Concentration Camps Of The Anglo-Boer War: An Analysis

The ways Jews were treated in concentration camps show an accurate representation of how Jewish people were actually treated during World War II due to the

In the early 1930s, the residents of the picturesque city of Dachau, Germany, were completely unaware of the horrific events about to unfold that would overshadow their city still today. The citizens of Dachau were oblivious that their city was going to become the origin of concentration camps and of the Holocaust, the mass murder committed by the Nazi s in World War II. Dachau Concentration Camp, which would soon be placed on the edge of their community, would serve as a model for all Nazi extermination camps. This perfect prototype of a Nazi killing machine has come to represent the start of the horror-filled Holocaust and the Nazi's determination to achieve a perfect society during World War II.

The Jewish Concentration camps had substandard living conditions compared to the Japanese Internment camps, “Then Jack would snap back to reality, his stomach turning inside out from hunger, his body infested with lice, men around him dying from hunger, disease and sorrow” (Warren 72). This shows the reader the Jews

Des Pres, Terrence. The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

At the “Wannsee Conference”, which took place in Berlin, on January 20, 1942 the German regime with its main protagonists Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler planned the ‘final solution of the Jewish question. Even if massacres of about one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution, with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population, extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. The scene where a train of Schindler’s workers was wrongly sent to Auschwitz shows such an extermination camp were the Nazis systematically gassed thousands of Jews. Another example for the organized genocide is the mass cremation after the mass execution during the eviction of the ghetto in Krakow.

<br>The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirables" was through the use of concentration camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials, the 'final solution' was decided". The Jewish population was to be eliminated. In this paper I will discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the worst one prior to World War II, Buchenwald.

In only six years, two-thirds of an entire race, plus millions more, were shot, gassed, or starved to death. Anyone who was deemed “racially inferior or politically dangerous” was sent to one of many in the camps system. Among these groups were the physically or mentally handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, and Communists (Berenbaum par. 1-2). Millions of innocent people were sent to camps where they were killed or forced to work for the German cause until they died.

85 years ago, over a 12 year period, nearly six million Jews were killed in a genocide called The Holocaust. The Holocaust was led by the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler was their leader. The mass murders took place at concentration camps throughout Europe. The majority of concentration camps resided in Poland and Germany. Many people believe there were only a few concentration camps. “However, researchers found that the Nazis had actually established 20,000 camps between 1933 and 1945” (“How Many Camps,” n.d.). In this paper I will be discussing the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Let’s start by comparing a simple aspect of daily life in concentration camps and internment camps; wellbeing and

One common assumption that people make about the Holocaust is that the atrocity was an event unique to world history. It is not often taught in United States history classes that there were events previous to World War II that set precedence that allowed the Holocaust to occur under Nazi Germany rule. Generally, history classes do not explore colonialism outside of the United States, so it is no surprise that very few people are aware of German colonialism in Africa, let alone how Germany’s actions there served as a precursor to the Nazi policy of genocide years later. By examining the events that took place under German rule in South West Africa, one can gain a better understanding of the mentality behind the Nazi Germany genocide policy, as discussed in Isabel Hull’s article Military Culture and the Production of “Final Solutions” in the Colonies: The Example of Wilhelminian Germany.

With this notion of “genocide” still being a new term, historians such as Horst Drechsler and Helmut Bley in 1966 begin to examine the German colony of South West Africa under the context of possible genocide. These authors are writing in an era of post-WWII, Cold War ideologies. This topic inspiring heated debates on genocide, reparations, and the connection to the Holocaust. It continues to be a topic of discussion in an African independence, contemporary time frame with historians such as Jürgen Zimmerer, Benjamin Madley, and Werner Hillebrecht. Dividing these debates into two sections of focus ask the question, was the German-Herero war genocide, and if so how does it connect to the Holocaust 30 years later. Historians challenged the notion

Over seventy years ago, one of the deadliest wars of human history took place named World War II. In 1933, Adolf Hitler took power in Germany. Along with the Nazi Party, he viewed Jews, mentally handicapped, gypsies, and others “undesirables” as inferior to those of Aryan blood. “The Final Solution” was the name of Hitler’s plan to kill all those deemed “undesirable”. To exterminate the many “unfit”, the Nazis set up death and concentration to slaughter the many who were forced to travel there. The Schutzstaffel, also known as the SS, was “Hitler’s personal army”, and did a lot of his “dirty work” like implementing the Final Solution (Britannica Encyclopedia 2015). The SS, was an organized, loyal and deadly group of Aryan men.

The British troops were not doing very well, and General Lord Kitchener became desperate. Britain turned to new tactics: creating defences, killing all their cattle, and burning down their houses; but this wasn’t the worst of it. The British took Boer women and children to makeshift ‘refugee camps’, and invented the phrase ‘concentration camps’. These ‘camps’ were extremely unpleasant, unsanitary and dangerous places for these people (especially children), and they in fact became more like prisons. Military incompetence was to blame, and consequently 26,000 Boer women and children tragically died (80% being under 16 years). Until Emily Hobhouse, a British welfare campaigner, travelled to South Africa to investigate, this was a hugely secret held from the British public; but not for long. Upon discovering starving and disease-ridden children, Hobhouse immediately reported back to Britain.

With the start of the Second Boer War on the 11th October 1899 till its end, on the 31st May 1902, between the British soldiers and the Afrikaner rebels, one of the least publicised points of the war is what happened to the Boer Prisoners of War held in the British concentration camps. This British plan was used to house captured Boer citizens in order to reduce the supplies sent to the Boer rebels. The fact is that these camps are responsible for the deaths of 10% of the Boer population. So could what happened in concentration camps be considered Genocide, or just an action made by the British in order to win the Second Boer War

In early spring 1942 the German SS and police leader made a plan during “Operation Reinhard” to make a concentration camp. This camp was made to to exterminate all Jews in the general government of the Lublin district. Sobibor’s personnel consisted of German SS and police squads from 20-30 people. Police auxiliary squads had a number of 90-120 people in each squad. All of whom were Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian or Polish civilians that were selected or recruited