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From the beginning, German concentration camps were administered by the SS. The first concentration camps set up in Germany were followed after the start of World War II by a myriad of camps throughout Western Euope run by the SS as a state within a state. The SS eventually opened over 9,000 camps across the NAZI-occupied Europe. [Berenbaum, p. 9.] They were filled with unfortunate people from every occupied country. The number of people in the camps rose steadily from 100,000 in 1942, to 524,000 in 1944, and 724,000 by January 1945 [Berenbaum, p. 122.] The camps were established for a variety of purposes and thus the regime, organization, and conditions varied from camp to camp. Not all the camps were even administered by the NAZIs. There were camps set up an run by NAZI allies such as Vichy France, Italain Fascists as well as the regimes in Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The NAZIs also took camps over in France, the Netherlands, and other countries that had been set up for refugees. The initial purpose of the camps in Germany was the political repression of the anti-NAZI elements. The NAZIs also use them in the process of stripping Jews of their property. After World War II began, the camps became increasingly important to hold workers from occupied countries forced to labor for Germany. Unlike the Allies, the NAZIs were reluctant to use women in the economy, even to support the war. While many camps were work camps, there were also punishment and death camps. The camps of course played a major role in the Holocaust. There wre also numerous prisonor of war (POW) camps, but these were adminnistered by the military and not the SS and we have not included them in this list.
Auchwitz was the largest and most deadly of the NAZI concentration camps. Richard Gluecks, head of the SS Concentration Camp Inspectorate informed Himmler on February 21, 1940 that he had found a site for a punishment camp where Poles who had defied the NAZIs in any way could be put to work under especially harsh conditions. The site was Auschwitz/Birkenau ( Oswiecim-Brzezinka ). It was an old Austro-Hungarian calvary barracks. It was not at first intended for Jews. Rudolf Hoess, who was working at Dachau wa made the camp commandant. He sent for convicted criminals from Sachsenhausen to serve as Kapos (barracks chiefs). [Gilbet, p. 298.] Eventually Auschwitz became a vast facility for slave labor in addition to the death camp. There were 51 sub-camps (this number varies in different accounts) at Auchwitz. Prisoners were beaten, starved, shot, hung, and kilked in different ways. The largest numbers of deaths resulted from the murder by gas in an industrial fashion. Once the gas chambers were functional, large numbers of Jews in the Polish ghettos and from NAZI occupied Europe were TRANSPORTED to Auchwitz to be murdered. Trains delivered the Jews right to a station platform located by the gas chambers. Most of these victims were Jews, but there were also gentile Poles, Soviet POWs, gypseys, and homosexuals gassed. Of all the dreadful actions at Auchwitz, perhaps the most apauling was the medical experiments that Dr. Mengele carried out on Jewish children, in many cases twins selected for that purpose. The last large group was the Hungarian Jews. Jews stage a revolt and manage to blow up one of the crematoria (October 7, 1944). As the Red Army approached, the SS decided to destroy the remaining crematoria and gas chambers in an effort to hide their murderous crimes (October 26, 1944). The SS evacuates Auschwitz before the Red Army arrives (January 17, 1945). The surviving inmates who are in poor condition because of the starvation regime at the camp are force marched in freezing condition to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Many perished along the way. The Red Army liberated Auschwitz and found 7,000 starving prisoners that the NAZIs had been unable to kill (January 27, 1945).
German military authorities used Yugoslav Army barracks to set up the Banjica concentration camp in a Belgrade suburb (June 1941). A month earlier, German military authorities established the legal basis for the campaign against Serbian Jews. The Germans defined just who Jews wre and began issuing anti-Semetic decress.
The initial purpose of Banjica was to hold hostages, many of whom were at first Jewish. The people held here included Jews, communists, partisans and Gypseys. Camp registers document 23,637 prisoners. The German commandant was Willy Friedrich. Much of the killing of the Banjica prisioners was reportedly carried out at Jajinci, a village near Belgrade. Most of the Jewish prisoners were murdered, including small children. Several thousands mostly Christian prisoners were transported to concentration and labor camps in the Reich and Poland, including Mauthausen-Gusen and Auschwitz. The camp operated until the Germans abandoned Belgrade (September 1944). The Partisans liberated the city (October 1944). Commandant Friedrich was tried by a Yugoslav military court at Belgrade after the War (1947). He was found guilty and sentenced to death. A HBC reader has prepared a report on his visit to the camp which has been preserved as a museum.
