Malizia 1

Travis Malizia
Mr. Hawkins
Modern World History-P, Period 2
8 April 2016
Expansion of the Concentration Camp System
The concentration camps are remembered as being this massive
system for complete genocide that would most likely have succeeded
without an end being put to it. However, the concentration camps were run
as a large system. The camps started with one purpose and eventually
shifted to having another purpose that was similar. The camps were cruel to
their prisoners and made up justified reasons for why the killing they
conducted was okay.
The camps did not just come about; they needed to form into a system
over time. German armies moved into Soviet territories accompanied by
special murder squads which rounded up people defined as threats to
German power high ranking communists and above all, Jews - and shot
them into hastily dug graves and trenches (Evidence #2). These people
were not killed by gas and were done without much organization. They
simply shot people dead and took over 1 million lives. It was not until late
1941 that Nazi authorities decided that it would be more efficient to bring
the victims to the killers than the killers to the victims (Evidence #2). This is
how the concentration camps essentially started. The killings were done at
facilities; some facilities consisted of gas vans that could change location so

Malizia 2
that they would not have to build so many facilities. In addition to these
death camps, German authorities decided to equip two existing camps
Majdanek, near Lublin, and Auschwitz, not far from Krakow with gas
chambers for mass killing (Evidence #2). These were the start of the mass
killing in the concentration camps. Because of these camps, the Germans
could kill mass amounts of anyone they wanted to. They (the Germans) did
make some efforts to conceal their genocide of the Jews, but that turned out
to be impossible (Evidence #2). The Germans wanted to hide what they
were doing so that no one would want to stop them. However, with the
massive amounts of killing and torture, it proved to be impossible. Although
the camps do grow to be huge facilities, they were not always so capable.
The camps were originally on a smaller scale than we remember them
as. .Germany established concentration camps to detain political
opponents of the regime (Evidence #1). The camps were not always
meant to be used for killing Jews and other races, but rather to punish
criminals. However, these camps began to secretly kill Jews when they were
given the order, but could not keep their secret for long. the IKL became a
department of the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office in March 1942.
This move corresponded to Himmlers decision to engage concentration
camp labor more intensively in support of the German war effort (Evidence
#1). Effectively the camps were not just prisons but began to be centers of
slave labor. There were also killings that were written up as suicides or
accidental deaths. However, as time went on, the prisoner population

Malizia 3
expanded to include ideological and religious dissenters, such as Jehovahs
Witnesses and dissident members of the clergy. Effectively the camps were
used to punish people who were different from the rest of society. Although it
is typically remembered that Jews were taken into the camps, there were
many different types of people forced into this horrid system. After the
Kristallnacht (Night of Crystal more commonly known as Night of the
Broken Glass) pogroms in November 1938, SS and police officials conducted
mass arrests of adult male Jews and imprisoned them in camps such as
Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen (Evidence #1). This is one of the
largest events that pertain to the concentration camps. Although a large goal
of Kristallnacht was to kill Jews, it did force a lot of them into the
concentration camps without reason. This is a major way the camps started
to grow, but not the only reason.
Now that camps are established, they need more population and in
turn more camps will be needed. In March 1941, Himmler visited Auschwitz
and commanded its enlargement to hold 30,000 prisoners (Evidence #3).
Himmlers command stated that Auschwitz would either need to ship out
prisoners or kill off prisoners when the capacity reaches over 30 thousand.
This caused a system to be built so that people could be moved on trains to
other camps. Himmler ordered the construction of a second camp for
100,00 inmates on the site of the village of Brzezinka, roughly two miles from
the main camp (Evidence #3). A second massive camp was built to aid in
housing prisoners. Originally planned to be a slave labor camp for Rusiian

Malizia 4
POWs, the camp eventually did kill many many people. At AuschwitzBirkenau, the 'Final Solution' was put to the ground in Nazi-like
efficiency(Evidence #3). The Nazis decided it was time to start
exterminating as many people as they possibly could. This led to extreme
mass killings and the exact amount of people killed is unknown due to the
Nazis only keeping track of who they let survive. Although the camps
excelled when they were at their largest, everyone must remember that they
had many things before them to build them up.
The killings done by the Nazis were horrendous and there is good
reason as to why they are remembered today. The concentration camp
system was surprisingly organized and cleverly done no matter how sinister.
Although they did grow to become so large, the camps ultimately started off
small and built up on top of themselves until an entire organized system was
developed and maintained. The camps expanded slowly at first, but then
rapidly. It is truly scary how quickly small killings evolved into massive
prisons filled with cruelty and exponentially more deaths.