The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CAMPS AND GHETTOS, 19331945
General Editor Geoffrey P. Megargee
A PROJECT OF THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Sara J. Bloomfield, Director
THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES
Paul A. Shapiro, Director
Jrgen Matthus, Director of Research
Peter Black, Senior Historian
Robert M. Ehrenreich, Director of University Programs
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ACADEMIC COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL COUNCIL
Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Chair
Doris L. Bergen
Richard Breitman
Christopher R. Browning
David Engel
Willard A. Fletcher
Zvi Y. Gitelman
Alfred Gottschalk
Peter Hayes
Susannah Heschel
Sara R. Horowitz
Steven T. Katz
William S. Levine
Deborah E. Lipstadt
Michael R. Marrus
John T. Pawlikowski
Harry Reicher
Aron Rodrigue
George D. Schwab
Nechama Tec
James E. Young
All art above from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photos courtesy of Lydia Chagoll.
THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Encyclopedia of
CAMPS AND
GHETTOS,
19331945
VOLUME I
Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration
Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business
Administration Main Office (WVHA)
Part A
Volume Editor Geoffrey P. Megargee
Advisory Committee
Doris L. Bergen
Christopher R. Browning
David Engel
Willard A. Fletcher
Peter Hayes
Michael R. Marrus
Nechama Tec
Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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2009 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Published in association with the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum
The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained
herein are those of the authors or contributors. They do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Early camps, youth camps, and concentration camps and
subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office
(WVHA) / editor, Geoffrey P. Megargee; foreword by
Elie Wiesel.
p. cm.(The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum encyclopedia of camps and ghettos, 19331945; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Concentration campsEurope. 2. World War, 19391945Concentration campsEurope. I. Megargee, Geoffrey P., [date]
D805.A2E195 2009
940.53185dc22 2008037382
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10 09
WITH MAJOR SUPPORT FROM
THE HELEN BADER FOUNDATION
THE CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS AGAINST GERMANY, INC.
THE WILLIAM ZELL FAMILY FOUNDATION
THE BENJAMIN AND SEEMA PULIER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
For the victims of the Holocaust and for the survivors
who became the eyewitnesses to this devastating
period of history.
Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest
you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these
things depart your heart all the days of your life, and
you shall make them known to your children, and to
your childrens children.
Deuteronomy 4:9
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
PART A
SECTION I:
THE EARLY NATIONAL SOCIALIST
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
SECTION II:
CAMPS AND SUBCAMPS UNDER THE
SS-INSPECTORATE OF CONCENTRATION
CAMPS/BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION MAIN OFFICE
THE GENESIS AND STRUCTURE OF THE
NATIONAL SOCIALIST CONCENTRATION
CAMPS
CONTENTS
SECTION I:
THE EARLY NATIONAL SOCIALIST
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
SECTION II:
CAMPS AND SUBCAMPS UNDER THE
SS-INSPECTORATE OF CONCENTRATION
CAMPS/BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MAIN OFFICE
LIST OF MAPS
FOREWORD
A generation disappears a new generation arrives, says an ancient text, and the world remains the world.
And you reader, who holds this volume in your hands, make sure that the knowledge you receive becomes part of your endeavor as a member of a vast vanished human community whose fear and hope will impact your own life.
Over the years, week by week, day by day, the number of survivors of the Holocaust diminishes and those of the documents increases.
And what about its Memory? We are holding to it with our last energy. And if it does not contain all the responses it does retain all the questions.
The murderous intentions of Hitler and his acolytes towards the Jewish people and its history, their plans concerning other national and ethnic minorities, the malefic power of their imagination, the quasi-indifference of the free world, the suffering and agony of the victims as well as their solitude: how to conceive them in their totality, and how to explain them.
In between these components are those which by the weight of their horror defy human language and understanding.
Is this the reason for which, for a long time, one refused to listen to the witnesses? It is simple: one could not and did not want to understand them. What they were telling questioned all of their certainties.
But if Auschwitz interested few, with hardly any readers, especially in Germany, this is no longer true today.
I dont think that I am deceiving myself too much by saying that since the end of the Second World War, the interest in the absolute Evil incarnated by the followers of the Final Solution has never been as large or quasi-universal.
Memoirs and biographies, psychological and theological studies, plays and movies, colloquiums and seminars: it is difficult to find pedagogical institutions where the subject is not taught with the intensity which is needed.
The official offensesand there were so manythe repeated threats, the decrees preceding the ghettos, the Aktions, the camps of slow or immediate deathand there was such a variety of them, large and small, known and lesser known: this is a new universe that the Enemy built with its only goal: to wipe out from history even the memory of its victims.