Concentration CampsInfo for Slides

Essential Questions?

•What is a “state of emergency?”• How are emergency powers used and abused?•What is administrative detention?•What is internment?•What is a concentration camp?

Essential Questions?

• How are governments using emergency powers right now, and how are contemporary uses different from Nazi usage?• How is propaganda used to justify government seizure of emergency powers?

KZ Dachau unt KZ Buchenwald

•What is important to know about:–KZ Dachau?–KZ Buchenwald?

•Why did the KZ system emerge and who were the leading personalities involved?

How will you use this information?

• Create a visitor brochure for KZ Dachau, KZ Buchenwald or KZ of your choice.

• Refer to the copies of visitor brochures provided.

• Design a brochure for an English speaking visitor.

• Provide essential information you believe the visitor should know about touring the historical site.

Emergency Powers

• Administrative detention• Extrajudicial detention• Internment (preventative confinement)• State of Emergency

Administrative detention

• is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial, usually for security reasons. Many countries, both democratic and undemocratic, resort to administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism, control illegal immigration, or to protect the ruling regime.

Internment• is the imprisonment or confinement of people,

commonly in large groups, without trial.• "The action of 'interning'; confinement within

the limits of a country or place" - Oxford English Dictionary.

• Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction between internment, which is being confined usually for preventive or political reasons, and imprisonment, which is being closely confined as a punishment for crime.

Internment camps• is a large detention center created for political

opponents, enemy aliens, people with mental illness, members of specific ethnic or religious groups, civilian inhabitants of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, usually during a war. The term is used for facilities where the inmates were selected by some generalized criteria, rather than detained as individuals after due process of law fairly applied by a judiciary.

State of emergency

• Is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviors, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans.

State of emergency

• can also be used as a rationale for suspending rights and freedoms, even if guaranteed under the constitution. Such declarations usually come during a time of natural or man made disaster, during periods of civil unrest, or following a declaration of war or situation of international or internal armed conflict.

United States of America

• The US is formally in an ongoing limited state of emergency declared by several Presidents for several reasons.

• A state of emergency began on January 24, 1995 with the signing of Executive Order 12947 by President Bill Clinton. In accordance with the National Emergencies Act, the executive order's actual effect was not a declaration of a general emergency, but a limited embargo on trade with "Terrorists Who Threaten To Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process".

USA, USA!!!• This "national emergency" was expanded in

1998 to include additional targets such as Osama bin Laden, and has been continued to at least 2008 by order of President George W. Bush.

• There are a number of other ongoing national emergencies of this type, like the one declared on September 14, 2001 through Bush's Proclamation 7463, regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

USA, USA, USA!!!

• President Obama extended George Bush's Declaration of Emergency regarding terrorism on September 10, 2009 and again on September 10, 2010.

USA Patriot Act• dramatically reduced restrictions on law

enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts.

USA Patriot Act• expanded the definition of

terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.

A Patriotic Act?• Opponents of the law have criticized its

authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; searches of a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s permission or knowledge; the expanded use of National Security Letters, which allows the FBI to search telephone, e-mail, and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records.

A Patriotic Act?• Since its passage, several legal

challenges have been brought against the act, and Federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional.

January 2011• Egypt• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12282585• Jordan• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9373045.stm• Tunisia• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws84S4L1m1E• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPyvrWblA0I• Russia• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvRqeXy7_4Q• Lebanon• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6bHKpSKoCo&feature=related

Egypt• Egyptians have been living under an

Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980. The emergency was imposed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and reimposed following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

• The law has been continuously extended every three years since 1981.

Egypt• Under the law, police powers are extended,

constitutional rights suspended and censorship is legalized.

• The law sharply circumscribes any non-governmental political activity: street demonstrations, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations are formally banned. Some 17,000 people are detained under the law, and estimates of political prisoners run as high as 30,000.

Israel• The Defence (Emergency) Regulations

are an expansive set of regulations that were first enacted by the Mandatory authorities in Palestine on 27 September 1945. Incorporated into Israel's domestic legislation in 1948, the regulations remain in force to this day.

