Digital Studies of the Dachau Concentration Camp

Join Dr. Nils Roemer and Belofsky fellow Katie Fisher on a walking tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site outside of Munich, Germany. This auditory experience captures the sound of the present-day landscape with its birdsong and tourist chatter and is layered with historical context and references provided by Dr. Nils Roemer.

This visualization helps us to clearly see the trends in key demographics of people held as prisoners at the Dachau Concentration Camp. The first page provides an overview of all the years from 1933 to 1945 with a focus on how people were categorized in reference to the year they arrived at the prison and where they were noted as originally coming from. It is important to note the massive expansion of the prisoner population in 1944 with an influx of people arriving from France, Poland, Hungary, and the USSR. Beyond this comprehensive analysis, the following pages of the report show key demographics from 1933, the camp’s inception, 1938, and 1943. Changes in the way Nazi officials categorized prisoners and also used the prison can be seen by comparing the available data for each of these years.

The data collected on deportations in 1938 suggests that although the violence of the 1938 pogrom was unique, the arrests and deportations occurred in large quantities throughout the entire year. This particular data set focuses primarily on men who were deported to Dachau in 1938. From the data gathered from the Dachau prisoner logs, it is made evident that arrests and deportations had been occurring in far greater numbers, particularly in Vienna following its annexation by Germany, in the spring and summer of 1938. In fact, June of 1938 saw a dramatic rise in arrests and deportations to Dachau. This was largely due to a program instituted by Heinrich Himmler, targeting what was referred to as the Arbeitsscheue. This designation, which means “work-shy” or “indolent,” includes men of working age who had either rejected job offers or who quit after a short period of time. These men were arrested and deported to both Dachau and Buchenwald beginning almost immediately after the annexation of Austria in March of 1938, but in the highest numbers in June of that same year. The data does show, however, that the second largest incidence of deportations in 1938 did occur in November following the events of the 1938 pogrom. Though not as high as the numbers seen in June, deportations occurred in the thousands according to the data set. In both cases, men of middle age seemed to be the primary target. The historical record reflects this and so too does the data.

The following visualization depicts the count of prisoners and deaths taken by the Allied forces shortly after the liberation of Dachau. The Allies counted around thirty-thousand survivors remaining at Dachau, and the exact reason for the discrepancy with the count of sixty thousand taken by the Nazis only days before is unknown. As Nazis evacuated from Dachau, numerous records were destroyed and lost, and no further information exists also for deaths recorded as “natural deaths,” Jewish executions, and non-Jewish executions

The Nazis kept detailed records for many of the prisoners they held at the Dachau Concentration Camp. The reason for arrest can be found coded in abbreviations listed in the category section of the data. Along with this, these records can hold a great deal of information about an individual’s time within the camp system. Within the Dachau Concentration Camp logs, 652 references were made to people who attempted escape or were noted as missing. Prisoners who attempted escape were tracked meticulously, and those who were recaptured were kept within the camp system and had detailed transfer assignments following their recapture date. There is a sudden increase of French deportations and French prisoner escape attempts in 1944 following the Allied invasion of Normandy. The case study below, “Between Liberation and Murder: French Resistance”, outlines the imprisonment of seven French Resistance fighters and their experiences after attempting to escape Dachau in 1944.

“Race Pollution”

Though humiliation was often utilized in the punishment of rassenschander, many offenders were taken to concentration camps like Dachau in 1938.

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Kristallnacht and Deportations to the Dachau

The data in 1938 suggests that the arrests and deportations occurred throughout the entire year.

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Escaped or Missing

Within the Dachau Concentration Camp logs, 652 references were made to people who attempted escape or were noted as missing.

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Between Liberation and Murder: French Resistance

This case study outlines the arrest, detention, and fate of seven French resistance fighters.

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