Belzac was one of the five death camps the Germans built in Poland. The Soviet winter offensive (December 1941) threatened the whole process of the Holocaust. The Wehrmacht had succeeded, however, in sabilizing the front (mid-April 1942). The NAZIs had been denied victory, but they still controlled Poland and work on Belzac and the other death camps were rushed to completion. Belzac was a small camp with one purpoise only--to kill. The NAZIs succeeded in killing about 74,000 Jews from Lublin and Galacia in one month. A total of 0.4-0.5 million Jews are believed to have been murdered at Belzac. Many of the Jews confined, starved, and eventually murdered at Belzac were from Eastern and Western Galicia. Mamy German Jews and Jews from areas of occupied countries incorporated into the Reich were also killed at Belzac. About 1,500 Poles accused of helping Jews, Gypsies, and thousands of Soviet prisonors of war were also killed at Belzec. [Gilbet, p. 421.] The bodies were buried in 33 massive pits. the NAZis attempted to hide what was done at Belzac by destroying the buildings and planting trees. They also built a small farm house there. A joint Isreali-Polish Belzac Memorial Project is now building a memorial at the site to remember the victims murdered there.
The NAZIs established the Bergen-Belsen Camp as a POW camp (1940). It was located just south of two small towns from which the name of the camp was derived. The larger town of Celle was 11 miles south. Many French and Belgian POWs were detained their after the German victories in the West. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Soviet POWs were transported to Bergen-Belsen. Many died because of the lack of food and shelter a deliberate NAZI action. The NAZIs then began setting up special camps within the Camp complex. The residence camp was opened (1943). The NAZIs held thousands of Jewish prisoners here. The were Jews not sent to the death camps because they were thought to be of value fo exchanges with the Allies for detained Germans. The NAZIs eventually redesignated Bergen-Belsen a concentration camp (DEcember 1944). Bergen-Belsen at the end of the War became a collection camp because of its location for thousands of Jewish prisoners evacuated from camps in the east as the Red Army pushed into Poland. The NAZI authorities were unprepared for the influx. Adequate food was not provided and the cowding and inadequate shelter resulted in a typhus epidemic. Thousands of inmates died. Anne Frank was one of te Jews who died at Bergen-Belsen. Dhe died in March 1945 of typhus in this camp, only a month before the Brirish reached the Camp. The British liberated the Camp (April 15, 1945). After the NAZI surrender, a DP camp was estanlished at a nearby Wehrmacht barracks.
The NAZIs open the Buchenwald concentration camp (July 16, 1937).
Chelmo was one of the five death camps, camps created for the expressed purpose of killing Jews. Like most of the death camps, the NAZIs located it in Poland. Chelmno was named after te nearby town located about 50 miles from Lodz. The Germans who were in the process of Germanizing the area called it Kulmhof. The first gassing of Jews in large numbers occurred at Chelmo. Some of the work to "perfect" the killing process was done at Chelmo. The killing was overseen by Herbert Lange who commanded a Sonderkommando. The SS transferred Lange to Chelmno. He had worked in the T4 euthanasia program where he was involved with murdering Posen psychiatric patients using gas vans. Thus Lange was an experienced killer before arriving at Chelmo. The killing was initially done using vans. Many Reich Jews were killed here. Chelmo was the first of the death camps to begin operation (December 7, 1941). It was primarily used to kill Jews from the nearby large Lodz Ghetto. The first commandant at Chelmo was Herbert Lange. The camp consisted of two principal sections. The first was for the administration section, the barracks and the storage of valuables and goods taken from the victims. The second was for the burial and cremation of the victims. The killing was done by three gas vans. The Jews were locked into the van and then killed with carbon monoxide. Operations at Chelmo continued until most of the Lodz Jews had been killed (March 1943). It was briegly reopened to finish the killing of the Lodz Jews (June 23, 1944). The NAZIs finally ceased operations as the Red Army began moving into western Poland (January 17, 1945). There is no precise accounting of the number of Jews miurdered at Chelmo. Estimates range widely, about 150-300,000 Jews and other NAZI victims.
