


Concentration Camps, Myths and Realities By Karl Hausner For the average Westerner, especially the American people, concentration camp means Nazi Germany and Holocaust. This, as Rabbi Lapin stated, is unfair and counter-productive. "History is written by the Mighty," stated Paul Harvey, and as he would say, "Let us look at the rest of the story". For those of us who have been imprisoned in such a camp will have learned, by experience, that man can be extremely brutal when given excessive power, and when such power comes from a too-powerful government. On the other hand, those of us who have been in such a camp have also experienced moments of kindness from people who extended these kindnesses, from just a smile, to a slice of bread or even hiding us at the risk of endangering themselves. Although concentration camps and forced labor lamps are often the same, there is a significant difference. TThe concentration camps operated by the Nazis and the Communists were actually forced or slave labor camps. With regard to classical concentration camps, we must look at different times and occasions. The Indian Reservations during the Nineteenth Century, the internment camps of the Japanese, German and Italian-Americans, especially during World War II, and the camps operated by the British during the South African War early in the Twentieth Century were concentration camps. To some degree the prisoner-of-war camps, and in particular, the camps operated during the bloodshed in Yugoslavia were concentration camps, whose primary purpose was to isolate certain groups of people from the rest of society. During the Bolshevik Revolution, and especially thereafter, up to the end of their regime in 1990, millions of Russians and other ethnic people in the Soviet Union were thrown into labor camps, not just operated in Siberia. Nazi concentration camps were also located near factories and the inmates were exploited to labor for the cause of the State. In China such camps are still in operation at this time. Shortly after Hitler took power in 1933, thousands of German citizens were arrested and thrown into concentration camps. One of the oldest and first camps was at Dachau near Munich. There the inmates had to dig drainage ditches for the purpose of draining the swamps that surrounded the campsite. The inmates consisted of labor leaders, leaders of the opposition parties, the clergy who spoke out against the regime, and some Jewish and other ethnic leaders which did not support the State. Since most Austrian and German Jews were relatively wealthy and well educated, the immigrated prior to World War II. In our village there were no Jews, but the nearby town of Bautsch there were twelve families. All but one immigrated during the spring of 1939. At the time, they were permitted to take along most of their tangible property. Only one family, the Schnabel sisters, advanced in age, remained until 1943. After the armed uprising in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, they were also arrested and no one knows whether they survived. Every German knew of the existence of concentration camps, because it was made clear that anyone who resisted the regime would be punished by concentration camp labor. The pastor of our nearby city, Wigstadtl, was arrested in 1941, and spent the rest of his years at the Dachau Camp, as did the Social Democratic mayor. Hatred Escalated Hatred |

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