What happened in the Nazi concentration camps?

Answer 1

Actually, the term concentration camp can be quite misleading and most people think that that's where the mass murdering was carried out. In fact it was forced labor, be it the testing of boots (by marching on the spot for hours) or quarrying or working in the armaments industry. The labor was long and hard. Some camps had been active from before the war.

It's the extermination camps like Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Treblinka which are notorious for mass murder, but Auschwitz also had a labor side to it.

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There were different kinds of camps ... There were 'ordinary' concentration camps and these varied somewhat in harshness. However, they were all intended as punishment and forced labour camps.

At some camps, especially in the early days (up to the outbreak of World War 2), there were humiliating initiation ceremonies, followed by whippings.

Hard labour on inadequate food was standard. Punishments for breaches of the camp rules carried severe penalties.

One of the most degrading and tedious features of camp life was roll-call (at least twice a day). It often took 90 minutes to 2 hours or longer. The prisoners had to stand to attention throughout ... If a prisoner collapsed from the heat in summer or the cold in winter, nobody was allowed to give any help.

At the extermination camps the majority of new arrivals were gassed as soon as possible after arrival. Some prisoners were 'selected' for hard labour and worked to death.

Try reading Night by Elie Wiesel and/or Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell. Both authors survived concentration camps. (Kogon, who had sharply criticized the Nazi regime, survived six years in Buchenwald. The book first appeared in German in 1947. Parts of the original manuscript were presented as evidence by the prosecution at Nuremberg).

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In the early days there were 'initiation ceremonies'. New arrivals had to kneel for 3-4 hours with their hands on their heads; guards urinated on some of them; then the new arrivals were taken away and whipped (15 or 25 lashes) ...

The prisoners had to do heavy manual labour. Punishments were savage.

In many camps, those who disobeyed were tortured or whipped. At some camps the guards tied the wrists of 'awkward' prisoners behind the back and hoisted them off the ground.

From about 1941 onwards, the Nazis adopted a policy of working prisoners to death - at least in the harsher camps. (There were three 'grades' of camps, varying in harshness, plus extermination camps).

Answer 2

Ordinary' concentration camps

The ordinary concentration camps, like Dachau and Buchenwald, were savage punishment camps primarily for opponents of the Nazi regime, and for later for members of foreign resistance movements. The prisoners were ill treated. There were frequent, prolonged roll-calls. The prisoners were severely beaten (sometimes tortured) for breaches of camp rules and had to do heavy manual labour on insuffucient food. The main prupose of these camps was to terrorize opponents. Some prisoners at Dachau were used for medical experiments. The death rates were high.

Death camps

At the harshest concentration camps - those classified by the Nazis as Grade 3, like Mauthausen - the prisoners were systematically worked to death.

Extermination camps

The extermination camps (Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and the Birkenau section of Auschwitz and a part of Majdanek) were designed solely to exterminate. New arrivals were gassed soon after reaching these camps. Some prisoners at Auschwitz were used for medical experiments. 85-90% of the prisoners killed at these camps were Jews.

Multi-purpose camps

The most important of these were Auschwitz (from 1942 onwards) and Majdanek. On arrival, some prisoners were 'selected' for work on insufficient food and were worked to death, but most were gassed. Some were used for medical experiments.

Note

In addition, there were transit camps.

Answer 3

It was basically a slave camp. millions of Jews died reguardless of the age or sex. they mainly kept the healthy men for work.

it was basically a hell hole for Jew's man and woman for guys if you were healthy you lived as a worker if not a healthy man you died in a gas chamber of if you were a woman you died anyway

people had to sleep in beds with pee and bugs on their beds they was beaten to death and girls were sometimes rapped that is all i know.........

Answer 4

well they tortured them real bad they were like prisoners if you were sent there. it was guranteed that you would die. you would die by them killing you,disease or starvation.
1.2 millon jews were killed

children was killed with their mothers

twin childrens were experimented on

their was a serious amount of labour working

Answer 5

jews were forced to work for the Germans. They were treated very badly. They were starved, gassed, and were shot if they were not working hard enough. They were even made to bury other jewish bodies in the ground.

Answer 6

That changed a little over time. In the early days prisoners were often subjected to an 'initiation ceremony' on arrival. For example, at Buchenwald new arrivals were made to kneel for two hours with their hands on their heads without moving and while they were kneeling the guards urinated on them. If they moved they were viciously kicked. Then, after two hours they were taken to a whipping post and given 15 lashes .

When large numbers of new prisoners arrived, this kind of thing wasn't practical, and was only done to a handful of people chosen more or less at random, for example, to people wearing glasses.

After this, they were taken to their miserable huts, where they had to sleep in bunks with no mattresses , up to four men in a bunk. Next day they had to work - usually 10 to 11 hours a day, six days a week under the supervision of SS guards or kapos. If the guards thought they weren't working hard enough, they often punched them hard in the face several times, knocking out a few teeth. (For more serious 'offences', there were revolting punishments).

Prisoners in concentration camps were denied proper food, shelter and clothing. They had no rights. Many were tortured, experimented upon and murdered in various ways. They lived in dehumanizing fear and cruelty.

There is an excellent book on the concentration camps by Eugen Kogon, who was a political prisoner at Buchenwald from 1939-1945. The title (of the English translation) is The Theory and Practice of Hell. Highly recommended!*

At extermination camps ('death' camps) most or all new arrivals were killed as soon as practical. These camps were different from ordinary concentration camps.

Please see the related question.

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* A customer review on the relevant page of Amazon.com says:

' This is the ultimate Holocaust book. Kogon, a prisoner at Buchenwald, went out of his way to be absolutely objective and factual in describing the atrocities committed there. [...] There's no romanticism here -- just pure, unadultered evil'.

Answer 7

Jews were held captive by Adolph Hitler. He let them starve, killed them and even put them in the Gas Chamber. ( A room they thought was the shower, filled with poison gas )

Answer 8

People lived, people suffered, people died. It was a world within a world.

Answer 9

Death including:

-starvation

-beaten

-gas chambers

-shot

-burned

-thirst

-froze

-diseases (typhus, fever, etc...)

-over worked