March 19th, 2015 , 09:17 am

A month ago, I toured the former concentration camps in Germany and Poland. There were several hundred such camps in the thirties and forties of the last century in Germany and in the occupied territories. I visited the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz, Poland), Sachsenhausen (near Berlin) and Dachau (near Munich). Now there are organized museums visited by people from different countries.

Camps began to be built in Germany in the early thirties, with the rise of the Nazis. Initially, the camps had a corrective labor function; they sent criminal and political criminals. Later, representatives of the " inferior races"(Jews, Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and with the outbreak of war - prisoners of war and some residents of the occupied territories.

According to Hitler's plan, it was supposed total annihilation Jews and Gypsies, as well as a reduction in the number of Slavs and people of some other nationalities. By the beginning of the forties, some camps were reoriented to the mass extermination of people.

Deportation of the Jewish population of Amsterdam to a transit camp. Photograph 1942

Prisoners were brought to the camps in cramped boxcars, devoid of basic amenities. In these wagons, people spent up to several days, until they finally arrived at the camp.

Birkenau camp gate

The railway line, along which trains with prisoners arrived

Unloading prisoners at Birkenau

Arriving at Auschwitz

Arriving lined up in a long line for sorting. People unfit for work, including almost all the children who arrived, were built into a separate column, intended for destruction in the gas chamber. The second group of people were selected for hard work. The third group, which included many children, especially twins, was selected for medical experiments. A small number of women were selected to work as servants in the families of the camp administration.

sort queue

sort queue

From the memoirs of the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Rudolf Hess:

Already during the sorting process, there were many incidents on the ramp. Because of the fact that families were divided, because of the separation of men from women and children, the whole transport came into great excitement. Further selection of able-bodied intensified this confusion. After all, family members wanted to stay together anyway. Those selected went back to their families, or mothers with children tried to get to their husbands or to older children selected for work. Often there was such a commotion that the sorting had to be done again. Often had to restore order by force. Jews have very developed family feelings. They stick to each other like a burdock.

Railway station on the territory of Birkenau

This elderly woman was sent from the car immediately to gas chamber. Birkenau, 1944

Arrived at the Birkenau camp after sorting. Those on the left in the frame will now go to the gas chamber, but do not yet know about it

The form of social organization and at the same time the ideology that existed in Germany in the 1930s was called National Socialism, or, for short, Nazism. In relation to Germany of that time, the word “fascism” is often used, but it is more correct to speak of Nazism, that is, the combination of socialism with nationalism.

Adolf Hitler wrote: “Socialism is the doctrine of how to take care of the common good… We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. For us, the race and the state are a single whole..

To unite the masses in Nazi Germany the rallying idea of ​​the German world was used, as well as the cultivation of hatred for certain groups people on a national basis (first of all - to the Jews), on the basis of faith, on the basis of socio-political convictions, and so on.

In foreign policy Hitler's main idea was to expand living space for the Germans, implying territorial expansion. This was supported by the majority of the German population, especially since before the start of large-scale hostilities on the eastern fronts, German propaganda managed to present the ongoing conquest of new territories as a matter to be solved bloodlessly or with little bloodshed and for the common good.

Thus, the Anschluss (accession) of Austria in 1938 was formally legalized by a referendum, during which 99 percent of Austrians voted for joining Germany. At the same time, Hitler's troops, observing possible correctness, were present in Vienna for three weeks before the referendum. The law "On the reunification of Austria with German Empire", and Hitler said:" I announce to the German people about the implementation of the most important mission in my life".

In the same year, Hitler appealed to the Reichstag "to pay attention to the appalling living conditions of the German brethren in Czechoslovakia." It was about the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived. In the Sudetenland began to prepare a referendum on the accession of these lands to Germany, and German troops came to the border. Czechoslovakia, trying to contain separatist sentiments, announced mobilization and sent troops into the Sudetenland. But after the intervention of the world community, everything ended with the rejection of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, because otherwise Hitler threatened war.

As can be seen from these two examples, Adolf Hitler did nothing that could not be supported by the majority of the German population. On the contrary, such actions of "reunification" and "impossibility to leave the German brothers in trouble" increased the popularity of the leader. The same applied to the discriminatory measures against the Jews: they were explained not only by justice, but, during the creation of the ghetto, and concern for the safety of the Jewish population.

Members of the Hitler Youth (German youth organization) greet Adolf Hitler at the convention Nazi party in Nuremberg, 1937

It is impossible not to say that propaganda was exemplarily organized in Germany. In this day and age, with almost everyone owning a television, mass processing the consciousness of the majority has become easier than ever before. Nevertheless, it was the Nazi propagandists who achieved in their work an enviable perfection for many: they managed to rally the nation on the basis of exclusivity. German people, on the basis of hatred for various groups of people, and on the basis of the adoration of the Fuhrer.

Those who were part of this close-knit majority did not differ in any particular negative human qualities. These were ordinary people whose desire to be part of a strong society with strong leader played skillfully. Throughout history, Hitler and his entourage were not the first and not the last to do this.

Therefore, I am not writing here at all about the crimes of crazy sadists. Unfortunately, I write about how people honestly held views that they thought were right and which were approved by society, and how people did their job conscientiously.

Those who were "lucky" not to go immediately to the gas chambers or to the medical barracks for experiments were housed in the camp's residential barracks.

