6.04.2014

Concentration Camps during the Holocaust

The following list of German terms relating to camps under control of the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 in Germany and German-occupied areas in Europe.

Außenarbeitslager – Outlying labor camp (ie of a concentration camp or ghetto)

Arbeitslager – Labor/Work Camp

Arbeitserzeihungslager – labor re-education/reformatory camp

Arbeitszuchtlager – Labor reformatory camp, disciplinary work camp

Aufenhaltslager – Transit Camp

Auffanglager – Receiving Camp (ie typically refers in the post-liberation or postwar period to an initial refuge and processing center for refugees or displaced persons, though it may also refer to wartime concentration camps such as Wöbbelin, a subcamp of Concentration Camp Neuengamme, which received prisoners from camps being “evacuated” in the East, such as Auschwitz.

Außenlager – Outside or branch camp of a main concentration camp

Ausländerlager – Foreign persons camp (Missour detention camp)

Ausweichlager – Reserve depot, storehouse, store, warehouse, alternative camp

Beutelager – Captured material depot, booty warehouse

DP Lager – Displaced Persons Camp

Durchgangslager – Transit Camp

Durchgangslager für kriegsgefangene Luftwaffangehörige (aka Dulag Luft) – Transit camp for air force prisoners of war.

Erziehungslager – Reformatory or re-education disciplinary camp

Erholungslager – Convalescence camp, recuperation camp (ie in a concentration camp context this may refer to a separate quarantined section or barracks of a camp or to a distinct quarantine subcamp eg KLM Erh.Lag. [in full: Konzentrationslager Mauthausen Erholungslager} means “Mauthausen Concentration Camp convalescence camp. It should be noted that in the case of Mauthausen, such “convalescing” prisoners were often sent on to killing facilities such as Schloss Hartheim.

Frauen-Konzentrationslager – Women’s concentration camp (ie may refer to part of a camp. Eg. “FKL Birkenau” means Auschwitz-Birkenau’s Women’s Concentration Camp.

Frauenlager – Women’s camp (FL Birkenau = Women’s camp in Birkenau)

Frauenschutzhaftlager – Women’s “protective custody” camp

Geheimstaatspolizeilager (Gestapolager) – State security camp (Gross-Beeren)

Heimkehrerlager – Reparation camp (ie literally “home returnees camp”, camp for prisoners of war waiting to be either exchanged or returned home on medical grounds.

Interninerungslager – Internment Camp

Internierungslager für Zivilpersonen – Internment camp for civilians

Judenlager – camp for Jews

Krankenlager – Sick camps or Quarantine Camps such as Kaufering IV and VII subcamps of Dachau

Krankenbuchlager München – Repository of Military Hospital Records in Munich

Kriegsgefangenenlager – Prisoner of war camp

Konzentrations-Lager (KL) - Concentration Camp

Konzentrationslagern – Concentration camps (ie commonly seen plural dative form of the noun Konzentrationslager

Lager – Camp

Lagerältester – Camp elder/senior

Lagerzrtzt – Camp doctor

Lager Nakumbs (Ugarsaland) – Southern African (now Malawi) evacuee camp

Lagerführer – Concentration Camp Leader (ie subordinate to Lagerkommandant)

Lagergestapo – Camp Secret State Police

Lagerkommandant – Concentration camp commandant

Lagern – Camps

Lagerstrafen – Camp-administered punishments

Lagerstufe {I, II, III or 1, 2, 3] – camp [severity] level (ie SS-assigned three-tired categories of concentration camps according to degree of harshness of prisoner treatment, ranging from Lagerstufe I – the most “lenient” level camps (eg Dachau, Sachsenhausen, or Auschwitz I), through the more severe Lagerstufe II camps (eg Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Flossenbürg, or Auschwitz II), to the most severe level Lagerstufe III camps (eg Mauthausen), to which prisoners deemed “scarcely redeemable” (kamm noch erziehbar) were specifically sent to perish under the harshest possible treatment. By way of illustration, in the offices of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt Mauthausen was referred to by the nickname “Knochenmühle,” or bone-grinder. Unlike many other concentration camps, intended for allcategories of prisoners, the Lagerstufe III camp Mauthausen was chiefly used for “Extermination through Labor” of the most intelligentsia or members of the higher social classes in countries subjugated by the Nazis during World War II

Lager Kantine – Camp canteen (ie this camp shop in the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands, operated by the Jewish Council’s Centraal Distributie Kantoor = Central Distribution Office). Camp slang = casino.

