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Margret Bourke-White / TIME & LIFE Pictures / Getty Images

The Holocaust is a crime that never seems to quit. Even as the ranks of survivors grow smaller each year, the impact of that dark passage in history continues to be felt. And it's not just the victims who feel the effects; it's their children too.

Psychologists have long been intrigued by the emotional profile of so-called second-generation Holocaust survivors. Parents who lived through the camps were forever changed by the horrors they witnessed. In the 21st century, many — probably most — would be recognized as suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Back then, the absence of such a diagnosis also meant the absence of effective treatments. As a result, a generation of children grew up in homes in which one, and sometimes both, parents were battling untold emotional demons at the same time they were going about the difficult business of trying to raise happy kids. No surprise, they weren't always entirely successful. (See pictures of Auschwitz after 65 years.)

Over the years, a large body of work has been devoted to studying PTSD symptoms in second-generation survivors, and it has found signs of the condition in their behavior and even their blood — with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, for example. The assumption — a perfectly reasonable one — was always that these symptoms were essentially learned. Grow up with parents afflicted with the mood swings, irritability, jumpiness and hypervigilance typical of PTSD and you're likely to wind up stressed and high-strung yourself. (See more on how kids are vulnerable to posttraumatic stress.)

Now a new paper adds another dimension to the science, suggesting that it's not just a second generation's emotional profile that can be affected by a parent's trauma; it may be their genes too. The study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, was conducted by a team led by neurobiologist Isabelle Mansuy of the University of Zurich. What she and her colleagues set out to explore went deeper than genetics in general, focusing instead on epigenetics — how genes change as a result of environmental factors in ways that can be passed onto the next generation. (See pictures of a U.S. Army town coping with PTSD.)

To conduct their work, Mansuy's team raised male mice from birth and continually but unpredictably separated them from their mothers from the time they were one day old until they were 14 days old. Thereafter, the animals were reared, fed and cared for normally, but the early trauma took its toll.

As adults, the subject animals exhibited PTSD-like symptoms such as isolation and jumpiness. More tellingly, their genes functioned differently from those of other mice. The investigators looked at five target genes associated with behavior—most notably, one that helps regulate the stress hormone CRF and one that regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin — and found that all of them were either overreactive or underreactive.

These mice, for the purposes of the study, were the equivalent of first-generation Holocaust survivors. They then fathered young and, like most males of the species, had nothing to do with their upbringing. The pups were raised by their mothers with none of the trauma and separation their fathers had suffered, and yet when they grew up, not only did they exhibit the same anxious behavior, but they also had the same signature gene changes.

"We saw the genetic differences both in the brains of the offspring mice and in the germline — or sperm — of the fathers," says Mansuy.

Mouse studies, by their definition, are limited, particularly when the animals are being used as stand-ins not merely for human biology but for human behavior as well. Still, in this case, the nonhuman models were actually an advantage, since you could hardly run a control experiment in which second-generation survivors of the Holocaust were separated from their fathers, ensuring that you were studying inherited — not acquired — traits. What's more, says Mansuy, is that "with animals, you can study the brain in detail."

That doesn't mean that some studies seeking similar findings couldn't be conducted in human subjects. Straightforward analysis of blood, plasma and sperm from volunteers could reveal signs of genetic changes similar to those seen in mice. And a deeper analysis of the mouse genes should yield other target genes to study in people. "We're now doing a high throughput study of hundreds of genes that go beyond the first five," says Mansuy.

The Holocaust is hardly the only life crisis that can shape behavior and genes. Survivors of Afghanistan, Iraq or Darfur — or even those who grew up in unstable or abusive homes — can exhibit similar changes. But Holocaust survivors remain one of the best study groups available because their trauma was so great, their population is so well known, and so many of them have gone on to produce children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Humans, alas, may never run out of ways to behave savagely toward one another. But the better we can understand the price paid by the victims — and the babies of the victims — the better we may be able to treat their wounds.

See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.

Buy reprints of TIME's health and medicine covers.

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Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com

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The Holocaust is a crime that never seems to quit. Even as the ranks of survivors grow smaller each year, the impact of that dark passage in history continues to be felt. And it's not just the victims who feel the effects; it's their children too.

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A Holocaust survivor tells her story | DW | 27.01.2018

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96-year-old Margit Meissner survived the Holocaust, and now she's doing all she can to make sure it's never forgotten. She's a volunteer at Washington D.C.'s Holocaust museum. There, she tells young people about the genocide and her narrow escape.

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Stories of Women Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust - Righteous Among the Nations - Yad Vashem

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A little over half of the Righteous Among the Nations recognized by Yad Vashem are women. While many of them acted in cooperation with other family members, some of these courageous women were the initiators of the rescue and acted independently to save Jews. Here are some of their stories.

