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
Browse the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection.
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Telegram from Auschwitz
2014.1.347&348
Telegram: 'Deutsche Post Osten' printed at top center. Envelope: 'Telegramm' printed above gold rectangle with black outline. Back: 'Inliegend Telegramm!' at top center.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Telegram from commandant reporting death of inmate.
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Arbeitsbuch Signed by Eugen Gildemeister
2014.1.362
Cover: 'Deutches Reich'above and 'Arbeitsbuch' below an eagle. Interior: 32 pages; 1-9 include many hand stamps and handwriting. Pages 10-32 are blank.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Work booklet for a laboratory assistant, Albert Kuschel, who worked in the Robert Koch Institute of Infectious Diseases in Berlin. Eugen Gildemeister was a German bacteriologist who, subsequent to the Nazi rise to power, became Director and Vice-President of this Institute. Gildemeister was involved with pseudo-medical experiments on inmates of Buchenwald, Natzweiler, Sachsenhausen and Dachau. On March 3, 1942, he was present as 145 inmates of KL Buchenwald were purposely infected with typhus. Five of those inmates died during this experiment. Gildemeister himself was held responsible for 250 deaths from his experiments on prisoners. On May 8, 1945, the day of German surrender, Gildemeister committed suicide in Berlin.
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Ausweis Issued to Elfriede Förster, Flossenberg Concentration Camp
2012.1.2
Green card titled, "Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg Ausweis." Includes writing on front and back.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Ausweis (Identification card) Nr. 289 was issued to Elfriede Förster, a guard at the Flossenburg concentration camp, born May 18, 1919. The text below the date of birth says that she is allowed to carry weapons while on duty in the camp and that all other government authorities are supposed to help her. The document is signed by the commander of Flossenbürg, an SS Obersturmführer. The ID photo has been removed, in all probability by Elfriede herself or her family: it would not have been advantageous to be recognized as a former guard in a Nazi concentration camp.
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Life Insurance Document for Margot Loewenstein
2012.1.45
Typewritten document in black and blue with a large red Star of David stamp with the word "Jude."
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
A very disturbing set of three typed documents (2012.1.44, 2012.1.45, 2012.1.46) from Berlin. Each is ominously stamped "Jude" in a large red Star of David, concerning the life insurance policy of one Margot Lowenstein of Hamburg, who fled Nazi Germany in August 1939 for England. Under German law, Jews who left the country or were forcibly deported were forced to forfeit any benefits or monies due on existing life insurance policies. The document, loosely translated in part, reads: "According to our records, the claimant is a Jew who has left the country and has forfeited her German nationality. At present the above policy is due... We waive the certificate of insurance in the interest of the Reich..." This is a morbid reminder of the lengths the Nazi regime went to bilk every last penny out of their political and cultural enemies.
[Related items: 2012.1.44, 2012.1.46]
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Funeral Card for Jacobus Johannes Nause
2012.1.48
Front: A black and white photograph of a man in priestly garb.Back: Printed text with title, "Jacobus Johannes Naus."
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).
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Army Signal Corps Photos of Nazi Atrocities
2012.1.77a-k
Black and white photographs:
a: of naked bodies lying on the ground with other clothed bodies
b: two bodies on the ground with the forearm of a third body in the foregound
c:men in a barracks bunks with one man standing
d:decomposed body lying in thorns or barbed wire
e: two men standing over decomposed corpses with buildlings in the background
f: pile of many bodies
g: men under a blanket
h: pile of about ten bodies
i: crematorium ovens
j: large pile of bodies with a roof in the background
k: tan envelope with "10 GENUINE PHOTOGRAPHS, NAZI ATROCITIES" at top left
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
A set of 10 Army Signal Corps photographs with original envelope reproducing images taken at time of liberation of Buchenwald.
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Army Signal Corps Photos of Nazi Atrocities
2012.1.77f
Black and white photograph of a pile of many corpses.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: One of a set of 10 (2012.1.77a-k) Army Signal Corps photographs reproducing images taken at time of liberation of Buchenwald.
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Birth Announcement
2012.1.280ab
Card: White card with printed and handwritten information and an illustration of a baby in a crib.Envelope: White envelope with handwritten address in blue and an SS stamp. Return address written on back flap.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
A card from a guard at the Sachsenhausen/Oranienburg concentration camp, with an SS Cachet on the front and address on reverse. It contains a birth announcement for the guard's baby boy.
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Jakob Machat
2012.1.505
A black and white photograph of a man in a concentration camp uniform.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Original photo of Jakob Machat taken in Palestine, dressed in his own concentration camp prisoner's uniform. This young man later served as a pilot in the IDF Air Force.
