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Concentration Camp Tour
2
A Dark Tour of
Concentration Camps
presented by Aidan Bailey
Dachau
Dachau
- established March 1933
- described as the first ever "concentration camp"
-roughly 10 miles from Munich
Prisoners in the Early Years
Topic
The original prisoner count totaled up to around 5,000, including German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, however, the captives expanded to Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and "asocials" (such people who wore a black triangle including Roma and Sinti people).
By the end of WWII, the number of prisoners in Dachau increased to 200,000
Camp Sections
The camp was divided into two sections—the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments.
Topic
Curiously, for the first concentration camp, there were no gas chambers. Workers who were deemed too sick or weak to work were "selected" to be sent to Hartheim gas chambers.
Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen
- created and opened on July 12, 1936
- created to be the main camp in the Berlin area
The son of Joseph Stalin, Yakov Dzhugashvili
Prominent Figures
Herschel Grynszpan, the man who shot the gun that started Kristallnacht
In the early stage of the camp's existence the SS and police incarcerated mainly political opponents in Sachsenhausen. By the end of 1936, the camp held 1,600 prisoners. Prominent figures interned in Sachsenhausen included Pastor Martin Niemöller, former Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, Georg Elser, Herschel Grynszpan, and Joseph Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili.
There was another marked increase in the number of Jewish prisoners when shortly after World War II began, German authorities arrested Jews holding Polish citizenship and stateless Jews, most of whom were living in the greater Berlin area, and incarcerated them in Sachsenhausen. Thereafter, the number of Jewish prisoners decreased again, as SS authorities deported them from Sachsenhausen to other concentration camps in occupied Poland, most often Auschwitz, in an effort to make the so-called German Reich "free of Jews".
Jewish Prisoners
Ravensbrück
-Ravensbrück is the main prominent camp created EXCLUSIVELY for women
-The first women to arrive did so in May 1939, there were 900 of them
Ravensbrück
April 1941
SS authorities establish a small men's camp adjacent to the Ravensbrück main camp.
Late March 1945
The SS transports about 5,600 female prisoners from Ravensbrück to the Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.
1948
Soviet military tribunals in the Soviet zone try Ravensbrück camp guards in several different trials; most are sentenced to prison.
Early March 1945
The SS begins "evacuating" Ravensbrück with the transport of 2,100 male prisoners to Sachsenhausen.
1965-1966
The last Ravensbrück trial takes place in East Germany
April 29-30, 1945
Soviet forces liberate the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Summer 1942
SS medical doctors begin subjecting prisoners at Ravensbrück to unethical medical experiments. Many of the women subjected to such experiments die as a result.
Buchenwald
- constructed in 1937, 5 miles from Weimar
-During the Nazi regime, Weimar became super associated with the Buchenwald camp
-On April 11, 1945, Buchenwald prisoners stormed the watchtowers. They seized control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald and found more than 21,000 people in the camp.
President Barack Obama visited Buchenwald on June 5, 2009. In a speech at the site, he rejected Holocaust denial. June 6, 2009, marked the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Obama’s great-uncle Charlie Payne, with the US Army in 1945, was one of the liberators of Ohrdruf, a satellite forced-labor camp close to Buchenwald.
Former President Obama's Visit
Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivior
Auschwitz
- Located in German-occupied Poland, Auschwitz consisted of three camps including a killing center. The camps were opened over the course of nearly two years, 1940-1942.
- More than 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including nearly one million Jews. Those who were not sent directly to gas chambers were sentenced to forced labor.
- The Auschwitz complex differed from the other Nazi killing centers because it included a concentration camp and a labor camp as well as large gas chambers and crematoria at Birkenau constructed for the mass murder of European Jews.
Auschwitz
Like most German concentration camps, Auschwitz I was constructed for three purposes:
-To incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite period of time
-To provide a supply of forced laborers for deployment in SS-owned construction-related enterprises (and, later, armaments and other war-related production)
-To serve as a site to kill small, targeted groups of the population whose death was determined by the SS and police authorities to be essential to the security of Nazi Germany.
Auschwitz I
Auschwitz I served as the "main camp"
Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau)
Auschwitz II
Construction of Auschwitz II, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, began at Brzezinka in October 1941.
Of the three camps established near Oswiecim, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp had the largest total prisoner population.
Jewish deportees arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately underwent selection. The SS staff chose some of the able-bodied for forced labor and sent the rest directly to the gas chambers, which were disguised as shower installations to mislead the victims.
Auschwitz III
Auschwitz III, also called Buna or Monowitz, was established in October 1942. It housed prisoners assigned to work at the Buna synthetic rubber works, located on the outskirts of the small village of Monowice.
Most prisoners died from overworking. Roughly 10,000 of the 12,000 lives here were lost.
Stutthof
-established in September 1939, 22 miles east of Danzig
-Originally, Stutthof was a civilian internment camp under the Danzig police chief. In November 1941, it became a "labor education" camp, administered by the German Security Police. Finally, in January 1942, Stutthof became a regular concentration camp.
Stutthof
The Final Death March of Stutthof
The Final Liberation
When the final evacuation began, there were nearly 50,000 prisoners. As a last resort, the Nazi guards machine gunned thousands of prisoners in the Baltic Sea and forced a march that killed even more thousands. It has been estimated that over 25,000 prisoners, one in two, died during the evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps. Soviet forces liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945, and liberated about 100 prisoners who had managed to hide during the final evacuation of the camp. It was the last camp liberated by the Allies.