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Holocaust- Alf Hutchison

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Pinfact. Facts on Brexit, Health, US politics, autonomous weapons and more.

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What did you think of the book? Be honest. Would you recommend it to others? Explain.

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What did you think of the book? Be honest. Would you recommend it to others? Explain.

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We thought that the book was well written, but a little difficult to understand and would be more suitable for a certain type of reader, who might be more into history.

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What was your favorite passage/quote from the book? Why? Be sure to include the passage/quote.

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What was your favorite passage/quote from the book? Why? Be sure to include the passage/quote.

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“The soldier was buried in the dirt, not far from Tommy Muller’s place. It was scratched and trodden, which, to Liesel, was the whole point. Even with injury, it could still stand up” (pg 323). This quote explains how even though the soldier was not in good shape, it could still stand up and fight.

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Introduction

The first concentration camp in the Nazi system, Dachau, opened in March, 1933. By the end of World War II, the Nazis administered a massive system of more than 40,000 camps that stretched across Europe from the French-Spanish border into the conquered Soviet territories, and as far south as Greece and North Africa. The largest number of prisoners were Jews, but individuals were arrested and imprisoned for a variety of reasons, including ethnicity and political affiliation. Prisoners were subjected to unimaginable terrors from the moment they arrived in the camps; it was a dehumanizing existence that involved a struggle for survival against a system designed to annihilate them.

Within the camps, the Nazis established a hierarchical identification system and prisoners were organized based on nationality and grounds for incarceration. Prisoners with a higher social status within the camp were often rewarded with more desirable work assignments such as administrative positions indoors. Some, such as the kapos (work supervisors) or camp elders held the power of life and death over other prisoners. Those lower on the social ladder had more physically demanding tasks such as factory work, mining, and construction, and suffered a much higher mortality rate from the combined effects of physical exhaustion, meager rations, and extremely harsh treatment from guards and some kapos. Prisoners also staffed infirmaries, kitchens, and served various other functions within the camp. Living conditions were harsh and extreme but varied greatly from camp to camp and also changed over time.

The following bibliography was compiled to guide readers to selected materials on daily life in the Nazi concentration camps that are in the Library's collection. It is not meant to be exhaustive. Annotations are provided to help the user determine the item's focus, and call numbers for the Museum's Library are given the call number in parentheses following each citation. Those unable to visit might find these works in a nearby public or academic library, or acquire them through interlibrary loan. Talk to your local librarian for assistance.

Background Information

Personal Accounts

Renouard, Jean-Pierre. My Stripes Were Earned in Hell: A French Resistance Fighter's Memoir of Survival in a Nazi Prison Camp. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012.

(D 805 .G3 R43213 2012). [ Find in a library near you]

Recounts the author's experience in three concentration camps after being arrested by the Gestapo in May 1944 for his involvement in the French underground resistance in the town of Albi. Details his initial internment in Neuengamme, his transfer after two months to Misburg, and his second transfer to Bergen-Belsen where he survived until liberation in April 1945. Describes the daily life, social hierarchies, and the author's personal suffering and struggles in each of the camps.

Online Resources

Provides an extensive, searchable listing of camps, organized by type, with a special emphasis on lesser-known subcamps. Also includes survivor interviews, a glossary of camp terminology, and a listing of companies that used concentration camp inmates for slave labor. A project of JewishGen, a major Jewish genealogy Web site.

Holocaust Encyclopedia: Classification System in Nazi Concentration Camps
Overview of different prisoner categories in the camps and their color-coded uniform markings. Includes an image of a classification chart based on badges worn my prisoners.

Brief videos of several survivors describing their experiences in the camps.

Additional Resources

Subject Headings

When searching library catalogs or other electronic search tools for materials on life in the concentration camps or related topics, use the following Library of Congress subject headings to retrieve the most relevant citations. Ask a librarian for assistance in using subject headings to help with your research.

Concentration camps

World War, 1939-1945-Concentration camps

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Personal narratives.

See all Bibliographies

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The first concentration camp in the Nazi system, Dachau, opened in March, 1933. By the end of World War II, the Nazis administered a massive system of more than 40,000 camps that stretched across Europe from the French-Spanish border into the conquered Soviet territories, and as far south as Greece and North Africa.

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Concentration camps ( Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945.

The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

The First Concentration Camps in Germany

The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, the SA ( Sturmabteilung; commonly known as the Storm Troopers), the SS ( Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons-the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy.

German authorities established camps all over Germany on an ad hoc basis to handle the masses of people arrested as alleged subversives. The SS established larger camps in Oranienburg, north of Berlin; Esterwegen, near Hamburg; Dachau, northwest of Munich; and Lichtenburg, in Saxony. In Berlin itself, the Columbia Haus facility held prisoners under investigation by the Gestapo (the German secret state police) until 1936.