Lagerartzuntersuchungen – Camp physician examinations

Lager Warenhaus – Camp warehouse

Männer-Konzentrations-Lager – Men’s concentration camp (MKL Buchenwald = Men’s camp in Buchenwald)

Marinekriegsgefangenlager für Marienangehörige (MarLag)– Internment camp for naval prisoners of war.

Marineinternietenlager für Angehörige der Handelsmarine (Milag) – Internment camp for merchant marine prisoners of war

Mischlingslager – Camp for persons of “mixed Jewish blood” (ie records concening such camps, often operated by Organisation Todt)

Nebenlager – Annex camp (eg “Nebenlager Gusen” means “Gusen annex camp” [of Mauthausen KL])

Offizierslager für kriegsgefangene Offiziere – Prisoner of War camp for officers

Polizeiliches Durchgangslager – Police Transit Camp

Polizeihaftlager – Police detention camp

Reichsautobahnlager – National highway camp (ie Autobahn construction labor detail)

SS-Sonderlager – SS Special Camp

Sammellager – Assembly camp (eg Sammellager Drancy)

Schutzhaftlager – “Protective Custody Camp”

Sicherheitslager – Security Detention Camp (SL Gaggenau, SL Vorbrück Schirmeck)
Sonderlager – “Special” Camp (Hinzert SS-Sonderlager)

Stammlager – Main camp, permanent camp (ie for long term holding of prisoners of war, or in the case of concentration camps, for central administration eg “Aushwitz I – Stammlager, may also refer to longterm prisoners of war camps)

Strafgefangenlager – Penitentiary Camp

Vernichtungslager – Death Camp

Zeltlager – Tent camp (ie temporary or provisional section of a concentration camp, often still under construction, wherein prisoners were billeted in tents instead of fixed-structure barracks; eg a handwritten Z is frequently seen in the upper right hand corner of Buchenwald Individual Documents’ Arbeitskarten to indicate a prisoner’s billeting in the Buchenwald Zeltlager.

Zwangsarbeitslager – Forced labor Camp

Zwangenarbeitslager für Juden – Forced labor camp for Jews

Zigeuner Lager – Gypsy camp

Zigeunerfamilienlager [Auschwitz] – Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz

Zweiglager – Annex or branch camp

[All terms were taken from the International Tracing Service Archive List of Terms and Abbreviations]

3.25.2014

8.06.2010

dsvjkjkvdskefwjklwel;k

remember those posters you saw in elementary school regarding drugs?

this is your brain: (regular egg)
this is your brain on drugs: (egg in a skillet)

i think they should have a third category

this is your brain after spending a week in the basement of the united states holocaust memorial museum for 7 hours each day.

absolutely fried? definitely.

it's a good think our weekend itinerary includes the phrase "optional" for both saturday and sunday. i really don't think i could do nine consecutive days. at the same time, the more i think about it, the more i realize this week has flown by. i also think i'm going to have to use part of my stipend to pay the extra weight fee at reagan when i fly back to DIA next week. aside from the 250 pages of reading material assigned for the seminar, by next week i'll have another....well let's break it down here.