Entrance to the Auschwitz camp and the inscription "Work makes you free"

Dachau camp gate

The inscription "Work sets you free" next to the gate of the Sachsenhausen camp

Dachau camp fence

The ditch enclosing the Dachau camp

Premises for registering prisoners who arrived at Dachau

Rows of barracks and service buildings of the Auschwitz camp

The preserved barracks for prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp

Birkenau camp barracks

As the number of prisoners entering the camps increased, their living conditions became worse; bunks were compacted in order to accommodate maximum number of people.

Bunks for prisoners in the Birkenau camp

Inside the barracks of the Sachsenhausen camp

Photos of prisoners of the Auschwitz camp

Three-tier bunks in the barracks of the Dachau camp before compaction

Solid three-tier bunks in the barracks of the Dachau camp after compaction

Lockers for belongings of prisoners in the Dachau camp

Dachau prisoners

Accommodation for prisoners in the Auschwitz camp

Washing room for prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp

Lavatory in the barracks of the Dachau camp

Lavatory at the Birkenau camp

The territory of the Auschwitz camp, fenced off with wire fences

AT morning hours before the divorce for work, the prisoners were lined up on the parade ground. Public demonstration executions were also periodically held here.

Auschwitz camp. The booth of the duty officer in charge of formations

Construction in the Auschwitz camp. Picture

Construction. Drawing by a prisoner at the Dachau camp, 1938

The camp system of the Third Reich actively worked for the German economy. Prisoners worked in production, mostly doing hard work. In the Sachsenhausen camp, tests were carried out for the shoe industry, for which a special track was built with different surfaces for different sections. On this route, the prisoners walked forty kilometers a day in new shoes. Those who weighed less than the calculated weight were required to carry bags weighing up to twenty kilograms.

Shoe test track at the Sachsenhausen camp

One of the surviving prisoners of Sachsenhausen, Pole Tadeusz Grodecki, was arrested and sent to the camp in 1940, at the age of fifteen. For a long time he had to take part in the testing of shoes.

Tadeusz Grodecki, photograph 1939

At various times in different countries psychological experiments were conducted in which people who did not have any unusual qualities and were not prone to cruelty participated.

The Stanford prison experiment showed that a significant proportion of people are susceptible to an ideology that justifies their actions, supported by society and the state.

The experiments of Solomon Asch showed that a significant proportion of people tend to agree with the erroneous ideas of the majority.

Stanley Milgram's experiment demonstrated that a significant proportion of people are willing to inflict significant suffering on other people when they follow the instructions of an authority, or these actions are part of their job duties.

American teacher Jane Elliott, in order to tell children about what racial discrimination is and to clearly show how people who are in the minority feel, divided classmates by eye color. Very quickly, the children were divided into a self-confident majority and a timid, despised minority (this seemingly ambiguous experiment was, as a result, correctly evaluated by its participants, who gained valuable experience).

Finally, the teacher Ron Jones, trying to comprehend the behavior of the German people in the thirties, in just a week successfully rallied high school students into a military-type organization devoted to him, whose members were ready to inform and crack down on those who disagree.

The most heinous crimes are most often carried out ordinary people, and the whole question is only in the correct manipulation public consciousness. And this is bad news. Because the generally accepted theses “I hate fascists” and “don’t forget so that it doesn’t happen again” can’t prevent anything.

For offenses in the camps, punishments were due, in many cases it was execution. The decision on punishment was made by the court, which consisted of members of the camp administration.

In the prison barracks of the Dachau camp

From the memoirs of Peri Broad, an employee political department Auschwitz-Birkenau camps:

Those sentenced to death are taken to the washroom on the first floor ... they cover the window with a blanket and tell them to undress. Huge numbers are written on the chest with an ink pencil: these are numbers by which it will then be easier to register corpses in a mortuary or crematorium.

In order not to attract the attention of passers-by, a small-caliber 10-15-round rifle was used on the highway, which passed not far from the stone wall ... In the back of the courtyard, several frightened gravediggers with a stretcher are waiting, horror has frozen on their faces, and they are unable to hide it. Near the black wall stands a prisoner with a shovel, another, stronger, runs out into the yard the first two victims. Holding them by the shoulders, he presses their faces against the wall.

Barely audible shot after shot is heard, wheezing, the victims fall. The executioner checks whether the bullets fired from a distance of several centimeters hit the target - in the back of the head ... If the shot still wheezes, one of the SS Fuhrers orders: "This one must get it again!" A shot in the temple or in the eye finally cuts off an unhappy life.

Carriers of corpses run back and forth, put them on stretchers and dump them in a pile at the other end of the yard, where there are more and more bloodied bodies.

Execution wall at Auschwitz

In camps in Poland and other occupied countries, not only executions of prisoners were carried out, but also trials of local residents and their subsequent executions.

From the memoirs of Peri Broad:

They bring in a 16-year-old boy. Hungry, he stole something edible from the store, so he was classified as a "criminal". After reading the death warrant, Mildner slowly puts the paper down on the table. Separately emphasizing each word, he asks: “Do you have a mother?” - The boy lowers his eyes and answers barely audibly, in his voice tears: "Yes." - Are you afraid of death? - The boy no longer says anything, only trembles slightly. “We're going to shoot you today,” Mildner says, trying to sound like an oracle.

