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"Selection" (
The arrival selection was first a separation by sex, and then a separation into either fit or unfit for work, as determined by a soldier, bureaucrat or doctor after a visual inspection or perhaps a question or two. Children under 16 (later 14), the elderly, women visibly pregnant, mothers who would not leave their children, the disabled, or anyone visibly weak or ill, were ineligible for "selection" and were immediately murdered. In addition to the initial selection upon arrival, subsequent selections would occur at subsequent prisoner counts, the , or in the , the camp barracks. The selection officers were nominally looking for healthier, stronger laborers, but according to historian Jan Erik Schulte, camp guards and administrators were given maximum discretion in selections, which resulted in "ultimately only a superficially utilitarian-motivated selection process."
The selection process was heavily dependent on the labor-force needs of the camp at that time. Approximately 1 in 5 of all transported prisoners survived selection and were thus enslaved. Selection was specific to the camps, such as
"Selection" (German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
: ') is the name given to the process of designating inmates either for murder or 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, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
at a Nazi concentration camp
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe.
The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...
.
The arrival selection was first a separation by sex, and then a separation into either fit or unfit for work, as determined by a soldier, bureaucrat or doctor after a visual inspection or perhaps a question or two. Children under 16 (later 14), the elderly, women visibly pregnant, mothers who would not leave their children, the disabled, or anyone visibly weak or ill, were ineligible for "selection" and were immediately murdered. In addition to the initial selection upon arrival, subsequent selections would occur at subsequent prisoner counts, the , or in the , the camp barracks. The selection officers were nominally looking for healthier, stronger laborers, but according to historian Jan Erik Schulte, camp guards and administrators were given maximum discretion in selections, which resulted in "ultimately only a superficially utilitarian-motivated selection process."
The selection process was heavily dependent on the labor-force needs of the camp at that time. Approximately 1 in 5 of all transported prisoners survived selection and were thus enslaved. Selection was specific to the camps, such as Auschwitz
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, 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 consisted of Auschw ...
or Majdanek, that served some kind of industrial function for the regime. As one article put it, "Like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek was the rare concentration camp that was also a death camp. Forced labor from the camp was to man the shops and factories of an SS empire that would be centered in Lublin. This empire never materialized as SS chief Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
had fantasized, but some of its building blocks, including Majdanek, were put in place. The Germans established an elaborate hierarchy of power and order in the camp, which relied on violence from the camp commander down to the barracks elders for its functioning." The extermination camps, such as Belzec, Chełmno
Chełmno (; older ; , formerly also ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.
Due to its regional importance ...
, Sobibor
Sobibor ( ; ) 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 Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), ...
and Treblinka
Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
, had essentially no selection, as all transported prisoners were murdered within hours of arriving.
Selection began with , the murder of prisoners who were too sick or weak for forced labor, and were considered a burden to the state. Action 14f13 was itself an outgrowth of , the mass-murder of the persons the Nazis deemed " life unworthy of life", such as the disabled and mentally ill. Dr. Mengele used selection to find twins for his experiments at Auschwitz, as recalled by Eva Mozes Kor.
The SS guards at the camps likely did not use the term , but instead would have referred to () and ().
References
{{Nazi concentration camps Holocaust terminology