Concentration camps

Not so long a go i heard a ...."claim" where and when was the first modern concentration camp built ,and used with much sucess in the world,it was hard to belive in that fact.To not influe any1 opinion r facts i will not say any info on that but i like to know if any otther got some info about that.

 

AFAIK it is generally accepted that the term "Concentration Camp" and much of the concept was invented by the British during the Boer War. Boer non-combatants and civilians were Concentrated together in prison like camps (Hence the name) where they could be kept a very close eye on, in often deplorable conditions and many died as a result of this.

Not a moral high point of the history of the Empire, I'm afraid.

A Wiki article which mentions the matter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boe ... tion_camps

 

yep, I concur that us brits developed the "concentration camp" to deal with the Boers

FNG

 

Didn't the spaniards first use them in the 10 years war ? Wasn't it only the british who really, truly ran with the idea up to the Boer war

 

..the brits concentrated the boer civillians to denie the guerrillas support ,hearth and food ...actually a damn good idea ..im sure it was not the intention of the brits to cause disease and privation ..it was a new concept and had some bugs no doubt ...nothing like a gulag or aushwitz ,should not really even bear the same name...brit mismanegment is not the same as intentional murder by overwork and starvation...

 

Yes that is what i find out allso.Interesting that was highly effective.Do any off u think that it maybe encouraged Hitler to try the same things in Europe?

 

you have to put the things in context, they were also internment camps where "potential" enemies of the state were held pending the outcome of the war.

The Brits held German's in the UK during both wars in such camps and the Americans interned loads of Jap people in WW2

So the idea of gathering together all the people you consider problem makers in a single camp is not new. Of course when resources are scarce the people in the camp suffer due to neglect and this was a problem across all countries.

However only the Germans came up with idea of disposing of the problem completly.

FNG

 

..the balmy islands of the soviet gulag system did a pretty thorough job of elimination of trouble makers as well , and did it far longer and in greater scale than the thousand year reich..

 

Do you have a source for that?
The largest estimations of the total death toll of the Gulags only approaches 2 million, with a more reasonable number being slightly under 1,000,000 between 1917-1956, of a total of 20 million interned... I'm sorry but it doesn't hold a candle to the 14 million Hitler killed in under decade (in various internment camps), of a total number of those interned that we cannot clearly identify...

There were just too many people Hitler wanted to intern and exterminate. Jews, gays, political dissidents, Soviet POW's, Soviet civilians, anyone could be labelled Bolshevik scum; I wouldn't know where to start to find out just how many passed through Nazi internment camps, though the number would be doubtlessly huge... If anyone knows of an estimation please post it. The Nazi's certainly employed internment on a far greated scale than Stalin, and yielded a much higher death toll.

The difference of course, was that the role of the Nazi Concentration Camps (and POW camps in Russia) was to exterminate, whereas the Gulag was a Penal Labor camp, whose purpose was to punish and 're-educate' first and foremost, to expand the USSR's industrial capacity through the use of slave labour second. Stalin didn't exactly have a hard-on for minorities either, but the object of his persecution of minorities was again to supress, not to actively exterminate whole populations. Unlike Hitler, Stalin recognised that internment and forced re-settlement had the same effect in destroying cultural identity (and thus political opposition) as extermination, only it allowed for better production and a better economy. Imagine if Hitler had utilised the slave labour of 14 million prisoners, instead of wasting money resources exterminating them....

Its likewise no conincidence that over half of those who died in the Gulag died in the years between 1941 and 1945... In a situation where food is rationed, prisoners don't tend to get a very high priority...

 

Not exactly the reason why by the time the Maiski-Sikorski pact was signed so many of the Polish officers captured were already dead. They too were sent to the Gulags.

 

Yes you're right,
Death rate in the Gulag may also have been higher between 1941-1945 because of the increased intake of prisoners, both Polish and Axis...

 

iirc stalin is credited with some 20 million , a assumed that many of these were forced labor deaths ..in all acounts ive read their were very few parolees from the mines and wood cutting details ..one needed a cushy special job or some kinda graft or black market rations to survive even 2 years . an american born kid got a trumped up 20 year sentence for espionage (he was a translater at the us embasey in moscow late 40s early 50s)...when asked by gaurds or interagators what was your crime he replied ..i did nothing ..they would beat the snot outta him and say liar! ..the sentence for doing nothing is TEN YEARS !! ..this happened several times over his 12 or 15 years and the gaurds were quite serious ...

