Victims of the concentration camps of World War II. Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Reference. List of concentration camps in different countries

A month ago, I toured the former concentration camps in Germany and Poland. There were several hundred such camps in the thirties and forties of the last century in Germany and in the occupied territories. I visited the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz, Poland), Sachsenhausen (near Berlin) and Dachau (near Munich). Now there are organized museums visited by people from different countries.

Camps began to be built in Germany in the early thirties, with the rise of the Nazis. Initially, the camps had a corrective labor function; they sent criminal and political criminals. Later, representatives of the "lower races" (Jews, Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and, with the outbreak of war, prisoners of war and some residents of the occupied territories began to be sent to the camps.

In accordance with Hitler's plan, the complete annihilation of Jews and Gypsies was supposed, as well as a reduction in the number of Slavs and people of some other nationalities. By the beginning of the forties, some camps were reoriented to the mass extermination of people.

Deportation of the Jewish population of Amsterdam to a transit camp. Photograph 1942

Prisoners were brought to the camps in cramped boxcars, devoid of basic amenities. In these wagons, people spent up to several days, until they finally arrived at the camp.

Birkenau camp gate

The railway line, along which trains with prisoners arrived

Unloading prisoners at Birkenau

Arriving at Auschwitz

Arriving lined up in a long line for sorting. People unfit for work, including almost all the children who arrived, were built into a separate column, intended for destruction in the gas chamber. The second group of people were selected for hard work. The third group, which included many children, especially twins, was selected for medical experiments. A small number of women were selected to work as servants in the families of the camp administration.

sort queue

sort queue

From the memoirs of the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Rudolf Hess:

Already during the sorting process, there were many incidents on the ramp. Because of the fact that families were divided, because of the separation of men from women and children, the whole transport came into great excitement. Further selection of able-bodied intensified this confusion. After all, family members wanted to stay together anyway. Those selected went back to their families, or mothers with children tried to get to their husbands or to older children selected for work. Often there was such a commotion that the sorting had to be done again. Often had to restore order by force. Jews have very developed family feelings. They stick to each other like a burdock.

Railway station on the territory of Birkenau

This elderly woman was sent from the car straight to the gas chamber. Birkenau, 1944

Arrived at the Birkenau camp after sorting. Those on the left in the frame will now go to the gas chamber, but do not yet know about it

The form of social organization and at the same time the ideology that existed in Germany in the 1930s was called National Socialism, or, for short, Nazism. In relation to Germany of that time, the word “fascism” is often used, but it is more correct to speak of Nazism, that is, the combination of socialism with nationalism.

Adolf Hitler wrote: “Socialism is the doctrine of how to take care of the common good… We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. For us, the race and the state are a single whole..

To unite the masses in Nazi Germany, the rallying idea of ​​the German world was used, as well as the cultivation of hatred towards certain groups of people on a national basis (primarily the Jews), on the basis of faith, on the basis of socio-political convictions, and so on.

In foreign policy, Hitler's main idea was to expand the living space for the Germans, implying territorial expansion. This was supported by the majority of the German population, especially since before the start of large-scale hostilities on the eastern fronts, German propaganda managed to present the ongoing conquest of new territories as a matter to be solved bloodlessly or with little bloodshed and for the common good.

Thus, the Anschluss (accession) of Austria in 1938 was formally legalized by a referendum, during which 99 percent of Austrians voted for joining Germany. At the same time, Hitler's troops, observing possible correctness, were present in Vienna for three weeks before the referendum. The law "On the reunification of Austria with the German Empire" was issued, and Hitler said: "I announce to the German people the accomplishment of the most important mission in my life."

In the same year, Hitler appealed to the Reichstag "to pay attention to the appalling living conditions of the German brethren in Czechoslovakia." It was about the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived. In the Sudetenland, they began to prepare a referendum on the accession of these lands to Germany, and German troops approached the border. Czechoslovakia, trying to contain separatist sentiments, announced mobilization and sent troops into the Sudetenland. But after the intervention of the world community, everything ended with the rejection of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, because otherwise Hitler threatened war.

As can be seen from these two examples, Adolf Hitler did nothing that could not be supported by the majority of the German population. On the contrary, such actions of "reunification" and "impossibility to leave the German brothers in trouble" increased the popularity of the leader. The same applied to the discriminatory measures against the Jews: they were explained not only by justice, but, during the creation of the ghetto, and concern for the safety of the Jewish population.

Members of the Hitler Youth (German youth organization) greet Adolf Hitler at the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, 1937

It is impossible not to say that propaganda was exemplarily organized in Germany. In this day and age, with almost everyone owning a television, mass processing the consciousness of the majority has become easier than ever before. Nevertheless, it was the Nazi propagandists who achieved in their work an enviable perfection for many: they managed to rally the nation on the basis of the exclusivity of the German people, on the basis of hatred for various groups of people, and on the basis of adoration of the Fuhrer.

Those who were part of this close-knit majority did not differ in any special negative human qualities. These were ordinary people, whose desire to be part of a strong society with a strong leader was skillfully played. Throughout history, Hitler and his entourage were not the first and not the last to do this.

Therefore, I am not writing here at all about the crimes of crazy sadists. Unfortunately, I write about how people honestly held views that they thought were right and which were approved by society, and how people did their job conscientiously.

Those who were "lucky" not to go immediately to the gas chambers or to the medical barracks for experiments were housed in the camp's residential barracks.

Entrance to the Auschwitz camp and the inscription "Work makes you free"

Dachau camp gate

The inscription "Work sets you free" next to the gate of the Sachsenhausen camp

Dachau camp fence

The ditch enclosing the Dachau camp

Premises for registering prisoners who arrived at Dachau

Rows of barracks and service buildings of the Auschwitz camp

The preserved barracks for prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp

Birkenau camp barracks

As the number of prisoners entering the camps increased, their living conditions became worse; bunks were compacted in order to accommodate the maximum number of people.

Bunks for prisoners in the Birkenau camp

Inside the barracks of the Sachsenhausen camp

Photos of prisoners of the Auschwitz camp

Three-tier bunks in the barracks of the Dachau camp before compaction

Solid three-tier bunks in the barracks of the Dachau camp after compaction

Lockers for belongings of prisoners in the Dachau camp

Dachau prisoners

Accommodation for prisoners in the Auschwitz camp

Washing room for prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp

Lavatory in the barracks of the Dachau camp

Lavatory at the Birkenau camp

The territory of the Auschwitz camp, fenced off with wire fences

In the morning hours, before going to work, prisoners were lined up on the parade ground. Public demonstration executions were also periodically held here.

