Prisoners of the Camps

As the Jews were the main targets of Nazi genocide, the victims of the killing centers were overwhelmingly Jewish. In the hundreds of forced-labor and concentration camps not equipped with gassing facilities, however, other individuals from a broad range of backgrounds could also be found. Prisoners were required to wear color-coded triangles on their jackets so that the guards and officers of the camps could easily identify each person's background and pit the different groups against each other. Political prisoners, such as Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists wore red triangles. Common criminals wore green. Roma (Gypsies) and others the Germans considered "asocial" or "shiftless" wore black triangles. Jehovah's Witnesses wore purple and homosexuals pink. Letters indicated nationality: for example, P stood for Polish, SU for Soviet Union, F for French.

Captured Soviet soldiers worked as forced laborers, and many of these prisoners of war died because they were executed or badly mistreated by the Germans. In all, over three million died at the hands of the Germans.

Twenty-three thousand German and Austrian Roma (Gypsies) were inmates of Auschwitz, and about 20,000 of these were killed there. Romani (Gypsy) men, women, and children were confined together in a separate camp. On the night of August 2, 1944, a large group of Roma was gassed in the destruction of the "Gypsy family camp." Nearly 3,000 Roma were murdered, including most of the women and children. Some of the men were sent to forced-labor camps in Germany where many died. Altogether, hundreds of thousands of Roma from all over German-occupied Europe were murdered in camps and by mobile killing squads.

Political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals were sent to concentration camps as punishment. Members of these three groups were not targeted, as were Jews and Roma, for systematic murder. Nevertheless, many died in the camps from starvation, disease, exhaustion, and brutal treatment.

For more information, see "Classification System in Nazi Concentration Camps" in the Holocaust Encyclopedia.