Concentration Camps

Concentration camps were a feature of the Nazi state from its inception. The first camps were initially used for detaining political prisoners deemed “enemies of the state”: communists, trade unionists, Jews and other dissidents. In short order, the list included homosexuals, alcoholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Prisoners were taken into “protective custody” to be “reeducated.” No term limits were given for their sentence. Dachau, founded in 1933, was the first major concentration camp. Himmler – in his role of head of the SS – appointed Theodor Eicke as camp commandant. Eicke would create in Dachau the brutal, inhumane paradigm for all Nazi camps to follow. While the number of Jews placed in concentration camps increased after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, World War II was to be a major turning point: the number of camps to accommodate ghettoized Jews increased and the intended purpose of the camps changed from one of exploitation of prisoners who were able to work to the industrial scale murder of Jews with the goal being the “final solution to the Jewish problem.”

Forced labor was a significant aspect of all concentration camps. Prisoners were compelled to work under harsh, punitive conditions from early morning until late in the day. Each workday was preceded by a mandatory roll call - the Appel - in which prisoners would stand at attention for hours waiting for their numbers to be called irrespective of weather conditions before marching off to work. At day’s end the exhausted prisoners would undergo yet another roll call. Fainting in this absurd ritual often meant being executed on the spot. Treks to the worksite in inadequate and ill-fitting clothes and shoes would themselves exhaust the prisoners before they even began their workday. This daily routine was meant to humiliate and terrify the prisoners, much like the work itself. Prisoners often perished within weeks or months from malnourishment, psychological stress, overwork and disease.

The mass murder of Jews by mobile Einsatzgruppen firing squads began in earnest in June 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. However, this method of “murder by bullets” (Father Patrick Desbois) would prove both impractical and emotionally taxing even for some of the SS, creating the need for “efficiencies” by bringing Jews from ghettos and cities to stationary killing sites located near railroad tracks to make victim transport easier. Six camps (Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz) were built with the express purpose of murdering Jews, improving upon the more primitive technology utilized in Hitler’s T-4 “euthanasia” program to murder German citizens who were disabled or emotionally disturbed: the so-called “unworthy of life.” Gassing in chambers disguised as showers would supersede other less efficient methods, such as starvation, injection of sedatives, or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Auschwitz would evolve into the epitome of the hybrid camps, constituting a concentration camp to hold and punish prisoners deemed enemies of the Nazi state; an extermination camp (Birkenau or Auschwitz 2); and a series of forced or slave labor camps (e.g., Buna-Monowitz) providing cheap dispensable labor to factories and businesses serving the German war effort. At the height of operations, the lethal insecticide Zyklon B was utilized in chambers attached to crematoria that could asphyxiate more than 4,000 Jews per day, an improvement over earlier carbon monoxide technology for murdering Jews. More than one million Jews perished in these chambers. As a slave or forced labor camp, Auschwitz comprised subcamps located near factories and industrial sites to provide cheap slave labor producing goods for the Third Reich. For example, Buna, also known as Auschwitz III or Monowitz, was a subcamp utilizing slave labor for the I.G. Farben Industries to make synthetic rubber. The SS would sell Jews to I.G. Farben, and the latter would profit from a never-ending supply of cheap labor. Conditions were horrid. Prisoners who perished from starvation, disease, and overwork would be replaced by new prisoners. Aircraft factories, mines, and other war material plants took advantage of proximity to concentration camps to profit from the cheap labor of prisoners.

--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966

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Postcard from Inmate at SS-Sonderlager Bystrice

2014.1.138

Front: A white postcard with printed purple postcard lines and stamp. Includes addresses written in blocky pencil, red and black stamps, and a red pencil marking.Back: A message written in blocky pencil.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A postcard from an inmate at SS-Sonderlager (Sonderlager A-1/C Bystrice BEI Beneschau) in the Protectorate of Czechoslovakia for Descendants of Mixed Jewish families and spouses of Jewish women, 1944. This camp was referred to in German as a 'Judenmischlingslager.'
Letter by German-Jewish Inmate at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

2020.1.1

Letter with printed German text in red at top and handwritten text in blue ink below. Swastika stamp at bottom left of back page.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Letter sent by H. Guretzki (?), inmate number 4234, from Aufenthaltslager Bergen-Belsen on December 1, 1944. It is censored with a circular ink stamp verso and stamped with a directive to write letters in the German language. It is possible that the blacked-out areas conceal other camp stationery and that there was a shortage at Belsen. The Aufenthaltslager was a holding camp for prisoners who could potentially be exchanged with Allies for German internees. However, only 358 prisoners were exchanged, and the fate of the author of this letter is uncertain.

