A New Plan: Concentration Camps 

"The train stopped in the middle of a deserted field. The suddenness of the halt woke some of those who were asleep...Outside the SS went by, shouting: 'Throw out all the dead! All corpses outside!' The living rejoiced. There would be more room...'Here's one! Take him.' They undressed him, the survivors avidly sharing out his clothes, then two 'gravediggers' took him, one by the head one by the feet, and threw him out of the wagon like a sack of flour. 'Come on! Here's one...' two men came up to my father. I threw myself on top of his body. He was cold. I slapped him. I rubbed his hands crying: 'Father! Father! Wake up...' After a moment my father's eyelids moved slightly over his glazed eyes. He was breathing weakly. 'You see,' I cried. The two men moved away.

Twenty bodies were thrown out of our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey, leaving a few hundred naked dead, deprived of burial, in the deep snow of a field in Poland."

~ Elie Wiesel (author of Night and Holocaust survivor, he was 15 years old when he was taken to Auschwitz)

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The Nazis had cruel plans for anyone who did not belong in their idea of a perfect world. An integral part of these plans were concentration camps. Concentration camps were horrible places of hard, forced slave labor, starvation, and beatings, where "undesirables" were sent to work and eventually die. Conditions in concentration camps were so bad that the average inmate only lived three weeks.

The first Concentration camps were built for Gypsies. Dachau, which became the model for many other concentration camps, was erected in 1933. Over the next eleven years twenty-three main camps (with thousands of sub-camps) would be erected all over Europe.

A new arrival of gypsies to the Belzec camp 

Click here for more information on Gypsies in concentration camps:

Gypsies in the Holocaust 

Concentration Camps were built to hold gypsies, prisoners of war, political criminals, and homosexuals. However, in 1941 as Hitler continued to plan his Final Solution, he needed a place where Jews could be sent and killed en mass. The Einsatzgruppen was a slow, bloody, and public way of dealing with the Jews. Citizens had seen the mass killings, taken pictures, and word was sure to spread. Hitler needed a quiet way to dispose of the Jews. Thus, he developed the Death Camps.

 Deportation

"My grandparents, my aunt, my relatives and all the other Jews in the community, we were all loaded onto this train, going to Auschwitz. When we were put onto this train...it was a cattle car...no windows, had no seats and no toilet. When we got onto the trains none of us knew we were being taken to a concentration camp. None of us knew anything about Auschwitz...We honestly thought we were going to be relocated, until the door closed and we heard the lock go on from the outside. I believe that was the first we knew, wherever we were going to be taken to, it was not going to be freedom."

~ Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

The Ghettos were never meant to be the final destination for persecuted Jews, they were holding pens. Beginning in 1941, the Nazis began shipping entire ghettos to concentration camps and death camps where over 80% were immediately gassed. For the most part, those being deported had no idea what awaited them. The Nazis were masters of deception. They kept the truth about their camps secret, so that no one outside knew what was happening inside the camps. Most Jews thought they were being relocated to a new ghetto or sent to a reformatory camp (where they would work for several years until they were ready to be reintroduced into society). The Germans were able to feed these misconceptions. So that no one would suspect they were being sent to their death, Nazis told families to pack their bags. Some Jews volunteered to go to the camps (after being promised a delicious meal by SS Soldiers). In western Europe, Jews were sometimes shipped to death camps in nice passenger Trains, however, in most cases the Jews were packed into horrible cattle cars.

This map details the main deportation routes used to move prisoners from the ghettos to the concentration camps

On average about 120 people were crammed into each cattle car (1,000-5,000 could be carried on one train). There was no room to sit or lie down; they were packed so tightly that in some cases victims stood shoulder to shoulder - dead bodies would be held up by the people on either side of them. During their Journey to the concentration camps (usually 3-4 days, but sometimes lasting more than 10, since the trains only moved 30 mph) Jews were not given any food or water. There were no toilets. In the summer the cattle cars were insufferable hot, many died of heat exhaustion. In the winter, the cars were freezing cold, many froze to death. Sometimes along the journey the trains would stop, for no apparent reason. The train might stay at a stop for days, meanwhile those inside were offered no food, explanation, or relief.

Inside a Nazi Railcar (photo by Arnold Kramer) 

As the journey progressed, Nazis gave opportunities for prisoners to toss dead bodies out of the train; this made room for those inside the cars.

"One day when we had stopped a workman took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought each other to death for a few crumbs. The German workmen took a lively interest in this spectacle...The audience stared at these skeletons of men fighting each other...I noticed an old man dragging himself along on all fours. He was trying to disengage himself from the struggle...he had a bit of bread under his shirt. With remarkable speed he drew it out and put it into his mouth...a shadow just loomed up near him. The shadow threw itself upon him. Felled to the ground, stunned with blows, the old man cried:

'Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father...you're hurting me...you're killing your father! I've got some bread...for you too...for you too...' He collapsed. His fist was still clenched around a small piece... his son searched him, took the bread, and began to devour it. He was not able to get very far. Two men had seen and hurled themselves upon him. Others joined in. when they withdrew, next to me were two corpses, side by side, the father and son."

~ Ellie Wiesel

Victims' bodies lying inside a railcar

Return to the Concentration Camps home page or continue on and read about The Victims