Centralization of the Concentration Camp System

The SS gained its independence from the SA in July 1934, in the wake of the Röhm purge. Hitler then authorized SS leader Heinrich Himmler to centralize the administration of the concentration camps and formalize them into a system. Himmler chose SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke for this task. Eicke had been the commandant of the SS concentration camp at Dachau since June 1933. Himmler appointed him Inspector of Concentration Camps, a new section of the SS subordinate to the SS Main Office.

After December 1934, the SS became the only agency authorized to establish and manage facilities that were formally called concentration camps. Local civilian authorities did continue to establish and manage forced-labor camps and detention camps throughout Germany. In 1937, only four concentration camps were left: Dachau, near Munich; Sachsenhausen near Berlin; Buchenwald near Weimar; and Lichtenburg near Merseburg in Saxony for female prisoners.

Purposes of the Camp System

Concentration camps are often inaccurately compared to a prison in modern society. But concentration camps, unlike prisons, were independent of any judicial review. Nazi concentration camps served three main purposes:

To incarcerate people whom the Nazi regime perceived to be a security threat. These people were incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time.

To eliminate individuals and small, targeted groups of individuals by murder, away from the public and judicial review.

To exploit forced labor of the prisoner population. This purpose grew out of a labor shortage.

Concentration Camp Administration

Already as commandant of Dachau in 1933, Eicke developed an organization and procedures to administer and guard a concentration camp. He issued regulations for the duties of the perimeter guards and for treatment of the prisoners. The organization, structure, and practice developed at Dachau in 1933-34 became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system as it expanded. Among Eicke's early trainees at Dachau was Rudolf Höss, who later commanded the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Special "political units on alert" ( Politische Bereitschaften) originally guarded the SS concentration camps. They were renamed "SS Guard Units" ( SS-Wachverbände) in 1935 and "SS Death's-Head Units" ( SS-Totenkopfverbände) in April 1936. One SS Death's-Head Unit was assigned to each concentration camp. After 1936, the camp administration, including the commandant, was also a part of the SS Death's-Head Unit.

Although all SS units wore the Death's-Head symbol (skull and crossbones) on their caps, only the SS Death's-Head Units were authorized to wear the Death's Head Symbol on their lapels. The "SS Death's-Head Division" of the Waffen SS was created in 1940. Its officers were recruited from concentration camp service. They also wore the Death's-Head symbol on their lapel.

The SS Death's-Head Unit at each camp was divided into two groups. The first was the camp staff, which covered:

the commandant and his personal staff

a Security Police officer and an assistant to maintain and update prisoner records

the commandant of the so-called protective detention camp (Schutzhaftlagerführer) which housed the prisoners, and his staff (including the labor allocation officer, the roll call officer, and the Blockführer, who were responsible for the individual prisoner barracks)

an administrative staff responsible for the fiscal and supply administration of the camp

an infirmary run by an SS physician assisted by one or two SS sanitation officers and/or medical orderlies.

The second group constituted the guard detachment ( SS-Wachbataillon), which prior to 1939 was at battalion strength.

The model established by Eicke in the mid-1930s characterized the concentration camp system until the collapse of the Nazi regime in the spring of 1945. The daily routine at Dachau, the methods of punishment, and the duties of the SS staff and guards became the norm, with some variation, at all German concentration camps.

Authority to Imprison People in Concentration Camps

After 1938, authority to incarcerate persons in a concentration camp formally rested exclusively with the German Security Police (made up of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police).

The Security Police had held this exclusive authority de facto since 1936. The "legal" instrument of incarceration was either the "protective detention" ( Schutzhaft) order or the "preventative detention" ( Vorbeugungshaft) order. The Gestapo could issue a "protective detention" order for persons considered a political danger after 1933. The Criminal Police could issue a "preventative detention" order after December 1937 for persons considered to be habitual and professional criminals, or to be engaging in what the regime defined as "asocial" behavior. Neither order was subject to judicial review, or any review by any German agency outside of the German Security Police. As the concentration camp system expanded, the camps fell within the exclusive authority of the SS. The German judicial administration had no jurisdiction with the growing camp system.

Expansion of the Camp System

Nazi Germany expanded by bloodless conquest into Austria and Czechoslovakia between 1938 and 1939. The numbers of those labeled as political opponents and as "asocials" in German society increased, requiring the establishment of new concentration camps.

By the time the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, unleashing World War II, there were six concentration camps in the so-called Greater German Reich: Dachau (founded 1933), Sachsenhausen (1936), Buchenwald (1937), Flossenbürg in northeastern Bavaria near the 1937 Czech border (1938), Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria (1938), and Ravensbrück, the women's camp, established in Brandenburg Province, southeast of Berlin (1939), after the dissolution of Lichtenburg.