In groups of forty, the condemned are taken to the locker room, where they take off their clothes. SS guards stand at the entrance to the morgue, where they are shot. Ten people are brought in. In the locker room, screams, shots, and heads hitting the cement floor are heard. Terrible scenes take place: children are taken away from mothers, men in last time shake hands with each other.

Meanwhile, a murder is taking place in the morgue. Ten naked prisoners enter the room. The walls are spattered with blood, in the depths lie the bodies of the executed. People should approach the corpses and stand near them. They go by blood. Not one of them suddenly screams, recognizing his loved one in the man wheezing on the floor.

shoots right hand the head of the camp, SS Hauptscharführer Palich. With a habitual shot to the back of the head, he kills one after another. The room is getting crowded with corpses. Palić begins to walk among the shot and finishes off those who are still wheezing or moving.

Often used and execution by hanging. Broad recalls the scene of the execution of thirteen Polish engineers who were sentenced for attempting to escape three of their comrades from the construction surveying team:

The ropes of the gallows were too short, a fall from such a height did not cause a fracture of the cervical vertebrae. Several minutes had passed since the stools had been removed from under the feet of the victims, and the bodies were still beating convulsively.

... Aumer used to say: "Let them twitch a little"

In the Sachsenhausen camp, hanging was combined with execution. A noose was put on the head of the sentenced, the legs were fixed in a special box, after which they practiced shooting at a stretched man.

Camp Sachsenhausen. Ditch for executions

Place of execution of Soviet prisoners of war in the Sachsenhausen camp

In many concentration camps there were separate blocks, what was happening in which was hidden from prying eyes. They conducted medical experiments on prisoners. The effects of bacteriological weapons, various vaccines, the effects of extreme human body temperatures. People were cut open alive, confiscated various bodies cut off limbs. In the course of experiments on the healing of bone injuries, tissue was cut out to the bone in people in places of interest to physicians so that doctors could see how the process goes.

Operating room at the Sachsenhausen camp

As part of the upcoming final decision Jewish Question" and population decline certain nationalities experiments were widely conducted on the sterilization of women and men. There is a photograph of Frank Steinbach, one of the few survivors of the sterilized prisoners.

Frank Steinbach before deportation to the Auschwitz camp (later to Sachsenhausen)

In the Auschwitz camp, the medical department was headed by Josef Mengele, who conducted thousands of experiments on children, preferring to select twins for his experiments. On twins, it was more convenient to study the course of various diseases, to compare the results of various effects on “identical” people. In addition, Nazi medicine was looking for an answer to the question of how to increase the birth rate of the nation by increasing the number of twins born.

Mengele knew how to find contact with children, brought them toys, smiled. During the experiments, however, he did not react to the terrible cries of the children, but did his job, carefully entering observations in a notebook. As part of one of the experiments, Dr. Mengele sewed two children together and sent them to his barracks, where the parents of the twins, unable to see their torment, were forced to suffocate them.

Most of the experiments were carried out without anesthesia. This was done not only with the aim of saving it, but also with the aim of making the experimental conditions more natural; so that the experimenter can observe the live reaction of the subject.

Photographing during a medical experiment in Dachau

On the basis of the Dachau camp, experiments were carried out in order to determine the maximum height from which a person can parachute without an oxygen tank and stay alive. For this purpose, pressure was reproduced in special pressure chambers, corresponding to the pressure existing at altitudes up to twenty-one kilometers. During the experiments, many prisoners died or became disabled. Some of these experiments involved the dissection of an overloaded living person.

"Parachuting" experiment

In medical circles, the opinion is expressed that experiments on people carried out in the forties (and they were carried out not only in Germany, but also in Japan) allowed medicine to make a big breakthrough, and, ultimately, save many other people from death. To the question about the good for humanity or the tear of a child, everyone answers for himself.

Gas chambers were intended to kill a large number of people. They began to appear in concentration camps when there was a need for mass extermination of people, primarily as part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." Thus, most of the Jewish children were sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arrival at the camp, since they were not suitable for work. Those prisoners who lost their ability to work already in the camp, or were sick for a long time, were also sent there.

In the gas chambers, the preparation "Cyclone B" was used - an adsorbent saturated with hydrocyanic acid, with room temperature emitting poisonous gas. Initially, Zyklon B was used in camps for the destruction of bedbugs and other disinfection measures, and since 1941 it has been used to kill people.

The existence of the gas chambers was not advertised. Although the majority of Germans supported the need to isolate the "enemies of the German people", they did not know anything about massacres or gas chambers. The rumors about their existence that penetrated the society were perceived as enemy propaganda.

The layout and size of the gas chambers varied from camp to camp, but it was always a well-organized conveyor belt, starting with a queue and ending with the crematorium ovens. You can see how this conveyor worked on the example of the Dachau camp. The comments of Rudolf Hess, commandant of another camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, are also valuable (as I said, the principle of extermination of people in gas chambers was similar in different camps).

Entrance to the building of the Dachau camp crematorium

To prevent panic, people sent to the gas chambers were told that they were going to the showers and that their clothes had to be disinfected.

In line for the gas chamber. Birkenau camp, 1944

People waited for their turn "in the shower" on the street, or in a special room, and when their turn came up, they went to the locker room.

