Roundup (history)

Roundup (history)

A roundup (in Polish, łapanka, ; in French, rafle, razzia or rezzou) was a wide-spread German World War II military tactic used in occupied countries, especially in German-occupied Poland, whereby the SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo captured non-German civilians ambushed at random on the streets of subjugated cities. The civilians were arrested from among passers-by or inhabitants of selected city quarters that had been surrounded by German forces.

Those caught in roundups were most often sent to slave labor camps in Germany, but also taken as hostages in reprisal actions, imprisoned and sent to concentration camps, or summarily executed in numerous ethnic cleansing operations.