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Roman Bautista Adler

Chris Hilgeman
History
3 March 2016
The SS in Concentration Camps During World War Two
The Holocaust was the first big genocide that the world had experienced. It was the
systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by a regime
(Introduction to the Holocaust). The word Holocaust has its origin in a Greek word meaning
sacrifice by fire(SS Command of Auschwitz Concentration Camp). The following research
paper gives you an introduction to what happened to six million Jews during and after World War
Two. I think that this genocide happened because of hatred to a religious minority and the human
tendency to repress others.
The party which came to power in Germany in January 1933 believed that Germans were
the supreme race (Arian). Hitler, as the leader of the National Socialist Party saw that Germany
was in an economic poverty subjected to huge penalties after World War One. To return the
German pride he helped create the German Workers Party. The amount of followers rose very
quickly. Soon he was given power by the president of Germany Paul von Hindenburg to be
chancellor and be in charge of the police and security. From that point on the SS(Schutzstaffel)
was born.
Figure 1 ( Burris Jenkins)

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In Figure 1 it depicts how almost all of Nazi efforts were to kill Jews

The SS was one of the most powerful groups in Europe during World War Two. The SS
started in Germany. In the early years, it was a small force of about 300 members to protect
Hitler, some of the important Nazi party members and other important delegates. This special
body was actually a subdivision of the SA (Sturmabteilung) or the stormtroopers which were the
armed followers of Hitler. When the SS became bigger they eventually split from the SA as
ordered by Hitler, who then appointed the SS to run the concentration camps established by the
SA. Heinrich Himmler was then appointed to be the supreme commander of the SS.
The SS was the most involved part of the Nazis (National Socialist German Workers
Party) in the concentration camps. The camps were originally built to house political enemies of
the Nazi party and citizens that did not like the Nazi and other groups. The first camp was
established right after Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. After some time the camps
were dismantled and a centralised camp was built for each region. While the SS and the secret
police then later were given orders to gather up Jews and manage concentration camps, the local
authorities were still running ghettos or labour camps.
The beginning of the camps came with the unwanted people in Germany. When Hitler
came to power Jews were persecuted. The Final Solution was the point when the Germans were

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starting to gather Jews to exterminate them. The Germans then started to make life harder for
Jews, by destroying businesses, taking their German citizenship and deporting them. In 1938
there was one of the strongest attacks on the Jews, the Kristallnacht, in which more than 100
Jews were killed and thousands of businesses, homes, schools and hospitals were destroyed
across Germany. The excuse for the event was the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris
by a Polish Jew. The name comes from the huge amounts of glass that was destroyed during the
event. Over 1000 synagogues were arsoned. More than 30000 Jews were arrested across the
Third Reich.
There were three types of camps: labor camps, concentration camps (ghettos) and
extermination camps. These camps had different buildings in them and served for different
purposes. The labor camps where made so that Jews and other prisoners would work for the
German Reich. The concentration camps had barracks, in which the prisoners were lodged in
wooden stalls and brick stalls in three levels. In each barrack several hundred people were
packed together without toilets and with almost no water. The camps were fenced off and all
Jews would live there, that were gathered by the SS and secret police. The extermination camps
where there to kill as many Jews as possible by making them breath toxic gas that was given to
them in the so called gas chambers and after the body would be taken to the crematorium.
The concentration camps were run by one person that was loyal to Himmler, the Head of
the SS. The camps had many sub divisions. In every camp there usually was a medical center,
watchtowers sleeping quarters for the guards, blocks where the Jews would sleep, record office
for the camps records and so many more depending on how big the camps and type was. The
biggest camp in Nazi Germany was Auschwitz and the first was Dachau. Auschwitz was a death
camp. Dachau was a concentration camp.