Israel• According to Israeli human rights group

B’Tselem, provisions in the regulations permit the establishment of military tribunals to try civilians without the right to appeal, prohibitions on the publication of books and newspapers, house demolitions, indefinite administrative detention, extensive powers of search and seizure, the sealing off of territories and the imposition of curfews.

France

• Three main dispositions concern various kind of "state of emergency" in France: article 16 of the Constitution of 1958 allows, in time of crisis, "extraordinary powers" to the president. Article 36 of the same constitution regulates "state of siege." Finally, the April 3, 1955 Act allows the proclamation, by the Council of Ministers, of the "state of emergency" (état d'urgence).

• These dispositions have been used at various times, in 1955, 1958, 1961, 1988 and 2005

France: Since 1955 a state of emergency has been decreed five times

• In 1955 in Algeria due to nationalist unrest• In 1958 due to the uprising

in Algeria

France• In 1961 after the Generals' putsch (invocation of

article 16 from April 23 to September 29, 1961)• In 1984 in New Caledonia due to nationalist troubles• During the 2005 unrest, President Chirac declared a

state of emergency on November 8, 2005. It was extended for three months on November 16 by the Parliament, which was dominated by the UMP majority. On December 10 France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, ruled that the three-month state of emergency decreed to guarantee calm following unrest was legal.

UK• In the United Kingdom, the Monarch, the Privy

Council, or the Prime Minister can make emergency regulations under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 if there is a serious threat to human welfare, the environment, or in case of war or terrorism. These regulations last for seven days unless confirmed otherwise by Parliament. However, as there are no entrenched constitutional provisions, Parliament can pass restrictive legislation limited only by international treaties and public outrage.

• A state of emergency was last invoked in 1974 by Prime Minister Edward Heath in response to increasing industrial action.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland

• The Falls Curfew (also called the "Rape of the Lower Falls") was a British Army operation during 3–5 July 1970 in an area along the Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

• The operation started with a weapons search but quickly developed into rioting and gun battles between British soldiers and the Official Irish Republican Army. Shortly after the violence began, the British commander imposed a curfew, which would last 36 hours.

• During the curfew, four civilians were killed by the British Army, at least 75 people were wounded (including 15 soldiers) and 300 republicans were arrested.

Controversial policies

• During the period known as "the Troubles", the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary were accused of operating a shoot-to-kill policy, under which suspects were alleged to have been deliberately killed without any attempt to arrest them.

• Such a policy was alleged to have been directed almost exclusively at suspected or actual members of Irish republican paramilitary groups. The Special Air Service (SAS) is the most high-profile of the agencies that were accused of employing this policy, as well as other British Army regiments and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)

Nazism• National Socialism was the ideology and practice

of the Nazi Party - a unique variety of fascism that involved biological racism and antisemitism.

• Nazism presented itself as politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from right- and left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics.

Nazis believed:• supremacy of an Aryan master race;• Germany's survival as a great nation

required a New Order — an empire in Europe that would give the German nation the necessary land mass, resources, and expansion of population needed to be able to economically and militarily compete with other powers;

Nazis believed:• Jews were the greatest threat to the Aryan race

and the German nation;• Jews were a parasitic race that attached itself to

various ideologies and movements to secure its self-preservation, such as: enlightenment, liberalism, democracy, parliamentary democracy, capitalism, industrialisation, Marxism and trade unionism;

Nazis believed:• an economic Third Position-a managed

economy that was neither capitalist nor communist;

• communism and capitalism were associated with Jewish influences and interests;

• rejection of liberalism, Marxism and parliamentary democracy;

Nazis believed:• a nationalist form of socialism that was to

provide for the Aryan race and the German nation: economic security, social welfare programs for workers, a just wage, honour for workers' importance to the nation, and protection from capitalist exploitation.

Establishment of the Nazi State

• Reichstagsbrand -an arson attack on the Reichstag in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

Establishment of the Nazi State

• Reichstag Fire Decree (Reichstagsbrandverordnung) - Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat) issued by President Hindenburg.

• The decree nullified key civil liberties of Germans. The decree was used as the legal basis to imprison anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly".

