Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

1. Nazi camp system was the embodiment of Nazism • Man-made Hell • 1st camps were makeshift, improvised (1933) • SA established them • Warehouses, cellars • Beat, tortured • political opponents Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

2. March, 1933: Dachau 1st official camp • One of last camps to be liberated • Made rules, camp system • Dehumanization, punishments, prisoner administration (kapos, etc.) Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

3. “Asocials” were first camp inmates • Kristallnachtstepped up # of Jews in camps • Jews could still be freed if they could prove they had a visa • Sept. 1, 1939: camp populations mushroomed • Sources of slave labor • 1945: ¾ million slave laborers in camps • 7 million slaves not in camps Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

4. Chelmno (12/41): 1st camp constructed as part of Final Solution • Gas vans (carbon monoxide [CO]) • OdiloGlobocnik, 1941, ordered to kill all Jews in the General Government (Poland) • Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka then constructed • Majdanek, Auschwitz also equipped to kill • Chelmno: almost 350,000 Jews killed • Belzec: 500-600,000 Jews killed • Sobibor: 250,000 Jews killed • Treblinka: 800-900,000 Jews killed • Majdanek: around 350,000 Jews killed • Auschwitz: 1.1 million-1.3 million Jews killed • + 70-80,000 Poles, several 1,000 gypsies, Soviets Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

5. Gas van used at Chelmno Train station where Jews and Roma arrived at Belzec Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

6. Sobibor Jews arrive at Treblinka by train Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

7. The crematoria at Majdanek The gate to Auschwitz II - Birkenau Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

8. Auschwitz I: SS barracks, Block #11 (prison), #10 (medical experiments) • Auschwitz II/Birkenau: killing facility, barracks for slave labor • Auschwitz III/Buna, Monowitz: huge synthetic rubber plant • Run by I.G. Farben (German industry) • 45 sub-camps around, all administered from Auschwitz Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

9. 10,000 camps total • Killing, transient, POW, slave labor, etc. Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

10. German industry heavily involved in the camps for slave labor • Paid SS a per diem for each slave • Some firms had plants in the camps • Bayerpaid for female slaves on which to run experiments Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

11. Medical experiments in camps • Military reasons – saltwater intake, temperature extremes, injections with various germs/diseases • Racial reasons – how to produce twins (Josef Mengele [the Angel of Death]), produce dominant traits, sterilization experiments • No care was taken to render the experiments medically valid • Warsaw ghetto: Jewish doctors experimented on themselves on the effects of starvation and malnutrition Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

12. Systemization in the camps • Flow-charts to track who and what went where • All income went into SS bank accounts • Contraband from Jews (jewelry, alarm clocks, clothing, shavers, etc.) were sold to soldiers • All income came back to SS • Thousands of civilians had to be involved in this as bystanders and collaborators • Denial: “I don’t want to know where it came from…” Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

13. Motivation of the perpetrators • French proverbs: • “To understand all is to forgive all” • “He who excuses himself, accuses himself” • Schools of thinking: Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

14. Situationalist: obedience to authority • Certain mechanisms take over (autocracy, order) • Milgramexperiments in the 1950’s-‘60’s • In almost every case of obedience…there is always some justification on the part of the “doer” to a cause • In Milgram’s experiments worldwide, 600 of 1000 administered a “lethal” dose of electricity • Conformity to group pressure • Soldiers kill/die for their buddies Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

15. Yale University psychology professor Dr. Stanley Milgram Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

16. Dispositionalist: personality issues • Auschwitz guards had specialties in cruelty • Sadistic, psychopathic disposition • Interactionalist: in a situation of radical evil, a human being will develop a “second self” in order to function in the evil environment • Camp doctors – the “Auschwitz self” • Psychic numbing Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators

17. Idealistic/Ideological: so-infected with antisemitism • Existentialist: participation in this vast undertaking helped give meaning to the perpetrator’s life • Human passion: sadism is a form of malignant aggression • Can be brought out, cultivated • Need to show control • Greed was everywhere in the Holocaust • Hate(not completely conditioned by ideology) • Revenge: for Allied bombs on German cities, etc. • Ambition, careerism: desire to get ahead Unit 6: Kingdom of Death and the Mentality of Its Creators