L IF E I N A N A Z I

CO N C E N T R A T I O N C A M P
BY- JOYIT ARYAN NARANG
ION – B R OL L NO.- 2 1
CLASS-X SECT
 INTRODUCTION
The first concentration camp in the Nazi system, Dachau, opened in march, 1933. By the end of world war II, the Nazis
administered a massive system of more than 40,000 camps that stretched across Europe from the French-Spanish border into
the conquered soviet territories, and as far south as Greece and north Africa. The largest number of prisoners were jews, but
individuals were arrested and imprisoned for a variety of reasons, including ethnicity and political affiliation. Prisoners were
subjected to unimaginable terrors from the moment they arrived in the camps; it was a dehumanizing existence that involved a
struggle for survival against a system designed to annihilate them.
Within the camps, the Nazis established a hierarchical identification system and prisoners were organized based on
nationality and grounds for incarceration. Prisoners with a higher social status within the camp were often rewarded with
more desirable work assignments such as administrative positions indoors. Some, such as the kapos (work supervisors) or
camp elders held the power of life and death over other prisoners. Those lower on the social ladder had more physically
demanding tasks such as factory work, mining, and construction, and suffered a much higher mortality rate from the
combined effects of physical exhaustion, meagre rations, and extremely harsh treatment from guards and some kapos.
Prisoners also staffed infirmaries, kitchens, and served various other functions within the camp. Living conditions were harsh
and extreme but varied greatly from camp to camp and also changed over time.
 BACKGROUND
The Nazi concentration camps served three
main purposes. To incarcerate the people
whom the Nazi regime perceived to be a
security threat. These people were
incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time.
To eliminate individuals and small ,targeted
groups of individuals by murder ,away from
public and judicial review. They are placed in
such camps often on the basis of
identification with a particular ethnic or
political group rather than individuals and
without benefit either of indictment or fair
trial.
LIFE IN THE NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP
The camp Schutzstaffel regarded
prisoners as enemies deserving brutal
punishment. From the moment of their
arrival, prisoners suffered abuse and
humiliation. The Schutzstaffel wanted
total domination and imposed a strict
daily schedule. Prisoners were never
allowed enough rest. After the morning
roll call, most prisoner5s marched to
work. At the end of each exhausting day,
the prisoners fell onto their bunks,
already dreading the next morning.
Living conditions were poor
because the Schutzstaffel
believed that prisoners deserved
no better. Before the war , the
Schutzstaffel provided a bare
minimum. During the war
conditions became deadly ,the
prisoners slept in broken down
barracks with leaking roofs.
Hunger and disease turned
many into living skeletons.
Camp hospitals offered hardly
any treatment. Instead, sick
inmates were routinely executed
or deposited to die in other
camps.
WOMEN DURING HOLOCAUST
The Jewish women in the holocaust were
imprisoned in Europe at the Nazi
concentration camps or who were hiding to
prevent capture by the Nazis during the
holocaust between 1933 and 1945. of
estimated six million jews who were killed,
two million were women who were sexually
harassed ,raped ,verbally abused, beaten
and were brutally murdered. The Jewish
women also played a role in resistance
methods against Nazi persecution, evident
through their efforts in partition even with
gender specified problem.
NAZI HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION
Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large
numbers of prisoners, including children, by Nazi Germany in
its concentration camps in the early to mid 1940s, during World War
II and the Holocaust. Chief target populations
included Romani, Sinti, ethnic Poles, Soviet POWs, disabled Germans,
and Jews from across Europe.
Nazi physicians and their assistants forced prisoners into participating;
they did not willingly volunteer and no consent was given for the
procedures. Typically, the experiments were conducted
without anaesthesia and resulted in death, trauma, disfigurement, or
permanent disability, and as such are considered examples of medical
torture.
EUTHANASIA PROGRAM
The Euthanasia Program was the systematic
murder of institutionalized patients with
disabilities in Germany. It predated the
genocide of European Jewry (the Holocaust)
by approximately two years. The program
was one of many radical eugenic measures
which aimed to restore the racial "integrity"
of the German nation. It aimed to eliminate
what eugenicists and their supporters
considered "life unworthy of life": those
individuals who—they believed—because of
severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical
disabilities represented both a genetic and a
financial burden on German society and the
state.