Auschwitz camp. The booth of the duty officer in charge of formations

Construction in the Auschwitz camp. Picture

Construction. Drawing by a prisoner at the Dachau camp, 1938

The camp system of the Third Reich actively worked for the German economy. Prisoners worked in production, mostly doing hard work. In the Sachsenhausen camp, tests were carried out for the shoe industry, for which a special track was built with different surfaces for different sections. On this route, the prisoners walked forty kilometers a day in new shoes. Those who weighed less than the calculated weight were required to carry bags weighing up to twenty kilograms.

Shoe test track at the Sachsenhausen camp

One of the surviving prisoners of Sachsenhausen, Pole Tadeusz Grodecki, was arrested and sent to the camp in 1940, at the age of fifteen. For a long time he had to take part in the testing of shoes.

Tadeusz Grodecki, photograph 1939

At different times in different countries, psychological experiments were conducted in which people who did not have any unusual qualities and were not prone to cruelty participated.

The Stanford prison experiment showed that a significant proportion of people are susceptible to an ideology that justifies their actions, supported by society and the state.

The experiments of Solomon Asch showed that a significant proportion of people tend to agree with the erroneous ideas of the majority.

Stanley Milgram's experiment demonstrated that a significant proportion of people are willing to inflict significant suffering on other people when they follow the instructions of an authority, or these actions are part of their job duties.

American teacher Jane Elliott, in order to tell children about what racial discrimination is and to clearly show how people who are in the minority feel, divided classmates by eye color. Very quickly, the children were divided into a self-confident majority and a timid, despised minority (this seemingly ambiguous experiment was, as a result, correctly evaluated by its participants, who gained valuable experience).

Finally, the teacher Ron Jones, trying to comprehend the behavior of the German people in the thirties, in just a week successfully rallied high school students into a military-type organization devoted to him, whose members were ready to inform and crack down on those who disagree.

The most terrible crimes are most often carried out by ordinary people, and the whole question is only in the correct manipulation of public consciousness. And this is bad news. Because the generally accepted theses “I hate fascists” and “don’t forget so that it doesn’t happen again” can’t prevent anything.

For offenses in the camps, punishments were due, in many cases it was execution. The decision on punishment was made by the court, which consisted of members of the camp administration.

In the prison barracks of the Dachau camp

From the memoirs of Peri Broad, an employee of the political department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp:

Those sentenced to death are taken to the washroom on the first floor ... they cover the window with a blanket and tell them to undress. Huge numbers are written on the chest with an ink pencil: these are numbers by which it will then be easier to register corpses in a mortuary or crematorium.

In order not to attract the attention of passers-by, a small-caliber 10-15-round rifle was used on the highway, which passed not far from the stone wall ... In the back of the courtyard, several frightened gravediggers with a stretcher are waiting, horror has frozen on their faces, and they are unable to hide it. Near the black wall stands a prisoner with a shovel, another, stronger, runs out into the yard the first two victims. Holding them by the shoulders, he presses their faces against the wall.

Barely audible shot after shot is heard, wheezing, the victims fall. The executioner checks whether the bullets fired from a distance of several centimeters hit the target - in the back of the head ... If the shot one is still wheezing, one of the SS Fuhrers orders: "This one must get it again!" A shot in the temple or in the eye finally cuts off an unhappy life.

Carriers of corpses run back and forth, put them on stretchers and dump them in a pile at the other end of the yard, where there are more and more bloodied bodies.

Execution wall at Auschwitz

In camps in Poland and other occupied countries, not only executions of prisoners were carried out, but also trials of local residents and their subsequent executions.

From the memoirs of Peri Broad:

They bring in a 16-year-old boy. Hungry, he stole something edible from the store, so he was classified as a "criminal". After reading the death warrant, Mildner slowly puts the paper down on the table. Separately emphasizing each word, he asks: “Do you have a mother?” - The boy lowers his eyes and answers barely audibly, in his voice tears: "Yes." - Are you afraid of death? - The boy no longer says anything, only trembles slightly. “We're going to shoot you today,” Mildner says, trying to sound like an oracle.

In groups of forty, the condemned are taken to the locker room, where they take off their clothes. SS guards stand at the entrance to the morgue, where they are shot. Ten people are brought in. In the locker room, screams, shots, and heads hitting the cement floor are heard. Terrible scenes take place: children are taken away from mothers, men give each other hands for the last time.

Meanwhile, a murder is taking place in the morgue. Ten naked prisoners enter the room. The walls are spattered with blood, in the depths lie the bodies of the executed. People should approach the corpses and stand near them. They go by blood. Not one of them suddenly screams, recognizing his loved one in the man wheezing on the floor.

The right hand of the head of the camp, SS Hauptscharführer Palich, shoots. With a habitual shot to the back of the head, he kills one after another. The room is getting crowded with corpses. Palić begins to walk among the shot and finishes off those who are still wheezing or moving.

Often used and execution by hanging. Broad recalls the scene of the execution of thirteen Polish engineers who were sentenced for attempting to escape three of their comrades from the construction surveying team:

The ropes of the gallows were too short, a fall from such a height did not cause a fracture of the cervical vertebrae. Several minutes had passed since the stools had been removed from under the feet of the victims, and the bodies were still beating convulsively.

... Aumer used to say: "Let them twitch a little"

In the Sachsenhausen camp, hanging was combined with execution. A noose was put on the head of the sentenced, the legs were fixed in a special box, after which they practiced shooting at a stretched person.

Camp Sachsenhausen. Ditch for executions

Place of execution of Soviet prisoners of war in the Sachsenhausen camp

In many concentration camps there were separate blocks, what was happening in which was hidden from prying eyes. They conducted medical experiments on prisoners. The effect of bacteriological weapons, various vaccines, and exposure to extreme temperatures for the human body were tested on people. People were cut open alive, various organs were removed, limbs were cut off. In the course of experiments on the healing of bone injuries, tissue was cut out to the bone in people in places of interest to physicians so that doctors could see how the process goes.

Operating room at the Sachsenhausen camp

As part of the forthcoming "final solution of the Jewish question" and the reduction in the population of certain nationalities, experiments were widely carried out to sterilize women and men. There is a photograph of Frank Steinbach, one of the few survivors of the sterilized prisoners.

Frank Steinbach before deportation to the Auschwitz camp (later to Sachsenhausen)

In the Auschwitz camp, the medical department was headed by Josef Mengele, who conducted thousands of experiments on children, preferring to select twins for his experiments. On twins, it was more convenient to study the course of various diseases, to compare the results of various effects on “identical” people. In addition, Nazi medicine was looking for an answer to the question of how to increase the birth rate of the nation by increasing the number of twins born.

Mengele knew how to find contact with children, brought them toys, smiled. During the experiments, however, he did not react to the terrible cries of the children, but did his job, carefully entering observations in a notebook. As part of one of the experiments, Dr. Mengele sewed two children together and sent them to his barracks, where the parents of the twins, unable to see their torment, were forced to suffocate them.

