Talk:Extermination through labour

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"commonly digging ditches around the camp and then levelling them or excavating earth and transporting it by foot to the other side of the camp." I think you need a quotation for this... Unsigned comment by User:Andreasegde

If this article was something more than a stub, I would perhaps take my time to properly reference it. However, at the moment I'm working hard on Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Feel free to add your references though, I'm pretty sure every book on life in German concentration camps mentions such pointless activities, along with endless "mitzen ab" exercises, carrying wooden poles around the camp and so on. //Halibu tt 03:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PRoof

I want references to this principle. I could find none online and the supposed "principle" seems an invention to me.Smith2006 23:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

so does everyone else, but Halibutt has been in the mood lately that he thinks he can state anything he likes, and everyone else must provide references to remove it, if you don't cite anything that says that it didn't happen, well he reverts you--Jadger 01:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: I wanted to remove the above piece of slander in accordance with WP:NPA, but Jadger's been inserting it here repeatedly. Be advised then that it's little more than a mere lie, intended to spoil my good name.//Halibu tt 21:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: I have cited the source for my "slander" on hali's userpage (one of his posts on discussion of German 17th Infantry Division), if it was really in contravention of WP:NPA he would of reported it to admin by now. It is hard for me to spoil Hali's good name, he is so much better at it than me. --Jadger 21:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not published yet, but I recently attended a trial in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, in which a surviving jew from the Flossenburg camp testified to the existence of this policy. I could provide a citation once the decision is published; style of cause is Canada (The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Jura Skomatchuk and Canada (The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Josef Furman. A Dr. Terry, survivor of the camp, testified that the work policy was literally named "extermination through work." I would also suggest tracking down the text from a letter from Oswald Pohl to Heinrich Himmler, dated April 30, 1942, discussing work policies in the General Government camps (partial citation: Nuremberg Exhibit Doc. R-129, vol. 38, pp. 362-367). Regretably, I don't have a copy of this document.--Rumplefurskin 17:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

OMG, gentlemen, it's merely a stub. Check the German article if you want more specific examples. If you want sources I could add hundreds of books as almost every book on German WWII camps either uses the term or its explanation. I'll add some links for you anyway, but this would make this stub the best sourced stub we have in wiki. //Halibu tt 05:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Here you go: six phrases, 14 references. I could add twice as many, but I believe there's no need to (come on, just imagine 30 references per six phrases :) ). Or am I wrong? //Halibu tt 09:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some Corrections

"Annihialation (not extermination) through work" was not only a de facto policy but an explicitly articulated one. Doubters are directed to Michael Thad Allen's superb book The Business of Genocide, where the subject is covered exhuastively. It needs noting, though, that it was not applied to all, industrially employed concentration camp inmates, but primarily to Jews, Gypsies and for a while to Soviet POWs. It was rarely applied to other categories of prisoners, although exceptions exist. The most infamous being the Dora camp, where the V2 rockets were produced. It was never applied to specialist prisoner-workers. It also needs noting that not all instances where work was used unproductively for strictly penal purposes were cases of Annihialation Through Work, just as not all punishments meted out in Concentration Camps was lethal. More over Halibut is mistaken in attributing economically useless work to subcamps. Subcamps were usually established in order to bring prison labour nearer to an economically valuble operation. Economically useless work was least likely to occur there. Soz

I've read of this practice regarding Norwegian prisoners in Sachsenhausen as well. Prezen 22:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "unfree labour"

a user just added the category named "unfree labour" but I dispute that. this was free labour, the Nazis didn't pay them anything, unless you count the cost of food, then it would be "cheap labour" maybe.

--Jadger 07:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

"unfree" labor means labor by people who are not free, in the political sense. It's an umbrella category covering the various systems of slavery and serfdom. 128.148.38.26 15:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)