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A kapo or prisoner functionary (german: Funktionshäftling) was a prisoner in a
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
camp who was assigned by the ''
Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (SS) guards to supervise
forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administration", the prisoner functionary system minimized costs by allowing camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The system was designed to turn victim against victim, as the prisoner functionaries were pitted against their fellow prisoners in order to maintain the favor of their SS overseers. If they neglected their duties, they would be demoted to ordinary prisoners and be subject to other kapos. Many prisoner functionaries were recruited from the ranks of violent criminal gangs rather than from the more numerous political, religious, and racial prisoners; such criminal convicts were known for their brutality toward other prisoners. This brutality was tolerated by the SS and was an integral part of the camp system. Prisoner functionaries were spared physical abuse and hard labor, provided they performed their duties to the satisfaction of the SS functionaries. They also had access to certain privileges, such as civilian clothes and a private room. While the Germans commonly called them ''kapos'', the official government term for prisoner functionaries was ''Funktionshäftling''. After World War II, the term was reused as an insult; according to ''
The Jewish Chronicle ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
'', it is "the worst insult a Jew can give another Jew".; ; ;


Etymology

The word "kapo" could have come from the Italian word for "head" and "boss", . According to the
Duden The Duden () is a dictionary of the Standard High German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880, and later by Bibliographisches Institut GmbH. The Duden is updated regularly with new editions appearing every four or five years. , i ...
, it is derived from the French word for "
Corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non ...
" (). (Translated from: ) Journalist
Robert D. McFadden Robert Dennis McFadden (born February 11, 1937) is an American journalist who has worked for ''The New York Times'' since 1961. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996. Biography McFadden was born in Milwaukee, and raised in both Chicago and the small t ...
believes that the word "kapo" is derived from the German word , meaning camp captain.


System of thrift and manipulation

Camps were controlled by the SS, but day-to-day organization was supplemented by the system of functionary prisoners, a second hierarchy that made it easier for the Nazis to control the camps. These prisoners made it possible for the camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The prisoner functionaries sometimes numbered as high as 10% of the inmates.Yizhak Ahren
"Überlebt weil schuldig – schuldig weil überlebt"
Review of book about Jewish kapos. Leo Baeck Bookshop, official website. Retrieved 8 May 2010
Marc Schemmel, ''Funktionshäftlinge im KZ Neuengamme. Zwischen Kooperation und Widerstand''. Saarbrücken (2007) p. 4. The
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
s were able to keep the number of paid staff who had direct contact with the prisoners very low in comparison to normal prisons today. Without the functionary prisoners, the SS camp administrations would not have been able to keep the day-to-day operations of the camps running smoothly.Jerzy Pindera, edited by Lynn Taylor
''Liebe Mutti: one man's struggle to survive in KZ Sachsenhausen, 1939–1945''
University Press of America (2004) pp. 113 Retrieved 5 May 2010
The kapos often did this work for extra food, cigarettes, alcohol or other privileges. At
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
, these tasks were originally assigned to criminal prisoners, but after 1939,
political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s began to displace the criminal prisoners,Bill Niven
''The Buchenwald child: truth, fiction, and propaganda''
Camden House (2007) . Retrieved 15 April 2010
though criminals were preferred by the SS. At
Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...
, on the other hand, functionary positions remained dominated by criminal prisoners until just before liberation."Audio guide 05: Prisoner functionaries"
Mauthausen Memorial official website. 6 May 2010
The system and hierarchy also inhibited solidarity among the prisoners. There were tensions between the various nationalities and prisoner groups, who were distinguished by different
Nazi concentration camp badge Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in German camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the German-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed ther ...
s. Jews wore yellow stars; other prisoners wore colored triangles pointed downward. Prisoner functionaries were often hated by other prisoners and spat upon as Nazi henchmen.Jens-Christian Wagner, ''Häftlingseinsatz im KZ Dora-Mittelbau…'' article from ''Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentlichkeit.'' Norbert Frei (Ed.), pp. 26–27. Munich (2000) While some barrack leaders (''Blockälteste'') tried to assist the prisoners under their command by secretly helping them get extra food or easier jobs, others were more concerned with their own survival and, to that end, did more to assist the SS.Shirli Gilbert
''Music in the Holocaust: confronting life in the Nazi ghettos and camps''
Oxford University Press (2005) page 101. Retrieved 5 May 2010
Identified by green triangles, the ''Berufsverbrecher'' or "BV" ("career criminals") kapos,"Neuengamme / Bremen-Farge"
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, official website. Retrieved 6 May 2010
were called "professional criminals" by other prisoners and were known for their brutality and lack of scruples. Indeed, they were selected by the SS because of those qualities."Organized Resistance"
''Against the odds'', official website. Documentary about prisoner resistance in Nazi concentration camps. Retrieved 6 May 2010
According to former prisoners, criminal functionaries were more apt to be helpful to the SS than political functionaries, who were more apt to be helpful to other prisoners. From Oliver Lustig's ''Dictionary of the Camp'':


