Types of fields:
- Concentration camps: dedicated to the detention of civilians considered a danger to the Reich, to hard labour and to the elimination of small groups of prisoners. The Nazis created hundreds of these camps in the 12 years in which they were in power. The most important being 20, if we count fields and subfields the number reaches several thousands. The first, and one of the most famous was Dachau.
- Work camps: prisoners of these camps were subjected to extremely heavy and tiring work that was transformed by the Nazis into economic gain. All carried out by internees, who once had entered a camp lost everything, clothes and any kind of property.
- Transit camps: these camps served as logistical support: prisoners were usually herded into these camps and then deported to extermination camps.
- Prisoner-of-war camps: these were camps for prisoners of war, including Polish and Soviet soldiers.
- Extermination camps: designed and built primarily or exclusively to carry out mass extermination and the “final solution” (the genocide of the Jews). The principal were Belzec (more than 400,000 victims), Chelmno (at least 150,000), Sobibor (170,000 victims), Treblinka (about 900,000 victims) and Auschwitz. The latter, like other Nazi camps, was a concentration, work and extermination camp at the same time. A large number of deportees were also murdered in other concentration camps, such as Lublin-Majdanek (about 100,000 victims) and Bergen-Belsen (about 50,000 victims, including Anne Frank).
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