World War 2 show women's concentration camps. Life and death in Nazi concentration camps
"The famous photograph was taken in the Buchenwald concentration camp, inside Block 56, by Private H. Miller of the Civil Affairs Department of the Signal CorpsUSAApril 16, 1945 year, h five days after the camp was liberated 6th Armored Division of the ArmyUSAApril 11, 1945. The photo has been published New York Times, May 6, 1945 in the article "The world must not forget" with the caption "Crowded sleeping quarters in the Buchenwald prison camp."
It is not worth thinking too much about why, five days after the camp was liberated, the sleeping places were overcrowded and why in April the prisoners lay naked. We can confidently explain this by the staged nature of the photograph.
Pictured in the article newspaper New York Timesit is noticeable that the guy standing in the first photo has disappeared (or has not yet appeared, which is more likely tno). The original article can be downloaded for a small fee atnewspaper online archiveNew York Times,here is a link to that article.
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| Scanned photo from The New York Times Magazine, May 6, 1945 |
Looking closely at the first photo, you can see that the light falls on the bunks almost perpendicularly from a source located under the ceiling. The location of the source is best helped to determine the shadows from the bars, which are indicated by the blue arrows, and its height - by the shadows, which are shown by the yellow ones. However, the shadows from the person on the right and from the pillar next to him have a different direction, and they are not as deep as the shadows cast by the bunks and body parts of the prisoners! It turns out that a standing person is illuminated by another light source - less intense and located lower and closer to the photographer than the one that illuminates the bunk. A tThe line that the shirt sleeve throws on the prisoner's foot has a completely inadequate continuation on the floor.
However, the bloggers figured out the fraudulent photo not by the drawn shadows, but on the left shoulder of the person standing, which is in front of the wooden beam, although the person is tilted as if leaning on something. Notice how his toes are flush with the edge of the beam while his shoulder is in front of him. Try to take such a relaxed pose yourself - and you will not succeed, because you will have to bend forward a lot! The edge of the arm from the elbow to the shoulder joint is inaccurately retouched - apparently in the original photo this man was leaning against the wall, and when he was cut out, the arm turned out to be "hewn".
In order to hide such an obvious falsification, the photograph was simply cut off at the museum's exposition in Buchenwald. This photo was taken on January 29, 2012.
And when Obama was shown in the photo "Eli Wiesel" - the built-in person was cut off completely.
The name of a standing naked man - Simon Tonkman. He is not a Jew, but a Frenchman, he ended up in the camp as a member of the Resistance movement. He is in the center of this photo.on his head is a French beret worn by the communists in the camp. Read about how he was identified.Note that Toncman and some of the prisoners in both photos have well-groomed beards, while others are clean-shaven.
Jewish prisoners were isolated in Buchenwald in a special section called "Small Camp", which was located at the bottom of the slope, not far from the gatehouse at the entrance to the camp. The "Little Camp" was separated from the rest of the Buchenwald camp by a barbed wire fence, built on a football field and used as a quarantine camp for Jewish prisoners who were evacuated from Auschwitz and other camps and taken to Buchenwald in the last months of the war.
Conditions inside the "Little Camp" were much worse than in the main part of the Buchenwald camp. The Jews were forced to live in overcrowded barracks and the spread of disease was rampant.
Communist political prisoners at one time they wrested power in the camp from the "greens" ("greens" are ordinary criminals, they wore green triangles). Communists lived in good barracks near the gates, discriminated against Jewish prisoners and did not allow them to move to good hostels even for a bribe. After the camp was liberated, the Jews were not even allowed to attend the solemn rally, which was held by the communist prisoners near the gatehouse.
Buchenwald was primarily a camp for political prisoners. Jewish prisoners arrived there only after the camps located on the territory of Poland were closed due to the advance of the Red Army. In Buchenwald, the Jews were immediately isolated and quarantined to prevent the spread of various diseases. Despite this, a typhus epidemic still broke out in the camp - half of all prisoners who died in Buchenwald during its existence died during the epidemic.
As you can see, the time difference between the two photographs in which Simon Toncman "poses" is 5 days and he could only theoretically find himself in the Jewish block No. 56, and even get naked there.
There you will find my raw photos + many more photos, facts and stories about the genocide and the Holocaust, all in non-Russian.