Domination and terror

The SS used domination and terror to control the camps' large populations with just a few SS functionaries. The system of prisoner guards was a "key instrument of domination", and was commonly called "prisoner self-government" (''Häftlings-Selbstverwaltung'') in SS parlance. The camp's draconian rules, constant threat of beatings, humiliation, punishment, and the practice of punishing entire groups for the actions of one prisoner were psychological and physical torments added to the starvation and physical exhaustion from back-breaking labor. Prisoner guards were used to push other inmates to work harder, saving the need for paid SS supervision. Many ''kapos'' felt caught in the middle, being both victims and perpetrators. Though ''kapos'' generally had a bad reputation, many suffered guilt about their actions, both at the time and after the war, as revealed in a book about Jewish kapos. Many prisoner functionaries, primarily from the ranks of the "greens" or criminal prisoners, could be quite ruthless in order to justify their privileges, especially when an SS man was around."Prisoner administration"
Wollheim Memorial, official website. Retrieved 7 May 2010
They also played an active role in the beatings, even killing fellow prisoners. One non-criminal functionary was , a notorious Austrian political prisoner. Feared and hated, he was known as a sadist and was responsible for several deaths. He was released from Dachau in 1942 and became a member of the ''
Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
''. Some guards were personally involved in the mass murder of other prisoners. Beginning in October 1944, criminal functionaries from among the German ''
Reichsdeutsche ', literally translated "Germans of the ", is an archaic term for those ethnic Germans who resided within the German state that was founded in 1871. In contemporary usage, it referred to German citizens, the word signifying people from the Germ ...
'' were sought out for transfer to the
Dirlewanger Brigade , image = File:Dirlewanger Crossed Grenades symbol.svg , image_size = 180 , caption = Symbol of the Division , dates = 1940–45 , country ...
.