Waiting room

In the locker room, people took off all their clothes. The members of the “Sonderkommando”, usually from the same country and the same nationality as those sentenced, did everything so that no one would guess anything. They started talking about life in the camp, asked about the specialty of the newcomers, and showed with their whole appearance that there was nothing to be afraid of.

From the unusual situation, small children often cried when undressing, but their mothers or someone from the Sonderkommando calmed them, and the children, playing with toys in their hands and teasing each other, went to the cell. I also saw that women who knew or guessed what awaited them, tried to overcome the expression of mortal horror in their eyes and joked with their children, reassured them. Once, a woman approached me while walking to the cell and whispered to me, pointing to four children who obediently held hands, supporting the smallest one so that he would not stumble on uneven ground: “How can you kill these beautiful, cute kids? Don't you have a heart?

locker room

From the locker room, the condemned went to the gas chamber and filled it tightly. In most cases, they believed that this was the shower room, especially since many gas chambers were equipped with water horns. But there were also those who guessed where they were brought. They tried to take those who raised a panic before entering the cell into the street, where they were killed with a shot in the back of the head.

From the memoirs of Rudolf Hess:

I had to go through a scene in which one woman wanted to push her children out of the closing doors and cried out with a cry: “Let at least my beloved children live.” There were many such heartbreaking scenes that did not leave anyone present calm.

Gas chamber room

When the chamber was filled with people, the doors were hermetically closed, and an employee in a gas mask threw cans of Zyklon B into the room through special openings.

Hole for throwing cans with "Cyclone-B"

Type of jar with "Cyclone-B"

Couples hydrocyanic acid caused people in the gas chamber to become paralyzed respiratory tract. Within a few minutes, remaining conscious, they died painfully from suffocation. Children usually die first. The maximum duration of the process was twenty minutes.

Water supply window (top) and viewing window

Half an hour after the Zyklon B cans were thrown into the gas chamber, its doors were opened and the ventilation turned on. Members of the Sonderkommando pulled out the corpses, removed their gold teeth, cut off the women's hair, after which the corpses entered the crematorium ovens.

Corpses of Dachau prisoners

Dachau crematorium ovens

The process of extermination of people in the Auschwitz camp is shown on a visual layout, where all the work of the conveyor is visible. There was no waiting room; people waited in the street for their turn.

Part of the model of the destruction system in the Auschwitz camp in the section: the queue for entry and the locker room

Part of the layout of the extermination system in the Auschwitz camp in the section: below - a gas chamber with dead people, above - crematorium ovens for burning corpses

From the memoirs of Peri Broad:

When the last corpses were pulled out of the cells and carried across the square to be thrown into the pits behind the crematoria, the next batch of victims was already being introduced into the changing rooms of the gas chambers. There was hardly enough time to clean clothes from the locker rooms. Sometimes the cries of a child could be heard from under a pile of things.(children were hidden in clothes not only by those who guessed what awaited them. Some mothers who believed that they were going for disinfection believed that it could harm the child's health - approx. A.S.). One of the executioners pulled the child out, lifted it up and shot him in the head.”

Auschwitz crematorium ovens

Auschwitz camp. Suitcases and baskets of people sent to the gas chamber

Auschwitz camp. Shoes of children sent to the gas chamber

From the memoirs of Rudolf Hess:

Of course, for all of us, the orders of the Fuhrer were subject to strict execution, especially for the SS. And yet everyone was tormented by doubts. Everyone looked at me: what impression do scenes like those described above make on me? How do I react to them? I had to look cold-blooded and heartless in scenes that stung the hearts of everyone who retained the ability to feel. I couldn't even look away when all too human impulses swept over me. Outwardly, I had to watch calmly how mothers with laughing or crying children went to the gas chamber.

One day, two small children played so much that their mother could not tear them away from the game. Even the Jews from the Sonderkommando did not want to take on these children. I will never forget the pleading look of my mother, who knew what would happen next. Those already in the cell began to worry. I had to act. Everyone looked at me. I made a sign to the Unterführer on duty and he took the stubborn children in his arms, pushed them into the cell along with the heartbreakingly sobbing mother. At that time, I wanted to sink into the ground out of pity, but I did not dare to show my feelings. I had to calmly look at all these scenes.

It's impossible to fix what happened. But can something like this be prevented from happening again in the future? A 100% working recipe has not yet been invented.

Turning to the events in Nazi Germany, many people prefer not to think about the nature of the phenomenon, but to limit themselves to clichés about hatred for the Nazis. However, these stamps lead nowhere. Moreover, a person may feel horror and indignation at the thought of sending children to the gas chambers, but this same person will do the same - for a different, just purpose. If someone competently presses certain buttons in his head.

Each of us can try to change ourselves a little, and by this change the world, by starting to think about some things. For myself, I formulate it like this:

1. Even mentally, discrimination of people on the basis of race, nationality or religious grounds- despite the fact that there are cultural and other differences between different people.

2. Even mentally, no generalizations should be made that extend responsibility for the actions and thoughts of a part of a group of people (of any country, nationality, and so on) to the entire group of people. All people of the same country and nationality cannot act and think in the same way, and any generalizations are always incorrect.

3. Any public rule or the opinion of an authoritative person should not be taken on faith, but evaluated according to their own moral criteria, based on their experience, their observations, and the desire to look at the world through the eyes of other people.

