Developed and written by Dr Nikolaus Wachsmann, Professor in modern European history at Birkbeck (University of London) and author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (2015)

Hosted by Birkbeck (University of London)

Collaborative partner: Centre for Holocaust Studies (University College London)

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Website designed and developed by Error.

With support from: Dachau memorial; Dr Christian Goeschel (University of Manchester); Illinois Institute of Technology; Professor Anne Knowles (Middlebury College); Mauthausen memorial; Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism; Sachsenhausen memorial; Thyssen Foundation; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Jeffrey Ward; Wiener Library; Yale University Library.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please email us.

Image acknowledgments

Home page lead image

SS selection of Jews on arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau (May 1944)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem (Public Domain)

Themes pages lead images

Early camps

Roll call in Oranienburg (c. 1933)
The Wiener Library

Camp system

Buchenwald after liberation (1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Robert Michael Merritt

Perpetrators

SS officers in Gross-Rosen (1941)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Martin Mansson

Daily life

Prisoner drawing by the Dachau inmate Vlasto Kopač (March 1945)
Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije

Slave labour

Dachau gate with cynical SS slogan “Work makes free”
KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau

Prisoner groups

SS markers for different prisoner groups
The Wiener Library

Inmate relations

Prisoners distribute food in Flossenbürg
KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau

Executions

Execution wall in Auschwitz, between block 10 (used for human experiments) and block 11 (used for the first mass gassing)
The Wiener Library

Holocaust

Train tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau
The Wiener Library

Resistance

Secret photo of burning corpses in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was smuggled outside the camp (1944)
The Wiener Library

The public

Two civilians pass Auschwitz SS men (1944)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anonymous Donor

Liberation

US soldiers in a barn near Gardelegen, where 1,000 prisoners on a death march had been murdered (April 1945)
The Wiener Library

Aftermath

Survivors in Mauthausen (May 1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Albert Abramson

Camps lead images

Auschwitz

Prisoner barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau
The Wiener Library

Bergen-Belsen

Bergen Belsen after liberation
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Berlin-Columbia (1935/36)

Archiv des Föderalen Sicherheitsdienstes der Russischen Förderation, Moskau, Archiv Gedenkstätte und des Museums Sachsenhausen

Buchenwald

Buchenwald after liberation (1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Robert Michael Merritt

Dachau

Dachau camp
The Wiener Library

Dora

The entrance to the Dora tunnels (April 1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Esterwegen

View from Tower B (c. 1935)
Archiv des Föderalen Sicherheitsdienstes der Russischen Förderation, Moskau, Archiv Gedenkstätte und des Museums Sachsenhausen

Flossenbürg

Flossenbürg (spring 1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Charles Shillingburg

Gross-Rosen

SS officers at the Gross-Rosen quarry (1941)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Martin Mansson

Herzogenbusch

Herzogenbusch after liberation (1944-5)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Kovno

The former ghetto Kovno as a concentration camp
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Lichtenburg

Camp Inspector Theodor Eicke with entourage in Lichtenburg (March 1936)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej

Mauthausen

Mauthausen after liberation (1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Col. P. Richard Seibel

Majdanek

Majdanek after liberation (summer 1944)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Natzweiler

Natzweiler after liberation (1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Abraham M. Muhlbaum

Neuengamme

Slave Labour in Neuengamme (1941-2)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme

Plaszow

Barracks in Plaszow (1944)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Interpress, Warsaw

Ravensbrück

SS photo of Ravensbrück (1940-1)
Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes, courtesy of Lydia Chagoll

Riga

Riga after liberation (1945)
Staatsanwalt beim Landgericht Hamburg, courtesy of Josef Schneider

Sachsenburg (autumn 1934)

The early camp Sachsenburg
Archiv des Föderalen Sicherheitsdienstes der Russischen Förderation, Moskau, Archiv Gedenkstätte und des Museums Sachsenhausen

Sachsenhausen

Prisoner roll call in Sachsenhausen (1941)
The Wiener Library

Stutthof

Stutthof after liberation (1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum Stutthof

Vaivara

Warning sign at Klooga satellite camp, Vaivara complex (1944)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Esther Ancoli-Barbasch

Warsaw

The former Warsaw concentration camp (spring 1945)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Juliusz Bogdan Deczkowski