In the 1930s and 1940s, the German National Socialists and their supporters in other European countries murdered approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe. This mass murder, known as the Holocaust, was referred to by the Nazis as the «Final Solution.»
In addition to the Jewish victims, numerous other people (e.g., Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, the mentally disabled, and politically undesirable persons) were murdered as part of the «Final Solution.»
Along with the ghettos and the transport organization, the concentration camps were central components of this genocide.
Most of the camps were located in Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc.) and served various purposes, such as transit camps or extermination centers.
In the five extermination camps alone, Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibor, Treblinka II and Auschwitz-Birkenau (all in Poland), 2.7 million Jews were killed.
But other camps, such as Dachau, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen, also had gas chambers and crematoria, as well as sites used for shooting prisoners.
All concentration camps were operated by the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS), the most important agency of terror and oppression in the Nazi state.
Whenever I get the chance, I visit one of these camps (most of them are now memorial sites) and try to capture some impressions with my camera. I photograph deliberately in black and white, trying to transport the mood of these places in my pictures.