Belsen began its life as a POW camp but by 1943 became a large complex of camps. With the Allied advance, Belsen essentially became a dumping ground for prisoners - especially women - from other camps, the population swelling to more than 60,000 by 1945. Along with the overcrowding there was limited shelter, and food shortages, poor sanitation, and disease were rife. The living were found among the unburied dead when the British liberated the camp in April, 1945. Anne Frank and her sister Margot were among the many who perished here.
Berlin Finance Office Mail: Jewish Mail Recipient Cannot be Located

2012.1.291

Tan envelope with printed layout titled, "Finanzamt Wilmersdorf-Süd." Includes handwritten address to Hugo Israel Jakob.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

A law enacted August 17, 1938 required Jews with non-Jewish forenames to assume the name "Sara" if a woman and "Israel" if a man. This law became effective January 1, 1939. These names were to be used on all correspondence -- private or official -- including return addresses on mail. The finance office sent this official cover to Hugo "Israel" Jacob at Badensche Street NN.21, Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Information on left advises to fulfill your national duty by paying your taxes promptly. The tax number of the addressee is given. On the reverse side the mailman writes that the recipient is unknown on aforementioned street and the post office confirms by rubber stamp with red ink that the addressee could not be located. In all probability this is because Mr. Jacob had been deported to Auschwitz in 1943. It is assumed he perished.
Feldpost from KL Auschwitz II

2014.1.350ab

Envelope: Green with red Hitler postage stamp, writing in purple pencil Back: Writing in purple and red pencil. Letter: One sided, handwritten in purple pencil

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: An SS feldpost from Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp, the infamous extermination center.
Oradour-Sur-Glane Hte Vienne

2014.1.190

Front: A black and white photograph of the remains of a church with a car in front of it.Back: A white postcard with black printed postcard lines and text in French. Includes writing in blue ink, a green postage stamp and black hand stamp.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

View of ruins from Dr. Desourteaux's car (Peugeot). Photo taken June 18, 1944, eight days after Nazis slaughtered more than 640 men, women and children.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104a

A black and white photograph of dead bodies with a woman in front. 'H.W. 1' on top left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Photo of bodies lying on the ground.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104b

A black and white photograph of two men in striped clothes pulling an emaciated body with tongs. 'H.W. 2' on top left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Two survivors of Dachau demonstrate the operation of the crematorium to soldiers by dragging with forceps a body toward the ovens.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104c

A black and white photograph of a shirtless man and man in striped shirt pulling a dead body. 'H.W. 6' on top left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Survivors of Dachau demonstrate moving a body.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104d

A black and white photograph of two men with poles pushing a dead body into an oven. 'H.W. 8' on bottom left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Survivors of Dachau demonstrate pushing a body into an oven.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104e

A black and white photograph of a pile of dead bodies. 'H.W. 10' on bottom left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Close-up of bodies piled in the crematorium mortuary.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104f

A black and white photograph of a pile of bodies against grey wall. Several have blankets over them. 'H.W. 11' on bottom right.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Bodies of former prisoners.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104g

A black and white photograph of a pile of bodies outside of brick buildling. 'H.W. 13' on bottom right.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Bodies piled outside of crematorium at Dachau.
Post War Liberation Photos of Dachau Concentration Camp April 29 - May 10, 1945

2012.1.104h

A black and white photograph of a brick buildling with pile of bodies and upright men. 'H.W. 16' on bottom left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Crematorium at Dachau.
"KZ: Bildbericht aus fünf Konzentrationslagern" [Photo Report from Five Concentration Camps]

2012.1.548

Black magzine with title, "KZ: Bildbericht aus fünf Konzentrationslagern." Interior includes text in German as well as black and white photographs of concentration camps.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Magazine released circa 1945 by the American War Information Unit. Includes information on Buchenwald, Belsen, Gardelegen, Nordhausen, & Ohrdruf.
Kwiaty Oświęcimia [Flowers of Auschwitz] by Zinowij Tolkaczew

2019.2.242

Blue booklet with square, black illustration in center of cover, 63 pages.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

