By Eric Lichtbau, The New York Times, March 1, 2013
Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe. What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust. The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.
The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington. “The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data. “We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”
The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel. Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear.
The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions. The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.)
The existence of many individual camps and ghettos was previously known only on a fragmented, region-by-region basis. But the researchers, using data from some 400 contributors, have been documenting the entire scale for the first time, studying where they were located, how they were run, and what their purpose was.
The brutal experience of Henry Greenbaum, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives outside Washington, typifies the wide range of Nazi sites. When Mr. Greenbaum, a volunteer at the Holocaust museum, tells visitors today about his wartime odyssey, listeners inevitably focus on his confinement of months at Auschwitz, the most notorious of all the camps. But the images of the other camps where the Nazis imprisoned him are ingrained in his memory as deeply as the concentration camp number — A188991 — tattooed on his left forearm.
In an interview, he ticked off the locations in rapid fire, the details still vivid. First came the Starachowice ghetto in his hometown in Poland, where the Germans herded his family and other local Jews in 1940, when he was just 12. Next came a slave labor camp with six-foot-high fences outside the town, where he and a sister were moved while the rest of the family was sent to die at Treblinka. After his regular work shift at a factory, the Germans would force him and other prisoners to dig trenches that were used for dumping the bodies of victims. He was sent to Auschwitz, then removed to work at a chemical manufacturing plant in Poland known as Buna Monowitz, where he and some 50 other prisoners who had been held at the main camp at Auschwitz were taken to manufacture rubber and synthetic oil. And last was another slave labor camp at Flossenbürg, near the Czech border, where food was so scarce that the weight on his 5-foot-8-inch frame fell away to less than 100 pounds. By the age of 17, Mr. Greenbaum had been enslaved in five camps in five years, and was on his way to a sixth, when American soldiers freed him in 1945. “Nobody even knows about these places,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Everything should be documented. That’s very important. We try to tell the youngsters so that they know, and they’ll remember.”
The research could have legal implications as well by helping a small number of survivors document their continuing claims over unpaid insurance policies, looted property, seized land and other financial matters. “HOW many claims have been rejected because the victims were in a camp that we didn’t even know about?” asked Sam Dubbin, a Florida lawyer who represents a group of survivors who are seeking to bring claims against European insurance companies.
Dr. Megargee, the lead researcher, said the project was changing the understanding among Holocaust scholars of how the camps and ghettos evolved. As early as 1933, at the start of Hitler’s reign, the Third Reich established about 110 camps specifically designed to imprison some 10,000 political opponents and others, the researchers found. As Germany invaded and began occupying European neighbors, the use of camps and ghettos was expanded to confine and sometimes kill not only Jews but also homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and many other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. The camps and ghettos varied enormously in their mission, organization and size, depending on the Nazis’ needs, the researchers have found.
The biggest site identified is the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 500,000 people at its height. But as few as a dozen prisoners worked at one of the smallest camps, the München-Schwabing site in Germany. Small groups of prisoners were sent there from the Dachau concentration camp under armed guard. They were reportedly whipped and ordered to do manual labor at the home of a fervent Nazi patron known as “Sister Pia,” cleaning her house, tending her garden and even building children’s toys for her.
When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500. The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers. In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.
Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time. “You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”
@ yamit82:
Difficult site to watch so many babies. Thank-you for guiding me to it.
Honey Bee Said:
Try for starters Yad Vashem,
Paul Said:
It may be that some of the “carpers” are stupid a/o ignorant. In my experience, however, what they say or write is an accurate reflection of their moral values. They may deny their anti-Semitism – after all, it is not PC – but it does not make them any less anti-Semitic.
The “carpers” I have had the pleasure (?) of encountering have – let me be kind – an unsympathetic attitude toward the Jews, fostered by culture, education and currently reinforced by the mainstream media. Hello there NYT, Toronto Star, NBC, CBC, BBC – shall I go on? Theirs is such an entrenched view that eliminating it would require a Herculean effort; certainly, it would take more than a breeze. In any case, so far I have seen no sign of anyone trying. I hope you are right and I am wrong – but I am afraid it is a forlorn hope.
Canuck Frank Said:
I agree with your point about the roots of anti-semitism. But I am not addressing the roots of anti-semitism, but rather its modern currents and especially the politics of undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a nation. I think it is very clear that many people who criticize Israel are sincere in claiming not to be anti-semites. Which is to say they are sincerely stupid. They are ignorant and passive and could take very little prodding to wake them from their stupor and to sort them out from their less sincere comrades whose criticisms of Israel are strictly anti-semitic.
