Concentration Camps Collection

While the term “concentration camp” is sometimes used refer to any type of camp created and run by the Nazi party in Germany between 1933 and 1945, the term refers specifically to camps where prisoners were held in harsh living conditions without regard to juridical process and usually forced to work. In addition to concentration camps in the limited sense, the Nazis also established transit camps and extermination camps. Some concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, also functioned as extermination camps.

After the Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, they began detaining political prisoners and dissidents as a means of ensuring and consolidating their power. In 1934, Adolf Hitler named Heinrich Himmler the head of the SS and transferred control of these prisoners to him, circumventing any due process of law for those arrested by the SS and brought to the camps.

As Germany prepared for war in the late 1930s, the number of concentration camps rose as well as the number of prisoners. Directly following Kristallnacht, thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps, and the number of Jewish prisoners increased dramatically thereafter. In addition to Jews and political opponents such as communists, other concentration camp prisoners included Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, religious conscientious objectors, criminals, and so-called “asocials” such as beggars or any other person deemed undesirable by the Nazi party. During this time, prisoners were exploited for labor that supported Nazi Germany’s war efforts such as construction and mining. In the later years of World War II, prisoners were also forced to build underground armament facilities, such as those at Dora-Mittelbau.

The extremely harsh living conditions at concentration camps led many prisoners to die of starvation or overwork. Many were also shot or hung. In 1941, the first camps dedicated to mass killing were established. The Wannsee Conference was held in 1942, a meeting at which Nazi officials agreed upon plans to systematically exterminate of the Jews of Europe. Prisoners were transported from concentration camps to these extermination camps in large numbers from 1942-1945.

The concentration camps run by the Nazis were liberated by the Allied or Soviet forces either before or shortly after the Nazis officially surrendered in early May 1945.

References

Pingel, Falk. “Concentration camps.” Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Israel Gutman, ed. New York: MacMillan, 1990.