Emaciated 18-year-old Russian girl looks into the camera lens during the release concentration camp Dachau in 1945. Dachau was the first German concentration camp. It was opened in 1933. Over 200,000 people have passed through it, and 31,591 people have died in it, most from disease, starvation and suicide. Unlike Auschwitz, Dachau was not an extermination camp, but because of the terrible conditions, more than a hundred people died here every week.
The photograph made a lot of noise and became evidence of the genocide of Jews. The photo is titled "The Last Jew in Vinnitsa". This is not a fiction - this is the text that was written on the back of the photo. It was found in one of the SS officers' albums.
German soldiers interrogate Jews after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. In October 1940, the Germans began sending Polish Jews to concentration camps. In the largest of them, the Warsaw ghetto, thousands of Jews died due to disease and starvation, from which the Germans constantly selected the sick and took them to the Treblinka extermination camp. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the first urban uprising against the Nazi occupation of Europe. It took place from April 19 to May 16, 1943. A week after the start, the Germans brought troops into the territory of the ghetto and suppressed the rebellion by force. Thousands died...
Starved to death in the Warsaw Ghetto
Photo after the Warsaw ghetto uprising was crushed
The collapse of the Warsaw ghetto. It was completely destroyed after liberation. Over 300,000 Jews died on its territory during all the time.
The shooting of girls in a ravine near the Jewish ghetto Mizoch, which was located on the territory of Ukraine
Anne Frank - photo from 1941. In August 1944, Anna and her family were captured by SS officers and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died of typhus at the age of 15. Anna kept a diary and after the war it was published. It became a symbol of the memory of all Jews about the Nazi genocide.
Arriving at the concentration camp
14-year-old Jiesława Kwoka was sent to Auschwitz with her mother in December 1942. Two years later they were both dead. The photographer who took the photo told her story. "She was so young and beautiful. And the female warder took out her evil on her. They constantly beat her with sticks. This photo was taken immediately after the beating. Tzeslava managed to wipe her tears and blood from the wound on her lip. She had a month to live ..."
Victims of Nazi medical experiments. Phosphorus burn marks.
This is a pile of ashes, human bones and debris - the result of a ONE DAY operation of furnaces in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
Not lived a few days before the release. Camp Nordhausen.
Death march. When the Allies approached from the camps, the prisoners were sent in columns deep into Germany. If you did not have time - execution, did not keep pace - execution, complained - execution, if you wanted to eat - execution.
After the liberation of the Nordhausen camp.
After the liberation of the Schwabmünchen camp.
A prisoner shot in the back while trying to escape from the Buchenwald camp.
The photo was taken immediately after the liberation of the Fekla camp. In this camp, the prisoners made incendiary bombs. When the camp guards saw the Americans approaching, they locked the plant and set it on fire. About 300 prisoners burned alive...
The bodies of political prisoners. The SS officers rounded up about 1,100 political prisoners in the hangar and set it on fire. Those who managed to get out were shot. Of the 1100, only 12 survived.
After release. Camp Nordhausen
The US military pulls out the body of a murdered SS officer at the Dachau camp. Most of the Dachau guards were killed by the prisoners after their release.
German residents listen to information from an American officer next to the bodies of those killed in a concentration camp. So the Allies opened the eyes of the locals to the horrors of Hitler's Germany.
On April 27, 1940, the first Auschwitz concentration camp was created, designed for the mass extermination of people.
Concentration camp - places for forced isolation of real or perceived opponents of the state, the political regime, etc. Unlike prisons, ordinary camps for prisoners of war and refugees, concentration camps were created according to special decrees during the war, the aggravation of the political struggle.
In fascist Germany, concentration camps are an instrument of mass state terror and genocide. Although the term "concentration camp" was used to refer to all Nazi camps, there were actually several types of camps, and the concentration camp was just one of them.
Other types of camps included labor and hard labor camps, extermination camps, transit camps, and POW camps. As the war progressed, the distinction between concentration camps and labor camps became increasingly blurred, as hard labor was used in the concentration camps as well.
Concentration camps in Nazi Germany were created after the Nazis came to power in order to isolate and repress opponents of the Nazi regime. The first concentration camp in Germany was established near Dachau in March 1933.
