History of World War II: The Camps

these were the instruments of
unfathomable genocide and anti-semitism
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
learning about the Nazis use of
concentration and extermination camps
during World War two even before the
onset of the Second World War
Adolf Hitler’s Nazis built numerous
detention facilities across Europe they
were originally intended to hold
political prisoners and challenges of
the fascist government but as the Nazis
ambitions and influence expanded so did
the camp’s use Hitler promoted the Aryan
race as the master race and ranked other
ethnic groups based on their purity soon
the concentration camps were filled with
those groups Hitler considered subhuman
including Jews homosexuals gypsies
criminals communists prisoners of war
jehovah’s witnesses intellectuals and
the mentally ill among others none of
these captives were given due judicial
process and in the camps these so-called
undesirables were used as slave laborers
living conditions in Nazi camps were
notoriously poor prisoners often died
because of maltreatment disease and
overwork many of those who survived the
conditions were sent to gas chambers for
execution in fact so many Jews were
killed by the Third Reich the Holocaust
was considered genocide against that
race by the time Nazi Germany finally
fell in 1945 millions were massacred
these were just some of the most
infamous and instrumental camp
facilities used during World War two
Dachau Dachau was the first Nazi
concentration camp to open in Germany
and it served as an example for later
camps three and a half million prisoners
pass through Dachau during the war with
77,000 of those executed by the Nazis
for resistance through subversion and
conspiracy when Dachau was liberated by
American forces in April 1945 32,000
living prisoners were freed Buchenwald
another of the first camps established
in Germany Buchenwald was also one of
the biggest though it was intended as a
concentration camp and not an
extermination camp it was the site of an
estimated 56 thousand deaths on
became the first camp liberated by US
forces in 1945 malnutrition overwork and
medical experiments were some of the
most common causes of death Mauthausen
not only was this one of the earlier
camps it was also one of the last to be
liberated after the Third Reich fell at
its peak Mount housing was one of
Europe’s largest labour camps where
prisoners worked quarries and mines and
produced munitions and armaments exact
numbers are disputed but an estimated
one hundred and twenty two to three
hundred and twenty thousand inmates
lived in this complex during the war
primarily of Soviet and Spanish descent
a schvitz located in Asuncion poland
outfits was the largest and perhaps most
infamous camp this was the location of
an estimated two to four million deaths
by gassing and other heinous methods
Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz on
January 27 1945 and today that date
marks international Holocaust
Remembrance Day the site still stands as
a memorial and museum my donek this was
one of the few Nazi concentration camps
that was found near a major city as
opposed to being hidden on the
countryside forced labor was common but
despite not being a death camp it
claimed almost 80,000 lives most of
which were Jewish when it was liberated
by the Red Army in 1944 the Germans
weren’t able to quickly destroy evidence
and so my donek remains the best
preserved relic of the Holocaust
bergen-belsen no gas chambers were found
in Bergen Belsen but that did not mean
it was any less deadly Bergen Belsen was
originally meant to be a powa amp but by
1943 it was a concentration camp 70,000
died there many from typhus one of its
most famous prisoners was the young and
Frank who documented her time hiding
from the Nazis in her famous diary the
majority of the Nazi camps were
destroyed following the war but those
that remain serve as monuments to the
coolest moments in human history and
warfare