Nazi Concentration Camps

There werent American CIVILIANS killed in Nazi Concentration camps. Civillians implies that they were not serving. There were American men in the army who were killed in Nazi Concentration camps, but no civilians.

Concentration camps that were not extermination camps had the prisoners working for slave labor. Extermination camps spent 24 hours a day killing the prisoners. Some camps did medical experiments against the "undesirable people". The prisoners spent their time trying to survive starvation, deadly sickness, hyperthermia, heat stroke and dehydration.

Finland fought against the Soviet Union and was an ally of Germany, but it didn't send people to concentration camps.

Finnish authorities did, although, at the time, without the consent of political leadership, send eight middle European Jewish refugees (non-citizens), to the German authorities (Gestapo) in Estonia, seven of which perished in Auschwitz and there was sizable exchange of POW's (Russian to Germans, Estonian and Ingrian to Finns) between Finnish and German authorities between 1941 and 1943/4.

After the war Finland was forced to hand over a large number of former Soviet citizens who fought on Finnish side (Estonians) or were refugees to Finland (Ingrians) to the Soviet authorities, which meant them being treated in the Soviet Union as traitors and subsequently meant that many of them were executed or sent to Soviet (concentration/prison) camps in Siberia.

The first concentration camp, Dachau, opened on March 22, 1933. The camp's first inmates were primarily political prisoners (e.g. Communists or Social Democrats); habitual criminals; homosexuals; Jehovah's Witnesses; and "anti-socials" (beggars, vagrants, hawkers). Others considered problematic by the Nazis (e.g. Jewish writers and journalists, lawyers, unpopular industrialists, and political officials) were also included.

Auschwitz, of course!

Approximately 1.15 million people died there, about 85% of them Jews.

The Auschwitz Concentration Camp was the largest but...

The three most vicious of these camps were (in order): Treblinka (Poland), Belzec (Poland) & Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland). These rankings are determined by the approximate average number of murders per day of camp operation. This is freaking scary:

Treblinka = 1682.5 people killed each day (roughly 17 months of operation)

Belzec = 1315 people killed each day (15 months of operation)

Auschwitz-Birkenau = 850 people killed each day (58 months of operation).

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Auschwitz was in operation from May 1940 till January 1945, but only became an extermination camp in March 1942.

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Systematic gassing started in Auschwitz in December 1941 and ended in November 1944, they started with the small Krematoria I, expanded with bunkers I and II in Birkenau in early 1942 when Krematoria stopped, Krematorias II, III, IV and V opened over the spring on 1943 when the bunkers were shut down, bunker II was re-opened in the summer of 1944 at the peak of Auschwitz's operation.

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All the Nazi extermination and concentration camps were appalling. Maly Trostinets near Minsk in Belarus had no known survivors and an estimated 50,000 killed. Belzec (not to be confused with Bergen-Belsen) killed 434,508 Jews - this was the Nazis' own figure - and had only two known survivors. At Majdanek the SS guards sometimes went on killing sprees and clubbed prisoners to death, just to amuse themselves ...

It has been know that the oldest male virgin is only the age of 18. Studies are not always correct though.

About 4-4.5 million Jews were sent to different concentration camps in World War 2. Most were gassed or shot soon after arrival. A further 1.5 million Jews were killed in other ways in the Holocaust.

Bergen-Belsen was liberated April 15, 1945 by the British Army.

There were extermination camps. These were where the Jews were sent to be gassed in gas chambers. The young children, elderly, and most women were sent straight to the extermination camps. Young, fit men worked at the camps doing things like cremating the gassed Jews in massive furnaces etc. When the men were too old or had no energy left in them they were too sent to the extermination camps.

In many places Jews were first sent into a small section of their towns, the Jewish areas were blocked off, allowing very little food in or anything else. After being starved and herded like cattle, they were promised that if they moved they would be able to go to a place where they would receive proper attention. They were then herded into trains where there was no food or water and many were starved.

