Nazi concentration camps

You concentration camps they were military constructions that were intended to hold prisoners of war or political prisoners.

They already existed in Europe before the Second World War. Prisoners had to carry out forced labor, were treated violently and lived in precarious conditions.

You Nazis they saw in these places the possibility of reaching their goal: exterminating people. What best symbolizes the Holocaust are the concentration and extermination camps.

Index

Origin of Nazi concentration camps
extermination camps
Sonderkommando
Experiments with humans in concentration camps
Auschwitz camp
Holocaust
Images of Nazi concentration camps

Origin of Nazi concentration camps

You first concentration camps they emerged around the 18th century and were intended to arrest prisoners of lost conflicts. The obligatory end of these places was not death.

However, from the rise of Nazi Germany, they began to be seen and used for another purpose. What ended up changing its meaning, because when you say “concentration camps”, you immediately think of the deaths and exterminations that took place during World War II.

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You Nazi concentration camps were initially created to arrest political opponents, such as communists and socialists. Over time, they excelled through the process of “mechanizing death” through the gas chambers.

After death by asphyxia, the bodies of these people were incinerated in equipment built for this purpose.

The first to be built by the Nazis was the Dachau concentration camp, near Munich, Germany, in 1933.

However, during the war, concentration camps were built throughout the Europe. Each had a specific function. Some of them were:

Work;
Extermination: prisoners were directed to death in gas chambers;
Prison;
Hospitalization;
Transit: they concentrated a large number of prisoners (mostly Jews) and transported them to the extermination camps.

The fact that each concentration camp had its function did not prevent deaths from occurring. Mortality remained high in these environments because of the lack of structure and violence.

There were several Nazi concentration camps, the main were:

Auschwitz, Poland;
Belzec, Poland;
Chelmno, Poland;
Jasenovac, Croatia;
Majdanek, Poland;
Sobibor, Poland;
Treblinka, Poland;
Warsaw, Poland;

They carry the title of “leading” for having been the most violent, carrying out thousands of cruel murders.

Some of countries that received concentration camps were: Germany, Poland, Norway, Estonia, Croatia, Austria, Italy, France and Ukraine.

extermination camps

There was extermination camps which were intended for the mass extermination of their prisoners, mainly from the jews.

These camps were part of a Nazi plan called “Final Solution“which consisted in the annihilation of all the Jews of Europe. Deaths occurred on an industrial scale.

Some of the fields built for this purpose were:

Auschwitz;
Belzec;
Chelmno;
Sobibor;

All located in Poland. Together, these camps add up to more than 2 million deaths.

They took place through torture, starvation, cold, disease and through the gas chambers that were created to kill people on a large scale.

Sonderkommando

You sonderkommandos they were groups formed by prisoners who worked in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

They represented a minority and enjoyed different treatment, with better nutrition.

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They performed some specific functions within the concentration camps, such as sweeping, washing, translating, in addition to being messengers.

However, the main obligations were: taking people to the gas chambers, transporting the corpses to the cremation ovens and removing the ashes from the bodies.

All work was supervised by the Nazis.

Prisoners who occupied these positions were changed with a certain frequency, having the same fate as their victims.

Experiments with humans in concentration camps

You experiments on human beings carried out in Nazi concentration camps they were often painful and cruel, causing many deaths among the prisoners.

They were even used as guinea pigs to:

Freezing (for analysis of hypothermia);
Pressure chambers (to help German pilots withstand great heights);
Drinking salt water (to investigate the potability of water);
Development of vaccines and medicines, among other atrocities.

Auschwitz camp

It was the largest and best known Nazi concentration camp. Opened in 1940, in Poland, it became the symbol of the Holocaust German.

Considered the most cruel and violent in Nazi Germany, the extermination of its prisoners took place on an industrial scale – mainly Jews – in the gas chambers.

It is estimated that more than 1 million people were killed in this camp, the majority being Jews.

It was the Nazi concentration camp that killed the most people.

It is considered the biggest center of concentration and extermination of Germany during World War II.

Holocaust

O Holocaust it was the genocide of thousands of people: blacks, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, political opponents, etc.

However, the main group affected, they were Jews.

The Nazis started from the belief that the German race was superior to the rest and that the Jews were responsible for all evil.

In the period of World War II, the anti-Semitism began to be massively preached among German society, causing an intense persecution to them, causing many to flee the country.

The massacre of these people took place in concentration and extermination camps created exclusively for this purpose: to imprison and kill people.