By the beginning of World War II, 300 thousand German, Austrian and Czech anti-fascists were in prisons and concentration camps in Germany. In subsequent years, Nazi Germany created a gigantic network of concentration camps on the territory of the European countries it occupied, turned into places for the organized systematic murder of millions of people.
Fascist concentration camps were intended for the physical destruction of entire peoples, primarily Slavic; total extermination of Jews, Gypsies. To do this, they were equipped with gas chambers, gas chambers and other means of mass extermination of people, crematoria.
(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing. Moscow. In 8 volumes - 2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)
There were even special death camps (destruction), where the liquidation of prisoners went on at a continuous and accelerated pace. These camps were designed and built not as places of detention, but as death factories. It was assumed that in these camps, people doomed to death had to spend literally a few hours. In such camps, a well-functioning conveyor was built, turning several thousand people a day into ashes. These include Majdanek, Auschwitz, Treblinka and others.
Concentration camp prisoners were deprived of their freedom and the ability to make decisions. The SS strictly controlled all aspects of their lives. Violators of the order were severely punished, subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, deprivation of food and other forms of punishment. Prisoners were classified according to their place of birth and reasons for imprisonment.
Initially, the prisoners in the camps were divided into four groups: political opponents of the regime, representatives of "inferior races", criminals and "unreliable elements". The second group, including Gypsies and Jews, was subject to unconditional physical extermination and was kept in separate barracks.
They were subjected to the most cruel treatment by the SS guards, they were starved, sent to the most exhausting work. Among the political prisoners were members of anti-Nazi parties, primarily communists and social democrats, members of the Nazi party accused of serious crimes, listeners of foreign radio, members of various religious sects. Among the "unreliable" were homosexuals, alarmists, dissatisfied, etc.
The concentration camps also housed criminals who were used by the administration as overseers of political prisoners.
All prisoners of the concentration camps were required to wear distinctive signs on their clothes, including a serial number and a colored triangle ("Winkel") on the left side of the chest and right knee. (In Auschwitz, the serial number was tattooed on the left forearm.) All political prisoners wore a red triangle, criminals - green, "unreliable" - black, homosexuals - pink, gypsies - brown.
In addition to the classification triangle, the Jews also wore yellow, as well as a six-pointed "Star of David". A Jew who violated racial laws ("racial defiler") had to wear a black border around a green or yellow triangle.
Foreigners also had their own distinctive signs (the French wore a sewn letter "F", the Poles - "P", etc.). The letter "K" denoted a war criminal (Kriegsverbrecher), the letter "A" denoted a violator of labor discipline (from German Arbeit - "work"). The feeble-minded wore the patch Blid - "fool". Prisoners who participated or were suspected of escaping were required to wear a red and white target on their chest and back.
The total number of concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos in the occupied countries of Europe and in Germany itself, where people were kept and destroyed in the most difficult conditions by various methods and means, is 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, Germany has adopted the division of 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 names of concentration camps of the international classification (main and their external teams).
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".
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).
Major Nazi concentration camps
Buchenwald is one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. It was created in 1937 in the vicinity of the city of Weimar (Germany). Originally called Ettersberg. Had 66 branches and external working teams. The largest ones: "Dora" (near the city of Nordhausen), "Laura" (near the city of Saalfeld) and "Ohrdruf" (in Thuringia), where the FAA projectiles were mounted. From 1937 to 1945 about 239 thousand people were prisoners of the camp. In total, 56 thousand prisoners of 18 nationalities were tortured in Buchenwald.
The camp was liberated on April 10, 1945 by units of the 80th US division. In 1958, a memorial complex dedicated to him was opened in Buchenwald. heroes and victims of the concentration camp.
Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau), also known by the German names Auschwitz or Auschwitz-Birkenau, is a complex of German concentration camps located in 1940-1945. in southern Poland, 60 km west of Krakow. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz-1 (served as the administrative center of the entire complex), Auschwitz-2 (also known as Birkenau, "death camp"), Auschwitz-3 (a group of approximately 45 small camps created at factories and mines around general complex).
More than 4 million people died in Auschwitz, including more than 1.2 million Jews, 140 thousand Poles, 20 thousand Gypsies, 10 thousand Soviet prisoners of war and tens of thousands of prisoners of other nationalities.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. In 1947, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Oswiecim-Brzezinka) was opened in Oswiecim.