There are two Auschwitz Camps: Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz Birkenau

Auschwitz 1

Yes their were toilets, barracks style ones- they weren't particulalry good, but they weren't completley dreadful

Auschwitz Birkenau

Yes- there was a huge shed with a bench down the middle with holes in it. Appalling conditions, the toilets were completley open, so disease spread pretty quick

4 AM: Wake up!

You are awakened by the Kapo barking at you. Hurry up! You must raise, find your shoes (but maybe somebody stole them which often means death because you'll not be able to work) and start as soon as possible the "bettenbau". From the shapeless straw mattress you'll have to make a perfect bed in a military manner, with blankets made up exactly over the straw mattress. Of course, this is nearly impossible to do and the Kapo knows it. The "bettenbau" is just a good opportunity for him to beat the prisoners.

The bed is made now, and it is time for washing. You run out of the barrack and try to reach the sanitary facility. There are only a couple of sanitary facilities for hundreds of prisoners. You have just a couple of minutes for washing. It is nearly time for the morning roll call, and you know the kapos will beat the stragglers, sometimes to death.

The "Breakfast":

You must have your mess-tin in hand. No mess-tin, no food. A Kapo gives you approximately 10 ounces of bread and some "coffee" [see note, end of page]. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you'll receive some margarine or a thin slice of sausage with your bread. The "coffee" is tasteless. No sugar and no milk, of course. The bread you just received will be the only solid food you'll receive until tomorrow. If you have strength of will, you'll try to spare it for the rest of the day. The distribution of food is once again a good opportunity for the Kapo's to have some "fun". Sometimes they throw the bread in the mud, or they push you while serving the coffee, wasting it on the ground. In any case, you'll receive nothing more, and you are risking punishment for wasting food.

Morning Roll Call:

Roll call in Buchenwald. The prisoners are Jews coming from Holland ... (see the "N" for Netherland on the Star of David)

All the prisoners are lined up in rows of ten. All the prisoners must be at the roll call, including the ones who died during the night. There, poor bodies are aligned in front of you or in front of your barrack. Under control of the SS guards and officers, the Kapo's are counting the thousands of prisoners. A mistake during the counting and everything must start again, making the Kapo's nervous and dangerous. During the roll call, you must stand at attention, even if it is raining or snowing. It is forbidden to move or to talk during the roll call. Your poor striped uniform, made from an incredibly rough cloth, does not protect you against the cold weather. Every day, several prisoners catch cold during the roll call and die in the following days. Some others die during the roll call itself. They were too weak to stand at attention during hours. Their bodies, as well as the deaths of the night, will be sent to the crematories after the roll call.

Move Off of the commandos:

You run to join your work team. You'll leave the camp under the heavy guard of SS and Kapo's, always barking at you. You'll reach the yard by walk of course. Maybe you'll have to march off to the beat of the music played by the camp orchestra. Or maybe the SS will order to your work team to sing during the march. Just at the gate of the camp, there is a row of SS waiting for your work team. Beatings, insults, barking again and again...

The Work:

If you are lucky, you have received a good tool, a shovel or a pickax. Otherwise, you'll have to work with your hands... and this may mean death because you'll not be able to work as fast as the guards request. The day will be long: 12-14 hours of work. The work is very hard, and often useless: to move heavy sand bags from one point to another, to extract and carry heavy stones, to dig trenches or to bore a tunnel. Maybe you are working in a factory but this does not improve your condition of life. This is extermination by work. Everything has to be done as fast as possible, and always with insults and beatings from the kapo's and the SS. If a guard thinks you are not working fast enough, you'll be beat up, maybe until you die. Don't even think about stopping for a while or even slowing down. It will be considered as sabotage and this means death.

The Lunch Break:

A signaling whistle again: the "lunch break" is now over. The work starts again, always at top speed. The afternoon seems harder because you are hungry and you feel you are loosing strength. A prisoner faints and the guards beat him up. If this poor man can't rise, he'll be killed and you'll have to bring his dead-weight body back to the camp for the evening roll call.

The Afternoon:

Return to the Camp:

A last signaling whistle: your work team walks back to the camp, and the survivors are carrying bodies of the prisoners who died today. Maybe the guards will order the team to sing. Once arrived in the camp, the SS are controlling your team. It's a new opportunity for them to beat, to kill.