 AUSCHWITZ
Auschwitz was a complex of over 40
concentration and extermination camps
operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland
(in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939)
during World War II and the Holocaust. It
consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp
(Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-
Birkenau, a concentration and extermination
camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-
Monowitz, a labour camp for the chemical
conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of
subcamps. The camps became a major site of
the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. Auschwitz concentration camp
THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
• Buchenwald
• Flossenburg
• Mauthausen
• Neuengamme
• Ravensbruck
• Sachsenhausen
• Stutthof
BUCHENWALD
•Location: Weimar
•Established: 1937
•Liberation: April 11, 1945, by the US Army
•Estimated number of victims: more than 56.000. This
estimate does not include 13000 inmates transferred to
Auschwitz or other extermination camps.
•Sub-camps: 174 sub-camps and external kommandos

Weimar is a famous German town known for centuries

for its cultural life. Goethe, Schiller, Franz Liszt, and
Bach lived in Weimar. Goethe used to climb the
Ettersberg and sit and work under a beech tree. It was
this place which was chosen by the Nazis to establish the
concentration camp of Buchenwald (Beech Wood)
On June 3, 1936, the Inspector of
Concentration Camps, SS General
Eicke, proposed to transfer the
concentration camp of Lichtenburg
to Thuringia. The field of Ettersberg
was officially chosen on May 5,
1937 and on July 16, 1937, the first
300 prisoners arrived in the camp
(at this time, the name of the camp
was "Konzentrationslager
Ettersberg"). On August 6, 1937,
the name of the camp was changed
to Konzentrationslager Buchenwald
(Buchenwald Concentration Camp).
Like in many other concentration camps, the population of Buchenwald increased dramatically: in July 1937, there were
1,000 inmates in the camp. The population increased to 5,382 on September 1, 1939 and to 8,634 inmates by the end of
September 1939 (because of the invasion of Poland). By December 1943, the population of the camp had reached
37,319. There were 63,084 prisoners in Buchenwald in December 1944, and the population reached 80,436 in late
March 1945.
The camp was built by the prisoners. During the entire summer of 1937, the SS forced the prisoners to use their "free
time" to carry huge stones from the quarry to the camp. Those who had the misfortune to carry stones that were too
small in the eyes of the SS, were immediately killed. Later, dozen of prisoners were chained to huge four-wheel carts and
had to pull enormous loads to the camp while forced to sing by the SS. The SS used to call those prisoners the "Singing
Horses".
The first commandant of Buchenwald, SS officer Koch. Koch and his wife, Ilse Koch, were famous for their murderous
qualities. Koch was a thief, a drunkard and a gambler. In 1941, he was transferred to Majdanek and replaced by SS
Colonel Pister. Later, Koch was accused of fraud and thief, arrested by the SS, and executed in Auschwitz.
The official goal of Buchenwald was the destruction of the prisoners by work. Thousands of prisoners were murdered in
Buchenwald by work, torture, beatings, or simply starvation and lack of hygiene. One of the worst criminals of
Buchenwald was certainly Martin Sommer, who "worked" in the bunker - the high security prison of the camp.
Thousands of inmates, especially Soviet POWs, were murdered in the infirmary by lethal injections, whereas others were
the victim of medical experiments, especially many who were contaminated by the typhus bacillus.
FLOSSENBURG
•Location: Germany, near Bayreuth
•Established on: 1938
•Liberation: April 23th, 1945, by the 2nd U.S.
Cavalry.
•Estimated number of victims: 73,000
•Sub-camps: 93 sub-camps and external
kommandos
After Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen,
Flossenbürg was the fourth concentration camp
established in Germany by the Nazis. It was in a
small village located in a beautiful area, with many
forests and mountains, not far from Weiden. This
location was chosen by Himmler in May 1938.