Most of the experiments were carried out without anesthesia. This was done not only with the aim of saving it, but also with the aim of making the experimental conditions more natural; so that the experimenter can observe the live reaction of the subject.

Photographing during a medical experiment in Dachau

On the basis of the Dachau camp, experiments were carried out in order to determine the maximum height from which a person can parachute without an oxygen tank and stay alive. For this purpose, pressure was reproduced in special pressure chambers, corresponding to the pressure existing at altitudes up to twenty-one kilometers. During the experiments, many prisoners died or became disabled. Some of these experiments involved the dissection of an overloaded living person.

"Parachuting" experiment

There is an opinion in medical circles that experiments on people carried out in the forties (and they were carried out not only in Germany, but also in Japan) allowed medicine to make a big breakthrough, and, ultimately, save many other people from death. To the question about the good for humanity or the tear of a child, everyone answers for himself.

Gas chambers were intended to kill a large number of people. They began to appear in concentration camps when there was a need for mass extermination of people, primarily as part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." Thus, most of the Jewish children were sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arrival at the camp, since they were not suitable for work. Those prisoners who lost their ability to work already in the camp, or were sick for a long time, were also sent there.

In the gas chambers, the preparation "Cyclone B" was used - an adsorbent saturated with hydrocyanic acid, which emits poisonous gas at room temperature. Initially, Zyklon B was used in camps for the destruction of bedbugs and other disinfection measures, and since 1941 it has been used to kill people.

The existence of the gas chambers was not advertised. Although the majority of Germans supported the need to isolate the "enemies of the German people", they did not know anything about massacres or gas chambers. The rumors about their existence that penetrated the society were perceived as enemy propaganda.

The layout and size of the gas chambers varied from camp to camp, but it was always a well-organized conveyor belt, starting with a queue and ending with the crematorium ovens. You can see how this conveyor worked on the example of the Dachau camp. The comments of Rudolf Hess, commandant of another camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, are also valuable (as I said, the principle of extermination of people in gas chambers was similar in different camps).

Entrance to the building of the Dachau camp crematorium

To prevent panic, people sent to the gas chambers were told that they were going to the showers and that their clothes had to be disinfected.

In line for the gas chamber. Birkenau camp, 1944

People waited for their turn "in the shower" on the street, or in a special room, and when their turn came up, they went to the locker room.

Waiting room

In the locker room, people took off all their clothes. The members of the “Sonderkommando”, usually from the same country and the same nationality as those sentenced, did everything so that no one would guess anything. They started talking about life in the camp, asked about the specialty of the newcomers, and showed with their whole appearance that there was nothing to be afraid of.

From the unusual situation, small children often cried when undressing, but their mothers or someone from the Sonderkommando calmed them, and the children, playing with toys in their hands and teasing each other, went to the cell. I also saw that women who knew or guessed what awaited them, tried to overcome the expression of mortal horror in their eyes and joked with their children, reassured them. Once, a woman approached me while walking to the cell and whispered to me, pointing to four children who obediently held hands, supporting the smallest so that he would not stumble on uneven ground: “How can you kill these beautiful, cute kids? Don't you have a heart?

locker room

From the locker room, the condemned went to the gas chamber and filled it tightly. In most cases, they believed that this was the shower room, especially since many gas chambers were equipped with water horns. But there were also those who guessed where they were brought. They tried to take those who raised a panic before entering the cell into the street, where they were killed with a shot in the back of the head.

From the memoirs of Rudolf Hess:

I had to go through a scene in which one woman wanted to push her children out of the closing doors and cried out with a cry: “Let at least my beloved children live.” There were many such heartbreaking scenes that did not leave anyone present calm.

Gas chamber room

When the chamber was filled with people, the doors were hermetically closed, and an employee in a gas mask threw cans of Zyklon B into the room through special openings.

Hole for throwing cans with "Cyclone-B"

Type of jar with "Cyclone-B"

Vapors of hydrocyanic acid caused paralysis of the respiratory tract in people in the gas chamber. Within a few minutes, remaining conscious, they died painfully from suffocation. Children usually die first. The maximum duration of the process was twenty minutes.

Water supply window (top) and viewing window

Half an hour after the Zyklon B cans were thrown into the gas chamber, its doors were opened and the ventilation turned on. Members of the Sonderkommando pulled out the corpses, removed their gold teeth, cut off the women's hair, after which the corpses entered the crematorium ovens.

Corpses of Dachau prisoners

Dachau crematorium ovens

The process of extermination of people in the Auschwitz camp is shown on a visual layout, where all the work of the conveyor is visible. There was no waiting room; people waited in the street for their turn.

Part of the model of the destruction system in the Auschwitz camp in the section: the queue for entry and the locker room

Part of the layout of the extermination system in the Auschwitz camp in the section: below - a gas chamber with dead people, above - crematorium ovens for burning corpses

From the memoirs of Peri Broad:

When the last corpses were pulled out of the cells and carried across the square to be thrown into the pits behind the crematoria, the next batch of victims was already being introduced into the changing rooms of the gas chambers. There was hardly enough time to clean clothes from the locker rooms. Sometimes the cries of a child could be heard from under a pile of things.(Children were hidden in clothes not only by those who guessed what awaited them. Some mothers who believed that they were going for disinfection believed that it could harm the health of the child - approx. A.S.). One of the executioners pulled the child out, lifted it up and shot him in the head.”

Auschwitz crematorium ovens

Auschwitz camp. Suitcases and baskets of people sent to the gas chamber

Auschwitz camp. Shoes of children sent to the gas chamber

From the memoirs of Rudolf Hess:

Of course, for all of us, the orders of the Fuhrer were subject to strict execution, especially for the SS. And yet everyone was tormented by doubts. Everyone looked at me: what impression do scenes like those described above make on me? How do I react to them? I had to look cold-blooded and heartless in scenes that stung the hearts of everyone who retained the ability to feel. I couldn't even look away when all too human impulses swept over me. Outwardly, I had to watch calmly how mothers with laughing or crying children went to the gas chamber.

One day, two small children played so much that their mother could not tear them away from the game. Even the Jews from the Sonderkommando did not want to take on these children. I will never forget the pleading look of my mother, who knew what would happen next. Those already in the cell began to worry. I had to act. Everyone looked at me. I made a sign to the Unterführer on duty and he took the stubborn children in his arms, pushed them into the cell along with the heartbreakingly sobbing mother. At that time, I wanted to sink into the ground out of pity, but I did not dare to show my feelings. I had to calmly look at all these scenes.

Turning to the events in Nazi Germany, many people prefer not to think about the nature of the phenomenon, but to limit themselves to clichés about hatred for the Nazis. However, these stamps lead nowhere. Moreover, a person may feel horror and indignation at the thought of sending children to the gas chambers, but this same person will do the same - for a different, just purpose. If someone competently presses certain buttons in his head.