Dachau (Dachau) - the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, established in 1933 on the outskirts of Dachau (near Munich). Had about 130 branches and external work teams located in Southern Germany. More than 250 thousand people from 24 countries were prisoners of Dachau; about 70 thousand people were tortured or killed (including about 12 thousand Soviet citizens).
In 1960, a monument to the dead was unveiled in Dachau.
Majdanek (Majdanek) - a Nazi concentration camp, was created in the suburbs of the Polish city of Lublin in 1941. It had branches in southeastern Poland: Budzyn (near Krasnik), Plaszow (near Krakow), Travniki (near Vepshem), two camps in Lublin. According to Nuremberg Trials, in 1941-1944. in the camp, the Nazis destroyed about 1.5 million people of various nationalities. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on July 23, 1944. In 1947, a museum and research institute was opened in Majdanek.
Treblinka - Nazi concentration camps near the station. Treblinka in the Warsaw Voivodeship of Poland. In Treblinka I (1941-1944, the so-called labor camp), about 10 thousand people died, in Treblinka II (1942-1943, an extermination camp) - about 800 thousand people (mostly Jews). In August 1943, in Treblinka II, the Nazis suppressed an uprising of prisoners, after which the camp was liquidated. The Treblinka I camp was liquidated in July 1944 when the Soviet troops approached.
In 1964, on the site of Treblinka II, a memorial symbolic cemetery for the victims of fascist terror was opened: 17,000 tombstones made of irregularly shaped stones, a monument-mausoleum.
Ravensbruck (Ravensbruck) - a concentration camp was founded near the city of Furstenberg in 1938 as an exclusively female camp, but later a small camp for men and another one for girls were created nearby. In 1939-1945. 132,000 women and several hundred children from 23 European countries passed through the death camp. 93 thousand people were destroyed. On April 30, 1945, the prisoners of Ravensbrück were liberated by the soldiers of the Soviet army.
Mauthausen (Mauthausen) - a concentration camp was established in July 1938, 4 km from the city of Mauthausen (Austria) as a branch of the Dachau concentration camp. Since March 1939 - an independent camp. In 1940, it was merged with the Gusen concentration camp and became known as Mauthausen-Gusen. It had about 50 branches scattered throughout the territory of the former Austria (Ostmark). During the existence of the camp (until May 1945) there were about 335 thousand people from 15 countries in it. Only according to the surviving records, more than 122 thousand people were killed in the camp, including more than 32 thousand Soviet citizens. The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by American troops.
After the war, on the site of Mauthausen, 12 states, incl. Soviet Union, a memorial museum was created, monuments to those who died in the camp were erected.
These photographs show the life and martyrdom of Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Some of these photos can be traumatic. Therefore, we ask children and mentally unstable people to refrain from viewing these photos.
Liberated prisoners of the Austrian concentration camp in the American military hospital.
Clothing of concentration camp prisoners abandoned after liberation in April 1945/
American soldiers inspect the site of the mass execution of 250 Polish and French prisoners at a concentration camp near Leipzig on April 19, 1945.
A Ukrainian girl released from a concentration camp in Salzburg, Austria, cooks food on a small stove.
Prisoners of the Flossenburg death camp after being liberated by the US 97th Infantry Division in May 1945. The emaciated prisoner in the center - a 23-year-old Czech - is ill with dysentery.
Ampfing concentration camp prisoners after their release.
View of the concentration camp at Grini in Norway.
Soviet prisoners in the Lamsdorf concentration camp (Stalag VIII-B, now the Polish village of Lambinovice.
The bodies of the executed SS guards at the observation tower "B" of the Dachau concentration camp.
View of the barracks of the Dachau concentration camp.
Soldiers of the US 45th Infantry Division show the bodies of prisoners in a wagon at the Dachau concentration camp to teenagers from the Hitler Youth.
View of the Buchenwald barracks after the liberation of the camp.
American generals George Patton, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower in the Ohrdruf concentration camp at the fire, where the Germans burned the bodies of prisoners.
Soviet prisoners of war in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Soviet prisoners of war eating in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Soviet prisoners of war near the barbed wire of the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Soviet prisoner of war at the barracks of the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
British prisoners of war on the stage of the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp theater.
Captured British corporal Eric Evans with three comrades at the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Burnt bodies of prisoners of the Ohrdruf concentration camp.
Bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners. Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners for burial in a mass grave. They were attracted to these works by the allies who liberated the camp. Around the moat is a convoy of English soldiers. Former guards are banned from wearing gloves as a punishment to put them at risk of contracting typhus.
Six British prisoners in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Soviet prisoners are talking to a German officer in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Soviet prisoners of war change clothes in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Group photo of allied prisoners (British, Australians and New Zealanders) in the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
An orchestra of captured allies (Australians, British and New Zealanders) on the territory of the Stalag XVIIIA concentration camp.
Captured Allied soldiers play the game Two Up for cigarettes in the Stalag 383 concentration camp.
Two British prisoners at the wall of the barracks of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.
A German soldier-escort at the Stalag 383 concentration camp market, surrounded by captured allies.
Group photo of allied prisoners in the Stalag 383 concentration camp on Christmas Day 1943.
The barracks of the Vollan concentration camp in the Norwegian city of Trondheim after liberation.
A group of Soviet prisoners of war outside the gates of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.
SS-Oberscharführer Erich Weber on vacation in the commandant's quarters of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.
Commandant of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Hauptscharführer Karl Denk (left) and SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber (right) in the commandant's room.
Five released prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp at the gate.
Prisoners of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) on vacation during a break between work in the field.
SS-Oberscharführer Erich Weber, an employee of the Falstadt concentration camp
SS non-commissioned officers K. Denk, E. Weber and Luftwaffe sergeant R. Weber with two women in the commandant's office of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.
An employee of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber in the kitchen of the commandant's house.
Soviet, Norwegian and Yugoslav prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp on vacation at the logging site.
The head of the women's block of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) Maria Robbe (Maria Robbe) with the police at the gates of the camp.
A group of Soviet prisoners of war on the territory of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.
Seven guards of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad at the main gate.
Panorama of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) after the liberation.
Black French prisoners in the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.
Black French prisoners do laundry at the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.
Members of the Warsaw Uprising from the Home Army in the barracks of a concentration camp near the German village of Oberlangen.
The body of a shot SS guard in a canal near the Dachau concentration camp 
A column of prisoners of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) passes in the courtyard of the main building.
Liberated children, prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz) show camp numbers tattooed on their arms.
Railway tracks leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
An emaciated Hungarian prisoner released from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
A liberated prisoner of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who fell ill with typhus in one of the camp barracks.
A group of children released from the Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz). In total, about 7,500 people, including children, were released in the camp. The Germans managed to take about 50 thousand prisoners from Auschwitz to other camps before the Red Army units approached.
Prisoners demonstrate the process of destroying corpses in the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.
Red Army prisoners who died of hunger and cold. The POW camp was located in the village of Bolshaya Rossoshka near Stalingrad.
Body of Ohrdruf concentration camp guard killed by prisoners or American soldiers.
Prisoners in the barracks of the Ebensee concentration camp.
Irma Grese and Josef Kramer in the prison yard of the German city of Celle. The head of the labor service of the women's unit of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - Irma Grese (Irma Grese) and his commandant SS Hauptsturmführer (captain) Josef Kramer under British escort in the courtyard of the prison in Celle, Germany.
Girl prisoner of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac.
Soviet prisoners of war while carrying building elements for the barracks of the Stalag 304 Zeithain camp.
Surrendered SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker (Heinrich Wicker, later shot by American soldiers) at the car with the bodies of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp. In the photo, second from the left is Victor Mairer, a representative of the Red Cross.
A man in civilian clothes stands near the bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
In the background, Christmas wreaths hang near the windows.
Released from captivity, the British and Americans are on the territory of the prisoner of war camp Dulag-Luft in Wetzlar, Germany.
Released prisoners from the Nordhausen death camp sit on the porch.
Prisoners of the concentration camp Gardelegen (Gardelegen), killed by guards shortly before the liberation of the camp.
The corpses of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, prepared for burning in a crematorium, in the back of a trailer.
Aerial photography of the northwestern part of the Auschwitz concentration camp with the main objects of the camp marked: railroad station and camp "Auschwitz I".
American generals (from right to left) Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George Patton watch a demonstration of one of the torture methods at the Gotha concentration camp.
Mountains of clothes of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp.
A liberated seven-year-old prisoner of the Buchenwald concentration camp in line before being sent to Switzerland.
