Language:
German
Year of publication:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Dachauer Hefte; Studien und Dokumente zur Geschichte der nationalsozialistischer Konzentrationslager
Angaben zur Quelle:
17 (2001) 42-55
Keywords:
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Jews
Abstract:
Traces the history of Auschwitz - the town and the concentration camp - during the annexation of this part of Poland to Nazi Germany. The town was half Jewish, half Polish, and Germanization did not seem feasible; thus, at first, Jews were not deported but segregated and exploited. The situation changed when IG-Farben chose Auschwitz as the site for its Buna factory, and planned to turn it into a model German town. To this end, it had to be free of Jews; they were transferred to other towns in the region. Meanwhile the camp changed from a prison camp for political opponents and prisoners of war to an extermination camp for Jews. Describes the good life led by the SS-men and their families in the camp as well as by the new German settlers, mainly IG-Farben employees, in the town. Though many knew about the mass murder in the camp, most lived comfortably with their knowledge or suspicions: Germanization of the East required extermination of inferior races.
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