Concentration Camps and Death Camps: Typological Differences
In the literature about the Holocaust, one
often encounters two different terms: "concentration camp" and "death
camp". Often, these two terms are used interchangeably, which gives the
impression that they are in fact one and the same.
In Poland, the blurring of these two terms was sanctioned by the
events of 1968, when the editors of Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna (The
Great Universal Encylopedia) were accused of "nationalism" and "singling
out the tragedy of the Jews" for having made this differentiation. This
was because, as the authorities alleged, the editors believed that the
tragedy of the Jews during the Holocaust was unique.
In the German policy of exterminating the Jews, however, there were two separate kinds
of camps, with different roles.
Concentration camps, which were first created in Germany and
Austria, were originally penal labor camps where people were sent for
specific periods of time on the basis of court sentences. Examples of
this type of camp were Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen. When the
war broke out, however, political prisoners, homosexuals, Jehovah's
Witnesses, prisoners of conscience and people caught during round ups
were all sent there as well.
These people did slave labor for the Third Reich in factories and
armaments factories, and, towards the end of the war, they also cleared
bombed cities in Germany proper. Time spent in a concentration camp
usually ended in death, whether due to hunger (at Auschwitz the food
ration was about 700 calories per day), beating, torture, liquidation of
the sick by an injection of phenol into the heart, execution or
disease, including infectious diseases such as typhus, tuberculosis and
dysentery. The hope of surviving nevertheless always remained-by working
in a "better commando", or by being appointed to any kind of position
in the camp.
The organization of death camps was different. As a result of
Wannsee, where it was decided "to solve the Jewish question" completely,
four camps were created: Chelmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof), Belzec, Sobibor
and Treblinka, whose function was to kill the people who arrived there
as quickly as possible.
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For this reason, in contrast to the
concentration camps, which included large areas with barracks holding
many thousands of people, the death camps were small. Located in forests
in sparsely populated areas, next to railroad lines built leading up to
them, they had only one role-to be the site of immediate death for the
thousands of Jews who would arrive there. One of the main differences
between concentration camps and death camps was that the latter had few
prisoners working there. There were generally about 1,000 who would be
chosen during selections as needed to replace members of the previous
crew. They lived in several barracks, and their only tasks were to
service the death machine (the gas chambers and crematoria), prepare the
corpses for burning (by cutting off their hair and pulling out gold
teeth), segregate the clothing and property that had been brought by the
victims, melt down the gold into bars and ready them to be sent to the
Bank of the Third Reich.
The death camps were comprised of two parts. One was the Totenlager
(Death Camp), with a building where the prisoners would get undressed,
connected by a narrow passageway to the gas chamber. In Treblinka, this
part was known as the "way to heaven". The other was made up of the gas
chambers and cremation pits. It is worth noting that in all four death
camps, carbon monoxide from gas engines was used to kill the victims. In
Chelmno, exhaust from trucks was connected to the gas chamber; in
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, Soviet diesel engines from T-34 tanks
were used with a special filter to remove the smell of the exhaust,
which left odorless, colorless carbon monoxide that killed victims in
twenty minutes. In the Totenlager there were also racks constructed of
railroad rails suspended over a cremation pit and places to crush the
bones that had not burnt completely. The ashes were either put into pits
that had been specially prepared beforehand, or ones that had
previously held corpses; alternatively, they were thrown into rivers.
Birkenau was another type of "mixed" concentration-death camp, where
the concentration camp was comprised of a large area having various
sections. This could hold up to 30,000 prisoners who would work within
the camp itself on construction, repair, cleaning, hospital or kitchen
commandos, or outside it in nearby factories (Monowice, DAW, Buna-Werke)
or farms (Rajsko, Harmenze). There was also a camp in which death would
take place immediately, which was comprised of a selection ramp, gas
chambers (where Zyklon B [hydrocyanic acid] was used) and four brick
crematoria that were put into use in late 1942 and early 1943.
It is estimated that in a relatively short time (approximately a
year to a year and a half, until the autumn of 1943) approximately
1,787,200 people were killed in the four death camps. In the Birkenau
death camp, one and a half million Jews were killed between 1942 and
1944. The total of those killed as part of the "Aktion Reinhard" is
3,287,200.
(kw/cm)
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