4. Work that can cause suffering to people and which at the same time raises the slightest doubt about its moral validity should be abandoned.

5. If heard from a person or in a medium mass media causes a desire to unite on the basis of hatred for something, you should exclude this person or this mass media from your life.

6. The thought of individual person more important than global thoughts about the nation, country, humanity.

Then there are chances not to get bogged down in the same things that people in Germany in the thirties got bogged down in.

P.S. With these words, the late Rudolf Hess sends greetings from the past to modern supporters of wars and massacres for geopolitical and other correct and just reasons:

The RFSS sent various party and SS functionaries to Auschwitz so that they could see for themselves how the Jews were being exterminated. Some of those who had previously ranted about the need for such destruction were speechless at the sight of the "final solution of the Jewish question." I was constantly asked how I and my people can be witnesses to how we are able to endure all this. To this I always replied that all human impulses must be suppressed and give way to the iron determination with which the orders of the Fuhrer must be carried out.

The concentration camps of the Third Reich (German: Konzentrationslager or KZ) are zones of mass imprisonment and extermination of prisoners of war and civilians for political or racial reasons;

they existed before and during the Second World War in German-controlled territory.

The first concentration camps were forced labor camps and were located in the Third Reich itself. During the war, millions of people were kept in the camps, including anti-fascists, Jews, communists, Poles, Soviet and other prisoners of war, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and others. Millions of concentration camp prisoners died from severe bullying, diseases, poor conditions of detention, exhaustion, hard physical labor and inhumane medical experiments. In total, there were about five thousand camps of various purposes and capacities.

The history of the camps can be roughly divided into 4 phases:

During the first phase at the start of Nazi rule until 1934 camps began to be built throughout Germany. These camps were more similar to the prisons where the opponents were Nazi regime.

The construction of the camps was managed by several organizations: the SA, the leaders of the police and the elite NSDAP group under the leadership of Himmler, which was originally intended to protect Hitler.
During the first phase, about 26,000 people were imprisoned. Theodor Eike was appointed inspector, he supervised the construction and drafted the charters of the camps. The concentration camps became outlaw places and were inaccessible to the outside world. Even in the event of a fire, fire brigades were not allowed to enter the camp.

The second phase began in 1936 and ended in 1938. During this period, due to the growing number of prisoners, new camps began to be built. The composition of the prisoners also changed. If before 1936 these were mostly political prisoners, now asocial elements were imprisoned: the homeless and those who did not want to work. Attempts were made to cleanse society of people who "dishonored" the German nation.

During the second phase, the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald camps were built, which were signals of the beginning of the war and the increasing number of prisoners. After Kristallnacht in November 1938, Jews began to be deported to the camps, which led to the overcrowding of existing camps and the construction of new ones.

Further development of the camp system took place during the third phase from the beginning of World War II and sometime before mid-1941, early 1942. After the wave of arrests in Nazi Germany, the number of prisoners doubled within a short period of time. With the outbreak of war, prisoners from conquered countries began to be sent to the camps: French, Poles, Belgians, etc. Among these prisoners were a large number of Jews and gypsies. Soon the number of prisoners in the camps built on the territories of the conquered states exceeded the number of prisoners in Germany and Austria.

The fourth and final phase began in 1942 and ended in 1945. This phase was accompanied by an intensified persecution of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war. During this phase, between 2.5 and 3 million people were in the camps.

death camps(German: Vernichtungslager, extermination camps)- institutions for mass destruction various groups population.

If the first concentration camps Nazi Germany were created for the purpose of isolating and internment of persons suspected of opposition to the Nazi regime, then later they (the camps) developed into a gigantic machine for the suppression and destruction of millions of people different nationalities, enemies or representatives of the "lower" groups of the population - in countries that fell under the rule of the Nazis.

"Death camps", "death factories" in Nazi Germany appear since 1941 according to race theory about "inferior peoples". These camps were set up in the territory of Eastern Europe, mainly in Poland, as well as on the territory of the Baltic countries, Belarus, in other occupied territories, in the so-called governor-generals.

Used by the Nazis to kill Jews, Gypsies and prisoners of other nationalities, the death camps were built according to special designs, with a calculated capacity to destroy a given number of people. The camps had special devices for massacres.

The killing of people in the death camps was put on the conveyor. The death camps for the mass murder of Jews and Gypsies were Chełmno, Treblinka, Bełżec, Sobibor, and Majdanek and Auschwitz (which were also concentration camps) in Poland. In Germany itself, the Buchenwald and Dachau camps functioned.

Also, the death camps include Jasenovac (a system of camps for Serbs and Jews) in Croatia and Maly Trostenets in Belarus.

Victims, as a rule, were transported to camps in trains, and then destroyed in gas chambers.

A typical sequence of actions carried out in Auschwitz and Majdanek on civilians of Jewish and Gypsy nationalities immediately after arrival (on the way, people died in the cars from thirst, suffocation): selection for immediate destruction at the exit of the cars; immediate sending of those selected for destruction to the gas chambers. First of all, women, children, the elderly and the disabled were selected. The rest were to have a number tattoo, hard labor, hunger. Those who fell ill or simply weakened from hunger were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

In Treblinka, Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór, only those who helped to remove the corpses from the gas chambers and burn them, as well as to sort the belongings of the dead, and those who served as guards of the camps, were temporarily left alive. All others were subject to immediate destruction.

