Kapo (concentration camp)
Kapo, also Capo was the name of the position of a feature prisoner in a concentration camp in the Nazi era . A kapo became an employee of the camp administration and had to supervise other inmates. A kapo had to guide the prisoners' work for the SS and was responsible for the results. Kapos received perks for these services, such as the allocation of alcohol or visiting camp brothels . Oberkapos were used in larger camps .
description
The Kapos who themselves did not work, but supervisors were were foremen assigned. The relative privileges corrupted many of those who were appointed kapos - after all, better food allocation and physical protection gave them a chance to stay alive longer. The SS selected those prisoners who were prepared to earn the associated privileges through extreme brutality. For example, convicted criminals (so-called professional criminals ), former SA members imprisoned for punishment , captured Jews (see photo armband) or political prisoners were recruited as kapos . Which prisoner group the kapos were selected from was a tactical decision of the SS, whereby the composition of the kapos was often related to the change in the command structure of the concentration camp. The SS was concerned with the smoothest possible transmission of orders and unscrupulous enforcement.
On the other hand, there were also kapos who had integrity and were respected by their fellow prisoners, such as Walter Kramer .
Origin of name
The origin of the word is disputed; The supposed origin is either the euphemistic term comradeship police , the Italian il capo for head or leader or, according to Duden, the French military rank le caporal (German corporal ).
If the term comes from Italian, it is not necessarily of military origin, but probably came from Italian migrant workers as a term for their foremen in the construction workers' language. For example, Capo is a common name for the supervisory journeyman mason ( foreman ) on construction sites . The name may have entered the language of concentration camp prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp at an early stage . It was used in site orders for the Auschwitz concentration camp . There the participation of the Kapos in the work details was expressly forbidden.
literature
- Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 .
- Lutz Niethammer (Ed.): The 'cleaned' anti-fascism. The SED and the red kapos from Buchenwald . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1994.
- Karl Wagner - Kapo and comrade. In: Dachauer Hefte 7, 1991, p. 57.
Web links
supporting documents
- ^ Sonia Combe: Politics of Remembrance using the example of Buchenwald - LMd. Retrieved April 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Internet article by Yizhak Ahren: Survived because guilty - guilty because survived
- ↑ Duden article on Kapo