Holocaust Honors: Introduction to the Concentration Camps.

Dachau

A camp located outside Munich, opened March 20, 1933; initially designed to hold political prisoners. First concentration camp.

Describe the conditions in the concentration camps.

Barracks: Six people slept on a plank of wood, on top of us another layer. And if one of us had to turn, all the others had to turn because it was so narrow. One cover, no pillow, no mattress. A Day's Rations: Breakfast 2 cups of coffee or tea (often nothing more than dried leaves or bark, usually birch, in hot water). Slave Labor. Brutality is a part of everyday life. Forced Labor, cold in the winter, wooden barracks, with not much furniture, no sewage system or basic sanitation, lack of water, communal toilets, disease - spreading insects.

Concentration Camp

Camps in which Jews were imprisoned by the Nazis, located in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. There were three different kinds of camps: transit, labor and extermination. Many prisoners in concentration camps died within months of arriving from violence or starvation. USHMM

What was a Concentration Camp?

Camps in which Jews were imprisoned by the Nazis, located in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. There were three different kinds of camps: transit, labor and extermination. Many prisoners in concentration camps died within months of arriving from violence or starvation. USHMM

What is the difference between a concentration camp and an extermination camp?

Concentration camps are often inaccurately compared to a prison in modern society. But concentration camps, unlike prisons, were independent of any judicial review. Nazi concentration camps served three main purposes: 1: To incarcerate real and perceived "enemies of the state." These persons were incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time. 2: To eliminate individuals and small, targeted groups of individuals by murder, away from the public and judicial review. 3: To exploit forced labor of the prisoner population. This purpose grew out of a labor shortage. Killing centers/Extermination Camps: Established primarily or exclusively for the assembly-line style murder of large numbers of people immediately upon arrival to the site. There were 5 killing centers for the murder primarily of Jews. The term is also used to describe "euthanasia" sites for the murder of disabled patients.

Buchenwald

Constructed in 1937 about five miles northwest of the city of Weimar in east-central Germany. USHMM

Treblinka

Death camp located in a sparsely populated area near Treblinka, Poland, approximately 870,000 Jews killed.

Majdanek

Death camp located in a suburb of Lublin, Poland where 360,000 people were shot, beaten, starved or gassed to death. Labor camp for Poles and POW's.

Chelmno

First extermination/death camp to use gassing and first place located outside Soviet territory, in Poland -- in which Jews were systematically killed as part of "Final Solution." HMHouston

How and why did the function of the concentration camp system change in the middle of World War II?

From Political Prisoners to Extermination/Final Solution

Concentration camps in these six years were not specifically for Jews. Who was imprisoned there, and why?

German authorities established camps all over Germany on an ad hoc basis to handle the masses of people arrested as alleged subversives. They also held prisoners under investigation by the Gestapo (the German secret state police) until 1936.

Where were the camps located? To what degree was the German population aware of the camps, their purpose, and the conditions within?

Germany/Poland/France German Occupied Poland and France. Most of the German population was aware of the horrors of these camps.

Zyklon B

Highly poisonous gas used for extermination in the Euthanasia Program and later in the Gas Chambers of the Nazi Extermination Camps, particularly in Auschwitz.

How are they similar to camps in other national histories?

Internment Camps

Why was there a system of identification and badging within the camp system, if the prisoners are all incarcerated?

Jews had to get tattooed with a specific number. Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles, political prisoners with red, "asocials" (including Roma, View This Term in the Glossary nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) with black or—in the case of Roma in some camps—brown triangles. Homosexuals were identified with pink triangles and Jehovah's Witnesses with purple ones. Non-German prisoners were identified by the first letter of the German name for their home country, which was sewn onto their badge. The two triangles forming the Jewish star badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for example, would be identified with a yellow triangle beneath a red triangle. USHMM The Nazis required Jews to wear the yellow Star View This Term in the Glossary of David View This Term in the Glossary not only in the camps but throughout most of occupied Europe. FROM THE USHMM

How do these camps differ from relocation or transit camps in other national histories?

Jews in Nazi-occupied lands often were first deported to transit camps such as Westerbork in the Netherlands, or Drancy in France, en route to the killing centers in German-occupied Poland. The transit camps were usually the last stop before deportation to a killing center.

Gas Chamber

Large, sealed rooms (usually with shower nozzles) used for murdering prisoners of concentration camps; many people were led into gas chambers with the belief they were going in to take a shower. HMHouston

What was the first camp that opened?

Nazi officials established the first concentration camp, Dachau, on March 22, 1933, for political prisoners.

Joseph Mengele

SS physician assigned to Auschwitz; notorious for conducting so-called medical experiments on inmates, especially twins and dwarfs.

SS

Schutzstaffel; the German army's elite guard, organized to serve as Hitler's personal protectors and to administer the concentration camps. In charge of the concentration camps.

Satellite camps

Smaller sub camps that were setup and linked to the larger concentration camps.

Final solution

The Nazi plan to annihilate the European Jews. Plan to get rid of all of the Jews in Europe.

Genocide

The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

The largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers. USHMM

Did the outside world have any knowledge about these camps? If so, what actions were taken by other countries and their officials? What choices do other countries have in the face of mistreatment of civilians?

The outside world/countries did start to find out what Hitler and the Nazi regime was doing to the Jews. The Allies believed the best way to help the Jews was to win the war. They warned Nazi leaders that they would be held responsible for their crimes once Germany was defeated.

How many death/extermination camps were there?

Total camps - 44,000 Death/Extermination camps - 6

Death Marche

Was probably coined by concentration camp prisoners. It referred to forced marches of concentration camp prisoners over long distances under guard and in extremely harsh conditions. USHMM