Establishment of the Nazi State

• Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State, invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution -Reichspräsident - take any appropriate measure to remedy dangers to public safety.

• The decree consisted of six articles:• Article 1 suspended most of the civil liberties set forth in the

Weimar Constitution, including freedom of the person, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of the post and telephone, not to mention the protection of property and the home.

• Articles 2 and 3 allowed the Reich government to assume powers normally reserved for the federal states.

• Articles 4 and 5 established draconian penalties for certain offenses, including the death penalty for arson to public buildings.

Gleichschaltung

• meaning "forcible-coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line“ - the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society.

• One goal of this policy was to eliminate individualism by forcing everyone to adhere to a specific doctrine and way of thinking and to control as many aspects of life as possible using an invasive police force

Establishment of the Nazi State

• Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich - "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich“

• Enabling Act-Ermächtigungsgesetz

• 24 March 1933• Established dictatorship

Führer und Reichskanzler

• President Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934

• Hitler merged the presidency and the office of Chancellor - Führer und Reichskanzler - making himself Germany's Head of State and Head of government, thereby completing the progress of Gleichschaltung.

• Hitler could not be legally removed from office - no institutional checks and balances on his power remained.

• Hitler had a plebiscite held on 19 August 1934, in which the German people were asked if they approved of Hitler merging the two offices.

• The Ja (Yes) vote - 90%.

Führerprinzip • "leader principle“• prescribes the fundamental

basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich.

• "the Führer's word is above all written law" and that governmental policies, decisions, and offices ought to work toward the realization of this end.

Nazi Period 1933-1939• Dachau served as a prototype and model for the

other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps, the Newspapers continuously reported of "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps", and as early as 1935 there were jingles warning:

• "Dear God, make me dumb, that I may not to Dachau come."

Nazi Period 1939-1945

• 1933-1945 more than 3.5 million Germans would be forced to spend time in Nazi detention, concentration camps or prisons for political reasons, and approximately 77,000 Germans were executed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts martial, and the civil justice system.

Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, USHMM

• Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean quantified 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, operating from 1933-1945. They estimate that 15-20 million people died or were imprisoned in camps, ghettos, and other sites of detention, persecution, forced labor, and murder the Nazis and their allies ran.

Precision of language

• Konzentrationslager (extrajudicial detention facility)

• Geisellager (hostage)

• Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager (POW)

• Arbeitslager (labour)• Durchgangslager(tra

nsit)

• Arbeiterziehungslager (re-education for Poles)

• Polenlager (labour reformatories)

• Gestapo Lager (extended police prisons)

• Internierungslager (internment)

• Vernichtungslager (extermination)

Konzentrationslager• The term concentration camp refers to a camp

in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

• In Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, Konzentrationslager were an integral feature of the regime.

Konzentrationslager (2)

• The first KZs in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA (Sturmabteilungen; Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy.

Konzentrationslager (3)

• Germany maintained Konzentrationslager (KLs or KZs) throughout the territories it controlled.

• The first KZs were greatly expanded in Germany after the 1933 Reichstag fire, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime.

• The term comes from British concentration camps of the Second Anglo-Boer War.

Konzentrationslager (4)

• The number of KZs quadrupled between 1939 and 1942 as Jews, political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally ill, others were incarcerated, generally without trial or judicial process.

• Holocaust scholars – difference between concentration camps and extermination camps, which were established for the industrial-scale murder of the predominantly Jewish ghetto populations.

Hostage camps• camps where hostages were held

and killed as reprisals• eg. Nacht und Nebel hostages at

Natzweiler-Struthof

Arbeitslager(Labour camps)

• concentration camps where interned inmates had to do hard physical labor under inhumane conditions and cruel treatment. Some of these camps were sub-camps of bigger camps, or "operational camps", established for a temporary need.

Arbeitslager • The German government (and its private-sector, Axis,

and collaborator partners) used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially during World War II.

• The Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager for different categories of inmates.

• The largest number of them held civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries to provide labour in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges, or work on farms.