Dachau was the first KZ established by the NAZIs and served as a model for the vast network of KZs that the NAZIs were to establish first in Germany and later in the occupied countries. The fire in the German "Reichstag" on February 27, 1933 was the perfect pretext for the NAZIs to strike at their political opponents. Some even believe that the NAZIs were responsible for setting the fire. Hermann Göring immediately acussed the Communists of stting the fire. Göring as Prussian Secretary of the Interior (Police) ordered the SA and SS to arrest first Communists and then Social Democrats (Socialists) and union members. SS leader Heinrich Himmler sought political opponents in other German Landen. Soon German prisons were filled to ovr flowing with "protective detainees", as the national socialists call their prisoners. State Commissary of the Interior, Adolf Wagner, on May 13, 1933 advices his colleague Hans Frank of further options such as concentration camps. Himmler announced the establishment of a 'concentration camp' on March 20 during a press conference. The NS opened the first official special camp for communist protective detainees at a former ammunition factory near Dachau. At first the guards were police from Munich. When Himmler was made Political Police Commander of Bavaria on April 1, 1933 he immediately begins to take contol of Dachau.
Drancy was originally a French police barracks outside Paris. The NAZIs turned it into a transit camp for Jews being deported. Unlike the earliest French camps which had been created for refugees from the Spanish Civil War, Drancy was created by the Vichy regime and was overseen by the French police. The first raids rounding up Jews were conducted by the French police (1941). They targeted foreign Jews. Those arested were interned at Drancy. Evidence suggests that the French police mistreated thise arested and interned at Drancy. Vonditions were poor. The camp was overcroded. Sanitation was poor and food inadequate. Vichy authorities and the NAZIs deported about 77,000 mostly foreign Jews through Drancy (1941-44). One family of German Jews interned at Drancy were the Karliners. Most were deported to Auschwitz with the full knowledge and complicity of Vichy officals. Most of the Jews deported were killed in Auschwitz. Very few survived.
Large numbers of children in Poland and other occupied countries were kidnapped by the NAZIs for possible Germinization under the Lebensborn program. The initial collection process was cursory. Once in NAI hands, however, the children were subjected to much more exhaustive racial examinations. Many were ultimnately rejected, but few were returned to their parents. This was not only because the NAZIs did not want to go to the expense and bother of finding the parents, if they were still alive. Another factor here was that Himmler and other NAZIs conidered these children to be dangerous because they were partially Aryan. NAZI theoirists were convinced that their Aryan blood would make then future leaders of Poland who could organize resistance to NAI rule. Some of these rejected children were interned in the Dzieyzazn concentration camp in Poland. Dzierzazna and Litzmannstadt were "Jugenverwahrlage", children camps. Children and teenagers considered found as not good enough to be "Germanized" under the Lebensborn program were transfered to these camps and later sent to the extermination canters. We have few details about the camp. It appears to have been a children's camp. The mortality rate was reportedly very high. One example as to how these camps operated was in 1942, as part of reprisals for the assassination of SS governor Heydrich in Prague, a SS unit shot the entire adult (I'm not sure of the age limit here) male population of the small village of Lidice. The women and children were taken to the gymnasium of Kladno grammar school. The NAZIs 3 days later took the children from their mothers. One account indicates that except for the children selected for adoption by German families and babies under one year of age, were poisoned by exhaust gas in specially adapted vehicles in the Polish extermination camp at Chelm. The women were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp which usually meant quick or lingering death for the inmates. Another account is slightly different. During this "operation", the SS made a selection of the children. There were 91 that were considered good enough to be "Germanized". These were sent to Germany. The other children were sent to special children camps (i.e. Dzierzazna and Litzmannstadti) and later to the extermination centers.
The SS in 1940 opened a punishment camp at Fort Breendonk near Antwerp.
Gross-Rosen at Rogoznica had 77 sub-camps.
German Jews in Western Landen (Baden, the Saar, and the Palatinate), including some of the oldest German Jewish families, were deported in October 1940 to camps in the French Pyrenees (Gurs, Noé, Récébédou, and Rivesaltes). Gurs was the largest. The death rate was very high because there were not even the most basic facilities. The camps were run by Vichy authorities.
