The Use of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany
“Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offense, the demolition of a man… We had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this… Nothing belongs to us anymore: they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair… They will even take away our name…”[4]
This firsthand quote from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center helps contextualize the situation of persecuted minority groups such as Jews and Slavs under the Nazi regime. Pictured in object 1 is the primary S.S. guardhouse overlooking the primary gate to the Dachau concentration camp, one of the first sights of a beleaguered man, woman, or child hoping only for refuge at the end of their journey. Object 2 displays the Dachau prison yard revealing the bare housing for those interned. Originally intended to house political prisoners, these camps would be used to house and exterminate millions of minorities which had previously flourished under the Weimar Republic. Was this a degradation of citizenship? it is impossible to label such barbaric measures as anything but.
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[5] “Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1939.” yadvashem.org. Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, n.d. Accessed September 25, 2020. https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/nazi-germany-1933-39.html.
Pictured above is the main S.S. guardhouse of the Dachau concentration camp.
ID Panel: Object 1
Pictured below is the prison yard of the Dachau camp.
ID Panel: Object 2
