The Camps

Holocaust PowerPoint #8

The Major Concentration Camps Dachua

• Located near Munich • Built to hold 8,000 prisoners • Theodore Eicke commandant from 1933-1940 – Offenses included inciting speeches, supplying untrue information and concealing it, talking about it, – Anyone physically attacking a guard, refusing to obey an order, or giving speeches while marching or at free) hung over the camp entrance • Himmler and the SS officials decided that those who entered the camps as prisoners would never leave alive • Guards wore their Death’s Head emblems proudly • Camp had a mix of prisoners: anti-Nazi, ministers, Communists, gypsies, alcoholics, criminals, and Jews .

Vught

• A woman’s camp in Holland • Prisoners wore blue overalls with a red stripe down the leg • Day began at 4 a.m. with prisoners standing in lines • Breakfast was at 5:30 a.m. (black bread and a drink resembling coffee) • Work in factories began at 6 a.m. making radio parts for German aircraft • One hour lunch break included gruel made from wheat and peas • At 6 p.m. role call was taken again

Theresienstadt

• An unusual camp built 35 miles north of Prague • Was, at first, a ghetto for the elderly, WW I veterans, and Jewish gov’t officials, but they soon were joined by Czechs, Poles, and Dutch prisoners • It had a lending library, orchestra, lectures, schools, and an artist studio.

• Visited by the Swedish Red Cross • Artists drew pictures to please Nazi masters by day and pictures showing hunger and cruelty at night.

– Those pictures were hidden and survived the Holocaust • In 1944 the camp became a shipping point for prisoners on their way to Auschwitz

Bergen-Belsen

• On the road to Hamburg • Opened in 1943 it quickly earned a reputation as the worst camp • Josepf Kramer (commander) ignored health and sanitation conditions • Cruelty was ordinary there; men would have their hands tied behind their backs and then be suspended in the air for hours • Prisoners were picked at random to burned alive in the crematorium • Typhus epidemic in 1944 killed thousands • Average life expectancy was nine months

Buchenwald

• A camp located near Weimar, • Neatly stacked piles of corpses lay unburied around the camp • Inmates starved on a daily diet of a piece of brown bread with a little margarine on top and a little stew • In a stable built for 80 horses, 1,200 men were housed; inmates worked 12 hours shifts making guns and ammunition Elie Wiesel is 2 nd 7 th from the left.

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Mauthausen

• One of the worst camps • Jews sent there worked in the stone quarry carrying heavy rocks up a steep slope ; many were crushed to death; some gave up hope and jumped off the ledge • Franz Ziereis, commandant, was called “Babyface” by the prisoners – Shootings, gassings, and torture by blasts of cold water were common – About 36,000 executions were reported at the prison human being.

Auschwitz

• “Hell on Earth” • Largest camp, serving as both a concentration camp and death camp • Located 160 miles from Warsaw • First prisoners at Auschwitz were “dangerous Poles” (intellectuals, Communist, and Jews) • Birkenau was located across from Auschwitz – Was originally built to house more people, but soon became overcrowded too (750 in space meant for 500) • In 1943 camp had one incinerator that could dispose of 340 bodies each day, two to handle 1,140 each, and two to handle 768 each – a total of 4,756 bodies per day • Estimated that as many as 4 million people were sent to Auschwitz

Selection at Auschwitz

• Cattle cars stopped • Men were separated from women and children • All passed by an SS doctor who motioned to the left (life at hard labor) or the right (death) • Families were split up in emotional scenes • Their luggage was to be left and then it was sorted through by the guards; all became property of the German government – Nazi’s stole an estimated $128 million • Those allowed to live had their heads shaved, were tattooed, and were sent to a barrack

Survival in the Camps

• Those who did not adjust quickly to life in the camps quickly died • Elderly people and small children did not do well in these places • Many were described as the “walking dead” • Some did survive; old timers told new comers the first three months were the test, and if you could survive them, you could make it through three years • Mantra was “live through one day at a time” • Appearing too smart or appearing too stupid made the inmate a target • About 700,000 out of the 8 million sent to the camps survived.

Advice on How to Survive

• Don’t Cry – To cry is a sign of weakness; show no anger or self-pity • Follow Orders Quickly – Order and discipline are the highest law at the camps; must submit to severe training – Don’t argue with the guards or Kapos; don’t complain; don’t ask why • Don’t Call Attention to Yourself – Resistance of any kind, even complaining, brings punishment on everyone else

• Try to Look Healthier than – Try to get assigned to an “easier” job (i.e. sewing room, hospital, or skilled labor job) – Try to find a “friendly” clerk that might help you out or save your life • Become Callous – Ignore the beating of the old man or young woman going on nearby – Don’t be offended by the stench of the camp or the death all around you – Don’t trust anyone too far – Survival requires toughness that doesn’t exist in the world beyond the barbed wire fence

• Have a Reason for Living – They are trying to destroy a person’s humanity and the main thing separating the animal from the human is the human’s ability to reason – Believe that God has a purpose for your life, and you must survive to fulfill that purpose – Believe in yourself, that you can and will outlast them – Survive so you can tell the story of what you and your family have suffered during these impossible times

– Survive so you can about the cruelty of the guards and see them brought to justice – Find ways to occupy your time – Religion is secretly discussed by inmates to keep hope alive – Rabbis reminded prisoners that God rewards those who keep the faith and punishes those who

Prisoner of War (POW) Camps

• Stalag 7A – Moosburg, Germany – Conditions were not much different of Concentration Camps • The only difference is that prisoners were not killed. Prisoners who were officers negotiated that any prisoners who were Jewish would not be taken away or mistreated.

• Suffered from overcrowding • Two blankets per prisoner, many would sleep on dirt floors • Prisoners suffered from diarrhea due to malnutrition • Work details consisted of clearing debris, building and filling bomb craters • Prisoners were paid $13.00 a month and were allowed to mail family • Played baseball, bridge, basketball and horseshoes when time was allowed.