Ranks of functionary

The important functionary positions inside the camp were ''Lagerältester'' (camp leader or camp senior), ''Blockältester'' (block or
barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...
leader or senior), and ''Stubenältester'' (room leader).''Ältester'' is variously translated as "leader", "elder", "supervisor", "commander" or "senior". The highest position that a prisoner could reach was ''Lagerältester'', who was placed directly under the camp commandant and expected to implement his orders to ensure that the camp's daily routines ran smoothly and that regulations were followed. The ''Lagerälteste'' had a key role in the selection of other prisoners as functionaries, making recommendations to the SS. Though dependent on the goodwill of the SS, through them, he had access to special privileges, such as access to civilian clothes or a private room. The ''Blockältester'' (block or barracks leader) had to ensure that rules were followed in the individual barracks. He or she was also responsible for the prisoners in the barracks. The ''Stubenälteste'' (room leader) was responsible for the hygiene, such as
delousing The treatment of human lice is the removal of head lice parasites from human hair. It has been debated and studied for centuries. However, the number of cases of human louse infestations (or pediculosis) has increased worldwide since the mid-1960s, ...
, and order of each room in a barracks. The ''Blockschreiber'' (registrar or barrack clerk) was a record-keeping job that included tasks such as keeping track at roll calls. Work crews outside the camp were supervised by a ''Vorarbeiter'' (foreman), a ''Kapo'', or ''Oberkapo'' (chief kapo). These functionaries pushed their fellow prisoners to work harder, hitting, beating, and even killing them. Prisoner functionaries could often help other prisoners by getting them into better barracks or assigned to lighter work. On occasion, the functionaries could effect other prisoners' removal from transport lists or even secure new identities in order to protect them from persecution. This assistance was generally limited to the prisoners in the functionary's own group (fellow citizens or political comrades). The prisoner functionaries were in a precarious hierarchy between their fellow inmates and the SS. This situation was intentionally created, as revealed in a speech by
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
. In
National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
's racial ideology, some races were "superior" and others "inferior". Similarly, the SS sometimes had racial criteria for the prisoner functionaries; one sometimes had to be racially "superior" to be a functionary. The group category was also sometimes a factor. A knowledge of foreign languages was also advantageous, particularly as the international population of the camps increased, and because the SS preferred a certain level of education. An eager prisoner functionary could have a camp "career" as an SS favorite and be promoted from ''Kapo'' to ''Oberkapo'' and eventually to ''Lagerältester'', but could also just as easily run afoul of the SS and be sent to the
gas chambers A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...
.


