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'{{seealso|List of Nazi-German concentration camps|Extermination camp}} [[Image:NaziConcentrationCamp.gif|thumb|right|375px|US troops at a liberated camp confront German civilians with the evidence: a truck-load of corpses]] {{The Holocaust}} [[Nazi Germany]] maintained '''[[concentration camps]]''' throughout the territories it controlled. The first [[Nazism|Nazi]] concentration camps were greatly expanded in [[Germany]] after the [[Reichstag fire]] in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime. They grew rapidly through the 1930s as political opponents and many other groups of people were incarcerated without trial or judicial process. The term was borrowed from the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British]] [[Second_Anglo-Boer_War#Concentration_camps_.281900_-_1902.29|concentration camps]] of the [[Second Boer War|Second Anglo-Boer War]]. Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between ''concentration'' camps (described in this article) and [[extermination camp|''extermination'' camps]] (described in a [[Extermination camp|separate article]]), which were camps established for the sole purpose of carrying out the extermination of the Jews of Europe—the [[Final Solution]], Poles – the [[Lebensraum]], Gypsies and other nations. Extermination camps included [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Majdanek extermination camp|Majdanek]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], and [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]]. ==Camps during the war== [[Image:Majorcampseurope.gif|thumb||left|300px|Major Nazi German concentration camps, 1944]] After 1939 with the beginning of the Second World War, concentration camps increasingly became places where the enemies of the Nazis were enslaved, starved, tortured and killed.{{Fact|date=April 2009}} During the War concentration camps for “undesirables” spread throughout Europe. New camps were created near centers of dense “undesirable” populations, often focusing on areas with large communities of Jews, Polish [[intelligentsia]], [[Communism|Communists]] or [[Roma (Romani subgroup)|Roma]]. Since [[History of the Jews in Poland|millions of Jews lived in pre-war Poland]], most camps were located in the area of [[General Government]] in occupied Poland for [[logistics|logistical]] reasons. It also allowed the Nazis to transport the German Jews outside of the German main territory. ===Internees=== The seven largest groups containing a very large amount of prisoners in the camps, both numbering in the millions, were [[Jew]]s and the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war (POWs)]]. Large numbers of [[Romani people|Roma (or Gypsies)]], [[Poles]], left of center [[political prisoner]]s, [[homosexuality|homosexuals]], people with disabilities, [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], [[Holy Orders|Catholic clergy]], Eastern European intellectuals, and others—including common criminals. In addition, a small number of [[Western Allies|Western Allied]] POWs were sent to concentration camps for various reasons.<ref>One of the best-known examples was the 168 [[Commonwealth of Nations|British Commonwealth]] and [[United States|U.S.]] aviators held for a time at [[Buchenwald concentration camp]]. (See: [http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=historgokhopdkhpofkofkofjkhjkhjkhojkv luvnbdy/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow Veterans Affairs Canada, 2006, “Prisoners of War in the Second World War”] and [http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1575 National Museum of the USAF, “Allied Victims of the Holocaust”].) Two different reasons are suggested for this: the Nazis wanted to make an example of the ''[[terror bombing|Terrorflieger]]'' (“terror-instilling aviators”), or they classified the downed fliers as spies because they were out of uniform, carrying false papers, or both when apprehended.</ref> Western Allied POWs who were Jews, or whom the Nazis believed to be Jewish, were usually sent to ordinary POW camps; however, a small number were sent to concentration camps under [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] policies.<ref>See, for example, [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=295291169228827 Joseph Robert White, 2006, “Flint Whitlock. Given Up for Dead: American GIs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga”] (book review)</ref> Sometimes the concentration camps were used to hold important prisoners, such as the generals involved in the [[20 July plot|attempted assassination of Hitler]]; [[U-boat]] [[Captain (naval)|Captain]]-turned-[[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] pastor [[Martin Niemöller]]; and [[Admiral]] [[Wilhelm Canaris]], who was interned at Flossenbürg on February 7, 1945, until he was hanged on April 9, shortly before the war’s end. In most camps, prisoners were forced to wear identifying overalls with [[Nazi concentration camp badges|colored badges]] according to their categorization: red triangles for [[Communism|Communists]] and other [[political prisoner]]s, green triangles for common [[crime|criminals]], pink for [[homosexuality|homosexual]] men, purple for [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], black for [[Romani people|Gypsies]] and [[Black triangle (badge)|asocials]], and yellow for [[Jew]]s.