Breitenau As An Education and Welfare Camp
Breitenau was first established as a correctional facility. This was the original reason why Breitenau was first opened in 1933. It became a "labour house", where prisoners literally learned how to work. But the jobs that they had at Breitenau were often brutal and back-breaking.
From 1932 to 1933 the prisoner population was 24 people. Between 1933 to 1934, the population increased to 125 people. Part of the 125 prisoners had been arrested during a one-week raid on homeless people known as "Beggars Week". By the end of 1933, 11,000 people were arrested and placed in concentration camps. Only a few of them were brought to Breitenau.
After the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring was made, Breitenau officials began to test prisoners for hereditary diseases. Many of the prisoners who were found to have hereditary diseases were often transported to euthanasia killing centers or kept at Breitenau under penalty of being forcibly sterilized.
Read more about this topic: Breitenau Concentration Camp
Famous quotes containing the words education, welfare and/or camp:
“... the physical and domestic education of daughters should occupy the principal attention of mothers, in childhood: and the stimulation of the intellect should be very much reduced.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“That doctrine [of peace at any price] has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)