During World War II, the horrors that occurred
at extermination camps such as Auschwitz shocked the world, and continue to be a tragic
historical lesson in man’s inhumanity to man. However, Auschwitz was part of a much more complex
and widespread system of concentration camps that, if anything, even more thoroughly demonstrated
the Nazis’ appalling lack of humanity, based on their deep disdain for other
races, religions, and classes of people. Today, we will take a thorough look at
SS concentration camps - because history must be examined thoroughly to never again be
repeated. We know it’s a hard video, so pull up your favorite puppy photos if you need a short
break, and let’s dive into this somber topic. One of the first camps the Nazis built way back
in 1933 was Dachau. It became a blueprint for the concentration camp system in general, which grew
rapidly after the SS - the Schutzstaffel - under Heinrich Himmler, consolidated
control over the whole system in 1934. The Reich approved funding for the camps
from their official budget in 1935, which secured the future and development of the
camps until the end of World War II in 1945. Known as concentration camps, these buildings
were not at first explicitly constructed to kill prisoners, but rather to incarcerate
them all in a designated area. However, the brutal, degrading realities of
these camps meant that a shocking amount of prisoners - millions
- died while being held there. In fact, many prisoners died before even arriving.
Most were transported on trains over a period of days or weeks, and packed in so tightly
that there was rarely room to even sit down. Food and water were scarce, bathrooms were
non-existent, and the trains arrived at concentration camps with plenty of dead
bodies alongside those who had survived. What was the process of entering a concentration
camp like? And what was daily life like? Prisoners would be separated into men, then
women and children, and given a prisoner number. Most people are familiar with the infamous
numbered tattoos given to Auschwitz inmates, but in most camps this number
was sewn into prisoners’ clothes, a striped uniform they were forced to wear
after all their belongings had been taken. Before being assigned their barracks and work
details, prisoners were undressed in full view of everyone to humiliate them. Their heads were
shaved, and they were forced to shower in front of all the other prisoners and the SS guards,
who would hurl verbal and physical abuse at them. This whole process was designed to strip
the prisoners of any sense of identity or human dignity…to de-personalize
them completely and break their spirit, as the Nazis already viewed
them as less than human. Though daily routines obviously
varied from camp to camp, the general schedule seems to have run as follows: Prisoners would be forced to wake up between 4 AM
and 4:30 AM, and had approximately 30 minutes to use the bathroom, get dressed, eat, clean their
space, and make their beds. Guards would punish anyone who was too slow to finish this grueling
morning routine. Considering the bathrooms at concentration camps would usually be shared by up
to 2,000 prisoners, it was pretty much a no-win situation for those incarcerated, and an excuse
for the guards to abuse their fellow human beings. After the morning tasks were completed, the
guards would shuttle the prisoners outside to perform a roll call, often in incredibly
harsh weather conditions - we are talking about the northern parts of Central Europe after all. A
roll call would also be performed in the evening, Almost always, some prisoners would miss roll call
because they died in their sleep or from overwork, dehydration, starvation, or a general failure of
sanitation throughout the day. The bodies of these prisoners were simply brought out to count them
alongside their still-breathing fellow inmates. The prisoners faced beatings and various
tortures by the guards any time they collapsed, failed to respond, or honestly
any time the guards felt like it. After the morning call, prisoners set off on
foot to their work details. Even on this march, the SS officers would find ways to
additionally degrade the prisoners, often forcing them to sing songs insulting
themselves or fellow inmates. And once again, anyone who failed to keep up with the march
to work was brutally beaten and tortured. If you’re beginning to get the idea that
SS officers were often monsters who just liked having excuses to beat and torture people,
you’re correct. Perhaps now would be a good time to close your eyes and picture a koala bear,
or a kitten, and lower your blood pressure. The day ended at around 5 or 6
PM, and after evening roll call, which would sometimes purposely be dragged out