Each of us can try to change ourselves a little, and by this change the world, by starting to think about some things. For myself, I formulate it like this:

1. Even mentally, discrimination of people on racial, national or religious grounds should not be allowed - despite the fact that there are cultural and other differences between different people.

2. Even mentally, no generalizations should be made that extend responsibility for the actions and thoughts of a part of a group of people (of any country, nationality, and so on) to the entire group of people. All people of the same country and nationality cannot act and think in the same way, and any generalizations are always incorrect.

3. Any public rule or opinion of an authoritative person should not be taken on faith, but evaluated according to their own moral criteria, based on their experience, their observations, and the desire to look at the world through the eyes of other people.

4. Work that can cause suffering to people and which at the same time raises the slightest doubt about its moral validity should be abandoned.

5. If what you hear from a person or in the media causes a desire to unite on the basis of hatred for something, you should exclude this person or this media from your life.

6. The thought of an individual person is more important than global thoughts about the nation, country, humanity.

Then there are chances not to get bogged down in the same things that people in Germany in the thirties got bogged down in.

P.S. With these words, the late Rudolf Hess sends greetings from the past to modern supporters of wars and massacres for geopolitical and other correct and just reasons:

The RFSS sent various party and SS functionaries to Auschwitz so that they could see for themselves how the Jews were being exterminated. Some of those who had previously ranted about the need for such destruction were speechless at the sight of the "final solution of the Jewish question." I was constantly asked how I and my people can be witnesses to how we are able to endure all this. To this I always replied that all human impulses must be suppressed and give way to the iron determination with which the orders of the Fuhrer must be carried out.

Today, there is hardly a person who does not know about the mass extermination of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. Despite the general degradation of Russian culture and education, this tragic historical plot is still not erased from the people's memory. This genocide is often remembered by the media, feature films are made about it, many of which are rightfully included in the golden fund of world cinema (from The Boy in the Striped Pajamas to Schindler's List).

But, at the same time, try asking your friends questions: “Why did the SS-sheep drive Jews to concentration camps?”, “Why were 6 million representatives of this people destroyed during the Third Reich?” And here there will be hitches, wandering reasoning, or completely naive and thoughtless answers like “Hitler simply didn’t like them” or “The Jews are greedy - that’s why they were killed.” Those who are a little more insightful will answer that wild anti-Semitism helped to rally the ranks of the NSDAP in a fit of general hatred. There is some truth in this ... But after all, places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, as well as everything that happened in them, were under the strictest secrecy - many party members did not have information either.

What happened in the concentration camps with the Jews (and by no means with them alone) has much more serious reasons and motives. And they have already begun to be forgotten, although now this is not a secret with seven seals.

Here the reader will ask me a reasonable question: why now, in 2017, remember the motives of Hitler's entourage? Isn't it enough just to remember the millions of innocent people who were killed? However, I believe that memory alone is not enough here - it is also necessary to understand the essence of what happened. After all, the economic concept of the ultra-right, brought to the absolute, was reflected in the system of German concentration camps.

By knowing what these death zones were actually created for, we will understand the economic basis of Nazism and even more - the basis of the market system itself.

After all, the camps of the Third Reich perfectly demonstrate to us the logic of the leadership of big business, which has remained unchanged to this day.

But let's start in order. It is known that the very idea of ​​concentration camps in Nazi Germany evolved during the 1930s and early 1940s. At first, there was no talk of mass placement and, even more so, the extermination of Jews - the first camps were not designed and created for them at all. As you know, the NSDAP, having come to power in a completely legal way, after 1933, begins to crush the state apparatus under itself, destroying its competitors. The first visitors to the concentration camps were members of the Communist Party of Germany, led by Hitler's main opponent, Ernst Thalmann. Further, a similar fate befell the Social Democrats, and simply apolitical people, but who disagreed with the transformation of the country into a Nazi barracks.

Thus, already at the first stage of the concentration camp, they solved a double task. On the one hand, they eliminated the opponents of the NSDAP, and on the other hand, with the help of these institutions, the "left field" was cleared, which went into the hands of Hitler's main sponsors - large industrialists likeHenry Deterding of the Royal Dutch Shell Company, Russian "white" emigrants, etc. It turns out that from the very beginning the idea of ​​creating camps was closely connected with the interests of corporations and all kinds of counter-revolutionary elements.

Further, the "business plan" found its development. Actually, the Jews are already coming to the fore here. As you know, the murder of a German diplomat in Poland in 1938 by the Jew Herschel Grynszpan served as a pretext for persecuting all representatives of this people in Germany. By 1939, out of more than 60 thousand prisoners in concentration camps, 35 thousand were representatives of this ethnic group. In the same period, the system of the camps themselves began to modernize, approaching that infernal death machine that is so well known from books, feature films and documentaries.

But why would the Fuhrer suddenly imprison tens, and then hundreds of thousands of people? Why such troubles with the organization and content?

And this is where the fun begins. The fact is that almost all German concentration camps were attached to enterprises where prisoners worked day and night. The SS leadership entered into contracts with large industrialists, according to which the business was to invest in the construction of camps and supply goods that meet the needs of the Third Reich (primarily the military). In turn, the Nazis provided the German monopolies with virtually free labor. Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and other places of detention worked according to this principle.

Women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp make products from the SS Gesellschaft für Textil und Lederverwertung mbH (“Society for Textile and Leather Production”), the German electrical engineering concern Siemens & Halske AG and
some others.

Upon arrival at the camp, the most able-bodied were weeded out and sent to production. There they worked in inhuman conditions, after which they slept in ice barracks and unsanitary conditions, with minimal rations. Of course, in these circumstances, a person quickly "worked out" and went to waste - under bullets or in gas chambers. How writes one of the prisoners

« You can’t quickly put a shovel in place, get in line or go to the camp - the SS men shoot».

Those who initially turned out to be disabled were usually killed immediately. Old people, children, pregnant women, the sick, etc. fell into this category. Others were brought to the place of the disabled - Jews, communists, who simply disagreed with the Fuhrer. In this situation, the slogan "Work ennobles", hanging on the gates of Auschwitz, acquired a particularly mocking meaning.

Thus, the concentration camps were, first of all, not a place of total destruction, but a place of total labor for large concerns (Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, Deutsche Erd-und Steinwerke GmbH, etc. ) - labor leading to destruction. Needless to say, how much money was earned by German businessmen in the camps, Countless riches! And the state leadership was also not offended - dissidents were destroyed, production grew, the army was equipped.

