HISTORY OF HOW CONCENTRATION CAMPS CAME TO BE Soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933, the first concentration camps were established in Germany. The local enforcement organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate the Nazi poliCY. Concentration camps were established all over Germany on an ad hoc basis, that way they could handle the masses of people arrested as alleged subversives. In Oranienburg, larger camps were established hey the SS. Unitl 1936, columbia Hausa facility held prisoners under investigation by Gestapo.
In July 1934, after the SS gained its independence, the wake the Rohm purge, Hitler authorized the Reich SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, to centeralize adminsion of concentration camps and transforms them into systems. SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke was choosen for the task by Himmler.Concentration camps were called after the SS became the only agency authorized to establish and manage facilities, thorugh local civilian authorities continued throughout Germany. Four concentration camps were left in 1937: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Lichtenburg for female prisoners. Eicke was already a commandment of Dachau in 1933, he edevolped a organization and procedures to administer and guard a concentration camp. Regulations were issued forboth duties of the perimeter guards and treatment of the prisoners. Between 1933 and 1934, the organization, structure, and practice became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system At each camp, the SS death’s-Head Unit was divided into two groups. The first was the camp staff, which enforced the commandant and his personal staff, a security police officer and an assistant to maintain prisoner records, and commandant, which housed prisoners, an administrative staff, and an infirmary. The second camp gave the guard detachment. The SS authorities could kill targeterd groups of real or perceived eneimes of Nazi, Germany, where sites of concentration camps. They were also centers to hold expanding pools of forced laborers. |
HOW WERE THE CAMPS RUN?
An SS Death’s Head Unit, using the model established in Dachau, administered each camp. The SS unit was split into two groups.
The first of these was responsible for life, security and conditions inside the camp, whilst the second group was responsible for guarding the perimeter of the camp, in addition to an exclusion zone around it.
The first of these was responsible for life, security and conditions inside the camp, whilst the second group was responsible for guarding the perimeter of the camp, in addition to an exclusion zone around it.
THE ORGANIZATION INSIDE THE CAMP
-The junior officer were the camp commandmant and his personal staff, and the commander of detention facilities and his staff
-The security police
- Female and male warderns/guards
- An SS doctor ran a camp hospital with several medical assistants. They were able to pick the selection of prisoners to be tested on. The would do experiments using the prisoners as guinea pigs to get research. Doctors were extremely brutal to prisoners.
-The security police
- Female and male warderns/guards
- An SS doctor ran a camp hospital with several medical assistants. They were able to pick the selection of prisoners to be tested on. The would do experiments using the prisoners as guinea pigs to get research. Doctors were extremely brutal to prisoners.
CLOTHES THAT WERE WORN When prisoners arrived at concentration camps, there clothes were taken away, and replaced with striped uniform. A smock type dress was supplied to women and a vest, trousers, hat and coat were supplied to men.
The prisoners would wear wooden or leather clogs. Socks weren’t given. This would cause sores on the feet. Conditions around the camp were poor and would cause the prisoner to get an infection and could lead to death. Every six weeks, the prisoners clothes would be changed. The clothes would be really dirty since they wore the same clothes to work and sleep in. Clothes would be changed approximately every six weeks. As prisoners would have to work and sleep in the same clothes, they would be very dirty. A number printed on their clothing and also a triangle with lettering to signify the reason they were there, was they was prisoners were indentified. Below will show you what each color meant. Green: Criminal Red: Political Prisoners Pink: Homosexual Purple:Jehovah’s Witnesses Black: Asocials Jews were usually marker by a yellow over a red triangle in some camps, to form the Star of David. |
|
GAS CHAMBERSA gas chamber was used to kill masses of people with a poisonous gas.The three mostly used gases were carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide. Gas chambers were used at the beginning of the 1920s. This was used with the genocide program. They would make whoever was going in take off their clothes and say "shower time". Over 6 million were killed. Zyklon B was a type of gas used which led to a choking, gagging
death in 2-3 minutes. The gas started from the floor and would rise. Eighty to
one-hundred people were let in at a time. When the doors opened bodies were
stacker like a pyramid. Prisoners would climb on top of the dead and dying to
reach pure air until the whole room was filled with the poisonous gas.
|