Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Nazi camp system was the embodiment of Nazism

Man-made Hell1st camps were makeshift, improvised (1933)

SA established them

Warehouses, cellarsBeat, tortured political opponents

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

March, 1933: Dachau 1st official camp

One of last camps to be liberated

Made rules, camp system

Dehumanization, punishments, prisoner administration (kapos, etc.)

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

“Asocials” were first camp inmates

Kristallnacht stepped up # of Jews in camps

Jews could still be freed if they could prove they had a visa

Sept. 1, 1939: camp populations mushroomed

Sources of slave labor1945: ¾ million slave laborers in camps

7 million slaves not in camps

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Chelmno (12/41): 1st camp constructed as part of Final Solution

Gas vans (carbon monoxide [CO])Odilo Globocnik, 1941, ordered to kill all Jews in the General Government (Poland)

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka then constructedMajdanek, Auschwitz also equipped to kill

Chelmno: almost 350,000 Jews killedBelzec: 500-600,000 Jews killedSobibor: 250,000 Jews killedTreblinka: 800-900,000 Jews killedMajdanek: around 350,000 Jews killedAuschwitz: 1.1 million-1.3 million Jews killed

+ 70-80,000 Poles, several 1,000 gypsies, Soviets

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Gas van used at Chelmno

Train station where Jews and Roma arrived at Belzec

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Sobibor

Jews arrive at Treblinka by train

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

The crematoria at Majdanek

The gate to Auschwitz II - Birkenau

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Auschwitz I: SS barracks, Block #11 (prison), #10 (medical experiments)

Auschwitz II/Birkenau: killing facility, barracks for slave labor

Auschwitz III/Buna, Monowitz: huge synthetic rubber plant

Run by I.G. Farben (German industry)

45 sub-camps around, all administered from Auschwitz

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

10,000 camps totalKilling, transient, POW, slave labor, etc.

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

German industry heavily involved in the camps for slave labor

Paid SS a per diem for each slave

Some firms had plants in the camps

Bayer paid for female slaves on which to run experiments

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Medical experiments in campsMilitary reasons – saltwater intake, temperature extremes, injections with various germs/diseasesRacial reasons – how to produce twins (Josef Mengele [the Angel of Death]), produce dominant traits, sterilization experiments

No care was taken to render the experiments medically valid

Warsaw ghetto: Jewish doctors experimented on themselves on the effects of starvation and malnutrition

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Systemization in the campsFlow-charts to track who and what went whereAll income went into SS bank accounts

Contraband from Jews (jewelry, alarm clocks, clothing, shavers, etc.) were sold to soldiers

All income came back to SS

Thousands of civilians had to be involved in this as bystanders and collaborators

Denial: “I don’t want to know where it came from…”

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Motivation of the perpetrators

French proverbs:“To understand all is to forgive all”“He who excuses himself, accuses himself”

Schools of thinking:

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Situationalist: obedience to authorityCertain mechanisms take over (autocracy, order)

Milgram experiments in the 1950’s-‘60’s

In almost every case of obedience…there is always some justification on the part of the “doer” to a causeIn Milgram’s experiments worldwide, 600 of 1000 administered a “lethal” dose of electricity

Conformity to group pressureSoldiers kill/die for their buddies

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Yale University psychologyprofessor Dr. Stanley Milgram

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Dispositionalist: personality issues

Auschwitz guards had specialties in crueltySadistic, psychopathic disposition

Interactionalist: in a situation of radical evil, a human being will develop a “second self” in order to function in the evil environment

Camp doctors – the “Auschwitz self”Psychic numbing

Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

Idealistic/Ideological: so-infected with antisemitism

Existentialist: participation in this vast undertaking helped give meaning to the perpetrator’s life

Human passion: sadism is a form of malignant aggression

Can be brought out, cultivatedNeed to show controlGreed was everywhere in the HolocaustHate (not completely conditioned by ideology)Revenge: for Allied bombs on German cities, etc.Ambition, careerism: desire to get ahead