Hello,
my friend is working on a map with most known concentration/labour/death camps that were used in Europe for the purposes of Holocaust.
Finding the locations (and, preferably coordinates) of major camps is not hard, but the problem comes with finding the locations of more less-known, minor/side camps.
I know there is a lot of camps, and that most of them were destroyed before being found out, but she would like to map out as much as possible.
So, can anyone here recommend me books, archives or any other source of information regarding precise locations of more minor camps? The best book we've found so far is The Atlas of the Holocaust by Martin Gilbert, but I would love to get more sources. We don't have any prior experiences with history or source-findings (She is doing cartography, not history), so it's possible that we've missed something obvious, but neighter randomly looking through library at books about Holocaust, nor googling it helped, so I'm turning to you for help.
We'll be most glad for any source, or reply. Of course, if we could get a hand on a complete list of known camps, with precise coordinates, that would be really awesome, but I don't suppose such a list even exists.
Thanks.
Good Morning!
There is a quite a bit of ambiguity I believe you will run into in this topic. There was different layers of the camps and what each did, towards the supposed "Final Solution." There was as you mentioned Concentration Camps but also the Death Camps. Sometimes they were linked, but other times they were not. Majority of the camps were Concentration Camps, with the Death Camps rising later in the years of the Third Reich. That will also be a challenge is what time period you will be looking at, because there was fewer at the beginning, then a balloon of camps, and then subsequent invasion of the Allied Forces that liberated the camps, in a cascade. However, barring the issues above there is some great resources. I would recommend checking the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. They were very knowledgeable when they did an AMA for us a few months ago. Further they have a couple of great articles that provide a more list view of the camps than trying to piece it together for yourself. Their article for Nazi Camps would be a great starting point. They also have maps marking where each camp was, based on year, location, and type. They also have a focus on the Death Camps as well.
While these show a large amount of camps, and places of genocide, keep in mind also that there was a lot of improvisation that the Nazi's did early on and in times of war that were not confined to a "camp." For example they would often times use execution, firing squads, or other, to kill Jews and others during their invasion of Russia. These would not be considered a "camp" and may make truly knowing where all the crimes committed actually occurred.
Hopefully this helps.