Lecture 11: Concentration and Extermination Camps, II (Auschwitz)
N. Morecki on Thu; R. Gruber on Sun.; book summary extension--due Tue.
Concentration camps: phases of history
1b. 1935: Himmler persuades Hitler not to dissolve camps; SS camp network set up:
1936 Sachsenhausen; 1937 Buchenwald and Dachau; [1937: 8,000 total in camps] 1938 Flossenbürg and Mauthausen, Neuengamme [Dec. 38: 33,000 incl. 25,000 Jews];
1939 Ravensbrück [Sept. 39: 29,000 in all camps]
phases 2a, 2ab, 2bWar and racist war: labor, extermination, extermination through labor
camps in occupied countries: Poland (Stutthof, Maidanek, Auschwitz), Breendonk, Herzogenbosch
"Stalag" (Stammlager=core camp): prisoner of war camps run by the Wehrmacht
system of branch or subcamps (Aussenlager): outsourcing of labor
August 1944: 20 main camps with 165 subcamps, 524,286 inmates
December 44: 500 subcamps, 714,000 inmates; 40,000 guards
Phase 3: chaos and dissolution
(150,000 deaths; 2.7mio in ext. camps; 1.3 in shootings, .8mio in ghettos)=4.95mio.
Auschwitz (book by Dwork and van Pelt: Auschwitz, 1270-present)
town founded 1270 by Germans; 1457 Polish; 1772 Austrian; 1880s westward immigration