Yes, criticism of Israel is just a fig-leaf for anti-semitism. But why apply a fig-leaf if not to confuse those who value a moral point of view in their geo-politics? Who is there to conceal their anti-semitism from? Why waste energy on confrontation when all it takes is a breeze to blow the fig-leaf away?
Ted, why is my comment in response to Paul in moderation? I didn’t use improper language or said anything inflammatory.
@ Canuck Frank:
ALSO WOMAN AND CHILDREN
steven l Said:
and defenseless people are easier to murder – just ask the Germans, Poles, Hungarians, the French and on and on…
Paul’s point that antisemitisim has been imported by way of immigrants from Europe is an interesting take, one I hadn’t thought of, although it began long before the twenties and thirties. And the current immigrants from Muslim countries certainly exacerbate the situation. However, I would not attribute antisemitism to weak-mindedness or envy, although these may have been – and still are – contributing factors. The seeds of antisemitism can be traced back nearly two millenia, sown perhaps by St Paul, who may have been the first to accuse the Jews of having killed Christ. It has flourished ever since among Christians, and later taken up by the Muslims – albeit for a different reason.
Your other point about the “carpers” not considering themselves antisemites may be true but, if so, it is a disingenous belief. In any case, it is irrelevant; they just are. Anti-Zionism is merely a fig leaf for antisemitism, perhaps as Steven I says, to divide people, but more likely to conceal their hostility to the Jews and, therefore, to Israel. And, save and except the nutbars on the extreme right and the Muslims, who at least do not hide their feelings, the moral equivalence of the “carping” left is much more harmful because it stems from a desire to conflate Israel’s and the world’s interests. Given two thousand years of history, coupled with the re-emergence of manifest antisemitism around the world, this is a misguided approach to the ME from Israel’s point of view, because it is contrary to her interests.
At best, these people are indifferent to the fate of the Jews and Israel. And in this respect at least, I am a Bush disciple: “If you are not for us, you are against us.”
The difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is more a issue of semantic than anything else. It is a “pseudo issue” created to divide people.
Antisemites want Jews to be kept as defenseless as possible and the best way to achieve that goal is to deny a state for the Jews which is what Zionism is about.
Anti-Zionists are against the existence of a state for the Jews.
@ Canuck Frank:
It is true that Israel’s right to exist is the easiest thing to undermine. But while it is an assault on Jews, no question about it, I think most people who constantly carp about Israel, don’t imagine themselves to be antisemitic. They are too weak minded to see the contradictions. All you have to do to confuse people like that who honestly reject the accusations of antisemitism is to ask them how Israel and its existence as a Jewish state should protect itself from antisemites and what they think antisemites say about Israel. If they are sincere in rejecting antisemitism, then they should be able to see that antisemites are never going to see anything that Israel does as legitimizing its existence and at least pause to wonder if they have fallen into some political trap.
I would say that the first level of assault on the Jews in this day is lax immigration policies. This is not a new problem. Antisemitism in the US was clearly an import in the twenties and thirties as well. Before the explosion in immigration in the US, most US citizens hadn’t seen enough Jews to have an opinion on them and antisemitism as it existed in Europe was grounded firmly in a lack of respect for modern education and intellectual ability in general, two firm foundations for the US middle class back then. Before, it was immigration from Catholic countries where superstitious hysteria remained a powerful tool of authority, now it is immigration from Muslim countries where the same superstitious hysteria is scriptural, not just clerical and religious authority is frequently the law as well.
@ Canuck Frank:
Loft-menchen
Paul Said:
Actually, at least in Hungary, Jews were excluded from ALL professions and occupations! My father lost his job as a postal worker after the Germans took over the country in early 1944. I was the 5 years old. I have no idea how my parents managed to survive – a least until the Hungarian Nazis (the Arrow Cross) deported both my father and mother. IMHO currently the first level of assault is the denial by the EU, UN. US liberals and their fellow travellers of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Let’s recapitulate: Leaders in power have all committed or supported (by withholding) mass murder in a short period :< 75 years. The worst since the birth of humanity.
The Nazi,
The USSR,
The West,
The Chinese
The Muslims
The Japanese etc… .
