2013年12月12日
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
The project documents the astonishing reaches of the camp system for the first time, and could help some survivors corroborate legal claims.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — An ongoing project sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has uncovered a staggering 42,500 camps and ghettos during World War II, Preserver Series ranging from the giants such as Auschwitz and Warsaw to lesser-known factories, farms and brothels.
Geoffrey Megargee, a lead editor of the project, will detail his work during a talk Wednesday at the Polo Club Boca Raton. Two volumes have been published; five more are scheduled to be completed over the next 10 years.
The project documents the astonishing reaches of the camp system for the first time, and could help some survivors corroborate legal claims. Each camp has a description that includes its location, purpose and who was in charge.
When Megargee took the job in 1999, the museum estimated there were 5,000 to 7,000 camps to research for the series, called “The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.”
“I thought that was an astounding number,” said Megargee, a World War II scholar and German speaker. “Only as I got into it did the impact make itself felt.”
Megargee and a team of five researchers uncovered a complicated network of forced labor and death camps, ghettos for Jewish families, prisons and euthanization sites, Casing Otterbox Commuter used to perform forced abortions or kill the elderly and sick. He estimates up to 20 million people were imprisoned at these camps, mostly in Germany and Poland but as far away as North Africa, Estonia and Greece.
Some regions had so many camps that claims after the war that residents did not know about them seem suspect, Megargee said.
“In Germany, it was impossible to turn the corner without seeing people forced against their will,” he said.
There were many small camps that the editors don’t plan to include; Megargee said the volumes include only sites that had at least “20 people there for a month.”
The first volume details 110 early camps, 23 main camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau, 898 subcamps (Buchenwald alone had 117), 39 construction brigade camps and three “youth protection” camps. Volume 2 focuses on 1,150 ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union. Future volumes will document camps in other countries, camps run by the German military and camps run by civil authorities.
Megargee said he was stunned to learn about 500 brothels run by the German army.
“It was a category we weren’t expecting,” he said. Although many have heard the stories of sex slaves forcibly recruited by the Japanese army during the war OtterBox Defender, fewer are familiar with the forced prostitution sites, which catered to German soldiers but were sometimes offered to male prisoners as an incentive for cooperation.
Megargee said he has tried to keep his emotions in check as the project unfolded. That became harder in 2005, when he adopted a son.
“I don’t cope with (the idea of) children in the Holocaust too well now,” he said.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — An ongoing project sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has uncovered a staggering 42,500 camps and ghettos during World War II, Preserver Series ranging from the giants such as Auschwitz and Warsaw to lesser-known factories, farms and brothels.
Geoffrey Megargee, a lead editor of the project, will detail his work during a talk Wednesday at the Polo Club Boca Raton. Two volumes have been published; five more are scheduled to be completed over the next 10 years.
The project documents the astonishing reaches of the camp system for the first time, and could help some survivors corroborate legal claims. Each camp has a description that includes its location, purpose and who was in charge.
When Megargee took the job in 1999, the museum estimated there were 5,000 to 7,000 camps to research for the series, called “The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.”
“I thought that was an astounding number,” said Megargee, a World War II scholar and German speaker. “Only as I got into it did the impact make itself felt.”
Megargee and a team of five researchers uncovered a complicated network of forced labor and death camps, ghettos for Jewish families, prisons and euthanization sites, Casing Otterbox Commuter used to perform forced abortions or kill the elderly and sick. He estimates up to 20 million people were imprisoned at these camps, mostly in Germany and Poland but as far away as North Africa, Estonia and Greece.
Some regions had so many camps that claims after the war that residents did not know about them seem suspect, Megargee said.
“In Germany, it was impossible to turn the corner without seeing people forced against their will,” he said.
There were many small camps that the editors don’t plan to include; Megargee said the volumes include only sites that had at least “20 people there for a month.”
The first volume details 110 early camps, 23 main camps such as Auschwitz and Dachau, 898 subcamps (Buchenwald alone had 117), 39 construction brigade camps and three “youth protection” camps. Volume 2 focuses on 1,150 ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union. Future volumes will document camps in other countries, camps run by the German military and camps run by civil authorities.
Megargee said he was stunned to learn about 500 brothels run by the German army.
“It was a category we weren’t expecting,” he said. Although many have heard the stories of sex slaves forcibly recruited by the Japanese army during the war OtterBox Defender, fewer are familiar with the forced prostitution sites, which catered to German soldiers but were sometimes offered to male prisoners as an incentive for cooperation.
Megargee said he has tried to keep his emotions in check as the project unfolded. That became harder in 2005, when he adopted a son.
“I don’t cope with (the idea of) children in the Holocaust too well now,” he said.
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