In 1980, Yad Vashem convened its fourth international scholarly conference, dedicating it to the Nazi concentration camps in general. Since then, research on camps has developed enormously, especially following the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and the emergence of younger generations of scholars with a fresh perspective, who integrate novel historical methodologies into research on Nazism and the Holocaust. There is now a comprehensive encyclopedia of Nazi camps, as well as sociological, psychological, architectural and archeological studies and more that provide multiple insights into that field of study. However, the subject of concentration, internment, forced labor and transit camps for Jews – as well as camps in which Jews were incarcerated together with other groups – which were run by non-German authorities, either in countries occupied by Germany or in allied and satellite countries, remains under-researched and has not yet been approached in a comprehensive mode. Therefore, Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research decided to dedicate its latest international conference to this topic. Scholars from Canada, the US, Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Ireland and Israel actively participated in the conference, which was held in early December 2021, via Zoom, with an audience of more than 300 attending the various sessions.
Cutting-edge research presented at the conference threw light on camps in southeastern Europe in general, and in Serbia and Croatia in particular; in France and Italy; in North Africa (especially in Libya and Tunisia); in Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary – and even in neutral Turkey and in the Philippines occupied by Nazi-ally Japan.
One presentation also dealt with the internment of “Gyspies” (the term used for Sinti and Roma) by Vichy France. The lectures revealed extremely varying attitudes of authorities in the different camps towards the prisoners and the broad array of conditions in them – stretching from relatively reasonable ones (for example, pictures from Dutch labor camps were shown in which inmates, who were later deported and murdered, carried out their labor wearing suits and ties) to horrendous (as in the Giado concentration camp in Libya) and murderous (such as in Jasenovac, Croatia). On the other hand, sometimes camps turned out to be a temporary haven from immediate deportation, because those in the camps were kept, for instance, to carry out labor deemed necessary for the authorities. One presentation showed how Allied aerial photos can help in setting right the historical record and refute denial and distortions regarding the Jasenovac camp being promoted by extremists in Croatia today: these photographs geo-locate many of the mass graves created by murder and genocide committed by the Ustaša in and in the vicinity of that camp, and corroborating atrocities described in survivor testimonies. Another presentation emphasized the interaction between camps and their surroundings, i.e., that they were not as isolated as was once thought. An interesting aspect brought up for discussion was the material element of barracks, a central component of the camps' establishment: wooden barracks that could be swiftly constructed were a twentieth-century invention that served various purposes (army, storage and more) and was especially significant in the world of the camps.
The conference was concluded by Prof. (Emeritus) Alan Kramer of Trinity College, Dublin, an expert on concentration camps, who succeeded in colligating the broad array of presentations into a deeper comprehensive insight into this phenomenon. "This conference was much more than the accumulation of facts," Prof. Kramer stated. “It has also substantially advanced the scholarly debate over the interpretation of the past.” At the beginning of the conference, the participants were asked to consider the connection between ideology and modern, centralized states. Prof. Kramer suggested that the conference “enabled us to compare and contrast the various regimes that operated camps for Jews during the WWII… [and thus] to examine the degree to which each state was integrated into the Nazi program of genocide, and to what extent states acted autonomously.”
"The multifaceted character of the topic, the novel insights, the new information presenting the most up-to-date research, and the collegial atmosphere at the conference were a vital contribution to the general understanding of the Shoah," concluded Director of the Research Institute Dr. Iael Nidam-Orvieto.
"Awareness of the broad scope of camps is vital in understanding that the anti-Jewish campaign unleashed by Nazi Germany was – unfortunately – so successful due to the fact that this campaign was carried out not only by Germans and Austrians, but by many others beyond the main perpetrators."
The conference was held with the generous support of the Gertner Center for International Holocaust Conferences and the Gutwirth Family Fund.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 97.
