Strefy umierania w systemie niemieckich nazistowskich obozów koncentracyjnych na przykładzie Małego Obozu w Buchenwaldzie

Abstract

The article focuses on death zones in concentration camps and those that in themselves were purely death camps. In 1944–1945, in the concentration camp system, these places were spaces of dying, where emaciated and sick prisoners were locked away, thus condemning them to death. Although mass murders were also committed in these places, the majority of the inmates died due to the inaction of camp personnel, who out of their passivity made yet another way of killing prisoners deemed “useless”. The first section of the paper presents the findings of historians, and strives to show on their basis when and why death camps and death zones appeared, how they functioned, and where they were located. In the second part the focus is on a specific death zone: the Little Camp at Buchenwald. This fragment of the article gives the floor above all to former prisoners of this place, as well as inmates of the main camp at Buchenwald who were able to observe from behind the barbed wire the fate of those consigned to the Little Camp.