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html “Germany and the Camp System”] PBS Radio website</ref> ===Treatment=== [[Image:Breendonk071.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Original boxcar used for transport to the concentration camps, located on Google Earth 51 3.451N , 4 20.543E <br /><small>On display at Fort van [[Breendonk]], Belgium</small>]] Millions of prisoners died in the concentration camps through mistreatment, disease, starvation, overwork or were executed as unfit for labor. More than three million Jews died in them<!-- if extermination camps are included in the tally, the official number is around 3 million, the other 3 million being on the eastern front through pogroms and massacres -->, usually in [[gas chamber]]s, although many were killed in mass shootings and by other means. [[Holocaust trains|Prisoners were often transported]] in inhumane conditions by rail freight cars, in which many died before reaching their destination. The prisoners were confined to the rail cars, often for days or weeks, without food or water. Many died of [[dehydration]] in the intense heat of summer or froze to death in winter. Concentration camps also existed in Germany itself, and while they were not specifically designed for systematic extermination, many of their prisoners perished because of harsh conditions or were executed. In the early spring of 1941 the SS, along with doctors and officials of the [[Action T4|T-4 Euthanasia Program]], began killing selected concentration camp prisoners in “Operation 14f13.”{{Fact|date=April 2009}} The Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps categorized all files dealing with the death of prisoners as 14f, and those of prisoners sent to the T-4 [[Gas chamber#Nazi Germany|gas chambers]] as 14f13. Under the language regulations of the SS, selected prisoners were designated for “special treatment ({{lang-de|Sonderbehandlung}}) 14f13”. Prisoners were officially selected based on their medical condition; namely, those permanently unfit for labor due to illness. Unofficially, racial and eugenic criteria were used: Jews, the handicapped, and those with criminal or [[Public order crime|antisocial]] records were selected.<ref>{{cite book |last=Friedlander |first=Henry |year=1995 |title=The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |pages=144}}</ref> For Jewish prisoners there was not even the pretense of a medical examination: the arrest record was listed as a physician’s “diagnosis”.<ref>Ibid., pp. 147–8</ref> In early 1943, as the need for labor increased and the gas chambers at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] became operational Heinrich Himmler ordered the end of Operation 14f13.<ref>Ibid., p. 150</ref> [[Image:Gen Eisenhower at death camp report crop.jpg|thumb|275px|right|General (later US President) [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] inspecting prisoners’ corpses at the liberated [[Ohrdruf forced labor camp]], 1945]] After 1942, many small subcamps were set up near factories to provide forced labour. [[IG Farben]] established a [[synthetic rubber]] plant in 1942, at [[Monowitz concentration camp|Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III)]]; other camps were set up next to airplane factories, [[coal mining|coal mines]] and [[rocket propellant]] plants. Conditions were brutal and prisoners were often sent to the gas chambers or killed, if they did not work fast enough. After much consideration, the final fate of the Jewish prisoners (the “[[Final Solution]]”) was announced in 1942 at the [[Wannsee Conference]] to high ranking officials.{{Fact|date=September 2008}} Near the end of the war, the camps became sites for horrific [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments]]. [[Eugenics]] experiments, freezing prisoners to determine how exposure affected pilots, and experimental and lethal medicines were all tried at various camps. Female prisoners were routinely raped and degraded in the camps.<ref>Morrissette, Alana M.: ''[http://www.jhcwc.org/morrissette2004.pdf The Experiences of Women During the Holocaust]'', p. 7.</ref> The camps were liberated by the Allies between 1943 and 1945, often too late to save the prisoners remaining. For example, when the [[United Kingdom|UK]] entered [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] in 1945, 60,000 prisoners were found alive, but 10,000 died within a week of liberation due to [[typhus]] and malnutrition. The British intelligence service had information about the concentration camps, and in 1942 [[Jan Karski]] delivered a thorough eyewitness account to the government. ''''''Bold text'''''[[Italic text]]<small><small>Small Text</small>_{Subscript text}</small>''''''''''Italic text'''[[''Link title''<small>_{Small Text}_{_{Subscript text}_{_{Subscript text}^{^{Superscript text}^{^{Superscript text}<s>#REDIRECT [[Strike-through text]]</s>}}}}</small>]]''==Types