Home » History » The Third Reich » Germany and Anti-Semitism - Part 9

Germany and Anti-Semitism - Part 9

© William Waller

Since the inception of 'concentration' camps, by the British in the Boer Wars in South Africa, governments have found that concentrating their enemies in one or several camps is the most economical way of controlling them. For Nazi Germany, there were whole systems of camps, dependant on the type of enemy: P.O.W.; work camps for the different occupied countries; women's camps; Jewish work camps; and Jewish extermination camps.

From quite early on, there were Jewish 'work' camps which actually produced something but, usually, the purpose of such camps was to kill the inmates by a mixture of purposeless physical hard labour and starvation. They were, in fact, no more than an outlet for the sadistic brutalities of the guards and the opportunity for revenge on what were always spoken of as lazy Jewish capitalists who sat back while ordinary honest Germans sweated to produce huge profits for meagre wages. This was the persistent myth promulgated by the Nazi hierarchy, from Hitler down, the myth that every Jew, German or otherwise, was a rich pampered parasite and deserved to be taught what hard physical labour was.

Although they were not as efficient at extermination as other camps, work camps persisted even up to mid 1944. In the later years, one or two were used as economic units but, in the main, they were just death camps by another name. Why the Nazis retained them is hard to decide, especially in 1942 and 1943 when the full scale murders of millions was being carried out in such places as Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz. Perhaps they were no more than places to catch Jews in small groups or singly, and who never made enough in numbers to fill one of the death camp trains. In view of the stories that survivors have told of what actually happened in these 'work' camps, it would seem that the need of the German guards, and other ethnic groups that they employed, to torture, torment, degrade, beat, and in every way brutalise the Jews held in them, was so great that local area commanders knew that they could solve their Jewish 'problems' by sending them to such camps.

It will be remembered, as part of the operations of the Police Battalions, that the able-bodied men were taken to 'work' camps, while the other family members were shot out of hand. Time and again, it has been shown that there was no real reason to do this, because the men were almost never used as economic units. In the area where Battalion 101 was stationed, Lublin, were several 'work' camps including Lipowa and one on the outskirts of Lublin itself. The men taken from Jozefow certainly ended up in one or other of these where the 'work' regime was so grotesque and against all sense as to be almost unbelievable.

The copyright of the article Germany and Anti-Semitism - Part 9 in The Third Reich is owned by William Waller. Permission to republish Germany and Anti-Semitism - Part 9 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.