The Jasenovac concentration camp (Logor Jasenovac / Логор Јасеновац) was the largest concentration camp in Croatia. It was a deadly camp, but it was not established by the NAZIs. After the NAZI invasion (April 1941), the Croatian Ustaše (Ustasha) led by Ante Pavelić declared independence from Yugoslavia and established a pro-Axis regime--the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). This was essentially a NAZI puppet regime. The Ustasha establish the camp (August 1941). The primary purpose was to murder people the Ustasha classified as enemies which like the NAZIs was a highly racial assessment. Many groups were murdered at Jasenovac, including Jews, Gypseys, Muslims, and Croats who opposed the Ustasha. The largest number of victims, however, were ethnic Serbs. Here there was also a relgious element. The Cratins were mostly Catholic while the Serbs were Orthodox. Jasenovac was not single camo, an extensive complex of five subcamps and three small camps. Thecomplex covered more than 240 square kilometers. The different camps were located close to each other along the Sava River. Most of the camp was at Jasenovac itself which ws 100 km southeast of Zagreb. The Jasenovac complex included the extensive Donja Gradina camp on the opposite bank of the Sava river. There was also children's camp at Sisak to the northwest of Jasenovac. There was also a women's camp at Stara Gradiška to the southeast. Jasenovac operated contiuosly until Croatia was overrun by the Partisas at the end of the War (April 1945).
One reort said that the Polish children who resisted Germinization under the Lebensborn program were often beaten and other wise coersed. If they continued to resist they were sent to concentration camps. Many of the Polish children were sent to Kalish where they were murdered.
Dzierzazna and Litzmannstadt in Poland were "Jugenverwahrlage", children camps. Children and teenagers considered found as not good enough to be "Germanized" under the Lebensborn program were transfered to these camps and later sent to the extermination canters.
"Very few people ever heard of the Thiel-Longwy concentration camp in north-eastern France, Alsace, close to Luxembourg, and the ex-Maginot line. Four kilometers inside the Chantier de Fer in Thiel was a V2 rocket factory. The camp was four kilometers outside the city, close the ex-German border. Five hundred Hungarian machinists brought in from Auschwitz-Birkenau worked in the factory. The camp was functional
between May-October 1944. After 16 kilometers of marching, eight hours of work, the prisoners had to carry heavy rocks for about a half mile, with
the only purpose to further deplete their 'elan de vivre'. The insufficient calories provided for that amount of work killed many prisoners. In October
1944, a few minutes before the US army liberated the camp, the prisoners were transfered from Thiel to Kochendorf, Germany. While the train
passed above, US Sherman tanks entered the camp below, only a few kilometers away. At the same time, the US Army also liberated the Strutthoff." [Liebermann]
Majdanek is sometimes referred to as a death camp, but that is not precisely correct. There certainly was killing at the camp, but it was not a camp created for the sole purpose of killing Jews. Scholars disagree as to the exact purpose of the camp. It was a POW/work camp located on the outskirts of Lublin (October 1941).
Himmler ordered the camp set up after visiting Lublin (October 1941). This late opening was the result of the NAZI invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) and the conquest of preciously Soviet occupied eastern Poland. The NAZIs at the time had huge numbers of Soviet POWs after launching Operation Barbarossa. The original purpose may have been to serve as a POW camp. The location near Lublin suggests that it was not established as a death camp. These camps were all located in remote locations. The SS commander was Karl Otto Koch. Tghhe camp was built to hold 50,000 people. Plans were developed to significantly expand the camp, but were never carried out--presumably because of the changes in the military situation on the Eastern Front. Majdanek was used for slave laborors used in Lublin munitions works and the Steyr-Daimler-Puch weapons factory. Conditions were so terrible that large numbers of people died from malnutrition, abuse, and exposure. Majdanek does appear to be used as a concentration camps for Jews to be murdered as part of Operation Reinhard, the NAZI plan to kill Jews in operatrion Reinhard. While at Majdanek they were used for slave labor. Jews killed at Majdanek seem to have been primarly those who could no longer work or for various reasons could not be passed on to the major death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka). Majdanek was equipped with gas chambers for the industrial slaughter of Jews. Majdanek was one of the camps that used Zyklon B for its gas chambers, but carbon-monoxide was also used. Estimates vary as to the numbers of people killed at Majdanek. Current estimates are about 78,000, including 59,000 Jews. We have seen estimates as high as 120,000 people,
Majdanek was one of the first NAZI camps liberated. The Red Army reached it (July 24, 1944). Unlike the five death camps, Majdnek was still largey intact when the Soviets liberated it. The success of Operation Bagration so rapidly that the SS did not have time to desmantle the camp. Only te crematoria was destroyed. The NAZIs suceeded in destroying much of the death camps. I am not sure to what extent the Soviets publicized what they found at Majdnek because the Allies were shocked when they entered NAZI concentration camps about a year later. The Soviet NKVD of course had its own camp system. They used the SS camp for fighters of the Polish underground Armia Krajowa and NSZ which they arrested.
