What is a concentration camp?
Concentration camps (or Konzentrationslager, KL or KZ in German) were basically a means of carrying out the regime of Nazi Germany in World War 2 between 1933 and 1945.
A concentration camp can best be described as an enclosed area in which people are detained or confined against their will. Prisoner are usually kept in harsh conditions and without any regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. The term "concentration camp" or "internment camp" is used to refer to a variety of systems that greatly differ in their severity, mortality rate, and architecture; their defining characteristic is that inmates are held outside the rule of law. Extermination camps or death camps, whose primary purpose is killing, are also imprecisely referred to as "concentration camps".
Concentration camps were not part of the Holocaust
This is something most people are not aware of but the concentration camps cannot be equated with the Holocaust and were basically "just" a means of carrying out the Holocaust. This is because sometimes Jews were sent to concentration camps for work only. There are strong interactions and overlaps between the Holocaust and concentration camps because they coexcisted. Concentration camps are in most peoples’ minds equal to the Holocaust, which is fully understandable but not historically correct.
When did the first concentration camp become operational?
After the success for the NSDAP of the elections in July 1932, Hitler was not immediately appointed chancellor, despite being leader of the largest party in the Reichstag. But the economic and political instability in Germany and with the help of the conservative elite, Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint Hitler as the new chancellor of Germany. So on January 30 1933, when Hitler was sworn in, the Nazis were in power.
The first concentration camp Dachau, opened on 22 March 1933 and was initially intended to hold political opponents of Hitler which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents.The concentration camp system arose in the following months due to the desire to suppress tens of thousands of Nazi opponents in Germany. Over 1.000 concentration camps (including subcamps) were established during the history of Nazi Germany. Initially, most prisoners of the first concentration camps were members of the Communist Party of Germany. But as time went by different groups were also arrested and prosecuted including 'criminals', 'anti-socials' and Jews. Basically anyone who was labelled: 'Enemy of the Third Reich'.
Many of the former camps have been turned into museums commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime.
Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp
The Dachau concentration camp was the first large-scale SS concentration camp in Nazi Germany. It was east of the southern German city of Dachau, about 20 km northwest of Munich. It was in use from March 22, 1933 until its liberation by American troops on April 29, 1945.
Dachau was founded by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and chief of police of Munich, on the site of a former munitions factory. It was the only camp thatn was used during the Nazis 12 year rule. It developed as a prototype for new concentration camps and occupied several special positions.
The SS gains leadership of the concentration camps
The SS became independed from the SA in July 1934. Following the Night of Long Knives also called the Röhm purge or Operation Hummingbird (the 'elemination' of the high ranking officers of the SA by members of the SS), the concentration camps were put under command of the SS and run exclusively via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Hitler then authorized SS leader Heinrich Himmler to centralize the administration of the concentration camps and formalize them into a system. Himmler chose SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke for this task. Eicke had been the commandant of the SS concentration camp at Dachau since June 1933. Himmler appointed him Inspector of Concentration Camps, a new section of the SS subordinate to the SS Main Office.
How many concentration camps did Nazi Germany have?
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a 1.000 concentration camps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe all were run exclusively by the SS.
The Nazi Concentration camps
Between 1933 and 1945, during the period of Nazi rule and World War II, Nazi Germany established a vast camp system across Europe. This system included approximately 27 main concentration camps and extermination (death) camps, along with more than 1.000 satellite or subcamps attached to them. These figures do not include the much larger network of Nazi-run detention and forced-labor sites, such as ghettos, prisoner-of-war camps, labor and transit camps and Arbeitserziehungslager (forced labor “re-education” camps). When all categories of sites are taken into account, historians estimate that over 40.000 such locations operated across German-occupied Europe.
Who operated the camps?
The SS Totenkopfverbände was the organization responsible for operating these camps. It was an independent branch within the SS with its own ranks and command structure. The SS Totenkopfverbände operated all the camps throughout Germany and Nazi occupied Europe. After July 1934, the SS became responsible for the administration and day-to-day operation of the concentration camps, marking a key step in the institutionalization of the camp system.
A Star of David
The yellow star: a tool of exclusion
The star was intended to visibly identify Jews and complemented other identification measures, such as the “J” stamped on identity documents. It had to be clearly visible, securely sewn to clothing, and worn on the left side of the chest. This measure formed part of a broader system of discrimination and persecution that facilitated the isolation and eventual deportation of Jews in the Netherlands.
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based chemical pesticide developed in Germany in the early 20th century. The letter “B” did not stand for Blausäure (hydrogen cyanide); rather, it designated a specific product variant within the Zyklon line.
Zyklon B was originally intended for civilian and industrial use, particularly for fumigating buildings, ships, and clothing to kill insects and control the spread of diseases such as typhus. During the Nazi period, it was used in concentration camps for delousing clothing and barracks.
