The Extermination Camps and Their Contexts

doi:10.1017/9781108990158.014

11 - The Extermination Camps and Their Contexts

from Part I - Structures, Players, and Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2025

Sara Berger and

Donald Bloxham

Edited by

Mary Fulbrook and

Jürgen Matthäus

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Mary Fulbrook: Affiliation:
University College London
Jürgen Matthäus: Affiliation:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Summary

This chapter discusses similarities and differences in the emergence (including planning and construction), functions (mass murder, forced labor, utilization of looted property), and operations (killing techniques, connections to the “outer world”) of German mass extermination sites, the importance of “knowledge transfer” (from “euthanasia” killings to “Aktion Reinhard,” from prewar concentration camps to Auschwitz); addresses forms and levels of involvement of these sites and their staff in the “Final Solution” and the murder of other groups (also vis-à-vis non-German killing sites and German mass shooting sites) within the broader context of the Nazi project and its systemic dynamics.

Keywords

mass extermination sites concentration camps Nazi policy “Final Solution”

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 262 - 288

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990158.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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