The first prisoners arrived in Flossenbürg during
Spring 1938. On September 1, 1939, while the German
Army was invading Poland, the concentration camp of
Dachau was partially evacuated in order to be used as
a training center for the future SS extermination
squads. 981 prisoners from Dachau were transferred
to Flossenbürg. Due to the increasing number of
prisoners, the camp was constantly being transformed,
and on April 5, 1940, the first convoy of foreign
prisoners arrived in Flossenbürg.
Living conditions in Flossenbürg were extremely hard.
The SS administration itself considered Flossenbürg as
a "Hard Regime" concentration camp. Most of the
prisoners had to work in the stone quarries. The
malnutrition, the total lack of hygiene and medical
care, and the brutality of the SS guards were the main
causes of the death of thousands of prisoners in
Flossenbürg as well as in its sub-camps.
The prisoners in Flossenbürg were housed in 16 huge wooden barracks. The camp also had a kitchen,
an infirmary ("Revier"), a laundry, and a disinfecting house. There were crematories and an execution
place located just beside the crematories for "practical reasons" – (dixit) according to the SS. The
whole camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence and watch towers. Two of those watch
towers still remain today.
The original camp was established in 1938 for 1,600 prisoners. Some months later, the camp was
transformed in order to house 3,000 prisoners. Eventually, more than 111,000 prisoners were
incarcerated in Flossenbürg and its sub-camps - 95,400 men and 16,000 women. It is estimated that
73,000 prisoners died.
The camp was liberated on April 23, 1945 by the 2nd U.S. Calvary. There were only some hundreds of
ill and weak prisoners left. The other prisoners--more than 14,000 men and women--were forced by the
SS to leave the camp in a Death March some days before the Allied troops arrived. Three days after the
liberation of the main camp, a U.S. unit retrieved the survivors of this Death March. All of them were
in pitiful condition, and in only three days, more than 4,000 prisoners died of weakness or starvation,
or killed by the SS.
MAUTHAUSEN
• Location: 20 km from the city of Linz, Austria.
• Established: August 8 1938.
• Liberated: May 5 1945 by the US 11th. armour
division.
• Estimated number of victims: aproximately 150.000.
• Sub-camps: 49 permanent sub-camps and
aproxametly 10 camps that lasted for some weeks.
On August 8 1938, Himmler ordered a couple of
hundred prisoners from the Dachau camp to be
transported to the little town of Mauthausen just outside
Linz. The plan was to build a new camp in order to
supply slave labor for the Wiener Graben stone quarry.
Until 1939, most of the prisoners were put to work
building the camp and the living quarters for the SS.
The main camp of Mauthausen consisted of 32 barracks surrounded
by electrified barbed wire, high stone walls, and watch towers. Due
to the immense number of prisoners that poured into the camp,
Commandant Ziereis ordered that the fields to the north and west
were to be ringed with wire. Here, Hungarian Jews and Russian
soldiers, mostly, were kept in the open, all year around.
Mauthausen was classified as a so-called "category three camp".
This was the fiercest category, and for the prisoners it meant
"Rûckkehr unerwünscht" (return not desired) and "Vernichtung
durch arbeit" (extermination by work).
In summer, wake up was at 4.45 a.m (5.15 in winter), and the
working day ended at 7 p.m. This included two roll calls and the
distribution of food rations. All the activity revolved around the
Wiener Graben and the underground tunneling at the sub-camps
of Gusen (I, II and III), Melk and Ebensee. In the Wiener Graben
the prisoners were divided into two groups; one that hacked into the
granite and the other that carried the slabs up the 186 steep steps to
the top of the quarry.
An eyewitness report from Olga Wormser can perhaps give a hint of the life in the quarries: " Eighty-seven Dutch Jews
were sent to the quarries separated from all the other prisoners. There they encountered the effeminate SS men known as
"Hans" and "The blond Damsel". These two with pick handles in hand flailed into this pathetic group who were digging
in the mountainside. By eleven-thirty, 47 of the 87 lay dead on the ground. They were butchered, one after another,
before the eyes of fellow prisoners helpless to do anything. That afternoon, four more were killed. They were taken to
the cliff top and told to fight. When two dropped to the rocks below, the victors would go free. Two dropped, but the
victors were immediately pushed to join them.“
Another killing method, favored by the SS during the winter season, was to gather a group of prisoners in the garage
yard and order them to undress. A guard then sprayed water over the group which was left to freeze to death. This was
quite effective in a region where the winter temperature usually was around minus 10 degrees Celsius.