Arbeitskommandos

• Arbeitskommandos, officially Kriegsgefangenenarbeitskommando were sub-camps under Prisoner-of-war camps for holding prisoners of war of lower ranks (below sergeant), who were working in industries and on farms.

Arbeitskommandos (2)• Prisoners were not allowed to work in industries

manufacturing war materials, but this restriction was frequently ignored by the Germans. They were always under the administration of the parent prisoner-of-war camp, which maintained records, distributed ICRC packages and provided at least minimal medical care.

• Differentiate these from sub-camps of Nazi concentration camps operated by the SS, which were also called Arbeitskommando.

Arbeitskommandos (3)• There is some confusion about the

terminology, with the result of occasional reports of prisoners-of-war being held in concentration camps. In some cases the two types were physically adjacent, when both POWs and KZ-inmates were working at a large facility such as a coal mine or chemical plant. They were always kept apart from each other.

Kriegsgefangenenlager

• concentration camps where prisoners of war were held after capture.• Soviet POW's endured torture

and liquidation on a large scale (3 million+).

Protective Custody Camp

• Camps for rehabilitation and re-education of target groups:

• 1933-39 German and Austrian political prisoners, Jews, ordinary criminals.

• 1939-45 (in order of prisoner numbers) Poles, Russians, French, Yugoslavs, Jews, and Czechs.

Durchgangslager, Transitlager

• Transit and collection camps• camps where inmates were

collected and routed to main camps, or temporarily held.

Vernichtungslager• extermination camp (Vernichtungslager), death

camp (Todeslager) are interchangeable, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide, not for punishing crime or containing political prisoners, but for systematic murder.

• extermination camps were built by Nazi Germany during 1942–45 to systematically murder millions by gassing, mostly Jews.

Extermination camps

• These camps differed from the rest, since not all were also concentration camps. Although none of the categories is independent, and each camp could be classified as a mixture of several of the above, and all camps had some of the elements of an extermination facility, systematic extermination of new-arrivals occurred in very specific camps.

• Of these, 4 were extermination camps, where all new-arrivals were simply killed – "Aktion Reinhard" camps -(Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec), together with Chelmno. Two others (Auschwitz and Majdanek) were combined concentration and extermination camps. Others were at times classified as "minor extermination camps".

By the invasion of Poland in September 1939, there were six concentration

camps in the Greater German Reich:

• Dachau (founded 1933)• Sachsenhausen (1936)• Buchenwald (1937)• Flossenbürg in northeastern Bavaria near the

1937 Czech border (1938)• Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria (1938)• Ravensbrück, women's camp, southeast of

Berlin (1939)

Nazi Period 1933-1945

• Between the years 1933 and 1945 more than 3.5 million Germans would be forced to spend time in these concentration camps or prison for political reasons, and approximately 77,000 Germans were executed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts martial, and the civil justice system.

• Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis.

Theodor Eicke• commandant –26 June 1933 • a fearsome reputation. Even in the

SS, he was described as brutal, evil, distrustful, cruel, ambitious, and full of hatred for everyone who did not agree with Nazi ideology.

• attitude of "inflexible harshness" also influenced the guards in the camps. Constant indoctrination removed any compassion for the detainees from the guards and created an atmosphere of controlled, disciplined cruelty that lived on.

• Eicke influenced: Rudolf Höß, Franz Ziereis, Karl Otto Koch and Max Kögel.

Theodor Eicke• reorganized Dachau, establishing new

guarding provisions: blind obedience to orders, and tightening disciplinary and punishment regulations for detainees - adopted by all concentration camps on 1 January 1934.

• radical antisemitism and anti-bolshevism as well as his insistence on blind and unconditional obedience towards him as the camp's commander, to the SS and Hitler made an impression on Himmler.

• May 1934, appointed Concentration Camps Inspector. Although technically responsible to the SS-Hauptamt, Eicke reported directly to Himmler.

Viktor Frankl• Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D.(26

March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist.

• founder of logotherapy.• Man's Search for Meaning chronicles his

experiences as a concentration camp inmate.

• Described psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the worst ones, and thus a reason to continue living.