By the way, in multi-volume books with materials about the crimes of the Nazis, released in the FRG and the GDR, the reader will find many references to familiar brands. Online you will only findtable of contents of the 40-volume work dedicated to the trials of Hitler's accomplices in West Germany. Here the most remarkable materials about the company HASAG ( one and two ), and to this day produces a line of ammunition - from small arms to missiles. But the pages of 27 volumes about the processes in the GDR are much more interesting. The same HASAG is being held there on three cases. But this is not the main thing. There you will also find information about the use of the labor of campers at the factories of now prosperous corporations: Audi (more precisely, its forerunner Auto Union), Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen. At the same time, only Auto Union is responsible for the death of 4.5 thousand prisoners.

Among other things, the prisoners were not only comfortable with their work. Everything in the concentration camp system was organized with purely German pragmatism. As you know, all property was taken from the prisoners - and this is a serious replenishment of the state treasury. The matter did not stop there. Women's hair was shaved off, which was used to make linens, nets, etc. For reference, only in the liberated Auschwitz, Soviet soldiers found 7 tons (!) Of hair. The jaws of the killed prisoners were cut out, from which the resourceful guards tore out gold and silver teeth - they were also subject to strict accounting, were melted down. Experiments were carried out on the prisoners, moving forward "Aryan science", etc. That is, "human material" was used in all beneficial ways.

Wedding rings seized from the prisoners of Buchenwald

I also emphasize that only three parties were aware of this system: the prisoners themselves, part of the NSDAP and large German business. And if the first simply could not convey information to the outside world, then the second and third sacredly kept it for the sake of their own interests. After all, subject to the expansion of the territory of the Third Reich, industrialists and the state apparatus saw a grandiose future for themselves - new sources of resources, labor, new markets.

The concentration camps became the biggest business venture in the history of Germany and perhaps in the history of Europe. It was he who gave impetus to the frantic development for a number of current transnational corporations.

Yes, this project had its limits - sooner or later the human resource had to be depleted. But under the condition of constant conquests, there would be enough potential campers for decades to come.

The reader will surely have a question: business-to-business, but why were the Jews the victims of this blood trade? Well, firstly, as noted above, a trip to a German concentration camp was by no means the prerogative of some descendants of Abraham. From the same occupied territories of Germany, Poland, Greece, the Soviet Union and other countries, millions of people were sent there, regardless of nationality. And secondly, at the time of 1939-1940, the Jews became the most convenient target: among them there were many qualified specialists, wealthy people (I remind you that the property of the prisoners was confiscated), plus there was no need to bother with explanations regarding sending them to concentration camps - the Jews went work for the businessmen of the Third Reich simply because they are Jews.

As a result, what at first glance looks like a blind and emotional destruction of "foreigners" in reality turns out to be just a cunningly planned scheme to increase wealth.

By the way, how far have the current transnational corporations gone from the German concerns of the Second World War? The use of cheap labor from developing countries has remained a source of profit maximization for super-large businesses. International organizations publish reports according to which tens of millions of people are used as slaves - and not figuratively, but in the most direct sense. Large companies do not disdain the use of child labor.

And be sure - if the Nazi experiment in one form or another is repeated again, then it will not be a figment of the fantasy of crazy schizophrenic drug addicts. This will be a way for big business to increase their own wealth.

Fragments of bones are still found in this earth. The crematorium could not cope with the huge number of corpses, although two complexes of furnaces were built. They burned badly, fragments of bodies remained - the ashes were buried in pits around the concentration camp. 72 years have passed, but mushroom pickers in the forest often come across pieces of skulls with eye sockets, bones of arms or legs, crushed fingers - not to mention decayed fragments of the striped “robe” of prisoners. The Stutthof concentration camp (50 kilometers from the city of Gdansk) was founded on September 2, 1939 - the day after the start of World War II, and its prisoners were liberated by the Red Army on May 9, 1945. The main thing that Stutthof "became famous for" was these are "experiments" by SS doctors, who, using humans as guinea pigs, made soap from human fat. A bar of this soap was later used at the Nuremberg trials as an example of Nazi fanaticism. Now some historians (not only in Poland, but also in other countries) are saying: this is “military folklore”, fantasy, this could not be.

Soap from prisoners

The museum complex Stutthof receives 100,000 visitors a year. Barracks, towers for SS machine gunners, a crematorium and a gas chamber are available for viewing: a small one, for about 30 people. The building was built in the fall of 1944, before that they had been "coping" with the usual methods - typhus, exhausting work, hunger. An employee of the museum, guiding me through the barracks, says: on average, the life expectancy of the inhabitants of Stutthof was 3 months. According to archival documents, one of the female prisoners weighed 19 kg before her death. Behind the glass, I suddenly see large wooden shoes, as if from a medieval fairy tale. I ask: what is it? It turns out that the guards took away the shoes of the prisoners and in return gave out just such “shoes” that erased the legs to bloody calluses. In winter, the prisoners worked in the same “robe”, only a light cape was required - many died from hypothermia. It was believed that 85,000 people died in the camp, but recently EU historians have been reevaluating: the number of dead prisoners has been reduced to 65,000.

In 2006, the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland analyzed the same soap presented at the Nuremberg Trials, says the guide Danuta Okhotska. - Contrary to expectations, the results were confirmed - it really was made by a Nazi professor Rudolf Spanner from human fat. However, now researchers in Poland say: there is no exact confirmation that the soap was made specifically from the bodies of Stutthof prisoners. It is possible that the corpses of homeless people who died of natural causes, brought from the streets of Gdansk, were used for production. Professor Spanner did indeed visit Stutthof at different times, but the production of "soap of the dead" was not carried out on an industrial scale.

Gas chamber and crematorium at the Stutthof concentration camp. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Hans Weingartz

"People were skinned"

The Institute of National Memory of Poland is the same “glorious” organization that advocates the demolition of all monuments to Soviet soldiers, and in this case the situation turned out to be tragicomic. Officials specifically ordered the analysis of soap in order to obtain evidence of the "lie of Soviet propaganda" in Nuremberg - but it turned out the other way around. As for industrial scale - Spanner made up to 100 kg of soap from "human material" in the period 1943-1944. and, according to the testimonies of its employees, repeatedly went to Stutthof for "raw materials". Polish investigator Tuvia Friedman published a book where he described the impressions of Spanner's laboratory after the liberation of Gdansk: “We had the feeling that we had been in hell. One room was filled with naked corpses. The other was lined with boards on which the skins taken from many people were stretched. Almost immediately, a furnace was discovered in which the Germans experimented with making soap using human fat as a raw material. Several bars of this "soap" lay nearby. An employee of the museum shows me the hospital used for the experiments of SS doctors - relatively healthy prisoners were placed here under the formal pretext of "treatment". Doctor Carl Clauberg went to Stutthof on short business trips from Auschwitz to sterilize women, and SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Wernet from Buchenwald cut out people's tonsils and tongues, replacing them with artificial organs. Vernet's results were not satisfied - the victims of the experiments were killed in a gas chamber. There are no exhibits in the concentration camp museum about the savage activities of Clauberg, Wernet and Spanner - they "have little documentary evidence." Although during the Nuremberg trials, the same “human soap” from Stutthof was demonstrated and the testimony of dozens of witnesses was voiced.

