Hiding the Holocaust – how the Nazi concentration camps were hidden

This talk explores what Nazi concentration camps looked like and how this influenced civilian attitudes to the inmates therein. The development of the concentration camp system in Germany is considered over the duration of the Nazi period (1933-1945) alongside changes and developments in the architecture and landscape of the camps.

The mental and physical distance between inmates and local civilians is then considered to argue that the greater the distance, the easier it was for civilians to ignore the realities of the camps.

Speaker biography: Dr Rachael Burns is an Associate Lecturer in Criminology at the University of York. She has been studying the Holocaust and other genocides since 2001, after a visit to Dachau on a school trip.

Piazza Building (PZA/016) – Heslington East Campus – University of York