Maly Trostenets was located near Minsk in the Soviet Union, the only one of the death camps that the NAZIs did not locate in Poland. The camp was used in 1941 to murder thousands of Soviet POWs during the initial successful phase of Operarion Barbarosa. Beginning May 10, 1942 transports of Jews began to reach the camp. Many Reich Jews were murdered here. More than 0.3 million Jews, many from Austria, Czecheslovakia, and Germany and were murdered upon arrival. The killing process was especially efficient. There are no known survivors of the transports to Maly Trostenets. [Gilbert, p. 421.] The reason was in large part due to its location so far east.
The most imporant NAZI concentration camp in Austria was Mauthausen, located about 20 km from Linz. The SS began construction of the Mauthausen concentration camp on August August 8 1938, only a few months after the Anschluss. Prisionors were sent from Dacha to construct the camp. The site was closen by the SS in part because it included a quarry, which was to figure prominently in the operation of the camp. The objective was to use sklave labor to operate the quarry. The first prisoners were political, but later Jews and Gypsies were also sent to the camp. Mauthausen developed an especially ominous reputation, in part because it was better known than the death camps which were operated with greater secrecy. The NAZIs categoirized Mauthausen as a "category three camp". This before the construction of the death camps was the severest category. It mean that that coincerning the inmates assigned there: "Rûckkehr unerwünscht" (return not desired) and "Vernichtung durch arbeit" (extermination by work). After the War began, large numbers of POWs from Poland and Russia were sent to the camp. (Russian and Polish POWs were treated differently than POWs from Western Europe and America.) There were no facilities for them so Commandant Ziereis ordered that open fields to the north and west of the camp be surrounded initially by barbed wire. It was here that Hungarian Jews and Russian soldiers were kept. They lived out in the open, all year around, even in the winter. Mortalities were horendous. About 150,000 people are believed to have died at Mauthausen.
The Neuengamme concentration camp was opened as a work camp (December 1038). It was built by 100 inmates detailed from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. The core of the camp was an abandoned brickworks. Iy was situated close to Hamburg on the Elbe River. The plan was to produce bricks for the Fuehrer buildings, a NAZI redevelopment plan. Despite the distance, Neuengamme began as a Sachsenhausen sub-camp. The first projects were the construction of the camp itself and reopening the brickworks. The inmates were also used on projcts to regulate the flow of the Dove-Elbe river and the construction of a branch canal. Some mined clay for the brick works. The camp was gradually expanded. The camp by the time of the War had 2,000 inmates (1940) and was significantly expanded as the War progressed. Most of the inmates at first were Germans. During the War about 95,000 inmates were at some time incarcerated there. As the Allies approached Hamburg the camp had about 13,500 inmates (April 10). Most were women. While it was a work camp, incarceration there became a death sentence. Food rations were very small, but the inmates were forced to perform hard labor in even the most severe weather. Hygiene and medical care was virtually non-existant. This and the abuse from the SS guards resulted in a horendous mortality rate. The experimental medical facility at Ayschwitz as the Red Army approached was transferred to Neuengamme (November 1944). The experiments were continued. Two of the victims were Georges Andre Kohn and Jacqueline Morganstern.
German Jews in Western Landen (Baden, the Saar, and the Palatinate), including some of the oldest German Jewish families, were deported in October 1940 to camps in the French Pyrenees (Gurs, Noé, Récébédou, and Rivesaltes). The death rate was very high because there were not even the most basic facilities. The camps were run by Vichy authorities.
Piasnica was not a camp. It was one of the first facilities set up for killing. There were six others. Like the death camps, Piasnica was located in what had been Poland. It was here that the NAZIs began killing the mentally ill. The order had been given at a hotel in Zoppot, a resort town. Poles and Jews from Danzig as well as German mental health clinics were sent here and killed. The killings were part of the NAZI eugenics effort. It was called the T4 program because the headquaters was located at No. 4 Tiergartenstrasse in Berlin. [Gilbert, pp. 273-274.]
