Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany - Essay Example

Concentration Camps Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany: A Look at the Variations between the Camps Damaris DeJesus Axia College of University of Phoenix Concentration Camps 2 Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany: A Look at the Variations between the Camps In Germany between 1933 and 1945, the use of concentration camps was implemented to contain and exterminate people who fit into many different categories. These camps were divided into a number of different categories, although not all were designed for extermination. Generally, the camps were divided into the following categories: labor camps, collection camps, POW (prisoner of war) camps, killing centers and death camps. As well, camps were used as special use camps such as brothels, armament building camps, hostage camps, and camps designed for reeducation (Bergen). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum report on concentration camps reveals that “Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established about 20,000 camps to imprison its many millions of victims” (Nazi). The concentration camps of Nazi Germany were designed in various forms and did not all engage in the same type of activities. The first camp that was created in Nazi Germany was opened two months after Adolf Hitler took power in January 1933. The camp, called Dachau, was considered a triumph for the German people because the people were in need of order in their country (Bergen). This camp was considered a solution to the chaos that had previously existed. In bringing order to Germany, Hitler imprisoned political prisoners, who were communists, social democrats, or anyone who was against Hitler’s authority. Some of the prisoners were brutal convicts from traditional prisons who were given the power over other prisoners in order to make the job of the camp guards an easier task (Bergan). As the first prison, Dachau would be the experiment off of which the rest of the camps would then be tailored to fit the needs that the camp would be built to fulfill. According to Harold Marcuse, in his book, Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp-2001 , “During the first weeks of the camp’s operation, the prisoners were not humiliated or mistreated, their heads were not shaved, they were not identified by numbers, and they were not forced to work” (22). However, the treatment would change in the months that followed. Marcuse states that by May of 1933, special rules had been put into place, and that “violence and terror were institutionalized as part of life in the camps” (22). By the end of May, records show that 12 prisoners had been killed or tortured to death (Marcuse 22). Dachau was becoming a template for the horrors that would follow in the various camps that would be built . After 1940, the classifications of the concentration camps were defined by three distinct categories (Hackett 28-29). Category I camps were the work camps, which were considered to have the better conditions. Dachau was considered a Category I camp and the conditions while not the worst, could not be consider good under any sort of description. Category II camps were considered harsher camps, but still labor camps. Buchenwald was first labeled as a category II camp but was ‘upgraded’ to a Category I. However, Buchenwald was considered a labor camp and still logged over 55,000 deaths from the poor conditions, execution, and torture of various forms (Bergan). Therefore, ‘better conditions’ can be a misleading way of classifying the camps. Category III camps were the death camps. According to David Hackett, in his book The Buchenwald Report, he discusses the categories of the camps and the intentions of the government with these camps. He says, “The intention, though never fully achieved, was to place in camps of category II all criminals, homosexuals, Jews, and political prisoners who seemed especially dangerous of whatever nationality” (29). This aim was not successfully met. The local authorities would adjust their response to this objective as the need would arise. Hackett reports that, “This was prevented, however, by verdicts of the local Gestapo authorities on various individual prisoners and was also thwarted by camp administrations” (29). However, these attempts at controlling the Category III camps did little to diminish the impact of the death toll. One camp that was built for specifically for women was called Ravensbruck (Nazi). In this place, women were experimented upon by Dr. Karl Gebhart, who did numerous operations on the inmates and would sometimes infect them with disease to see what would be the effect. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, in her memoir of her time spent in this camp, discusses the conditions in which she was imprisoned. “I start thinking about our seventy-five little “rabbits” . . . legs horribly mutilated, they hop and jump about with the help of makeshift crutches. These young Polish girls (the youngest, Bacha, is fourteen) have been operated on, some as many as half a dozen times”(Gaulle-Anthionioz 3). She also goes on to describe her ordeal as she is taken from the regular barracks and put into solitary confinement, for no readily apparent offense, but for the use of her captors (Gaulle-Anthionioz 2). Buchenwald was a prison that was mostly used for forced labor in the local armament factories. The types of people who were imprisoned in this camp were various and included Jewish people, Polish people, Roma, which are considered the Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, prisoners of war (POW”S), homosexuals, and criminals (Nazis). There were a wide variety of cultural and ethnic foundations from which the inmates could call home. They were from many different regions including, Belgium, Norway, Russia, France, Poland, Romania, Italy, and Spain, to name just a few (Nazis). While the camp was not in the category of a death camp, it is estimated that over 55,000 people died from poor treatment and execution as well as medical experimentation (Hackett 65). Buchenwald was the first concentration camp liberated from the Nazi control and there are many reports and memoirs available about the events in this place (Nazis). According to Bergan mass killings did not, as might be first thought, begin with those of Jewish heritage. People who were considered ‘handicapped’ were targeted for mass murder initially under what they called the Euthanasia Program which began in 1939 (Bergan 1999). This program first targeted children and then proceeded to include adults. Hospitals and asylums were equipped with ‘killing centers’ where injection and poison gas, among other methods, were used to take these lives. Two of these ’killing centers’ were called Hadamar and Hartheim (Bergan 1999). The afflictions that could qualify one of being sent to one of these killing centers could be considered a mild socially undesirable disease. According to Dick de Mildt, in his book, In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of Their Post-War Prosecution in West Germany : the Euthanasia and Aktion Reinhard Trial Cases, says that “Hartheim director, Dr. George Renno browsed once again through the patient files only to discover that about 160 of them consisted of alcoholics who did not ‘qualify’ for gassing as ‘these patients were all capable of work and by no means incurable”(Mildt, 59) After numerous deaths and the habits of mass killings of Soviet POW’s and Jews left to rot in mass graves, the Nazi’s decided that it would be more efficient to bring the victims to the killers, rather than sending ‘special murder squads’ to kill off their enemies. In late 1941 Nazi authorities began to build death camps. These were put into operation in early 1942. Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were dedicated solely to the purpose of death. Most of these victims were Jewish, although, according to Bergan (1999), Gypsies were also victims in these camps. Eventually, Majdanek and Auschwitz were fitted for gas chambers and became multi-purposed for both internment and killing. When one thinks of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, the gas chambers of the death camps are most often the historical memory that is brought to mind. However, the camps were far more varied and diverse, committing numerous crimes and human rights violations. The many group classifications that were considered for internment went far beyond just those of Jewish descent and there were a large number of ethnicities and social groups that were intended to be exterminated. This evolution of the concentration camp system was an expanding force that took the lives of millions, leaving holes in the histories of many families, and gaps in the historical record as to the fate of many of the victims of the concentration camps. In this example of the abuse of authority, history has a record of what can happen when others do not take notice of the pain being caused to others. The use of these camps was not something that happened within a short period - it took years to develop. The lesson that must be learned from this is that no inhumane act, however small, can be tolerated because allowing a small act to exist will open the door to larger and more horrible actions to be sanctioned. List of References Bergen, Doris PhD. “Germany and The Camp System“. 1999. PBS: Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. 1 February 2009 Gaulle-Anthonioz, G. d. The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück. New York: Arcade Pub, 1999. Hackett, D. A. The Buchenwald Report. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995. Marcuse, Harold. Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933- 2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Mildt, Dick de. In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of Their Post-War Prosecution in West Germany : the Euthanasia and Aktion Reinhard Trial Cases. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1996. Nazi Camps. 07 October 2008. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 1 February 2009, Read More