 

The Poles were released in 41 under the Sikorski-Maiski pact, hence the Polish army fighting for Russia, the same Polish army that fought for Berlin in 45.

Also Stalin had recalled dozens of officers if not hundreds that were still around in Gulags that he had put there during the Purges. Also it should be noted many were given the chance to fight for Russia in return they would be granted freedom after the war. Little did they know they freedom was not granted and they were put back in the gulags, those that survived. This lead to the so called Shukha (not sure of spelling its Russian word which I believe means bitch) wars which were fought within the Gulags by the prisoners themselves. It was essentially those that stayed against those that went and fought. Well according to that documentary I donno how much you want to believe the documentaries on the history channel. Also those that fought also supposedly had easier jobs when they came back. Now that is somethign I would believe.

 

how many polish officers did the soviets murder in katyn woods ...was that pretty much all of captured officers in soviet hands .? gunter were all those red army volunteers from the gulag enlisted men ?

 

I believe it was around 8000 out of 15000/20000 people killed at Katyn were Polish officers. Technically most of them were reserve officers because in Poland at the time they still had the practice of if you go to university you are gonna be a reserve officer in the army.

I doubt that was all the Polish officers since most of them were reservists and that Russia took a hell of a lot of prisoners as when they invaded the Poles were falling back and the east barely defended with no large formations other than in the north which was falling back from the thrusts made from East Prussia.

I am not sure if they were all enlisted men because in the book"The Battle for Moscow" it mentions the names of several officers that were put into the gulags during the purges that were recalled to service.

 

only half of the katyn dead were officers ? ..who and why were the others shot in the neck ..20000 ? ..i guess ol uncle joe just plain didnt like army officers...

 

The other half according to the book I read a few years back were intellectuals, supposed spies, pretty much anyone the Russians felt would resist against them.

 

Reserve and regular officers, inteligentsia, police officers and other officials of the Polish state and settlers (i.e. veterans of the Soviet-Polish war settled in the east). Little known fact is that a young nobelman Wojtceh Jaruzelski was in the gulag. He was released in second series of polish releases (first released went with general Wladyslav Anders (also released from gulag) and his II polish corps to the N.Africa, second series of released went to the general Zygmunt Berlings (also released from gulag) Polish army in SSSR)

That was mainly coused by debacle of Winter war and experiances of Halhin Gol. Those officers were ussualy not returned to the gulags. One of more prominent officers released from the gulag after the winter war was Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovski. The thing with shtrafniki (penal units personnell) is a bit different. Quiet a large number of those who were considered redeemed during the war were not returned to the gulags. those who were still in the shtrafbats were mostly returned to the camps. One also has to consider that shtrafbats did not ussualy get political prisoners from the camps but mostly "honest" criminals. Political Zeks (with exception of former officers purged in late 30's) were normaly not given the chance to redeem themselves in shtrafbats.

 

its ironic how brittain and france went to war because of germanys attack on poland but later the allies turned a blind eye to the katyn war crimes ..poland , whats poland ...thats western russia isnt it?...also ,apperently theres another 90000 polish pow.s that were marched into russia in 1939 and simply dissapeared ..prolly they just met nice soviet eskimo girls and settled down on a cozy lil siberian farm ...i guess quite a few poles were emigrated east after 1945 too,these also decided to stay on and enjoy the good life ,fresh air and open spaces , east of the urals ...

 

Forget Britain and France, I'm suprised that the POLES turned a blind eye to katyn after the war ended... The state of the country in 1945 probably meant that they had little choice but to welcome the Soviets happily...

Also my comparison of the Gulag's 1 million, with Hitlers 14 million, is misleading... 14 million in all Axis internment, whereas the Gulag was just one of a great number of luxury resorts opened by fun Uncle Joe... To find the total death toll of Soviet internment camps you would need to add the 600,000 or so Axis POW's who perished, as well as the deaths of several hundred thousand Germans and Eastern Europeans interned after VE day... The number would be more like 2 or 3 million at most

Most of Stalin's magical number "20 million" was due to famine starvation, and exposure... Soviet camps were labour camps that would not have met health regulations, they were not extermination camps