Breitenau was a Nazi education and labor camp

Labor camp

A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...

 established in June 1933 in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was located in Guxhagen

Guxhagen

Guxhagen is a community in Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, Germany.-Geography:Guxhagen lies about 15 km south of Kassel between the Habichtswald Nature Park and the Meißner-Kaufunger Wald Nature Park on the river Fulda. It neighbors Edermünde, Felsberg, Fuldabrück and Körle...

, ca. 15 km south of Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

 and was built around the Breitenau monastery.

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

Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring

Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring or "Sterilization Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, which allowed the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" Law for the Prevention of Genetically 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

Euthanasia

Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....

 killing centers or kept at Breitenau under penalty of being forcibly sterilized

Compulsory sterilization

Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...

.

Breitenau as a concentration camp

In 1933, an early concentration camp for political prisoners was added to the Breitenau correctional facility. The Nazis later decided to close down the Breitenau facility in 1934. In 1940, Breitenau was reopened, but this time as a concentration camp, with an estimated population of 8,500 prisoners, including some of those who were originally placed in the camp during the early 1930's. The camp was liberated in 1945.

See also

• The Holocaust
  The Holocaust
  The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
  
  
• List of Nazi-German concentration camps