Strafkompanie is the German word for the penal work division in the Nazi concentration camps

Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

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SK was the abbreviation used in the concentration camps for the notorious Strafkompanies. These penal divisions were yet another hardship that could be forced on the already exhausted inmates of the camps. The prisoners of the Strafkompanie were given hard work, e.g., in the quarries, where most ”workers” died. In the SK they worked longer hours than other inmates, had shorter breaks, less food, more brutal treatment, and they lived isolated in separate barracks.

The Strafkompanie consisted of all kinds of prisoners: criminals, Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, Russian soldiers, political prisoners, priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

s, Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

, homosexuals, Roma Gypsies. The criteria for the selection to the penal division were arbitrary.