Essays on Nazi Concentration Camps

Concentration camp is an internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

A concentration camp is a place where people are concentrated and imprisoned without trial. During Nazi regime in Germany and across Nazi controlled Europe between 1938 and 1945, were established 27 main camps and more than 1,100 satellite camps. Around 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps. Inmates were exploited for hard labour and kept under harsh conditions.

In March 1933, the first concentration camp, Dachau, opened outside of Munich, Germany. It was used primarily for political prisoners and was the longest running camp in operation, until its liberation in April 1945.

From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of incarceration sites to imprison and eliminate real and perceived "enemies of the state." Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were political prisoners, as well as Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of "asocial" behavior. With the beginning of the Holocaust over 30,000 German Jews were incarcerated in the Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps in Germany.

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940. Auschwitz has become the emblematic site of the “final solution,” a virtual synonym for the Holocaust. Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz; 90 percent of them were Jews.

In many of the concentration camps, the Nazi SS either installed or had plans to install gas chambers to assist in their daily business of killing prisoners who were too weak or sick to work. Before the widespread use of gassing in the concentration camps, weak, ill and exhausted prisoners selected by camp physicians were murdered at “euthanasia” (T4) facilities from 1941-1943 in a secret program called 14f13. Gas chambers were also to kill small targeted groups of individuals whom the Nazis wanted to eliminate.

More than 1,000 concentration camps (including subcamps) were established during the history of Nazi Germany and around 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps at one point. Around a million died during their imprisonment. Many of the former camps have been turned into museums commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime, while the camp system has become a symbol of violence and terror.

Concentration camp is an internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

A concentration camp is a place where people are concentrated and imprisoned without trial. During Nazi regime in Germany and across Nazi controlled Europe between 1938 and 1945, were established 27 main camps and more than 1,100 satellite camps. Around 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps. Inmates were exploited for hard labour and kept under harsh conditions.

In March 1933, the first concentration camp, Dachau, opened outside of Munich, Germany. It was used primarily for political prisoners and was the longest running camp in operation, until its liberation in April 1945.

From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of incarceration sites to imprison and eliminate real and perceived "enemies of the state." Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were political prisoners, as well as Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of "asocial" behavior. With the beginning of the Holocaust over 30,000 German Jews were incarcerated in the Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps in Germany.

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940. Auschwitz has become the emblematic site of the “final solution,” a virtual synonym for the Holocaust. Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz; 90 percent of them were Jews.

In many of the concentration camps, the Nazi SS either installed or had plans to install gas chambers to assist in their daily business of killing prisoners who were too weak or sick to work. Before the widespread use of gassing in the concentration camps, weak, ill and exhausted prisoners selected by camp physicians were murdered at “euthanasia” (T4) facilities from 1941-1943 in a secret program called 14f13. Gas chambers were also to kill small targeted groups of individuals whom the Nazis wanted to eliminate.

More than 1,000 concentration camps (including subcamps) were established during the history of Nazi Germany and around 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps at one point. Around a million died during their imprisonment. Many of the former camps have been turned into museums commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime, while the camp system has become a symbol of violence and terror.