to exhaust them, the prisoners were sent to their barracks so they could enjoy their “free
time” - an incredibly generous way to describe passing out from exhaustion or bartering for
additional food to avoid starvation. Finally, at 9 PM, it was lights out to prepare
for another grueling, miserable day. These conditions led to one million
people dying in concentration camps alone while the Nazis were in power. So who was being put into
these concentration camps? Originally, in 1933, the camps
held political prisoners, mostly communists who the Nazis
deemed enemies of their ideology. From 1934 onwards, the camps
also started to hold “asocials”. This was not a term for people who prefer to
read a good book rather than go out on weekends, but instead a polite term for anyone
the Nazi party deemed undesirable in society. You may not be surprised to learn
that this covered a pretty large group of people. “Asocials” included members of the LGBQT+
community, prostitutes, homeless people, Roma, and the “work-shy”. This last term didn’t necessarily
mean unemployed people, but almost anyone the Nazis deemed as not conforming to social
norms regarding work type and ethic. Shortly after, in 1935, Jehovah’s
witnesses and pacifists were also given one-way tickets to concentration camps
for refusing to fight in the Nazi army. In 1937, apparently running out of people
to arrest for the crime of being themselves, the Nazis decided to add criminals to their list.
Not those currently committing felonies; oh no. Himmler and his goons loved arresting anyone
who had a criminal conviction in their past, to round them up and send them off to the
concentration camps. Just one of the many, many raids he conducted resulted in
2,000 people arrested in a single day. In 1938, Jewish people were rounded up en masse
after years of intense suppression and persecution under the Nazi regime. In fact, “intense” is
definitely an understatement. Between 1933 and 1938, at least 400 anti-Semitic laws were
passed in Germany, whose politicians couldn’t seem to get enough of them. One of these laws,
the Reich Citizenship Law, declared that only “Aryans”, aka non-Jewish white people for the most
part, would be classed as citizens of the Reich. We could delve into the discredited genetic
theories that led to Hitler using the term “Aryan”, originally referring to prehistoric
people of ancient Iran and northern India, to describe some of the palest people on the
planet. But the choice can best be summarized by saying that Hitler’s ideas about race were
not only outright false, but also incredibly stupid. (Upcoming sarcasm) Thankfully, no one
clings onto such ridiculous racist nonsense today. However, under this Citizenship Law, the Nazis
ended up classifying a whole lot of people as Jewish who had never considered themselves
as such. Even if a German citizen was born and raised Christian, and
had one Jewish grandparent, even one who had converted in their lifetime
to Christianity…they would be viewed as Jewish. This would be like classifying every drunk person on St. Patrick’s Day drinking
green beer as ethnically Irish. In 1938, two major events intensified
the round-up of Jewish people: Anschluss - the annexation of Austria - and
Kristallnacht - a horrifying night in which Jewish businesses were destroyed, and the SS,
with the assistance of some German citizens, physically attacked and humiliated Jewish
men, women, and children in the streets. Just in the first week after Kristallnacht, over
25,000 men were sent to concentration camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau. Sensing that things
were going from bad to worse to terrifying, many Jewish people tried to leave Germany, but
as few countries increased their refugee quotas, only around 120,000 Jewish people made it
out before the outbreak of World War II. In the camps, the SS officers
established a system of badges, usually triangles under the prisoner’s
assigned number on their uniform, to identify the prisoners as belonging to separate
groups. We assume this was so the officers in the camp would know exactly what kind of verbal
abuse and slurs to throw at each prisoner. Jewish prisoners were given two yellow triangles
that formed the Star of David. Roma were identified by brown triangles, homosexual people
had pink triangles, Jehovah’s Witnesses had purple triangles, political prisoners had red triangles,
and general “asocials” had black triangles. As the number of prisoners in
concentration camps skyrocketed, Hitler was well aware that he
also had to prepare for war. Thus, the construction of forced labor camps
accelerated swiftly from 1937 onwards. Though concentration camp inmates were