"Cultural" Nazis

I draw your attention to the fact that we have a whole exposition devoted to the liberation of Stutthof by Soviet troops on May 9, 1945, - says the doctor Marcin Owsiński, head of the research department of the museum. - It is noted that it was precisely the release of prisoners, and not the replacement of one occupation with another, as it is now fashionable to say. People rejoiced at the arrival of the Red Army. As for the SS experiments in the concentration camp - I assure you, there is no politics here. We are working with documentary evidence, and most of the papers were destroyed by the Germans during the retreat from Stutthof. If they appear, we will immediately make changes to the exhibition.

A film about the entry of the Red Army into Stutthof is shown in the museum's cinema hall - archival footage. It is noted that by this time only 200 emaciated prisoners remained in the concentration camp and “then N-KVD sent some to Siberia”. No confirmation, no names - but a fly in the ointment spoils a barrel of honey: there is clearly a goal - to show that the liberators were not so good. On the crematorium there is a sign in Polish: "We thank the Red Army for our liberation." She is old, from the old days. Soviet soldiers, including my great-grandfather (buried in Polish soil), saved Poland from dozens of "death factories" like Stutthof, which entangled the country with a deadly network of furnaces and gas chambers, but now they are trying to downplay the significance of their victories. Say, the atrocities of the SS doctors are not confirmed, fewer people died in the camps, and in general - the crimes of the invaders are exaggerated. Moreover, Poland declares this, where the Nazis destroyed a fifth of the entire population. To be honest, I want to call an ambulance so that Polish politicians are taken to a psychiatric hospital.

18-year-old Soviet girl in extreme exhaustion. The photo was taken during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945. This is the first German concentration camp, founded on March 22, 1933 near Munich (a city on the Isar River in southern Germany). It contained more than 200 thousand prisoners, according to official figures, of which 31,591 prisoners died from illness, malnutrition or committed suicide. The conditions of detention were so terrible that hundreds of people died here every week.

This photo was taken between 1941 and 1943 by the Holocaust Memorial in Paris. Pictured here is a German soldier aiming at a Ukrainian Jew during a mass shooting in Vinnitsa (the city is located on the banks of the Southern Bug, 199 kilometers southwest of Kyiv). On the back of the photo card was written: "The last Jew of Vinnitsa."
The Holocaust is the persecution and mass extermination of Jews living in Germany during World War II during 1933-1945.

German soldiers interrogate Jews after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. Thousands of people died of disease and starvation in the overcrowded Warsaw ghetto, where in October 1940 the Germans had herded over 3 million Polish Jews.
The uprising against the occupation of Europe by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto took place on April 19, 1943. During this riot, about 7,000 ghetto defenders were killed and about 6,000 were burned alive as a result of massive arson of buildings by German troops. The surviving residents, and this is about 15 thousand people, were sent to the Treblinka death camp. On May 16 of the same year, the ghetto was finally liquidated.
The Treblinka death camp was organized by the Nazis in occupied Poland, 80 kilometers northeast of Warsaw. During the existence of the camp (from July 22, 1942 to October 1943), about 800 thousand people died in it.
To preserve the memory of the tragic events of the 20th century, the international public figure Vyacheslav Kantor founded and headed the World Holocaust Forum.

1943 A man takes the bodies of two Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Every morning several dozen corpses were removed from the streets. The bodies of Jews who died of starvation were burned in deep pits.
The officially established food rations for the ghetto were designed to starve the inhabitants to death. In the second half of 1941, the food ration for Jews was 184 kilocalories.
On October 16, 1940, Governor General Hans Frank decided to organize a ghetto, during the existence of which the population decreased from 450 thousand to 37 thousand people. The Nazis claimed that the Jews were carriers of infectious diseases, and their isolation would help protect the rest of the population from epidemics.

On April 19, 1943, German soldiers escort a group of Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto, among whom there are small children. This picture was attached to the report of SS Gruppenfuehrer Stroop to his commander and was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials in 1945.

After the uprising, the Warsaw ghetto was liquidated. 7 thousand (out of more than 56 thousand) captured Jews were shot, the rest were transferred to death camps or concentration camps. The photo shows the ruins of a ghetto destroyed by SS soldiers. The Warsaw ghetto existed for several years, during which time 300,000 Polish Jews perished there.
In the second half of 1941, the food ration for Jews was 184 kilocalories.

Mass execution of Jews in Mizoch (urban-type settlement, the center of the Mizoch settlement council of the Zdolbunovsky district of the Rovno region of Ukraine), Ukrainian SSR. In October 1942, the inhabitants of Mizoch opposed the Ukrainian auxiliary units and the German policemen, who intended to liquidate the population of the ghetto. Photo courtesy of the Paris Holocaust Memorial.

Deported Jews in the Drancy transit camp, on their way to a German concentration camp, 1942. In July 1942, the French police rounded up more than 13,000 Jews (including more than 4,000 children) to the Vel d'Hiv winter velodrome in the southwestern part of Paris, and then sent to the railway terminal in Drancy, northeast of Paris. Paris and deported to the east. Almost no one returned home ...
"Dranci" - a Nazi concentration camp and transit point that existed in France in 1941-1944, was used for the temporary detention of Jews, who were subsequently sent to death camps.

This photo is courtesy of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It depicts Anne Frank, who in August 1944, together with her family and other people, was hiding from the German occupiers. Later, everyone was captured and sent to prisons and concentration camps. Anna died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen (a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony, located a mile from the village of Belsen and a few miles southwest of Bergen) at the age of 15. Since the posthumous publication of her diary, Frank has become a symbol of all Jews killed during World War II.

Arrival of a train with Jews from Carpathian Rus at the Auschwitz-2 death camp, also known as Birkenau, in Poland, May 1939.
Auschwitz, Birkenau, Auschwitz-Birkenau - a complex of German concentration camps located in 1940-1945 to the west of the General Government, near the city of Auschwitz, which in 1939 was annexed to the territory of the Third Reich by Hitler's decree.
At Auschwitz 2, hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies and prisoners of other nationalities were kept in one-story wooden barracks. The number of victims of this camp amounted to more than a million people. New prisoners arrived daily by train to Auschwitz 2, where they were divided into four groups. The first - three-quarters of all those brought in (women, children, the elderly and all those who were not fit for work) went to the gas chambers for several hours. The second - went to hard labor at various industrial enterprises (most of the prisoners died from illness and beatings). The third group went to various medical experiments to Dr. Josef Mengele, known by the nickname "angel of death." This group consisted mainly of twins and dwarfs. The fourth - consisted mainly of women who were used by the Germans as servants and personal slaves.