Prisoners of the concentration camp Sachsenhausen (Sachsenhausen) on the line.
A Soviet prisoner of war released from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.
Soviet prisoners of war in a barracks after their release from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.
A Soviet prisoner of war leaves a barrack at the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.
Women liberated by the Red Army from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, located 90 km north of Berlin.
German officers and civilians walk past a group of Soviet prisoners during an inspection of a concentration camp.
Soviet prisoners of war in the camp in the ranks during verification.
prisoners soviet soldiers in the camp at the beginning of the war.
Captured Red Army soldiers enter the camp barracks.
Four Polish prisoners of the Oberlangen concentration camp (Oberlangen, Stalag VI C) after their liberation. Women were among the capitulated Warsaw insurgents.
The orchestra of prisoners of the Yanovsky concentration camp performs the "Tango of Death". On the eve of the liberation of Lvov by the Red Army, the Germans lined up a circle of 40 people from the orchestra. The camp guards surrounded the musicians in a tight ring and ordered them to play. First, the conductor of the Mund orchestra was executed, then, by order of the commandant, each orchestra member went to the center of the circle, laid his instrument on the ground and stripped naked, after which he was shot in the head.
Two American soldiers and a former prisoner fish the body of a shot SS guard from a canal near the Dachau concentration camp.
The Ustaše execute prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp.
Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many have lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will consider the concentration camps of the Nazis and the atrocities that took place on their territories.
What is a concentration camp?
Concentration camp or concentration camp - a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:
- political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
- prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).
The concentration camps of the Nazis were notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Contained there, mostly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system.
Life in the camp
Humiliation and bullying for the prisoners began already from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water and a fenced-off latrine. The natural need of the prisoners had to celebrate publicly, in a tank, standing in the middle of the car.
But this was only the beginning, a lot of bullying and torment was being prepared for the Nazi concentration camps objectionable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.
The conditions of detention can be judged from the letters of the prisoners: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry ... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured ...”, “They shot, flogged, poisoned with dogs, drowned in water, beaten with sticks, starved. Infected with tuberculosis ... strangled by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. Burned ... ".
The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was later used in the German textile industry. Doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, from whose hand thousands of people died. He investigated the mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they were transplanted organs from each other, blood was transfused, sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. He did sex reassignment surgery.
All fascist concentration camps became famous for such bullying, we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.
Camp ration
Usually the daily ration in the camp was as follows:
- bread - 130 gr;
- fat - 20 gr;
- meat - 30 gr;
- cereals - 120 gr;
- sugar - 27 gr.
Bread was handed out, and the rest of the food was used for cooking, which consisted of soup (given out 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150-200 gr). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for workers. Those who for some reason remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a serving of bread.
List of concentration camps in different countries
Nazi concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. The list of them is long, but we will name the main ones:
- On the territory of Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
- Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
- France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
- Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
- Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
- Czechoslovakia - Kunta-gora, Natra, Glinsko;
- Estonia - Pirkul, Parnu, Klooga;
- Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
- Latvia - Salaspils.
And it's far from full list all the concentration camps that were built Nazi Germany during the pre-war and war years.
Salaspils
Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because, in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and functioned from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).
Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and massacred, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.
Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was sent to medical research, during which more than 100,000 people died. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. The torture of children here was a routine affair that proceeded according to a schedule with meticulous records of the results.
Experiments on children
The testimonies of witnesses and the results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beatings, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often for children), performing surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only for children), executions, torture, useless severe labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity has seen in the New Age. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.
Children did not stay long with their mothers, usually they were quickly taken away and distributed. So, children under the age of six were in a special barracks, where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died in 3-4 days. In this way, the Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year. The bodies of the dead were partly burned, and partly buried in the camp.
The following figures were given in the Act of the Nuremberg trials “on the extermination of children”: during the excavation of only one fifth of the territory of the concentration camp, 633 children's bodies aged 5 to 9 years were found, arranged in layers; a platform soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children's bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.
Salaspils is truly the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because the atrocities described above are far from all the torments to which the prisoners were subjected. So, in winter, the children brought in barefoot and naked were driven to a half-kilometer barrack, where they had to wash in ice water. After that, the children were driven to the next building in the same way, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. At the same time, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. All who survived after this procedure were also subjected to arsenic etching.
