Early concentration camps in Saxony

'What then broke loose was horrendous ...'

Early concentration camps in Saxony 1933-1937

The exhibition documents the history of the early concentration camps that were established within a few weeks of the National Socialist takeover on 30 January 1933. In Saxony alone, over 20 of these mostly provisional detention centres had been set up by the summer of 1933. The exhibition examines the political environment at the time they were established and the subsequent uses of these sites from 1945 to the present day. The presentation is based on photographs, documents of the period and reports by period contemporaries. These sources include previously unpublished material. Biographies of former inmates are used to illustrate the functions of the camps and conditions in them. These accounts also shed light on the inmates' political and religious backgrounds. The biographies of camp guards and officers presented here provide representative examples of the personal backgrounds and development of the perpetrators. More than a few of them later continued their careers at camps such as Dachau, Buchenwald or Majdanek.

Early Concentration Camps in Saxony – Flyer
Notes on the exhibition system
Representative panels