The Nazi Concentration Camps
A teaching and learning resource
“It was clear to each and every one of us that the things we had seen needed to be told, and should not be forgotten”
Primo Levi, Auschwitz survivor
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So-called asocials and criminals were the largest prisoner group in the final years before the Second World War.
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Jews made up only a small proportion of prisoners until 1942.
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German nationals made up the vast majority of prisoners before the Second World War.
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The camps were never kept entirely secret from the German population.
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Allied newspapers reported on gassings in Auschwitz before liberation.
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There were frequent clashes between prisoner groups.
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Some prisoners were appointed as executioners by the SS.
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The first mass extermination programme targeted weak and ill prisoners.
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Prisoners smuggled secret photographs of murders in Auschwitz outside.
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In January 1945, fewer than 8,000 prisoners were liberated from Auschwitz, a camp that had held over 130,000 prisoners just a few months earlier.
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Over 700,000 prisoners were held in concentration camps in early 1945.
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The first perpetrator trials took place only months after liberation.
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Up to 30,000 survivors died during the first weeks after liberation.
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The Dachau prisoner barracks were used to house German refugees after the war.
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Most of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust died outside concentration camps.
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In 1942, more Jews were murdered in the Treblinka camp than in Auschwitz.
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The systematic mass murder of European Jews in Auschwitz began in summer 1942.
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The camps stood almost empty in 1934, following mass releases.
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Most prisoners in 1933 were released after a few weeks or months.
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Some SS guards were punished for disobedience and drunkenness.
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Many thousands of German soldiers became SS camp guards.
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Managers of German firms travelled to concentration camps to pick out slave workers.
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