If possible, the Gusen complex was considered as even a worse fate than Mauthausen. Here the death toll was so high
that each barrack was divided in an "A" and "B" part ("Stube A, Stube B"). The sick, wounded or those too weak to work
were hurled in the Stube B. Here, covered in their own excrement and those of others, they lay on the ground or upon
others, wherever they were flung, and left to die. No food or water reached the Stube B.
In the Ebensee and Melk sub-camps the situation was just as horrible. In mid-April 1945 when the whole Mauthausen
complex was in total chaos due to the mass evacuation from other concentration camps, cases of cannibalism were
reported. (Evelyn Le Chene, "Mauthausen, the history of a death Camp").
On May 5 1945, units of the American 11th Armor Division liberated the main Mauthausen camp. 15,000 bodies were
buried in mass graves. Due to diseases and starvation, 3.000 prisoners died in the weeks that followed after the
liberation.
NEUENGAMME
• Location: On the Elbe river, near Hamburg
• Established: December1938
• Location: On the Elbe river, near Hamburg
• Established: December1938
• Sub-camps: 96
Built in December 1938 by one hundred
inmates transferred
from Sachsenhausen concentration camp,
Neuengamme concentration camp was
established around an empty brickworks in
Hamburg-Neuengamme. The bricks produced
there were to be used for the "Fuehrer
buildings", part of the National Socialists'
redevelopment plans for the river Elbe in
Hamburg.
Until June 4th, 1940, Neuengamme was a sub-
camp of Sachsenhausen. At this date
Neuengamme became an independent
concentration camp, under the direct control of
the overseer of concentration camps. The
prisoners worked on the construction of the camp
and the brickworks, regulating the flow of the
Dove-Elbe river and the building of a branch
canal, as well as on the mining of clay. The
number of inmates increased dramatically in only
a few months: in 1940, the population of the
camp was 2,000 prisoners (with a proportion of
80% German inmates among them), Between
1940 and 1945, more than 95,000 prisoners were
incarcerated in Neuengamme. On April 10th,
1945, the number of prisoners in the camp itself
was 13,500. More than 2,000 men and 10,300
women were working in the different sub-camps
depending on Neuengamme SS administration.
From the very first weeks of its existence to its liberation, Neuengamme was a deadly hell for the inmates. Despite the
nearly nonexistent food rations, the inmates had to perform hard labor in all weather and under constant beatings of the SS
guards. Very soon, the mortality rate reached an incredible level. Starvation, physical abuse, and total lack of hygiene and
medical care very soon killed hundreds of inmates.
During the war, tens of thousands of people were deported as concentration camp prisoners to Neuengamme from all over
occupied Europe by the Nazis. In most cases they were incarcerated for having resisted German occupation, having refused
to perform forced labor or simply as victims of racial persecution. From 80% in 1940, the proportion of Germans among the
inmates decreased to approximately10%.
From 1942 on, the inmates were forced to work in the Nazi armament production. Initially the work was performed in the
workshops of the camp but soon it was decided to transfer prisoners to the armaments factories located in the surroundings
areas. At the end of the war, the external kommandos of Neuengamme spread all over northern Germany. Because of the
Allied advance, hundreds of inmates were also forced to dig antitank ditches. In many large north German cities,
concentration camp prisoners cleared rubble and removed corpses in the wake of bombing raids.
All in all, there were 96 sub-camps, with 20 sub-camps for women. In early spring 1945, more than 45,000 inmates were
working for the Nazi industry, with a third of women among them. At this time, the internal population of Neuengamme
was 13,500 and the camp was completely overcrowded.
The estimated number of victims in Neuengamme is approximately 56,000. Thousands of inmates were hanged, shot,
gassed, killed by lethal injection or transferred to the death camps Auschwitz and Majdanek. In the last weeks of the war,
the SS decided to evacuate Neuengamme. This was the start of one of the worst death marches of the war. During these
death marches, approximately 10,000 inmates perished by shootings or simply starvation.