This booklet is the first edition of Tolkaczew’s illustrated reporting on Auschwitz and its liberation, and one of the earliest illustrated books about the Holocaust. Zinowij Tołkaczew (1903-1977) was a Soviet-Jewish graphic artist and painter who participated as a Red Army volunteer in the liberation of the concentration camps Majdanek and Auschwitz. His writing and drawings drew from his experiences with former prisoners in these camps.
Konzentrationslager Dokument F321 by Eugene Aroneanu Report for International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

2019.2.303

Book titled “KONZENTRATIONS-LAGER” in red print, 153 pages.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

135-page publication presents evidentiary material used at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, detailing crimes committed against humanity, and was given to each participant in the tribunal to become acquainted with the evidence to be presented. Report includes photographs, witness lists, and sections on deportation, detention, concentration camps and camp life, punishments and tortures, sanitary conditions, illnesses, medical experimentation on human prisoners, sterilization and castration, vivisection, execution and gassing, and incineration.
Censored Correspondence to Prag-Pankratz Prison from Birkenau

2012.1.361abc

Envelope: Tan envelope addressed to Jaroslav Krěpínsky from Sirina Krěpínkská in black ink.Letter: Message written in black ink on graph paper with blue lines. Four pages.Note: Small message written in black ink on either side of a small piece of paper.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Prag-Schweringasse (9197) (Jewish Gathering Camp Birkenau). 1945 censored for content for man in prison Prag-Pankratz -- same for man and wife’s letter (2012.1.362ab).
Feldpost By German Officer Concerned About Russian Advance

2014.1.304a

Envelope: Faded green with handwritten address in green ink. Top portion has four black wavy lines, black circular stamp, four wavy lines, black circular stamp. One more purple stamp with Nazi eagle in bottom lefthand corner.Back: Return address written in green on top flap.Letter: Grid paper. Letter handwritten in German in green ink. Back: Finishes about 3/4ths of the way down the page

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

The officer was in Brno with transport command. He writes, several months before the Germans surrender: Brno, 1. February 1945. My dear best Mommy, Wolfi and Jutta! Now it is silent in our barrack, the broadcast was listened to and I can write without being disturbed. When all comrades are here I don't have the passion to write. They talk too much. Neither yesterday nor today have I received mail from you. I guess tomorrow a kind letter from you will arrive. Today I got a letter by comrade Dinkler. The bombardment wasn't that bad. It is the same village which had already been hit. Well, no news here. We have much work. Today I finished my service at 3:48 in the morning. Yesterday evening we had good success. An officer brought a roasted pork and we have separated and shared it with 5 comrades. Finally some good food. Tomorrow I have a free day, but I don't know if I will take it because there is so much to do. Regarding the war situation, nothing has changed. It seems that the Russians didn't continue to march at the Peterslau-Glogau area. They move towards Berlin and Stettin. I hope that we can stop their rush. Counter measures must begin now to push them back. We all see how the Russians have raged here. I don't think you need to be sorrowful now. If possible, please immediately send me tobacco and a lighter as well as some razor blades. I currently have nothing to report, no news. My thoughts are always with you. They say that new soldiers shall arrive today. Let's see. Many regards, good night, I salute you and kiss you, Your Daddy.
Concentration Camp Death Notice for Isidor Chemiker Klausner on Biala Cigarette Paper

2012.1.42

Front: Infromation written in black ink.Back: Yellow and red ad for cigarettes.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A death notice for a concentration camp victim on cigarette paper.
Concentration Death Notice for P.J. Lerner

2012.1.43

Green sheet with black printed information and writing in blue ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A death notice for a concentration camp victim.
Letter to Jawslaw Sadlick, Dora-Sangerhausen, from Josef Sadlick, Prague

2015.2.22ab

Front: Letter in black cursive ink in two columns with a blue Postzensur stamp on the bottom of each column with a cursive pencil G. Dora-Sangerhausen was a secret production facility for manufacture of the V-1 and V-2 rockets.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Censored letter and cover to inmate at Dora-Sangerhausen, 3/12/1945. Dora was a secret production facility for manufacture of the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Letters to Dora are extremely rare.
Funeral Card for Marcel Gerard