Evening Roll Call:

All the prisoners are lined up by rows of ten. The Kapo's are counting the prisoners and the dead. If a prisoner tried to escape, all the prisoners will stand at attention at their roll-call place until he is retrieved. The evening roll call takes hours, sometimes even 10 hours, before it is over. The evening roll call is also the moment chosen by the SS for punishments and hangings. Sometimes, after a hanging, all the prisoners have to march in front of the gallows to look at the hanged prisoner, as a warning.

Two punished inmates. The punishment was simple: the inmates had to stay at attention for hours, until they faint.

They were then immediately executed by an SS.

The Dinner:

The evening roll call is over. You run in order to receive your "dinner": a kind of "soup", just like the one you received at noon. If you spared some bread, you may eat it now, with the soup. Once again, the distribution of food is an opportunity for the Kapo's to beat the prisoners.

The Evening:

You return to your barrack. In no way you are allowed to leave the barrack during the night. The "blockfuerher" is waiting for you and your comrades. The blockfuerhers wear green triangles, which means "real criminals". They have the right to decide who'll live and who'll die. Maybe he will let you rest until tomorrow morning. But, maybe he'll decide to have some "fun"--to order exercises like crawling, jumping, running until you faint. Eventually, you are allowed to lie down on your straw-mattress. You are five in a bunk bed, with just one blanket. The barrack is not heated. If a prisoner wants to turn over in bed, all the others have to follow. You are exhausted. Today, you managed to survive.

I believe it was auschwitz. It was one of the worst. All the other camps were almost as hard though. They all had cremetories and they hung people almost if not everyday. They shot people and some died from starvation. The camps were all very ugly.

Well their was never an exact same number of people dying at Auschwitz daily.

There were days when no one was killed, Auschwitz was in existance for over a year before mass killings started, and there were days where 30 000 died.

Dachau was the first permanent concentration camp. There was another one that was the first place they put prisoners but it WA not an official concentration camp, more like a collecting place until Dachau was built.

They could have gotten disentary, Typhus, and alot more, but Disentary is the worst. That's like knocking on Death's Door, so to speak. Typhus affects you by the air. That would be the worst, I could immagine.

By profession, Frankl was a psychiatrist. Among other things, he gave what one would now call counselling to some newly arrived prisoners who were having particular difficulty coping with the psychological effects of having to adjust to a new, demeaning and painful way of life.

Jewish families were often separated during the Holocaust because family members of different ages and genders were utilized by the Nazis for different tasks. For instance, males from their early teens to late forties were used for manual labor, while women were often made to sew in workhouses. In addition to this, it made it easier to seize their financial assets.

When first established in 1933 it was quite small and was established on the grounds of an ammunition factory. A few barracks were added to house both the prisoners and the guards and staff. It eventually grew to include 30 subcamps scattered across southern Germany. These subcamps were labor camps and were administered by the Dachau staff. At the time of liberation there were 67,665 prisoners listed as part of the camp system. Only 32,000 were actually liberated. During the 1933 to 1945 period, 188,000 had passed through it.

Obviously it depended on the severity of the disability. The determining factor was whether they could still contribute to society, the idea was to not have them be a drain on resources, so there was little hope for someone who required a carer, but (for example) they did not go executing all of the people who had lost limbs.

You mean in remote, out of the way places? My opinion would be that concentration camps were built in remote areas to discourage escape and to keep the brutality and inhumanity as far away from the public eye as possible.

In the military barracks one concrete blockes which could held 3 people in each block and had a row of 53 blockes in each barrack

their was 14 sleeping camps so a normal size barrack can have a capacity of 2,000 people

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In the main camp, they would sleep in converted barracks. In Birkenau the women's camp was made up of brick buildings and the rest of the camp of wooden buildings, in which they would sleep on wooden bunks.

About 152,000 people were killed at the Chelmno extermination camp, however it is estimated that the total death toll, taking into account starvation, disease, etc, is 300,000. The Chelmno camp was also used for early experimentation and for trialling mass murder methods

In 1939 Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe (about 3.3 million Jews). It also had a good rail network, so it made sense from the Nazis' point of view to have the main killing centres close to the majority of their victims. In addition, Jews from other parts of Europe were transported to Poland by the Nazis for extermination. Moreover most Germans had very little idea what was going on in Poland.