• one of the key figures in existential therapy and a prominent source of inspiration for humanists.

Georg Elser• Johann Georg Elser • (4 January 1903 - 9 April 1945) • opposition was motivated by his concerns

about working conditions, and the lowering of working wages.

• understanding of politics was influenced strongly by his political associations. He detested the restrictions on civil rights and especially despised Nazi restrictions on workers' freedoms - the choice of employment and the right to organize.

• loathed the Nazis' propaganda and their total control of the educational system, and the curtailing of religious freedoms.

Murdered at Dachau - 25,613

• 200,000+ prisoners from more than 30 countries, of whom two-thirds were political prisoners and nearly one-third were Jews.

• 25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps, primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide.

Karl Otto Koch• SS-Obergruppenführer Josias, Prince of

Waldeck and Pyrmont stumbled across the name of Dr. Walter Krämer, a head hospital orderly, which he recognized because Krämer had successfully treated him in the past.

• Josias investigated the case - found out that Koch had ordered Krämer and Karl Peixof, a hospital attendant, killed as "political prisoners" because they had treated him for syphilis and he feared it might be discovered.

Karl Otto Koch• Josias ordered a full scale investigation of the

camp by Dr. Georg Konrad Morgen, an SS officer and court judge.

• Koch's orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, as well as embezzlement of property stolen from prisoners.

• Charge: incitement to murder, with added charges of embezzlement.

• Koch: sentenced to death for disgracing self and the SS.

• Koch was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945.

Ilse Koch• wife of commandant of

KZ Buchenwald from 1937-41, Majdanek from 1941-43.

• Tried by the US military charged with "participating in a criminal plan for aiding, abetting and participating in the murders at Buchenwald".

Ilse Koch• accused of taking souvenirs

from murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos

• "The Witch of Buchenwald.“• "Die Hexe von Buchenwald.“• convicted of charges of

incitement to murder, incitement to attempted murder, incitement to the crime of committing grievous bodily harm, and on 15 January 1951 was sentenced to life imprisonment and permanent forfeiture of civil rights. Committed suicide – 1 Sept. 1967.

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel• 30 September

1928• author of 57

books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald.

Elie Wiesel• when Wiesel was awarded

the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Committee called him a "messenger to mankind", stating that "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity"

to humanity.

Ernst Thälmann• Ernst Thälmann (16

April 1886 – 18 August 1944) - leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the Weimar Republic.

• Arrested in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for 11 years, before being shot on Hitler's orders.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945)

• Lutheran pastor, theologian, martyr.

• Participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church.

• Involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (German Military Intel. Office) to assassinate Hitler - arrested in April 1943 - executed by hanging, April 1945.

Léon Blum

• André Léon Blum (9 April 1872–30 March 1950) French politician, and 3 times PM of France.

• Janot Blum, chose to live with him inside the KZ. The Blums were the only Jews to marry inside the KZ system.

Marcel Dassault• Marcel Dassault,

born Marcel Bloch (22 January 1892 - 17 April 1986)

• invented a type of aircraft propeller used by the French army during WW I.

• founded the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch aircraft company.

• deported to Buchenwald for refusing collaboration with the German aviation industry.

M. Dassault• changed his name from Bloch

to Dassault in 1949.• Dassault was the pseudonym

of his brother, General Darius Paul Bloch, in the French resistance and means "for assault", originally from char d'assaut, French for tank.

• After the war, Dassault built the foremost French military aircraft manufacturer, Avions Marcel Dassault.

Imre Kertész• Imre Kertész ( 9

Nov. 1929) author and winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.”

• Fatelessness

Yisrael Meir Lau• Yisrael Meir

Lau ( לאו מאיר ;ישראל1 June 1937 ) is the Chairman of Yad Vashem and Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. He previously served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993-2003.

Ernst Wiechert• Ernst Wiechert (18 May 1887 –

24 August 1950) was a teacher, poet and writer.

• He was one of the most widely read novelists in Germany during the 1930s. He incorporated his humanist ideals in his novels.