also made to perform manual labor, forced labor camps were specifically started
to help the German war effort. As German men signed up for, or were drafted into the
army, Germany faced big labor shortages. After Germany kicked off World War II with
the invasion of Poland, and especially after the invasion of Russia, the use of forced labor
to keep the economy afloat intensified rapidly. However, the invasions of European countries,
especially Poland and Russia, also meant that the Germans had whole new populations of people
to incarcerate and exploit in these camps. They named the forced labor camp
prisoners Ostarbeiter - eastern workers - and Fremdarbeiter - foreign workers. Even though the Nazis needed forced
labor to keep the war effort going, they viewed the prisoners as totally replaceable,
and therefore completely neglected their health. Conditions at these camps were as
squalid as those in concentration camps. Because of the strenuous
work and long hours involved, death rates at forced labor camps
were tragically high. All in all, up until the end of the war, over 14 million
people had been forced to work in these camps. After the start of the war in 1939, two
new categories of camps were created: prisoner of war camps and transit camps. While foreign nationals were
sent to forced labor camps, or concentration camps if they were
Jewish, homosexual, Roma or many, many other things, foreign soldiers
and officers were held in POW camps. Not that they had much better conditions
than any other concentration camps. Though Geneva convention rules had been in
effect since 1929, and Germany was a signatory, the Nazis cared little about upholding standards
for humane treatment of prisoners of war. Most of the inmates were given few supplies
for survival, and many were forced to perform manual labor as well. However, the Nazis were
especially harsh on the Soviet and Polish inmates. In the messed up racial ideology of the Nazis,
Polish people were viewed as racially inferior, and Soviet citizens were enemies due to their
communist beliefs - or just the simple fact that they lived in a communist state. The Nazis
captured 5.7 million Soviet soldiers during the course of the war. By the end of the war around
3 million of these prisoners of war would die. The other camps that were built
during the war were transit camps. These were established in the
European countries the Nazis invaded to hold prisoners temporarily before they
could be transported to concentration camps. See, when Nazis invaded a country, they
would carry their rampant racism and ethnic cleansing with them. This meant that locals
of that country who fell outside the Nazis’ standards were rounded up and subjected to the
same policies German minorities had put up with. Depressingly, some transit camps
were run by local authorities or equally racist local groups collaborating with
the SS who were imprisoning their own people. The last type of concentration camp built during
the war is the most infamous and horrific: extermination camps. The first was Chelmno,
in which genocidal operations started in December of 1941. These camps were built
to implement Hitler’s “Final Solution”, aka the ethnic cleansing of Jewish people,
Roma, and other minorities he detested. The main six extermination camps were Auschwitz,
Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Madjanek, and Treblinka. Many of those transported to the camps would
be killed almost immediately in gas chambers. Those who weren’t killed on arrival were
forced to work in the camp, either sorting out other prisoners’ belongings, performing manual
labor, or doing administrative work for the camp. Over 3 million people were murdered in
extermination camps. This of course doesn’t even come close to covering the horrifying scale
of genocide and mass murder the Nazis engaged in. Over 6 million Jewish people were killed
during the Holocaust, with over 2 million being killed via shooting operations,
raids in Jewish ghettos, and gas wagons. Between 250,000 and 500,000 Roma were also killed, around 1.8 million Polish civilians,
and 7 million Soviet civilians as well. The Nazi system of concentration camps was
the end result of years of discrimination, oppression, racism, and systemic violence against
the groups of people they hated. The deliberate dehumanization of prisoners, in order to enable
the Nazis’ genocide of fellow human beings, resulted in one of the most horrific
tragedies of the 21st century. However, we must always learn about and understand the
worst that mankind has been capable of in history, in order to make sure we never
head down that path again. Now that you’ve finished this video, perhaps click on something more light-hearted
like this one, or this other video right here!