Beginning in 1941 - 1942, Zyklon B was deliberately repurposed by the SS as a mass-murder weapon, most infamously in gas chambers at extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, where it was used to kill over a million people.
The product was manufactured by Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung GmbH) and distributed by firms including Tesch & Stabenow, under licenses connected to IG Farben.
Chemically, Zyklon B consisted of small pellets or discs of an absorbent material, often diatomaceous earth, impregnated with hydrogen cyanide (HCN). When exposed to air, the hydrogen cyanide was released as a highly lethal gas.
Understanding the concentration camp system
To have a better understanding of the concentration camp system, one must know that nearly all of the main concentration camps (or Stammlagers) such as Auschwitz 1, Dachau, Buchenwald, Mittelbau Dora, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück, Neuengamme etc. had three types of work units (or Arbeitskommandos). The Arbeitskommandos can generally be divide into three categories:
Different commando's in concentration camps areas
In German: Lagerkommandos
Prisoners were forced to do hard labour within the boundaries of the main camp
In German: Aussenkommandos
Prisoners left the main camp where they were forced to do hard labour and returned to camp at the end of the day
In German: Aussenlager
Prisoners were accommodated outside the main camp where they were forced to do hard labour.
A camp jacket belonging to George Grojnowski. George was born in Radziejow, Poland, on the 23rd January 1927.
Copyright: Sidney Jewish Museum.
Nazi concentration and exterminationcamps
This is an ongoing project, more transit-, concentration- and deathcamps will be added in the near future.
During the Holocaust, the deportation of Jews, Roma, political prisoners and other targeted groups was a highly organized and systematic process. Victims were often forcibly removed from their homes and sent to transit points, assembly centers, or directly to concentration and extermination camps.
In Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and other occupied territories, the Nazis used trains as the primary means of transport. Specially designated freight cars, often sealed and overcrowded, were employed. People were crammed into these wagons with little to no ventilation, sanitation, food, or water, making journeys extremely harsh and frequently deadly even before arrival.
Transit camps such as Westerbork in the Netherlands, Drancy in France and Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia served as temporary holding sites. From these locations, victims were scheduled for deportation to extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka.
The Nazis maintained meticulous records and timetables, treating the deportations as an industrial process. Trains often ran on regular schedules and deportees were categorized by age, gender and perceived “fitness for labor.” Those deemed incapable of work were frequently sent directly to gas chambers upon arrival.
The brutality of the transportation process, , extreme temperatures, starvation and lack of sanitation, was a deliberate part of the system of oppression, designed to dehumanize victims even before they reached the camps. The rail network, combined with bureaucratic efficiency, made mass deportation one of the most chillingly systematic elements of the Holocaust.
Train sign form the transit camp Westerbork (NL) to Auschwitz.
Marking the concentration camp prisoners
Beginning in 1937, the SS created a system of marking prisoners in concentration camps. Sewn onto uniforms, the color-coded badges identified the reason for an individual’s incarceration, with some variation among camps. The Nazis used this chart (in the right bar) as prisoner markings in the Dachau concentration camp. Shape was chosen by analogy with the common triangular road hazard signs in Germany that denote warnings to motorists. Here, a triangle is called inverted because its base is up while one of its angles points down.
Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in German camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the German-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed there. The triangles were made of fabric and were sewn on jackets and trousers of the prisoners.
Variations on the badges used by the Nazis
These mandatory badges had specific meanings indicated by their colour and shape. The emblems helped SS guards assign tasks to the prisoners. For example, if someone wore a convicted criminal (green patch) and therefor have a more violent nature, they would be more suitable for kapo duty.
Double-triangle badges also excisted. They resembled two superimposed triangles forming a Star of David, a Jewish symbol. The color yellow was always one of the colors. In addition to color coding, non German prisoners were marked by the first letter of their home country or ethnic group (in German).
| Letter | German | English |
|---|---|---|
B | Belgians | |
E | British | |
F | French | |
H | Dutch | |
I | Italians | |
J | Yugoslavs | |
N | Norwegian | |
P | Poles | |
S | Spanish | |
T | Czech | |
U | Hungarians | |
Z | Gypsy |
And for enemy Prisoner Of War or German deserters the red triangle was worn upside down.
Red triangle was for "political" prisoners.
From my personal collection
The system of badges varied between the camps and in the later stages of World War II the use of badges dwindled in some camps and became increasingly accidental in others. The following description is based on the badge coding system used before and during the early stages of the war in the Dachau concentration camp, which had one of the more elaborate coding systems.
This is a badge of a Czech political prisoner that was place on the prisoner's clothes.
a letter from Ravensbrück