[Related item: 2012.1.506]
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Real-Photo Postcards of Children of Izieu from Maison d'Izieu
2016.1.07ab
a:Front: image of children with 'Colonie d'Izieu - ete 1943' at bottom right; back: 'IZ V07' at top left with names of children and faint image from front.b:Front: image of children with 'Colonie d'Izieu, fete a la fontaine - ete 1943' at bottom right; back:'IZ VO5' with names of children and faint image from front.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Izieu, a village in Central France, was the site of a Jewish orphanage. The 44 children housed there during the war were between the ages of five and seventeen. On April 6, 1944, Klaus Barbie's Gestapo thugs forcibly removed the children and their seven supervising adults, threw them onto trucks, shipped them to the Drancy internment camp, and from there 42 children and 5 of the supervisors were sent to Auschwitz where they were gassed. The oldest children and the superintendent were shot before a firing squad in Estonia. The director of the orphanage, Sabine Zlatin, survived the raid and lived to testify 40 years later against Barbie at his trial.
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Message from Female Prisoner on FKL Auschwitz Stationery
2016.1.31
Front: ‘F.K.L. Auschwitz’ printed in bold at top left; Back: handwritten message in pencil.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Frauen Konzentrationslager (FKL) Auschwitz/ Women’s Concentration Camp Auschwitz prisoner mail on camp stationery card. FKL Auschwitz was established as a subcamp of Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrueck housed at Auschwitz before becoming integrated with the Auschwitz camp proper at Birkenau (Auschwitz II). Stamp has been removed (censors did this to check for hidden messages) and another, uncanceled Mohemia Moravia applied. FKL imprinted covers are extremely scarce.
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Advertisement from Topf & Sons
2016.1.57
Front: Blue printed German text with Topf logo in top left; Back: More printed text with Topf logo at bottom.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Topf & Sons designed, built and perfected the crematoria at the Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Belzec, Dachau, Mauthausen and Gusen camps. The leaflet lists their slogan (“Performance decides”) and various product lines: smokestacks, furnaces, etc. Verso is a company description. Topf speaks glowingly about their new leadership and spirit since 1933, the Third Reich’s first year.
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Majdanek za Drutami Zaglady by Piotr Sobolewski and Theresa Zagorowska
2019.2.239
Small book titled “MAJDANEK” in center under image, 36 pages.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Early monograph on Majdanek, the Nazi extermination camp established on the outskirts of Lublin during the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II. Majdanek was also known as Konzentrationslager Lublin and operated from October 1941 until July 1944. Industrial-scale murder of prisoners occurred during “Operation Reinhard,” the Nazi plan to murder all Jews within the General Government territory of Poland.
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Real-Photo Postcards of Children of Izieu from Maison d'Izieu
2019.2.304a-c
a: Front: image of children with 'Colonie d'Izieu - ete 1943' at bottom right; back: 'IZ V06'
b:Front: image of children with 'Colonie d'Izieu, devant la fontaine - ete 1943' at bottom right; back: 'IZ V08'
c: Front: image of children with 'Colonie d'Izieu, sur la terrasse - ete 1943' at bottom right; back: 'IZ V09'
[Related items: 2016.1.07ab]
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:Izieu, a village in Central France, was the site of a Jewish orphanage. The 44 children housed there during the war were between the ages of five and seventeen. On April 6, 1944, Klaus Barbie's Gestapo thugs forcibly removed the children and their seven supervising adults, threw them onto trucks, shipped them to the Drancy internment camp, and from there 42 children and 5 of the supervisors were sent to Auschwitz where they were gassed. The oldest children and the superintendent were shot before a firing squad in Estonia. The director of the orphanage, Sabine Zlatin, survived the raid and lived to testify 40 years later against Barbie at his trial.
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Auschwitz Poster by Israeli Artist and Poet Joseph Bau, a Schindler Survivor
2012.1.576
Colorful poster with Auschwitz written in the middle in red. Beneath is a line of prisoners in striped guard with soldiers in green with arm bands order them. No one has faces. A few dead bodies lay strewn on the yellow ground. Above the title is a list of black outlines coming out of smoke.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
This poster was created by Holocaust survivor Joseph Bau, who was one of the Jews saved from the fate depicted here by being an “Oskar Schindler Jew,” placed on Schindler’s list of “essential” Jews required to work in his factories. The poster depicts an endless line of Jews - guarded and urged on by screaming, faceless Nazi guards with whips and guns - being fed into the maws of a crematorium. The black smoke rising from the chimney takes the form of the victims themselves who seem bound heavenward. Bau has fused the Holocaust - the murder of six million Jews - with the idea of "Aliyah" - going up or arising toward Jerusalem, enacted whenever Jews are called to the Torah or return to their homeland. Bau himself had been imprisoned in the Krakow Ghetto and the notorious Plaszow concentration camp. He was saved by Schindler who was himself a Nazi. Bau was an artist of many talents who appeared as himself at the end of Spielberg's "Schindler's List," placing a stone - an act of remembrance - on Schindler's grave in Israel.