2012.1.50

Front: A black and white photograph of a man in suit and tie. Titled, "A la Mémorie de Monsieur Marcel Gérard."Back: Printed black text.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: One of a group of funeral cards for Catholic individuals who perished at various concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, Stettin, Mauthausen, Neuengamme and Buchenwald (2012.1.47, 2012.1.48, 2012.1.49, 2012.1.50, 2012.1.51, 2012.1.52, 2012.1.53).
Provisional ID for Civilian Internee of Buchenwald Jakob Machat

2012.1.506

Small booklet titled, "Ausweis - Certification." Includes typewritten biographic information about Jakob Machat, as well as his fingerprint and signature.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Provisional identification card for a civilian internee of Buchenwald, Jakob Machat. Card stamped by the Allied forces on the camp liberation day.

[Related items: 2012.1.505]
American Soldier’s Account of Entering Dachau Concentration Camp Post-Liberation

2021.1.33a-c

Three typed pages; a: "Written by" at top left ; b: "The first building" at top left ; c: "We left the" at top left.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Corporal Edward E. Smith, Jr. describes rows of railroad boxcars – a “death convoy…parked on the tracks” with Allied dead, other cars containing piles of bodies atop one another – in varying positions, both naked and clothed – “from torture and starvation.” The last two cars of the fifty-car convoy contained the remains of “SS troopers” about whom Cpl. Smith adds: “little sympathy was given them by the onlookers.” He proceeds to describe buildings: reception headquarters, a supply depot, and warehouses alongside of which were the dead bodies of the “Ex-Supermen” SS guards, some of whom were teenagers. He heads for the “Extermination Center” and notes first the dog cages, the denizens of which were used to subdue prisoners. Continuing, Cpl. Smith confronts the gas chamber and crematoria. He describes “the one sight that paralyzed us,” an adjoining room piled with approximately two hundred “dead naked bodies…awaiting cremation…victims of torture and starvation – men, women and children…The most devastating sight that any human eye could ever see!” And then another room “that will always be remembered by all who saw it.” He describes more piles of bodies awaiting cremation. “Brutal treatment had been given them before death.” Exiting the crematorium Cpl. Smith describes the firing platform for shooting prisoners by firing squad. A “barbed wire encirclement” holds 10,000 political prisoners just barely alive. The bodies of several thousand prisoners lay in a moat where they were thrown after being shot. Then a cemetery with more dead awaiting burial. He meets a Dutch physician in the camp hospital, who shows him around to the many patients – different nationalities – all awaiting death. He reports that on May 1, 1945, Dachau was placed “Off Limits” pending an investigation by Allied authorities.
Photographs of Atrocities at Dachau Concentration Camp

2021.1.34a-d

4 photographs accompanying letter [2021.1.33a-c]. a: corpses laying in box car ; b: corpse laying in box car ; c: view of corpses in box car from exterior ; d: corpse within a crematory

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Corporal Edward E. Smith, Jr. describes rows of railroad boxcars – a “death convoy…parked on the tracks” with Allied dead, other cars containing piles of bodies atop one another – in varying positions, both naked and clothed – “from torture and starvation.” The last two cars of the fifty-car convoy contained the remains of “SS troopers” about whom Cpl. Smith adds: “little sympathy was given them by the onlookers.” He proceeds to describe buildings: reception headquarters, a supply depot, and warehouses alongside of which were the dead bodies of the “Ex-Supermen” SS guards, some of whom were teenagers. He heads for the “Extermination Center” and notes first the dog cages, the denizens of which were used to subdue prisoners. Continuing, Cpl. Smith confronts the gas chamber and crematoria. He describes “the one sight that paralyzed us,” an adjoining room piled with approximately two hundred “dead naked bodies…awaiting cremation…victims of torture and starvation – men, women and children…The most devastating sight that any human eye could ever see!” And then another room “that will always be remembered by all who saw it.” He describes more piles of bodies awaiting cremation. “Brutal treatment had been given them before death.” Exiting the crematorium Cpl. Smith describes the firing platform for shooting prisoners by firing squad. A “barbed wire encirclement” holds 10,000 political prisoners just barely alive. The bodies of several thousand prisoners lay in a moat where they were thrown after being shot. Then a cemetery with more dead awaiting burial. He meets a Dutch physician in the camp hospital, who shows him around to the many patients – different nationalities – all awaiting death. He reports that on May 1, 1945, Dachau was placed “Off Limits” pending an investigation by Allied authorities.