How many were at the concentration camp?

Answer 1

It depended on the camp, some were not as big as others.

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There were huge variations in size. Some temporary satellite camps had numbers in the hundreds, while the largest camps sometimes had up to 100,000 inmates. There were also significant changes in size over time. For example, Dachau in 1944 had more prisoners than Dachau in 1934.

Answer 2

There were many camps of different sizes in different countries.

Some were used just for transit, others for prisoners of war or civilians to be detained. In such slave labour wasn't unusual.

The National Socialists wanted to deport the Jews and other people not "belonging" to the pure German society, and sought for an exile for the hundreds of thousands of remaining Jews.

When camps started to be overcrowded with the concentrated detainees and killing "on-site" where Jews were found created too much emotional tension and other problems to soldiers involved, the Nazis started the construction of "extermination camps" in 1941 to prepare for the "final solution of the Jew problem". These were a combination, or pure death camps even without barracks (e.g. Treblinka).

In the largest main camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the daily train loads of people were classified, "good work force" to be sent to other camps with industrial needs, or to stay at Auschwitz until worn out, and the rest, i.e. youth below about 13, elderly and ill, and mothers with babies were normally sent to immediate "Sonderbehandlung", i.e. killing with pesticide.

There could be over 100000 inmate at one time in Auschwitz II. The smaller camps I and III weren't used for those primarily meant to be exterminated, but to use as slaves. At Auschwitz it is proved that 1,1-1,5 million people perished.

Germany only had at least 1200 registered camps/subcamps (some figures mention 15000). Altogether 6 million Jews and about the same amount of civilians of other ethnic groups were killed by the Nazis, mostly in the camps, but many also locally in the different conquered countries with the help of local collaborators, as racism was wide-spread in Europe (as well as in USA) since much before the war.

Both the Axis and Allies used concentration camps during WWII. There were hundreds even in UK, Canada and USA, where POWs and e.g. Japanese born Americans were interned, and certain groups had to do slave labour. However the survival rates were better in the camp in the West, than in Japanese, Russian and German camps, but Western soldiers had a very good chance to survive, compared to the Eastern Europeans. Even when Italy changed sides in the war, it is reported that those Italian POWs had to stay in North America because of war factory needs. The Italians and Japanese refused to collaborate in the Nazis' ethnically based extermination, their smaller scale killings were basically for political or military reasons, and they could actually help Jews. The Russians, however, had executed pogroms and systematic killing of Jews since more than 50 years earlier.

Answer 3

It all depended on the camp. For those as small as Dachau, only a hundred or so. For camps like Auschwitz, there were thousands.

Answer 4

Out of the 7000 SS/Nazi Members, 5000 were actually Guards at all 3 Auschwitz Camps and Subcamps.