In the 19403, Germany had many concentration camp located in and around the cities of war, namely; Berlin. Such concentrations were a part of the systematic annihilation of millions of people, primarily Jews – and other groups such as Romanies, mentally and physically the disabled, political opponents, and others.
1. Sachsenhausen concentration camp or concentration camp Sachsenhausen.
Sachsenhausen was one of the earliest techniques in concentration camps created by the Nazis. Most of the above camps were established after 1936 when Concentration camp was opened to be a model for other camps. Sachsenhausen was established in Oranienburg, some 35km to the north of Berlin and housed all sorts of prisoners including political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and Jews. It was functioning till the Second World War and is recognized for its many deaths and pitiless environment.
1.1 Life in Sachsenhausen
A number of actions included forced working, starvation, compulsory medical experimentation, and severe abuse of prisoners at Sachsenhausen. They were tortured and could easily drop dead from work exhaustion, sickness or be executed. It was also manufacturing counterfeit currency with the intention of note disrupting the economies of Germany’s adversaries.
2. Ravensbrück Concentration camp
Ravensbrück was approximately ninety kilometers north of Berlin, and it was mostly for women. The camp began in 1939 and developed into a huge prison camp that housed many women under the Nazis. It also included children, men and female Political prisoners from different countries of the world.
2.1 Conditions in Ravensbrück
Ravensbrück concentration camp had recorded one of the severest standards of extremity and violence on lives. They deprived prisoners of their liberty, forced them to work, experimented on them and put them under forced sterilization. Their mortality was also high with thousand of women’s death attributed to malnutrition, illness, or execution. Some women were also gassed or else transferred to other death camps if they were singled out by the German selectors.
3. Oranienburg Concentration Camp
This camp was in the town of Oranienburg, just north of Berlin and was functional from 1933 to 1934. The Oranienburg Concentration Camp was an initial concentration camp and was modeled as a prototype for other similar facilities that were established in the future, and prisoners confined here were political enem ιστορ.]
3.1 Significance of Oranienburg
Therefore, the Oranienburg camp will be of great interest while studying the evolution of the Nazi concentration camp system. They implemented different methods of control and persecution there, and it was used to test them. Oranienburg techniques then formed a foundation on which were based the subsequent and much vaster camps within Germany and the occupied territories.
4. Dachau Concentration Camp
Dachau is nearly 17 km or 10 miles northwest of Munich, and it was the first established concentration camp by the Nazi in March 1933. Located quite distantly from Berlin however I decided to mention it due to its importance as an example of the first type of concentration camps.
4.1 The Role of Dachau
As noted earlier, Dachau provided models for many aspects of practicing the theory of concentration camp operation. It was an education and training camp for SS personnel and mainly being used to detain political prisoners, leaders of the communities who were against the Nazi party. This design, layout, and the operations pattern set for the camp were later to be emulated in the subsequent other camps.
Conclusion
The concentration camps in and around Berlin and Germany during the Second World War were tools of enormous pain, maltreatment, and genocide. Countless numbers of defenseless people perished in these camps and in the conditions so inhuman in there. It is therefore important to remember and understand these so that they are not repeated in the future again.
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