of camps== According to Moshe Lifshitz<ref>Moshe Lifshitz, "Zionism". (ציונות), p. 304</ref>, the Nazi camps divided as follows: *'''Labour camps''': concentration camps where interned inmates had to do hard physical labour under inhumane conditions and cruel treatment. Some of these camps were sub-camps of bigger camps, or "operational camps", established for a temporary need. *'''Transit and collection camps''': camps where inmates were collected and routed to main camps, or temporarily held. *'''POW camps''': concentration camps where prisoners of war were held after capture. These POW's endured torture and liquidation on a large scale. *'''Camps for rehabilitation and re-education of Poles''': Camps where the intelligentsia of the ethnic Poles were held, and "re-educated" in light of German-Nazi values as slaves. *'''Hostage camps{ or death camps}''': camps where hostages were held and killed as reprisals. *'''[[Extermination camps]]''': These camps differed from the rest, since not all of them were also concentration camps. Although none of the categories is independent, and each camp could be classified as a mixture of several of the above, and all camps had some of the elements of an extermination camp, systematic extermination of new-arrivals occurred in very specific camps. Of these, four were extermination camps, where all new-arrivals were simply killed – the "[[Operation Reinhard|Aktion Reinhard]]" camps ([[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]] and [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]]), together with [[Chelmno extermination camp|Chelmno]]. Two others ([[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] and [[Majdanek]]) were combined concentration and extermination camps. Others were at times classified as "minor extermination camps." ==Post-war use== Though most Nazi concentration and extermination camps were destroyed after the war, some were made into permanent [[memorial]]s. In [[People's Republic of Poland|Communist Poland]] ([[Majdanek]], [[Central Labour Camp Jaworzno|Jaworzno]], [[Central Labour Camp Potulice|Potulice]], [[Zgoda labor camp|Zgoda]]) and [[East Germany]] ([[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]], [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]]), German POWs, suspected Nazis and collaborators, anti-Communists and other political prisoners, as well as [[civilian]] members of German, [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] and other [[Dachau concentration camp]] was used as a prison for arrested Nazis and after that as cheap working-class housing. == See also == {{commonscat|Nazi concentration camps}} *[[SS-Totenkopfverbände|Nazi guards]] *[[Labor camp]] *[[Extermination camp]] *[[Gulag]] *[[NKVD special camps]] *[[List of Nazi-German concentration camps]] *[[German camps in occupied Poland during World War II]] *[[Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles]] *[[Porajmos]], the attempted extermination of the Roma people *[[History of homosexual people in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust#Concentration Camps|History of homosexual people in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]] *[[Internment]] *[[Ka-tzetnik]] *[[Nazi concentration camp badges]] *[[Nuremberg Trials]] *[[Identification in Nazi camps]] *[[KZ Manager]] *[[War crimes]] ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== *[http://www.druhasvetovavalka.cz/ Pages show pictures and videos of the day taken at places connected with World War II (Second World War)] *[http://www.yadvashem.org/ Yad VaShem—The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority] *[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/phistories/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Personal Histories - Camps] at [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] *[http://www.holocaust-history.org/ The Holocaust History Project] *[http://www.archive.org/stream/nazi_concentration_camps/nazi_concentration_camps_256kb.mp4 Official US National Archive Footage of Nazi camps] *[http://www.scrapbookpages.com/HolocaustSites.html Holocaust sites in Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, France] *[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/cc.html Concentration Camps] at [[Jewish Virtual Library]] *''[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/view/ Memory of the Camps]'', as shown by [[Frontline (U.S. TV series)|PBS Frontline]] * [http://kz2007.over-blog.com/] Private visit – Aug 2007 *[http://buchenwald.libsyn.com/ Podcast with one of 2,000 Danish policemen in Buchenwald] [[Category:Nazi concentration camps| ]] [[Category:Nazi SS]] [[br:Kampoù-bac'h]] [[ca:Camp de concentració nazi]] [[cs:Vyhlazovací tábory nacistického Německa]] [[da:Tyske koncentrationslejre]] [[de:Konzentrationslager]] [[el:Ναζιστικά στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης]] [[fr:Camps de concentration nazis]] [[ja:強制収容所 (ナチス)]] [[ko:나치 강제 수용소]] [[id:Kamp konsentrasi Nazi]] [[it:Lager]] [[pl:Obozy niemieckie 1933-1945]] [[ru:Концентрационные лагеря Третьего рейха]] [[ta:நாசி அரசியல் கைதிகளின் முகாம்கள்]] [[tr:Nazi toplama kampları]] [[zh:納粹德國集中營]]'