The destination of one of these death
marches was Neustadt, a German
haven where the inmates had to be
transported on a liner transformed
into a military freighter: the "Cap
Arcona". On April 27th, 1945,
another freighter, the "Athen", arrived
in Neustadt with 2,500 inmates from
the Dora concentration camp. They
were immediately transferred to the
"Cap Arcona". Another ship, the
"Thielbeck", arrived later with 2,500
inmates from other camps. On May
3rd, 1945, 3 PM, three "Typhoon"
fighters from the RAF attacked the
three ships. There were 7,500 inmates
on board. Only 500 of them survived.
RAVENSBRUCK
• Location: North of Germany, near Furstenberg
• Established on: Autumn 1938
• Liberation: April 30th, 1945, by the Russian Army.
• Estimated number of victims: 92,000
• Sub-camps: 31 sub-camps and external commandos.
Ravensbrück was the only major Nazi concentration camp
for women. At the end of autumn 1938, Himmler decided
to establish a concentration camp for women in
Ravensbrück. This location was chosen by Himmler
because it was out-of-the-way and at the same time easy to
reach. Ravensbrück was a small village located in a
beautiful area with many forests and lakes, not far from
Furstenberg. There was a good road from Furstenberg to
Ravensbrück and the rail station of Furstenberg had a direct
link to Berlin.
At the end of 1938, 500 prisoners were transferred from
Sachsenhausen to Ravensbrück in order to build the new
camp. They built 14 barracks, a kitchen, an infirmary, as
well as a small camp for men, which was totally isolated
from the women's camp. The whole camp was surrounded
by a high wall with electrified barbed wires on the top.
The first prisoners arrived in Ravensbruck on May 18,
1939: 860 German women and 7 Austrian women. From
this time, the number of prisoners increased dramatically--
400 gypsy women from Austria arrived on May 29, 1939
and on September 28, 1939, the first women from Poland
arrived in the camp. End of 1939, the population of the
camp was 2,290.
After the war began, the population of the camp became
more international, and soon there were prisoners coming
from 20 European countries. The conditions of life in
Ravensbrück were as shameful and difficult as in all the
other concentration camps--death by starvation, beating,
torture, hanging, and shooting happened daily.
After the war began, the population of the camp became more international, and soon there were prisoners coming from
20 European countries. The conditions of life in Ravensbrück were as shameful and difficult as in all the other
concentration camps--death by starvation, beating, torture, hanging, and shooting happened daily. The women who were
too weak to work were transferred to be gassed at the Uckermark "Youth Camp" located nearby Ravensbruck or to
Auschwitz. Others were killed by lethal injections or used for "medical" experiments by the SS doctors. Several SS
companies surrounded the camp where the prisoners had to work day and night until they died by weakness and illness.
Due to the constant growth of the population, the camp had to be enlarged four times during the war. By the end of
1941, there were 12,000 prisoners. In 1942, several convoys of Russian women were transferred to Ravensbrück. By the
end of 1942, the population was 15,000, and it reached 42,000 by the end of 1943. As in the others concentration camps,
Ravensbrück had a crematory, and in November 1944, the SS decided to build a gas chamber. At this time, the total
population of the camp was 80,000.
All in all, more than 132,000 women and children were incarcerated in Ravensbrück. It is estimated that 92,000 of them
died in the camp by starvation, executions, or weakness. During the last months of the war, and due to the rapid advance
of the Russian Army, the SS decided to exterminate as many prisoners as they could, in order to avoid any testimony
about what happened in the camp. For example, 130 babies and pregnant women were gassed in March 1945. At the
end of March 1945, the SS decided to transfer the archives of the camp and the machines of the workshops to a safer
place. On April 27 and 28, 1945, they ordered the woman still able to walk to leave the camp in a Death March. Only
3,000 exhausted or ill women were left in the camp, as well as 300 men.