German Jews in Western Landen (Baden, the Saar, and the Palatinate), including some of the oldest German Jewish families, were deported in October 1940 to camps in the French Pyrenees (Gurs, Noé, Récébédou, and Rivesaltes). The death rate was very high because there were not even the most basic facilities. The camps were run by Vichy authorities.
German Jews in Western Landen (Baden, the Saar, and the Palatinate), including some of the oldest German Jewish families, were deported in October 1940 to camps in the French Pyrenees (Gurs, Noé, Récébédou, and Rivesaltes). The death rate was very high because there were not even the most basic facilities. The camps were run by Vichy authorities.
Sachenhuasen was opened just north of Berlin (July 12, 1936). The Jews arrested in Berlin on Kristallnacht were brought here. Theodor Eicke, commander of the SS Death's Head regimentsmet with his officers at Sachenhausen on September 1 as the Wheremacht was pouring into Poland. He told them that it was their duty to "incarcerate or anniihilate" the enemies of the NAZIs. He reinterated that the task would test the "absolute and inflexible severity" that they had exercised in the German concentration camps. He told them that "It ishe duty of every SS man to identify himself body and soul with the cause. Every order must be sacred to him and he must carry out even the most difficult and the hardest of them without hesitation". There task was the eradication of Polish nationhood and this would begin Polish citizens like Government officials, teachers, and priests in towns and villages all over Poland. Jews were also killed at random. [Gilbert, p. 265.] Sytematic killing was not yet organized.
The NAZIs after invading Yugoslavia set up Sajmište on the outskirts of Belgrade on the left bank of the Sava River (December 1941). It was initially used primarily for Serbian Jews. The NAZIs alo intered Gypseys there. Much of the country's Jews and Gypseys were killed here. Many Jewish men had already been killed when the NAZIs began transporting Jews to Sajmište. Here the NAZIs used gas van to kill thousands of Jewish women and children. The number of both Jews and Gypseys in Serbia was relatively small. Much larger numbers of Serbs resiting the NAZI occupation were interned and killed at the camp. The camp operated until (September 1944). At that time the Germans were retreating north from the Balkans and the Partisans were closing in on Belgrade.
Sobibor was located in an isolated location near Poland's current border with Belarus. Sorbibor was another death camp, located close to Belzec. The vast majority of those sent to Sorbibor to be killed were Jews. Most were murdered within hours of their arrival by gas. About 0.25 million Jews were killed at Sorbior, many from the surrounding area. Some Dutch Jews were also killed at the camp. There was no significant forced labor work at Sorbibor. The sole purpose was to kill Jes as soon as they arrived. As in all the death camps, Jews were forced to participate in the killing by the SS. The Jews and Soviet POWs stage a sucessful rising (October 14, 1943). They managed to kill a few SS and Ukranian guards. A few of the priosoners managed to escape, most of those who broke out were tracked down and killed by the SS as were all prisinors who did not participate in the uorising. The camp was subsequently closed, in part because of the advancing Red Army and in part because the number of avaible Jews in NAZIs has been significantloy reduced by the killings in 1942-43.
Stutthof ( Sztutowonear ) 24 km from Danzig was the first NAZI concentration camp in what was once Poland. It was establidshed only 1 day after the German invasion (September 2, 1939). The first prisoners arrived on September 2. They were 250 Poles, both civilians and POWs. Within 2 weeks there were 6,000 prisoners in the camp: POWs, teachers, government officials, scientists, etc. Quickly dispatched and killed there were the Poles at the Stralsund mental hospital in East Prussia. Most were executed by the SS. The camp was expanded in 1942 and in 1943 a crematory and a gas chamber was added. The gas chamber was much smaller than the ones at Aschwitz, accomodating about 150 people. When the SS needed to kill more, they also used wagons as gas chambers. One of the most repellant crimes committed at Stutthof was developed by Professor Rudolf Spanner, an SS officer and "scientist". He owned a small soap factory in nearby Danzig. SpannerHe invented a process in 1940 to produce soap from human fat, an invention that he was especially proud of. The "product" was called R.J.S. - " Reines Judische Fett " - which means "Pure Jewish Fat". There is no accurate account of the people killed at Stutthof. Some estimate 85,000 people, but this is almost certainly a low estimate.