Infants were kept separately, injections were given to them, from which the child died in agony in a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children per day died from the experiments. The bodies of the dead were taken out in large baskets and burned, thrown into cesspools or buried near the camp.
Ravensbrück
If we start listing the women's concentration camps of the Nazis, then Ravensbrück will be in the first place. It was the only camp of this type in Germany. It held thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were kept, Jews accounted for about 15 percent. There were no written instructions regarding torture and torture; the overseers chose the line of conduct themselves.
Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Also, the clothes indicated racial affiliation. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in post-war years 2-3 families of refugees lived in them) contained about three hundred prisoners, who were accommodated on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were driven into these cells, who had to sleep seven of them on the same bunk. There were several toilets and a washbasin in the barracks, but there were so few of them that the floors were littered with excrement after a few days. Such a picture was presented by almost all Nazi concentration camps (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).
But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and hardy, fit for work, were left, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.
Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared already at the end of the war. The ashes from the crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.
Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barrack called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new medications, pre-infecting or crippling test subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered for the rest of their lives from what they suffered. Experiments were also conducted with the irradiation of women with X-rays, from which hair fell out, skin was pigmented, and death occurred. Genital organs were cut out, after which few survived, and even those quickly grew old, and at 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out by all concentration camps of the Nazis, the torture of women and children is the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.
At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there, the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks for the settlement of refugees. Later, Ravensbrück turned into a stationing point for Soviet military units.
Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald
The construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, who became the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the "hellish" concentration camp.
The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately outside the gates began "Appelplat" (parade ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite the office was located, where the camp leader and the officer on duty lived - the camp authorities. Deeper were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were arranged in the rest.
The Nazi concentration camps left a terrible memory behind them, their names still cause fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. by the most scary place considered to be a crematorium. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot, and the body was sent to the oven.
Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number on German which had to be learned in the first day. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.
Continuing to describe the concentration camps of the Nazis, let us turn to the so-called "small camp" of Buchenwald.
Small Camp Buchenwald
The "Small Camp" was the quarantine zone. Living conditions here were, even in comparison with the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when the German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiègne camp were brought to this camp, mostly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were placed in tents. The closer 1945 was, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the "small camp" included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in the concentration camps of the Nazis was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, the very life in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks, their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread, the unemployed were no longer supposed to.
Relations among the prisoners were tough, cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. It was a common practice to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The clothes of the deceased were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions in the camp, infectious diseases. Vaccinations only exacerbated the situation, as injection syringes were not changed.
The photo is simply not able to convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. Witness accounts are not for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to take a step forward - there were not so many experimental people in any country in the world. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, those inhuman sufferings that these innocent people endured.
Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated and organs were cut out, sterilized, castrated. They tested how long a person is able to withstand extreme cold or heat. Specially infected with diseases, introduced experimental drugs. So, in Buchenwald, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed. In addition to typhoid, the prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.
Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the "Buchenwald witch" for her love of sadism and inhuman abuse of prisoners. She was more feared than her husband (Karl Koch) and the Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". The woman owes this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of the killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.
The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945 by the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and ran the camp for two days until the American soldiers approached.
Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)
Listing the concentration camps of the Nazis, Auschwitz cannot be ignored. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead have not yet been clarified. Most of the victims were Jewish prisoners of war, who were destroyed immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers.
The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name has become a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved the following words: "Work sets you free."
This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:
- Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
- Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called the death camp;
- Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.
Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived in the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. So, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. Gas "Cyclone B" was used. The terrible invention was first tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners with a total number of about nine hundred people.
Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments began on women and men for sterilization and castration.
Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners were kept working in factories and mines. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. About ten thousand prisoners were kept here.
Like any Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with the outside world were forbidden, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.
On the territory of Auschwitz, five crematoria were continuously operating, which, according to experts, had a monthly output of approximately 270,000 corpses.
On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated by Soviet troops. By that time, about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year before that, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.
Since 1947, a museum and a memorial complex dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany began to function on the territory of the former concentration camp.
Conclusion
For the entire duration of the war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. They were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It's hard to imagine what these people went through. But not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps was destined to be demolished by them. Thanks to Stalin, after their release, when they returned home, they received the stigma of "traitors". At home, the Gulag was waiting for them, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity was replaced by another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.
Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after their release was not advertised and hushed up. But the people who survived this simply should not be forgotten.