235 pages of steven galloway's "the cellist of sarajevo" (ushmm bookstore)
482 pages of saul friedländer's "nazi germany and the jews: 1933-1945" (barnes and noble in georgetown)
17 pages of ITS documents related to the concentration camp system
67 pages of ITS documents related to non-jewish victims
85 pages of ITS documents related to foreign, forced, and slave labor in the german war economy
93 pages of ITS documents related to displaced persons
250 pages (roughly) of the glossary of ITS terms and abbreviations (August 2, 2010 version) [free. woohoo!]
50 (roughly) pages of misc info from the museum

added to my reading packet (and not counting stuff from this weekend + monday and tuesday)?

1279.

not exactly the most environmentally friendly seminar, but i think i'll use about everything i've collected here for my master's thesis or dissertation. we'll see.

i think this has been a productive pilot seminar for the museum. i'd like to go to bad arolsen, germany someday to the actual ITS archive to do more research. i was looking through some ITS documents when eric was talking about the bundesarchiv in berlin when i heard him mention lichterfelde. for those of you who aren't familiar with your suburbs of berlin (or my travel history), i stayed in lichterfelde this past january while in berlin (we actually stayed off the S-25 stop 'lichterfelde ost' while staying there). i wish i would've known that while we were there! ah well. next time.

i'm going to relax a little bit until 10am monday morning. i'll probably take my time getting to the museum tomorrow and sunday to conduct a little research. i requested some microfiche to look at tomorrow regarding a survivor's account in crematorium three in birkenau at the library on the fifth floor of the museum, and will probably use the CNI (central name index) of the ITS on sunday to try and find records for these people:

miklos nyiszli (hungarian jew deported to auschwitz in 1944. wrote "auschwitz: a doctor's eyewitness account)
marco nahon (a greek jew sent to auschwitz, stutthof, and other smaller camps. wrote "birkenau: the camp of death")
benny hochman (holocaust survivor i might interview sometime in the near future)
john rabe (committed national socialist living in nanking, china during the time of the nanking massacre.)

monday we're going over war criminals and tuesday, we'll finish the seminar. i'll be back in mountain time next wednesday.

i can't believe school is almost here. i'm excited to make the transition to boulder and further my history studies there. i've met a lot of people at the museum who have said a lot of good things about people there and their program (a couple profs who have had christopher browning as their dissertation advisor). which reminds me. i need to finalize classes and find a place to live (since a couple deals have fallen through) when i'm not at the museum this weekend, or not at arlington taking pictures of the kennedy memorials for ian (and sasaki).

blech. it's 7:30. i think i'm just going to go to bed now.

8.02.2010

ITS: day one

i know i said i'd post pictures from the rest of our trip to boston (harvard, etc), but due to my crazy july schedule, figuring out college plans, getting ready for my trip to DC, those are going to have to wait. it's not like anyone reads this anyways!

so i'm sitting at the one washington circle hotel with some chinese food in my belly, and i'm about ready to call it a day. it's certainly been a long one. in a nutshell, here's what the last couple of days has consisted of:

i drove to denver on saturday and stayed at the hampton inn by DIA, woke up around 4:30 sunday morning, got my stuff together, took the 5:15 shuttle to the airport, and was off the ground at 7:30. unlike 99% of the flights i've taken in life, i actually got some sleep thanks to a window seat by the right wing and an old couple sitting next to me. thanks to my bose headphones and (dad's) iPod, it was a relaxing, uneventful flight. got to regan national around noon ET, and took a cab to the hotel since i didn't really feel like figuring out the metro system (more on that in a second).

i'm sharing a room with a guy from the university of arkansas on the seventh floor of the hotel with a decent view of our balcony. with a nice bathroom, full kitchen, and a decent view...i can't complain. i could get used to this all expenses paid trip thing. the only downside is that washington circle is extremely busy in the mornings and evenings. ah well. can't win 'em all.