The total number of concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos in the occupied countries of Europe and in Germany itself, where they were kept and destroyed in the most difficult conditions various methods and means people - 14,033 points.

Of the 18 million citizens of European countries who passed through camps for various purposes, including concentration camps, more than 11 million people were killed.

The system of concentration camps in Germany was liquidated along with the defeat of Hitlerism, condemned in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as a crime against humanity.

Currently, in Germany, it is accepted to divide places of forced detention of people during the Second World War into concentration camps and "other places of forced detention, under conditions equated to concentration camps," in which, as a rule, forced labor was used.

The list of concentration camps includes approximately 1,650 concentration camps international classification(main and their external commands).

On the territory of Belarus, 21 camps were approved as "other places", on the territory of Ukraine - 27 camps, on the territory of Lithuania - 9, Latvia - 2 (Salaspils and Valmiera).

On the territory of the Russian Federation, places of detention in the city of Roslavl (camp 130), the village of Uritsky (camp 142) and Gatchina are recognized as "other places".

Enlarge map
List of camps recognized by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany as concentration camps (1939-1945)
1. Arbeitsdorf (Germany)
2. Auschwitz/Oswiecim-Birkenau (Poland)
3. Bergen-Belsen (Germany)
4. Buchenwald (Germany)
5. Warsaw (Poland)
6. Herzogenbusch (Netherlands)
7. Gross-Rosen (Germany)
8. Dachau (Germany)
9. Kauen/Kaunas (Lithuania)
10. Krakow-Plaschow (Poland)
11. Sachsenhausen (GDR? FRG)
12. Lublin/Majdanek (Poland)
13. Mauthausen (Austria)
14. Mittelbau-Dora (Germany)
15. Natzweiler (France)
16. Neuengamme (Germany)
17. Niederhagen? Wewelsburg (Germany)
18. Ravensbrück (Germany)
19. Riga-Kaiserwald (Latvia)
20. Faifara/Vaivara (Estonia)
21. Flossenburg (Germany)
22. Stutthof (Poland).

Examples of heroic resistance of people doomed to death are known. Jews from the Szydlick ghetto, who mutinied in November 1942 in the Treblinka camp, were massacred by the camp guards; at the end of 1942, Jews from the Grodno ghetto offered armed resistance in the same camp. In August 1943, prisoners broke into the armory of Treblinka and attacked the camp guards; 150 rebels managed to escape but were captured and killed.

In October 1943, the prisoners of the Sobibor camp rebelled; of the 400 people who broke through the barriers, 60 managed to escape and join the Soviet partisans.

In October 1944, members of the Jewish Sonderkommando (those who carried the bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoria) in Auschwitz, having learned about the German intention to liquidate them, blew up the crematorium. Almost all the rebels died.

Sources: site specially for the site, author of the SNS, 06/19/11. based on materials
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Fascism and atrocities will forever remain inseparable concepts. Since the introduction of the bloody ax of war by fascist Germany over the world, the innocent blood of a huge number of victims has been shed.

The birth of the first concentration camps

As soon as the Nazis came to power in Germany, the first "death factories" began to be created. A concentration camp is a deliberately equipped center designed for the mass involuntary imprisonment and detention of prisoners of war and political prisoners. The name itself still terrifies many to this day. The concentration camps in Germany were the location of those individuals who were suspected of maintaining anti-fascist movement. The first were located directly in the Third Reich. According to the "Emergency Decree of the Reich President on the Protection of the People and the State," all those who were hostile to the Nazi regime were arrested for an indefinite line.

But as soon as hostilities began, such institutions turned into which they suppressed and destroyed great amount of people. German concentration camps during the Great Patriotic War were filled with millions of prisoners: Jews, communists, Poles, gypsies, Soviet citizens and others. Among the many causes of death of millions of people, the main ones were the following:

• severe bullying;
• illness;
• poor conditions of detention;
• exhaustion;
• heavy physical labor;
• inhumane medical experiments.

The development of a cruel system

The total number of correctional labor institutions at that time was about 5 thousand. German concentration camps during the Great Patriotic War had different purpose and capacity. The spread of racial theory in 1941 led to the emergence of camps or "death factories", behind the walls of which they methodically killed first Jews, and then people belonging to other "inferior" peoples. Camps were set up in the occupied territories

The first phase of the development of this system is characterized by the construction of camps on the German territory, which had the maximum similarity with the holds. They were intended to contain opponents of the Nazi regime. At that time, there were about 26 thousand prisoners in them, absolutely protected from the outside world. Even in the event of a fire, rescuers had no right to be in the camp.

The second phase is 1936-1938, when the number of those arrested grew rapidly and new places of detention were required. The arrested included the homeless and those who did not want to work. A kind of cleansing of society from asocial elements that disgraced the German nation was carried out. This is the time of the construction of such well-known camps as Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. Later, Jews were sent into exile.

The third phase of the development of the system begins almost simultaneously with the Second World War and lasts until the beginning of 1942. The number of prisoners inhabiting the German concentration camps during the Great Patriotic War almost doubled thanks to the captured French, Poles, Belgians and representatives of other nations. At this time, the number of prisoners in Germany and Austria is significantly inferior to the number of those who are in the camps built in the conquered territories.