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Life in the camp was very hard for Jews and other people. The day started at 4:30am with
a roll call where the prisoners had to stand outside for 3 hours till the SS officers came. The
prisoners would have to work for the next 12 hours. The prisoners did have off on Sunday but
just to clean the barracks and they would have their weekly shower. In the camps different
prisoners would have different tags and would be treated differently depending on who they
were. ( criminals, political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses and Gypsies) The civilians would
usually be the best treated because they usually would be German and the Jews would be treated
the worst. At the end of each day they would have another roll call to see if everyone was there.
If there was someone missing they would have the prisoners standing there till they found him or
knew how the person died.
Medical experiments were not that uncommon in the concentration camps. Some of the
families would be separated upon arrival at the camp. Some of the SS doctors would give the
prisoner a disease and try to find a remedy. Some of the doctors would test different toxic
substances that would affect the body, to understand the human body reaction and its
characteristics. There were some private doctors that did experiments as well but they had to buy
the prisoners and return them after the tests dead or alive(SS Command of Auschwitz
Concentration Camp).
Information could leak out of the concentration camps for example from Polish escapees
in Auschwitz. A Polish captain volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz spending 945 days
there. He gathered evidence of genocide. He eventually escaped in 1943 but his report of mass
killing was dismissed because the Allies thought that he was exaggerating the events that
happened.(SS Command of Auschwitz Concentration Camp)

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Figure 2 (Gold, Sylviane)

In figure 2 the political

cartoon depicts how the US was not interested in the reports that came from the Jew that escaped
the concentration camps.
Only in 1944, the Allies changed their perception of what was happening in the
concentration camps thanks to the report of two Jewish prisoners who escaped. At least 802
prisoners attempted to escape but only 144 had successfully escaped, the rest were captured or
there are no records of them(SS Command of Auschwitz Concentration Camp). Many of them
escaped with SS uniforms(SS Command of Auschwitz Concentration Camp). In 1944 there was
a revolt from prisoners who worked for the SS. Some SS soldiers were killed and one
crematorium was destroyed but the rebellion was punished harshly.
The exact number of victims of the Holocaust is difficult to fix because many of the
prisoners were never registered and the SS destroyed most of the evidences(SS Command of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp). Many people have tried to estimate the death toll but the

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estimations on train timetables and deportation records are the most accepted.(SS Command of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp)
When the Allied forces were marching closer to the German concentration camps the SS
started to move the prisoners to other concentration camps closer to Germany. The Jews were
transported in trains or they were forced to go on long marches to the next camp. When the Allies
finally won and Germany declared unconditional surrender the Allies set up displaced persons
camps where people without anything left came. The camps were there to help the Holocaust
survivors. The Allied doctors could treat the them until they could go and emigrate out of
Germany to the US and other countries. Many of the Jews actually went to Israel. The camps
were open between 1948-1951 but the last of the camps did not close until 1957.
The Nuremberg trials (1945-1946) was an event that was held by the Allied forces to
judge some of the high ranking Nazi officials and bring some justice. The trial took place in the
city of Nuremberg because of three main factors: the city had a big courthouse which was largely
intact, it was the birthplace of the Nazi party and they saw it as a symbolic place for the Nazis
party's demise.(SS Command of Auschwitz Concentration Camp) 23 of the most important Nazi
members were judged and from them 12 were sentenced to death. Others were sentenced to life
imprisonment, lighter imprisonment or just let go due to health conditions. The criminals that
were killed were hanged in the court house gymnasium. Some say that a few of the Nazi
prisoners were not killed by the snapping of the neck but by choking (SS Command of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp). Many say that the Nuremberg trial was a milestone for
mankind because it made a international court for other genocides and other crimes against
humanity. The accused were allowed to choose their own lawyers. As the men accused and the
judges spoke four different languages they had to find modern technology for the time:

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instantaneous translation with headphones. After the first major trial there were 12 other trials
that were conducted by the US military tribunals (1946-1949). This includes the doctors trial
other dealt with German businessmen, high ranking army officers and SS officers. Of the 185
people tried, 12 received death sentences, 8 life sentence and the rest prison for different times.
Later the tribunal reduced the sentences.
To conclude I think that humanity should have learned what has happened in this war and
never repeat it again. But as we are humans it did happen again in several circumstances like:
Yugoslavia (1993) and in Rwanda (1994). As the saying goes only humankind trips on the same
rock twice.

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Work Cited
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Gold, Sylviane. "Excoriating the Apathy That Aided the Nazis." The New York Times. The New
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"The SS." The Holocaust. 2012. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.

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