Concentration Camps
Taylor Bayton
Background Knowledge
The holocaust was a systematic persecution and murder of over 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime. The Nazi's also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority". The Jewish people were the danger of Nazi Germany, and were the primary victims of Nazi racism. Two out of every three Jews were murdered throughout Europe in the Holocaust. Other groups of people were the targets of the Nazi's, killing over 11 million people throughout the Holocaust.
Camp System
Heinrich Himmler, established the concentration camps that held prisoners under Schutzhaft, or protective custody, that confined political, ideological, or racial opponents of the regime. The camps varied from labor camps, prisoner of war camps, transit camps, and camps which served as killing centers known as extermination camps or death camps. Named for the insignia on their uniforms, the SS-Totenkopfvernbande, or Death's-Head units, commanded, administered, and guarded the concentration camps.
Prisoners
A small portion of the millions of people imprisoned in the camps.
Dachau Gate
The gate reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" translated to be "Work sets you free".
Auschwitz
The sign reads "Halt! Stoj!" or translated into "Stop!".
Prisoners and the Impact
The Jewish community were the main target on Nazi genocide, and the victims of the killing centers were Jewish as well. Prisoners were required to wear color coded triangles for the SS members to easily identify their race. Letters indicated their nationality. The Jewish and the Gypsy's were the main targets for systematic murder. The Jewish prisoners were usually killed within 24 hours upon their arrivals to the camps. During 1941-42 some camps were equipped with gas chambers used for mass extermination. The "Final Solution" altered the makeup of the concentration camps, where SS officers ordered for the mass extermination of the Jewish community. Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz II, or known as Auschwitz-Berkenau, were the killing centers established by the Nazi's that used gas chambers filled with carbon monoxide. Numbers estimated that up to 6,000 Jewish people could be killed a day.
Interesting Information
From 1933-45, Nazi Germany established about 20,000 camps to imprison it's millions of victims. These camps were used for a wide range of purposes. After Germany's annexation from Austria in 1938, the Nazi arrested a mass number of Austrian and German Jews and imprisoned them in Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, all located in Germany. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazi's opened forced-labor camps where thousands of prisoners died. Following June of 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, which in turn increased the number of POW, or prisoner of war camps, The "Final Solution" helped establish the killing centers that were used for mass murder of the Jewish population. Up to 6,000 Jews a day were killed at the extermination camps.
Quote by Anne Frank
"I dont think of all the misery but the beauty that still remains." This quote relates to the holocaust because Anne is stating even though all the horrific things that are going on, you can still see the beauty of the world. In the concentration camps, you could see all the terrible things going on, but also their were people risking their lives trying to save prisoners and that was the beauty of it.