• Wiechert was strongly opposed to Nazism from the start. He appealed in 1933 and 1935 to the undergraduates in Munich to retain their critical thinking in relation to the national socialist ideology. This was rated as call to internal resistance.

Ernst Wiechert

• openly criticized the imprisonment of Martin Niemöller in 1938.

• due to his criticism, he was interned in KZ Buchenwald  for 4 months.

• wrote down his memories of imprisonment and buried the manuscript-published in 1945, entitled Der Totenwald (Forest of the dead), a shocking account of the conditions in Buchenwald.

• Goebbels threatened after Wiechert's release he would be killed if he publicly protested.

Murdered at Buchenwald - 56,545

• Total prisoner #s: 238,380• Deaths due to torture, murder,

disease, malnutrition and suicide : 33,462

• Executions by shooting: 8,483• Executions by hanging (estimate):

1,100• Deaths during evacuation

transports: 13,500• Death rate of 24%

Extermination camps

• These camps differed from the rest, since not all were also concentration camps. Although none of the categories is independent, and each camp could be classified as a mixture of several of the above, and all camps had some of the elements of an extermination facility, systematic extermination of new-arrivals occurred in very specific camps.

Extermination camps

• 4 were extermination camps, new arrivals were simply murdered – "Aktion Reinhard" camps -(Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec), together with Chelmno.

• Two others (Auschwitz and Majdanek) were combined concentration and extermination camps. Others were at times classified as "minor extermination camps".

Vernichtungslager• Operationally, there were three

types of death camp• Aktion Reinhardt extermination camps• Concentration–extermination camps• Minor extermination camps

Aktion Reinhardt extermination camps

• prisoners were killed upon arrival. Initially, the camps used carbon monoxide gas chambers; at first, the corpses were buried, but then incinerated atop pyres.

• Later, gas chambers and crematoria were built in Treblinka and Belzec.

Concentration–extermination camps

some prisoners were selected for slave labor, instead of immediate death; they were kept alive as camp inmates, available to work wherever the Nazis required.

These camps — including Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Jasenovac — later were retrofitted with Zyklon-B gas chambers and crematoria, remaining operational until war's end in 1945.

Minor extermination camps

• such as Sajmiste in Serbia, Maly Trostenets in the USSR, Janowska, in Poland, and Gornija Rijeka, initially operated as prisons and transit camps, then as extermination camps late in the war, using portable gas-chambers and Gas vans. Gas vans were initially developed at the Chelmno extermination camp, before being used elsewhere.

SS-Totenkopfverbände

• "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich.• The SS-TV was an independent unit

within the SS with its own ranks and command structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau and Buchenwald.

SS-Totenkopfverbände

• in Nazi-occupied Europe, SS-TV ran Auschwitz in Poland, Mauthausen in Austria and all other concentration and death camps.

• SS-TV was responsible for facilitating the Final Solution in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office and the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office.

SS-Totenkopfverbände

• 1st TK-Standarte Oberbayern. Formed 1937 at Dachau. During the Polish invasion conducted "security operations" behind the lines.

• 3rd TK-Standarte Thüringen. Formed 1937 at Buchenwald. During the Polish invasion conducted "security operations" behind the lines.

• 10th TK-Standarte. Formed 1939 at Buchenwald. Garrison duties in Poland 1940.

Organisation of the KZ

• Zone 1: barracks for the prisoners. Fenced with barbed wire, live, sometimes, and minefields. Sanitation was nearby. Barracks were equipped with two or three triple decker bunks (width of 1 m.). Barracks were often separated into sectors - for special prisoner groups (eg, family-Gypsy camp in Birkenau, a camp for Jewish women at Ravensbrück, the Nacht und Nebel hostages at Natzweiler-Struthof).

• Zone 2: special institutions within the camps: field hospitals, interrogation rooms, execution walls, (gas chambers), crematoria.

Organisation of the KZ

• Zone 3: working space in which each KZ acted as an Arbeitslager-places of work for external kommandos, working for the camp, a place of slave labor for German companies and German war effort. Many camps had numerous sub-camps for work kommandos.

• Zone 4: KZ kommandatur (administration), canteen, barracks for the SS and auxiliaries.