Museum
Museum Releases United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, volume 1 (June 2009)
The Museum has released the first volume of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 (published by Indiana University Press in association with the Museum). When complete, the full seven-volume series will provide the first comprehensive survey of all known Nazi camps and ghettos.
About the Encyclopedia
Most people are unaware of the full size of the Nazi camp and ghetto system. Behind the well-known names, such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka and Warsaw, there was a vast universe of facilities, roughly twenty thousand of them, that formed the heart of the Nazi racist, totalitarian regime. The encyclopedia’s purpose is to provide both scholars and a broader audience with a fundamental reference work that provides basic information on the history of the camps and ghettos, and that facilitates further research in the field.
Each of the seven volumes will address a group of sites according to type or subordination. In this way, the reader can gain some appreciation, not just for the conditions at a particular site, but also for the way in which the system functioned as a whole. Photographs, charts, and maps will supplement the text.
Here is an overview of the series:
Vol. 1:
Early camps, Youth Camps, and the Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office, edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee, with a Foreword by Nobel laureate and Museum founding chairman Elie Wiesel. This volume has been released.
It contains entries on 110 early camps, 23 main SS concentration camps (including such sites as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau), 898 subcamps, 39 SS construction brigade camps, and 3 so-called youth protection camps. Introductory essays provide broader context, while citations and source narratives offer the basis for additional research. The volume is over 1700 pages in length, with 192 photographs and 23 maps. Purchase this volume.
Vol. 2:
German-run ghettos, mostly in Poland and the USSR.
Vol. 3:
Camps run by the military, including prisoner-of-war camps and military brothels.
Vol. 4:
Camps and ghettos operated by Germany's allies and satellites, including Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, and France.
Vol. 5:
Camps of the Higher SS and Police Leaders, including the Operation Reinhard extermination camps, and of the Reich Security Main Office.
Vol. 6:
Forced labor camps under private firms, local authorities, the Organisation Todt, and other non-SS agencies, as well as sites for the “care” of pregnant forced laborers and their infants.
Vol. 7:
Miscellaneous sites, including T4 euthanasia sites, Germanization camps for Polish children, internment camps for foreign nationals, some civilian punishment camps, and other detention facilities not covered elsewhere.
Guiding Research Questions
These are the research questions that guide the shape of the entries in the encyclopedia.
- When was the site established, under what authority and for what purpose?
- Who commanded and guarded the site?
- What type of prisoners did the site hold, and what type of labor did they perform, if any?
- What companies and organizations employed them?
- How many prisoners were at the site? How and why did the total number change?
- What were the methods, motives, and circumstances of killing the inmates?
- What elements of prisoner culture were unique to that site, if any?
- Were there any key events in the history of the site, such as resistance and/or escapes, organized or otherwise?
- When and under what circumstances was the site dissolved, evacuated, or liberated?
- Were the perpetrators tried after the war and, if so, what were the results of the proceedings?
Material does not exist to answer these questions fully for every site, but the entries aim to provide considerably more information than is commonly available for all but the most well-known places.
Sample articles
Follow the links in the Resistance in the Smaller Ghettos of Eastern Europe feature to read sample articles written for the encyclopedia project.
See also the following articles about camps:
How You Can Help
The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies is looking for contributors who are qualified to write individual entries for the encyclopedia. Scholars may also wish to undertake research on a site or a collection of sites and to contribute a series of entries.
There are some categories of sites on which little research has been done. We have a special interest in hearing from anyone, therefore, who might have the relevant expertise in the following areas: camps run by the German military, police detention camps, forced labor camps for Jews in occupied countries, “Germanization” camps for Polish children, and “care facilities” for foreign children (Ausländerkinderpflegestätten).
Finally, there is a need for continued support from volunteers who can provide assistance in a number of areas, such as editing, cartography, translation, or documentary or photographic research.
Contact Information:
If you would like to learn more about the ways in which you might support this important project, contact Dr. Geoffrey Megargee at: gmegargee@ushmm.org or by standard mail:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
