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Nazi camp system was the embodiment of Nazism Man-made Hell 1 st camps were makeshift, improvised (1933) SA established them Warehouses, cellars Beat, tortured political opponents. Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators. March, 1933: Dachau 1 st official camp - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Nazi camp system was the embodiment of Nazism
Man-made Hell1st camps were makeshift, improvised (1933)
SA established them
Warehouses, cellarsBeat, tortured political opponents
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
March, 1933: Dachau 1st official camp
One of last camps to be liberated
Made rules, camp system
Dehumanization, punishments, prisoner administration (kapos, etc.)
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
“Asocials” were first camp inmates
Kristallnacht stepped up # of Jews in camps
Jews could still be freed if they could prove they had a visa
Sept. 1, 1939: camp populations mushroomed
Sources of slave labor1945: ¾ million slave laborers in camps
7 million slaves not in camps
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Chelmno (12/41): 1st camp constructed as part of Final Solution
Gas vans (carbon monoxide [CO])Odilo Globocnik, 1941, ordered to kill all Jews in the General Government (Poland)
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka then constructedMajdanek, Auschwitz also equipped to kill
Chelmno: almost 350,000 Jews killedBelzec: 500-600,000 Jews killedSobibor: 250,000 Jews killedTreblinka: 800-900,000 Jews killedMajdanek: around 350,000 Jews killedAuschwitz: 1.1 million-1.3 million Jews killed
+ 70-80,000 Poles, several 1,000 gypsies, Soviets
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Gas van used at Chelmno
Train station where Jews and Roma arrived at Belzec
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Sobibor
Jews arrive at Treblinka by train
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
The crematoria at Majdanek
The gate to Auschwitz II - Birkenau
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Auschwitz I: SS barracks, Block #11 (prison), #10 (medical experiments)
Auschwitz II/Birkenau: killing facility, barracks for slave labor
Auschwitz III/Buna, Monowitz: huge synthetic rubber plant
Run by I.G. Farben (German industry)
45 sub-camps around, all administered from Auschwitz
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
10,000 camps totalKilling, transient, POW, slave labor, etc.
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
German industry heavily involved in the camps for slave labor
Paid SS a per diem for each slave
Some firms had plants in the camps
Bayer paid for female slaves on which to run experiments
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Medical experiments in campsMilitary reasons – saltwater intake, temperature extremes, injections with various germs/diseasesRacial reasons – how to produce twins (Josef Mengele [the Angel of Death]), produce dominant traits, sterilization experiments
No care was taken to render the experiments medically valid
Warsaw ghetto: Jewish doctors experimented on themselves on the effects of starvation and malnutrition
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Systemization in the campsFlow-charts to track who and what went whereAll income went into SS bank accounts
Contraband from Jews (jewelry, alarm clocks, clothing, shavers, etc.) were sold to soldiers
All income came back to SS
Thousands of civilians had to be involved in this as bystanders and collaborators
Denial: “I don’t want to know where it came from…”
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Motivation of the perpetrators
French proverbs:“To understand all is to forgive all”“He who excuses himself, accuses himself”
Schools of thinking:
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Situationalist: obedience to authorityCertain mechanisms take over (autocracy, order)
Milgram experiments in the 1950’s-‘60’s
In almost every case of obedience…there is always some justification on the part of the “doer” to a causeIn Milgram’s experiments worldwide, 600 of 1000 administered a “lethal” dose of electricity
Conformity to group pressureSoldiers kill/die for their buddies
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Yale University psychologyprofessor Dr. Stanley Milgram
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Dispositionalist: personality issues
Auschwitz guards had specialties in crueltySadistic, psychopathic disposition
Interactionalist: in a situation of radical evil, a human being will develop a “second self” in order to function in the evil environment
Camp doctors – the “Auschwitz self”Psychic numbing
Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators
Idealistic/Ideological: so-infected with antisemitism
Existentialist: participation in this vast undertaking helped give meaning to the perpetrator’s life
Human passion: sadism is a form of malignant aggression
Can be brought out, cultivatedNeed to show controlGreed was everywhere in the HolocaustHate (not completely conditioned by ideology)Revenge: for Allied bombs on German cities, etc.Ambition, careerism: desire to get ahead