The Terezin Concentration Camp was actually a smal ghetto as families were allowed to say together. It was located in what is now the Czech Republic. Terezinstadt, a former fortress near Prague turned into a concentration for Jewish families. It was a so-called show camp that the NAZIs used for propaganda purposes. Conditions at Terezinstadt were somewhat better than at other camps. The NAZIs used the camp to show the world how well they were treating the Jews.
Terezinstadt was a rare ghetto/concentration camp that foreign obsevers were allowed to see. A Swiss Commission wrote a glowing report. Camp authorities carefully briefed the Jewish inmates as to howthey were to behave beffore these visits. Terezin played a key role in the Czech holocaust. The Terezin Jews were gradually transported to the death camps once they became operational in 1942. Most were murdered at Auschwitz.
Drawings from some of the children survived. Gabi Freiova painted a colorful pictures of butterflys fluttering free over the countryside as she no doubt wished to do. Gabi and the other was transported to Auschwitz in 1944 where they were murdered.
One little boy who miraculously survived asking his mother for a pet that he saw. She was horrified when she saw the animmal--a large rat rummaging for food. [Joel Fabien] One of the best descriptions was written by a girl, Jana Renee Friesova, who did not even know she was Jewish until the NAZIs occupied Czechoslovakia. She was a rare survivor.
A handful of Danish Jewish children survived at Terezin, in part because the NAZIs were not sure they were Jewish.
Topovske Supe was the first depotation camp the NAZIs set in Serbia (August 1941). It was situated in a former weapons depot located in the center of Belgrade. The purpose was to hold Belgrade Jews collected inroundups. Here they were concentrated while authorities decided what to do with them. The NAZIs imprisoned and murdered thousands of Jews and Roma here. The NAZIs in one day murdered nearly 2,200 Jewish men in the camp. Topovske Supe was only a temprary camp. It was closed (December 1941). The surviving prisoners were transferred to various more permanent camps that had been established throughout the country. NAZI authorities prefered more isolated areas with fewer wtnesses. Topovske Supe was primarily useful to collect Belgrade Jews. The most infamous camps that Belgrade and other Serbian Jews were sent was the infamous Sajmiste camp located nearby. As a resut, the German military commander in Belgrade declared the city to be “free of Jews” (May 1942).
Romanian Jews were sent to concentration camps in Transnistria. I'm not sure of the specific names of the camps. These camps were apparently run by the Romanian Iron Guard rather than the German SS.
Treblinka was one of the most terrible death camps in terms of the number of Jews killed. It was was a camp located
about 100 km northeast of Warsaw, close to the village of Małkinia Górna. Treblinks was designed and built for the sole purpose of killing people. It was a very small camp as the victims were not to be housed there--only killed. It was one of the four secret camps of Operation Reinhardt (the others were Belzec, Sobibór and Majdanek). The NAZIs killed more than 0.75 million Jews at Teblinka. Some estimates are as high as 0.85 million Jews. Almost all of the victims were Jews. A small number of Gypseys (Roma) were also killed here. The Jews killed at Treblinka were primarily Polish Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto and more than a hundred villages in the area around Warsaw. But not just Polish Jews were killed at Trblinka. Jews from as far as Greece were murdered there. Jews stage a revolt at Treblinka (August 2, 1943). They killed a few Germans and a few of the Jews managed to escape. Most were subsequently executed. The gassings at the camp, however, stopped (October 1943). Reblinka I was a forced labor camp used to support the killing operatioin at Terblinka I.
Westerbock was built by the Dutch before World War II. It was to house illegal alliens, mostly Jews fleeing NAZI supression which by the late 1930s were flooding out of Germany. After the Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands they turned the camp into a processing camp for Jews that had been arrested and were being deported. They were told that they were to do "labor service" in Germany. In fact the transports went directly to Auschwitz and to a lesser extent sorbibor. About 107,000 Jews were transported from Westerbock all but 5,000 were killed, most within hours of reaching the camps.
Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know (Ed. Arnold Kramer. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1993).
Gilbert, Martin. A History of the Twentieth Century Vol. 2 1933-54 (William Morrow and Company, Inc.: New York, 1998), 1050p.
Hoyt, Carolyn. "Stolen Childhood. How One Woman Survived the Holocaust." McCallÌs August 1994. pp. 100-101. 132, 134.
Liebermann, George. Mannheim
Padfield, Peter. Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (Henry Holt: New York, 1991), 656p.
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