Among the victims: Armenians, Kurds, Jews, Blacks etc… .
This was the worst century EVER (already recognized by many) and "we" talk about human rights!!!!! With progress, humans show how more despicable they are! Imagine what will happen if we reach the point of universalism! At this pace, this will be the end of humanity. It is time for "G-D" to pack and try something else.
My Grand-Parents came from Lodz,Poland,we never discovered the fate of their family,does anyone know how we can researched what became of the family in Poland?
I must correct the following from my above comment, this is not a true statement,
No, I would prefer to say that the first level of assault on the Jews, besides the lies spread about the Jews, was excluding Jews from certain vocations and professions. When you are legally excluded from employment, especially when you are trained or educated in that employment, it is a kind of death sentence. How are you supposed to survive?
Doesn’t anyone see the irony in the NYT printing this? The paper that 70 years ago tried to cover up the Shoah is now trying to make amends by exposing how bad it was.
You are 70 years and 6 million Jews late, NY Slimes…
But the popularly repeated number we always get is six million Jews. We have evidence now that the number was much greater and the evidence points out something else significant that too many people ignore, that the damage to Jewish communities in Europe was the first level of assault on the Jews. When Jewish communities are threatened this is where the trouble starts. And the first threat to Jewish communities is being forced into ghettos. Consider the “concentration” part of concentration camps and see that the ghetto is the first concentration camp Jews were forced into. Those who did not die of abuse and starvation in the ghettos were then shipped out to the isolated concentration camps. Ghettos were also sites of forced labor.
There are some problems with this report.
In summing up these numbers we need to remember that all of these activities usually occurred in all concentration camps. For an easy example, slave labor, POWS, brothels, euthanization and forced abortions all occurred at Auschwitz. And also the absence of gas chambers did not mean that extermination was not occuring at other camps. If the authors claimed that there were sites commited specifically for each of these individual kinds activities, they need to point out where they were because they would be unique in this particular context.
Euthanization, for example, was something that occurred in hospitals in the Third Reich. But forced abortions at hospitals were not reported as far as I know.
We also see again the strange occupation of undermining the well understood history of concentration camps and especially death camps as state secrets.
But claims of ignorance about concentration camps are well supported. The Nazis labored considerably to suppress knowledge about the concentration camps. And the Third Reich was heavily policed against people talking about things the Third Reich didn’t want you talking about. If they caught you spreading information that they didn’t want you spreading, you could get in a lot of trouble. So those who may have found out about local concentration camps would have learned very quickly to keep their mouths shut and easily assumed the habit of ignoring what they could see. The rest had no source of information, no news reports, no rumors and no motivation to see what was going on down the road where the Nazis were so busy. Collaborators had other things to keep to themselves besides the concentration camps.
@ Canadian Otter:
But lets maintain our focus on these new Israeli apartment buildings and farms…
Nazi-inspired euthanasia of the elderly, babies, and the terminally ill in the UK:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223286/Hospitals-bribed-patients-pathway-death-Cash-incentive-NHS-trusts-meet-targets-Liverpool-Care-Pathway.html
And here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240075/Now-sick-babies-death-pathway-Doctors-haunting-testimony-reveals-children-end-life-plan.html
The horror is that this inhumanity did not end with the Nazis. It goes on today against other people in one way or another, although in a smaller scale. The horror is not only the gross abuse of human rights but our own silence. ~~~ We happily trade with a country where they routinely use the bodies of disidents for organ transplants. It’s a big business. ~~~ People starve in the North Korean Gulag. (Book “Escape from Camp 14”). ~~~ And in civilized old England, the “health care” system encourages mass euthanasia in what they euphemistically call “the pathway”. An estimated 130,000 patients a year, particularly the elderly, are sedated and deprived of food and water. In moments of lucidity they beg for water. They only last for days. This is often done without notifying relatives. Many of them could be saved, but resources are scarce. ~~~ What the Nazis did was NOT an aberration. ~~~ Mass murder has also been perpetrated in Asian and African countries. We have not paid enough attention to that. We no longer mention the Soviet Union’s own mass murders. Or the genocide perpetrated on the Armenians by today’s vociferous and swaggering Turkey. Peaceful Islam extended its wide geographic dominance by means of murder on a large scale. We don’t talk about these things. We remain politely silent. ~~~ If Muslims managed a second Holocaust there would be only lip service on the part of the UN and the civilized world. Nobody would do a thing to stop it.