I'm working on a paper on the above topic but am having some dificulty locating reliable scources on it. I have a few, such as a compilation of code words used by the Nazis in their writting (EG liquidating rather than murdering, etc) and an article about the temporary slow-down in persecution during the 1936 Olympics, but I would like to find more evidence to really drive home this idea. Do you have any suggestions on where to look, what to search for, or even specific sources if you can think of any? Thanks in advance!
Nazi-Germany did not try to conceal the holocaust in the east at all. Public mass shootings were common practice. Please read Mark Mazower's Dark Continent for background. They did try to conceal the holocaust in the west however. Primary evidence could be the administrations of the different Jewish Councils and e.g. the Mauthausen death books.
The first shows you the administration of Jewish populations of European countries and the treacherous methods and terminology the Nazis used to push the Jewish populations voluntarily towards transit, work and death camps. The second example (available online) shows you the disguised terminology of the causes of death in KZ Mauthausen. It is very curious that nobody in Mauthausen is beaten to death and death penalties are described as: "auf der Flücht erschossen". But to have a solid case there you must match the official Nazi statement to eyewitness accounts. That is possible, but it takes time to go to the right archives and do proper research.
Another example: In the beginning the KZ administrations still used to send certificates of deaths back towards the city the prisoner once lived. After receiving repeated requests for the remains and personal belongings, the Nazi authorities stopped sending those certificates. Of course those poor individuals ended up in the crematoria and mass graves, so there was nothing to claim left. This is also provable, but again it will take time to investigate and visit the archives.
The book entitled "documents of the holocaust" is sure to have a document that will help. It is a fat book with hundreds of primary source documents, set chronologically, so you can actually read through the slow grasp of the German state around the throats of the Jews and others. It's an incredible book I highly recomend.
My dad was born in 1929 in East Prussia.
He understood Concentration Camps to be like overflows for prisons where they put all the "bad offenders" like murderers, and spies.
He wrote a book on his childhood, [Farewell Marienburg] (http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Marienburg-Claus-Neumann/dp/0595398251). If you're interested, when I get home I can dig up the full excerpt.
Thank you for the replies, I shall certainly look into the sources you recomend. Much appreciated!!