Prosecution of kapos

During the 1946-47
Stutthof trials The Stutthof trials were a series of war crime tribunals held in postwar Poland for the prosecution of Stutthof concentration camp staff and officials, responsible for the murder of up to 85,000 prisoners during the occupation of Poland by Nazi ...
in
Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, in which
Stutthof concentration camp Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-a ...
personnel were prosecuted, five kapos were found to have used extreme brutality and were
sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. Four of them were executed on 4 July 1946, and one on 10 October 1947. Another was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and one acquitted and released on 29 November 1947.Bogdan Chrzanowski,
Andrzej Gąsiorowski Prof. Dr. hab. Andrzej Gąsiorowski (born in 1950) is a research scientist at the Stutthof concentration camp Museum in Sztutowo, Professor in the Institute of Politology, Faculty of Social Sciences of the Gdańsk University, awarded the title ...
(Zeszyty Muzeum, 5)
Załoga obozu Stutthof (Staff of Stutthof concentration camp)
(PDF file, direct download 9.14 MB) p. 189 (13/40 in PDF). Muzeum Stutthof w Sztutowie. Zaklad Narodowy Imienia Ossolinskich, Wrocław, Warszawa, Krakow 1984. PL ISSN 0137-5377.
The
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i
Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law The Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law () is a 1950 Israeli law passed by the First Knesset that provides a legal framework for the prosecution of crimes against Jews and other persecuted people committed in Nazi Germany, German-occup ...
of 1950, most famously used to prosecute
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''
Ivan Demjanjuk John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; uk, Іван Миколайович Дем'янюк; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Ukrainian-American who served as a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, M ...
in 1986, was originally introduced with the principal aim of prosecuting Jewish people who collaborated with the Nazis. Between 1951 and 1964, approximately 40 trials were held, mostly of people alleged to have been kapos. Fifteen trials are known to have resulted in
conviction In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which is consid ...
s, but scant details are available since the records were sealed in 1995 for a period of 70 years from the trial date. One person – Yehezkel Jungster – was convicted of
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
, which carried a mandatory death penalty, but the sentence was commuted to two years in prison. Jungster was pardoned in 1952, but died a few days after his release. According to teacher and researcher
Dan Porat Dan Porat is an Israeli historian and author who works for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public re ...
, the way in which former kapos were officially viewed – and tried – by the state of Israel went through four distinct phases. Initially viewed as co-perpetrators of Nazi atrocities, they eventually came to be perceived as victims themselves. During the first stage described by Porat (August 1950 – January 1952), those alleged to have served or to have collaborated with the Nazis were placed on an equal footing with their captors, with some measure of leniency appearing only in the sentencing phase for some cases. It was during this phase that Jungster was sentenced to death; six other former kapos were each sentenced to an average of almost five years in prison. Jungster’s death sentence had not been anticipated by either the legislators nor the prosecutors, according to Porat, and triggered a number of amendments to pre-trial charges in order to remove any indictment that would potentially carry a death penalty. During this second phase (February 1952 – 1957), the
Israeli Supreme Court The Supreme Court (, ''Beit HaMishpat HaElyon''; ar, المحكمة العليا) is the Supreme court, highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction. The Supreme C ...
overturned Jungster’s sentence and essentially ruled that while Nazis could be charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, their former collaborators could not. While prosecutions of kapos continued, doubts emerged amongst some of those in the public sphere as to whether the trials should continue at all. The official view remained that kapos had been Jewish collaborators, not Nazis themselves. By 1958, when the third phase began (lasting until 1962), the legal system had begun to view kapos as having committed wrongs but with good intentions. Thus, only those whom prosecutors believed had aligned themselves with the Nazis' aims were brought to trial. There were calls from some survivors that the trials should end, though other survivors still demanded that justice be served. The fourth phase (1963 – 1972) was marked by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal architects of the
Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...
, and of
Hirsch Barenblat Henryk Hirsz Hanoch Barenblat (born 1914, Będzin, date of death unknown) was a Polish-born Israeli musician and conductor, known for his role as head of the Jewish Ghetto Police in the Będzin Ghetto and subsequent legal cases in Poland and Isra ...
two years later. Kapos and collaborators were now seen by the courts as ordinary victims, a complete reversal from the initial official perspective. Eichmann’s prosecutor was very clear in drawing a line between the Jewish collaborators and camp functionaries, and the evil Nazis. Barenblat’s trial in 1963 drove this point home. Barenblat, conductor of the
Israel National Opera Israel National Opera was Israel's principal opera company from its founding in 1947 until its closure in 1982. History The Israel National Opera was founded by the American soprano Edis de Phillipe. It staged over 1,000 performances throughout Is ...
, was tried for having turned Jews over to the Nazis as head of the Jewish police in the Bendzin ghetto in Poland. Having arrived in Israel in 1958–9, Barenblat was arrested after a ghetto survivor recognised him while he was conducting an opera. Found guilty of helping the Nazis by ensuring that Jews selected for the death camps did not escape, Barenblat was sentenced to five years in prison. On 1 May 1964, after having served three months, Barenblat was freed and Israel’s Supreme Court
quash A motion to quash is a request to a court or other tribunal to render a previous decision or proceeding null or invalid. The exact usage of motions to quash depend on the rules of the particular court or tribunal. In some cases, motions to quash a ...
ed his conviction. The acquittal may have been due to the court’s aim of putting an end to the trials against kapos and other alleged Nazi collaborators. A small number of kapos were prosecuted in East and West Germany. In a well-publicised 1968 case, two
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
kapos were put on trial in
Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. They were indicted for 189 murders and multiple assaults, found guilty of several murders, and sentenced to
life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
.


Significance

German historian
Karin Orth Karin Orth (born 1963) is a German historian, known for her research into the Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentrat ...
wrote that there was hardly a measure so perfidious as the SS attempt to delegate the implementation of terror and violence to the victims themselves.
Eugen Kogon Eugen Kogon (2 February 1903 – 24 December 1987) was a historian and Nazi concentration camp survivor. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, he was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration camp. Kogon ...
, an avowed opponent of Nazism from prewar Germany and a Buchenwald concentration camp survivor, wrote after the war that the concentration camp system owed its stability in no small way to the cadre of ''kapos'', who took over the daily operations of the camp and relieved SS personnel. The absolute power was ubiquitous. The system of discipline and supervision would have promptly disintegrated, according to Kogon, without the delegation of power. The rivalry over supervisory and warehouse functionary jobs was, for the SS, an opportunity to pit prisoners against each other. Regular prisoners were at the mercy of a dual authority: the SS, who often hardly seemed to be at the camp, and the prisoner ''kapos'', who were always there. The term ''kapo'' has been used as a slur in the twenty-first century, particularly for Jews deemed insufficiently supportive of Israel or
Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
. In 2017, David Friedman, soon to become US ambassador to Israel, apologized for referring to supporters of the
J Street J Street ( he, ג'יי סטריט) is a nonprofit liberal advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab–Israeli and Israeli–Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatica ...
advocacy group as "far worse than kapos".


