Dachau
Dachau was the first concentration camp and opened in southern Germany in 1933. It was used mainly to incarcerate German political prisoners until late 1938, whereupon large numbers of Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and other supposed enemies of the state and anti-social elements were sent as well. Nazi doctors and scientists used many prisoners at Dachau as guinea pigs for experiments. The camp was liberated by American troops in April 1945.
Auschwitz-Birkenau
First established in 1940 as a concentration camp, it was later extended to include mass crematoria in 1942. Auschwitz I was the main camp, with Auschwitz II (also known as Birkenau) as the extermination center; Auschwitz III (also known as Monowitz) and The I.G. Farben Labor camp (also known as Buna). There were also numerous subsidiary camps.
Treblinka
Extermination camp opened in July 1942. Between 700,000 and 900,000 prisoners were killed there. A revolt by the inmates on August 2, 1943, destroyed most of the camp, and it was closed in November 1943.
Flossenburg
The camp was opened 1938 and primarily held political prisoners. It was the mother camp to 47 satellite camps for male prisoners and 27 camps for female workers.
Fuhlsbutter Prison
Sachsenhausen
The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp opened in 1936. More than 200,000 people were imprisoned in the camp, among them many homosexuals. It was eventually liberated in 1945.
Neuengamme
In December 1938 the SS moved an external command group with one hundred inmates from the Sachsenhausen camp to an empty brickwork in Hamburg-Neuengamme, which became an independent camp in the early summer 1940.
Schirmeck
Just south of Strasbourg, France, the camp opened in May 1941, initially with 300 German prisoners. Prisoners carried out extremely physical work, building blocks to house further detainees, also an infirmary. The Schimeck camp had a special block where various human experiments took place. Eventually the camp housed between 7,000 and 8,000 prisoners.
Waldheim Prison
Quote:
"The day regularly began at 6am, or 5am in the summer, and in just half an hour we had to be washed, dressed and have our beds made up in military style. If you still had time, you could have breakfast, which meant a hurried slurping down the thin flour soup, hot or lukewarm, and eating your piece of bread. Then we had to form up in eights on the parade ground for morning roll call. Work followed, in winter from 7.30am to 5pm, and in summer from 7am to 8pm, with a half hour break at the workplace. After work, straight back to camp and immediate parade for evening roll-call.’
Heinz Heger (pseudonym), ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’
"The day regularly began at 6am, or 5am in the summer, and in just half an hour we had to be washed, dressed and have our beds made up in military style. If you still had time, you could have breakfast, which meant a hurried slurping down the thin flour soup, hot or lukewarm, and eating your piece of bread. Then we had to form up in eights on the parade ground for morning roll call. Work followed, in winter from 7.30am to 5pm, and in summer from 7am to 8pm, with a half hour break at the workplace. After work, straight back to camp and immediate parade for evening roll-call.’
Heinz Heger (pseudonym), ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’
Homosexuals were often given the most gruelling work to do in the camps and many died though exhaustion as a result. Forced to carry heavy boulders in quarries, many suffered terrible injuries as a result. Other jobs included moving meaningless quantities of stones for days on end from one side of the camp to the other in an SS attempt to break the ‘homosexual spirit’. By 1943 the SS had begun the ‘Extermination through work program’, specifically designed to literally work homosexuals and criminals to death.
Quote:
‘In the morning we had to cart the snow outside our block from the left side of the road to the right side. In the afternoon we had to cart the same snow back from the right side to the left… …We had to shovel up the snow with our hands - our bare hands, as we didn't have any gloves. We worked in teams of two… …This mental and bodily torment lasted six days, until at last new pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and took over for us. Our hands were cracked all over and half frozen off, and we had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS’.
Heinz Heger, ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’
‘In the morning we had to cart the snow outside our block from the left side of the road to the right side. In the afternoon we had to cart the same snow back from the right side to the left… …We had to shovel up the snow with our hands - our bare hands, as we didn't have any gloves. We worked in teams of two… …This mental and bodily torment lasted six days, until at last new pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and took over for us. Our hands were cracked all over and half frozen off, and we had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS’.
Heinz Heger, ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’
Gays were treated with particular contempt not only the SS but also by many of the other inmates, who regarded them as degenerate perverts. Life in the camps was a solitary existence making it hard to survive mentally for any period of time. In the face of such hatred and degradation, it is no surprise that many committed suicide by running into electric perimeter fences rather than face ongoing persecution.
Fact:
Homosexual prisoners were generally referred to as Hundert-fünf-und-siebzig, meaning 175er’s.
Homosexual prisoners were generally referred to as Hundert-fünf-und-siebzig, meaning 175er’s.
Camp punishments for various misdemeanours included tree hanging, featuring a high pole erected with a hook from which a victim, already shackled from behind, was strung up by the hands. The weight of the body soon pulled the arms up resulting in excruciating pain as the shoulders twisted under the strain. These poles were arranged in multiple lines and referred to 'the singing forest'. Gay survivor Heinz Dormer recalls 'The howling and the screaming was inhuman.'
Another popular punishment was the horse: a wooden bench over which a victim was secured stomach down, legs and arms tied to the legs, before being struck several times with a blunt instrument or whip. Other forms of punishment included standing still for hours on end either in the heat of the day of the cold of night and being made to crawl along a concrete floor again and again on bare elbows and knees. All of these punishments were carried out in front of other inmates adding to the humiliation.
Quote:
"Half a year I was kept bent over... My hands were tied to my ankles. When they brought the food, the bowl was on the floor; they poured it from above and it was spilled all over. I had to lick it up with my tongue. We couldn't go out, so your pants were soiled."
Survivor Paul Gerhard Vogel
"Half a year I was kept bent over... My hands were tied to my ankles. When they brought the food, the bowl was on the floor; they poured it from above and it was spilled all over. I had to lick it up with my tongue. We couldn't go out, so your pants were soiled."
Survivor Paul Gerhard Vogel
Sometimes the SS would order all prisoners onto the main roll call square where they would be forced to watch executions. These public displays of horrific violence would act as harsh deterrents to any inmate thinking of stepping out of line and add to the climate of terror and solitude.
Quote:
‘Two SS men brought a young man to the center of the square… …the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pale over his head. Next, they sicced their ferocious German shepherds on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pain in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.’
Pierre Seel, ‘Liberation Was for Others’
‘Two SS men brought a young man to the center of the square… …the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pale over his head. Next, they sicced their ferocious German shepherds on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pain in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.’
Pierre Seel, ‘Liberation Was for Others’
If harsh physical work and brutal punishments were not enough to fear, many homosexuals were also selected for the various medical experiments undertaken by SS doctors. At Auschwitz Birkenau for example, SS physician Dr. Carl Vaernet attempted to rid gay men of their homosexual tendencies by the surgical insertion of testosterone capsules.