of the population. Dire consequences follow deviation from the national platform. Unspeakable horrors are reinterpreted. Hatred and torture are understood as necessary steps toward meeting national objectives. One must choose to support the war effort or risk losing everything.
Ordinary persons find themselves doing the most extraordinary things.
Then something snaps. At the first hint of conscious objection to the magnitude of the evil surrounding them, workers take steps to quell their questions and divert their attention to something safe. One may argue that no one is obliged to die for another. Placing oneself and one's family at risk to save strangers exceeds the demands of human justice. Any moral obligation that we may have to resist evil stops short of requiring one's own death.