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Ghettos and Nazi camps

Different functions of confinement, forced labour and mass murder

The period of Nazi rule

Ghetto, concentration camp, forced-labour camp and killing centre are not interchangeable terms. Ghettos segregated Jews from other inhabitants. Concentration camps served imprisonment and repression, labour camps exploited forced labour, and killing centres were established specifically for mass murder. Several functions could coexist within a single complex.

A ghetto within a city

Nazi ghettos in occupied Europe were compulsory segregated areas for Jews. Residents endured overcrowding, starvation and disease; movement in and out required permits. Many were forced to work. The Warsaw Ghetto offers one particular experience, rather than a model for every Jewish community.

Concentration and forced-labour camps

Concentration camps held people the regime considered enemies or unwanted. These included political and religious opponents, members of resistance movements, Jews and other groups. Forced labour could form part of a larger camp complex; this does not imply that a labour camp was safe.

Killing centres

Killing centres were intended to murder large groups of people, primarily Jews. Birkenau belonged to a complex that also included imprisonment and industrial forced labour. Distinguishing functions helps explain the crime; it does not create a scale of acceptable and unacceptable persecution.

Deportation was not one universal route

Many people were deported from ghettos to camps, but communities’ experiences differed with occupation, local administrations and possibilities for hiding or escape. Not everyone murdered passed through both a ghetto and a camp. The Holocaust cannot be reduced to one type of place.

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Sources

  • The Holocaust, part one · The National Archives; background by Dan Stone

    Explanatory text on ghettos/uprising and Dan Stone’s historical background.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . This use covers selected explanatory text, not archival photographs or other separately credited objects.

  • The Holocaust, part two · The National Archives; background by Dan Stone

    Explanation of Auschwitz I/Birkenau; general background repeated from part one.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . This use covers selected explanatory text, not archival photographs or other separately credited objects.

  • The Liberation of the Death and Concentration Camps, Europe, June 1944–May 1945 · UK Ministry of Defence / COI, 2005

    Printed pages 6–9 (PDF 8–11). Surrounding estimates, inaccurate generalisations and third-party quotations are excluded.

    Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ . Selected Crown text only; separately credited photographs, maps, poetry and testimony are excluded.