6. The Public and the Camps

About this Lecture

Lecture

This module explores the relationship between the Nazi concentration camps and the contemporary public. We examine what knowledge German civilians had of the camps and how they reacted to the atrocities committed there. We also think about what information was available about the camps abroad and how the allied forces handled this knowledge. We conclude the module by thinking about the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of the Second World War and discuss survivor memoirs such as Primo Levi’s If This is a Man and other useful resources for leaning about the camps and the Holocaust.

To find out more about the history of the Nazi concentration camp system, visit this free online resource hosted by Birkbeck, University of London.

Course

In this course, Professor Nik Wachsmann (Birkbeck, University of London) explores the history of the Nazi concentration camps. We begin with a general introduction to the Nazi concentration camp system in module one. The second module considers the origins of the camp system in more detail, focussing in particular on the emergence of the early camps after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. In the third module, we think about the role of the SS in running the camps and explore possible reasons that motivated the perpetrators’ actions, before moving on in the fourth module to the experience of the prisoners inside the camp. The fifth module considers the role such camps as Auschwitz played in the Holocaust. Module six concludes the course with a discussion of the relationship between the Nazi concentration camps and the contemporary public.

To find out more about the history of the Nazi concentration camp system, visit this free online resource hosted by Birkbeck, University of London.

Lecturer

Professor Wachsmann joined the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck in 2005. He previously worked as a research fellow at Downing College (University of Cambridge) and as a lecturer at the University of Sheffield.