During the fourth and final phase (1942-1945), the persecution of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war intensifies significantly. The number of prisoners is approximately 2.5-3 million.

The Nazis organized "death factories" and other similar institutions of detention in the territories of various countries. The most significant place among them was occupied by German concentration camps, the list of which is as follows:

• Buchenwald;
• Halle;
• Dresden;
• Dusseldorf;
• Catbus;
• Ravensbrück;
• Schlieben;
• Spremberg;
• Dachau;
• Essen.

Dachau - the first camp

Among the first in Germany, the Dachau camp was created, located near the camp of the same name. small town near Munich. He was a kind of model for creating future system Nazi penitentiaries. Dachau is a concentration camp that existed for 12 years. A huge number of German political prisoners, anti-fascists, prisoners of war, clergymen, political and public activists from almost all European countries were serving their sentences in it.

In 1942, a system consisting of 140 additional camps began to be created on the territory of southern Germany. All of them belonged to the Dachau system and contained more than 30 thousand prisoners used in a variety of hard work. Among the prisoners were well-known anti-fascist believers Martin Niemoller, Gabriel V and Nikolai Velimirovich.

Officially, Dachau was not intended to exterminate people. But, despite this, the official number of prisoners who died here is about 41,500 people. But the real number is much higher.

Also, behind these walls, a variety of medical experiments on people were carried out. In particular, there were experiments related to the study of the effect of height on the human body and the study of malaria. In addition, new medicines and hemostatic agents were tested on prisoners.

Dachau, a concentration camp with a very notoriety, released on April 29, 1945 by the military of the 7th Army of the US Armed Forces.

"Work makes you free"

This phrase of metal letters, placed above the main entrance to the Nazi, is a symbol of terror and genocide.

In connection with the increase in the number of arrested Poles, it became necessary to create a new place for their detention. In 1940-1941, all residents were evicted from the territory of Auschwitz and the villages adjacent to it. This place was intended to form a camp.

It included:

• Auschwitz I;
• Auschwitz-Birkenau;
• Auschwitz Buna (or Auschwitz III).

Surrounded by the entire camp were towers and barbed wire, located under electric voltage. restricted area located at a great distance outside the camps and had the name "zones of interest".

Prisoners were brought here on trains from all over Europe. After that, they were divided into 4 groups. The first, consisting mainly of Jews and people unfit for work, were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

Representatives of the second performed a variety of work on industrial enterprises. In particular, the labor of prisoners was used at the Buna Werke oil refinery, which was engaged in the production of gasoline and synthetic rubber.

A third of the newcomers were those who had congenital physical abnormalities. They were mostly dwarfs and twins. They were sent to the "main" concentration camp for anti-human and sadistic experiments.

The fourth group consisted of specially selected women who served as servants and personal slaves of the SS. They also sorted personal belongings confiscated from arriving prisoners.

The mechanism for the final solution of the Jewish question

Every day there were more than 100 thousand prisoners in the camp, who lived on 170 hectares of land in 300 barracks. Their construction was carried out by the first prisoners. The barracks were wooden and had no foundation. In winter, these rooms were especially cold because they were heated by 2 small stoves.

The crematoria at Auschwitz Birkenau were located at the end of railway tracks. They were combined with gas chambers. Each of them had 5 triple furnaces. Other crematoria were smaller and consisted of one eight-muffle oven. They all worked almost around the clock. The break was done only in order to clean the furnaces of human ashes and burnt fuel. All this was taken out to the nearest field and poured into special pits.

Each gas chamber held about 2.5 thousand people, they died within 10-15 minutes. After that, their corpses were transferred to the crematoria. Other prisoners were already prepared to take their place.

A large number of corpses could not always accommodate crematoriums, so in 1944 they began to be burned right on the street.

Some facts from the history of Auschwitz

Auschwitz is a concentration camp whose history includes about 700 escape attempts, half of which ended successfully. But even if someone managed to escape, all his relatives were immediately arrested. They were also sent to camps. Prisoners who lived with the escapee in the same block were killed. In this way, the management of the concentration camp prevented attempts to escape.

The liberation of this "factory of death" took place on January 27, 1945. 100 rifle division General Fyodor Krasavin occupied the territory of the camp. Only 7,500 people were alive at that time. The Nazis during their retreat killed or took to the Third Reich more than 58,000 prisoners.

Until our time, the exact number of lives taken by Auschwitz is not known. The souls of how many prisoners roam there to this day? Auschwitz is a concentration camp whose history is made up of the lives of 1.1-1.6 million prisoners. It has become a sad symbol of outrageous offenses against humanity.

Guarded Detention Camp for Women

The only huge concentration camp for women in Germany was Ravensbrück. It was designed to hold 30 thousand people, but at the end of the war there were more than 45 thousand prisoners. These included Russian and Polish women. The majority were Jewish. This female concentration camp was not officially intended to carry out various bullying of prisoners, but there was also no formal ban on such.

When entering Ravensbrück, women were stripped of everything they had. They were completely stripped, washed, shaved and given out work clothes. After that, the prisoners were distributed among the barracks.

Even before entering the camp, the most healthy and efficient women were selected, the rest were destroyed. Those who survived did various jobs related to construction and tailoring workshops.

