Why were concentration camps used?

Answer 1

I believe you are referring to the concentration camps in which the Holocaust played a major role during, and before the second world war.

Concentration camps like Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and the infamous Auschwitz were camps which held people who were Jewish, Gypsy, Homosexual, Communist, Slavas well as other minority groups who were hated by Hitler and the Nazis during that time (1933-1945).

Mass exterminations occurred whereby millions of these people were killed by means of starvation, gassing, shooting, and even 'medical' experimentation.

About 6 million Jews alone died as a result of the Holocaust. In 1941-1945 some concentration camps (the extermination camps) were holding non-stop executions around the square clock to keep up with the number of people arriving.

The inmates were told to go to the shower block when they got there however when they went in there they were locked in and gassed; then there bodies were burnt.

AnswerThe first use of a "Concentration camp" was during the South African, or Boer War, 1899 to 1901. The British used the method of rounding up the women and children of the Boer fighters, and holding them in barbed wire camps. The idea was to force the Boers to give up, to get their families back. It didn't work.

The Boers were fighting a guerrilla war, and the British wanted to deprive them of food and shelter ... And yes, it did work.

The English did succeed in winning the war by this method. With their Australian and Canadian volunteers they were not able to win it by fighting the Boers but by demoralizing them through starving 26,000 Boer women and children, and up to 40,000 black farm workers and their families. It was so much more than just depriving them of food and shelter!

Unfortunately, the world is not very aware of these facts. This situation was so bad that Emily Hobbhouse had to make England and the rest of Europe aware of what the British were doing in South Africa in the name of Imperialism and gold greed. The concentration camps were only stopped after continued pressure from the rest of Europe.

The war and the tactics used was the most embarrassing and costly war Britain had ever fought, and ironically, one of the Boer generals, Gen. Louis Botha, became the first Prime minister of South Africa in 1910, only 7 years after the war.

It is estimated that more than 30% of all Boer women and children died in the concentration camps; and this incredible "Holocaust" in South Africa that had a huge impact on the Boers as a nation, not just in numbers, but internationally unrecognised emotional scars for decades there after! So if you want to know whether it worked; it was probably more effective than the Holocaust under the Nazis!

['30% of all Boer women and children'. The usual figure quoted is 27,000 Boers out of a total of 126,000 Boer prisoners in concentration camps perished. That is about 21%, which is shocking, but it's not 30%].

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Concentration camps were basically camps Adolf Hitler made to hold his prisoners. He would kill the women and children, and worked the men to death.

Nazi concentration camps (and others) were beyond the scope of the rule of law. For example, SS men could not be tried by ordinary courts for killings that they committed 'in the course of their duties'. They were subject only to SS rules and discipline.

Answer 2

Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Immediately, the SA stepped up their campaign of violence and terror against the communists. They did this in order to increase their power and to reduce opposition. Across Germany the local police and SA and SS rounded up many thousands of communists, socialists, church leaders and anyone else who might criticise the Nazis. As prisoners were physically concentrated in one place the Nazis called these first camps concentration camps. Over the next 12 years, as they invaded and occupied lands all over Europe, the Nazis would build over 20,000 camps of various kinds. These included concentration camps, transit camps, forced labour or work camps and death camps. This section will consider the different types of camps, the people that ran them and, more importantly, how these camps affected the millions of people who were prisoners within them.

Answer 3

Assuming you are asking about the ones in Germany during WWII. They were used for slave labor.

Answer 4

concentration camps were used to make peoples lives miserable

Answer 5

The Nazis created them so they could put to work the "enemies of the Reich," including:

-Homosexuals

-Jews

-Gypsies

-Disabled persons

Answer 6

The concentration camp was used as extermination camps,temporary way stations and transit camps.