The term concentration camp refers to a “camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (Concentration Camps). These camps were used in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The Nazis built these camps to help enforce their rule of terror.
We usually use the word “concentration camps” to describe all of the Nazi camps. But there were actually many different types of Nazi camps besides concentration camps. Some examples of these include transit camps which served as temporary way stations, forced-labor camps, and death camps/extermination camps which served as a place for mass murder. Depending on which camp you went to you either had a slim chance of surviving or in some cases no chance at all.
We usually use the word “concentration camps” to describe all of the Nazi camps. But there were actually many different types of Nazi camps besides concentration camps. Some examples of these include transit camps which served as temporary way stations, forced-labor camps, and death camps/extermination camps which served as a place for mass murder. Depending on which camp you went to you either had a slim chance of surviving or in some cases no chance at all.
The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler’s rise to power which was in January of 1933. The first concentration camp to be built was at Dachau in March of 1933. German authorities/Nazis began to establish concentration camps all over Germany because of how many people were being arrested for being alleged subversives. And between 1933 and 1945 they had established about 20,000 camps throughout Germany. Anyone who disagreed with what the Nazis were for or did not fit the description of what Hitler wanted, were put into concentration camps.
In many of the different camps the treatment and living conditions were so harsh that thousands died from disease, hunger, and cruelty just to name a few. Every morning the inmates would be woken up for “roll call”, where they would stand there for hours on end and be repeatedly counted for to see if anyone was missing. Living conditions were different depending on which camp you lived in. For example in Auschwitz I, prisoners lived in old brick barracks. In each building there were several hundred three-tier wooden bunk beds. Also in Auschwitz I there were so many people that it became overcrowded so they made basements and lofts into use as living quarters.
Usually the concentration camps were either brick or wooden barracks that housed prisoners and they were usually built without suitable insulation and on marshy ground. Usually more than seven hundred people were assigned to each barrack where they lived without any true heating and very unsanitary facilities. Another type of accommodation for prisoners consisted of stable barracks that were designed to hold fifty two horses but instead held usually more than several hundred prisoners. Living conditions in this type of facility were terrible. They included leaky roofs, and the fouling of straw and straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from different diseases, illnesses, and especially diarrhea. Various types of rats lived in these places as well. And living in Auschwitz III or any other concentration camp was just as bad as the camps described above.
Usually the concentration camps were either brick or wooden barracks that housed prisoners and they were usually built without suitable insulation and on marshy ground. Usually more than seven hundred people were assigned to each barrack where they lived without any true heating and very unsanitary facilities. Another type of accommodation for prisoners consisted of stable barracks that were designed to hold fifty two horses but instead held usually more than several hundred prisoners. Living conditions in this type of facility were terrible. They included leaky roofs, and the fouling of straw and straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from different diseases, illnesses, and especially diarrhea. Various types of rats lived in these places as well. And living in Auschwitz III or any other concentration camp was just as bad as the camps described above.