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Kemna concentration camp ((ドイツ語:Konzentrationslager Kemna, KZ Kemna)) was one of the early Nazi concentration camps, created by the Third Reich to incarcerate their political opponents (ostensibly in protective custody) after the Nazi Party first seized power in 1933. The camp was established in a former factory on the Wupper river in the Kemna neighborhood of the Barmen quarter of Wuppertal. It was run by the SA group in Düsseldorf. The purpose of the early concentration camps was to repress and terrorize opponents of the new regime, primarily communists, but also socialists, dissenting Christians, and trade unionists. Unlike later concentration camps, the prisoners and the guards at Kemna were from the same cities and in many cases, knew each other and were already enemies from the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and subsequent political battles of the 1920s. Enhanced interrogation and torture were practiced and the screams of the men were audible to people living and working nearby, and severely injured men were taken to nearby hospitals, all causing word of the camp's misdeeds to spread quickly. There was a major release of prisoners in October 1933; those released were forced to sign a document promising to keep secret all they had seen and experienced at the camp, and were threatened with re-arrest if they disobeyed. The Nazis wanted the public to become familiar with the term "concentration camp" and regard it with dread, but worried that the excesses at Kemna and the other early concentration camps would turn public opinion against them and thwart their plans. As a result, the camp was closed in January 1934, just six months after it opened. After the SA lost political influence, reports of torture led to an investigation and eventually to hearings and the perpetrators given a warning. No crimes were prosecuted. After the war, the Kemna Trial became the first major German trial regarding a concentration camp. Nonetheless, the camp was afterward largely forgotten, with no research into its past and for decades, only two sources supplying most of the information known about the camp. In 1983, a monument honoring the prisoners who suffered there was installed across the street from the former concentration camp; the builders of the monument were forbidden by the owner of the property from erecting any memorial on the site itself. == History == After the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, and the subsequent Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties, the Nazis moved quickly to debilitate their political enemies. They conducted mass arrests of some 10,000 of their political opponents within just a few days, intending not just to confine, but also to weaken them physically and mentally through terror. The sudden surge of thousands of new prisoners created a critical shortage of places to confine them. Interior Minister of Prussia Hermann Göring began to look for regional locations in cities for short-term, temporary means to house the newly arrested. Between March and May 1933, prisoners in the Bergisches Land were housed by the dozens in schools, SA barracks, cellars and other locations; prisons moved their women to other locations to make more room for the new prisoners. These were all in residential areas, however, and the torture already being practiced caused unrest in the community, prompting the SA to seek a new, larger location on the outskirts of town. They found a suitable location, an empty factory in Wuppertal, the owner of which, on a promise by the local district government to purchase the property later, agreed to allow the SA to use rent-free in the short term. Kemna became one of the first concentration camps in Germany, and existed from July 5, 1933 to January 19, 1934. It was run by the Düsseldorf SA and Wuppertal police chief (''Polizeipräsident'') Willi Veller〔 〕 and backed by the Düsseldorf district government. The first commandant, SA Sturmführer Hugo Neuhoff, was soon replaced by Alfred Hilgers, who, at the same time was the SA Standarte 258 of the Koburg Protective Custody camp in Mettmann. In a space expected to hold 200-300 prisoners,〔 〕 the SA guards confined up to 1,100 prisoners in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions in a former textile factory on Beyenburger Straße, directly on the banks of the Wupper. Torture and arbitrary violence were daily events. To maintain order and help run the institution, the SA established a hierarchy within the prisoner population, choosing some to work as prisoner functionaries and by establishing some of the large holding cells in the building as more preferable than others. There was a major release of prisoners in October 1933, but for many, Kemna was just the first place of confinement on the way to other concentration camps. In the evening and particularly at night, the screams of prisoners were heard at a bar from the camp, as well as by people who lived across the Wupper. On the weekend, family members and friends of those incarcerated, as well as others, who were merely curious, took walks in the neighboring woods, from where the camp was clearly visible. Articles appeared in the local press, referring obliquely to "enhanced interrogations" and explaining the need for a firm hand to deal with the type of prisoners held there. Locals began warning each other with the saying, "Watch yourself, or you'll end up in Kemna!"〔 With rumors about the camp spreading, the Nazis emptied and closed the camp just six months after it opened, fearing the risk〔 to their image at home and abroad. Although the Third Reich wanted the public to become familiar with the term "concentration camp" (in German, ''Konzentrationslager'') and understand its implications enough to dread it, it was concerned about the consequences of public awareness of the practice of torture at Kemna and the other early concentration camps.〔 The prisoners were brought to Emslandlager,〔 forced to sing, as they marched out of Kemna, "Forward, march to Emsland, Camp Kemna is closed—happy is he who forgets".〔 The German word for happy, "glücklich", also means "lucky" or "fortunate". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kemna concentration camp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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