14-year-old Cheslava Kvoka. The photo, courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, was taken by Wilhelm Brasse, who worked as a photographer in Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where huge numbers of people, mostly Jews, died during World War II. In December 1942, a Polish Catholic, Czeslaw, ended up in a concentration camp with her mother. They both died three months later. In 2005, photographer and former prisoner Brasset described how he photographed Czeslava: “She was young and very scared, she did not understand why she was here and what she was being told. And then the prison guard took a stick and hit her in the face. The girl was crying, but she couldn't help it. I felt like I was being beaten, but I couldn't intervene. For me it would be fatal."

A victim of Nazi medical experiments that were carried out in the German city of Ravensbrück. Photo showing a man's hand with a deep burn from phosphorus, taken in November 1943. During the experiment, a mixture of phosphorus and rubber was applied to the subject's skin, which was then set on fire. After 20 seconds, the flame was extinguished with water. After three days, the burn was treated with liquid echinacin, and the wound healed after two weeks.
Josef Mengele was a German doctor who conducted experiments on the prisoners of the Auschwitz camp during World War II. He was personally involved in the selection of prisoners for his experiments, more than 400 thousand people, by his order, were sent to the gas chambers of the death camp. After the war, he moved from Germany to Latin America (for fear of persecution), where he died in 1979.

Jewish prisoners in "Buchenwald", one of the largest concentration camps in Germany, located near Weimar in Thuringia. Many medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners, as a result of which most died a painful death. People were infected with typhus, tuberculosis and other dangerous diseases (to test the effect of vaccines), which later almost instantly developed into epidemics due to overcrowding in the barracks, insufficient hygiene, poor nutrition, and because all this infection was not was amenable to treatment.

There is a huge camp documentation on the conduct of hormonal experiments, conducted by a secret decree of the SS, Dr. Karl Wernet - he performed operations on sewing homosexual men into the inguinal region of a capsule with a "male hormone", which was supposed to make them heterosexuals.

American soldiers inspect the wagons with the bodies of the dead in the Dachau concentration camp on May 3, 1945. During the war, Dachau was known as the most sinister concentration camp, where the most sophisticated medical experiments were carried out on prisoners, who were visited regularly by many high-ranking Nazis.

An emaciated Frenchman sits among the dead at Dora-Mittelbau, a Nazi concentration camp established on August 28, 1943, located 5 kilometers from the city of Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. Dora-Mittelbau is a subdivision of the Buchenwald camp.

The bodies of the dead are piled up against the wall of the crematorium in the German Dachau concentration camp. The photo was taken on May 14, 1945 by soldiers of the 7th US Army who entered the camp.
In the entire history of Auschwitz, there were about 700 escape attempts, 300 of which were successful. If someone escaped, then all his relatives were arrested and sent to the camp, and all the prisoners from his block were killed - this was the most effective method that prevented attempts to escape. January 27 is the official day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust.

An American soldier examines thousands of gold wedding rings that were confiscated from Jews by the Nazis and hidden in the salt mines of Heilbronn (a city in Germany, Baden-Württemberg).

American soldiers examine lifeless bodies in a crematorium oven, April 1945.

A pile of ashes and bones in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. Photo taken April 25, 1945. In 1958, a memorial complex was founded on the territory of the camp - on the site of the barracks, only a cobbled foundation remained, with a memorial inscription (the number of the barrack and who was in it) at the place where the building was previously located. Also, the building of the crematorium has survived to this day, with plates with names in different languages ​​embedded in the walls (relatives of the victims immortalized their memory), observation towers and barbed wire in several rows. The entrance to the camp lies through the gate, untouched since those terrible times, the inscription on which reads: “Jedem das Seine” (“To each his own”).

Prisoners greet American soldiers near an electric fence in the Dachau concentration camp (one of the first concentration camps in Germany).

General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other American officers at the Ohrdruf concentration camp shortly after its release in April 1945. When the American army began to approach the camp, the guards shot the remaining prisoners. The Ohrdruf camp was established in November 1944 as a subdivision of Buchenwald to house prisoners forced to build bunkers, tunnels and mines.

A dying prisoner in a concentration camp in Nordhausen, Germany, April 18, 1945.

The death march of prisoners from the Dachau camp through the streets of Grunwald on April 29, 1945. As the Allied forces went on the offensive, thousands of prisoners moved from outlying POW camps into the interior of Germany. Thousands of prisoners who could not stand such a road were shot on the spot.

American soldiers walk past corpses (over 3,000 bodies) lying on the ground behind the barracks at the Nazi concentration camp at Nordhausen on April 17, 1945. The camp is located 112 kilometers west of Leipzig. The US Army found only a small group of survivors.

The lifeless body of a prisoner lies near a wagon near the Dachau concentration camp, May 1945.

Soldiers-liberators of the Third Army under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Paton on the territory of the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945.

On their way to the Austrian border, soldiers of the 12th Armored Division under the command of General Patch witnessed the terrible spectacles that took place in the prisoner of war camp at Schwabmünchen, southwest of Munich. More than 4,000 Jews of various nationalities were kept in the camp. The prisoners were burned alive by the guards, who set fire to the sleeping barracks and shot at anyone who tried to escape. The photo shows the bodies of some Jews found by soldiers of the 7th US Army in Schwabmünchen, May 1, 1945.

A dead prisoner lies on a barbed wire fence in the Leipzig-Teckle (a concentration camp that is part of the Buchenwald).

By order of the American army, German soldiers carried the bodies of the victims of Nazi repressions from the Austrian Lambach concentration camp and buried them on May 6, 1945. 18 thousand prisoners were kept in the camp, 1600 people lived in each of the barracks. There were no beds or any sanitary conditions in the buildings, and every day 40 to 50 prisoners died here.

A man, lost in thought, sits near a charred body in the Thekla camp near Leipzig, April 18, 1954. The workers of the Tecla plant were locked in one of the buildings and burned alive. The fire claimed the lives of about 300 people. Those who managed to escape were killed by members of the Hitler Youth, a youthful paramilitary National Socialist organization led by the Reichsugendführer (the highest position in the Hitler Youth).

The charred bodies of political prisoners lie at the entrance to a barn in Gardelegen (a city in Germany, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt) on April 16, 1945. They died at the hands of the SS, who set fire to the barn. Those who tried to escape were overtaken by Nazi bullets. Of the 1,100 prisoners, only twelve managed to escape.

Human remains in the German concentration camp at Nordhausen, discovered by soldiers of the 3rd Armored Division of the US Army on April 25, 1945.

When American soldiers liberated the prisoners of the German Dachau concentration camp, they killed several SS men and threw their bodies into a moat that surrounded the camp.

Lieutenant Colonel Ed Sailer of Louisville, Kentucky, stands among the bodies of Holocaust victims and addresses 200 German civilians. The photo was taken in the Landsberg concentration camp, May 15, 1945.