Closer to the end of the war, a crematorium and a gas chamber were built here. Before that, if necessary, mass or single executions were carried out. Human ashes were sent as fertilizer to the fields surrounding the women's concentration camp, or simply dumped into the bay.

Elements of humiliation and experiences in Ravesbrück

To the most important elements humiliations included numbering, mutual responsibility and unbearable living conditions. Also, a feature of Ravesbrück is the presence of an infirmary designed for experiments on people. Here the Germans tested new drugs by infecting or crippling prisoners. The number of prisoners was rapidly decreasing due to regular purges or selections, during which all women who lost the opportunity to work or had a bad appearance were destroyed.

At the time of liberation, there were approximately 5,000 people in the camp. The rest of the prisoners were either killed or taken to other concentration camps in Nazi Germany. The finally imprisoned women were released in April 1945.

Concentration camp in Salaspils

First conc camp Salaspils was created in order to contain the Jews in it. They were brought there from Latvia and other European countries. First construction works were carried out by Soviet prisoners of war, who were in Stalag-350, located nearby.

Since at the time of the start of construction, the Nazis practically destroyed all the Jews in the territory of Latvia, the camp turned out to be unclaimed. In this regard, in May 1942, a prison was made in the empty premises of Salaspils. It contained all those who evaded labor service, sympathized Soviet power, and other opponents of the Hitler regime. People were sent here to die painful death. The camp was not like other similar establishments. There were no gas chambers or crematoria here. Nevertheless, about 10 thousand prisoners were destroyed here.

Children's Salaspils

The Salaspils concentration camp was a place of detention for children who were used here in order to provide them with the blood of the wounded. German soldiers. After the blood sampling procedure, most of the juvenile prisoners died very quickly.

The number of small prisoners who died within the walls of Salaspils is more than 3 thousand. These are only those children of concentration camps who are under 5 years old. Some of the bodies were burned, and the rest were buried in the garrison cemetery. Most of the children died due to the merciless pumping of blood.

The fate of people who ended up in concentration camps in Germany during the Great Patriotic War was tragic even after liberation. It would seem, what else could be worse! After the fascist corrective labor institutions, they were captured by the Gulag. Their relatives and children were repressed, and the former prisoners themselves were considered "traitors". They worked only in the most difficult and low-paid jobs. Only a few of them subsequently managed to break out into people.

The German concentration camps are evidence of the terrible and inexorable truth of the deepest decline of humanity.

Nazi Germany took a political course for the mass destruction of civilians, especially of Jewish nationality. So "death squadrons" were liquidated about a million people. Started a little later massacres, and appeared in which people were deprived of medicine and food. World War II concentration camps were built to systematically kill large numbers of people. They were built gas chambers, crematoria, laboratories for medical experiments.

The first of them were built in 1933, and a year later the SS troops took over them.

Yes, they were created large concentration camps in Germany: Buchenwald, Majdanek, Salaspils, Ravensbrück, Dachau and Auschwitz.

1. Buchenwald (men's camp) - was intended to isolate anti-fascists. Outside the gates of the camp, one could see a square for building, a punishment cell for interrogations, an office, barracks (52 main ones) for prisoners, as well as a quarantine zone and a crematorium where people were killed. Here the prisoners worked in a weapons factory. Poles were brought to this place, Soviet citizens, Dutch, Czechs, Hungarians and Jews.

The concentration camps of the Second World War had a group of laboratory doctors who performed experiments on prisoners. So, it was in Buchenwald that the development of a vaccine against typhoid was carried out.

In 1945, the prisoners of the camp carried out an uprising, captured the Nazis and took the leadership into their own hands. It can be said that they saved themselves, since the order had already been given to destroy all the prisoners.

2. Majdanek - intended for Soviet prisoners of war. The camp had five sections (one of them was for women). In the disinfection chamber, people were liquidated with gas, after which the corpses were taken to the crematorium, which was located in the third compartment.

In this camp, the prisoners worked in a factory that produced uniforms and a factory that produced weapons.

In 1944, due to the offensive Soviet troops, ceased to exist.

3. World War II concentration camps included and Kid `s camp Salaspils. Here the children were kept in isolation, they were deprived of care. Experiments were carried out on them, the so-called factory of children's blood was organized by the Nazis.

Today there is a memorial at this place.

4. Ravensbrück - originally intended for keeping German women, the so-called criminals, but later people of different nationalities were kept there.

The camp held medical experiments on the study of sulfa drugs. Somewhat later, bone tissue transplantation began here, the possibility of restoring muscles, nerves and bones was studied.

In 1945, she began the evacuation of the camp.

5. World War II concentration camps included Dachau. This camp was intended to contain people who polluted the Aryan nation. Here, the prisoners worked at the IG Farbenindustriya enterprise.

This camp is considered the most sinister of all known, it was experimented on people, the purpose of which was to study the possibility of controlling human behavior, also here investigated the effect of malaria on the body.

In 1945 underground organization camp organized an uprising and thwarted the plan to eliminate all prisoners.

6. Auschwitz (Auschwitz) - intended for maintenance political prisoners. The camp had a heel yard, thirteen blocks, each of which had its own purpose, a gas chamber and a crematorium.

In 1943, a resistance group was formed here, which helped prisoners escape.

Thus, German concentration camps World War II is striking in its cruelty. For all the time of their existence, a huge number of people, including children, have died in them.