Introduction - What is the aim of this blog?

Some years ago, I happened to stumble across, on Wikipedia, the list of subcamps administered by Dachau concentration camp, near Munich, Germany, 101 of them in total. I was shocked to say the least, as, although I had obviously heard of the major Nazi concentration camps - Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Mauthausen, Sobibor, etc - I hadn't realise, until then, that several of them had subcamp systems. Nor did I realise just how many camps were in those subcamp systems.   I realised that if I myself, someone with a reasonably good knowledge of WW2 and the Holocaust, or so I thought, hadn't heard about these subcamps until now, it surely must be the case that a great many other people hadn't heard of them either. In short, this seemed to be an aspect of the Holocaust that is in danger of being forgotten.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I created a website on Wix that I called 'Forgotten Horrors'. The intent of the title is not to suggest that the Holocaust itself is in danger of being forgotten - although there is certainly a risk of that, I certainly don't believe that to be the case just yet - but because, like me initially, it is probably the case that, outside serious students of the Holocaust, survivors and their relatives and the local communities living around the sites themselves, most ordinary people probably only know the names of the larger camps and therefore have little idea or awareness of the hundreds of smaller camps and work details that actively contributed to the horrendous suffering of the victims.

 

If my experience is anything to go by, when this is taken into account, suddenly the holocaust becomes a lot more horrific than ever you may have thought before. 


Unfortunately, the free website platform offered by Wix only allows so many entries per website, before upgrading is necessary. As a freelance journalist on a somewhat meagre income, that's something I can't really afford at present. This being so, although I managed to complete the Dachau subcamp list on the website, in order to investigate, and present, information about all the other subcamp systems, I have had to continue this project via a blog, which will allow for much more content. 


As per the website itself, this blog therefore represents an attempt to investigate all the camps that aren't well known, the fractured ruins that stand forgotten in fields and woods, areas of now peaceful countryside that once bore witness to massed human tragedy and pain.

 

If you want to know how dark and terrible the holocaust really was, spend a little time here. But be warned, as you may expect, it makes for grim reading....

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