today was a full day, with the majority of it sitting down. i crashed last night around 8ET after a long day and woke up to an orchestra of sirens and horns around 6. even though eastern time is two hours ahead of mountain time (and an hour ahead of central time too i guess), it was a little weird waking up so early. more annoying than anything else, but that's okay i guess. i went back to sleep a couple times and finally got up around 8, and was showered, dressed, and on the blue line around 9. after spending a week in boston last month, i'd have to say that the orange and blue line to the smithsonian just edges out the green line in beantown. sorry ian and anna! it's a short commute from foggy bottom station to the smithsonian, and a 2-3 minute walk to the united states holocaust memorial museum (as well as the washington monument, etc).

other than a lot of talking and sitting, today was pretty uneventful. this morning we did the usual intro (name, college, year, major, etc), had a little overview of what to expect during the next week, got a group picture, and were issued temporary 5th floor access only badges (good for this weekend when i can go up and do a little independent research). half of us went with eric (who is an ITS research scholar and is in charge of the seminar) to the USDA food court which is a short walk from the museum, and the other half went with suzanne (in a nutshell, eric's boss) to the museum cafe). we got back at 2 and went over the international tracing service a little bit before heading to the fifth floor of the museum for a little orientation over the library, archives, and the photo archives. not the most exciting way to end an already long day, but at least it's out of the way and i know what to look for this weekend.

we're going over our case study topics this week. tomorrow we'll look at the concentration camp system (from our reading material), have lunch with the staff and fellows of the center for advanced holocaust studies, select documents from the ITS related to the camps, break, and have a group discussion for an hour and a half.

the topics will change each day. the rest of the schedule is
wednesday: overview of non-jewish victimsi
thursday: overview of foreign, forced, and slave labor in the german war economy
friday: overview of displaced persons
saturday: independent research in the library and archives
sunday: independent research in the holocaust victims and survivors resource center
monday: overview of war criminals in nazi germany
tuesday: possibilities of using the ITS archive collection and possible future avenues for research in holocaust studies

overall, i think our group is perfectly mixed. there are more undergrads than i thought, and eric told us that this seminar is more of a pilot than anything since the USHMM has held these seminars more for students working on their dissertations while in grad school. i was also surprised at colleges and universities of the students that were selected. everything from small, private liberal arts college like bethel, west virgina wesleyan, and southern virgina university to major D1 schools like michigan state, the university of colorado, michigan state, and cornell.

it's going to be a good trip. there's a lot to do in the area within a 15-20 minute walk. plenty of local shops, good restaurants, bookstores, and sights. i think the obama estate is only a 15 minute walk from here too. might have to go crash some parties there this weekend. i'm going to go snack on some stuff i bought at trader joe's earlier. woo!

holla.

7.03.2010

it's on!

come and check it out!

Official Show Flyer

6.24.2010

it's show time

just a quick note

i just met with hannah at the perk, and will be displaying a total of sixteen images during my show. for those of you who can't attend, but are interested in contacting me for details, here's a little digital display/gallery.
crashing b&w
near kaikoura, new zealand. june 2007.
Crashing
near kaikoura, new zealand. june 2007.
Tall Trees
avala mountain (near belgrade, serbia). january 2010.
From the belltower... (edited)
krakow, poland. january 2010.
Landscape - 3 (favorite)
silverton, colorado. march 2009.
Széchenyi Chain Bridge
budapest, hungary. january 2010.
no man's land. B&W
auschwitz-1. poland. january 2010.
Lake Brunner
lake brunner, new zealand. june 2007.
Pukaki
lake pukaki, new zealand. june 2007.
The Lake
lake matheson, new zealand. june 2007.
Star of David (blurred)
krakow, poland. memorial located at the former site of the plaszow concentration camp from the movie schindler's list. january 2010.
Path B&W
avala mountain (near belgrade, serbia). januray 2010.
Devil's Punchbowl B&W
devil's punchbowl waterfall. new zealand. june 2007.
For Emelia. (edited)
on the famous chain bridge. budapest, hungary. january 2010.
Gypsy Boy, Empty Street. (edited)
gypsy community. belgrade, serbia. january 2010.
Memorial (edited)
krakow, poland. memorial located at the former site of the plaszow concentration camp from the movie schindler's list. january 2010