SACHSENHAUSEN
• Location: Germany, 35 km from Berlin
• Established on: 1938
• Liberation: April 22th, 1945, by a unit of the 47th
Soviet Army.
• Estimated number of victims: 30 - 35,000
• Sub-camps: 44 sub-camps and external kommandos .
On July 12th, 1938, the first barrack of the camp was
built by 50 inmates transferred from Esterwegen. In
August and September 1938, 900 inmates were once
again transferred from Esterwegen to Sachsenhausen in
order to take part in the construction of the camp. Due to
the lack of food and the incredible cruelties of the SS,
most of them died during this period. End of September,
the "Konzentrazions Lager Sachsenhausen" was ready
and the first political prisoners arrived in the camp.
Beside the wooden barracks built for the inmates, there
were several buildings built from bricks for the SS as well
as several factories where the prisoners were used for slave
labor. Before the beginning of the World War 2, most of the
inmates were German communist or German Jews. Just
after the "Crystal Night", 1,800 Jews were jailed in
Sachsenhausen and killed in the following weeks.
In September 1939, thousands of communists, social-
democrats and former trade union leaders were arrested in
Germany. 5,000 of them were sent to Sachsenhausen, as
well as 900 Jews. End of September 1939, there were 8,384
prisoners in the camp. In November 1939, this number
increased dramatically to 11,311 prisoners. At this time, the
first Typhus epidemic started. Because the SS refused to
give any medical care and due to the incredible lack of
food, hundreds of inmates died in the following weeks.
Until April 1940, the dead were sent to the crematories
installed in Berlin, located 35 km from Sachsenhausen. In
April 1940, the first crematory was built in Sachsenhausen.
On January 31th, 1942, the SS forced a team of inmates to build the so-called "Station Z". This new installation was
built for the extermination of the prisoners. On May 29th, 1942, the SS invited dozen of high ranked Nazi official for the
inauguration of the new installation. In order to show them how the new installation was efficient, 96 Jews were killed
by shooting. In March 1943, a gas chamber was added to the "Station Z". This gas chamber was used until the end of the
war. The number of gassed victims is unknown because the transports for gassings were not registered in the entry
registers of the camp.
In 1944 and begin of 1945, due to the Allied advance, the number of prisoners increased dramatically. On April 20th and
21th, 1945, because of the Soviet Army advance, 33,000 prisoners were forced to leave the camp on a Death March.
They were divided in groups of 400. The SS intended to embark them on ships then sink those ships. Thousands of
inmates died during this Death March. They were killed by shooting because they were too weak to walk.
The camp was liberated by a unit of the 47th Soviet Army on April 22th, 1945. The Soviet soldiers found only 3,000
survivors in the camp. This number included 1,400 women. Most of them were starving, ill and too weak to welcome
their liberators. Like in several other camps, and despite of the medical cares they received, many inmates died in the
days following the liberation.
Sachsenhausen is a museum today. It can be easily accessed from Berlin.
CONCLUSION
Among the thousands of books that have examined various aspects of the Jewish Holocaust,
surprisingly few have treated the final days of the death camps in any detail. From July 1944 to May
1945, the Russian army liberated ten camps east of the Oder River; the Allied Forces liberated the five
western camps in April and May of 1945. The names—Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau,
Buchenwald—form the 20th century’s most horrifying litany.
Jon Bridgman’s absorbing account embraces the immediate prelude to the liberation of the camps
when the advancing Allied armies provoked contradictory orders from Hitler and Himmler, the
circumstances of the liberation of each of the camps, the policies of the various liberators, and the
consequences of liberation, in particular its effect on American and European perceptions of the war
and its aftermath.
As the author points out, it was the drama of liberation more than any other aspect of the Holocaust
that brought home to the West the horror of the Final Solution, ending once and for all the false belief
that stories of Nazi atrocities were exaggerated Allied propaganda.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my teacher (name of teacher) who gave me this opportunity to work on this project. I
got to learn a lot from this project about (what you learned from the project). I would also like to thank our
school principal (name of principal).
At last, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my parents because without their help this project
would not have been successful. Finally, I would like to thank my dear friends who have been with me all
the time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• https://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

• https://www.google.co.in