Work and extermination in the concentration camps

The economic exploitation of inmate labour in the camps and its relationship with mass murder form the focus of this essay. The principal phases of the camps' history were marked by the changing functions of work. In the depressed conditions of 1933, forced labour by male prisoners was treated as a penal. and terroristic 'educative' instrument. From 1938 onwards the growing demand for workers resulted in an increasing mobilization of camp labour