See also

* Belsen Trial, the ''Trial of Joseph Kramer and 44 others'' (former kapos, convicted in late 1945 for war crimes). *
Bitch Wars The Bitch Wars, or Suka Wars (russian: Сучьи войны , translit= ''Suchyi voyny '' or in singular: russian: Сучья война , translit= ''Suchya voyna''), occurred in the Soviet Gulag labor-camp system between 1945 and 1953, around ...
in the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
system. *
Divide and rule Divide and rule policy ( la, divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their terr ...
*
Eliezer Gruenbaum Eliezer Grynbaum or Eliezer Gruenbaum (27 November 1908 – 22 May 1948) was a Polish Jewish communist activist. During World War II, he was a ''kapo'' in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, he wrote memoirs about his experiences. B ...
, notable kapo *
Jewish Ghetto Police The Jewish Ghetto Police or Jewish Police Service (german: Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei or ''Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst''), also called the Jewish Police by Jews, were auxiliary police units organized within the Nazi ghettos by local ''Judenrat'' ( ...
*
Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...
- Jewish councils under Nazi administration for self-government in
Ghettos A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
and other Jewish communities in occupied territories. *
Line management Line management refers to the management of employees who are directly involved in the production or delivery of products, goods and/or services. As the interface between an organisation and its front-line workforce, line management represents the ...
* Plantations in the American South#Overseer *
Triangulation (psychology) Triangulation is a term in psychology most closely associated with the work of Murray Bowen known as family therapy. Bowen theorized that a two-person emotional system is unstable, in that under stress it forms itself into a three-person system o ...
*
Trusty system (prison) The "trusty system" (sometimes incorrectly called "trustee system") was a penitentiary system of discipline and security enforced in parts of the United States until the 1980s, in which designated inmates were given various privileges, abilities, ...
* ''
Kapo A kapo or prisoner functionary (german: Funktionshäftling) was a prisoner in a Nazi camp who was assigned by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administrat ...
'', a 1960 film directed by
Gillo Pontecorvo Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama ''The Battle of Algiers'' (1966 ...
. * ''
Escape from Sobibor ''Escape from Sobibor'' is a 1987 British television film which aired on ITV and CBS. It is the story of the mass escape from the Nazi extermination camp at Sobibor, the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination cam ...
'', a 1987 television movie which features a kapo helping prisoners escape from
Sobibór extermination camp Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As a ...
. * '' The Counterfeiters'', a film which features several kapos, in various camps.


Footnotes


References


Further reading

*Revital Ludewig-Kedmi, ''Opfer und Täter zugleich? Moraldilemmata jüdischer Funktionshäftlinge in der Shoah. Psyche und Gesellschaft.'' Book expanded from a doctoral dissertation about the moral dilemma faced by Jewish kapos in the Holocaust. Psychosozial Verlag, Gießen (2001)


External links

*Sebastian Dregger:
Die Rolle der Funktionshäftlinge im Vernichtungslager Auschwitz – und das Beispiel Otto Küsels.
'
Abschnitt aus dem Bericht der Auschwitzflüchtlinge Alfred Wetzler und Rudolf Vrba über F.
(Late April 1944) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kapo Nazi concentration camp occupations Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany Terminology of Nazi concentration camps Nazi terminology Holocaust terminology