Hungry and extremely emaciated prisoners in the Ebensee concentration camp, where the Germans carried out "scientific" experiments. The photo was taken on May 7, 1945.

One of the prisoners recognizes a former guard who brutally beat prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Thuringia.

The lifeless bodies of emaciated prisoners lie on the territory of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The British Army found the bodies of 60,000 men, women and children who had died of starvation and various diseases.

SS men stack the bodies of the dead in a truck at the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp on April 17, 1945. In the background are British soldiers with guns.

Residents of the German city of Ludwigslust inspect a nearby concentration camp, May 6, 1945, on whose territory the bodies of victims of Nazi repressions were found. In one of the pits were 300 emaciated bodies.

Many decomposing bodies were found by British soldiers in the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation on April 20, 1945. About 60,000 civilians died from typhus, typhoid and dysentery.

Arrest of Josef Kramer, commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, April 28, 1945. Kramer, nicknamed "The Beast of Belsen", was executed after a trial in December 1945.

SS women unload the bodies of victims at the Belsen concentration camp on April 28, 1945. British soldiers with rifles are standing on a pile of earth, which will be covered with a mass grave.

An SS man among hundreds of corpses in a mass grave of concentration camp victims in Belsen, Germany, April 1945.

In the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp alone, about 100,000 people died.

A German woman covers her son's eyes with her hand as she passes the exhumed bodies of 57 Soviet citizens who were killed by the SS and buried in a mass grave shortly before the arrival of the American army.

Interest in the topic of the death toll in German concentration camps is maintained first of all, by the Jews themselves, for whom the number of their victims, which boggles the imagination of any normal person, has become one of the main justifications for both the creation of the state of Israel and its policies, and is also used to this day to present a wide variety of financial and political claims against states, so or otherwise involved in the "final solution" of the Jewish question. Germany still pays compensation to victims of the Holocaust; that Switzerland was forced to pay billions of dollars for the accounts of European Jews kept in its banks; that many companies become victims of blackmail, boycott and economic sanctions only on the slightest suspicion that they were in any way collaborating with the Nazis. About how exactly this happens, as well as about what colossal material and moral capital Jewish organizations have extracted and continue to extract from the death of their fellow tribesmen during the Second World War, is described in great detail in an excellent book by the Israeli, we note, researcher Norman Finkelstein "The Holocaust Industry" ( Norman G. Finkelstein. The Holocaust Industry . Scientists such as David Irving, Kevin McDonald, Jean-Claude Pressac, Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, Michael Hoffman, Ernst Zündel and others have done a lot to restore the truth. Many of them paid for their work with freedom. Zündel, for example, after serving several years in the United States, is now in a Canadian prison, and in Europe there are laws in general, according to which even a simple doubt about the official history of the "Holocaust" is a criminal offense. FROM the ionists are doing everything possible to prevent the revision of the official statistics of the victims of Nazism. According to materials Wannsee Conference , which decided on the "final solution of the Jewish question", the total number of Jews in the territories controlled by the Nazis, at the end of 1941, was 4.5 million people. There was no reason for the Germans, who were known for their pedantry, to deceive themselves at that time. But this figure is of great interest not only in comparison with the magical six million Jews who died in Europe, but also in light of the fact that, according to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1988 there weresatisfied about 4.3 million claims for compensation to the survivors of the Holocaust, which means that all these people were able to document that during the Second World War they were in the territory occupied by the Germans and were persecuted for their Jewish origin, but nevertheless survived. It would seem that, having these figures, it would be easy to determine the number of Jews killed by the Germans, but not everything, it turns out, is so simple. So, where big politics is involved, the laws of arithmetic, it turns out, lose their force. H some idea of ​​how the number of Jews who died during the war years is now being manipulated by unscrupulous historians and politicians for their own purposes can be obtained by following how the number of "burned in ovens" of perhaps the most famous German concentration camp - Auschwitz (Auschwitz) has changed over the years ). A detailed table of these data, including sources, was published in 2001 in the prestigious Barnes Review. For example, f the French documentary "Night and Fog", which was widely shown around the world, gives a figure of 9 million Jews alone. The French Ministry for the Investigation of War Crimes, December 1945, gives a figure of 8 million, and a year later already 7 million. 4,000,000 - The number of deaths in Auschwitz, officially established at the Nuremberg trials. From 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 - Leading Israeli expert on the subject Yehuda Bauer in his 1982 book "History of the Holocaust". However, in the 1989 edition, Bauer already gives a different figure: 1,600,000. At the same time, in an article published in the Jerusalem Post, Bauer admitted that "higher numbers of victims have been refuted for many years, but these data have not yet been brought to the attention of the public ". 1,433,000 - "Mond" September 1, 1989 1,250,000 - Historian Raul Hilberg in his 1985 book "The Destruction of European Jewry". According to Hilberg, of all the people who died in Auschwitz, about a million were Jews. 900,000 - Figure given on August 3, 1990 in the Jewish newspaper "Aufbau". 775,000 to 800,000 - Revised data by Pressac, included in his 1993 book "Auschwitz Crematoria: Mechanisms of Mass Murder". Of this death toll, 630,000 were Jews, according to Pressac. 135,000 to 140,000 - Data from the "International Search Service" of the Red Cross, based on twice-daily roll calls of Auschwitz prisoners. 73,137 (of which 38,031 Jews) This figure was first given by The New York Times on March 3, 1991, based on the archives known as the Books of the Dead of Auschwitz. These 46 volumes of the "book" were seized by soldiers of the Red Army at the end of the war and kept in the Soviet archives until 1989, when they were handed over to the Red Cross. These “books” contain all the death certificates of all camp prisoners, indicating the full name, profession and religious affiliation of the deceased, as well as the date and place of birth, previous place of residence, names of parents, time and cause of death, which was established by the camp doctor. In general, according to the German archives, the number of deaths in all German concentration camps in the period from 1935 to 1945. is 403,713 people, and this number includes representatives of all races and peoples, as well as those who died of typhus and other infectious diseases or died of natural causes of old age. It would seem that we should rejoice that the number of Jews who died was at least 20 times less than it is commonly believed to be 6 million. All mankind should rejoice, but only the Zionists, who are materially interested in the largest possible number of their fellow tribesmen, are not happy with such figures. Practically all Jewish organizations, from public to government in Israel, are vitally interested in preserving and maintaining this myth of "6 million". Banks are also interested in this, pumping out billions in compensation for millions of victims. No one is going to justify the atrocities of the Nazis or discount the suffering and horrors experienced by those who fell into their hands. But the falsification of the history of the Second World War and the manipulation of the number of people who died in fascist concentration camps for their own selfish interests is, in fact, a desecration of the memory of those who really fell victim to the "brown plague". Including, of course, over the memory of the Jews killed by the Germans. (Based on materials