Forced Labor

From as early as 1934, concentration camp commandants used prisoners as forced laborers for SS construction projects such as the construction or expansion of the camps themselves. By 1938, SS leaders envisioned using the supply of forced laborers incarcerated in the camps for a variety of SS-commissioned construction projects. To mobilize and finance such projects, Himmler revamped and expanded the administrative offices of the SS and created a new SS office for business operations. Both agencies were led by SS Major General Oswald Pohl, who would take over the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps in 1942.

Beginning a pattern that became typical after the war began, economic considerations had an increasing impact on the selection of sites for concentration camps after 1937. For instance, Mauthausen and Flossenbürg were located near large stone quarries. Likewise, concentration camp authorities increasingly diverted prisoners from meaningless, backbreaking labor to still backbreaking and dangerous labor in extractive industries, such as stone quarries and coal mines, and construction labor.

Concentration Camps after the Outbreak of World War II

After Nazi Germany unleashed World War II in September 1939, vast new territorial conquests and larger groups of potential prisoners led to the rapid expansion of the concentration camp system to the east. The war did not change the original function of the concentration camps as detention sites for the incarceration of political enemies. The climate of national emergency that the conflict granted to the Nazi leaders, however, permitted the SS to expand the functions of the camps.

The concentration camps increasingly became sites where the SS authorities could kill targeted groups of real or perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. They also came to serve as holding centers for a rapidly growing pool of forced laborers used for SS construction projects, SS-commissioned extractive industrial sites, and, by 1942, the production of armaments, weapons, and related goods for the German war effort.

Despite the need for forced labor, the SS authorities continued to deliberately undernourish and mistreat prisoners incarcerated in the concentration camps. Prisoners were used ruthlessly and without regard to safety at forced labor, resulting in high mortality rates.

Last Edited: Jun 27, 2019

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Concentration camps ( Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

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What scene/event was the most pivotal in the book? Why do you think this? 

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What scene/event was the most pivotal in the book? Why do you think this? 

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A pivotal point in the book was when the Hubermanns took Max in. Max was the son of the man who saved Hans’ life so he wanted to help. This action put their lives in great danger. I think this is a pivotal point because it changes the tone of the book, as they have to live in secrecy.

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Welcome to Seussville! Find your favorite characters and books at the home of Dr. Seuss.

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How do you think the story would have changed had that scene/event not been included?

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How do you think the story would have changed had that scene/event not been included?

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If the author did not include this scene in the book it would not have been as personal or emotional to the reader, because this allows us to see a close up of what their life was like and what they went through.

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What themes are reflected in this book? How does the author bring these themes to light?

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What themes are reflected in this book? How does the author bring these themes to light?

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1. One of the major themes reflected in this book is kindness and cruelty. There are many examples of both. A major act of kindness was when the Hubermanns took in Max. they put their own lives in danger to help someone in danger. An major act of cruelty is the hatred and violence against Jewish people during the war. Concentration camps were proof of this cruelty.

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Surviving Letters

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Nazi Party: Definition, Philosophies & Hitler - HISTORY

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The Nazi Party was a political organization that ruled Germany through murderous, totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

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That Vilma Grunwald's letter even exists is extraordinary.

She penned it in the minutes before she was gassed at Auschwitz, addressed it to her husband, and handed it to a Nazi guard who did the improbable - he delivered it to the man, who was also imprisoned at the camp.

The Washington Post reports she accompanied her eldest child, a 16-year-old named John, who limped, to the gas chambers. The Indianapolis Star has the story of the July 11, 1944, letter, which has for the last four years resided at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"I'm always reluctant to say it's the only such document ever created," says the museum's chief acquisitions curator, "but to the best of our knowledge" it is the only surviving letter written at the concentration camp prior to a gassing.

Grunwald's son, Misa (who now goes by Frank and lives northeast of Indianapolis) learned of the letter as an 11-year-old in 1946 but did not read it until after his father's 1967 death.

Frank tells the Starthat what he found most moving was the 11-sentence letter's tone: free of anger or resentment, and focused only on him and his father.

It reads in part: "The famous trucks are already here and we are waiting for it to begin. ... You - my only and dearest one, do not blame yourself for what happened, it was our destiny. We did what we could. ... Take care of the little golden boy and don't spoil him too much with your love. Both of you - stay healthy, my dear ones. I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks."
This article originally appeared on Newser: As She Headed to Auschwitz Gas Chamber, She Wrote This

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Auschwitz letter thought to be only one of its kind

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That Vilma Grunwald's letter even exists is extraordinary. She penned it in the minutes before she was gassed at Auschwitz, addressed it to her husband, and handed it to a Nazi guard who did the improbable - he delivered it to the man, who was also imprisoned at the camp.