My mother grew up in Hitler Germany. She was in Giessen, which is in Hessen near Frankfurt. She said they didn't know about the camps until after the war was over - it was an authoritarian society and there was enough evidence of threats and potential violence that everyone knew that they shouldn't be curious about such things, and moving around the country etc. so they knew that if they were to suddenly speak out, they would get killed or sent away. But they didn't know about the death camps until later. Her first grade teacher was jewish and one day she gave her some valuable household knick knacks, and she got taken away a few weeks after that. My grandparents were both deaf and were on the nazis to-do list in a manner of speaking - they had very limited power in society and my grandfather never did the heil salute so they declared him incompetent to manage his own affairs. I can believe that people who didn't live near the camps didn't know about them. My mother says that the scenario shown in the movie Die Bruecke - the bridge, is fairly accurate. The plot is that a group of eight 13-14 year old boys in a village around spring of 1945 are still totally brainwashed with patriotic spirit and the news that the town receives is still telling them that germany is being successful and is going to win. In fact, the whole regime is falling. A stupid commander sends the group out to defend the bridge to the town against the allies who are coming close - even though the germans in fact plan to blow up this bridge shortly in order to hinder the allies. All but one or two of the military brainwashed boys needlessly get killed defending this bridge. and the larger idea is that up until the end, they were getting absolutely no outside information about what was really going on in the war.
and, of course, the same can be said for a lot of first world people today, except that it is still much more possible for us to find the information if we search for it.
Christine